Brazen Mistakes (Brazen Boys #3)

8. Walker

Chapter 8

Walker

T he house is silent when I sneak in through the back door. One glance into Clara’s room has my damn fool heart clenching in my chest.

Her dark hair spreads across her pillow, those black lashes smudges against her cheeks in the faded light from her abandoned laptop.

If only Trips’ broad frame wasn’t blocking my view, I’d feel nothing but joy. But a twinge of jealousy spirals out from my gut seeing them together. All that man has done is pull Clara in, only to push her away again. His reasons might be legitimate, but still. Any tears she sheds over the fool makes me want to punch him in his fucking nose.

He’d block me. But the urge stands.

A sad whimper falls from Clara’s lips, and her legs thrash under the sheets. I drop my bag, unzipping and stripping out of my winter coat .

Before I can kick off my shoes, Trips snags Clara and presses her tight against his chest. Her whimpers cease, and she stills.

I toe off my shoes and inch around the bed, removing more layers as I go, closing and stashing her laptop on her desk. Then I slip in behind Clara in my boxers and t-shirt. Burrowing my nose in her hair, I shed the last of my lingering stress. This is home now. Wherever she is.

Blinking through the near-dark, I try to catch Trips’ eye and let him know he can head back upstairs. There’s no way he’s asleep.

He hardly sleeps on a good night in his own bed. There’s what amounts to a ritual of scents and sounds, of particular thread counts and colors, all these elaborate steps he has to follow to get at least six hours a night. But the longer I stare at him, the more obvious it is that he’s as out as Clara is.

Damn.

The jealousy still hums. The need to protect Clara from Trips playing hot and cold with her heart burns.

But she forgave me for the same shit. Different cause, but the same actions.

So, I have to trust her to figure out how she wants to deal with Trips. Even if there’s a good chance he’ll never be what she wishes he would be.

Even if he needs her in the same way I do. The way we all do.

Because as much as my problems got between us, they were mostly in my head.

For Trips? The barriers are real. And it would take a miracle for him to break through them.

Clara’s muffled screams wake me.

My shirt sticks to my chest as I pull her face away from my sternum, trying to whisper her awake, but quickly. It must work, because her eyes snap open, her breaths coming as pants, her heart pounding against mine.

“Shit.” She blinks the tears from her eyes, sopping them up with her sleeve, avoiding looking at me.

“You’re okay, princess.”

She swallows a few times before forcing a painful-looking smile onto her face. “You’re back!”

My thumb smears some lingering wetness across her cheek as I kiss her softly. “It’s okay to be upset for a minute. You don’t need to pretend with me.”

She presses her face against my shirt before pulling back with a twist of her lips. “I should get you a clean shirt. Or you could take it off?” Her eyes are bright, playful, but the haunted look she woke up with lingers on the edges of her expression.

And as fun as that would be, I’m not sure it’s the right choice, sex thirty seconds after a scream-worthy nightmare. “Clara—”

Her smile falters at my subtle rebuke.

A knock on the doorframe pulls my attention away from her.

“We good?” Trips asks, already dressed in jeans and a cream Henley .

Clara rolls to sitting, her back to me. “Yup. I was just going to grab a shower.” She picks up her towel on her way past Trips. He waits until the shower starts before coming into the room and settling into one of Clara’s chairs.

“She’s not good.”

I sit up in the bed. “No, she’s not.”

“Maybe we should have talked her into some kind of Christmas.”

“She was adamant that she wanted yesterday to just be like every other day, no presents, no tree, nothing.”

“Yeah. Looks like that helped.”

We both stare at the wall between us and her, like we’ve suddenly developed x-ray vision. If only pretending yesterday was normal had fixed Clara. But screaming first thing in the morning is a sign that what’s wrong with her is getting worse, not better.

Trips’ eyes flutter closed. “Fuck. And what I’ve got to say is only going to hurt her more. There’s no way it won’t.”

“What happened?” The way Trips’ shoulders slump makes me want to run to the shower, to cradle Clara in my arms, to comfort her however she wants before what’s coming for her hits. Because Trips doesn’t crumple. I didn’t know he even could.

“I’m calling a meeting. Tonight. We’ll figure it out later. Just keep your girl happy until then.”

Easier said than done.

Trips hauls himself from the chair and out of the room. My phone buzzes a moment later. Meeting set.

I don’t have a right to say a damn thing, but it’s clear that Clara needs to talk about what happened. The fear is eating her whole. And she’s going to need all her strength, based on Trips’ reaction to whatever news he has to share with us.

We all heard that dick-less asshole whispering in her ear in that dirty alley in Chicago. We all saw how hazy she was afterward. And we all saw the moment she decided that she’d rather forget than deal with it.

And now? The fear is so big it’s taking over her sleep, her thoughts, her mood.

I pull off my shirt as I knock on the door to the bathroom. “Want some company?” I call.

“Door’s unlocked.”

Until she’s ready to talk, though, I’ll deal with this the way she’s decided to. Maybe it helps. Maybe it’s just a distraction. But it’s a distraction I’ll gladly provide until she’s ready to excise the wound.

Because if nothing else, I love this girl, and I’ll do what I can to keep her moving forward, functioning, and as happy as I can make her.

She pulls back the shower curtain with a smirk, her dark hair glued to all the places I plan to touch, as I click the door shut behind me, slipping out of my boxers.

The rest? I can’t fix that for her. All I can give is my presence. Because I’m hers. And I’ll show it every chance I get.

She welcomes me into the shower, and my hands wrap around her waist, tugging her against me, needing to know that I didn’t push her away with my urge to fix what’s broken. And she melts into me, the hot water coating us both. “Want me to make the nightmares go away?” I tease, hoping this is the right tact .

“If you could, I’d worship the ground you walk on.” She grins at me.

Teasing. I can do teasing. “Don’t you already?”

She laughs, then licks up my chest, her tongue cooler than the sauna she’s made in the shower. “I could show you.”

“How about I show you?”

“I wouldn’t say no to that.”

When I take her mouth, she whimpers, like everything inside of her is already so close to the surface that she can’t hold back. And I don’t want her to hold back. I want her everything. Every moment I was gone where she was worried, scared, sad, or lonely, I want those bad things replaced by something so good that it’ll be like they never happened.

The water coats us both as I inch my way down her body, treasuring every inch of her skin with my mouth, my fingers, my love. Only good things. Only pleasure.

She moans when I lick and suck her nipples; she cries out when I press first one finger, then another into her warmth. By the time I circle her clit, she’s panting, using the wall to keep herself upright, the water washing over us, pooling around my knees as I take from her. As I give to her. As I wipe away and create anew.

When she comes, her release tart on my lips, she screams, and pride blossoms.

I can’t take away the nightmares. I can’t go back in time and prevent what happened. But I can bring her momentary solace, a cloud of pleasure to hide her from the monsters that eat her from the inside out.

When I stand and pull her back into my arms, though, I realize even this gift isn’t enough. Tears mix with the water, and she burrows her face against my chest, hiding them from me.

“Clara?”

“I’m fine.” She forces a smile onto her face, and my pride plummets. “Your turn?”

I can’t, not when it looks like her heart is breaking. “No, princess. Not right now. Can I wash your hair?”

She looks confused, but turns and hands me the bottle of shampoo.

As I lather, the floral scent almost overwhelming, terror takes hold. This didn’t help. Not really.

What else do I have to offer?