Machine: A Bad Boy Romance: Barnes Family Book 2

by Normandie Alleman

  Oh to hell with it.

  I jumped out of bed and crowed at the top of my lungs, “I got a hard-on, dammit! And I kept it—for half an hour. Fuck yeah!”

  As I got dressed for work and made myself some breakfast, I couldn’t stop smiling.

  There was every chance I could get a normal life back. The doctors said it could happen, and now their predictions were coming true. There was only one thing I needed to bring me all the way back.

  And her name was Dynassy Barnes.

  6

  Dynassy

  * * *

  “Can you believe that when I invited him in, he just left?” I was on the phone with my soon-to-be sister-in-law, Eden.

  “No, I can’t.”

  Eden had been my friend since we were babies, before both our fathers had been killed in a plane crash, on the way to one of their concerts. After their deaths, we didn’t see each other for a few years, but she and I had always kept in touch.

  My brother and Eden had both found themselves in Austin, Texas, last year, where they reconnected, and now they were engaged and the happy parents of six-week-old twins Albert and Annabelle.

  “I mean, I can’t remember the last time I invited a guy in and he turned me down.” I paced the floor of our family’s Beverly Hills mansion. I’d bought a home of my own, but since it was being remodeled, my mother had invited me to stay with her and my twin brother and sister. Ivy and Leo were rarely home, so it was usually me and Lucinda.

  I was wearing a path in the expensive carpet as I fumed. “In fact, I don’t think that has ever happened to me in my whole life.”

  I heard baby whimpering in the background. “Maybe he’s just trying to be a gentleman. Have you even considered that?”

  “In this day and age?” These days, people were hooking up all over the place, but perhaps she was right. I’d heard there was a time when girls waited until the third date to put out. Could it be that he was just old school?

  “Or maybe he likes you a lot, and it freaks him out. That’s what happened to me with Nick. I needed to tap the brakes because my feelings for him were overwhelming.”

  Eden and Nick were really cute. It had been adorable watching my friend fall for my brother all over again. As kids, those two had always been inseparable. A few years ago, Nick was your typical playboy athlete, and now he was a doting father and soon-to-be husband. I had no doubt he was going to make a great one. They were the perfect couple.

  It made no sense that Lucinda had such a problem with Eden. Especially with the way she placed such a premium on appearances. Eden and Nick were the perfect All-American sweethearts Lucinda was always trying to make me out to be. But I wasn’t as squeaky clean and wholesome as Eden had always been. I’d never been shy about my attraction to a man, and I couldn’t really relate to this idea of holding back. I was a “what you see is what you get” kind of girl.

  That might be why I seemed to be always getting in trouble, at least lately, and why my mother had insisted on the latest PR campaign.

  A baby howled through the phone. “Dynassy, I may have to call you back.”

  It had been like this ever since the babies were born, and while my niece and nephew were adorable, they sure seemed to take up a lot of time. “Okay. Which one is that? What’s the matter?”

  The cacophony on the other end grew louder. The screams had turned to wails. “It’s Albert. I think he has colic, and now he’s woken up his sister. So sorry. Got to run.”

  Click.

  I guess she didn’t have time for a goodbye. So much for girl talk.

  I wished Ivy were home, but she’d gone to stay with Eden and Nick to help out with the babies. She wasn’t being very helpful just then. Oh yeah, Eden said she’d gone shopping…

  The last person I wanted to talk to about my love life was my mother, so it was a good thing she wasn’t home or I might be tempted to discuss Bridger’s rejection with her. But she’d gone to some party and taken her cameras with her, leaving me in an unusually quiet house.

  Just then, I heard the plink of a guitar and realized that my brother Leo was home.

  Yay!

  He was probably working on a new piece of music. That’s what he’d been doing during the break Ivy had negotiated with our mother over the summer.

  Leo was the most creative of all of us Barnes kids. He inherited our father’s musical genius, and while he played the pop music that he and Ivy were so famous for, when left to his own devices, he wrote songs that were even more beautiful. Haunting almost.

  My brother might be a teenage heartthrob, but he was also a true artist.

  I tromped up the stairs to his suite and knocked on the door. “Leo? Can I come in?”

  “Yeah.”

  I opened the door slowly. I’d learned a long time ago that the room of a teenage boy could be incredibly frightening. Even though Leo had recently graduated from teen status, he held on to some of those characteristics, so I still felt some trepidation upon entering his domain.

  Leo sat in a chair, one leg draped over one of the arms. He looked like he’d fallen from the sky and landed like that with the guitar in his lap. “What’s up?” he asked, not looking up from the guitar strings he strummed.

  I’d never talked to Leo about guys before, but over the past few years, while he and Ivy had been on the road, Leo had grown up without me actually realizing it. Each time I saw him after a few weeks had passed, he seemed taller. His shoulders grew broader. His black hair grew and his blue eyes seemed more intense.

  “Not much.” I almost asked if he wanted a sandwich, just to give me an excuse for being here. This whole thing was so embarrassing. And little brothers were nothing if not pests who made fun of their sisters. Why give him the ammunition?

  “Then what are you doing in here?” His tone was more curious than annoyed.

  I knew I shouldn’t talk to him about this, but he was the only one home, and I really needed some help figuring this one out. So, abandoning my better judgment, I launched into it. “So I met this guy…”

  Leo chuckled.

  “What?” Great, he was already laughing at me.

  “Nothing. Go ahead. So you met a guy.”

  I rolled my eyes, but continued. “Yeah, at the event yesterday for wounded warriors, you know how I went to that?”

  “Yeah, how was that?”

  “It was fine,” I answered impatiently. “So this guy, he’s a mechanic, and he’s been working on my car—”

  “The one you crashed into a tree or the one you were thinking of having painted?”

  “The one with the tree. Anyway, he was at the event. Apparently he’s a former SEAL who had some sort of injury while he was in Iraq. And he asked me to dance.”

  “Sounds okay.”

  “It was more than okay. There was a great vibe between us, and then he offered to give me a ride home, so I said yes. That way I could stay and dance longer and the production people could take the car home.”

  “So what’s the problem?” Leo had stopped playing the guitar and now set it on the floor, propping it against the chair.

  “Well, he brought me home and walked me to the door and that was it.”

  “What do you mean ‘that was it’?”

  “I mean that was it. He didn’t try to kiss me or anything, and when I invited him in, he said no, then made some sort of excuse and left.”

  “What sort of excuse?”

  “I don’t know. He just said something lame like he had to go.”

  “Okay. So?”

  “So? So he rejected me, and I don’t understand why.”

  “Why do you think guys reject girls?”

  “Because they really have to go and do something?”

  Leo slapped his leg and laughed. “No.”

  “Then why?”

  “Because he’s not into you.”

  Leo’s words stung. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

  “Why? It’s true. What else did you think?” />
  Suddenly my mind was spinning. Could Leo be right? Had I completely misread Bridger’s signals earlier? But why would he have asked me to dance and stayed later with me, offering to take me home, if he wasn’t interested?

  “Could be that he thought hanging out with Dynassy Barnes would be epic, then he realized it wasn’t all he thought it might be. That happens to me with girls. They look great, and I think they’ll be awesome, and then they turn out to be airheads.”

  My chest tightened. “I’m not an airhead!”

  “Calm down. I wasn’t saying you are. I’m just saying that sometimes you think you’re going to like somebody, you get to know them a little better, and you don’t connect.” He shrugged. “Happens. Don’t get all bent.”

  What Leo said was slowly sinking in. “But he asked me to dance and gave me a ride home,” I mumbled.

  Leo shrugged. “So giving you a ride home was enough for him. It’s not rocket science, Di. And it’s not personal. Not every girl is for every guy. Don’t read too much into it. Besides, it’s not like you don’t have dudes chasing after you. You can have any guy you want.”

  Except, apparently, Bridger Thompson.

  This whole conversation reminded me why I didn’t come to my younger brother for advice on guys. Leo might be right, but he was also harsh.

  Talk about a blow to my ego. Part of me wanted to crawl in bed and pull the covers up over my head stay and there for a week.

  “Hey, sis, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” Leo chewed on his bottom lip.

  “It’s okay.”

  “Do you know what’s for dinner?”

  “No.”

  “Should we order a pizza?”

  I backed out of his room. “Pizza sounds good. You order it.” And I stumbled back to my room, hoping that a hot bath would help me finally get my mind off Bridger Thompson.

  And if I still felt like crap after that, I’d take a sexy selfie and post it online.

  If tens of thousands of likes didn’t make me feel better, nothing would.

  Eat your heart out, Bridger Thompson.

  7

  Dynassy

  * * *

  The next day I was lying out by the pool when my cell phone rang. It was a number I didn’t recognize, so I didn’t pick up. You wouldn’t believe the random people who got my number and called me. Honestly, I think sometimes the delivery guys who bring takeout give it out. Maybe they sell it—I’m not sure, but I have to change my number every six months or so to stop a barrage of calls.

  “Not gonna answer?” Ivy asked. She’d driven back to LA the night before so she would be here for some fittings for her costumes for “A Barnes 4th.” Now she lay next to me applying lemon juice to her hair, hoping for some “natural highlights.”

  “I don’t see you answering your phone,” I snipped.

  She snorted. “I’m not the one pining over some guy.”

  I ignored her. “You know that will look better if you have someone at the salon do it.” I pointed at her hair.

  “Whatever. I don’t want all those chemicals on my hair. They probably cause cancer.”

  “I think you’re thinking of our cell phones.”

  I was probably one of the only people who knew what Ivy’s hair actually looked like. In public, she wore a wig ninety-five percent of the time. Rainbow ones, aqua, her latest favorite was mint green.

  If I wore my hair that shade, I’d look like I had some sort of plague, but Ivy pulled it off with aplomb. She was a spritely girl with a pixie-like face and an energy that was as magnetic as it was ethereal.

  “Speaking of phones—check yours.”

  “Why?” I squinted up at the sun.

  “I just have a feeling.”

  “Oh, all right. It’s probably a tabloid journalist wanting to ask me if I’m really pregnant.”

  “I didn’t know you were pregnant,” Ivy deadpanned.

  “Shut up.” I picked up her spray bottle of lemon juice and squirted her bare stomach.

  She flinched, shrieking, “Stop! That’s cold!”

  “Hmph!” I scrolled to my voicemail and pressed the arrow to listen to the message that followed this latest call.

  “Hi, Dynassy. This is Bridger Thompson. I was calling to see if you might be free one afternoon this week. Give me a call.” Then he left his number.

  My hand began to tremble. He called. I’d talked myself out of it ever happening, but he had called!

  “Who was it?” Ivy used her hand as a visor to shield her eyes from the sun.

  “It was him.”

  “Oh my God!” Ivy popped up on the lounge chair. “What did he say?”

  “I think he wants to ask me out.”

  “You think?”

  I handed her the cell phone and let her listen to his message.

  “You’re right. He does want to ask you out. Call him back!”

  “You don’t think that looks like I’m too eager?”

  Ivy made a face. “Didn’t you practically beg him to come to your bedroom? I think that ship has sailed, sis.”

  “You’re right.” Pride would only get in the way of what I wanted here, and that was to see Bridger again.

  My fingers quivered as I pressed the buttons to return his call.

  He answered on the second ring. “Hello.”

  “Hi, Bridger. It’s Dynassy.”

  “Hey. What are you doing tomorrow afternoon?”

  My mind ran through my schedule. I had a fitting with my stylist then, but I could move it. “Not much. Why?”

  “I wondered if you’d like to go shooting with me.”

  “Shooting? What kind of shooting?”

  “Guns. You ever shot a gun before?”

  “Um, no.” This was definitely out of my comfort zone. Normally I’d turn down a date like this, but something told me that if I did, Bridger wouldn’t ask again. “But I could learn.”

  “That’s the spirit. Pick you up at three?”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Same place I dropped you off before?”

  “Yes. See you then.”

  We hung up and I grabbed Ivy’s hands and squealed, “He asked me out!”

  She squeezed my hands and we giggled like we were in middle school. “Now, I’ve got to figure out what to wear.”

  Bridger Thompson was an enigma, and I had no idea what to make of him. First, he basically rejected my advances, but then he asked me out on a date.

  Hopefully, going out with him would help me gain a better understanding of the guy and what made him tick.

  I picked out a pair of my favorite jeans and a long-sleeved top, tight enough to enhance my curves, but modest in cut. I didn’t want to look like I was trying too hard.

  Ivy braided my hair for me—one long fishtail braid. Normally I was known for being late for almost everything, but for this date, I was ready a record twenty minutes early. Ivy and I waited near the front door, as eager as if we were staying up late waiting for Santa and his reindeer to appear.

  “What does he drive?” Ivy asked, pulling aside the drapes and peering out the window.

  “A Viper.”

  Ivy crinkled her nose. “Kinda fancy for a mechanic.”

  “Yeah, I think he has some sort of inheritance.”

  “Nice. That way you know he’s not after you for your money.”

  I frowned at her.

  “What? You know it’s true.”

  I sighed. She made a good point. I’d been so focused on Bridger liking me at all that it hadn’t occurred to me he might like me for my money.

  After what seemed like forever, the sportscar pulled into the driveway.

  “Run upstairs.”

  “What do you mean? Why would I do that?” I hissed. Out the window, I could see Bridger emerge from the car. Damn. He looked hot. His biceps bulged against the fabric of his tight-fitting shirt, and his broad shoulders tapered to a much smaller waist. He wore cargo pants and boots that made him look every bit the part
of a SEAL.

  “Go upstairs, then I’ll call you and you can come down the stairs and make an entrance. That way it won’t look like you’ve been sitting here waiting for thirty minutes.”

  “I thought you said that ship had sailed,” I fussed, but I ran up the stairs anyway.

  Ivy shrugged. “He’s definitely hot. Do you think he has a brother?”

  “I’ll ask,” I said, sprinting into one of the rooms off the upstairs hallway.

  The doorbell chimed, and I heard Ivy open the door.

  “You must be Bridger.”

  “I am, and you must be Ivy.”

  “Guilty. Come in. I’ll just get Dynassy.” After a slight pause, Ivy called up, “Dynassy!”

  “Coming!” I called back and headed down the stairs, praying I didn’t trip.

  “Hey!” Bridger grinned.

  “Hey yourself,” I answered back, hoping that didn’t sound as dumb to him as it did to me.

  “You look great,” he said, his green eyes bright with admiration.

  “Thanks. You too.”

  He scoffed then turned to Ivy. “I won’t keep her out too late,” he promised.

  “No, please do!” Ivy laughed, hand on hip. “You two close the joint. Have fun. I don’t want to see my sister back here for a week.”

  “Ivy!” If I could have kicked her under the table, I would have.

  But Bridger just chuckled. “Duly noted.” Then he opened the door and waited for me to walk through it before following me to open the passenger door of the car for me.

  “Hey, do you have a brother?” Ivy cried, and I sank into the passenger seat to hide my embarrassment.

  “Nope. Only one sister.” He shrugged good-naturedly.

  Ivy snapped her fingers. “Too bad. Have fun and don’t shoot anybody!” She waved goodbye as Bridger backed the car out of the driveway.

  Once we were on the road, he said, “Your sister is something.”

  I eyed him to see if he meant this in a good or a bad way. The smirk on his face told me he found her amusing.