These Thorn Kisses (St. Mary’s Rebels 3)

He unfolds his arms then.

Finally.

Breaking out of my hold.

He looks down at me with flashing blue eyes and such a tight jaw that I think he must be hurting himself and so my hands go to his body again. I put them on his torso, on his contracting and expanding stomach as he says, “You want to know why I said no to her? Why I refused her offer? You heard her story. Now let me tell you mine. I said no to her because I don’t fuck a woman and send her home to another man. If I fuck a woman, I keep her. For however long I want to. And she’s not allowed to look at other men. She’s not allowed to be looked at by them either” – he looks me up and down, my jewelry, my roses – “or shake her tight stripper ass for someone other than me. If I fuck a woman, she knows to get on her back at the crook of my finger and spread her legs. She knows to arch that back too and open her hole for me. And if instead of on her back I want her at my feet and if instead of her hole, I want her pink mouth, she knows to drop everything and get the fuck on her knees. And open that fucking mouth.

“If I fuck a woman, Bronwyn, her world revolves around me, do you understand? I’m the center of her gravity. I’m the blood in her veins and the beats of her heart. I’m the man for her and no one else. So the reason I said no to her is because I’m a possessive motherfucker who never learned to share his toys. So I kindly ask you to not waste your teenage sympathy on me. Because it’s not about doing the right thing. It’s about doing things my way.”

His words, so graphic and so intense, explode in my belly like firecrackers.

I feel heat and colors running through my veins. So much heat, sticky and heavy, collecting in my lower belly.

In the place between my thighs.

I know that wasn’t his intention though.

It wasn’t his intention to make my belly quiver or my thighs clench together. It wasn’t his intention to make my limbs go restless and heavy.

I know he was trying to scare me but there you have it.

Not to mention that he’s right.

He’s so absolutely right. To want that.

For himself.

For someone to choose him and him only.

To do all the things his way, and I feel that so much in my chest and my belly and all over my body that I do what I’ve been wanting to do since Helen’s office.

Since forever.

I hug him.

I hug this strong, special man who’s still staring down at me with a frown and a clenched jaw and I don’t even care if he ends up rejecting it.

But he doesn’t.

Somehow he doesn’t reject it.

Somehow he lets me.

He lets me put my arms around his sleek waist. He lets me put my head on his chest, on his ribs. And then he lets me hear his heart beating and beating under my cheek.

The only indication that he is alive.

Because as soon as I hugged him, he went rigid as a stone. Frozen.

So as I hug him, I listen to his heart beating, making sure that he’s alive and real. I feel his warmth, cozy as a blanket. I squeeze his body, trying to feel the density of his muscles, the hardness of them as I give him my softness.

My thorn, and I’m his flower.

His wallflower.

“What the…” he asks, his words vibrating under my cheek, and I close my eyes. “What the fuck are you doing?”

I squeeze his body. “Hugging you.”

I feel his fists clenching by his sides even though my eyes are closed. “Why the fuck are you hugging me?”

“Because you need a hug.”

A moment passes in silence.

Then, “Let go of me.”

I rub my nose in his sweater. “No.”

“Let go of me, Bronwyn.”

“No.”

His chest moves on a sharp breath. “I’m getting —”

“I hate it,” I say, squeezing him again.

“Hate what?”

“All the things you went through.”

Another movement of his chest, and this time I feel the hair on my head flutter as well, with his big sigh as he mutters almost to himself, “Jesus Christ.”

I burrow my face in his chest even more, smelling his spicy scent. “I’m so sorry. I don’t even know what to say.”

“Good,” he clips. “You don’t have to. Just stop clinging to me like a fucking spider monkey and let me go.”

I hug him even tighter as I say, “A flower.”

“What?”

“I’m a flower, remember? Not a spider monkey.”

This time his sigh is bigger. “A wallflower, yes. Erysimum.”

“What?”

“That’s the correct nomenclature.” A second later, he says, “You belong to the cabbage family.”

I snap my head up, only to find that he’s already looking down at me, his eyes dark and shiny, his jaw tight but his features rippling with something.