“Have you noticed how small my tits are, AJ?” she asked without looking at me.
“No,” I grunted because they seemed pretty fucking perfect to me, and I couldn’t say I’d ever once looked at them and thought they were too small. More like I’d looked at them and wanted to run my tongue over the hardened peeks of her nipples or watch her play with them while I came all over her naked flesh and she moaned my name. None of those thoughts included any kind of disappointment over their size. She was exactly what I wanted just as she was.
“No,” she agreed. “Because they’re so small they’re beneath notice.”
I frowned as she reached into the fridge and grabbed a watermelon out of it, watching her as she tugged the front of her dress wide and pushed the fruit into the fabric, forcing it to stretch out around it. She found a second melon and repeated the process for her other breast, flinging the fridge door shut with a flourish and turning to grin at me as she finished.
“Better?” she demanded.
“No,” I growled and she pouted at me.
“Well, I’m trying it out, so get used to it, big man, and try not to stare.” She stalked towards me, forcing her way by when I didn’t immediately move aside.
I followed her as she headed down the corridor, both of us ignoring the sounds of violence from the front room where Mateo and Niall were clearly in the middle of a fist fight.
If I was lucky, they’d kill each other and leave me and Rook to our own devices in this big, hidden house in the middle of nowhere. Then I’d hunt every inch of this place for the treasure Mateo claimed to have hidden somewhere and we could live off of it happily for the rest of our days in peace.
Brooklyn paused to sniff the air, her eyes narrowing as she whipped around and called out for Brutus.
“Come here, boy, come sniff with me!”
The beastly looking creature raised his head from his position blocking the front door, a low snarl escaping his lips as he looked at her.
“Come on you squeaky cheesey,” she purred, patting her thighs and hurrying towards him.
The dog snarled louder and I followed close behind her as she closed in on it. But I wasn’t really worried that the thing would attack her. Not because I was deluded into thinking it was a gentle creature or only snarling out of fear, but because I knew my Rook and she had a way with violent beasts which somehow equalled her survival against all odds.
Clearly the creature had no problem with savaging any of us if it felt the desire to do so though, and I had the teeth marks to prove it.
Brooklyn dropped to her knees, winding her arms around the snarling dog’s neck and squeezing him tight while he barked aggressively. Brutus snapped at her hand as she stood up but she just giggled, taking a can of tuna from her cardigan pocket and shaking it at him.
“Niall says this is your favourite,” she said in a cutesy voice as she shook the can at him. “You wanna earn a treat by helping me sniff out a Pop?”
There was a huge crash and a cry of pain from the front room as it sounded like Niall was thrown into something, but Brooklyn just rolled her eyes as she glanced their way before unlocking the door and letting it swing wide.
Brutus turned and raced out into the huge yard which stretched away down the hill and Brooklyn took off after him, not seeming to care that her feet were bare and the grass was wet.
She opened her arms wide as she ran down the hill, her white dress billowing out around her as she started saying hello to everything she laid her eyes on and let the freedom of the outside world consume her.
I broke into a run behind her, sprinting as fast as I could and closing in on her with every passing second, my gaze locked on her back and my desire for her making me heady.
Brooklyn squealed as I caught her and I spun her in my arms, letting her legs swing out as she laughed and the watermelons almost fell out of her dress.
“My tatas!” she wailed, clutching them and I placed her back on her feet so that she could hold them in place, the two of us exchanging a wild grin as I released her.
“I missed you, Jack,” she breathed, her chest rising and falling from her run and the wind tossing her dark hair around her shoulders.
I stepped closer to her, grasping her by the hips and drawing her right into my shadow as I dropped my mouth to her ear and gave her my truth in reply.
“I dreamed of you every night that you were gone,” I growled, my voice a rough rasp from lack of use which made goosebumps explode along her skin as she shivered for me. “I lay in my bed and imagined you in my arms, the ghost of your smile haunting me in the dark as I held onto the memory of it and pretended you were mine. I thought of the feeling of your flesh against my own and I fantasised over all the things I would do to your body if I ever had you at my disposal again. I’ve dreamed of hearing you gasp my name while I pin you beneath me and bury myself deep inside the sweet oblivion of your body more times than you can count. I don’t think I have ever wanted anything in the way that I want you.”
Brooklyn sucked in a sharp breath, her head turning so that her check brushed against mine, her lips shifting until they were almost in line with my mouth as her wide eyes met mine.
“Oh my stars, I just read your mind, AJ,” she breathed, her hand moving onto my chest and sliding up the thin fabric of my shirt until it rested over my heart. “I slipped right inside your mind and listened to your deepest, darkest secret.”
“And?” I asked, wanting a reply to the first real words I’d spoken in so, so long.
“And I dreamed of you too,” she whispered, inching closer to me, making the melons she’d stuffed inside her dress press against my stomach. “Maybe I walked right out of my own head while I was sleeping and slipped into yours, even though you were miles and miles away…”
I reached out and took the side of her face in my large hand, running my thumb over the features I’d pictured all too often and committing every piece of her to memory, just in case. Though I had no intention of letting her leave me ever again.
“You,” I said in a low voice, trying to convey all that she was to me, the beacon she’d been while I’d been locked away in the dark, the smiles she’d afforded me when I had begun to believe that there was nothing worth smiling for left in this world. While I was pretending I was a man with a brain injury which had left me barely able to speak, giving my enemies no reason to come for me.
Brutus barked loudly and Brooklyn released me, whirling around with a gasp and looking to the dog who was digging at the ground beside a little outbuilding, his lips pulled back on a snarl which made me think he was likely on the hunt.
“Brutus found a trail!” Brooklyn cried, sprinting away from me across the wet grass and forcing me to follow yet again. But I was content to stay in her shadow. She brought me peace in the maelstrom of my mind and offered me a taste of solace which I didn’t deserve to sample.
She ran to the door of the outbuilding, scowling at it like she thought it was in on this plan to deny her of her favourite food and reaching for the latch with hesitant fingers.
The knob rattled as she tried to open it, the wooden door creaking but not budging as it remained locked.
“Fuck biscuits,” she cursed, looking around at me. “What now?”