She was my girl. My angel. I’d protect her the same way they did.
So, with her blessing, I left her and my son under the watchful eye of Samson and went with my driver and the bodyguard Samson had called in to stay with me. Josh was also a veteran who Samson had a ton of respect for. Heading to the office for the meeting I was an hour late for, I was finding myself nervous over having to leave the two people I loved most behind.
The meeting lasted about an hour, and I asked Brad to go to my office with me. He hadn’t noticed my bodyguard until we got to my office and Josh was suddenly there, standing by the door.
Brad jerked his head in a gesture at him as he asked me, “You’re keeping him very close, Gannon. What gives?”
“Step inside, and I’ll enlighten you.” I opened the door and in we went. I wanted to enlighten him about a couple of things, actually, and had high hopes he’d take them both well.
Brooke’s stories were kind of scary, but all those people had been nobodies to her family. I was Brad’s best bud. He couldn’t be that angry with me.
Brad went straight for the sofa, taking a seat. I decided that would be a great place to talk about things. So I took the chair that sat across from him. “Hey, you want a drink?”
He shook his head as he leaned up to rest his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands. “I wanna know why you’ve got your bodyguard all up on you. That’s what I wanna know. And I wanna know if my sister is safe.”
“She’s very safe. I have my personal bodyguard watching over her and my son. Not to worry.” I sat back, taking a more leisurely position. I didn’t want him to get riled up in the least.
“So what’s up?” he asked, still looking a little on the tense side.
I decided showing him the text would be a good place to start, so I pulled out my cell. “There was an incident at the nightclub we’re building. That, and this little text, are why I’ve amped up security around my son and me. And Brooke, obviously.”
He took the phone I held out for him and read the text. His eyes were almost red, shooting flames out of them at me when he looked back up. “What the fuck, Gannon? I want her out of there right now!”
“Brad, she’s fine. Samson is the best. They’re in the best place they could be. I’d never let anyone hurt either of them. Brooke’s important to me. Just as much as Braiden is. Of course, I have them under the best watchful eyes I have.”
He tossed my cell back to me as he got up, towering over me. “Brooke’s important to you?” His voice was a roar.
“Chill, dude,” I said as I got up too. He wasn’t about to tower over me.
“Chill?” his voice cracked as he shouted at me.
Josh opened the door and looked at me, silently asking if I needed his help. I waved him away without saying a word, and he closed the door. “Brad, you’re overreacting.”
“Overreacting? You have no idea. Something’s not right there. You know your place isn’t safe and you know you should be sending Brooke home, yet you’re keeping her in harm’s way. That tells me one thing and one thing only. You’ve got a hard-on for my baby sister.”
My jaw dropped. Not because he was hitting the nail on the head, but because he was talking like I was some kind of a pervert. “Brad, would you listen to yourself? I’m keeping her where she is because she’s much safer there. Plus, I still need help with my kid. Whoever is threatening me like this knows she’s with me. If I send her off somewhere, then she’ll be in danger and so will anyone she’s around. Can’t you see that?”
All he heard was one part of what I said though. “She’s with you? She. Is. With. You?”
Fuck, had I really said those exact words?
“You know,” I tried to fix my mistake, “she works for me. For my son. You know what I mean.” I felt the fire from his eyes wash over me. He had that much power, I swear. Brook hadn’t been wrong at all. Her brother could turn into a raging maniac over her.
“You might be right about her being safer under your guard. But I smell a rat, Gannon Forester. I smell a horny, oversexed, billion-dollar rat who wants to bone my little sister. And I’ve already warned you about doing so much as touching her.” He slammed his fist into the palm of his hand.
I had to admit; he was intimidating. But I tried to play it cool as I lied, “Dude, I wouldn’t harm a hair on your sister’s head.” That part was true, so it came out pretty easily. “I care about Brooke. I genuinely care about her.”
He eyed me with a critical glare. “Do you? Do you care about her as an employee, or do you care about her as something else?”
Now I had to lie. “An employee. But also as a friend. I really like her. She’s so pure. So real. You know?”
“And she’s innocent, Gannon. She’s not like the women you fuck around with. She’s nothing like them, and she never will be. Not that I would give you the chance to make her into one of your flavors of the week anyway.” He took three long strides to the minifridge and pulled out a beer. I watched in stunned indignation as he opened the brown bottle and turned it up, drinking it all down.
Well, he did need to calm the fuck down.
“I can’t believe you think I’d hurt someone who means so much to you, Brad. It’s kind of shitty of you to think so little of me.” Okay, so what if I actually was screwing his sister? I loved her, damn it!
He tossed the empty bottle into the wastebasket and walked right past me. “I’m going to go see her. Ask her some questions about you. You coming?”
Oh, shit!
“Yeah, I’m coming, Brad. You’ll see, she won’t have anything but nice things to say about me. All this is for nothing. You’ll see.” I hoped he would see anyway. I hoped Brooke could pull off lying to her big brother.
Chapter 23
Brooke
The familiar clicking of Gannon’s shoes was heard by Braiden, and he took off, running full speed to find his daddy. I was right behind him, running too. Then I slowed down as I heard another set of expensive shoes. Someone was with him.
I stayed behind Braiden, a few feet back. “Here he comes,” I heard Gannon say. “There’s my little man. Hi, son.” I imagined him holding Braiden close, reassuring him after all the chaos of the day. The poor kid had been through so much already. I only hoped today wouldn’t set him back after he’d made so much progress. We were even starting to move away from diapers to big boy undies.
When I made it to the foyer, I saw my brother was with Gannon. And he had that look in his eye that told me he was looking for information. Brad came toward me, and Gannon shook his head as he mouthed that he hadn’t told him anything about us.
Fear ripped through me. I’d never lied to my brother before. It seemed there was indeed a first time for everything. “Hi, Brad. It’s nice to see you.”
“You too, baby sis.” He came up to me, pulling me in for a hug. “We need to talk,” he whispered.
“K.” I was on pins and needles as Gannon looked at me.
“I told Brad about what’s going on here with the threat on Braiden. He was worried about you,” Gannon said with a smile. “I told him I have the best man watching over you two and that you’re every bit as important to me …”
Brad butted in. “I need to talk to her alone, Gannon.” He pulled me away with him. “Take me to your bedroom, little sister. I want to see where you sleep.”
He was onto us. I knew he was. He wouldn’t ask me to do such a thing if he wasn’t. And the fact Gannon hadn’t told him about us told me that when he’d tried to test those waters he had talked about testing, he’d gotten some pretty bad feedback.
Oh Lord, help me lie to my overprotective brother, please!
Leading him to my bedroom, I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle things. I decided just to wait and see where he was going to go with this. “I hope you’re not worried about me being here with this thing going on. I feel very protected with Samson around. It’s so funny, I never even realized Gannon had a bodyguard before today. He stays out o
f the way so effectively that I never even knew he was around at all.”
“Yeah, well, with a client like Gannon, a guard has to learn how to be invisible. Gannon couldn’t bag all the chicks he has if they knew someone was right there, watching.” Brad stopped just outside my door, looking at Gannon’s bedroom door.
My stomach knotted as I thought about Gannon bagging chicks, as my brother had put it. “Um, this is it here.” I opened my door, and he walked in backward, looking at Gannon’s door the whole time.
“I thought his son would be in this one. I thought you might be in the next one.” He turned and saw the door on the side of the room. “That one leads to the kid’s room?”
“Yes,” I said as I walked over and took a seat on my bed. I pointed at the chair in the corner. “You can sit over there if you’d like.”
Instead of taking a seat, he meandered around my room, looking everything over. “So, how’s he treating you?”
“Very well. He’s very nice to me.” I winced when he picked up a scarf I had hung on my mirror.
Gannon and I had taken Braiden out for a walk in the back of his property. I’d gotten hot with the scarf around my neck and pulled it off. Gannon had been feeling playful, and he had taken it from me and wrapped it around his neck. It smelled like him, and I kept it there so I could catch a whiff of him every now and then.
I found myself cringing when Brad pulled it to him, taking a big ole sniff. “Smells like cologne. Why’s that?” He eyed me as he came up to me. Standing over me. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”
“Of course, I do.” I smiled at him and batted my lashes. “You’re my big brother.”
“You’d tell me if Gannon did anything to you, wouldn’t you? I mean anything. Has he touched you at all?” The way he looked at me told me he’d bolt out of the room and go whip Gannon’s ass if I said one word to provoke him.
“No way! He’s not like that. He’s not the way you said he was with girls. With me, he’s not, anyway. He’s always respectable. You don’t have anything to worry about. I swear that to you. Gannon is so nice to me, but he’s not into me.” I tried to look earnest even as my insides grew hot with my lies.
“Oh, he is.” Brad placed his hands on my shoulders. “If you gave him a shot, he’d take it. So you can’t give him that shot. You have to stay on guard. Never let it down. If you do, he’ll swoop in and do to you what he’s done to countless numbers of other unsuspecting girls.”
There it was again, him referencing Gannon’s conquests, and my gut twisted once more. I shrugged as if I couldn’t care less. But I did care; I cared a lot. “Why would I do such a thing? He’s old.” I laughed and shook my head. “Yuck, Brad.”
He laughed too. Then grabbed my hand. “That’s what I needed to hear. Come on, let’s go eat dinner.”
I thought I had him fooled. I kind of hated that I had done such a great job of lying. But I was happy he believed me, and Gannon was safe. For now, anyway.
At least Gannon saw what I was talking about. I knew he had had no idea of how my brother could be over me. Brad must’ve shown him a bit of the bear he could become.
Finding Gannon and Braiden in the playroom, I smiled brightly at Gannon as I went to pick up Braiden. “Brad’s staying for dinner.”
“Great,” Gannon said as he got up and we all went to the dining room. They hung back behind Braiden and me and I overheard Gannon as he said, “See, I told you. I wouldn’t ever do a thing to hurt your sister. I care far too much for you and her.”
“Yeah, well, you just keep that care legit, and we’ll have no problem,” Brad replied.
With an uneasy feeling about never being able to be truthful with my family, we sat down at the table to eat. With Braiden in his high chair next to me, Brad watched as I interacted with the boy.
“Are you hungry, Braiden?” I asked him. I talked to Braiden all the time as if he was older than he was. No baby talking at all. And when he nodded at me, I was overjoyed with his response and had to hug him and kiss his cheek. “Yes! You nodded.”
Brad laughed as he looked at the smile on Braiden’s face. The boy was so proud of himself, probably just as proud as I was of him. “That kid loves you, sis.”
“And I love him.” I tickled the small boy’s chin. “Don’t I, pumpkin? Brooke loves her little man.”
He giggled like crazy, and I caught Gannon gazing at me adoringly— a thing Brad could not witness. So I stopped what I was doing and sat back.
“She’s amazing with him, Brad. It’s like she and he were cut from the same cloth.” Gannon reached over and ran his hand over Braiden’s head. “He’s lucky to have her. I can’t thank you enough for letting us borrow her. But I don’t think my little boy will ever let you have her back.”
Brad nodded. “He looks at her like she’s his angel, doesn’t he?”
I blushed as I felt like the center of attention, a thing I wasn’t comfortable being. “Come on, Brad.”
“No, I won’t come on, Brooke. He does. And you look at him like he’s the center of your world.” He sighed then reached across the table to pat my hand. “One day you’re going to make a great mother.”
“You think so?” I found myself asking him.
“I do.” He moved his hand off mine then winked at me. “But it’ll be in the faraway future. With a guy you meet later in life. After you’re done with college and well into your career, then you’ll meet a guy near your own age.” He purposely looked at Gannon, then back at me, a thing Gannon noticed too.
“You’re making her blush, Brad. Stop.” Gannon reached out and patted the top of my hand in the same fashion as Brad had, trying to seem as if he treated me in a brotherly fashion.
It was hard not to look at Gannon, but I knew I couldn’t trust myself to look at the man who had just made me his the night before. All I wanted to do was crawl up in his lap and continue where we had left off before he’d left for his meeting.
And I wanted to be truthful with what we had with my family too. But I wasn’t getting much of anything I wanted. And more than anything else, I wanted to know for a fact that Braiden was safe. The threat he was under made my stomach ache.
What kind of a monster would threaten to kill an innocent child over a damn nightclub?
Part Four
Chapter 24
Gannon
I had to admit; I didn’t know my best buddy the way I thought I did. Brad wasn’t Brad when it came to Brooke. He turned into the Hulk over that girl. And I knew we had our work cut out for us where her family was concerned. So I was into keeping things hush-hush for the time being. Just until I figured out what it would take to get her family onboard with us.
The two of us sat on either side of Braiden as I read him a book and watched him drift off to sleep. Closing the book, I looked at Brooke, who was gazing at my son. “The way you look at him makes me love you even more, baby.”
Her lashes fluttered as pink stained her cheeks. “I love kids, but I truly love this little boy right here. He has my heart in the palm of his little hand. It hurts me so much that he’s being threatened.”
Getting up, I went to put the book back in the bookcase with the rest of the children’s books that Brooke seemed to get more of with each passing day. She came to my side, and I watched her breasts heave with a deep sigh. I knew there were so many things weighing on her mind. And all I wanted to do was give her a little time where nothing mattered at all, save she and I.
Taking her hand, I led her through the door between Braiden’s bedroom and hers. “We’ve got two very capable bodyguards watching over us.”
She stopped and looked at me as I closed the door to my son’s room behind us. “Do you think you should be coming in here with Josh right there in the hall?”
I chuckled at her naivete. Pulling her into my arms, arms that had ached for too long without her in them, I smiled at her. “Do you think he cares, baby?”
“No, but …” I kissed her to shut her up. She wa
s young, still had an innocence about her, and had no idea what older people cared about.
Her mouth grew supple against mine. She parted her sweet lips to let me come in and in I came. Picking her up, I carried her to the bed, where I finally allowed our mouths to part. I fingered the delicate lace of the collar on her blouse. “You look beautiful today. I know I didn’t get the chance to tell you that, but you do. This little blouse and that pale blue skirt look adorable on you.”
Her lips quirked to one side. “But you’d like to ruin them as you rip them from my body, right?”
“Are you reading my mind, baby?” I placed two hands on either side of the chiffon blouse, yanking it apart. Small pearl buttons popped everywhere, showering her as she giggled.
I pushed one side of her pink bra up and took one of those delicious Ds into my hand then leaned over and pulled that pert nipple into my mouth, sucking it with a gentle pull. She moaned, and I sucked harder.
Her hands tangled up in my hair as she arched up, wanting me to take more. I ran my hand over the other tit, still covered in the pink silk of her bra. It was soft and smooth, and I massaged it through the fabric and sucked until she was bucking and begging, “God, Gannon, please!”
I stopped what I was doing to attend to her elsewhere, leaving her in that state, one tit bulging out from under the bra, one tit covered. Her face was pink with a desire for more.
Pushing her skirt up, I got on the bed. She watched me, her eyes glued to mine until I disappeared underneath her skirt. One hard yank had her panties breaking at the seams, leaving her pussy bare for me. She gasped with the action, a sound that was quickly followed by a low moan as I kissed her sweet pearl then licked the hooded organ.
Her knees tried to come together, so I had to hold them apart as I licked her over and over, kissing her in between the long licks every so often. When she began to shiver, I knew she was near the edge and inserted a finger so I could feel her close around me.
Nightclub Sins: A Billionaire Romance Series Page 11
