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I go straight to her, scooping her up and holding her tight to my body. I even let a hand stroke through her hair. Mama used to do it to me when I had night terrors and I’m sure that's what Gracie has woken up from.
“You’re all right. It was just a dream. You're fine.” I don’t sound like myself. I don’t feel like myself either. I’ve lost a little control and I gotta get it back somehow.
“I saw them all over again, only this time you weren’t there,” her mouth muffles against my chest, her tears soaking through my T-shirt. She’s clinging at it so tight, I can feel it stretching against my skin.
“I’m here now, I got ya,” I reassure her, pulling back and grabbing her face so she has to look at me.
“I ain’t gonna let anything happen to you,” I tell her firmly, though all I can focus on is that bottom lip trembling. I want to press my lips hard over hers to make it stop. I wanna taste her tears. Fuck. I want to take all the bad outta the world single handedly so she never has to suffer.
How the hell did I not fuck her in the shower?
“Please don’t leave, Brax, stay with me, no more games, I promise,” she begs me, and I go against all my better judgment and nod back at her, my thumb stroking away one of her tears from her face.
Why the fuck am I shaking?
She snuffles and offers me a brave smile. I learned real quick how much Gracie hates showing weakness. She thinks it gives me pleasure, when in reality she couldn’t be more wrong. Somehow her weakness has become my own. I feel the burden of it weighing down my shoulders. It’s crippling, and it scratches under my skin because it doesn’t belong there.
I fucking hate it.
She snuggles back down onto the mattress, pulling me down with her and I keep my arms tight around her body, trying not to take fulfillment in the way she relaxes against me.
Everything in my head tells me what I’m doing is wrong, but I can’t have her cry on me again.
“I’m trusting you, Brax. Not because I have to, because I want to,” she tells me sleepily. And my eyes stare hard into the back of her skull. The bitch might as well have just stabbed a fucking knife right into my chest, because I'm not a man you trust. I’m one you fear.
Braxton Marshall knows only ruin, and I've come to the conclusion that I really don’t want to ruin her.
When I’m sure she’s gone back to sleep, I slowly let my fingers slide through her hair, and when I touch my lips carefully into the top of her head, the scent of strawberry shampoo fills my airways. I knew it would smell good on her, that’s why I picked it out.
Breathing her in like this, I could almost forget what hate feels like. I wake up craving pain, and I go to sleep at night exhausted from seeking it.
And now, for the first time in twenty years, I find myself craving something different before I close my eyes. Something that’s physically close, but just like Chop, out of my damn reach.
I close my eyes, and instead of asking myself how I’m gonna end the man who ruined my life, my mind asks itself a different question.
How the fuck am I gonna get this girl out of the trouble she’s in?
I get up extra early and busy myself with jobs around the house. I haven’t spent all that much time here lately. Shit’s been busy at the club so it’s been easier staying at my cabin on the compound.
There’s plenty of things that need patching up, and I decide to start with the porch step.
I don’t know how long Gracie has been standing watching me, but when I lift up my head, I catch her staring down, her hair wet and hanging loose over one of her shoulders.
She hands me the coffee cup that she has clutched in her hand, giving me the same awkward smile that she did yesterday. The one that makes my dick hard and my lips fucking twitchy.
I feel myself fall a little harder for her, and worse… I’m sure that she can see it too. She isn’t afraid of me anymore. In fact, somewhere between me taking her from her room and me cradling her to sleep last night, the roles have been reversed. Because now, the pretty blonde girl standing in front of me wearing my shirt, has me fucking terrified.
I take the coffee and turn away from her, resting my ass on the step while I drink it.
Gracie decides to taunt me like that for the next few hours, wherever I go, she’s there. I can’t get away from her, or those innocent looks she keeps throwing at me. They turn me on more than the seductive ones she tried to break me with.
I’m agitated, pissed the fuck off, and my cock has been hard for the past two nights without release. But no amount of needy eyes and licking lips are gonna make me give in to her.
I come back into the cabin around lunchtime, ready to fix something up for us but she’s got me beat. Her tight little ass cheeks hang out the bottom of my shirt, as she dices up some salad with the biggest, sharpest knife my kitchen has to offer.
I sit myself on the kitchen side next to the sink and take in the view. She knows I’m watching her, and gives me a satisfied smile over her shoulder.
"What ya staring at?" she asks, turning her head back to focus on chopping.
