by Ann, Natalie
He feasted like there was no tomorrow on her neck, her mouth, her ears—anything he could touch. Then he squeezed her hips tighter and moved his own in fast short movements, grinding against her, sending jolts of electricity through her entire body. Surely this was what a strike of lightning felt like.
Sensations came rushing to her core, bursting forth, causing her nails to dig into his shoulders, scoring him.
He didn’t stop though. No, he just kept up the motions until she felt him tense.
She swore she could hear the beating of his heart, if not feel it pounding in rhythm with hers.
Moments later, he laid his forehead on her shoulder. “Holy shit,” he breathed out, gasping for air.
She tried to laugh, but couldn’t quite manage it. She needed to suck in some air first; then she did laugh. Raw and free, uncontrolled.
“What’s so funny?” he asked. She could see the uncertainty in his eyes.
“Talk about cliché. It’s bad enough I’m sleeping with the boss, but now I can add doing it with him on his desk.”
He turned serious fast, and she stopped laughing. She hadn’t meant to say it, at least not in an insulting way. Before she could take it back, he said, “It’s not cliché. Nothing about us is.”
Stepping back, he took care of the condom without looking at her. She was at a loss for words. Somehow what she said bothered him. She didn’t need to see it in his face, or his movements, she almost knew the minute it was out of her mouth.
The guy that was always laughing, smiling and joking, had just turned serious and almost…hurt in front of her.
“Alec,” she called his name. He turned to look at her, and she saw the disappointment on his face. What she said was no worse than what he had said to her so many weeks ago about performing a dance for him. She just wished she thought of that before she tried to make light of the situation.
Her own eyes watered. “I didn’t mean it that way, and I don’t want anyone to think it. I guess that’s why I said it. Trying to make light of it, but it’s not light, not for me at least. Not what we did, and not what people might think, and definitely not what I feel.”
He held her stare for a few seconds, walked over and hugged her tight, and she held on just as tight as she had last weekend. She wished she’d thought before she spoke the words.
Then he pushed her back and held her by the shoulders, staring so deep into her eyes she couldn’t look away even if she wanted to. “No, it’s not light, and it’s not funny either. It’s serious for me. I need you to know that. You accused me of not being serious once and that was never the case, not then, and sure the hell not now.”
She nodded in agreement, blinked the tears from her eyes and kissed him lightly on the lips. She didn’t know what else to say. She couldn’t tell him why she really said it, not the complete reason. It was stupid and she had to stop thinking about things in the past. What she had here wasn’t like her last construction job, she believed that wholeheartedly.
Before she could say another word, he took her chin in his hand. “If anyone ever makes a negative comment about us—what we have, what we do, anything—I want to know, and I’ll deal with it.”
She’d never seen such a fierce look come into his eyes before. Again, all she could do was nod her head.
***
“Geez, Alec. In the office?” Phil asked five minutes later, after Brynn left to get some lunch for them to take on the boat.
“Honestly, Phil. I’m getting a little freaked out about how you seem to know all this about me. I’m starting to believe you’ve got some secret powers and I’m kind of jealous.”
Phil laughed. “No powers, just smarter than you.”
Snorting, Alec said, “Hardly. What are you doing here?”
“I came in to get my laptop. I left it here and the plans for Sophia’s greenhouse are on them. I ran into Brynn in the parking lot just now. Her face promptly turned bright red, so I put two and two together, in case you wanted to know.”
Alec shook his head. Phil was back to the wisecracking brother he remembered from so many years ago. He was glad to have him back, and he had Sophia to thank for that. “Greenhouse, huh? You haven’t said anything. When are you going to do it?”
“Next spring. We’re too busy right now. I’ll figure it out when the time comes.”
“Where are you putting it?” he asked, relieved that he had something to focus on rather than his encounter with Brynn a few minutes before. He hated how something wonderful between them turned into something uncomfortable.
He’d been so frustrated when she said those words, trying to make a joke out of what they had done. Who knows? Maybe he was being overly sensitive. It was a funny comment. Any other time, or any other woman, he might have laughed, only it didn’t seem funny to him right then. It felt wrong. What he had with Brynn wasn’t wrong, and the truth of the matter was he was hurt to think she might be trivializing things.
He guessed he understood now why she got so defensive when he made the comment about her dancing for him before, but that was before they’d gotten closer. Now there was no way around it, he was hurt and a bit insulted she said what she had. Especially coming from someone who took so much offense from his comment.
By time she left, he realized that maybe he was wrong though. He’d seen the tears come into her eyes and the regret over the words, then the emotions following when she said it wasn’t light, what they had. Another misunderstanding, and it seemed they were both tripping over each other and crossing lines they shouldn’t be.
After this weekend, they were going to have to sit and have a conversation on where to go next, how to handle these things. For now though, he would focus on Phil.
“I’m going to add it to the back of my office. I’ll put a door between the two rooms, but I think it’ll be nice to know she’s in there nurturing her plants while I’m working. Soothing, I guess.”
“Let me know when you’re ready to get to work. We’ll figure it out and get it started.”
“Will do. Are you heading out to the lake today?”
“Yeah. I thought it would be a nice day on the water.”
“You know where the keys to my boat are. Help yourself.”
“I’m taking Ryan’s out.”
“That works too,” Phil said, nodding. “I’m surprised you don’t have your own boat by now. You’ve got plenty of places to store it, even if you aren’t living on the lake just yet.”
“Soon, I think. I’m getting closer to moving on the lake too.”
“Really?” Phil asked, smirking more than Alec felt comfortable with. He picked up a piece of paper, crumpled it into a ball and threw it at Phil.
Phil caught it and tossed it in the trash, then laughed. “Have fun today.”
Until Now
Brynn was trying to hide her shock, but it was hard. They had just pulled Alec’s truck in front of Ryan’s house.
When he suggested the day on the lake, she’d assumed he owned his own boat. She was surprised to find out he was borrowing Ryan’s.
He was smiling now too, back to the way he always was around her. Of course she thought it helped by saying, “Can we stop at a store for me to get you some flowers and chocolate before we get to the lake?” When he burst out laughing, she felt the crisis was over.
She really hadn’t meant to say what she did earlier, at least not the way she did. It was probably the wrong time, but she had no clue he would react that way. For a guy that was always laughing and cracking jokes, she figured he would have thought the comment was funny. Once she realized he didn’t, the dread just sunk in over her words.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, running into Phil in the parking lot was worse. Ten minutes earlier and she would have been extremely embarrassed. But Phil only grinned at her, said hello and walked into the office like it was nothing out of the ordinary for her to be there on a Saturday morning with a bathing suit on under her sundress and Alec inside.
“It�
�s impressive, I know,” Alec said, causing Brynn to turn her head away from Ryan’s house and back to him.
“It’s huge. I would have never expected this big of a house on the lake. Or this much land.”
“He has a good spot here. It’s a double lot. Ryan does things on a grand scale. He always has.”
They made their way around back. By now Brynn shouldn’t have been surprised to find out the house was actually three stories and built into the land with a walkout basement.
Alec unlocked the door and Brynn couldn’t hide her gasp at the sight of Ryan’s home, and this was his basement. Then she heard Alec chuckling next to her.
“You can close your mouth. It’s just my sister’s house.”
His sister’s stunning house. Then all of sudden she said, “Did you build this house?”
“We did,” he said proudly. She saw it in his eyes, the look of satisfaction. “To date this is our biggest build. Not too many people want a home this big.”
“Not too many people can afford a home this big, let alone on the lake.”
“True.” He walked over behind the bar and opened a drawer, then pulled out a set of boat keys. “I’ll give you a tour of the house when we get back. Kaitlin and Ryan should be home by then. Or I can show you around now; they won’t care.”
“No. That’s fine. I don’t feel right walking around the house without them here.”
He laughed at her. “Everyone walks around each other’s homes in my family when they aren’t around. The only person we give a head’s up to is Ben before we walk in his house.”
“Why’s that?”
“I told you he was a Navy SEAL, right?”
“Yeah.”
“He always warned us to never enter when he was home before letting him know. Well, at night at least. I didn’t think anything of it until I walked in one night after drinking too much. I took a taxi to his house rather than have it bring me home since I was in Albany closing the development deal. Anyway, he was sleeping since it was late. Next thing I know I’m standing in his kitchen with a bottle of water in my hand and a gun pointed at me.”
“Are you kidding me?” she asked, not able to hide her shock. Just the thought of it sent chills down her spine.
“Unfortunately, no. I dropped the water bottle and just about peed my pants.” He burst out laughing. She couldn’t figure out why he thought it was funny, unless maybe now after the fact it was a joke. “I know better now,” he added, grinning.
They made their way down to the dock and onto the boat. Minutes later they were pulling away. Brynn took in the beauty around her. That one day over a month ago when she looked out at the lake from the public beach didn’t even give her a glimpse at how picturesque the lake was. It was almost like a painting.
They made their way around the lake, moving at a fast clip, and then he slowed down to a crawl. “There’s Mac’s house,” he said, pointing to the cedar-sided home. It was exactly the type of house she would have thought of for a lake like this. Not that Ryan’s house wasn’t speculator, because it was, all nice and modern with a shine to it, but Mac’s house looked more…homey.
A minute later he stopped in front of a stunning home with easily twenty-foot glass ground-to-roof windows, with more windows off to the side, bedrooms probably. This house made you stop and stare. “I wonder how they clean all those windows?”
“You can ask Lucas tomorrow.”
She turned her head sharply. “That’s Lucas and Brooke’s house?”
“It is. The first house Phil and I built from the ground up.”
Wow. Now that was impressive. Their first home, and it looked like that. “How much business did you get after it was completed?”
“A ton. You could say that Lucas’ house was the tipping point for us. I lost track of how many people called us after his house was complete.” He shook his head at her in amusement. “I can’t tell you how terrified Phil and I were over that build. We’d been doing remodels and additions, even flips for a few years, but we knew this was going to be huge, and nothing like we’d done before.”
“I bet. How hard was installing all that glass?”
“I still have nightmares about it.”
She laughed at him. She bet it was difficult. “I’ve always loved lots of windows and natural light. Waking up to that view every morning would be magical. I’ve never been on a build with windows like that. Most of the new builds I had were in residential areas. People don’t like their neighbors looking in that much. Whenever I showed a home with floor-to-ceiling windows I was always in awe.”
He added some speed to the boat and traveled down past a few more houses spread out, then pointed out Michele and Thomas Mathews’ house. The brick colonial looked so out of place, yet again, homey. This lake was exactly what she thought before. It was the perfect mixture of homes.
Ten minutes later they were stopping in front of a log cabin. By now she knew it had to be someone he knew or a house he built. Every time he slowed the boat down it was to point out a home they built or worked on, if not a friend’s house. She took a guess. “Phil’s house.”
“How did you know?”
“Well, you haven’t shown me your parents’ or Phil’s house yet and I know they live on the lake. This looked like him, or something he would live in. Though I have to say it doesn’t quite look like Sophia’s style.”
“It is Phil’s. Believe it or not, it’s not completely a log cabin inside. It’s a good mix of modern and Sophia claims it’s exactly what she always wanted, but never knew.”
“How far away is your parents’ house?”
“Not far by water.”
“That’s where you grew up?” she asked shortly after, looking at the white-sided two-story house. It wasn’t modern by any means, in terms of being brand new. But she would be willing to guess the inside was completely modern and updated.
“Yep. It was a good place to grow up. The neighbors are closer than I would like now, but as a kid I didn’t notice. The house is bigger than it looks from the lake.”
She looked at it more carefully. It didn’t seem very wide, not wide enough that it would be a home for four children, but then when he moved the boat forward she realized how long it was and easily saw the size then. “Did you each have your own room?”
“We did. I have a lot of great memories here on this lake.”
“I bet you do.” This ride around just made her realize how much more she would love to live here.
***
Alec hit the gas and steered around the lake some more, then slowed down in front of a piece of land. He hadn’t planned on showing Brynn the three pieces of land his parents still owned for him, Ben and Kaitlin. Ben and Kaitlin had no need for the land and told him to choose whatever one he wanted when he was ready to build. He knew what he wanted now, but he was curious what Brynn might pick.
“So what do you think of this property?”
“It’s nice, not very wide though. I think the house would have to be more length than width. If it was going to be a small house, then it would be perfect. The land is kind of flat though. It seems to me that most houses have a walkout basement and I don’t know how you could do that here, not without a lot of work and a lot of additional fill.”
She was right and it was the piece he liked the least. They could put in the walkout, but they would have to dig much deeper and build around it. It was not what he really wanted to do.
He drove around some more and stopped in front of the next piece of land. This one was bigger than the last but didn’t have a beachfront. He could build one if he wanted to, but again, a lot of work. He wanted a piece of beach, even if it was a small one. Those memories of building in the sand as a child were deep rooted. He wanted them for his family someday.
“It’s nice. Lots of grass and property, but no sand. What fun is living on the water without any sand?”
Exactly, he thought to himself, and realized that she was definitely in tune with him
, his likes and dislikes.
He swung back around toward Phil’s house, stopping about half a mile away. He knew in his heart he would end up close to Phil, but he wanted to know what Brynn thought.
“That is perfect.”
“How’s that?
“First, it has a beach. Second, the land is sloped just enough to do a walkout, but not so much that you need to build stairs into the land like a lot of the other properties. The house would have to be built back farther, but that is fine, it would give you all this property to enjoy in front of the water. I wonder how close it is to the road, though.”
“Closer than most, but not too bad. There are plenty of trees offering privacy.”
“How do you know?”
“Because this is where I’m going to build.”
“It’s your land?”
“My parents’,” he clarified. “They bought four pieces of land for investment purposes when we were children, then decided to give us each one for our own. Phil took the one piece no one wanted. He likes to be secluded off by himself.”
“But it’s not too far from him, right?”
She picked up on the geography of the lake pretty fast, even though he had been going in circles. He was impressed. “No, not far, but you saw how secluded he is. He always liked privacy more than the rest of us.”
“I can see that.”
“Kaitlin has no need for the land since Ryan already lived on the lake. Ben said he might build a summer home at some point, but he and Presley will stay in Albany close to their jobs. I’d been going back and forth for years on what piece I wanted, but deep down I knew all along.”
“What made you wait so long?”
“It never seemed the right time. Until now.”
Asked First
Brynn looked around the party. They were the last to arrive. She and Alec had slept in, then started taking measurements in the basement so she could start working on that. He was almost done with his flip and he told her she could focus on the basement at the model home.
