by Toni Blake
And it still did. But thankfully, there remained no more Brodys here to trespass against. From what she remembered hearing from her father and Sue Ann over the years, Wayne Brody was in prison, the Brody parents were dead, and Mick Brody was just…gone.
No one knew where. Or cared much. People in Destiny were just generally relieved that the Brodys were no more.
Thinking back, she could still hear Sue Ann’s nervous whispers all those years ago as the canoe floated smoothly across the water. “You realize that if we tip this canoe over and drown, no one will ever know what happened to us.”
“No—someone will find the canoe, and then they’ll drag the lake,” Jenny had explained. She was a cop’s daughter—she knew about these things.
“Well, what if some Brody shoots us and buries us in unmarked graves? No one will ever find us.”
“Oh, would you just relax?” Jenny would spout. “Nothing bad is going to happen.” Even if she hadn’t been a hundred percent sure of that herself.
So given the departure of all the Brodys, as the canoe came to a halt against the same small, sandy landing Jenny had used all those years ago, she didn’t feel that same sense of nervous excitement about being here—and it was just as well. She’d come here for peace, after all. And as she stepped out and pulled the canoe farther up onto land, then reached in and hefted out the bag holding her equipment, she sensed herself getting closer to it. At least for tonight.
Mah-jongg at Sue Ann’s mother’s house had been pleasant enough, but right now she needed the stars, the planets, the cosmos—to remind her that in the big picture of the universe, her troubles were small potatoes. She needed the night sky to whisk her away to another world.
She’d brought a flashlight but didn’t yet need to use it. Still, as she began the initial ascent up the rocky hillside, the tall trees closed in around her, blocking out much of the remaining daylight. When some low brambles seemed to reach out and latch on to her skirt, she decided she probably should have changed into jeans, but she just untangled it and went on. Then glanced down at the flowered skirt and thought—oh God, it’s true! I am June Cleaver! Even June would have the sense to put on pants for a hike through the woods!
Of course, June’s husband never cheated on her because she wasn’t kinky enough in bed, so maybe they didn’t have that much in common.
Just then, a fleeting look to the left revealed the old Brody cabin through the trees. Even more overgrown than when she’d last seen it, she could barely make it out through the vines climbing its walls. It sat dark and desolate, neglected and mysterious, almost disappearing in its surroundings, a part of the forest now—and yet at the same time, it beckoned her in some strange way, making her want to explore it, peer in the windows, now that the Brodys were gone. Had they left anything behind? Any clues to what they were really about? She’d always heard there was a small cemetery behind the house, and now she wondered who exactly was buried there, and why.
And then—dear God, what had she just seen? A light? Had a small light just come on inside that dilapidated shack? Surely not. Surely she was seeing things.
Old leaves and new undergrowth crunched beneath her tennis shoes as she plodded on, her head still turned toward the little house, confused. She didn’t see the light anymore—had only spotted it for a second—but it seemed to her a question of angles, of having exactly the right view through all the trees between here and there.
Still, maybe she truly had imagined it. Maybe it had been the setting sun reflecting off an old windowpane as it glanced down through the heavy trees.
Trees too thick and billowy to actually admit any sun-light at the moment, she couldn’t avoid noticing. And actually, hadn’t the sun just set?
But don’t think about that.
Her heart began to pound against her chest.
And it was in that precise moment that her body collided with…another body.
No question about it—she knew even before she looked up that what she’d connected with wasn’t a tree; it was far too warm, too broad and looming. Uh-oh.
Her gaze darted upward as a sharp blade of panic sliced down through her, and she found male eyes on her. And a male body, still connecting with hers. She couldn’t make out much more than that in the dim lighting, other than his white T-shirt. She took a quick step back and tried to breathe. Who in the world…?
“This is private property,” he said brusquely, “so I don’t know who you are, but you need to get the hell outta here.”
Good God. She sucked in her breath so hard that she thought for a second she’d faint. So much for trying to breathe. The man before her was at least six-two and smelled musky, like the woods, like the earth, and his deep voice had run through her like warm liquid, like…an old memory.
She wanted to step farther back, put more distance between them, but she’d reached out to press her free hand against a tree trunk and needed it for balance at the moment. “I was just…going to look at the stars,” she explained, hefting her telescope bag a bit higher to show him. “Up on the rocks at the top of the hill.” Now she freed her hand from the tree to point. Apparently talking had helped her breathe better.
“I don’t care what you were doing—you’re trespassing.”
Wow, he still sounded just as mean. She’d sort of thought her explanation would calm the guy down. Not that she was sure, now that she thought about it, why someone would be so concerned about trespassers on this piece of useless, almost uninhabitable land. Except…maybe she really had seen a light in that cabin. Was this guy staying there? Who was he? Could he be…?
“I don’t mean any harm,” she told him. “The rocks are just the best place around here to look through a telescope.”
The man towering above her gave his head a derisive tilt and lowered his chin. As her eyes began to adjust to the dimness, she began to make out his eyes, along with the dark stubble on his cheeks. He had a full mouth, thick hair, a broad chest. “I don’t think you’re hearing me. You need to leave, go back to wherever you came from.”
She swallowed but met his gaze, aware of the rise and fall of her chest as she continued focusing on her breathing. Then she pointed over her shoulder. “I just canoed across the lake. I won’t hurt anything.” Normally, on any other night of her life, she’d have turned around and left. But she just couldn’t bring herself to do that right now. She wanted…hell, maybe she just wanted something in life to be simple, to go the way she’d planned.
“Damn right you won’t,” the guy groused, “because you’re gonna get right back in that canoe and go.”
“Look,” she snapped, pushed to a breaking point. “What’s the big deal? What is it you think I’m going to do that’s so terrible?” Maybe it was foolish—no, certainly it was foolish—but she was tired of doing what people told her, tired of feeling she had so little control over…anything.
That’s when she sensed his eyes narrowing on her—and began to think she was right, about who he was. About that voice. Oh my.
“Are you…Mick Brody?” she ventured.
He looked stunned—so stunned she knew she was correct—but she wasn’t sure why he was so surprised to be recognized, given that this was his family’s old home. She’d assumed the land belonged to someone else now, but apparently it didn’t.
Instead of answering, he said, “Who the hell are you?”
“We…met once,” she offered, again pointing over her shoulder in the direction of the lake. “At my family’s dock. It was a long time ago.” You asked me if I wanted to take a ride. In your rowboat. But I’m pretty sure you really meant on you.
His eyes narrowed further as he said, “You’re not…that Tolliver girl?”
She nodded. “Jenny. But I don’t think you knew my name. You called me—” Stop! Why on earth are you telling him this?
“Pussycat,” he recalled aloud, his voice a bit softer now, more smoldering than fiery. Something in her womb flinched, contracted. That he would remember. That th
e word still sounded sexual to her, sensual, as much as it had then.
She stayed quiet, her breasts heaving slightly. Her astronomy equipment grew heavy, weighing down her right arm.
“Well, pussycat,” he said, sounding much more matter-of-fact now, “it’s time for you to go.”
She let out a breath—now she was the surprised one. She’d thought once he realized who she was that he’d finally say okay, let her go on her way. “Seriously?” she heard herself reply. “You seriously have a problem with me walking up the hill to those rocks and looking through a telescope?”
“Seriously,” he said, unsmiling, his expression as dark as the dusky air. “I know you always get your way, but not this time.”
Everything in Jenny tightened. He thought she always got her way? He didn’t know her at all; he didn’t know anything about her. All she’d wanted was a little distraction from her troubles, a little peace. Was it so much to ask? A lump of anger rose in her throat as she said, “I see you’re just as big an asshole now as you were then.” A good-looking asshole, she was beginning to realize, but an asshole just the same.
“Whatever, pussycat,” he said. “Now be the good little girl you are and go home.” Then he placed his large hands on the tops of her arms and physically began to turn her around, toward the lake.
And that was it! It was the straw that broke the camel’s back, the last bit of opposition Jenny could stand. She wouldn’t be manhandled. And she wouldn’t be bullied by one more person who thought being “good” meant being weak, willing to be bossed around. She was tired of being “good Jenny,” obedient Jenny, tired of letting men make her decisions for her—from Terrence insisting she be a teacher instead of an astronomer to her father insisting she come live in the lake house for the summer. And now she had this guy—Mick-freaking-Brody—insisting she couldn’t go where she wanted? Every bit of anger, fury, disgust, that had been gathering inside her over the past months boiled hotter inside her, finally overflowing.
So as Mick tried to turn her body one way, she turned it the other, silently refusing to go where he was directing her. She faced him again and spat, “Get your hands off me and get out of my way.” She couldn’t quite believe she’d said it, but she couldn’t stop herself, either. Then she started to push boldly past him, tired of this ridiculous game.
Only Mick Brody didn’t let her pass—his arm shot out to block her path as she barreled forward, and before she knew it, his palm had closed firm over her hip, the length of his arm stretching down over her breasts and torso. His strength stopped her in her tracks even as his nearness, the solid connection of her flesh against his, made her pool with shocking moisture between her thighs. Dear God.
He bent down, his breath warm on her ear. “Listen, sweetheart,” he said, voice low and menacing, “you don’t want to mess with me, okay? Now turn your pretty little ass around and get back to your side of the lake while you still can.”
She sucked in her breath, raised her gaze—frightened but bold. “Or what?” she whispered, the words coming out far softer than planned. She remained in his grasp, their faces but an inch apart.
Their gazes locked, so close she could barely fathom how she’d ended up in this position. With Mick Brody, of all people on the planet. Mick Brody, who’d once frightened and aroused her all at once, at a time when she’d been far too young and sheltered to understand such conflicting emotions. And now she found herself in the very same situation—only their bodies were much nearer now, touching, and something inside her sizzled with strange, desperate need.
Mick didn’t answer—or maybe his answer was what he did next. He used his anchoring arm, and his body, to push her back against a tree trunk a foot away. His potent gaze drifted from her eyes to her mouth. She heard her own breathing. His, too. Oh God. She took in the soft clatter as her equipment bag slipped from her grip to land on a bed of wild ivy at her feet.
She didn’t understand.
What was happening.
Or what she wanted.
What her body wanted.
It was insane. Unreal.
And when he finally leaned into her, hard, and kissed her, hard, she struggled against him. Not because she didn’t want him to kiss her. But because she knew she shouldn’t. Couldn’t. Want that. Want him. He was a virtual stranger. He was…forbidden.
So even as she sensed his palms pressing to the thick bark at both sides of her face, more fully trapping her there, possessing her, she lifted her hands to his upper arms, curled her fingertips tight into the muscles, and tried to push him back.
His body didn’t budge. But he ended the kiss. Met her eyes again. His looked glassy with lust. A male hardness she recognized pressed firm and insistent at the crux of her thighs. Her lips felt swollen, sensitive.
“Are you leaving now?” he asked. She wasn’t sure if he was letting her off the hook or bossing her around some more.
“No,” she said on a hot breath, still refusing to back down. Maybe it was crazy, but to back down now would somehow feel like the ultimate defeat. And she didn’t need any more defeat in her life.
“Well, you’re not going up that damn hill, I’ll tell you that much.”
“Give me one good reason not to,” she insisted, and then made a move to extricate herself from where he pinned her to the tree, knowing full well that he’d stop her, and despite herself, when his hand closed firmly around her wrist, the sensation shot to the crux of her thighs.
Again she wrestled, trying to get free even though she knew she couldn’t—and that was the dark temptation of the fight. It made everything okay as long as she tried to resist, right? As long as she let both of them know she wasn’t the sort of girl who just gave in to a stranger in the woods without a struggle.
A little struggle, anyway.
Because when he spun her around, still holding tight to her, and she ended up with her back pressed to his chest, her bottom plastered to his erection, her breath coming heated and labored, she lost the will to struggle anymore. He just felt too good. Too hard. Too everything. She let him hold her there, let him make her feel…captured, hot, ready.
His breath was audible, too, the only other sound besides last autumn’s dead leaves being crushed beneath their feet. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears and the whole forest seemed to pulse. Sweat trickled between her breasts in the still summer night air.
That’s when his free hand moved across her torso, fingers splayed. Every nerve in her body responded with horrified pleasure. His touch skimmed slowly, roughly upward until he was cupping her breast, fully, firmly—and she gasped. And felt it between her legs. And thought—just say no, all you have to do is say no.
As his labored breath echoed in her ear, she sensed him waiting for just that, her protest, the protest that would surely come—but it didn’t. Instead, she just bit her lower lip and felt the powerful energy of a stranger’s touch move all through her.
As he began to massage her breast, tangled, conflicted sighs of pleasure escaped her. Leaning her head back into his chest, she spotted the moon, beginning to shine down through the heavy limbs from a fading purple sky. She kept her eye on it—something so familiar to her; she’d seen the moon from a hundred different angles, a hundred different magnifications, full, half, crescent, in partial and total eclipse. Right now it was the only thing anywhere around her that felt real, safe. A shame its nearness was only an illusion.
When Mick Brody released her breast only to curl his fingers into the placket of her blouse and briskly yank it open, she let out a small cry. But she still didn’t protest—even as the warm night air caressed her newly revealed skin, even as he flicked his fingertips at the front opening of her simple white bra, as if he’d known without doubt that was where the clasp would be.
The white cups fell away, baring her breasts to the night. She looked down, as stunned as if she hadn’t willingly let things get this far. As if she’d tried to stop it somehow. I only wanted to look at the stars. I only wanted to
feel something besides disillusionment and failure. Well, she was feeling something else now, all right.
How is this possible? It can’t be happening. Who the hell am I?
When Mick finally released her wrist, it provided one more instance when she could have stopped this—yet still she didn’t. She simply stood there soaking up the heat of his body on an already hot summer night. She simply stood there as he closed both rough hands over her breasts from behind. She heard herself whimper as forbidden pleasure arced through her. Oh God, it felt good. To be touched. Wanted. Desired. It was the first time she’d felt…truly womanly, sexual, in years.
As he molded the two mounds of flesh in his palms, she became still more aware of the column of granite at her rear and the sensation it sent rocketing to every inch of her body. She moaned and sighed. She sank into him as if she knew him.
When he turned her around to press her back against the same big tree as before—and she let him this time, no more fighting—things grew more difficult, strange. Because his eyes were back on her, and this was real. Her breasts were bared between them and it wasn’t quite so dark yet that the white flesh and their beaded pink tips weren’t clearly visible.
And when he used both hands to pin her arms to the bark, their gazes met and she could have sworn his expression was as pained and conflicted as her own surely was. She saw the same worry mingling with lust that coursed through her own veins. But she had no idea why. What did Mick Brody have to lose here?
And, oh God, his eyes. The more she looked into them, the more intoxicated she became. They took her back to that day on the dock all those years ago—she’d noticed them then, blue and wicked. Nothing about them had changed.
Next Mick bent to capture one turgid nipple in his mouth. A strangled-sounding breath left her throat as the intense pleasure permeated her being. He wasn’t a gentle man—she’d already gathered that much—and he didn’t do this gently, either. He suckled her firmly, in a way that seemed to connect squarely with her crotch, delivering mindless pleasure even as the rough tree bark bit into her back and her knees threatened to give way beneath her.
