It’s not what she needs.
“May I look at all of you?” I whisper.
The pulse in her throat kicks up, and she hesitates before nodding once. Deliberately, I give her shoulder a light squeeze then move my hand down her upper arm and take a step back. Before she’s out of reach, I grab hold of her hand like I’m about to put her into a spin. Except I just hold it, her delicate fingers feeling smaller in my palm than ever before.
“You’re sure you’re okay if I look at you?” I ask once more.
“Yes. Please, Wyatt.”
The truth is in her eyes. The vulnerability radiates from them. No longer is there a crease in her forehead, or a furrow in her brow. Everything is smooth as she takes a small step back.
My eyes slowly descend over her. The curve of her nose, the bow of her lips, the line of her jaw. I take in the flush of her cheeks, and the pulse humming in her throat.
Her black t-shirt reminds me of the massage at the fire station, and I find myself smiling. How far we’ve come since the day I woke up thinking about the girl I’d lost, only to find her again.
My gaze travels over her breasts and down to her stomach, lingering there. I watched her press a hand there weeks ago, and all I could think about was how stunning she would look with a swollen abdomen. With our baby inside of her.
Kneeling down, my thumb runs over the back of her fingers. Gently, I ask, “Where did he touch you?”
Bryn runs her free hand over her thigh. I nod, putting a little pressure on her hand in mine, and she steps forward, forcing me to tilt my head back to look at her. She studies me intently, her neck bent to watch every move.
“May I?” I ask permission.
Her voice is barely a breath. “Yes.”
Leaning forward, I touch my lips to her thigh. She gasps softly above me, but I stay there, pressing my face to her leg, my nose nuzzling against it. Making sure that the last thing she remembers feeling against this part of her is me. No one else.
It’s not to claim her. Not to make her think she’s mine. It’s only so she’ll have something to think about after he violated her. Something that was given because she wanted it done, not something taken from her.
“Wyatt?”
When I lift my head, a tear falls from above, landing directly on my lips. Sweeping my tongue across them, I taste the saltiness of her tear, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. “Yeah, baby?”
She sucks in a breath at the use of the word, the warm connotation to it, and I watch as her shoulders drop a fraction. It makes me wonder how much that’s happened since I started my perusal of her. A slow relaxation from the fight or flight state she was in.
“Will you… I have no right to ask, I know, but…”
Another tear splashes against the corner of my mouth, and I bring her hand to my lips to kiss the back of it, understanding. “Show me.”
She turns, our hands breaking contact, and touches the spots on her backside where he touched her. The crease where her ass meets her thigh. And then from the top of her ass to the bottom on the other cheek.
I start with the first side, pressing my face into the space, my lips to the area she indicated. Bryn blows out a breath, reaching around to push her fingers into my curls. Nuzzling against her thigh, then her ass cheek, I move across to the other side, doing the same there. After pressing a line of kisses where he touched her, I ask her to turn using a gentle nudge of my hand to her hip like we’re on the dance floor.
Gazing up at her from my position, I give her an unhurried smile. “You’re beautiful.”
She calls herself hopeless, but she is my hope.
My hope for the life I can envision clearly in my mind. My hope for every dream of a life I’ve had. Maybe it was never firefighting that drew me here. Maybe it was her all this time.
I’d wait an entire lifetime for her to be ready.
Bryn leans over, taking my face in both her hands, and angles it enough to touch her lips to the corner of my mouth. Right where her tear fell.
“Thank you,” she whispers, lingering there.
My hand skims over her side as I start to stand, my other sliding around her shoulders to pull her into me, her arms going around my midsection. When I breathe her in, the smell of raspberries floats through my senses, and I’m hit with a sense of home. The raspberry bushes my mom keeps on the ranch. I never put it together until now.
“Always,” I murmur.