by Margaret Kay
As Sherman and Brielle walked off the elevator and into the garage, he pointed out his little red baby to Brielle. Doc walked beside them, carrying Sherman’s bags. He too was heading home. “Now remember, take it easy. Let Brielle get you drinks and food, so you don’t get up any more than you need to. You’re off work for two days. Take them to rest.”
“I promise you Doc, he’ll rest. I’m going to do everything the next two days,” Brielle promised.
“Oh, I like the sound of that,” Sherman said with a big smile.
“I said take it easy, no exertion,” Doc said.
Sherman laughed. He wouldn’t be the one exerting himself.
“And I’ll be over tomorrow afternoon to take a look at the wounds and change the bandages,” Doc said as Sherman eased behind the wheel. “But call me if you need anything before then.”
“We will,” Brielle said, and then got into the front passenger seat.
She was genuinely excited that they could leave the building. It meant Brian’s injuries were substantially healed. They were beginning their new life together, and she’d figure out what the new normal would be. Already, she’d met several women who she believed would be good friends. She had a new job, full of potential. She had Brian in her life, an unexpected relationship she hadn’t been looking for, but one that already proved to be the most significant relationship she’d ever been in.
Through the steady rainfall, she watched the route he took carefully, knowing she’d have to drive it alone soon. By the time he pulled into the driveway of his condo, a hard rain was driven sideways by the strong wind. They stepped out of the car and were soaked in the few seconds it took to get inside.
Sherman showed Brielle how to disarm the alarm system and set the mode for occupancy rather than vacancy, as it was set. He gave her his four-digit code and explained the panic code again, even though he knew Garcia would have when setting her up with building access.
“I’ve got it.” Brielle shivered in her wet clothing. “Damn, I thought it could rain hard in the bayou. I really need a warmer coat. I know it’s going to get a lot colder than this here and nothing I have back home will be warm enough.”
“Get your wet clothes off,” Sherman said, pulling at the waistband of the wet hoodie.
She didn’t argue. She pealed it over her head.
“Your jeans too,” Sherman said. He stepped towards the bathroom. “I’ll get you a towel. He dropped his wet clothes to the bathroom floor while he was in there. He came back out with a towel draped around his own shoulders, and one in his hand for her.
She took it and toweled off and then wrapped it around herself.
“Let’s go snuggle in bed. That’ll warm us both up.” He took her by the hand and led her to the bedroom. He set his gun and phone to the nightstand. “Where’s your phone? You need to have it here too.”
“It’s in my bag. I’m going to have to get used to keeping it near me.” She rushed back to the front room and grabbed her backpack. Brian pulled the covers back and sat on the bed when she returned. She placed her phone beside his on the nightstand.
“Can you help swing my legs up as I recline?”
After she helped him, she unzipped her bag and pulled her oversized, sleeping t-shirt from inside. With her back turned to Brian, she unfastened her bra and dropped it to the floor before putting the t-shirt on.
Sherman watched Brielle’s back as she removed her dark blue bra. The matching dark blue panties hugged her ass so well. Damn, if his woman wasn’t the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. He was one lucky sonofabitch! He groaned when she slid that big t-shirt on.
“What?” She asked, turning back to face him.
“Lose the shirt. Come to bed naked.”
“Brian, Doc said no exertion.”
“Come on, skin to skin will warm us fast.”
Brielle crawled up beside him, into the middle of the bed from the foot of it. She pulled the covers over them both and settled in close to him. She watched him reach to the bedside light. He turned it off, casting them in darkness. She ran her hand over his bare chest.
“You promised me when I was well enough to come home, that you’d be on top and make love with me.”
“I don’t recall it being a promise,” Brielle said.
“At least lean up here and kiss me goodnight.”
He heard her sultry chuckle as the mattress shifted and she cautiously moved up beside him. This was the first time she was lying on his left side, closest to his injuries, and he could tell she was being careful not to even bump him.
Brielle pressed her lips to his, keeping the rest of her body off him. She was surprised when his hand grasped her by the back of her neck and pulled her down onto his chest. Even in the dark, she was alert as to the location of his ribs.
“Straddle me,” he moaned. As she began to move on top of him, he added, “and lose the shirt.”
“Brian,” she began to protest.
“Baby, I’ve been waiting to hold you and feel all of you. I won’t exert myself; I promise.”
Brielle could feel the heat radiating from him and she was still chilled. She stripped her shirt away and then slowly lowered herself onto him. He pulled her head in for another lengthy kiss. Before she knew it, she was grinding herself against his shaft of steel, that was only kept out of her by their underwear, still in place.
“Let me inside you,” he whispered. “You’re not hurting me, and I’ll lay as still as I can.”
“If I hurt you, you have to tell me.”
“Baby, you’re hurting me by not taking our underclothing off. I want you so bad it’s killing me.”
Brielle laughed again. She climbed off him. “Can you raise your hips a little and I’ll slide your shorts off?”
“I’ll raise mountains if it means we’ll make love.”
“Your hips are enough.”
The actual action of him raising his hips from the mattress was a monumental effort for him. He wouldn’t let on to her how hard it had been or how painful it was. He was rewarded when she came back atop him sans panties. His right hand took in the smooth skin of her ass as her breasts pressed against his chest and her lips pressed an opened mouth kiss to his lips. Their tongues danced and dueled, and he enjoyed the lengthy kiss, knowing nothing was between them.
When she grabbed his cock and pushed herself around it, the sensation of the hot, wet, vise, was heaven. All the pain of his injuries no longer mattered. He moaned his pleasure. “God, I love you, Brielle.”
Brielle kissed him more ferociously as she moved on him. He fit perfectly inside her, filling her completely and rubbing her in all the right places. They’d only made love once, but the level of trust she had in him was something unlike she’d had in anyone ever before. He gave her his word that he’d never hurt her, and she had faith in him that he never would. It was freeing to be with him and not worry he’d cheat. It allowed her to fully enjoy the moment, to fully enjoy him.
As she neared her peak, she sat up on him, her hands gripping his pecs. She used her strong leg muscles to ride him, raising almost completely off him with each thrust. When she felt him throbbing inside her, his breath coming in deep draws, her own thighs quivered as an intense wave overtook her and she screamed out an incredible release.
When she recovered from it, she laid atop Brian’s chest. “Oh shit, we didn’t use birth control.”
Sherman chuckled. “What? You didn’t get to a doctor in the past few days?”
“You know I didn’t.”
He laughed again. “Is it your fertile time?”
“No. Next week will be. You don’t go on the pill till the Sunday after your period starts, so there’s no use in my rushing to the doctor. It’ll be three weeks before I start the pill pack.”
Sherman ran his hand over her bare back. He loved naked snuggling with her.
“So, we’ll have to use some kind of birth control next week or abstain.”
Sherman acted horrified. “Absta
in? I can’t lay in a bed any longer with you and not make love to you.”
“Then you better be prepared to use a condom, or I better get to the drug store and get something else.”
Sherman cupped her chin and raised her lips to his. “I love you. I’ll do anything for you but wear a condom. What we have is special. I won’t let it be like any other time for me.” And the truth was, the sensation of being inside her with nothing between them was too incredible to compromise on.
Brielle had wondered before how many women Brian had been with, but she didn’t want to ask. She didn’t want to know. She assumed it was more than the four other males she’d been with. There was her college boyfriend, her first. She thought they’d get married, but life had other plans for them when he got a job out of state after graduation and their relationship didn’t last.
Then there was the man from New Orleans who she met when he brought his out-of-state family on a bayou tour. He was a lot of fun. The year and a half that they went out, she spent several days a week in New Orleans at his place. When she wouldn’t move in with him when he asked, that relationship fizzled. She realized later that the entire relationship had been on his terms.
Two years later she got involved with a local boy. He was a few years older than she was, and she didn’t know him well. Had she known he wasn’t capable of being faithful, she never would have dated him. She rushed into another relationship with another man who turned out to be a worse snake in the grass. She found out he was cheating on his fiancé by dating her. And he was cheating on them both with two other women. That one, she knew, shook her self-confidence. How she hadn’t known or suspected made her doubt her instincts. She hadn’t let anyone get close in over a year, until now.
She felt him gently caress her back. It felt good, connecting. “I love you, Brian.”
Sherman waited. “Is there a but coming?”
“No. I love you and won’t ask you to do anything that would make this feel like anything else for you. I’ll get to a drug store and get something else until I can start the pill.”
“Thank you,” he whispered.
Brielle woke wrapped in Brian’s warmth and his arms. The room was dark, room darkening shades. Brian still slept. She listened to his even breaths and his heartbeat, then realized that she snuggled up against his injured side, his left arm was beneath her and held her at the small of her back.
“Oh, my God, Brian! Have I hurt you?”
“No, but you woke me,” he mumbled in a sleepy voice.
“I’m on your left side.”
“You’re fine. Go back to sleep.”
She floated, appreciating the closeness, the warmth, the feeling of safety his arms brought. Her heart was filled. But then the moment he was shot flashed through her mind again. She was jolted wide awake in that second.
She remembered Doctor Lassiter’s advice. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She focused on the memory of Gary and Doc’s expertise in treating him. She focused on the here and now. Brian held her. He was healing and would make a full recovery. Brian was the man who rescued her from that BioDynamix plant. The job wasn’t just what he did, it’s who he was.
Victor
Brielle was done with her work for the day. She packed up her tablet and walked the short distance down the hall to Brian’s office. He was just finishing up an on-line training module for working in Ops. She lounged on his couch and waited. It was fifteen hundred hours. They’d gotten in at zero six hundred. She was learning her job, their jargon, and their way of doing things. She was proud of herself and so far, loved her new life.
Just as Sherman finished the training module, his phone rang. It was Shepherd. He listened to the two sentences that his boss spoke. “That’s great news, Shep, thank you.” He repeated them to Brielle. “Bobby’s release from rehab has been approved and communicated to the facility. We have an appointment at sixteen hundred to go get him.”
Brielle jumped up and came around the desk, engulfing Brian in a big hug. “Thank God!”
Brian moaned and winced. “Not so tight, please.”
“Sorry, baby,” she apologized as she loosened her hold. She pressed a quick kiss to his lips. “I’m just so happy and relieved. There is so much for us to tell him. I hope he agrees to stay up here with us.”
“I’m sure he will. We can convince him, I’m sure. I do really think it will be better for him to be out of the bayou. And I want to watch him and be sure he stays clean.”
“He’s not addicted, Brian. I’m telling you; he went months without using anything or even drinking beer.”
Brian held his hands up in a stopping motion. “Okay, okay.”
Sherman drove to the rehab facility. He was still driving one of the Shepherd Security SUVs. He parked and eased out. Brielle was waiting at the back of the vehicle when he joined her. She gave him a big hug. The smile on her face was telling of how happy she was.
They walked into the building and advised the front desk receptionist who they were there to see. They were expected and were ushered to the manager’s office.
“I understand the court has vacated the mandatory in-patient rehabilitation services; however, I truly think you may want to consider Bobby staying for at least another week,” she said. “He’s made tremendous progress, but I believe another week would solidify the behavior change needed for him to be successful.”
“Bobby doesn’t have an addiction problem,” Brielle said. “I’ve been with him and I can verify that up until the night he was arrested, he’d been sober for months.”
The manager clicked a few keys on her computer. “That isn’t what the drug testing showed. And Bobby himself confessed to the usage of marijuana as well as the cocaine he snorted the night of his arrest. He has an addictive personality which only requires triggers for use.”
Brielle seethed beneath the surface. “Can we please just see Bobby?”
The manager affixed her eyes on Brian. “You at least need to enforce out-patient visits. I’m telling you, Agent Sherman, your brother is not ready to be out of treatment.”
Sherman nodded. “Does Bobby know we are here?”
“Yes. His things are packed, and he is waiting in the in-patient lobby.”
“Let’s go there and see him.”
Brielle held Brian’s hand as they followed the manager. Bobby sat reading a book beside a fountain in the beautiful atrium. He put the book aside and stood as they approached. His backpack was on the bench beside him.
“Brian, Brielle, I’m so glad to see you!”
Brielle bolted ahead and wrapped Bobby in a big hug. She held him tightly for a few seconds. When she released him, he went to hug Brian. “Easy, don’t hug him too tight. He was injured.”
“Brian, are you okay?” He stood still and let Brian embrace him. Only then did he gently fold his arms around him.
Brian released him and stepped back. “I’m fine. How are you?” He pointed at the manager. “She doesn’t think you’re ready to leave yet. What do you think?”
“Oh, I’m ready to go,” Bobby insisted. He faced the manager. “I learned a lot about myself these past few weeks. I understand I have an addictive personality, and I understand why I’ve used in the past. I know my triggers.”
“You have no court order to follow up with any treatment,” she said. “But I think you should commit to a few out-patient visits, just to reinforce what you’ve learned. Please consider it.”
“I think it’s a good idea,” Sherman said. “I have your card. Let me get my brother home and we’ll look at schedules and I’ll be in touch.”
The manager nodded. “It is important. Please do get back in touch with me.”
Once the three of them passed through the outer doors, Bobby breathed a sigh of relief! “I can’t tell you how happy I am to be out of there.”
“Was it that bad?” Brielle asked.
“No, it was fine. The food was good. I worked out in the gym and swam every day. I really did
figure out that I did abuse drugs in the past, but it’s the past, not now. I was clean for months before I helped Brielle.”
“I want you to stay up here with us, Bobby,” Brian said as they reached the SUV.
“With us?” Bobby repeated.
Brielle embraced Brian. “We’re together, Bobby. And I’m moving up here, in with Brian.”
“What?” He demanded. His outraged and accusatory stare on his brother.
