Page 19 of Forever Finds Us (Wisper Dreams #7)

Chapter Fourteen

Brand

I came so fucking hard I saw stars and worried for a moment I might lose consciousness.

When she said it— The way she said it, the wanting sound of her voice…

Yes, sir.

Roxanne’s surrender eased my body in ways I’d never felt before. The power. The intimacy. The thought scared me, but I wondered if this was how Dixon felt when he did drugs, because already I was hooked.

And once I’d taken back control, the way Roxanne begged me to make her come?

Fuck.

“What did you just do to me?” I rolled off of her onto my back and pulled her against my chest, my spent cock softening between our bodies.

“Me? That was all on you, sir, and it was hot.” She moaned, her eyes still closed in bliss, and she hitched her leg over my hip.

“Have you ever done anything like that before?”

“No,” she said earnestly. “You brought it out in me. Have you?”

No, but it was the sexiest thing I’ve ever experienced and your obedience made me harder than I’ve ever been in my life.

Shaking my head against her pillow, all I could manage to say was, “Again. I want that again.”

“Right now?”

“Well, yeah,” I said, chuckling, “but I don’t think my body’s on the same page yet. Give it a minute.”

She shivered, the chill in the air making her nipples bead and poke my chest, and I pulled her covers over us and snuggled deeper into her comfort, letting her sweet honeysuckle scent lure me closer. She tasted like wild honeysuckle too.

“Roxanne?” I asked, stroking my fingers down the outside of her thigh beneath the covers and staring up at her dark ceiling, watching the lights from a passing car outside travel its width quickly. She tucked her head into the crook of my neck, and it felt… right.

I was a little afraid to know the answer to the question I wanted to ask. What did it mean that I got off on controlling her? God, so many images flooded my head. Ropes and leather restraints. Gags and bindings.

Just thinking about it was making my body fight through its hard-won fatigue.

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay? I was a little rough there at the end.”

She lifted up on her elbow, her eyes searching mine because she’d heard the unsure tone of my voice. “Brand, I’m more than okay. That was… I don’t even have words. I loved every second of it.”

“Honestly?”

She breathed, “Yes,” and she leaned in to kiss me, her hot tongue convincing me what she’d said was true.

“Good,” I said when we came up for air. “Got any rope around here?”

“No, I don’t think so. Why?”

“Because.” I pulled her on top of me, letting her feel what she was doing to me again. “I wanna tie your hands to the bed.” I could already picture the type of knot I’d use. Bax and Rye would be proud that I hadn’t forgotten all my roping knowledge.

Roxanne froze and lifted her head. Strands of her hair caught between her lips, and fire danced through her brown eyes in burnt oranges as I tugged the soft wisps free.

A moment passed as we stared at one another, me requesting her consent to do all the things in my head I suddenly needed to do to her, and silently she gave me the yes I wanted desperately. And this time, she held my gaze and kept it.

“I don’t have rope,” she said, “but I have a silk scarf my mama gave me to wear to church.” She smirked. “But lucky for you, I don’t go to church.”

Gripping her ass cheeks in my hands, I yanked her body harder against mine. “That’s even better. Get it and then get on your knees at the end of the bed.”

She blinked, dipped her head, offering me the sexiest smile I’d ever seen, and dropped her eyes in obedience.

“Yes, sir.”

Was it possible to fuck yourself bowlegged?

If it could be done, I figured I’d probably managed it last night. I’d never gone so hard for so long. I found I liked it best when Roxanne let me pleasure her and I denied my own desire for as long as I could. The orgasms at the end of those sessions had felt otherworldly.

And damn . The way I’d worn her out? I felt like fucking Superman.

She fell asleep face down on her bed after our last go, her knees still bent and her ass in the air, her wrists bound behind her back with the silky scarf.

I’d adjusted her so she could breathe, untied her and rubbed her wrists and arms softly.

I left her house with a kiss on her forehead and my handprint on her ass.

I also left her two ibuprofen and a full glass of water on the table next to her bed because she was sure to be sore after the battering I’d given her pussy. But she’d said she loved it, and the harder I fucked, the harder she came.

Exploring the control… exploring her was all I could think about.

I pulled up an incognito page on my phone and searched BDSM gear, and the results made me drop the phone, and then Merv knocked on my door and pushed it open.

Shit!

“Son? You awake?”

“Yeah.”

She stepped inside my bedroom, and I adjusted the sheet over my erection, again like I was fifteen.

“Can you drive me to the doctor? My appointment’s at nine. The new car is nice, but I don’t wanna go by myself.”

“Y-yeah. You feelin’ okay?” I grabbed my phone from between my legs on the bed and clicked off the screen as quickly as I could.

“Just a little lightheaded.”

“Yeah, Mama. Let me change and we’ll go.”

“Thank you.”

She stepped into the hallway and closed the door, and I stripped and threw on clean boxers and jeans and grabbed the flannel hanging off the back of my desk chair, and when I met her in the kitchen, Merv stumbled as she walked to dump her coffee in the sink.

“Mama?”

She set her mug on the counter, and it almost tumbled off the edge, but I reached forward and nudged it further back. She turned toward me, and the fear I saw on her face scared me down to my bones.

She stuttered, “I th-think… think somethin’s wrong.”

The ambulance would’ve taken too long to get out to her house, so I ransacked Merv’s bathroom and found a bottle of aspirin and made her chew two, and then I drove her and met the paramedics at Dr. Whitley’s clinic in town, the whole time begging silently for her not to have a stroke or a heart attack. For her to live.

I’d wasted so much time being antithetical, thinking I was better and different from my family, resenting my dad and what he’d done to us all.

The way he’d darkened the light, happy family we used to be.

I’d barely had time to patch what had been broken between us, but I wanted to.

Desperately. I wanted my family back in my life.

I wanted them to want me back in theirs.

I was so fucking pissed at myself, and the anger ran through me now as I thought about the contempt I’d felt for my mama all these years. I’d never spoken to her about how life had been for her married to the son of a bitch.

Would she die now and I’d never know?

“Brand?”

Dr. Whitley operated his clinic out of a house in downtown Wisper, and I’d been pacing the waiting area since I’d carried Merv inside and the doctor and his assistant had helped her onto a rolling bed and wheeled her away, but when I heard his voice, I turned on a dime.

The soft smile I saw on his face dropped me to my knees because I couldn’t decipher its meaning.

Abey and Bax were on their way, but it felt like hours since I’d called them. I’d never needed them more. And I’d never felt more alone.

“Your mother is stable now, but she had a heart attack,” Dr. Whitley said.

“I suspect it’s not the first. She may have been having small attacks she didn’t even notice; she reported pain in her neck and jaw and bouts of heartburn and other things that could be symptoms of small myocardial infarctions.

“We’ll need to send her for testing, but a cardiologist will be able to discern if it’s connected.

Thankfully, this time it was mild. You did the exact right thing, giving her aspirin.

I’ve given her medication to help dilate her arteries until a specialist can assess her and come up with a treatment plan.

I’m having the paramedics transfer her to the hospital in Jackson. ”

He laid his old, frail hand on my shoulder, and I lost my careful composure. All the bullshit I’d held inside for so long rushed out of me in sobs. I felt like the worst son for denying my mother for so long when all she’d wanted to do was love me.

“It’s okay, son. You got her to help in time.”

Dr. Whitley waited for me to sop the mess off my face with my sleeve.

Finally, I stood. “Can I see her?”

“Of course. Sylvia and Cord will be ready to transport her soon, but you can have a few minutes.”

“Thank you.”

He led me back to his exam room, and when I pushed open the door, Merv’s eyes were closed, her breathing a little uneven. She lay on the rolling bed still, and when she heard my boots on the floor, she turned her head toward the wall, probably to hide tears from me, but she said, “I fucked up.”

I had never heard my mother utter the word “fuck.” In fact, she’d smacked me more than once for saying it, and hearing it now from her mouth nearly knocked me right back down to my knees.

“Mama?”

Her choked voice and tight throat told me she was holding back tears. “I spent years smokin’ and abusin’ the one body God gave me and look what happened. Look what I did to myself. I could’ve died.”

“But you didn’t.”

“But I could’ve. What if you hadn’t been home?”

I shuddered at the thought. “But I was.”

She nodded and finally looked at me, and we both cried.

“I’m so sorry I haven’t been here,” I whispered. I grabbed the back of the chair in the corner and dragged it to her bedside, then sat and reached for her hands folded together over her stomach. I gripped them tightly. “I won’t do that to you again.”

“It’s okay, Brand. You needed space. I understood. I didn’t blame you.”

“But my absence hurt you. I’m sorry. I love you. I don’t know what I would’ve done if?—”

“I love you too, son.” She squeezed my hands in hers. “Thank you for savin’ my life.”

I didn’t know where else to go, but when I pulled up in front of 417 Tacoma Avenue after Merv had fallen asleep in her room at the hospital, I hadn’t even thought to call or text Roxanne to make sure she was home.

Her truck sat parked in the driveway, though, and her living room light glowed behind the curtains hanging in her front windows.

As I opened my door and stumbled out of the SUV I’d bought for Merv, the curtains rustled, and three seconds later, her front door opened, and there she stood, Roxanne’s tall, steadfast frame and warm arms exactly the balm I needed.

“Brand? I heard about your mama. Is she okay? Are you okay?”

I shook my head. I couldn’t speak. The knot of fear still lodged in my chest had worked its way up to my throat and was choking me now too.

With feet covered in pink, furry slippers, she stepped down her cracked, poured-concrete porch stairs.

This goddess deserved better than cracked concrete.

I didn’t need to speak. She seemed to understand that I was not okay, and when I reached her, she held my face between her hands, warming away the chill I thought I’d feel for the rest of my life.

She looked into my eyes, conveying to me without a word that whatever I needed to say or do, I’d be safe with her, so I lifted her silently and carried her inside, and until well into the night, she let me release my fear inside her body.