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“Not before you’re ready. None of us are going to push you,”I said.
Brooklyn sighed and rolled away from me. I immediately missed her warmth, but I stayed still instead of following her body. She laid, staring at the ceiling for a long moment before turning her head so she could look at me. Indecision was written all over her features, so I just waited, not sure what the right thing to say would have been.
“I don’t know what will make me ready. I feel like I’m going to be stuck like this forever,”she said.
I rolled until I was leaning on my elbow, my head in my hand. Reaching out, I slid one finger along her cheek and she leaned until my hand cupped her cheek. She pressed her hand on mine, not allowing me to let go.
“I don’t want to be like this. I want things to go back to normal. But I’m not sure that’s possible.”
“We can create a new normal, if that’s what you need,”I replied.
“I was happy with what we had. And it was still new. We were still figuring things out. How do we figure things out when everything is so complicated?”Tears were welling in her ice-blue eyes and they tore at my heart.
I decided to take the chance and slide closer to her. She didn’t move to put distance, but her eyes flared slightly and I knew deep down, the feelings we had for each other weren’t complicated. Nothing that had happened made those feelings less. She just needed to be reminded and know that we all felt the same as we did before.
“Does this feel complicated?”I rubbed my thumb along her cheek as I looked into her eyes. She shook her head.
“What about this?”I let my fingers trail from her cheek bone to the shell of her ear and down her neck. She craned her head to give me access. When I settled my fingers along the sensitive skin behind her ear, she shook her head no.
“It’s only complicated if we make it that way.”I had moved forward until my lips moved against her ear. She shuddered a little before turning her face toward mine.
“I don’t want to make your lives difficult,”she said quietly.
“It’s harder without you, baby.”
She leaned her head back, her hands coming up to frame my face. A tear slipped from her eye and I caught it on my fingertip.I so badly just wanted to make everything better for her, but I knew she had to decide how the process was going to go. Nothing I said could force her forward.
“I’m scared, Oliver. I’ve never lived in a world where I could be loved right, or where I was accepted for me. You have always looked beyond my scars and what was in my past. But, it’s different now. I’m different now. And I am so scared you can’t see past what’s wrong with me now.”
I heard her words, even understood her fears. In my mind, I dismissed them immediately, because I knew in my heart that we could work through whatever there was to come. If we stuck together, leaned on each other, became the family I knew we could be, we could handle anything. But I had to make Brooklyn believe that.
“Baby, give me a chance. I might just surprise you.”I let a small smile appear on my face.
The indecision didn’t leave her face, but she slowly closed the distance between our faces. When she softly pressed her lips against mine, it was hard to hold back and let her steer. I had missed her, but more than that, I had been paralyzed with the fear that I would never see her again. Never kiss her exactly like she was kissing me now.
The kiss was innocent and sweet. When she pulled away, it was almost reluctant, but she did end the connection. I immediately craved more, but I reigned in the crazy, and just studied her face. Some of the indecision was gone, but the light in her eyes was still not bright.
“I think, if I’m going to talk about this, I need to do it once, with everyone,”Brooklyn said.
I nodded.“I can gather the guys. You want to talk in here?”
“Sure. But not right now, I just want to lie here for a while, is that ok?”
She rolled until I was spooning her. Grabbing my hand, she pulled my arm around her waist from behind. I slid closer to her, until her ass was cradled against my hips, a move I almost immediately regretted as the warmth of her seeped into my sweatpants. Mentally, I started thinking about baseball, bowling and Olympic curling, anything and everything boring enough to keep my libido controlled.
Brooklyn settled in and soon her body went soft, her breathing evened out and her hold on my arm loosened. Knowing I couldn’t sleep with how worked up I felt, I carefully extradited myself from her body and slid to the side of the bed. I waited a full minute to ensure she stayed asleep before climbing from the bed.
As I quietly closed her door, Jaxon approached from the stairs. He waited until we were halfway down the hall before he spoke.
“Did she talk to you?”
“Not really. She’s really scared we’re going to not want her or something. It’s crazy,”I said.
Jaxon followed me into my room, where I sat behind the desk that now resided in the corner of the room. I needed to get away from Brooklyn’s scent and get control over my emotions.
“It’s not really crazy when you realize she was conditioned to believe she wasn’t worth anything. I know what that’s like.”His eyes were focused on the far wall and I knew he wasn’t seeing my room, but the past.
“You know your dad is a piece of shit, Jaxon. He just wanted to keep you under his thumb.”
