Page 81 of An Oath at Midnight

He muttered something as I lay back, the hand on my belly pressing me into him more firmly and one of his knees lifting, sliding between mine. Heat spiraled through me, and I tried to keep my breathing even, but it was impossible, because all I could think about was the way he’d touched me in the shower. The sounds he’d made when he’d looked into my eyes, the dominant way he’d quietly asked—no, demanded—submission from me. How desperately I’d wanted to give it to him. I’d asked him to touch me, but he’d run with it. He’d taken control, and he’d made it so I didn’t have to think, so I could just let go.

I’d never experienced anything like it, but I wasn’t surprised it was Bram who’d given it to me.

His fingers flexed against my stomach, and he growled as his arm curled around me more tightly, his thigh lifting higher, until it was pressed firmly against the bare flesh between my legs.

His mouth went to my ear. “Morning.”

Somehow, I managed to suppress the shiver that danced up my spine at those roughly spoken words. I really wanted to squeeze my thighs together, but it was impossible. “Morning.”

Bram’s thigh applied more pressure while the hand on my stomach started to slide up and back, getting a little higher each time.

“You sleep okay?” he asked in that same gritty-as-hell morning voice.

It did things to me, it always had, I’d just been in denial about it. But there was no hiding what it did to me now, not this time. He had to feel it. “Yeah…you?”

He nuzzled my throat. “No.” His lips trailed along my skin. “I lay awake all night, too scared to close my eyes in case I woke up this morning and it turned out yesterday was all a dream.”

His hand slipped higher, and I sucked in a breath, a sensation moving through me that was full of contradiction. My scars were so incredibly sensitive. I wanted more, but at the same time, it was almost too much. I wanted to arch against his touch and shove his hand away at the same time. I was in sensory overload, and my subconscious was pulling up images of the only other person who had ever touched my bare skin…

I quickly rolled to my back so I could see Bram, so every part of me knew this was him, because he was safe. He was my safe place.

He looked down at me, eyes sleepy, hair mussed, and I hated that my body was still in flight mode; that even now I had to fight against the need to flee when I was touched. My scars burned under his hand and, as he slid it higher, I sucked in another breath and covered it with my own, halting him.

Worry filled his eyes, and I quickly reached up, hooked him around the back of the neck and pulled him down for a kiss before he could speak, before he could apologize or freak out that he’d done something wrong. Because it wasn’t Bram, it was me.

He came to me instantly, his kiss soft, gentle, exploring, knowing I needed him to slow down and giving that to me. I hated that I needed time. Bram would never hurt me. Never. I knew that to my very soul. He’d give up everything for me in a heartbeat. He’d give me the world if he could.

My scars burned hotter, and I moaned against his lips, the mix of pleasure and pain saturating my body, making me gasp against his lips. I pulled him closer, fighting it, willing the pain overwhelming me away. But it didn’t leave, it heightened.

Then it was too much. Oh, goddess, it was as if every scar had been torn open again. I shoved at Bram’s shoulder with a scream of pain. He lifted off me immediately, and I looked down at myself, expecting to see blood, to see knife wounds appearing all over my body like they had that day.

“What is it?” he barked, his gaze slicing over me, fear stark in his eyes as if he expected to see the same. As if he were reliving that awful day as well.

Panting, I shook my head, sweating, body trembling. “I—I don’t know. It felt like…like it was happening again.”

His chest rose and fell with his labored breaths, and his jaw tightened. “I pushed too hard, too fast.”

“No, that’s not it. You touch me all the time—”

“This is different. I’m touching you differently, Mags. The only other person to touch you that way…” A look of pure hatred filled his eyes. He was imagining what he’d do to Clayton if he had the chance, I could see it on his face. He shook it off, his eyes softening when they came back to me. “I promised I’d take it slow, then I rushed you. It won’t happen again.”

I wanted to scream in frustration. I didn’t want that monster getting between us. I wanted him wiped from my mind, from my skin. “What if…” I sat up and pushed on his shoulder.

Bram let me, dropping to his back. “You don’t need to—”

“I know I don’t, but I want to. I want to be close to you. If we have to go slow because I’m so fucking messed up, fine, but I want to keep trying…” I moved over him slowly, ignoring the way the bite at my side throbbed, along with all the other aches and pains all over my body, and rested my hands on the mattress on either side of his head. “We can’t stop, okay? We can’t stop trying. We need to push, because I want you…I do. I just…I just…” I didn’t know what to say, how to make him understand.

He brushed my hair away from my face, and held it against the back of my neck. “You’re not messed up, you’re perfect—in every conceivable fucking way. You think I’m going to get frustrated with you? That I’ll change my mind because we can’t have sex? That I’ll lose interest?” His thumb swiped over my cheek. “Just knowing you want to be with me is enough. Being with you, just near you, is enough. I need you to let that sink in. I need you to believe it, because it’s the truth. If it takes a week or a month, or a year, before you’re cool with me touching you, I’m fucking cool with that. If it takes a year before you’re ready to have sex, more, fucking never, I am cool with that. I’m crazy, insanely, obsessively in love with you, Magnolia, and that will never ever change no matter what we do, or don’t do. Not fucking ever, understand?”

I swallowed and nodded. Goddess, everything he’d just said hit hard, so hard I had to fight back tears. I had no idea what to say to that, so I leaned in and kissed him. When our lips met, he lay still, letting me lead, his hands at his sides. I explored his mouth loving the way his chest rose and fell faster as I did. He was right, I was scared he’d give up on me if I couldn’t be everything he needed, even though I knew better than that. I knew Bram better than that. “You’re obsessively in love with me?” I said against his mouth.

“Are you really in any doubt?” he said. “I have been since you hugged me outside your family’s cemetery.” He blinked up at me. “You became my entire world that day, Maggie.”

“You became mine as well,” I said and pressed my face against the side of his throat before I lost the fight and started crying. He rubbed my back, his touch light, cautious, as I breathed heavily.

We stayed like that for a long time, and soaked it in, breathed him in. Reminding my stupid brain every now and then that I was with Bram, and that Bram was crazy, insanely, obsessively in love with me.

For a minute, I thought he’d gone to sleep, then his hand slid up my back and into my hair, fisting it gently. “Baby?”