Page 234 of Forged in the Fire
“That’s because you’re the strongest woman I know. Most beautiful. Kind and fierce and untamed. Most giving, even when you know it’s going to cost you. Willing to do anything for the ones you love even when they don’t come close to deserving that love. You’re so fucking brave through everything you’ve been through, I’m the one who’s standing here in awe. You deserve every fucking good thing in this world, Brinley Webber.”
I’d meant it to come out as a parting. A goodbye. A severing of the bond we’d forged.
Except she stepped forward.
I was slammed by a deluge of fervency.
A torrent of everything she was.
She reached out and set her palm on my cheek.
“You’re right, Silas. I do deserve every good thing in this world. The question is, are you brave enough to accept what you deserve? What’s standing right in front of you?”
FORTY-NINE
BRINLEY
There was no longertime to tiptoe around this thing. It was do or die.
So I gave him the challenge. Did he feel the same way about me as I did him? Could he see himself as a good man? Could he find himself worthy of love?
Every harsh angle of his handsome face hardened. Razors sharpening in defense.
That severe brow pinched in pain and discipline.
He growled a throaty sound and once again he rumbled my name. “Brinley.”
This one was a warning. A warning for me to back away or else I was going to be standing in the path of a broken dam.
Because I could feel it tremoring all around him.
His restraint was fracturing. The truth spinning like a vortex in his hazel eyes.
“My only job is to keep you safe, and I’ll gladly die seeing that through.” His voice was gravel.
“That’s not what I asked you.”
Grief curled through his expression. “I don’t deserve it, Brinley, I don’t deserve you. But I’ll give everything for you.”
“Except for the parts you think you’re not worthy of giving,” I whispered. “And those are the very best parts.”
“I’m not…the things I’ve done.”
“They don’t matter.”
His scoff was shallow. “But they do, Brinley. Those are the things that define us. And my definition is foul.”
A frown twisted my brow. “I don’t believe that for a second. Do you think I don’t see you?”
My fingernails scraped over the fabric of his tee. Right over the erratic thrumming of his heart.
We were swaying, barely moving in the whorls of potency that swirled in the room. Whipping around us in the same volatility as it had the first time he led me to the room above the club.
An undefined connection that had pulled between us from the get-go.
“You only see the parts I’ve shown you,” he grated.
“No, Silas, what you try to keep hidden are the good parts. But they’re there, and they keep rising to the surface no matter how hard you try to keep them concealed.”
