by Aubrey Watts
As soon as I arrived home I collapsed in bed.
I was awoken a few hours later by the rain, which came down in violent sheets and showed no signs of relenting anytime soon. I sighed and tried to fall back asleep but a heavy knock on my front door jolted me upwards.
I glanced over at the clock. It was almost midnight. Whoever was showing up at my doorstep this late at night better have a damn good reason.
I padded out of bed and across my unpolished floor, which squeaked beneath my feet. My heart beat hard against my ribcage as I approached the front door. The second knock was even louder than the first and a lump surfaced in my throat. I turned on the porch light with a shaking hand and balanced myself on the tips of my toes, trying my best to get a look out the peephole.
It was no use. The rain had done its job of blurring out the dark figure looming on the other side. I undid both locks but kept the skinny silver chain secured as I peered outside. The fluorescent porch light casted a glow on a pair of worn leather boots covered in mud. I looked up and squinted through the rain.
Anders Orsen stood in front of me; his sable hair sticking to his battered face as beads of water trailed down his chiseled jaw. His dark eyes bore against mine and I immediately felt vulnerable in his presence.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” he spoke up, darting his tongue over his chapped lips, “can you just let me in for a second?”
I gripped the doorknob until my knuckles flushed of color and thought it over for a few moments. The voice in the back of my head told me to slam the door in his face and return to bed. He was a convicted felon after all. But I was too intrigued to turn him away. I also couldn’t help but felt sorry for him after my conversation with Liam.
With a deep sigh, I shut the door and undid the chain. Luna always said I was too trusting and maybe she was right. If he was here to kill me, I sure was making it pretty easy for him.
“So…what do you want?” I demanded, stepping aside to let him in. The inside of my mouth was still sticky from sleep and my words came out thicker than intended. “How did you even know where I lived?”
He shrugged off his weathered leather jacket and stepped forward, his large frame towering over mine. He was at least a head taller than his brother. I swallowed hard and searched around for something, anything, I could use to defend myself if it got to that.
“I found you in the yellow pages,” he said coolly, keeping his eyes trained on mine, “Liam told me your name. There ain’t too many Venus’ in Poulsbo.”
“Oh…”
“I wanted to apologize,” he continued, waving a hand at me.
“Really?”
“Yeah.” He nodded slowly. “For how I treated you at the hospital. It wasn’t right.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Well I appreciate that. But you couldn’t have waited until morning?”
“Yeah…” He rubbed the back of his neck and cleared his throat. “I was only just released. They kept me on a suicide watch for twenty-four hours on account of how it looked…”
“Like you were trying to kill yourself,” I clarified, getting right to the point.
“Right.”
“Well?” I questioned, raising an eyebrow at him. “Were you?”
He flinched and looked away from me, running a hand through his wet hair. “Nah,” he breathed, shifting feet. “It was an accident.”
“Right,” I said after a few seconds. That was a lie I was quite familiar with. “An accident…”
Feeling uneasy in the dark with him, I entered the living room and turned on the lamp next to the couch. “Not so fast,” I spoke as he tried to follow me. I nodded at his feet. “Take those off. I don’t want mud getting everywhere.”
He nodded and did as I instructed, setting his heavy boots down beside the door. “Nice place,” he commented, lingering in the doorway behind me. “A little bare but still nice.”
“Thanks,” I called out to him as I entered my bathroom and grabbed a towel, tossing it to him. “Look, you can sleep on my couch for the night but you need to leave first thing in the morning.”
“I appreciate the hospitality,” he said, taking a step toward me, “but I wasn’t planning on staying.”
“Well its pretty bad out there,” I said, nodding out the window. A shiny bike was parked behind my car. “I don’t think it’s safe for you to be driving that in this weather…”
“Well alright.” He smiled and peeled his wet shirt over his head, revealing a perfectly tone abdomen and tough, tight muscles that rippled as he adjusted himself on my couch. “If you insist.”
He was covered in tattoos and raised scars that told a story of their own. His eyes trailed their way down my form and his full lips curled upwards, revealing two slight dimples in his cheeks. His face had a sort of effeminate quality about it that was different than his brothers. I swallowed hard and averted my gaze. He was a work of art. They both were—just in completely different ways.
Something about the way he was looking at me made me draw in a sharp breath. “Well…goodnight then…” I managed awkwardly, entering my bedroom as his gaze burned against my back.
The night was heavy.
I told myself it was accidental when he ended up in bed beside me. That it didn’t mean anything. But I couldn’t pretend not to enjoy the way his body felt against mine. He fucked me slowly and tenderly, in time with the thunder that boomed outside, his movements slow and rhythmic and his eyes never leaving mine.
No one had ever touched me that way before.
Our limbs tangled and his hands roamed all over me. not touching any one part of me for too long, and I could feel his heart beating hard against his chest in time with my own. When it was over, we collapsed in a sweaty heap and he lit a cigarette.
“Where did these come from?” I whispered into the darkness, trailing my fingers over the scars on his chest as he flinched. “The accident?”
We were so close together that our faces were touching. He brushed a hand over my cheek and traced circles over my flesh, causing me to shiver. The sliver of moonlight leaking through the crooked blinds in my window illuminated his face. He was bruised from head to toe but somehow still handsome.
He almost seemed like an illusion, something ethereal and impalpable, and I had to pinch myself as a reminder that this was really happening.
He didn’t answer right away. His eyes flickered downwards and he drew in a sharp breath as he studied me, taking slow drags of the burning cigarette between his fingers. His naked body was warm and sweaty against mine and tiny bumps surfaced on my flesh as he caressed my hair away from my face. He smelled like nicotine and cologne—and something else—something earthy. It occurred to me then that he probably hadn’t showered since the incident at the bridge.
“I spent some time in Afghanistan,” he answered after awhile, his voice thick and languid. His forehead scrunched and his brows knit together as he pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, catching my fingers in his own and brushing his thumb across my palm. “I got little pieces of metal wedged in every part of me. Shrapnel. Makes walking through airport scanners tough.”
His deep laughter softened the moment.
“Oh,” I said quietly, resting my head against his chest. I thought of his wife and swallowed hard. I considered telling him about my meeting with his brother but ultimately thought better of it. “You’ve been through a lot…”
The only noise was our unsteady breathing and the soft hum of the television on low in the living room. He shrugged and ashed his cigarette in the ashtray beside my bed, rolling over on his side to look down at me. The only thing I could make out behind the soft glow of his smoke was his eyes, dark and glimmering. “What about you?” he questioned, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.
“Me?”
“You live here alone and never bothered to unpack.” He nodded at the boxes lined up along my wall. “You don’t wear your wedding ring anymore...”
I licked my lips and searc
hed for a response as my heart hammered against my chest. He was just as intuitive as his brother. “You drink,” he added.
“Is it really that obvious?”
“Nah,” he answered quietly, “I just know an addict when I see one.”
I wasn’t sure whether or not I should have been offended.
“What about these ones?” I questioned, wetting my lips and changing the subject as I trailed my fingers down the raised scars on the insides of his arms. “Where did these come from?”
He swallowed hard and his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. He met my gaze and a smile etched its way across his face. I pretended like I didn’t notice the hollowness behind it. He kissed me and I could taste his answer on his tongue.
His lips were soft and electrifying. He pinned me against the bed by my wrists, shifting on top of me, his calloused hands warm as they crawled their way up my bare stomach. His fingers grazed the pulse point just below my earlobe and I shivered, basking in the fleeting tenderness of the action.
I could taste myself on his tongue and his nails left behind half-moon imprints in my flesh. He managed to find a way to make being rough feel gentle. When he pulled away from me, I touched my bottom lip with a trembling hand and tore my gaze from his.
When I awoke the next morning, it all seemed like a dream, but his balled up shirt on my floor told me that it wasn’t one. I found him sitting shirtless at my kitchen table behind a box of cereal, shoveling soggy yellow flakes into his mouth as he flipped through my mail.
“Hey,” I spoke up from the doorway, pacing forward and snatching it from his hands, “that’s kind of private don’t you think?”
He laughed and raised an eyebrow at me, nodding at my scanty attire. I looked down. I was only wearing a pair of cotton boy shorts and my bra. How had I managed to leave my room without putting on my robe? I tried to cover myself in a feeble attempt at modesty, but it was no use, so I slid down into the empty chair across from him instead.
He continued eating and I studied him. Milk dripped from his mouth and he wiped his hand over his lips, meeting eyes with me. “What?” he questioned, raising a thick brow at me and smiling, “do I have something on my face?”
“No…” I blushed and looked away from him, pouring myself a glass of orange juice as a distraction. I kicked myself for not doing actual grocery shopping when I was at the store. The inside of my fridge was almost completely barren and he had used up the last of the milk.
He continued eating without restraint and his messy hair fell in loose strands against his face. He wasn’t refined, not in the slightest, but there was something about him that offered a certain appeal. His biceps flexed every time he lifted his spoon to his mouth and I swallowed hard, trying my best not to notice.
I thought briefly of Stephen and Liam. Anders wasn’t anything like either of them. If the tattoos that covered his back and arms weren’t a good indicator of that, the discarded pile of clothing on my bedroom floor was. The fabric was riddled with tears and stains and had certainly seen better days. But maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. Maybe different was exactly what I needed right now.
Chapter 15
—
“You’re glowing,” Stephen spoke up from the other side of his heavy oak desk. He had asked me to meet him at his office and I obliged, wanting to get the whole thing over with.
“Thank you,” I muttered, tucking a loose strand of hair away from my face as a soft blush crept its way over my cheeks. Today my façade ended. Today I got my life back. And while that realization engulfed me, I was too distracted to be excited.
Too much transpired in the days leading up to this. But Stephen didn’t know about any of it. He didn’t know about the incident on the bridge. He didn’t know about the intricacies of my breakfast with Liam or my heated night with Anders. He didn’t know a thing.
“So this is it then?” I spoke up, meeting eyes with him.
Stephen nodded and slid me a stack of freshly printed paperwork. His handsome face was tinged with conflicting emotion. I glared down at it and picked up my pen with an unsteady hand, flipping through it. Every word blurred together in front of me. There was a lot of technical mumbo jumbo but the message was clear.
“I’m sorry,” Stephen said for the third time since I arrived. His desk was the only thing separating us but we might as well have been light years apart. I always expected to feel something when this moment finally came. Anything. But instead I felt an odd sense of emptiness.
“Don’t be,” I spoke up, letting my pen dance over the dotted lines on each page. The last thing I needed was his pity. “We agreed that this was mutual didn’t we?”
“I know,” he managed, “but you never deserved any of this.”
He extended a hand to me but I cringed away from it and capped my pen, sliding the signed paperwork back to him. Just like that it was done. Five years of marriage dissolved with a few quick signatures.
I reached for my purse and stood up, pulling it over my shoulder as I turned for the door. I was exhausted—both physically and mentally—but I still had to meet Luna and her new boyfriend for breakfast.
I looked back at Stephen. He was staring down at his hands with a perplexed look on his face. He didn’t deserve it but some small part of me felt sorry for him. He wasn’t anything like the Orsen brothers.
He, unlike them, was the kind of man who you could forget…
“So when can we be expecting him?” I questioned, pulling my hair into a ponytail.
Luna shrugged and grabbed her mug of coffee, blowing on it and taking a brief sip. She stirred a packet of sugar into it and tucked a loose strand of freshly dyed hair behind her ear. She still smelled like ammonia, and the color wasn’t natural either, It was an intense platinum blonde that was a far cry from the fire engine red look she was previously sporting.
We were at our usual place—a quiet little coffee house just outside of town. I was starving after the events that had unfolded the previous night, so I ordered an apple turn over with my latte and devoured it practically in one bite. “Soon,” she answered, flipping through the text messages in her phone, “he’s stuck in traffic.”
“So are you going to tell me this guys name or should I guess?” I questioned.
Luna rolled her eyes and laughed into her palm. “I told you. I don’t want to give away too many details. It’s still fresh…were not even dating yet or anything…I don’t want to jinx it…”
“What?” I sat up straighter and shook my head. All I knew about Luna’s new boyfriend was that he wasn’t exactly what you’d call an upstanding citizen. “Come on. You can’t be that superstitious.”
She shrugged and took a sip of her coffee. “I’m not. Its just…his name was in the papers…I’m sure you’ve heard it…I just don’t want you to get any pre-conceived notions about him. He’s amazing, I promise.”
She was swooning.
“Well alright.” I shook my head and rubbed my neck, wincing as my hand grazed over the love bite hidden beneath my scarf. I thought of Anders and blushed. “Have you told mom about him?”
Luna chuckled and picked a piece off of her blueberry muffin, shoving it into her mouth. “Are you kidding?”
“Right.” I laughed. “Sorry—stupid question.”
A lapse of silence fell over us.
“I met him at one of her group therapy sessions. I was meeting her for lunch and he was just leaving when I arrived,” Luna spoke up, seeming to read my mind. “Can you imagine what that conversation would be like? —‘Hey mom I’m dating an ex-con from your group but he’s a really great guy at heart’. Yeah right.”
“Oh come on,” I interrupted, shaking my head, “but she’s just so understanding.”
“Ha. Right.”
A soft ding from across the coffee shop signaled someone’s entrance. I took a long drink of my tea and glanced out the window. The rain had died down to a light drizzle overnight but the sky was still a depressing shade of murky grey.
>
“What about you? Luna questioned, poking me in the shoulder. “You’re totally sporting the ‘I just got laid’ glow.”
I blushed and shook my head, biting down on my bottom lip. She knew me too well. “No,” I said, waving my hand in the air. “Okay…so maybe I did. But it was just a one time thing…I think.”
“Venus.” Fiona scoffed, adjusting in her chair. She took another bite of her muffin, keeping her eyes trail on mine. “You bad bad girl! I wasn’t even considering the fact that it wasn’t with Stephen! You better spill!”
“It’s no big deal.” I laughed. “Seriously. I don’t even know how it happened…it just did…”
“Oh come on,” she retorted, pointing a finger at me. “You know as well as I do that sex outside of marriage is never not a big—” She glanced out the window and jumped to her feet. “That’s him!” she spoke up, rushing for the door without finishing her train of thought.
I followed her gaze and sucked in a sharp breath as my face drained of color.
This couldn’t be happening.
I couldn’t take my eyes off of the scene unfolding on the other side of the glass. My heartbeat came to an abrupt halt in my chest as dread washed its way through me. Everything slowed to an abrupt stop around me. Was the world really this small or did I just have really shitty luck?
I sat up straighter and tried my best to regain my composure as Luna reentered the coffee shop with the man close behind. They approached our table and he stiffened as soon as he laid eyes on me, a million different emotions flashing across his face. I stared at them both without flinching, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing at the irony of it all.
“Venus,” Luna said in a singsong voice. “This is Anders.”
“Anders…this my sister Venus.”
Thank You!
Thank you for purchasing Trouble (Orsen Brothers #1). If you enjoyed this first book in the series and are interested in seeing how everything pans out—please leave me a review on Amazon to let me know your thoughts. Book #2 will be available soon and will be from Anders and Liam’s perspectives. I love keeping my readers happy! As a gift from me to you—please enjoy this free copy of the first book in my Kimball Brothers series, available below.
