Brutally Beautiful(76)



Lainey’s beautiful face was the next thing I saw. Her hands were cool on my skin, bringing my eyes back into focus and her soft smooth lips against mine brought my thoughts back from the chaos of my hell. Pulling me into a seat, she put her trembling hands into mine and then she did something that nobody in this world had ever f*cking done to me. She laid her silky head against my chest, as if I were some sort of comfort to her.

Her f*cking head was on my chest and she was taking comfort in me.

Laying her head right over my heart.

All I could do was to stare down at her in wonder. Then I wrapped my arms around her so tightly that I feared I might suffocate her. We stayed there like that for hours. I could barely breathe the whole time, because I was overwhelmed with the flood of a thousand emotions that I had hidden myself from for over a decade. They all came rushing in, thickening in my throat, burning in my chest and quietly streaming from my eyes. I didn’t care who or what Lainey was, I just wanted her completely. Never in my sick life did I ever give a bit of hope about finding a person who was compatible, who could find comfort in someone as f*cking twisted as me.

Silence ate away at the hours as hope devoured my fears.

Together, with Lainey holding me up, we waited for word on Dylan.

Bree sat across from us, lost to some unnamed place, eyes saturated with tears.

We sat frozen, like empty glass jars, on the cracked leather benches of the hospital waiting room, ready to fall and shatter into sharp shards across the floor. The voices of the deputies drifted past my ears as they asked questions that I swore Lainey was not giving straight answers to. Somehow, filled Styrofoam cups of coffee appeared like magic in my hands. Bree began pacing after two hours and Lainey was the only person who could speak the scientific language those asinine doctors spoke each time they came out with updates.

I sat, unmoving; way past the hour when my coffee turned cold until a smooth outstretched hand touched my chin and lifted my head to meet with pale green eyes. “Dylan is doing well. He’s in recovery right now. He’s going to be fine.” Her fingers squeezed my chin, almost painfully, “Do you hear me, Kade? He’s fine.” Her eyes filled with thick fat tears that fell from long lashes, and her lips smiled wide.

She saved my brother’s life. Dylan is not dead.

I crushed her body against mine and sighed in relief, breathing her in. She trembled slightly in my arms and repeated her words softly, “He’s fine.”

We stayed throughout the early morning hours and the next day, until Dylan was able to have visitors and despite all of the tubes and machines, he made horrible jokes about seeing the light and getting kicked out of heaven before he could even step in. Seeing him laugh so soon after being shot was euphoric, like a kid at Christmas. The surgeons kept explaining to us how lucky he had been that the bullet in his chest hadn’t pierced a lung and that the bandages Lainey used on his arm saved it from being amputated. They couldn’t stop saying how Lainey saved his life, and she just nodded and smiled softly like it wasn’t a big deal and sat in the corner of the room quietly.

I watched her battle her eyelids to stay open; the war was a fierce one that she almost lost a number of times. Exhaustion settled over her features, and I offered to drive her car back to the trailer so she could wash up and change. She had been sitting in the emergency room covered in my brother’s blood. She had to get my brother’s blood off her. I couldn’t stand seeing her with so much blood all over her; I wanted to wash it off her myself, find her beautiful smooth skin beneath.

She didn’t fight me on it, just stood up, kissed a sleeping Dylan on the forehead, spread a blanket over Bree who was fast asleep next to his hospital bed, and trudged out of the room. As soon as her ass was in the passenger seat, she passed out cold; I even had to buckle her in.

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