Second Chance (Chances #2)

by BJ Harvey

  “It’s my bed, actually.”

  He smiles against my mouth. “So we’ll keep this quiet. That doesn’t bother me. I get why you want that and I get that you’re looking out for your friend while also making sure I’m okay with it. You’re being honest and open, not trying to hide from it or put your head in the sand. I’m happy just being with you, Gaby. In fact, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.” He kisses my nose then rolls me over so my back is to his chest and he’s leaning into me again, holding me close and wrapping me up tight. I let his words hover in the air around us, settling on my skin like a warm enveloping cocoon. Ain’t that a new, strange, and totally unexpected sensation.

  Five minutes of comfortable silence later, I decide to take advantage of our relaxed state. “So there’s something I’ve always wondered,” I say, stroking my hand up and down his arm at my waist.

  “Mmm.” He sounds half asleep, and a quick twist of my head meets his closed eyes.

  “Sorry, it can wait.” There’s no response and after what must be twenty seconds, I figure he’s fallen asleep.

  “What can wait?” he says gruffly.

  “Seriously, it’s okay. It’s not important.”

  Without warning I’m flipped on my back. I grab hold of his shoulders as his bright—very alert eyes—lock with mine, his face hovering barely an inch above me. “You think for even a second that I’m gonna fall asleep when you’re asking me something after months of wanting you to talk? You’re sorely mistaken.” My tense body melts into the mattress and my grip eases. “Ask away, Gabs.”

  “Well, it’s kind of a dumb question now.”

  “Let me be the judge of that.” There’s no inkling of annoyance or frustration. I swear, he must be the most patient man on the planet. “You get that we’re getting to know each other.”

  One corner of my mouth curves up. “Yeah . . .”

  “So you get that the more questions you ask me, the more—in turn—I get to ask you?”

  My eyes widen. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.

  His lips quirk before dropping to touch mine. “But this one I’ll give you for free.”

  I turn my head, racking my brain as to how this went from idle pillow talk to such a pivotal moment. I don’t want to seem like a flake when I ask him my now totally lame question. The fact I care about what he thinks of me says a lot about this situation. “Can I take a rain check?”

  His brows lift. “A rain check?”

  “Yeah. I’m feeling really tired all of a sudden. Good food, company, and cuddles do that to a girl.”

  He shakes his head, his eyes crinkling at the sides as I continue to babble.

  “Like really, it’s not even worthy of pillow talk. It’s more like date talk, and since our date was postponed—”

  “Kind of like a rain check?” God, he slays me when he’s funny.

  “Where have you been hiding this sense of humor? Cause you always seemed to be the strong, silent type who came to work, did his job, then left again.”

  He drops onto his side of the bed, his body still half covering mine. “That’s exactly what I am but it wasn’t all work and no play. . .”

  That gets my attention. “Oh, really? You definitely kept that a secret.”

  His hand cradles my jaw as he turns my head, his eyes full of amusement. “Jealous?” he asks, teasing me. “Cause my play was watching you. Listening to you . . .” He shifts forward so his mouth hovers over mine, his face all that I can and want to see. “I wanted to know you the minute I laid eyes on you. I wanted to have you the second you smiled at me. That’s never happened before.”

  “Wanting to get to know someone?” I ask curiously, and I’m definitely confused. He’s thirty-four; there’s no way he was a virgin before he met me because no man has skills like that without bedding many a woman in the past. In fact, I’d shake his ex’s hands for aiding the development of his fine motor skills when it comes to bringing pleasure to the female body.

  Bruno shakes his head with a smirk.

  “You’re just fishing for compliments tonight, aren’t you?” He runs his hand down my neck and whispers his palm across the swell of my cleavage, cupping my breast. His lazy roll of my pert nipple between his fingers sends shots of awareness throughout my body.

  My back begins to involuntarily arch off the bed when he lowers his head and runs his warm, wet tongue from one breast to the other. I somehow—miraculously—manage to keep my wits about me and my eyes on the prize that is getting to know Bruno.

  With a hand on either side of his face, I pull him up until we’re eye level again. “You’re trying to distract me.”

  “Actually, it’s you distracting me. And you still haven’t asked your question,” he says, kissing my nose.

  “Stop doing stuff to me and I might remember what it was.”

  He buries his face in my neck and bursts out laughing, his hand stroking my hair.

  “I told you it was nothing,” I grumble, trying hard to actually remember what my thought process was before everything that’s Bruno knocked me off my game.

  “Baby…”

  “Do you work out?” I blurt. Bruno’s brows bunch together and I realize how dumb that must sound. It’s definitely not worth waking him up for.

  “Do I . . .” His perfectly curved, totally kissable lips twitch, his eyes soft on mine. “That’s what you’ve always wanted to know?”

  I’m not sure what it is about his reaction, or his arms caging me in, but it’s made me feel disgustingly safe and warm. I kinda dig it.

  “One of many things . . .” I add, hedging my bets that he’ll continue to find me cute. Then I decide to lay it all out there. “I figure the only way this will ever work is if we’re honest with each other, right?” He nods, his face passive. “And I’ve realized that I don’t know much about you—”

  He opens his mouth to say something but I gently place my finger on his lips, silencing him so I can finish what I want—need—to say. “I know some things but they’re all on the surface. They’re ‘worked with you for nine months’ level things. Not the deeper stuff. Not what I really want to know.”

  He presses his lips against my finger before I drop my hand to his shoulder. Bending his head, he places a soft, teasing kiss on my mouth, his eyes intense as they bore into mine. Alert: I have a feeling Bruno is about to get serious.

  “There’s a big part of my past I don’t wanna get into, and you’ve got to respect my reasons for that. But anything I’ve got it in me to share, it’s yours.” He threads his fingers through the hair at my temple and my body melts into his. “And to answer your question, yeah, I do work out. Every second day when I don’t run. I’d love to take you with me one day to show you what I do. If you’re interested . . .”

  My guy—albeit only one day into being my guy—all hot and sweaty? Sign me up!

  “Having fun with that mental picture?”

  “Mmm hmm . . .”

  “You can tell me while I make my own fun going down on you. Let’s call it my way of saying thanks for taking a chance—”

  “You kinda kidnapped me.”

  “You weren’t forced into anything, Gabs. You could’ve left at any time. You could’ve blown off our date tonight—”

  “But I didn’t. Even if you thought I was going to,” I whisper.

  “Exactly. So trust me.” He moves my hand to rest over where his heart is. “Trust this.”

  “And I get to see you at the gym, so yay.”

  He shakes his head at me and chuckles. “You know you’re a bit of a goof, right?”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I retort with a wry grin.

  “I haven’t come across a bad anything about you yet . . .”

  “Stubbornness, jealousy, moody—”

  He dips his mouth to my neck and peppers soft open-mouthed kisses against the sensitive skin, making me shiver.

  “Gorgeous, smart, fun
ny, sexy . . . should I keep going?”

  Those shivers are now trembles. With the neediest, roughest voice I’ve ever heard out of my mouth. “How about we get back to making our own fun? Because if you don’t, I will, and my fun will be of the one-handed variety while you look and don’t touch. And while it’ll be a hell of a lot of fun for me, it won’t be much for you.”

  “If you think watching you get yourself off while thinking about me wouldn’t turn me on, you really don’t know me well.” He moves until his hips are between mine and his body hovers over me. “Let’s work on that, shall we?”

  Chapter 11

  Bruno and I managed to have three weeks of secluded bliss. Time filled with stolen glances and moments before returning to either of our houses and being together. For someone who didn’t want a relationship and the inevitable possibilities that would go along with it, I comfortably fell into a routine of togetherness with Bruno. The more time we spent together, the more I learned about him, and the more I liked what I saw. He was thoughtful, and considerate, he respected my wish to keep our coupling a secret, and he kept his promise to be honest with me. In return, I swallowed down my fears and hang-ups, and let myself just be.

  Then shit hit the fan with Kenz and Millen. After I received an unexpected early morning distress call from Kenzie, she picked me up from my condo and saw Bruno’s truck in my parking space, a shirtless Bruno standing in my doorway as I walked to her car.

  At that point, Kenz had enough on her plate with having to rush to a wedding—long story. She didn’t have room to worry about the potential problems with staff members hooking up. That meant our ‘coming out’ as a couple wasn’t as eventful as I’d expected. So much so, I began to wonder why I wanted to keep us a secret in the first place.

  Until yesterday, when Kenzie sent me a text on her way back from her two-week vacation at Lake Tahoe.

  Kenzie – You and I have a date tomorrow. No men. No excuses. Just one bestie grilling the other about WHY she kept her relationship with my bouncer a secret.

  Me – I’m washing my hair . . .

  Kenzie – You do that and I’ll be in the bathroom watching you do it and teaching you to multi-task.

  Me – I didn’t think you were into that. Especially given your newly re-established relationship status.

  Kenzie – You can’t get out of this, Gabs.

  Me – I know. It was fun trying though.

  Kenzie – See you tomorrow. I’ll bring the wine, you bring the explanation.

  That brings me to now: lying out in the sun with Kenzie on the rooftop of the bar with a margarita pitcher, our phones turned off, and a best friend looking at me with an expectant stare that screams ‘start talking.’

  “It’s going well,” I say, not knowing where exactly to begin.

  “Are you going to tell me why you kept it from me?”

  “Kept what from you?” I ask, playing dumb to buy myself some time. She pins me with a ‘don’t fuck with me’ look.

  I fold my arms beneath my head and look up at the sky. “It wasn’t supposed to be anything. It was just one night . . .”

  “How long ago?” she asks. I turn my head to the side and look at her.

  “The night of the BBQ on the roof . . .” I reply. Her eyes widen but she doesn’t say anything. “But I fell asleep so we couldn’t finish what we started . . . or what Bruno started.”

  I can’t control the curl of my lips at the memory of Bruno pinning me against the wall in the office and dropping to his knees. I clench my thighs at the thought and make a note to ask Bruno for a repeat performance later tonight.

  Kenzie takes a sip of her drink and shudders. “If you tell me you’ve desecrated a surface of my bar, I’ll make you pay the cleaning bill.” I can’t stop the giggle bubbling up inside of me. “Maybe I’ll come to your house and tell Millen to get down and dirty. See how you like it,” she says.

  “Oh, come on. I wouldn’t say every surface…” Her responding groan just makes me laugh harder.

  “We hooked up once more after that but I didn’t think I wanted it to go anywhere, which is why I didn’t tell anyone.”

  “Then?”

  “Then nothing happened for three months. He said he’d wait until I was ready. I thought I never would be. You know what I was like after the last time I let myself want something—someone—so I just put it down to really good sex and that was all.”

  “I don’t know Bruno that well, mainly because he hasn’t really opened himself up to anyone, but from what I do know of him, he seems like a good guy.”

  “He is,” I reply. “He told me he’d wait until I realized that what we shared meant something. It just took me three months to realize that I wanted it to mean something.”

  “And now?” she asks, lifting a brow. “I know I may have been a bit preoccupied since Millen came back, but I still don’t get why you didn’t even let me know any of this was going on? I mean, I only got suspicious when I saw the way he acted with you when Drew turned up drunk.”

  “You had enough going on, and although I said to Bruno I was willing to give us a shot, I haven’t forgotten how much of a mess I was after You Know Who.”

  She swings her legs around and sits up to face me, reaching her hand out to touch my arm. “You can’t let fear put your life on hold. If I did that, I would’ve lost the man I loved to the she-bitch of the century.”

  “She-Bitch seems too tame.”

  “Exactly. But don’t think you’re getting out of this, missy. Now spill. Is it a colleagues-with-benefits situation? A relationship with no future? You forget that I know you, Gabs. I remember consoling you on that Mexican beach when that poor excuse for a man shattered your heart and never looked back.”

  “A relationship?”

  “Are you asking me or telling me? Cause if you’re not sure, you’re taking one hell of a risk with our workplace dynamics. As your best friend—which I am first and foremost—I’m telling you to be sure of this before you go down that road.”

  “Oh, that ride has well and truly left the lot.” I take a big gulp of my cocktail, bracing myself and biding some time to get my head around what I’m really wanting to say out loud. Maybe then it’ll seem real to me. Because whenever I’m with Bruno, it’s perfect.

  Then again, I’ve thought that once before.

  It all boils down to fear.

  Fear of failure. Fear of taking that step to open myself a little bit just to have my heart stomped on all over again. Despite my gut telling me that Bruno is nothing like He Who Won’t Be Named, the pain, humiliation, and hurt that I felt hitting rock bottom—and being blindsided in the process—has never gone away.

  Having the man you’ve loved for twelve years disappear from your life without so much as a phone call will do that to a girl.

  He was a good man who went down a bad road and kept making all the wrong turns until he reached a dead end. Instead of asking for the help he needed, he jumped feet first off the cliff and in trying to make things better, he made things a hell of a lot worse.

  And not once did he stop me from believing our future was going to be a bright and fulfilling one.

  It took me a long time to get over the embarrassment of effectively being jilted at the altar, and also to focus on a future quite different from the one I’d anticipated.

  “Seriously, the fact you even went there with Bruno—and from what I’ve seen, you’ve let him in—tells me you know what you’re doing. You’re taking a chance on him.”

  She’s right. My subconscious must trust Bruno even though my guard isn’t all the way down. It’s almost there. I’m just aware that it’s all still very new, and the honeymoon period makes everything look bright and shiny. It’s once you’re past that point and have moved on to the ‘comfortable’ stage of the relationship that you can see things more clearly.

  “Is it okay that I’m still a little bit scared? I mean, he’s a good guy, he’s caring, an
d protective, and when we’re together, it’s like I’m his sun. It’s easy between us. It fits. We fit.”

  She beams. “That’s cause you’re awesome, and I’m allowed to say that because I’m your best friend and I’d never lie to you, even if you’d deny me the pleasure of hearing that you’re getting it good from a great guy who treats you well.”

  I can’t help but grin back at her. “He does give it good . . . a lot of good . . . in a variety of good ways.”

  “You’re just lucky that I’m getting my own regular good at home, otherwise I’d totally hate you right now.”

  I lift my glass in the air towards her. “Cheers to getting it good then.”

  “Amen to that,” she says, touching her drink to mine. “I’ll say one more thing before you give in and tell me about all the good sex, but not too much because I’m still his boss and I don’t need to be looking at him and knowing just how talented he is.”

  “Okay . . .” I say, stifling a giggle, something I stop when I note the change in Kenzie’s expression.

  “He’s not Luke.”

  “I know.” It’s the first time Kenzie has said that name to me in a long time.

  “I know you were hurt, and I know what he did changed you, but you are so much stronger now because of it. You’re no longer the naïve girl who believes everything is sunshine and rainbows. You know there’s sometimes a shit-ton of unexpected crap that can be thrown your way, and you know that whatever happens, you can rise above it.” She pauses and reaches out, grabbing my hand. “What I want you to do is approach this with an open heart, a clear mind, and a cautiously optimistic outlook to the future. You get what I’m saying?”

  That’s exactly what I needed to hear from my best friend. Understanding and light encouragement and excitement that finally I might be dipping my toe out from behind the curtain I’ve been hiding behind to see what could happen with the right guy.

  Knowing I have her at my back, I can admit to myself—albeit in a whisper—that I really hope Bruno Duncan is the man to take that chance with.