Letting Go (Dangerous Love)

by Elle Keating

  Chapter Eight

  Brennan

  Brennan rolled over and looked at the empty side of the bed. It wasn’t a strange sight. He always woke up alone. He never brought women back to his place, as he didn’t want to deal with the morning after. He would rather be on the woman’s turf, free to fuck and leave. It was what he knew, what he had been comfortable with his entire adult life.

  And he had been called out. Anna unintentionally brought every insecurity, every hidden desire to the surface and it scared him. Yes, he wanted to fuck her but he wanted more, more conversations like the ones they had shared at the coffee house three nights ago. More walks, the kind that were filled with innocent chitchat and comfortable silence, ones in which he struggles to not reach out and hold her hand. He had felt like a teenager on that walk home. The entire time he had warred with himself, wanting to hold her hand, but not knowing if she would appreciate that.

  He had learned a lot that night. That her mother and her only sibling had passed away. Why she wanted to be a doctor… and that she wouldn’t be celebrating Thanksgiving with family. Instead she would be working. He grabbed his phone off the nightstand. He had several messages from his family. They were going back and forth with what they were planning to bring to Thanksgiving dinner. There wasn’t a single text from Anna, which wasn’t a surprise. He had proven her right. He hadn’t called or texted her.

  She wasn’t like other women. She hadn’t fallen at his feet and was never going to. She had a mind of her own, drive and an uncanny way of making him feel inferior… guilty. It would only get worse. What happened when she learned the truth, that he had never been in a relationship, that he had been with more women than he could count, that women had been a vice for over a decade? And then there was the fighting. He imagined what she would think if she knew that he participated in underground fighting matches at least once a month to take the edge off. He may not take illegal drugs, but he was an addict and the way he self-medicated was nothing to be proud of.

  Brennan shot off a text to his family confirming that he would be bringing a veggie. He had been playing around with a particular recipe, an array of roasted vegetables with a maple glaze. It would complement turkey perfectly. His sister responded with a turkey emoji and a

  “Can’t wait to see you!”

  He had seen Carina at the football game over a week ago, but they hadn’t the chance to sit back and shoot the shit. He smiled and texted back:

  “Right back atcha, kiddo. See you soon!”

  His phone dinged for the next several minutes, his family chiming in that they were all looking forward to tomorrow. He tossed his phone on the bed and made his way to the shower. Normally he was in and out, anxious to get his day started, but as he stood under the shower head he let his mind drift to dangerous places, to Anna. And he instantly grew hard.

  With Anna on his mind and the fact that he hadn’t been with a woman in over two weeks, a record for him, he knew this wouldn’t take long. He fisted his shaft and stroked himself. Jerking off wasn’t something he did that often, as he usually sought relief from the real thing. He closed his eyes and told himself not to picture her. That strategy backfired, of course, and she was all he could see. Her standing before him, water streaming down her naked body, those lips turned up almost forming a smirk, and those eyes. They saw right through him, exposing him. She fell to her knees and she met his gaze. He stroked harder. He was already close and Fantasy Anna hadn’t even touched him yet.

  “Do you want me, Brennan?” she said, her voice breathy.

  “Please…” he begged. He never begged, never had to ask a woman to do anything, which made this particular fantasy risky. She licked her lips and ran her tongue down the side of his cock. “Anna,” he moaned. She swirled her tongue around the tip and then in one greedy motion she took him to the back of her throat and he grunted. His hand pumped harder, and his balls tingled. In his mind, she held them in her palms, giving them attention as she sucked him. He latched onto her hair and fucked her face. He looked down just in time to see her hand slide between her legs and she moaned around his cock. “That’s it. Come with me, baby.” She whimpered as her fingers feverously rubbed her clit and they were both there, coming so hard.

  She swallowed every drop and looked up at him. “Mine,” she said.

  His eyes shot open and he stared at the ropes of cum on his shower wall. He had never wanted to belong to any woman. Never wanted to hear that word pass the lips of any lover before. But now…

  ***

  Brennan pulled up to his parents’ house and was thankful that it was just going to be his immediate family tonight. He loved his cousins, aunts, and uncles, but he wasn’t in the mood for a huge crowd. It was going to be tough enough to fake it tonight, to be his typical smart-assed jovial self. He walked into his home and was immediately blasted with scents that took him back to his childhood. A fire was burning in the fireplace, rosemary and sage came wafting in from the kitchen. Some things never changed and he was grateful for that.

  His mother spotted him first. Leaning over the stove with a wooden spoon in hand, he knew what she was cooking. She had hosting down to a science. Which meant that if she was working on the gravy, she was on schedule. Brennan set his tray of veggies on the island the same time she placed her spoon on the counter and gave her a hug.

  “Now all my children are here,” she said, cupping his face. This woman was the most selfless woman he had ever met. He still couldn’t believe that she and Patrick had taken that leap of faith and adopted him and his brothers, not knowing how damaged they were, what repercussions may lie ahead. They just brought them into their family, consequences be damned.

  His dad was next in line and pulled him in for a hug. For a man in his sixties, he was inhumanly strong and almost knocked the wind out of him. Even though he had retired from the police force years ago, he hadn’t lost it. “Want to help me carve the turkeys?”

  “Put me to work,” Brennan said. He rolled up his sleeves and washed his hands. His mom grabbed the pan of veggies he brought and disappeared into the other room. His dad handed him a knife and they both got to work.

  “Restaurant managing without you, I heard.” Brennan glanced at his dad. “Jack told us all about his guys’ weekend at Uncle Brennan’s.”

  Brennan laughed. “Yeah, hired myself a cook. He’s pretty good. Don’t feel like I need to be there every waking minute anymore.”

  “So you have more free time on your hands. How ya liking that?”

  Brennan kept his head down, pretending to focus on the task at hand, though he could carve a turkey blindfolded. “Allows me to spend time with my soon-to-be nephew. Speaking of him, have Gabe and Devan set a date yet? Think they’ll get married at the winery?”

  He heard a knife settle on the counter and he looked at his dad. Fuck. Was he that easy to read? “You can always talk to me, son.”

  He set his knife down and grabbed the counter with both hands. “I don’t know how to say this without sounding selfish. I appreciate all that I have, my family, my career, my home, the ability to pretty much buy whatever I want, go where I want… but it’s…”

  “Not enough,” his dad said. Brennan turned, walked to the sink, and stared out the window. Peyton and Luke were sitting on the patio snuggling by the fire pit. Gabe and Jack were having a football catch while Devan looked on smiling. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not surprised that you are the last.” Brennan glanced at his dad. “You three boys have always handled things differently. Gabe was the quiet one. Luke was often reserved, always the big brother, never wanting to burden us with his problems. But you… you deal with things the way you always have, with a smile on your face, an off-color joke.”

  His mother walked in at that moment and he did his best to dig down deep and plaster on a smile. He picked up his knife and started to carve his bird. His father did the same. “Just waiting on you two,” his mother said. She transferred the gravy that had been simmerin
g on the stove to two gravy boats, gave him a wink and was out the door.

  “I’m always here for you.”

  “I know, Dad.” They finished in silence, which Brennan was grateful for.

  Three hours later, most of his family was working on dessert or drinking wine by the fire. Jack looked like he was going to fall asleep in his pumpkin pie. That boy could eat. Never saw a seven-year-old pack it in like that. Lucrezia couldn’t stop complimenting him on his appetite. Gabe picked up on the fact that Jack was moments away from falling into a food coma and called it a night. The others followed within the hour.

  Brennan checked his phone, telling himself that he was just curious about the time, but then his thumb tapped on the messages. Nothing. Brennan went to the kitchen and reached for a bottle of water from the fridge. “You’re not staying the night?”

  Brennan usually slept over on Thanksgiving night, but right now he felt like the walls were caving in on him. “I… uh… I’m meeting up with a friend,” he said.

  His mom stared at him a second too long and then she said, “I’ll make you up a doggy bag before you go… for you and your friend.” There was no way he could tell her no. No one turned down Lucrezia McGinnis’s leftovers. It would be an insult. Within seconds, she had pulled out pans of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, and the maple glazed veggies from the fridge and placed them on the island. She was in her element and he watched her stuff a little bit of everything into multiple Tupperware containers.

  Brennan made his way to the foyer closet, retrieved his coat and said goodbye to his dad. He just gave him a knowing nod. His mom appeared from the kitchen and walked him to the door. She handed him the bag of food and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

  “I hope she enjoys it,” she said. There was no way his father would have told her about the conversation they had in the kitchen. Patrick McGinnis didn’t operate that way. Which meant only one thing. His mom had seen right through him and knew that her boy was struggling.

  Chapter Nine

  Anna

  Anna stared at her Wawa hot turkey sandwich. After being on her feet for the last eight hours she didn’t have it in her to walk the aisles of the grocery store. So Wawa it was. She took a bite and chased it with a sip of wine. A knock at the door had her glancing at her microwave clock. Who would be coming around at eleven o’clock at night? Anna went to the door and peeked through the peep hole. What the hell? She opened the door and stared at the man she had spent almost a year with.

  “Tom?”

  “Hi, Anna.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  Tom had contacted her a few months back and asked her to send him her new address. He had been cleaning his apartment and found her necklace tucked between the cushions of his couch. She had been devastated when she first discovered that the necklace her mom had given her on her twelfth birthday was missing and spent days tearing apart her own apartment looking for it.

  In the same text exchange, he had asked her how she was doing. Instead of saying she was fine, she made the mistake of telling him that her father had recently passed away. In typical Tom fashion, he tried to be supportive and asked her if she needed anything. But Anna did what she did best and shut him out. She responded with a ‘thank you’ and that was the last time they had spoken.

  “I was in the area, and it’s Thanksgiving. I thought I’d stop on over… see how you’re doing.”

  “Um… come in,” she said, gesturing for him to enter. He stepped into her foyer and she closed the door behind him.

  “I didn’t know if you would be working or if… well, with your family gone…”

  “I just finished my shift, actually.”

  He looked past her and she followed his gaze. “Is that your Thanksgiving dinner?”

  “Uh… yeah,” she said, prompting an immediate scowl from him. “Want half? I can never finish an entire Wawa hoagie.”

  “Um, sure.” She went to the cabinet, found a plate, and transferred half the hoagie onto it. On her way to the table she grabbed two beers from the fridge and they both sat down at her kitchen table. “I don’t remember you having any family around here. I thought they all lived in the city or upstate New York.”

  “Yeah, they do. I, uh…” His eyes darted away and he blushed.

  “You’ve met someone,” she said. It was written all over his handsome face. If men could glow, he was doing that right now. And it sent waves of happiness and envy through her. She wasn’t jealous that he had found someone. He deserved to be happy. He was a good man, and if she was being honest with herself, she knew she could never have made him happy.

  “I didn’t come to throw that in your face. Maya’s family lives a few towns over. After dinner, I asked her if she minded that come see you. With your dad gone, I didn’t know if you were spending the holiday alone…”

  “Maya,” she said, cutting him off. She didn’t want to focus on how very alone she was tonight. At least she had Mack. She looked down and found him begging at her feet like the ill-mannered little man that he was.

  “Yeah, we met six months ago.”

  “And she knows you and I… dated?”

  “Yeah, I told her all about you.”

  “She sounds like a really understanding, very secure woman.”

  “She is,” he said with a huge smile.

  “I’m really happy for you, Tom.” They talked for awhile, mostly about their jobs. He was different, but the same. The tension that often accompanied their conversations was missing, tension she often created. When they had been together, seemingly benign conversations often led to serious ones, conversations about their possible future together. She knew she had hurt him every time he brought it up, that she was never ready to settle down and talk about the M word. They exchanged funny stories and he was happy to recall the time they had gone out to dinner and she had spilled red wine all over her crème dress.

  “You’re different.”

  “How so?” she asked, taking a sip of her beer.

  “You seem more settled, I guess,” he said. When they had been together, she could never fully relax. Her mind had always been racing, never would allow herself to stop and breathe, unwind. Moving here, spending time with her dad before he had died taught her what was really important, and she told herself as she buried him that day that she desperately needed to work on a few things.

  There was a knock at the door and Tom rose to his feet.

  “I’m popular tonight.”

  “Expecting someone?”

  “No,” she said. And just like she had done a half hour ago, she went to the door and peered out the peep hole. “Holy shit,” she whispered.

  “Everything okay?” Tom said from behind.

  “Yeah… it’s just my neighbor,” she said. “I’ll… uh… it’s fine. Go grab another beer. This won’t take long.” Tom stared at her for a few seconds but then did as she said and disappeared into the kitchen. Anna took a deep breath and opened the door.

  Standing on her stoop, a bag dangling from his fingers he said, “Hey, I know it’s late, but my mom packed up some food from Thanksgiving dinner… I didn’t know if you’ve eaten…” His eyes wandered into her home and she looked over her shoulder. Tom was standing in the entranceway to her kitchen, a beer in his hands, his eyes firmly on Brennan. “Sorry, I didn’t know you had… company.” He thrust the bag into her hands before making his way down her steps and sidewalk. She set the bag on the table next to her front door and followed him and was immediately pounded by arctic air and snow flurries.

  “Brennan?”

  He froze in place. With his head bowed he asked, “Are you with him?”

  “Why are you here?” She gathered her courage, summoned the anger she had felt when he hadn’t called her like he said he would and walked over to him until there were only inches between them. “You proved me right. You got what you wanted.”

  He turned and faced her, his hands clenched at his sides. “I go
t what I wanted?”

  “I said yes and went out with you. You won. You proved that you could get me to go out with you. Congratulations.”

  “I won,” he said, shaking his head.

  “I don’t have time for games, Brennan.”

  She turned and was walking to her front door when he grabbed her hand and spun her into his arms. “This is not a game.” His lips crashed against hers and he groaned. Time stood still, and nothing else mattered. Not the cold air that should be freezing her sock-covered feet, not the fact that he was bad news. No, all she cared about, what she wanted was more, his lips, his touches. “Does this feel like a fucking game?”

  No, it felt like she was being devoured and she whimpered. He broke free, leaving her swaying on the sidewalk. He thrust his fingers through his hair as he looked at her like he couldn’t believe what just happened. His typical sexy grin and glint in his eye was gone and he just appeared confused, maybe even a little scared. Her fingers trembled as they brushed her lips, lips that could still feel him, taste him. He looked past her again, and she saw Tom staring at them from the bay window.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. It was a mistake.”

  Before she could respond, formulate a single word, he was in his truck and speeding off down the street. Anna stumbled back into the house, her head in a fog.

  “Just a neighbor, huh?” Tom asked. She hugged herself as she struggled to meet her ex’s gaze. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” she said, convincing no one, including herself. He walked over to her.

  “Anna, we were together for almost a year and I can honestly say that you never looked at me like you did that guy out there.” He lifted her chin and she met his stare. “He means something to you.” His fingers fell away and he pulled her into a hug. It felt good, not in a romantic way, but in a I’m-here-for-you-no-matter-what kind of way. “I care about you, Anna. Always have and always will. That is why I’m here. Something told me that I needed to reconnect with you.” She stepped out of their embrace. She didn’t know she was crying until she felt a tear wind its way down her cheek. “Tomorrow I’m taking you to dinner… to make up for that shitty ass sandwich you and I ingested tonight.”