Across the Vanishing Sky (Starlight Grove, #1)(118)

I repeated the steps with the conditioner, coating every strand before rinsing again. When Brae met my gaze once more, I saw that more of her was there. But as the numbness faded, the pain swirled. Her golden eyes were heavy with it.

“Almost done,” I promised.

“My hair tie,” she rasped.

Frowning, I looked around and found it hanging from a hook.

“Need to put my hair up,” she explained.

“I’ve got it,” I assured her. I gathered that mountain of blond hair, squeezing the excess water from it and winding it into a sphere atop her head. I awkwardly wrapped the rubber band around it, finally getting it to stay.

“Thank you.” Brae’s voice was still raw, even after the tea and rest.

I pressed my lips to her temple. “I’ve got you.”

I reached for the bodywash, and as I opened it, the scents of red currant and vanilla filled the shower. It wasn’t quite Brae’s scent but something that blended with whatever was uniquely her.

As I poured the bodywash into my palm, the scent grew. I slid soapy hands over her shoulders and down her arms, careful to make sure every scrape and scratch was cleaned all over again. My hands moved over her belly and up to palm her breasts.

Brae’s breathing picked up, and I tried to ignore the familiar hitch. My dick didn’t have any such reservations.

“Sorry,” I muttered. “Ignore my dick.”

Brae’s mouth curved the barest amount. “Not his fault.”

“He likes you a little too much.”

She arched into my touch, eyes going hooded. “Dex?”

“Yes?” I croaked.

“Make me feel,” Brae whispered. “Anything but the cold. Anything but the pain.”

My chest constricted, my rib cage strangling my lungs. “I’m not sure that’s—”

She cut off my sentence with a kiss, her tongue stroking in. It wasn’t forceful like in Wylder’s office. It was searching, pleading. And when she broke the kiss, her eyes held the same emotions. “Please. You’re everything that isn’t cold. You’re warmth. You’re fire. You’re life.”

My hand slid along her jaw, down to feel the pulse fluttering in her neck. “You’re sure?”

And then Brae leveled me. “You’re always what I need.”





49





BRAEDYN





Admitting I needed Dex should’ve terrified me. After everything I’d lost and all those who had chosen to walk away from me, the last thing I should’ve been doing was leaning. But here I was.

Because Dex was the only thing I needed in that moment. He was the opposite of coldness and pain. He was life and breath and heat.

My hand snaked out to stroke him. The feel of him in my palm, his response, made me feel powerful. And that helped, too.

Dex’s eyes slowly closed, and a groan left his lips. “Hellion.”

I studied him then, taking in how his head tipped back, exposing his throat. Those broad shoulders strung tight, the ink rippling over his chest. Then his head lifted as he straightened, and hazel eyes locked on mine.

Dex’s hands slid along my jaw, his mouth meeting mine. The kiss was more than any before it. It wasn’t the desperate need of the first moments we’d shared. It wasn’t my demand to break through his defenses in Wylder’s office. This one gave voice to words neither of us had been brave enough to speak aloud—but something I knew we both felt.

Stretching onto my tiptoes, I met Dex there, in the unspoken truths between us. I leaned into him, trusting he would catch me, but still not ready to speak the words.

Dex slid his hands lower, fingers gliding over my skin through the water. One stopped where my jaw met my neck, at that pulse point he favored.

“Why?” I whispered into the echoey shower.

Confusion twisted his features.

“Why do you always put your hand right there?” I asked.

Dex’s thumb stroked my pulse point. “Your body will tell me things you’re not ready to.”

My heart took a tripping tumble.

His mouth curved. “It whispers your secrets to my fingertips.”

And it did. It told him everything.

While that one hand stayed right at the spot that gave me away, the other traveled down. Lower and lower. Fingers ghosted over my center, and my eyes fluttered closed.

“Don’t steal that beauty from me,” Dex rasped. “Those Midas eyes. All gold fire.”

My eyes flew open again, eager to give him what he wanted.

Dex stroked and teased. “Tell me how you feel.”

My breaths came quicker. “Like I’m coming back to life.”

Two fingers slid inside, swirling. “Good. Getting warmer?”

“Yes,” I breathed.

“You want more?”

My hands moved to his shoulders, gripping them hard. “You. I want you.”

Those dark-hazel eyes flashed brighter for the barest second, and then his fingers were gone from my body and neck, and he was lifting me, bracing me against the cool shower tile. But I didn’t feel the cold.

Dex held me with one arm as he slid inside me, and it was everything I needed. The stretch, the heat. Him.

I arched into him, bracing my back harder against the wall as his hand found my throat again. I knew what he would feel there: my heart racing, my pulse fluttering like butterfly wings.