Read Online Brazing (Forged in Fire #2) by Rachel Higginson, Lila Felix - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Rachel Higginson, Lila Felix
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damn skirt.”
That made me exceedingly happy.
“Not a fan of bad-nineties-rap? Or were you just disappointed that you’ll never rap as well as me?” I pulled back my arms because he’d started to look a little panicky and I wasn’t kidding before, I really didn’t want him to die on me. That would be so bad for my afterlife.
“Who are you, Tatum Halloway? And what did you do with the girl I used to know?” He looked at me with a mixture of awe and confusion and something deeper, something that looked like fear and hurt and despair. I wanted to smooth all those rough lines on his handsome face and promise him that she was still in me somewhere, that I hadn’t completely lost the once-innocent-and-naïve-tomboy I used to be.
But that wasn’t entirely true. I’d done everything in my power to erase that little girl’s virtue from my soul and I’d replaced her with a free spirit that knew exactly who she was and what she wanted. There had been nothing wrong with that good little girl, but there had been a hell of a lot of bad in the girl in between that one and this one. And after that, there had been a hell of a lot of growing up before I’d become the girl I am today.
It wasn’t that I mourned my lost innocence, but I wasn’t ignorant enough to believe I could go back. Life had happened in between then and now. A lot of life. A lot of scary, eye-opening life that had forced me to mature and demanded I dig down deep and figure out exactly who I am. So I embraced this “me.” I stepped into this skin and decided I never wanted to leave. Maybe I would mature, maybe I would become wiser and more experienced, but I would never give up who I was or who I wanted to be. Not ever again.
So to Bridger, I said, “Obviously, I killed her and then fed her body to the pigs.” He blanched at my morbid reply and I started giggling all over again. For being such a downer, he made me laugh constantly. I swatted his chest for letting my candidness bother him. “She grew up, Bridger Wright. Same with the obnoxious little boy you used to be. Life happened and we stopped being those silly kids and started being us, who we are today.”
“And you’re just happy with who you are today, aren’t you?” He seemed mildly amused by that fact.
And cocky because he knew he was right.
So, I decided it was time to throw him off balance again. “I’m pretty happy with who you are today, too.”
He all but dumped me on the floor as he tried to jump from his seat.
“Ah!” I screamed as his body moved into standing and mine slid off his lap, which had disappeared into muscular thighs bent akimbo. I flailed and headed gracelessly toward the ground.
He caught me under the armpits right before my ass landed on probably three decades of congealed cheap beer.
“Sorry,” he mumbled as he helped me to stand.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” I told him as soon as we were as eye-to-eye as we could ever be. He was so tall that I had to crane my neck up to look at him.
He snorted. “You didn’t scare me.”
“You all but threw me off your lap! Am I just that repugnant?”
He snorted again and his eyes darted down to my little red skirt- that had ridden up higher than it should have. Oops . I smoothed it down and raised an eyebrow at him.
“You’re not repugnant, Darlin,’” he said in a deeper-than-usual tone. He kept his eyes focused on mine this time, without another inappropriate glance. We stared at each other, locked in some kind of unspoken staring contest. Somehow this was more intimate than anything else that had happened tonight. This burned into me as hot as fire and flickered with some secret of his that he would never tell me. A secret so deeply buried, I wondered if I would ever find out.
This time the tremble started in my ankles and slid upward over my thighs and across my belly. I shook out my curls to hide my reaction, but the shade of red his face turned made focusing on anything but his lips extra
That made me exceedingly happy.
“Not a fan of bad-nineties-rap? Or were you just disappointed that you’ll never rap as well as me?” I pulled back my arms because he’d started to look a little panicky and I wasn’t kidding before, I really didn’t want him to die on me. That would be so bad for my afterlife.
“Who are you, Tatum Halloway? And what did you do with the girl I used to know?” He looked at me with a mixture of awe and confusion and something deeper, something that looked like fear and hurt and despair. I wanted to smooth all those rough lines on his handsome face and promise him that she was still in me somewhere, that I hadn’t completely lost the once-innocent-and-naïve-tomboy I used to be.
But that wasn’t entirely true. I’d done everything in my power to erase that little girl’s virtue from my soul and I’d replaced her with a free spirit that knew exactly who she was and what she wanted. There had been nothing wrong with that good little girl, but there had been a hell of a lot of bad in the girl in between that one and this one. And after that, there had been a hell of a lot of growing up before I’d become the girl I am today.
It wasn’t that I mourned my lost innocence, but I wasn’t ignorant enough to believe I could go back. Life had happened in between then and now. A lot of life. A lot of scary, eye-opening life that had forced me to mature and demanded I dig down deep and figure out exactly who I am. So I embraced this “me.” I stepped into this skin and decided I never wanted to leave. Maybe I would mature, maybe I would become wiser and more experienced, but I would never give up who I was or who I wanted to be. Not ever again.
So to Bridger, I said, “Obviously, I killed her and then fed her body to the pigs.” He blanched at my morbid reply and I started giggling all over again. For being such a downer, he made me laugh constantly. I swatted his chest for letting my candidness bother him. “She grew up, Bridger Wright. Same with the obnoxious little boy you used to be. Life happened and we stopped being those silly kids and started being us, who we are today.”
“And you’re just happy with who you are today, aren’t you?” He seemed mildly amused by that fact.
And cocky because he knew he was right.
So, I decided it was time to throw him off balance again. “I’m pretty happy with who you are today, too.”
He all but dumped me on the floor as he tried to jump from his seat.
“Ah!” I screamed as his body moved into standing and mine slid off his lap, which had disappeared into muscular thighs bent akimbo. I flailed and headed gracelessly toward the ground.
He caught me under the armpits right before my ass landed on probably three decades of congealed cheap beer.
“Sorry,” he mumbled as he helped me to stand.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” I told him as soon as we were as eye-to-eye as we could ever be. He was so tall that I had to crane my neck up to look at him.
He snorted. “You didn’t scare me.”
“You all but threw me off your lap! Am I just that repugnant?”
He snorted again and his eyes darted down to my little red skirt- that had ridden up higher than it should have. Oops . I smoothed it down and raised an eyebrow at him.
“You’re not repugnant, Darlin,’” he said in a deeper-than-usual tone. He kept his eyes focused on mine this time, without another inappropriate glance. We stared at each other, locked in some kind of unspoken staring contest. Somehow this was more intimate than anything else that had happened tonight. This burned into me as hot as fire and flickered with some secret of his that he would never tell me. A secret so deeply buried, I wondered if I would ever find out.
This time the tremble started in my ankles and slid upward over my thighs and across my belly. I shook out my curls to hide my reaction, but the shade of red his face turned made focusing on anything but his lips extra
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