Trust (32 page)

“Yes.”

“What were they?”

“Eat three meals a day. Cook dinner every night. And e-mail you my journal before I go to bed.”

“Good girl.” I caressed her hair lovingly, letting her know I was pleased. “I want you to keep doing those things with one slight alteration. Since you’re back home now, I’ve left a new journal in your nightstand for you to use. I still expect you to write in it every day, and I want you to present it to me every evening at dinner.”

I felt her swallow hard. “Okay.”

“Does that make you nervous?”

“A little.”

“Why?”

She shifted against me and brought her hand up to graze the back of my neck, sending a shiver down my spine. “You’ll be reading it in front of me.”

I smiled. “Yes. And?”

“And what if I write something that makes you angry?”

“Then we deal with it as we always do.” I made her look at me. “Brianna, there is nothing you could do that would make me stop loving you. Stop worrying about what my reaction might be. This journal is to help both of us. It will give me insight into your thoughts and feelings on what’s going on in our lives and whatever we may do in our relationship. If something you write upsets me, we’ll talk about it—simple as that.”

Brianna glanced down. “I didn’t like being . . .”

She sighed.

I waited.

“I didn’t like not knowing if you’d lied to me or not. It hurt so much.”

Tears welled in her eyes, and I took her face between my hands. With our noses touching, I met her gaze. “What happened was my fault, Brianna. Mine. You had every right to feel as you did. Although I’ll do my best not to make the same mistake again, I can’t promise that I’ll never mess up.”

“I know.”

We stayed that way for a while, watching each other and taking in what we’d both almost lost. I would do my best to make sure that never happened again.

Brianna and I spent the rest of the evening sitting in my chair, talking, and touching. By the time we made it into my bedroom, I was about to explode. Guiding her into the bathroom, I turned on the shower and began removing her clothing. I watched her closely, looking for any signs that she wasn’t ready—that this wasn’t what she wanted—but there weren’t any. Brianna appeared as ready as I was to reconnect in this most physical way.

My erection stood proud the moment I released it from the confines of my dress pants. I’d been hard for most of the evening but I’d been ignoring my needs so we could talk things out. We still had a long way to go. She’d forgiven me, but whether she admitted it or not, a level of trust had been broken. I had to rebuild that, and it would take time. After guiding her into the large marble stall we’d shared many times before, I reached for the shower gel and began to wash her.

Slowly, time began to melt away, and we were once more in a cocoon that sheltered us from the outside world. Nothing existed outside the marble walls surrounding us.

As I rubbed the soap onto her body, I relished every sigh . . . every moan. My cock ached painfully with the need to be inside her. Unfortunately, I’d not brought any condoms into the bathroom with us. It was tempting to throw caution to the wind and ignore rational thought, but I persevered. Somehow.

Normally I would have let her wash me, but I couldn’t. I was afraid if she so much as touched me, I’d either explode on the spot or take her right then and there. To hell with precautions.

As it was, I rushed through drying both of us off and carried her into the bedroom. She lay spread out on the bed, her legs loosely parted. I climbed on top of her, wedging myself in between her thighs. I leaned over and reached into my drawer to retrieve a condom. Tomorrow I would have to talk to her about going back to see Richard for another blood test. It had been more than three months, and once the tests came back clean, I hoped I never had to wear anything that would separate us again.

Resting one elbow at the side of her head, I positioned myself at her entrance, rubbing up and down along her folds. She was wet, and heat radiated from her pussy. The whole evening had been foreplay, and we both seemed to not need any more stimulation.

I pressed forward with my hips, feeling her walls take hold of me, hot and pulsing. Rocking my hips, I slowly seated myself fully inside her. “I want you touching me tonight. Place your arms around my neck and hold on.”

Obediently, Brianna wrapped her arms around my neck and held on as if her life depended on it. I began to move, pistoning in and out with ever-increasing speed. It didn’t take long before I felt the first signs of my orgasm approaching. Lowering my head, I latched on with my mouth to the skin right above her collarbone while my right hand slipped between us to rub her clit. I listened as her breath hitched, and her pussy squeezed me tight almost causing me to lose control.

“Come.” It was all I could manage to utter as I reached the point of no return.

I bit down at the force of my orgasm. Brianna screamed, and her back arched. Her pussy spasmed around me as she found her own release.

Coming down from my high, I looked beneath me at the woman I hoped to love for the rest of my life. She was flushed, and her eyes were barely open. There was a bite mark on her right shoulder. Her hair was disheveled from my hands, and it was matted around her temples from our exertion.

I’d never seen anything more beautiful.

Chapter 28

Brianna

As promised, Cal and Jade came to pick me up on Friday afternoon for
my appointment with Dr. Perkins. Cal was quiet, pensive, but Jade was full of questions. She wanted to know how things were going and jokingly commented that Cal’s house wasn’t the same without me. I had little doubt that it was different without me there, but that was most likely a good thing. The two of them had to rearrange their lives to accommodate me and my issues. Now they could go back to the way things were before I’d changed everything.

The two of them waited in the lobby while I went in for my appointment. I sat down, clasping my hands together and resting them on my legs.

She always started with the same question. “How are you today?”

“Good.”

Instead of asking her typical follow-up question—
did anything happen this week you’d like to talk about?—
she remained silent. Her expression held curiosity.

I started to get anxious. “Is something wrong?”

Her eyes widened at my question, and then she must have realized her reaction and reined herself in. “No. I mean, it’s just that I’ve never heard you say that you were ‘good’ before. Usually when I ask you how you’re doing, you say you’re fine. Today, not only did you give a different answer, but you also appear more open than I’ve ever seen you. Your shoulders aren’t slumped, and you don’t have your arms wrapped protectively around yourself.”

“Oh.” I didn’t really know what to make of her statement. It wasn’t something I’d thought about.

“Something you want to share?”

I pressed my lips together, pondering how much I should tell her.

“Remember, Anna, anything you say in here stays between us unless you decide otherwise.”

It probably didn’t matter. She’d find out eventually anyway since I wasn’t planning to ever leave Stephan again if I could help it. Neither one of us liked being apart. “I moved back in with Stephan.”

If I thought she looked wide-eyed with curiosity before, then she looked downright flabbergasted with this new information. “You’re no longer living with your friends who are waiting out in the lobby?”

“No.”

“I see. And when did this happen.”

“Saturday.”

Dr. Perkins scribbled something down on her notepad. “So you’ve been living with Stephan for the last six days?”

“Yes.”

She was quiet for a long minute. “Will you tell me about it?”

So for the next twenty minutes, I explained as best I could to her what had led up to my moving back home. Of course, she knew the first part. She’d visited me at Cal’s, and I’d seen her three times since I’d watched the news broadcast.

“It sounds as if you talked things out. And I’m proud of you, Anna. You communicated your feelings well.”

I tugged at the material of my jeans and noticed there were several loose threads. “It’s easier with Stephan.”

She cocked her head to the side. “How so?”

“I don’t know. It just is. He . . . he listens to me.”

“And you don’t always feel others do?”

Shrugging, I glanced over at the door. “My mom did. But then when I moved in with John, he never had time.”

“What about your friends now? Do they listen to you?”

“Sometimes.”

Dr. Perkins leaned back in her chair. “How does that make you feel when they don’t listen to you?”

“It depends.”

“On?”

“On what it’s about.”

She nodded. “Can you give me an example of something recently?”

“Cal wasn’t happy about me moving back in with Stephan. He was really angry about it, and he wouldn’t listen when I told him that it was all a misunderstanding and that Stephan had apologized.”

“And how did that make you feel—that he wouldn’t listen to you?”

I thought about it for a minute. How did it make me feel? “Hurt, and a little angry.”

She sat forward, clasping her hands in front of her. “That’s understandable, Anna. You made a choice for yourself, and he didn’t respect that choice.”

“But why? I understand that he doesn’t like Stephan, but why can’t he accept that I want to be with him?”

Dr. Perkins smiled. “I think that’s something you’re going to have to ask him.”

On the way home, I thought about what Dr. Perkins said. She was right. Only Cal could answer my question. But was I ready to know the answer?

“We’re here.” Cal sounded less than thrilled.

When I remained in the car, Jade poked her head back into the vehicle. “Everything okay, Anna?”

I was looking at Cal, debating whether or not to take Dr. Perkins’s advice, but I nodded, answering Jade’s question. When I still didn’t move, Jade slid in beside me, reaching for my hand. I took it, needing the support for what I was about to do.

“Cal?” The words came out in a whisper, but when he turned, I knew he’d heard me.

“Yeah?”

“Why . . .” I swallowed nervously. What if asking only made things worse?

He furrowed his brow in confusion. “Why what?”

Closing my eyes, I forced the words from my throat before I could suppress them. “Why don’t you respect me?”

“What?” His question echoed loudly in the small space of the car. “Anna, what are you talking about?”

I held Jade’s hand in a death grip and opened my eyes. “Y-you don’t like that I moved back in with Stephan. Y-you don’t respect my choice.”

He sighed. “Anna, it’s not that simple.”

“Why not?”

Cal let out a frustrated breath. “It just isn’t.”

Dr. Perkins said I should explain to him how what he was doing made me feel, so that was what I did. “It hurts to know that you don’t accept my decision.”

His expression turned angry, and I cringed back in my seat a little. “Did that shrink tell you to say that?”

“Cal!” Jade scolded.

“She’s never said anything before, so that woman had to put the idea in her head.”

Jade wrapped her arm around my shoulders. “You don’t know that.”

“What’s going on here?” My head whipped around as I saw Stephan approach the car.

Not thinking twice, I opened the car door and ran into his arms.

He caught me, soothing me not only with his hands but with the steady rise and fall of his chest as he held me. “Are you all right, Brianna?”

I nodded.

Cal and Jade exited the car, and I could hear their footsteps as they approached.

“Why is Brianna shaking like a leaf?”

I didn’t have to glance up to know that Stephan was looking directly at Cal.

“That’s none of your business, Coleman.”

“Brianna is my business, which means whatever is making her upset is my business as well.”

“Oh, that’s right. You’re back in the role of protector. Everything you’ve done gets swept under the rug as you swoop in and save the day.”

Stephan didn’t respond right away. He tightened his hold on me. “This isn’t the place to have this conversation. You can either accompany us upstairs or leave. It’s your choice.”

Without waiting for a response, Stephan turned us both toward the elevators.

Stephan

I was trying hard to control my temper. Brianna was trembling beside me as we rode the elevator with Cal and Jade. For a moment, I’d thought maybe they were going to leave, but Jade followed us into the elevator and Cal reluctantly did so as well. I had no idea what he’d said to make her so upset, but given how closely people were watching me lately, having an argument in a parking garage—even a private parking garage—wasn’t a good idea.