by Rose Wulf
“Wait,” Blake said. His father stilled and looked over his shoulder curiously. “Do we know anything yet?” The question was past his lips before he’d given it any real thought. “Did Mom or Uncle Nicholas figure anything out about who these people are? What their deal is?”
Christopher offered him an apologetic frown and turned back around. “No, nothing,” he said. “Nicholas is still trying to look into things, though. There’s always a chance he’ll find something.”
Blake felt his own frown dip his lips. His father didn’t sound any more pacified by that line than he himself felt. But without even a clue as to where to start looking, Blake supposed he had no choice but to sit and wait. And hope.
****
Brooke slowly blinked her eyes open, feeling as though she’d slept for days. For a lingering minute, as she lay on her back, staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling, she was completely relaxed. She didn’t want to move. In fact, she really wanted to just close her eyes and wait for sleep to reclaim her.
Then her gaze focused in on the ceiling fan poised almost directly overhead. It was obviously high end, and not the kind of thing that would ever belong in her apartment. But that could only mean…! Brooke’s eyes shot wide open as she realized that she was not somewhere familiar, and she lurched into a sitting position with a startled gasp. She reached for the comforter that had pooled in her lap with the motion, instinctively seeking to cover herself, but when she looked down to grab it, she realized that she was still wearing her shirt from the night before.
“You’re awake.” Blake’s voice was tinged with sleep.
Brooke lifted her eyes from her shirt-covered torso until they landed on him. Blake was sitting in what appeared to be a well-cushioned loveseat, one arm stretched out and his head propped up by a decorative pillow. As she watched, he yawned deeply. For a moment, she felt guilty for possibly having woken him.
“How do you feel?” Blake asked, the sleepiness in his voice already mostly gone.
It was at this point that she remembered everything from the night before.
Her eyes went wide again, and she immediately returned her attention to her arm, expecting to find stitches, or at least bruising. But, aside from the fact that her left sleeve had been turned into the sleeve of a t-shirt, she found nothing.
Brooke lifted her arm, her heart racing as disbelief encompassed her, and she used the fingers of her right hand to poke and prod at her skin. There was no soreness whatsoever. There wasn’t a single marking. No stitched-up gash, no scab-covered cut, not even a slim, white scratch mark to indicate she might have hit something. Her arm was flawless.
Blake settled on the side of the mattress, just within reach, as she explored her arm.
“How is this possible?” Brooke asked, her voice as full of disbelief as she imagined her face was. Her arm slowly dropped back to her lap, but her eyes held his searchingly. “It’s completely healed, like it never happened at all. And my feet don’t hurt, either. Are they healed, too?”
“Yes.” Something flickered in his eyes that looked like restrained amusement. “Are you feeling any pain?”
“I—no, I’m not,” Brooke replied slowly. “But … I still don’t understand … how is this possible?”
Blake allowed one corner of his lips to tip upwards this time, the faintest of teasing glints in his eyes. “I did tell you that my little sister has healing abilities, remember?”
Releasing a breath, Brooke said, “Well, yes, but …” She paused, scrunching her lips in thought as she searched for the best way to articulate the way she’d interpreted his earlier words. After a moment, she finally settled for, “When you said that, I think I pictured, like, healing away scrapes and bruises. Or maybe turning big cuts to fresh scars or something. I don’t know.” She held her arm up again, exposing the uninjured flesh. “Not this.”
Blake shrugged with deliberate nonchalance. “Well, it’s not my fault you didn’t imagine it the way I meant it.”
Brooke reached behind her, snatched the corner of the nearest pillow, and threw her arm forward. The pillow fell against his face exactly as she’d planned. “Maybe you just should have explained it better!”
Blake shifted the pillow easily into his lap, grinning faintly. “No, I’m sure I explained it fine.”
Brooke dragged a deep breath in through her nose, but the light humor that was curving her lips faded as she blew the breath back out. “Blake,” she said, dropping his stare and locking her fingers together in her lap. “Thank you.”
His own halfhearted humor dissipating, Blake quietly said, “Don’t thank me. What happened to you was my fault.” He looked up from the bunched comforter as he spoke, and she met his gaze with widened eyes when his words sunk in. “I’m sorry, Brooke.”
Her surprise fell into frustration, and she frowned. “Blake Hawke,” she scolded, “this is not your fault. You didn’t call up the storm and drop it on my roof, so you wipe that guilt right out.”
It was Blake’s turn to stare at her with widened eyes. Apparently, he hadn’t expected that response.
“I assume you’re thinking I was targeted by those other elementals we learned about,” Brooke began after taking a second to compose her argument. “And I’m inclined to agree with that theory. But that doesn’t make it your fault.”
Blake met her frowning expression easily. “If they are the ones who attacked you, they only came after you because of me.”
He was beating himself up inside, Brooke realized. She could see it in his eyes. But she didn’t want him to.
Without a thought, Brooke leaned forward, grabbed the collar of his shirt, and kissed him firmly. If he was going to do the stubborn macho-male thing, then she was going to fight dirty. She was not going to have him blaming himself for her injuries when he hadn’t even been around to cause them in the first place. So she held her lips over his until she felt him giving in, but when he tried to take over the kiss, she beat him to it and slipped her tongue inside his mouth instead.
Her grip of his collar loosened so that she could slide her arms around his neck, and his hands came up to land on her hips. She rolled her tongue along his, and his arms wound completely around her waist.
Blake rumbled against her, one hand sliding up the back of her shirt, and Brooke moaned into his kiss. The next thing she knew, Blake had her back on the mattress, both hands under her shirt and teasing her skin mercilessly, his weight braced apparently on his knees as he leaned over her. Brooke stroked his tongue one more time before breaking the kiss in order to hold her arms over her head in silent invitation. An invitation he took full advantage of, ceasing his teasing to remove her shirt altogether. He followed it up by removing his own, and Brooke took the opportunity to discard her bra.
Both articles hit the floor only moments before one of Blake’s hands closed over one of her breasts.
Brooke arched into the touch and swallowed another moan when his lips descended on her throat. He kissed, licked, and sucked her flesh from the underside of her jaw to her nipple in sweet, torturous fashion. One flick of his thumb had her gasping, her hands landing on his bared shoulders and digging in. Her body was screaming for his. For more of his touch, more of his passion.
Blake’s lips detoured below her collar until his kiss settled over her neglected breast. His hand worked magic on one side—squeezing, flicking—while his lips and tongue drove her crazy on the other. When he took her nipple into his mouth, she gasped sharply and buried a hand in his hair, holding him there. He sucked and licked, even grazing his teeth over the hardened peak. And for every moment of pleasure his ministrations brought her, another part of her pulsated with need.
Finally unable to stand it any longer, Brooke kicked at the covers until only their respective layers of denim were between them. She adjusted her legs, straddling one of his, and bucked her hips enough to graze his covered erection.
That was enough to get Blake’s attention. He lifted his head from her chest, hand pausing, an
d looked up at her.
“Please,” she urged, her voice breathless.
Blake’s blue eyes darkened with need. He pushed himself up, hands landing on his belt. As much as Brooke hoped to help him out of those crisp blue jeans, it wasn’t happening this time. This time, she was in too much of a rush to get her own off. She didn’t even wait to let him remove her panties.
“God,” Blake groaned when his eyes landed on her again. She was fully undressed and laid out for him, waiting and enjoying her own view as he climbed back over her. He was hard and ready, and if she had thought she could hold out long enough, Brooke was sure she’d have loved to taste him.
But that was just going to have to wait. She needed to feel him first.
Blake’s lips crashed back over hers at about the time she’d managed to glimpse a slim package in his nearest hand. A condom. Thank goodness one of them had a semi-functioning brain.
Hands wandered feverishly. Groping, stroking, teasing. Then Blake inserted a finger between her legs, and Brooke gasped against his lips. She must have wanted him more desperately than she’d realized if just the first touch felt so blissfully good. And he wasn’t done. He swept that finger in and out, adding a second at the same time as his thumb found her nub, and she gasped again, louder this time.
Blake’s lips locked over her nape, sucking hard as he flicked the nub again, and this time she cried out. Her hips bucked, pleading for that final release, but he refused her. His hand withdrew entirely as he released her neck, and he readjusted above her.
Brooke reached up and caught his jaw when he tossed the packaging aside. “Kiss me,” she whispered, letting her thumbnail scratch just a little below his lip.
He trapped her wrist in his hand, placed a kiss on her palm, and bent forward, pinning her arm over her head. “Whatever you say.” Blake obeyed her request and claimed her lips in a deep kiss.
Their tongues rolled together as his hips surged forward. It took conscious effort for Brooke to keep her lips sealed to his to contain her outcry of pleasure as he filled her. He felt so good.
With a groan, Blake broke the kiss. He trailed his tongue up to her ear as his hips began moving gently. He nipped at her earlobe as he sank back into her center. Brooke wrapped her arms around him, her hips lifting to greet his, searching for any way to take him deeper.
“Don’t hold back,” she whispered against his ear.
Blake only rumbled an acknowledgment of her words before catching her lips in another hot, demanding kiss. But he kicked up the pace, rolling his hips against hers after filling her. In and out. Their bodies danced, grinding together and coming entirely off the bed as Blake’s kisses found their way down her throat once again. He trailed them over her pulse point, past her collar, until he’d managed to recapture one breast between his lips.
Brooke held him tight, one hand buried in hair, the other curled over his spine as she approached that blessed precipice. Blake’s tongue played with her nipple, and his hips ground into hers, rubbing with just the right pressure. Her vision went white, and it was all she could do keep from shouting as ecstasy erupted like a volcano inside her.
Chapter Eleven
“I know I can’t really keep this from coming down on you,” Blake whispered, running his fingers through her hair. “But promise me you won’t do anything too reckless if you happen to hear something at work.”
Brooke’s fingers stilled over his chest. “What makes you think I’ll hear something at work?”
“I don’t know,” he offered honestly. “I just figure with your job you probably overhear a lot.”
The slender leg wrapped around his tensed, and Brooke lifted herself to look into his eyes. She was still entirely nude—as was he—and the simple beauty of the sight took his breath away.
“You actually do have a point,” she admitted, “but don’t worry. Double-O-Seven I am not.”
He grinned and kissed her gently. “Good, that’ll help me sleep better.”
She smiled and resettled herself on his shoulder for all of five seconds before drawing in a sharp breath. “My apartment! What happened to my apartment?”
“Logan’s taking care of it,” Blake assured her. He wasn’t surprised when she sat up anyway, concern marring the light in her eyes.
“How is he doing that, exactly? And what time is it?” The last was clearly an afterthought as she broke from his gaze to look toward the covered window. Light was seeping in now, so it was clearly daytime.
“Time for breakfast, I’d say,” Blake replied as he sat up. When she returned her attention to him, he added, “Also, Logan works construction. Fixing up housing stuff is literally his business, so he’s got it all covered.”
“Huh,” Brooke mumbled, her gaze slipping from his to wander down his chest for a moment. “I never knew.”
“Brooke,” Blake interrupted, not feeling particularly like discussing his brother in the moment. “I only had the one condom on me.”
Her cheeks flushed, and she swatted at him. “Get dressed, then, and take me to breakfast. I’m hungry.”
Blake couldn’t help but laugh as he rolled to his feet. “Yes, ma’am.”
****
Hands on her hips, Brooke stood in the front yard and frowned at her living-room window. Or, more accurately, at the board covering the hole in her wall where the window was supposed to be. The branch that had crashed into her apartment the night before was gone, and on the outside, the only evidence of the previous night’s storm was her window-wall and the now-lopsided tree.
“I hate this,” Brooke declared after a long moment as she finally let her half-curled fists drop to her sides. She turned to face Blake, who was standing beside her. “But I can’t decide what I hate more. The damage, last night’s chaos, or the fact that I apparently could have died and none of my neighbors would have noticed.”
Blake sighed, switching his frown back to her boarded-up window. “That’s understandable.”
“What I don’t get is a large branch crashed through my window.” Gesturing one arm wide, toward the nearest other apartment, she said, “How did Mr. Pendleton not hear that?!”
Blue eyes flicking in the direction of the indicated apartment, Blake paused a moment before the briefest of grins curved his lips. “Because he’s half-deaf.”
Brooke cocked an eyebrow at him. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah,” Blake replied easily, lifting his own hands until he had hooked his thumbs in his pockets. “He’s a teacher at the high school. I had him twice. And according to Angie, his hearing’s only gotten worse.”
“So, what, is he too stubborn to do anything about it?” Brooke asked incredulously.
Blake shrugged. “Probably. Or maybe he figures he’s too close to retirement for it to make a difference.”
Brooke sighed and shook her head. “That figures. I mean, I’ve seen him around a little, I knew he was getting up there in age, but it never occurred to me that he never said ‘hello’ because he never heard me say ‘hello’.”
“Are we talking about Pendleton?” Logan asked as he walked up to them.
Both Blake and Brooke turned to face him, and Blake’s grin broadened slightly. “Yeah.”
Brooke’s looked past Logan, to the business truck that had settled in behind Logan’s own. She recognized the name of the local glass company on the side of the electric-blue truck, and her gaze returned to Blake’s brother. “Is he here for my window?”
Logan nodded. “Yeah.”
“Don’t get me wrong, but isn’t that a little fast? I mean, doesn’t it take longer than that to replace a window?” she asked.
Logan grinned slightly and shook his head. “Not when the owner owes you about a dozen favors. Anyway, don’t worry about it. Your new window should be in place in no time.”
Brooke smiled. “That reminds me. Thanks so much for helping with all this.”
Logan shook his head again before his gaze flicked briefly to his brother. “Don’t mention it.�
� Then he moved until he was standing beside Blake, turning to watch the workers at the truck silently.
After a long moment, Brooke suddenly said, “I suppose I should be glad it happened this week, instead of next week.”
Logan asked, “I thought next week was the one you had off?”
“Next week might be Spring Break,” Brooke acknowledged, holding one hand up, finger pointing toward the sky as she talked. “But that does not mean ‘no homework’, and it does mean ‘more work-work’.”
“That’s true,” Blake agreed, realizing her point. “Hell, I’m scheduled for lifeguard duty for most of the week.”
Logan sighed, shoving his hands into his pockets as he said, “I almost forgot. Damn drunk college students.”
Blake smirked. “Like you never got drunk when you were in college.”
“Yeah, but I never annoyed myself.”
Before the conversation could continue, one of the workers from the truck stepped up to them, introduced himself, and began explaining to Brooke exactly what they were going to do. Blake stayed quiet as Brooke talked to him and watched as Logan occasionally joined the conversation whenever he found it necessary. Finally, the worker turned back toward his truck, and Brooke moved toward her door. She would need to leave it open, after all, if they were going to be installing a window.
****
“I want to tell Eric,” Angela declared as she joined her parents and Blake in the living room after school that afternoon.
Blake, who had come over for further discussion of the situation, leaned back against the couch and raised an eyebrow at his sister’s entrance. But he said nothing, because she wasn’t really talking to him.
Lillian released a quiet breath and gestured to the mostly vacant couch. “Why don’t you sit, sweetheart.”
Angela dropped her backpack beside the couch and claimed her favorite spot against the arm. “I’m serious,” she said, obviously unwilling to drop the issue. “I want to tell Eric.”
Changing his mind about his silence, Blake kept his voice curious as he asked, “Weren’t you just telling me that you wanted to wait a while longer? So why the change of heart?”
