Crazy Thing (The Brighton Family #5)

Chapter 35

35

DARIUS

T he next morning, I wake up once again in Ziggy's bus. This time, we’re in the woodlands of Honey Hill and I’m all alone on the narrow bed-couch.

I gaze around, missing the feel of my fairy girl in my arms. But she’s nowhere in sight.My eyes dart around the 28-foot bus and it takes me all of two seconds of searching to realize that she’s not here.

I’m extra careful not to sit up too quickly and smack my skull on the overhead shelf this time. Then I manage to swing my legs over the side without banging into a single thing in the bus.

I’m grinning to myself because I’m already a goddamned pro at this woodland life.

When I grab my phone to check the time, I ignore the emails piling up in my inbox. It can wait. It can all wait. Getting to Ziggy is my priority at the moment.

Tugging on my pants and shoes, I venture outside. I’m still buttoning up my shirt as I walk past Ziggy’s little vegetable garden. There’s a fire pit in the yard. It’s flanked by a few Adirondack chairs. I head down the wildflower-framed path that leads around the side of the bus.

The colors and sounds of nature embrace me and I make a mental note to get outdoors more often. This is a far cry from the mornings I’d wake up to when I lived in Manhattan and San Francisco. Here, the air is crisp and fresh, and the swishing leaves overhead seem to be saying ‘good morning’.

I can see why Ziggy likes it out here.The serene atmosphere, the birds singing, the sunlight peeking through the trees. It’s a far better wakeup call than my usual pot of coffee.

I spot a long-limbed, pink-haired angel around the side of the bus, meditating under the morning sun on a yoga mat. The light shines around her frame, creating an ethereal halo.

Finding a fallen log nearby, I quietly take a seat and watch Ziggy meditate.I don’t know much about meditation, but watching my fairy girl do her thing definitely puts me in a relaxed state.I discreetly snap a few pictures of her with my phone so I can relive this moment later. I add them all to my Ziggy Stash.

My morning gets even better when Ziggy comes over, her bare feet stepping lightly across fallen twigs and pine needles, the hem of her cropped shirt fluttering around her midriff. She greets me with a kiss.

“Good morning,” I say, feeling a grin take over my face.

“Morning yourself.” She wraps her arms around my neck, settling on my lap and rocking against my growing erection.

I kiss her eagerly, mesmerized by her, like I am every time.

She’s dazed and starry-eyed when she snatches back her lips. “So…I packed up a little picnic earlier, when you were still getting your beauty sleep.” She giggles. “Do you want to go for a walk in the forest?”

“Hell, yeah. Maybe I’ll get to wrestle a mountain lion for you. Then I’ll get to show you how tough and cool I am.” I grin at her, running my palms up her bare thighs, up to the edge of her athletic shorts.

The sound of Ziggy’s laughter makes my chest expand. “Man—somebody’s feeling confident this morning.”

I lift a shoulder. “I’m tough, I promise. I’m not just a rich boy with a big dick and a pretty face, you know?”

Ziggy stands and slips on her sandals. “Oh, you’re plenty tough and cool and I know it. And very pretty. With a very big dick, too. No mountain lion will want to mess with you.” She strokes my ego and I love it.

“That’s right, it won’t.”I snatch up Ziggy’s picnic basket as she leads me into the shadowy forest.

She weaves her fingers with mine as we venture further into the woods. We take our time as we stroll in and out of high, overgrown bushes and climb over the knotted roots of giant trees.

There are no trails around this area. I’m discovering that Ziggy prefers carefree, unbounded walks the best.She’s a path least traveled kind of woman. And it’s largely what makes her so damn attractive to me.

“Now tell me what’s happening with Robert Ross. You’re having lunch with him this week, right?” she asks, as we stroll.“His assistant emailed me after the gala. I have it in your calendar for Wednesday.”

“Actually, I’ll have to reschedule with Ross,” I inform her.

“Reschedule?” Her eyebrow quirks up.

I nod. “He called me yesterday afternoon when you were busy with a customer at the shop. He’ll be traveling for business next week so we’ll try to figure out a different time to meet.”

That brings her feet to a halt. “What?! You didn’t tell me? Your assistant needs to know these things.”

“Well, I was going to, but then we got a little preoccupied when you attacked me in the storage room.” I grab her waist, press her up against a tree and smirk at her. “Now I’ll forever have to explain why mopping gets me hard.”

Her face turns red and I’d bet she’s recalling the way I hoisted her up on that wobbly wooden shelf and made her come apart.

“Poor you. Such a sad life you lead,” she mutters with a chuckle. “So, what’s the plan?” she asks, sounding anxious as she returns to the topic of the waterfall. “Is Mr. Ross going to sell the land to you?”

I give a shrug. “It’s implied.”

She urges me on. “Meaning?”

“Meaning, we’ll figure it out.” Before she can ask another question, I cover her lips with mine. I don’t want to think about business right now.

The basket slips from my hand, landing on the forest floor with a dull thud. My fingers slide into her hair, angling her face just right and I kiss her dirty.

She grabs the front of my shirt, pulling me closer than close. I reach for the back of her thigh, slipping my fingers under the hem of her flimsy little athletic shorts, getting the fabric out of my way.

Slipping two fingers beneath her panties, I hiss with arousal when her wetness drenches my digits. “Shit. You’re soaked for me.” In an instant, all the blood in my body has somehow migrated to my groin.

I sprout a boner like it’s my superpower .

“God, yes,” Ziggy wheezes, her lips open against mine. “Touch me, Darius.”

My brain wades through a blinding fog as I push one finger inside her and then another. I’m fucking her mouth with my mouth, fucking her pussy with my hand.

Ziggy is squirming against the tree and making sweet, angelic noises that sound like harps to my ears. I’m convinced this forest must be heaven.

But then I go and open my stupid mouth.

“Let me ask you a question,” I say, breaking the kiss.

“Go ahead,” she responds, her blue eyes starry and dazed.

“Do I make your heart beat fast?” I ask, genuinely curious. “Because every time I’m around you, my chest starts beating like it’s in the goddamned Olympics. And when I’m not with you, you’re always in my head, which is pretty fucking inconvenient, to be honest, because I’m a busy man with shit to do.”

Ziggy chuckles, but then she places her hand on her chest. “Well, my chest is beating pretty damn fast right now.”

Out of nowhere, anxiety hits me like a ton of bricks.

I’m in love with this woman.

Holy shit. I’m really, truly, genuinely in love with her.

And I’m realizing that she may never feel the same.

“You’re still holding back…” I mutter, and I hear the pathetic disappointment in my voice.

Ziggy’s expression collapses into a frown. “Shit—of course I am, Darius.”

She wiggles out of my hold and the moment between us is over. The fallen leaves crunch beneath her sandals as she puts space between us.

“The fact that we had sex a few times doesn’t change much. It doesn’t change anything that happened in the past.”

Fuck. This is not what I want to hear. Not at all.

“Goddammit,” I grumble, tracking my fingers through my hair, pulling at the roots. “I don’t understand.”

I thought I was making progress with her. I thought we were on the same page. But I was wrong.

She shrugs her slight shoulders. “I know this might sound dramatic, but, all those years ago, I had to shut down huge parts of myself after the way you rejected me, Darius. I couldn’t allow myself to feel all that pain ever again. It was too much. I had to slap a whole lot of duct tape over the parts of me that were shattered by the way you treated me. Now, I don’t know if I’ll ever feel safe trusting you.”

The vulnerability on her face wrecks me. She has every right to be unsure about me.

Shit. I’m the one who ruined it for her. I’m the one who made it hard for her to open up in relationships. Yet here I am, asking her to blindly trust me again.

“Ziggy, I want you to know how I feel about you. I genuinely believe that you’re the most incredible woman I know.” I brush her hair back from her cheek with my knuckles. “You’re beautiful and wise and ethereal and downright breathtaking. And I just want—”

“If I’m so freaking great, why did you do what you did, Darius?” she blurts out. “All those years ago, why did you hurt me?”

Her words are a dart straight through my chest. But I can’t go on pretending like our past isn’t the two ton elephant following us around this forest now.

And if I have any hope of stopping the pain bleeding from her eyes, I have only one option. I have to tell her everything my teenaged self was too chicken to say .

There’s no perfect way to word this, so I just open my mouth and let the words start spilling out.

“People around town always assumed that my family had money. My dad was a doctor after all. But in small towns like ours, doctors aren’t exactly rolling around in hundred dollar bills at night. Especially not doctors with six kids to feed.” I drag my fingers through my hair. “I watched my parents struggle financially when I was growing up. I can’t tell you how many late nights I crept in on my dad sitting at the kitchen table with his paper and pen and calculator, trying to figure out how he’d make ends meet. And my mom, she needed hired help around the house but she worked herself to the bone and she’d never complain because she knew we couldn’t afford it. But I had big dreams for myself and I was determined to make them happen. I needed to make them happen. So I came up with a plan. A plan that included extracurricular activities and academic scholarships and ultimately, a spot at an Ivy League college.”

Ziggy listens intently as I speak, waiting patiently even as I seem to be talking all over the place.

“I worked hard in school,” I continue, “Excellent grades. Study groups. Working for extra credit. All of it. While my brothers were running wild and making havoc all over town, I remained focused on my goals. But it was hard. Sometimes, our house would be so loud that I couldn’t even hear myself think. That’s how I started going down to the waterfall to study.”

“That’s how we started hanging out…” she says with a soft smile, helping me piece my story together.

“You were the most beautiful distraction.” I softly cup her cheek, offering a pained smile of my own. “I loved following you around the forest. Listening to you go on and on, teaching me new things. Sharing perspectives I’d never considered before. From the first day I bumped into you in the woods, I found you fascinating. I became so tangled up in you that I lost track of my goals.”

An ache flutters through my chest as I think back to who we both used to be in those days.

“I had applied for a really competitive internship. According to my research, securing that position would have all but guaranteed that I’d get a full scholarship to the college of my dreams. I had been on the waiting list for the spot, but the organization called one day when I was out in the forest with you.” My eyes fall to her lips. “The day that I first kissed you.”

She inhales sharply. “Shit…” she winces.

“One of their interns had dropped out of the program and they’d called to offer me her position. But since I wasn’t home when they called, the organization moved on and selected someone else for the internship.”

Ziggy is shaking her head back and forth, regret brimming in her eyes. “I’m…I’m sorry, Darius.” A single tear treks down her cheek. “God. I had no idea that I ruined that opportunity for you.”

What?! “Are you for real? You didn’t ruin anything, Ziggy.” I hawk out a low, incredulous laugh. “It wasn’t your fault,” I assure her, stroking a thumb along her cheekbone.” I drop my eyes in shame. “But in my fifteen-year-old head, I couldn’t see that.”

It was never my intention for Ziggy to take on this guilt as her own. But I guess that’s the thing about being an angel like she is—she takes on everybody’s problems. It’s just what she does.

“Yes, I was angry with you that day. I’ll admit it and I’m embarrassed as fuck over that. I was a teenager and I handled it wrong,” I tell her. “And by the time I realized how wrong I was, I’d already fucked everything up with you. You wanted nothing to do with me anymore, and I deserved that.”

I’d abruptly stopped talking to her. Then hours later, she’d seen me dancing with someone else. I can’t imagine the things that probably went through her mind.

Now, standing here under the green, leafy canopy, she strokes a hand down my stubbly cheek. “The internship was important to you, Darius. I’m sorry that you lost it under those circumstances.”

I grab her hand, kissing her knuckles. “Well, everything worked out for the best in the end.” I shrug. “But on the day I lost that internship, in my short-sighted teenaged brain, it seemed like the end of me.”

She leans her cheek against my collarbone and I press my lips to the crown of her head.

“And I want to make it clear—that girl at the Soul of Summer Festival—I didn’t choose her over you. The last thing on my mind was hooking up with another girl. That day, I was so numb, I barely even realized that she was dancing with me. I was completely numb. I’m so sorry that I hurt you.”

“I never gave you a chance to explain yourself,” Ziggy says resentfully. “I never even listened to you.”

I huff. “Don’t blame yourself for this, Ziggy. None of my excuses are good enough. I was an utter asshole to you and you were totally justified in refusing to talk to me by the time I came around and realized my mistake. All I know is, I’m sorry that I hurt you.”

My lips brush across hers and I sigh with relief when she doesn’t push me away. Heaven knows I don’t deserve her sweet kisses .

A long silence passes between us, and then Ziggy speaks. “I forgive you, Darius.” She says the words, and her body relaxes fully against mine. It’s like she’s shed a defense mechanism she never even realized was weighing her down.

My shoulders soften, too. “Thank you,” I breathe out, feeling genuinely relieved. I pull back, looking into her eyes. I gather her cheeks in my palms. “And just know this—I didn’t keep you a secret because I was ashamed of you, Ziggy. I kept you a secret because I wanted to keep you mine. I didn’t want to share you. Having five boisterous siblings, I had to share everything. But you? Our walks in the forest, our conversations on the riverbank, our kiss? I wanted to keep all of you to myself. And if I had any idea that I was hurting you by keeping our friendship a secret, I would have shouted your name from every rooftop in Starlight Falls.” I inhale. “I am so fucking proud of you.”

Her tears are spilling uncontrollably now. “Hearing you say that means so much to me. Thank you.”

Based on her sincere reaction, I can tell that she’s been starving for words of validation for a long, long time. I’m happy to give them to her. “I’m proud of the woman you’ve become. I’m proud to be your friend. And in time, I’m hoping to become a whole lot more than that.”

I lower my face. She meets me halfway, her lips eagerly sweeping against mine. The kiss quickly intensifies. Our hands are all over each other. I’m ripping off her shorts. She’s shoving my pants down to my ankles.

I push her against the bark of a big tree. Her hands grasp at my erection, stroking up and down my rigid shaft, making my temperature skyrocket a thousand degrees.

“Let me fuck you, gorgeous.” I take over from her, guiding my erection to her dripping slit.

Together, we moan as I penetrate her .

I’m weak. I’m unsteady. I’m drunk.

My forehead drops to her shoulder and I breathe her in. Dammit. She smells amazing. And she feels so fucking good.

Kissing a path up her neck to her earlobe, I try to keep my pulse steady. “I love being inside you. I love your tight pussy and the way it squeezes me.” I grab her waist, lifting her slightly. Then I drop her on my cock, completely filling her again.

Letting her head fall against the tree trunk, she mewls my name with wild abandon.

Grabbing hold of her supple ass, I lift and drop her again, pulsing and throbbing inside her. “I love the way you moan for me.”

She hugs me tighter. And I know without a doubt, there’s no better feeling in the world than this. Being inside Ziggy. Feeling her slight arms around me. Enjoying the squeeze of her slippery pussy.

“I love the way your eyes roll back into your head. And the way you hug me so tight.”

I love you, Ziggy.

I’m ravenous with the need to experience her. I begin to rock inside her. I thrust deep, bottoming out with each rut. I fuck her and her body responds, telling me this is exactly what she wants.

Pink hair flutters across her face as she jerks her hips, riding me. Her tits bounce with each rhythmic thrust. Blue eyes roll into her head. I’ve never seen a prettier sight.

I pull back for a fraction of a second, just to admire her. “Can’t ever get over how beautiful you are,” I mutter into the air between us.

She shudders, her eyes soft with vulnerability. “Darius… ”

Bowing my head, I suck on her neck and jaw as I thrust into her and listen to her go wild for me. My lust for her fills my head and I lose my mind in the best way.

With Ziggy pinned against that tree trunk, I fuck her until she releases all control and screams. Her pussy ripples, hot waves of wetness pouring down my cock. Her channel holds me in a slippery death grip as she peaks.

I feel the rush of my own orgasm racing toward me like a runaway train jumping its tracks. I manage to jerk my cock from inside her right in time to explode all over the bark of the tree.

Holy fuck.

My legs are practically wobbling beneath me as Ziggy collapses against my chest with a devastated whimper. Pulse pounding and sweat pouring, I crumble to the ground, careful to keep my protective grip on her.

Limbs tangled up like roots, we press our foreheads together. Laughing. Sharing this experience that’s for just us two.

And in this moment, I know that she’s mine.

No matter what she says. No matter how she tries to fight it. No matter how much she tries to keep some sort of distance between us.

She’s mine.

In time, I’ll make sure she knows it.

The rest of the day, there’s a goofy smile on my face that can’t be wiped off. Even later, as Ziggy is driving back to my home.

She glances over at me from where she’s sitting behind the wheel. “I haven’t heard your phone ring once all day. Did you drop it somewhere in the woods? Is the battery dead?”

I shake my head. “I turned it off. ”

Ziggy blinks, her eyebrows lifted high. “You turned it off?”

I got nothing done. There wasn’t a spreadsheet in sight. No meetings for the last two-and-a-half days. No deals. No closings.

Yet, I didn’t know I could ever feel this…fulfilled.

I grab her hand, sweeping my lips across her knuckles. “Best. Decision. Ever. I got to focus all my attention on you.”

After a few days of sunshine and bike rides in town and strolls through the forest, I still don’t want this weekend to come to an end.

I never thought I’d ever feel this way. But I find myself craving this kind of beautiful simplicity in my life, not just on the weekend, but every day.