AllFreeNovel
Share Us
As he opened the door, he leaned in and kissed my forehead. Then sliding his mouth close to my right ear, his beard tickling it, and lighting me on fire, he said, “We will finish that talk.”
And then he walked out, leaving me there not only scared for the conversation to come because the man seemed to be relentless when he wanted something, but also leaving me with wet panties from the softly spoken word in my sensitive ear and his scent lingering in my nose.
Standing there staring at his retreating back, door wide open, I jumped when I heard Alley.
“I’m gonna give it to you straight,” Alley said as she walked up behind me.
“Is that anything new?” I sassed back at her.
Ignoring my comment, she carried on. “First you’re not fooling anyone trying to cover up what I already saw this morning, and it is past time you talk to me and Jurnee too. So you are done hiding and I am done letting you. We will sit down and get to that in a minute.”
“But—”
She cut me off and went on to another subject I honestly didn’t want to talk about with her. I wasn’t sure which was worse.
“Girl, what in the hell happened this weekend with you and Gyth, it looked like an intimate goodbye?”
“Now I know how Jurnee felt when we were spying on her as she and Braxton came home from their first date,” I mumbled.
“Hey, I wasn’t spying. I just came in at the end, but as close as he was, and with that look on your face, I would say you need to spill the deets, girl.”
Great, I am never getting out of this. Not with Alley on the prowl.
Chapter Nine
Gyth
If I’d knownone day that all the teasing I’d dished out to Braxton would come back to bite me in the ass, I’d have watched what I said. Karma is in fact alive and real.
Okay maybe not, it’s too much fun harassing him.
“Looks like I can say ‘told you so’ finally,” Braxton smarted off as he walked into the state-of-the-art gym atNo Surrender.
I’d been beating the damn bag to death when he approached. It was mid-week, and three days since I had left Summer’s house, and I hadn’t seen her since. Guess I was taking out my frustrations and of course the jackass had noticed.
I may not have been with her physically, but I had thought about her all the time and had texted to see how she was feeling. Summer was a little more responsive than she’d been over the last few months of me checking in. Maybe my overbearing ass had finally wormed its way into her soul, a small fraction.
Lord knows she was embedded in mine without any way of digging herself out, and that’s exactly the way I wanted it. And although I may have been able to finally admit that, it still didn’t mean I wanted to deal with Braxton’s bullshit when I was already wound as tight as a spool of thread and ready to unravel.
I landed a couple more punches to the bag as I ignored the smartass next to me. Stopping, I walked over to my duffle bag I’d set down on the bench against the wall, grabbed the towel in it, and wiped the sweat that dripped down my face.
Braxton stood there, waiting out my silence. After being in the military we all had some serious patience, except for maybe when it came to our women. They seemed to test it more than anything had, judging from what I’d seen with Braxton when Jurnee had come back into his life, and I knew Summer sure as shit was testing mine.
But she is worth it.
Even though I had known without a doubt I was not walking away from her, some things had weighed heavily on my mind.
First was her being sick. Not because I wasn’t a hundred percent in this for the long haul, knowing a lot was going on and there was more to come, but for the simple fact that I worried about her. And the second thing was my past bullshit. Would the disability with my leg that would always be present and nightmares bring more strain to Summer?
“Hey, Dude, where is your head these days? Braxton asked. “You look completely lost.”
All the pressure built up and I needed to let it out. So I had found myself blurting out what came to me.
“I had a fucking nightmare right in front of her, Braxton. What if I’d hurt her?” My heart began to race, and I knew I could never live with myself if I ever harmed her, even if unintentionally. “How fair is it for her to deal with that bullshit?” My breathing grew erratic as I listened to the words pouring out of my mouth.
Saying them out loud, I’d started to second guess that pursuing the girl of my dreams was something I should do, even if she meant everything to me, and I knew I’d never find that again.
But did she deserve someone damaged like me? Did she need someone with baggage walking into her life and possibly making it more complicated than it already was?
