Holding Her in Madness by Kimber S. Dawn Read Free Book Online Page B

saver.”
    “Uh huh, you’re gonna need a… a-a lifesaver...” She stops and I watch her face as her mind tries and fails to come up with something. When resignation is evident on her face, she stomps her foot against the forest floor. “Gahhhhh!”
    Kneeling over to catch my breath I’m laughing so hard, I cough. When I can finally breathe, I look up at her, still chuckling, “Lifesaver, firecracker?” Laughter bursts from me again, bouncing off the trees and forest.
    “I... Dammit!” She starts laughing with me then slides her hands over my still bent-over back and lays her head between my shoulder blades. “I started talking shit before I could come up with something good to come back with.” She’s still laughing at herself.
    But I’m not laughing anymore. That’s who the real Lil is. That is my Lil. My firecracker.
    Never afraid to laugh at herself. Never afraid to say exactly what she thinks.
    I wrap my arms around her and pick her up so we’re nose to nose and kiss her sweet mouth.
    See...y’all think you know her. But you don’t know her like I do. Lil used an ugly brush to paint herself in her story. Isn’t that how each and every one of us would do it? Or at least the honest ones would. There isn’t an honest person who wouldn’t use an ugly brush to paint their story. Remember that the next time you think you know Lillian Shaw. Remember that when you want to judge her so fucking harshly.
    I let her slide down my body, capturing her face in my hands, and lean over her to rest my forehead against hers. Closing my eyes, I whisper to her what is not on my tongue.
    I love you, firecracker.
    “Come on. We’re almost there, babe.” Then I grab her hand and start pulling her towards the sound of water.
    “I haven’t been this way before. Allen and Jason always went that other way.” She’s still walking but trying to point behind her towards the direction of the house yet remain on her feet.
    Damn, she’s cute as hell.
    “Well, you’re gonna love coming to the woods with a man instead of some boys, baby. You just wait.”
    We start heading up the last hill and her mouth starts up again. “Pssh... I have been in the woods most of my life. Me and Allen stayed in the woods when we...”
    We hit the top of the hill and Lil hits her brakes. So does her mouth. When I look back at her, her jaw is hanging open and her eyes are as big as saucers.
    “Ain’t never been woods like this though, has it, firecracker?” I chuckle and strip my shirt off right before I haul ass towards the water, grasp the rope, and swing like a motherfucker, flipping and landing ass-first in the pond.
    When I break the water’s surface, a shout escapes my chest, “WOOHOO! Fuck yeah!” I tread water for a minute, wiping the water from my eyes, then look around for Lil. “Baby, you changing?”
    “Yeah!” I hear from behind the duck-stand-slash-wooden-pond-diving-board. Then her blond head pops up from behind the little wall. “Shit, is this damn thing safe?” She’s chewing her lower lip to hell and back, and her brows are furrowed as she looks around, uncertain all of a sudden of her choice in dressing rooms.
    I laugh. “Yeah, it’s safe. I jump from it all the time! Come on. Jump to me!”
    “Hell no!” She glances back towards the ladder behind her and shifts her feet around, testing the wood’s strength.
    Come on, firecracker. Come on.
    Her head comes up and she has a smile from one ear to the other. Her fucking eyes are lit up like a blue fire. “You don’t think I’ll jump, do ya?”
    Baby, I know you’ll jump — as soon as you get out of that head of yours. And I’ll fucking catch you every single time too.
    “Nah, you won’t jump.” I splash towards her and tease like I’m turning around to swim away.
    BOOM!
    She lands behind me a split second before I feel her little razorblade nails rake down my back from my shoulders to my waist and grasp hold of my swim trunks, yanking them down in a