“Everyone knew you weren’t coming down.”
I stare down at my feet, but Brawley puts his finger under my chin and makes me look at him. When he does this, everything around me fades away.
“I don’t know how to fix it,” I murmur.
“You don’t tonight,” he says, moving his hand to the back of my neck and pulling me toward him. “Let’s go home for now.”
We don’t talk on the walk to the house; I know better than to try when he is in a mood like this. When we get back, he follows me up the stairs and into our room, closing the door behind us. When he turns to face me, helooks tired. It is worse than angry because I know how to deal with an angry Brawley.
“Just say it.”
“I’m not going to say it,” he snaps.
“Brawley.”
“I said, I’m not going to say it.” He crosses the room, and I hold my ground. I need him to get angry at me—I need him to do something. “Fine, you scared me.”
“I know.” And I do, now that my brain isn’t consuming me.
“No, you don’t,” he says. “You never do in those moments.”
He isn’t wrong, and I won’t insult him by saying otherwise. I really don’t understand when I’m like this. I reach up and put my hand on his chest to find his heart thundering wildly. “I’m sorry.”
Brawley takes my wrist and walks me backward until the backs of my knees hit the bed, and I sit down. He stays standing and looks down at me. “Lie down.”
Once I do, he moves over me slowly. Internally, I do a happy dance, as this is his version of angry without wanting to trigger me. When Brawley wants to bury me, he goes slow, making sure I feel every second. His mouth finds my throat, and I close my eyes.
“You think you get to scare me?” he growls against my skin. “Look at me when I’m talking to you.” I look up at him and see the anger and frustration behind his eyes. “You’re going to feel me tomorrow.”
“Good,” I say, needing this right now. Something that cuts through everything and pulls me back into my own body. Brawley is the only person in the world I trust to do it.
His hands move over my body, and I drag my nails down his back, knowing exactly what I am doing to him. He wants to punish me, to go slow and draw it out, but right now I need him.
“Vero,” he warns. “Say you were a bad boy.”
“I need you,” I reply, drawing a growl from deep in his chest. “I was a bad boy.”
His control snaps. “That’s what I thought,” he mutters. “And you don’t get to act like that and not answer for it.”
Everything I have put him through the last few days comes out in the way his hands touch me. It’s why I didn’t want him to be gentle. He doesn’t say anything else, instead taking me by the hips and flipping me onto my stomach in one move. My cheek hits the pillow, and his hand comes down flat between my shoulder blades, holding me there. He moves behind me and rips my pants down.
This is the Brawley I need.
Warm spit rolls down my ass and his cock presses against me, then he pushes inside with one thrust, and I bite down on the pillow.
He digs his fingers into my hip. “Who do you belong to?” I don’t answer him fast enough, so his grip tightens, and he thrusts harder into me. “Don’t make me ask you again.”
“You,” I manage to get out before I moan into the pillow as he drives me into the bed.
His hold is bruising as he pulls me back onto his cock, but I don’t care; I want every mark he leaves on my body. Then he leans over me, pushing his chest flush against my back.
There is nothing in my head except him—the noise is completely gone. Kayla, the bar, the roof, all of it just fades away. There’s only him and the way he breathes against the back of my neck, plus the way his hands hold me like he is furious but terrified of letting go.
His hand slides up my spine, fastening onto the back of my neck, and I groan into the pillow.
“You scared me,” he says again, and his pace quickens. “You don’t get to do that to me. Say you scared me, say it.”
Thrust.