7
"Did I hurt you?" It was the first time she'd stayed the night since the first night and she was hardly to blame. Last night had been... intense, he must admit. He was even afraid he had been a bit too much when he saw her massage her wrist where he held her. "I didn't mean-"
"I know," she murmured against his chest. "Don't worry about it. If you really trying to hurt me, I'd know. I know what that looks like. Besides, the women in my family are tough."
"You mean, your school teacher mom? Yea, I'm sure 8 year olds are real difficult to deal with."
She pulled away from him, her head down, and his brow furrowed at her reaction. She had never been so withdrawn before, except...
Except when he mentioned parents. "Your parents weren't really school teachers, were they?"
There were tears in her eyes when she looked back up at him and shook her head. "No," she whispered.
He always thought she was fragile, from the way she would freeze on stage to the moments when he'd catch her staring at absolutely nothing. But now, after she laid everything out about her mom being back in jail and her father being the very worst kind of man, he figured she must be the strongest person he knew to still be standing. When she finished, she sighed as though a huge burden had been lifted off her shoulders. "Do you still like me?"
He cupped the right side of her face with his hand and she leaned into it, eyes closed. "Yea, I still like you."
Her lips were soft against his and he felt her eyelashes flutter against his cheek. He peeled the blanket from her as he laid her back down. From the first night they ever spent together, there was something about her that felt... ethereal. She spoke with the same down home twang that he was used to and had her imperfections, but there were moments when he was afraid to touch her, like he would somehow ruin her or get her dirty. The curve of her waist, the flare of her hips, the silk of her unmarred skin... even after everything, he still felt like that but now, knowing that her mother had once wrapped her hands around that slender neck in a drunken rage, she felt more precious than ever.
Before he entered her, he rested on his elbow just above her and watched her closed eyes flutter open in confusion. "Beau?"
"Will you be mine?" He watched her eyes, always gentle and loving as they ran across his face, and he could feel the way the corners of his eyes crinkle as he smiled at her look of wonder. "I know now that even if I could have all the pretty girls out there, all I want is you, Chiles Stanton." He leaned his forehead down against hers. "I'm sorry I've been so stupid."
"Hey," she whispered against his lips as she wrapped a hand to the back of his head. "Don't call my man stupid."
And the smile, the smile that only she could coax out of him simply by walking into a bar, so painfully and reflexively spread across his face that he could hardly stop to kiss her.
Somehow he managed.