brother.
Chapter 84: Penny
When I open my eyes, the world in draped in velvet black,
Not the soft kind. The kind that clings, that wallows everything whole. There’s an might sneaking in from behind the curtains. No streetlang dere, ka dense, heavy darkness. It takes me a few seconds to register why everything feel so warm and solid and steady.
Then I leel it.
My forehead is resting something hard. Not uncomfortably hard–told, watm, unmoving it rises and falls in slow, rhythmic breaths beneath me. My hand in cled against it, pressed lightly just above his heat.
His chest is where my head is. His arm is wrapped tight around my waist, andhering me in place. His other is folded beneath his head, bent at the elbow I can feel the weight of it behind me. And his chin–his chin is resting gently on the crown of my head like it belongs there.
I don’t move.
I barely even breathe. I know I should. I know this–whatever this is–crosses some invisible line.
But it still.
Because right now, I’m safe. Really safe.
Not the kind of safety that comes with locked doors or a phone in your pocket. But the kind that comes with the quiet certainty that someone would bum the world down to protect you
And it’s him.
Asher hated me when we first mit. Or at least he acted like he did. He barely looked at me, and when he did, there was always this weight behind his eye like he couldn’t be bothered to see me as anything other than his little brother’s annoying girlfriend. That’s who I was to him. A title. A formality. Nothing pral.
But then things changed
He started talking to me. Sitting beside me. Showing up for
Tonight he drove like a madman across town when I needed help–en though I didn’t say what was wrong. Even though I couldn’t say.
He found me. He looked at me like I mattered. Like whatever hurt me mattered,
But he’s like this with everyone,
e, right?
–That’s what I keep telling myself.
He’s in the Navy. He’s a protector. A rescuer. His whole identity is built on being the person who shows up when others don’t. And I’m just… someone who needed help.
That’s all this is.
I repeat the lie again and again, hoping the repetition might kill the ache forming in my chest.
But then 1 breathe in
Vanilla and laundry detergent. Me. That’s what I smell like. That’s what by arm smell like now too. And it hits me—I don’t want to move. I want to stay here in this impossible space that’s not mine to claim
And because I’m weak–or because I’m stupid–1 let myself feel.
14
Chapter 84: Penny
Thet my hand shift, slowly, carefully.
1 Trail may fingers actors his chest. Then the slong curve of mantle under his thirt, down to the arm that’s holding me. I dr wani in memoire this. The maybe I just want proel he’s real
mis en
enormous. Like, ridiculous. My fingers harely teach halfway and and warm and-
ind it, and I’m
en gripping it. lart, trading Feeling. Try hard and
There’s a scar
I can’t see it, not in that darkness. But I feel the testime change under my fingertips. Raised Long Not imooth at all. Like it healed messy. It makes something in me hurt.
I trace it gently. Featherlight.
And then, a sound rumbles from deep inside his chest–a low, gravelly, hall awake noise that sends shivers di me.
“It won’t go away even if you rub it, princess, he mutters, voice thick with sleep.
My
by hand flies back like I touched a fumer. “Im sorry,” I whisper, heart pounding
But he doesn’t pull away. Doesn’t even move.
He jest tugs me closer, One smooth pill of his arm and I’m Bush against him. And I feel everything. His warmth. His strength. The steady bear of his heart.
I don’t move. I can’t. Liquid heat pools at the bottom of my belly, making me feel things I shoudn’t feel and don’t know if I’ve ever even felt.
My fingers
rs return to his arm almost instinctively to the scar. It’s long–almost the entire length of his forearm. And crooked, like the wound wasn’t clean.
“What happened?” I whisper
He’s silent for a moment. Then, softly, “Machete.”
“What?” I breathe, horrified.
“Bad mission,” he says, voice husky. “No food, no sleep, days of marching. One of the guys–he snapped. Thought I was the enemy. down hard, or take the hit and bring him down without killing him.”
“You let him cut you?” I ask, sick to my stomach.
“He was on my team,” he says, as if that explains everything. Maybe to him, it does.
“Did you need stitches?”
“Thirty–four,” he murmurs.
I’m quiet. What can I say to that?
Nothing fair. Nothing that makes it okay.
“It’s not fair,” I whisper, my fingers moving gently over the old wound. “You shouldn’t have to carry that pain
His hand
up my back, slow and deliberate, lifting the hem of my shirt just enough for his fingertips to touch, bare skin.
He draws slow, soothing circles there
I had a choice–take him
Chapter 84: Penny
Ishudder
And then I hate myself for shuddering. Because this whatever this is- it’s not
posed in feel good. Not like this. Not wird bei kas t
when the only reason he’s being this nice is because I’m his hinthers girlfriend and be taken pity on me. Not completely unaware of what I’m feeling in someone else’s arms.
“Physical pain’s not the worst thing there is, he says softly, voice rough
I close my eye!
A long silence stretches between us. It should be awkward. It should feel wrong.
It doesn’t
“I’m sorry for ruining your thight,” I whisper eventually.
“You didn’t he says. I was leaving anyway.”
“still. You could’ve ignored the call.”
“Never crossed my mind.”
I don’t have an answer to that. I just shift closer. Press my cheek against his chest again.
He rubs small circles on my back, just above my belt. It’s distracting in the worst, most intoxicating way. I don’t want him to stop. I also don’t want to ward this.
“Did you have a good time with your friend?”
He exhales a soft laugh. “I did. He’s good at pulling me out of my head.”
“You laugh with him”
He chuckles again, and the vibration rumbles through me like thunder. “Decasionally”
“Was he part of the same team?” I ask.
“Yeah. We’ve been through some shit together.”
Inod, trying
all.
not to think about all the things that could mean. Trying not to think about how easily he bears pain, how quietly he carries the weight of it
His hand is still on my back..
is still on his arm.
Mine is
And even in the dark, with guilt crawling through me, I can’t bring myself to move.
I’m tuming for hi
And I’m absolutely certain… he has no idea. And that he would run like hell if he knew.
Falling for my boyfriend’s Navy
