And after she cracked him wide open, she said, “To know if you fall, someone will be there to catch you.”
CHAPTER 54
CURITIBA PARANÁ
Adria could feel the hard tile beneath her knees. Bryson was flailing. What he had been through, what they all had been through, was traumatic. But she suspected that he had been through the worst of it.
Adria knew what it meant to look into the eyes of a monster and smile. She also knew it was something that she had spent years getting through. Years of sleepless nights and thousands of nightmares. A lifetime of minutes that she had spent alone, because Adria didn’t think she could ever trust another soul.
But she would be damned if Bryson fell to that fate.
He was stronger than her. He had reached her when no one else could, and she would do the same for him now.
“Adria, don’t,” he said above her. His voice was firm, but Adria noticed the way his breathing changed.
He was mad. Afraid. Confused.
Adria also knew that it was possible to feel all those feelings and still be turned on. And there was not a doubt in her mind that her kneeling in front of him was turning him on.
She peeked at him, innocence dawning on her face. “I will catch you, Bryson. Every time and in every way, I’ll be there.”
His breath caught, and he just stared at her.
It wasn’t a secret he was avoiding Dom-ing.
“Something happened in that house that made you afraid to be yourself,” she said, her voice soft. “But I want you back. I trust you.”
He shook his head, indecision on his face. “You don’t want to. This isn’t what I want.”
Pain flashed in Bryson’s face, and Adria started removing her shirt. Standing, she shifted out of the pants she was wearing. Lowering herself again, a chill ran through her as she knelt on the floor naked in front of Bryson.
“I trust you. Because you know the men I last knelt for and you don’t think any less of me.”
She could hear him swallow. Both of them were aware the last men she had ever knelt for was her father and Jonathan.
Ten minutes ago, she would have sworn that she never would have knelt for another man. But seeing Bryson like this. So afraid to take his power back. There was no way she was going to let Regan have that.
Bryson’s finger curled under her chin, and he tilted her face to his.
“You sure?” he said, and she saw it.
The hunger in his eyes. The need. The want.
Slowly and carefully, she pulled her lip beneath her teeth and bit down.
“I’m sure, sir,” she said.
He sucked in a breath, and she could feel his energy changing, but he said, “I’m scared about letting go?—”
“—Scared about hurting you.”
Adria found his face and said, with absolute certainty, “I’m not.”
And that was it.
Bryson took a step back, rearranging his posture before stepping in close again and unzipping his pants.
Adria’s lip curled upward in a smirk. “Why are you men always so predictable?”
