“All work and no play,” Carter said, clucking his tongue. “I can drop by for a bit. Bryant expects me for dinner, but I could swing by around four.” He lingered for a moment, staring at me as if waiting for something to happen.
“What?”
“I missed you,” he said simply, as if he wasn’t sticking my knife in my chest. “I always wanted this for us. A brotherhood.”
“Yeah,” I said, the word all rasp. “Come here.”
He came, stepping into my open arms for a tight, quick hug. When we broke apart, we both avoided eye contact, mildly embarrassed by the show of affection.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he muttered, turning to leave. “Enjoy having your woman back. She’ll need you after today.”
“She needs me every day,” I countered arrogantly.
He rolled his eyes, closing the door on his murmured laughter.
As soon as he was gone, I turned and jogged up the stairs.
Bianca sat on the edge of my large free-standing bronze bathtub with Henrik knelt before her like a knight before his queen. He was gently cleaning the blood from her neck and chest with a washcloth. They didn’t notice me right away, so I watched with my heart thumping away in my throat as Bianca reached up to plant her hand on Henrik’s bald head. As if she needed to touch him to make sure he was real.
“I knew Tiernan and my Gentlemen would come,” she whispered hoarsely, her lids low with exhaustion.
Walcott emerged from the walk-in closet with a towel and one of my old boxing hoodies for her to change into. When Bianca swayed suddenly, he dropped both to the floor to catch her from falling back into the tub.
I knew without clarification that Ezra wasn’t there because Bianca had asked him to check on Brando.
Now that Bianca had started to teach me the language of love, I could see it so clearly when before, I’d been utterly blind. There was love in the way they touched each other, the tangible weight of it in the air like odorless smoke, the look of it on their faces as they interacted.
I felt all of it mirrored in me, reflecting back at them.
It made me feel both good and like a good man.
It didn’t eradicate the bad things I’d done, the cruel things I had no doubt I would still do because it was in my nature to be cruel, but it softened me in profound ways I was only just discovering. And softening, I knew, wasn’t bad because Bianca had the softest heart of anyone I’d ever known.
As if she could sense my gaze, her beautiful eyes opened and fixed on me. I watched with a kind of awe as slowly, she smiled. It was the same smile she had looking at a beautiful piece of art, or at Brandon. A smile like a sunbeam shot straight from her soul.
Fuck me, there was soft and then there was too soft.
I pushed off the doorframe and stalked toward, vibrating with the need to touch her and take care of her.
“Enough,” I almost barked, more severe than I meant to be. “Leave us now.”
Without hesitation, Henrik and Walcott left.
And I was alone with Bianca.
She watched me with those wide eyes as I knelt at her feet the same way Henrik had, as if I was pledging allegiance to her. First, I removed her high heels, scuffed from her ordeal with Caroline. Fury fizzed up my spine like a lit sparkler but I breathed deeply, grabbing a handful of Bianca’s honey-sweet scent to move beyond it and focus on her. It was intensely intimate to kneel there and take off her shoes, almost servile. It felt right somehow, to do this for her, to show her the humbleness and enormity of my love in such a small act of service.
She gasped when I traced the underside of her foot with my thumb, following the steep arch to her ankle and then up, up her smooth calves to her thighs. The momentum of my hands drove her dress higher and she braced her hands on the lip to raise high enough for the fabric to hitch to her waist. I loved that she closed her eyes on a flutter, trusting me as I pulled the garment over her head, leaving her in a small pair of plain white cotton underwear. It made me smile to see that she still had the cheap panties she’d worn in Texas, as if a part of her could never quit that part of her life.
I wouldn’t want her to.
Her nipples furled tight and pink as rosebuds and all her naked flesh had my cock thickening in my trousers. But this wasn’t about that.
It was about comfort.
She braced her hands on my shoulders as I picked her up, my hands spanning nearly the entire width of her waist beneath her ribcage as I settled her into the warm, bubbling water in the tub. A soft sigh feathered through her lips as she sank back, resting against the back, her little feet with blue painted toes peeking above the bubbles beneath the faucet.
I watched her for a moment, memorizing her peaceful features as if I’d never get a chance to do so again. But having her caged at Caroline’s and now, still threatened by the furious revenge of Bryant Morelli, had instilled a fear in me that gave birth to edgy appreciation. I was bound tightly by my determination to be grateful for every fucking inch of her, every single day.
I hadn’t been grateful for my siblings the first time I’d had their love and I hadn’t been grateful enough of Grace or grateful for as long as I wished I could have been for our baby.
I wouldn’t make that mistake again.
“You’re staring at me,” she murmured softly without opening her eyes.
Her wet hand emerged from the bubbles to find mine on the copper rim. Our fingers tangled, my darkly tanned hand with its callous and scars, and Bianca’s tapered, sweetly gold fingers. I loved the contrast, loved even more knowing that though she seemed weaker than me, softer than me this way, she had fathomless strength of her own.
“It’s my right, isn’t it?” I asked, a sliver of my usual arrogance worming itself into my tone. I settled more comfortably on the floor and reached over to draw a fingertip down her straight nose. “To look at you in wonder.”
A small smile curled over her lips. “As my guardian?”
I chuckled. “I think we’re well beyond that. Though tying you to me in every conceivable way is enticing.”
“I don’t think I can be your ward and your girlfriend,” she teased, finally opening her eyes to reveal their midnight blue sparkling. “I think there’s actually a few laws against it.”
I scoffed, raising her hand to my mouth to softly nip at the ends of her fingers. “You’re well over the age of consent and you’ll be eighteen in three months.”
“I will. What will you do then, when you no longer have any legal ties to me?” she joked, but a flush that had nothing to do with the warm water worked its way into her cheeks.
“Hmmm.” I sucked her ring finger into my mouth, watched her eyes go black. “I’m sure I’ll think of something.”
“Get in here,” she ordered, sitting up a little, tugging on me like she couldn’t stand another second without me close. “Get in here with me.”
I stood, but she wouldn’t let go of my hand. “It’s tough to get undressed with your hand in mine.”
She shrugged, eyes glittering with mischief.
I shook my head then shrugged too and stepped one foot into the tub. She squealed with surprised delight as I sank into the water in my shoes, fully dressed in the dismantled black suit I’d worn all day. Immediately, she wrapped her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist, plastering my clothed form to hers.