A Beauty Uncovered

by Andrea Laurence

  Brody sighed and leaned back against the cushions of the love seat. She could tell he hadn’t expected that serious of an answer from her. At least that hadn’t shown up in her background check. Everyone at her office knew the truth, but the HR records were squeaky-clean, probably to protect Luke. “Tell me what happened,” he said.

  Sam didn’t want to rehash all of this tonight, but she could see the determination etched into Brody’s face. He had a solid dose of “fix-it” in him, too. “I was new to the company, and I was hired as the administrative support to the head of marketing. His name was Luke. I was immediately taken under his spell. He was movie-star handsome. He dressed well and smelled amazing. He was so nice to me, too. When he asked me to accompany him on a business trip, I was thrilled. I didn’t expect something to happen between us, but when it did, I was powerless to fight it. Away from the office, he was such a romantic. We spent each day working and each night making love in his suite.”

  She felt stupid admitting to this out loud. “I would’ve believed almost anything that man said. And that was a mistake. He was married. To the woman that headed up the finance department, of all people.”

  “You never suspected he was married?”

  Sam shook her head. “I know it sounds ridiculous. But I swear to you he never mentioned her. He didn’t have a single photograph of his family in his office or a wedding ring on his hand. I had no reason to think he might be…” Her voice drifted off.

  “Anyway, one day we were in his office and he had me pressed against the filing cabinet. We were just messing around—I would never have slept with him at work—but his wife came in and caught us. She blew a gasket. The next thing I knew, people were whispering as I went into the break room and I had become the woman that climbed the career ladder on her knees. I was laid off a few weeks later. Wouldn’t you know that the finance department determined that marketing was suddenly overstaffed?”

  Brody’s jaw tightened as he listened to her tell her story. He seemed angry. Sam hoped it wasn’t at her for being so stupid and naive. “Didn’t anyone realize what was really going on?”

  “If they did, they didn’t care. I was a home wrecker, out on my rear end, and couldn’t get a reference to save my soul. This job working for you is the first thing I’ve been able to land. And I only managed that because of Agnes, I’m sure.”

  Brody leaned into her but didn’t reach for her. “What happened to you was terrible. That Luke guy should be strung up by his junk. But let me ask you something…do you really think I’m going to sleep with you and toss you out onto the street like he did?”

  Sam felt a flush of embarrassment rise to her cheeks. “No…and yes. It’s a hard-learned lesson, Brody. I’m already a temporary employee. Easy to get rid of. And if you sleep with one boss, it’s a fluke. Twice…and it’s a bad habit. I don’t want to make the same mistakes.”

  Brody’s hand came to rest heavily on her shoulder. His touch was warm and the massaging motion of his fingertips made her want to close her eyes and curl up in his lap.

  “Sam, let me assure you first that I am not married. Not even close. No serious girlfriends or fiancées tucked away, either. I am very, very single. Two, I am not a sleaze. Please don’t think for a moment that I’m trying to use my position as your supervisor to pressure you into something you don’t want to do. I don’t ever want to make you uncomfortable. Here, or at work.”

  “Thank you.” Sam knew what he was saying was true. She’d been telling herself that since the first buzz of attraction between them. She was just scared to get burned again.

  “And finally…I want you to understand that I’m not the kind of guy that casually sleeps around with women. I really like you, Sam. You’re beautiful and smart and funny.” Brody reached out to caress her cheek. “You look at me—really look at me—when no one else does. I don’t think you truly understand how rare that is in my life. I don’t need coded doors and thumbprint scanners to keep people away. They stay away on their own.

  “Since my accident, no one looks at me the way they did before. It was so hard, living my life every day and dealing with the stares and the reactions of people. I was just a kid, Sam. When I got old enough, I started my company and hid away because I didn’t want to deal with it anymore. It’s my choice to keep people away now. But in shutting away the bad, I shut away the good, too. It was probably a mistake. It has cost me so much of my personal life, but I did what I thought I had to do to protect myself.”

  Sam’s heart ached listening to his story, but she didn’t quite grasp where he was headed with the conversation.

  “It might be unheard of in this day and age, Sam, but…I’m still a virgin.”

  * * *

  Brody had never spoken those words aloud to another living soul. Not even his brothers knew the truth. They thought he’d lost it to a working girl they’d all chipped in and bought him after high school. And he let them believe it. It was easier than telling them that even their well-paid whore couldn’t look him in the eye when she touched him.

  He’d walked away from her without regrets. Getting laid would be nice, but he wanted more. Call him a hopeless romantic, but it was true. He wanted companionship. Intimacy. Love. Until now, Brody hadn’t met a woman who might be interested in him for anything but his money. He hadn’t come across anyone who inspired him to open up and expose his demons to her.

  Sam had come so close. He didn’t want her to walk away and he’d decided that telling her the truth might be the only thing to convince her he wasn’t like other men. But it may have backfired. He was pretty sure by the extended silence between them that he’d driven her away with his blunt confession instead.

  Brody held his breath. Sam’s mouth had dropped open slightly when he’d spoken, but she hadn’t moved since then. She was watching him. Probably thinking about how to gracefully get out of this uncomfortable situation. He was on the verge of giving her an out when she set her cobbler bowl on the table and stood up. His stomach sank. She was leaving.

  Him and his big mouth.

  But she didn’t go. Instead, she reached out to him. He took her hand and she tugged until he stood up. He looked down at her with his brow drawn in confusion as she stepped close to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. She rested her head against his chest and sighed.

  The feel of her pressed against him was amazing. He swallowed a groan as every inch of her soft body molded against his own. He hesitated to touch her. If this was just a pity hug and she would be out the door in a moment, he didn’t want to let himself fall into it. And if he did, he was afraid that it might send her running again. But he simply couldn’t help touching her. He enveloped her in his arms and pressed his lips against the golden curls at the crown of her head.

  He didn’t want to let her go, yet before he was ready, he could feel Sam pull back.

  A sly smile curled her lips as she looked up at him, her body still pressed against his. “I can fix that,” she said at last.

  For a moment, Brody couldn’t quite piece together what she meant by that. Of course, it was hard to think with her breasts pressing against his chest. She couldn’t possibly mean…? His mind backed up. He’d said he was a virgin, and she said she could fix that. He swallowed hard and took Sam’s face into his hands. “Are you sure?” he asked. “I mean, are you doing this because you want to, or because you have this need to fix—”

  Sam didn’t respond to his question. Instead, she climbed to her toes, pressed her mouth against his and silenced him. Her lips were soft and warm, and this time, she tasted like cherry cobbler instead of cherry lip gloss. He lost himself in the kiss, his thumbs stroking the smooth skin of her jaw.

  When Sam pulled away, she took Brody’s hand in hers and started walking back into the house. He followed her inside, and when she paused at the staircase, he nodded. At the top of the winding stairs, he
pushed ahead of her and led the way to his master suite.

  As he opened the double French doors that led to his bedroom, his heart started pounding so loudly in his ears he was certain Sam could hear it. He kept turning a nervous gaze her way, but she just smiled and followed him without concern.

  He paused in the center of the space. His king-size bed was on the right, facing a wall of windows that gave him the perfect view of the sunrise every morning. Past it was a small sitting area with a fireplace and the entrance to the master bathroom.

  “So, this is my room,” he began as he turned to face Sam, not quite sure of the best approach to take from here. He hated feeling so awkward at this when he was able to confidently take charge in so many other areas of his life.

  Sam had no question of how to proceed. Her dark eyes looked into his own as her fingers went to his collar. On reflex, his hand shot to cover hers and halt the movement.

  Sam gasped softly at his sudden movement. “What’s the matter?” she asked, her dark eyes wide with concern.

  Brody closed his eyes and swallowed hard. What would he tell her? That he wanted to leave his shirt on during sex? That he wanted the lights out? It sounded ridiculous in his mind, much less said aloud. Was it worse than admitting the truth? That as badly as he wanted her, he didn’t want her or anyone else to see what his bastard of a father had done to him?

  Some people might have seen Brody’s face, but no one outside of a hospital had ever seen his chest. Even as a kid sharing a room with Wade, he always kept covered. He came out of the bathroom fully dressed after a shower. He never went swimming with the other boys. They probably expected him to have more scars from his accident, but Brody didn’t want anyone to know the full extent of what his father had inflicted on him long before that last day.

  “Nothing. I just…” His voice trailed off. Brody wanted Sam more than he wanted to hide, but his sense of self-preservation was deeply ingrained in his every response. “I want you so badly. But I don’t want you to see—”

  “I don’t want you hiding from me, Brody. There’s nothing that you could show me to make me want you any less.”

  She seemed to know. Even with his shirt still buttoned, Sam knew what he was hiding. Brody let go of her hand and let her continue. She watched his expression with unmatched intensity as inch by inch of chest was exposed. He tensed, holding his breath as his shirt opened and she pushed it over his shoulders. He watched and waited for the reaction he dreaded. She might think she meant what she said, but she hadn’t seen all his scars yet.

  Sam paused only a moment in taking in the hard lines of his chest to follow the trail of rippled skin that ran down his shoulder and over the heart that beat like a bass drum in his rib cage. Then her palm went to it. Sam covered his heart with her hand and then traveled the path back up his neck to touch the scarred side of his face.

  Brody fought the urge to pull away from her touch. He always pulled away. He didn’t like the idea of anyone touching his scars. His injuries were bad enough to look at, even more distressing to feel. Sam didn’t seem to agree. She was determined to challenge his every barrier. There wasn’t the slightest flinch of disgust as she cupped his cheek and drew his mouth to hers.

  He kissed her again, the thoughts of his scars fading away. It was done. She hadn’t run. Now he could try to focus on other things. His hands moved to her waist, gliding easily over the slick fabric of her top. His fingers pulled at the material, tugging it out from the waist of her skirt so he could make contact with her bare skin. Unlike Brody with his rough scars, Sam’s skin was flawless and silky soft to the touch. She was delicate and feminine and beautiful, so different from himself. He loved the feel of her against his palms as they ran over her back and around her sides to brush the edge of her rib cage.

  Sam gasped against his lips and pulled away. Brody froze in his tracks and frowned nervously. “What did I do?”

  She shook her head and smiled. “Nothing. Your hands are just a little cold for such a sensitive spot.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I can take care of it,” she said. In one fluid movement, her arms twisted around her torso and pulled her top up and over her head.

  Brody’s mouth went dry as a desert when he was faced with the sight of her breasts confined in a black lace bra. They were large and full, threatening to spill over the scalloped edge of the cups that were stitched with tiny crystals. She was a buxom pin-up girl come to life in his bedroom. He tried to swallow, but the lump in his throat stayed stubbornly in place.

  Sam reached behind herself and unfastened her bra. It dropped to the floor, exposing the very things he’d been admiring. They were lovely. Brody had seen his share of breasts in magazines and movies, but they didn’t prepare him for this moment. The full pale globes had tight pink tips. He ached to touch them but couldn’t make himself move.

  Sam reached out and took both of his wrists in her hands. She brought them up to her mouth and blew hot air across his palms. The feel of her breath on his skin sent a sizzle up his arms, but when she brought the heated palms down to cover each breast, the sizzle turned into a jolt.

  He watched as Sam closed her eyes and indulged in the feel of his hands on her. His palms grazed over the tips, his fingertips pressing into her flesh. Sam made a soft hum of pleasure in her throat as he teased and explored her skin. But he wanted to taste them, too. His head dipped to take a nipple into his mouth.

  Sam gasped and arched her back, pressing her breasts even harder against his touch. Her skin was both sweet and salty against his tongue. He drank her in, drawing hard at one breast and then the other, lightly flicking his tongue over the swollen pink tips. She squirmed in his arms, lacing her fingers in the curls at the nape of his neck and tugging him closer. Her reaction urged him on, building confidence in him as he tried different ways to make her cry out with pleasure.

  Brody only pulled away when he felt the graze of her touch at the fly of his jeans. With sure fingers, Sam unbuttoned and unzipped, slowly backing him toward the bed. When his calves met with the emerald-green brocade comforter, her hand slipped beneath the elastic of his waistband. Her fingers curled around his firm heat, sending a shockwave of sensation through his body.

  “Oh, damn,” he groaned and reached back to the bed to steady himself.

  She pressed against his chest with her other hand, easing him to sit against the edge of the mattress. He braced himself with both arms propped behind him. Sam tugged at the jeans, pulling them and his briefs down his legs. Lying naked with Sam crouched down between his legs was a surreal experience. He’d never felt so exposed in his life. And yet with Sam it was different. It wasn’t like going out in public and having people stare. It was exhilarating.

  With the last of his clothes tossed to the side, Sam knelt down and reached for him again. She stroked him slowly, running her thumb from the base to the tip. Brody wanted to watch, but he couldn’t keep his eyes from closing and savoring the feeling. He wanted to remember every sensation of this night.

  Sam caught him by surprise when she took him into her mouth. His lids flew open, a shudder running through his whole body as the hot, wet heat of her mouth moved over him. It took every ounce of control he had to keep from going over the edge when she touched him like that. But damn, it felt amazing.

  It was no wonder people seemed to be so obsessed with sex everywhere he turned. Brody had been seriously missing out all these years.

  Finally, he had to put a stop to it or this would be over before it truly began. “Sam,” he managed in a hoarse whisper. “Stop. I can’t…” he said, curling tight wads of the comforter in his fists. “Please.”

  When she pulled away, he was both relieved and disappointed, but neither feeling lasted for long. He watched her stand up and unzip her skirt. It shimmied over her hips and fell to the floor. Beneath it she wore a pair of matching black lac
e panties and thigh-high stockings. She put one foot on the edge of the bed, watching his face as she rolled the stocking down her leg. When she switched to take off the other stocking, he caught a flash of pink flesh peeking out from beneath her flimsy panties.

  Sam knew it, too. He got the feeling she was doing it on purpose. She smiled as she threw the other stocking aside. She took a step away, allowing him the full view of her body, then turned around. The luscious round curves of her backside were accented by the high cut of her thong panties and the tiny crystal heart stitched at the top. She glanced seductively over her shoulder at him, hooked her thumbs beneath the lace and drew her panties down over her hips. Brody couldn’t tear his eyes away as the fabric inched lower, sliding down her shapely legs.

  Lastly, she reached up behind her head and unclipped her hair clasp. The mess of blond curls rained down over her shoulders and back as she shook her head. Then she turned around and faced him.

  She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his life. Powerfully seductive, curvaceous, feminine… And she was crawling, naked, over him until she was straddling his waist and looking down at him. His hands went to her hips, stroking the soft skin and steadying their nervous shaking.

  Sam leaned down, kissed him and then whispered against his lips. “Protection?” she asked.

  “Yes.” He did have that. And it wasn’t a pathetic box that expired ten years ago, either. He’d ordered a new box of condoms online this week when he was feeling optimistic. He rolled onto his side and moved higher up the bed to reach for the nightstand beside it. He pulled one out and rolled onto his back.

  Sam took the foil packet from him and opened it. He gritted his teeth as she sheathed him in latex and crawled back up to him. He could feel his arousal pressing against her inner thigh. She reached between them and aligned their bodies just right. Sam moved his hands back to her hips. And then she nodded.