Page 64 of Brazen Defiance (Brazen Boys #4)

Trips

T he sun is bright in the sky when the door to the white room clicks open. Falk motions me over, my eyes gritty after three hours of fitful sleep on the hardwood floor. “I take it we’re putting in an appearance on campus?” I ask as I pass him.

He grunts and points down the hallway, unlocking the door to the blue room.

“You guys have thirty minutes to get dressed. Then I’ll be back with Smith to bring you two to the U.

Tuesdays and Thursdays you’ll be sharing a ride, Mondays and Wednesdays I get you and Smith has her.

” His eyes darken, telling me how much he hates that division, and something truthful colors the air between us.

“Got it.”

Pushing into the room, I find the curtains wide open and a small lump on the giant mattress. Clara whimpers as she sits up, her eyes wide from being startled awake.

Fuck. Shit. And God-fucking-dammit. This isn’t what I wanted for her. I wanted to keep her away from my father, from the horror of my gilded cage. Instead, she’s the one wearing the bruises I should have earned.

I stumble a few steps closer, but I’m afraid to reach out, to touch her, to comfort her. Why would she let me touch her after what just happened?

She scoots to the edge of the bed, her hands bunched into fists and her eyes screwed tight from the pain.

But because my father is a monster, not a mark shows on her, despite her wearing nothing but one of the saccharine-sweet silk nightgowns that came with the room.

This one is pale blue, making her match the decor.

As nice as it is, it doesn’t look like her. She doesn’t look like her.

She looks like the trophy-wife-in-training my father wants her to be. He hasn’t even mentioned the FBI since we got back. I guess he’s focusing on his ‘number one priority’ at the expense of the dual purpose he’d planned for her.

Fear doesn’t look good on the old man.

“Morning,” she croaks, her eyes scanning me, looking for who knows what.

“How is...everything?” I force out, not sure how to ask if she took any permanent damage, if she was able to sleep through the pain, if she’s even able to walk.

“Mary helped me clean up and made me as comfortable as she could,” she says, somehow figuring out what I didn’t want to ask.

She pushes to her feet, then lets out a groan, tears escaping as she nearly tumbles forward.

But I’m there, bracing her, holding her up, and after a second, pulling her oh-so-gently against me, keeping my hands on her arms, scared to touch her anywhere else.

Her head bumps against my chest, and I’m reminded again of how much smaller she is than me.

She’s not short or anything, but has delicate bones covered in well earned, fine muscles.

I rest my palm against the back of her neck—the only safe place I can touch her without more pain—and it’s so small that it feels like I might sneeze and break her.

I liked that feeling before, the way I could feel her swallow under my palm, pinning her with only one hand. Now it seems like the universe’s greatest joke, to make a woman so strong but so goddamn delicate.

The longer we stay like this, her nose pressed against my chest, the clearer things become.

I’d stayed away from Clara from the beginning for so many reasons. Because she threatened to ruin my carefully planned escape from my father. Because wanting her would trap us both. Because we couldn’t let my father see how much I fucking cared .

But now?

There are no more reasons to hide.

I flick my eyes up to the camera, wondering who’s watching. What my father holds over them. What they think about a man locking his adult son and his roommate away at night and forcing them to fuck so he can get a grandbaby.

This shit is absurd.

But looking down at Clara, I can’t help but see what she is to me.

She’s not my roommate. Not anymore. Not for a long time.

She’s not the girl who’s dating all my best friends.

She’s not a challenge, or an enigma, or some lump of clay that I can form into the perfect criminal underling.

She’s someone I could love. Someone I’m already in so deep with that I can’t even think of a word to describe how I feel about her.

Feeling the weight of my gaze, she looks up, dark circles ringing her eyes. My hands bracket her jaw, and with nothing holding me back, no more necessary secrets between us, I lean down, a simple press of lips.

But it’s not simple. It never is between the two of us.

It’s everything.

A year of keeping the soft parts of my soul away from this danger, and all the walls, the shields, the barriers that I built, crumble as I cradle her head in my hands.

This beautiful, damaged, strong, frustrating, smart, and capable woman, I kiss her like I’ve always wanted to.

Like she’s a fire I want to dive into, one I’d happily burn in to come out purified by the steel of her soul.

This kiss lingers, because it’s not about want. It’s about peace.

The peace she’s promised, if I just trust her. If I survive watching her take every hit that belongs to me.

If we can hold on and wait for the rest of our team to line up our shots.

Then, one, two, three, we’ll take them down. We’ll be free.

I’ll finally be free.