She squirmed and tossed her hair over her shoulder. Warmth spread inside him. Every second that passed when she didn’t withdraw or worse, toss him out, was a huge victory.
“You, wearing those sexy leggings and,” he stumbled mentally when he saw the fire in her expression. Seriously? She didn’t know the stretch pants made her ass look like an invitation to paradise? It was completely fucking wrong on so many levels that she doubted her looks. “And a crop top … with no bra.” That last was nothing short of a thunderbolt of inspiration. She didn’t quite gape at him but damn close. “Now, you come back with your terms.”
The fire in her expression turned to retribution, and he grinned. Dramatically clearing her throat, she fixed him with a cocky smirk that almost ended with his body pinning hers to the sofa. Woman better watch herself ‘cause if she kept that shit up, he was more than fucking willing to take up the challenge.
“Me. These pants. A conservative crop top. Sports bra,” she added before briefly sticking her tongue out. “You … wearing whatever the hell David Beckham wears in those underwear ads. Button-down shirt, half undone.”
Should he tell her that she just gave a whole hell of a lot away? He’d be shopping for a crapton of white button-downs tomorrow. The Beckham briefs he had covered in spades. “Long leg cotton boxers or the body briefs? Solid color, print, or plain white?” Her shocked reaction was absolutely perfect.
“Uh … the briefs. White, I guess. Or gray.”
More info. Fantastic. The desire to feed her fantasies was an unexpected plus for him. One that reminded Brody he wanted to be so much more to her than just a fuck buddy.
Time to up the ante. “Me. My favorite Harley Davidson t-shirt. White briefs from the Beckham collection. You. A teeny tiny crop top. The sexiest bra you have.” He thought for a second and hurriedly added, “Oh, and stretch lace boy shorts. I know you have some. You’ve worn them before. Blue, I think.”
GOOD LORD. WAS it getting hot in here? Heather wanted to fan herself but managed to remain still as she sat on the sofa with Brody and tried not to freak out.
How the hell did she end up in this weird predicament? Not only was he here on the one night when she demanded no one meddle, but he'd also come with dinner, champagne, flowers, and a rather obvious plan.
The thing was … the plan didn’t seem to be about seduction. That she could have handled. They’d been together for hours and still had all their clothes on. Nothing about this encounter was familiar. No wonder she was having heat flashes and barely managed giggle fits.
And it didn’t help one damn bit that all her usual coping mechanisms vanished when her rubber band moment happened. It was one thing to be free falling and another to see the ground rushing toward her knowing she was defenseless.
The mention of the lace boy shorts stopped Heather dead. How couldn’t it? He remembered her underwear? Oh, and he missed her too Dammit, but he was making it impossible to remain unaffected and detached.
Not that she wanted to.
Wait a minute. What? Did she just confess to wanting more? The ground rushing at her picked up speed.
The look of smug almost-triumph on Brody’s face was enough to keep her playing along. For now.
“You. Skimpy white Beckham briefs. No shirt. Me. Well, hmm.”
“Feel the wall at your back, do you?” He drawled with a sexy wink.
Ooooh. Men. Well, she’d show him. “Me. Cut-off t-shirt and a work bra. Blue lace boy shorts … if I still have them. Final offer. Take it or leave it.”
He reacted with supersonic speed. “Shake,” Brody replied with the sober delivery of a judge at sentencing. When her hand slotted into his, she swore her whole arm melted.
Quickly snatching her hand away, Heather reached for her drink and took a quick sip. When he stood up and started undoing his slacks, she choked on the bubbly and fell into a coughing fit.
“What are you doing?” she burbled like an idiot once she’d caught her breath.
Looking completely unperturbed by her question, he pulled the zipper down and slid his hands into the waistband. “We made a deal, m’lady. Shook on it and everything. So stop yer stalling. Go grab a t-shirt, some scissors, and whatever else you need.”
“No, no. Hold on a minute.” How did she lose control of the situation so quickly? “Nothing was said about doing this now.” She was pretty sure the rising hysteria in her voice was making the universe fall over laughing.
“Well, it’s your lucky day,” Brody drawled. She was damn sure his wicked leer stole her good sense. Pushing the slacks down his legs, he boomed, “Ta-da!” as he shimmied his hips back and forth. Like Vanna revealing hidden letters, he swept his hand from chest to thigh to direct her attention. “As agreed, tight and white from the Beckham collection.”
When she didn’t move a muscle, he snickered and said, “Oops. Wait. Let’s get rid of the shirt for better viewing.”
Her eyes felt like they were blinking in slow motion as she sat there paralyzed, staring at his display. With great effort, she managed to close her mouth when she realized her jaw was hanging open.
Undoing the buttons on his shirt with haphazard finesse, he threw open the sides when he was finished and struck a pose. A pose that made her brain get fuzzy and her laugh-center go haywire.
One of the things Heather kept on deep lockdown was the real way she felt about the man’s body. Knowing she shouldn’t dwell on such things … would be counterproductive to staying detached … she figured having him in her bed was enough. No need to rhapsodize over her good fortune just because the man was unbelievably hot. In every way.
But seeing him egg her on with some pretentiously hilarious modeling poses while his pants were down around his ankles cut through the detachment and fired off a bellowing laugh. One she quickly stopped by slapping her hand across her mouth.
His smile warmed her heart. A heart she didn’t know still functioned.
“Shouldn’t you be grabbing a t-shirt?”
It was his thighs. That was the only explanation for why she bolted off the sofa and headed to the bedroom. It was winter. Light snow fell every couple of days. The weather reports were all about wind chill factors. Seeing the healthy tan on legs with the perfect amount of very light-colored hair activated her libido. It was that simple.
Returning to the living room with a couple of old t-shirts thrown over her arm, she found him at the thermostat.
“Pegged this up a few degrees. Sitting around half naked without a roaring fire nearby can get chilly.” His matter-of-fact delivery was completely opposite to his appearance. In her absence, he’d stripped down to his briefs but was acting like hanging out in nothing but his underwear was an everyday thing.
Flopping onto the sofa, he crossed a foot on his knee and leaned back with an arm stretched wide against the back, running fingers through hair that she noticed was longer and way less styled than normal. Heather would be a fool not to recognize the subtle changes in him this time around. Which reminded her, weren’t they supposed to be discussing Arizona?
“Show me what you got, lady.”
Pursing her lips, she gave him a half-hearted smirk. Pretending as if none of this was unusual, she went about things in a business-as-usual way. Leaving one t-shirt slung across her arm, she held up the other, cocked a hip, and declared in a not very subtle way, “Just so you know … trying to blind me with those spectacular abs won’t deter me from finding out all your secrets.”
Slapping a hand against his rock-hard stomach, she flinched at the sexy sound and caught the knowing way he nodded. Busted!
“Like these bad boys, do ya?” The amused smirk quickly gave way to a half-assed shrug. “Good genes is all. Courtesy of my folks. Was born this way, and believe me, I don’t exactly work on my body.” When he said work, he threw up some air quotes that took him being endearing to an eleven.
The expression on his face shifted when he glanced at the shirt she held. Appearing totally affronted, he choked out,
“Sacrilege! No way are you cutting up a Terrapins shirt. The Maryland Terps should occupy a place of honor in your closet! What’s the matter with you, woman?”
He was awfully clever … that she already knew, but the humor and the wry wit was a part of Brody Jensen she’d never known. She was sure it wasn’t a case of it always being there and her not seeing it. That would be too easy and explainable. No, this was different. Maybe when her defensive outer crust crumbled, so did her determination not to feel anything.
“Point well made. The Terps are safe.” Tossing the shirt aside, she lifted the second off her arm and held it up for inspection, stating, “Guess this is a take-it-or-leave-it decision.”
She watched the corners of his mouth quiver as he fought from laughing. Yeah. She knew how he felt. The shirt she held was from a collection of highly tacky offerings Travis insisted on sending her. The not-safe-for-work presents were an old brother-sister joke that went way back.
“Is that a stick figure humping the word ‘it’?”
“Most certainly is,” she assured him in a deep, serious voice. “My brother Travis keeps me supplied with a never-ending source of sick humor. Please note that it’s never been worn.”
Brody snickered. “Okay. Fuck it then.”
“Cute.” She chuckled. “Hand me the scissors and let’s do this.”
Like a true gentleman, he held up one arm and laid the scissors on top for her to grab. “As you wish, m’lady.”
Spreading the t-shirt out on the coffee table, she knelt next to it and sized up where to cut. When she went to place the scissors for the first cut, Brody guffawed loudly and snatched the scissors from her hand.
“I don’t think so!” Tapping the scissors much higher on the fabric, he groused comically, “Two inches off the bottom is a fucking insult. Higher. Much higher. The whole point of the bra, no bra thing is because, either way, the shirt needs to be short enough for a suggestion of boobs.”
“Give me those,” she growled. “Boobs, no boobs,” she muttered with a dark look in his direction. “Sheesh.”
As she began snipping away the fabric, Heather was conspicuously aware of their positions. When he sat forward to scold her, he’d moved closer until she pretty much knelt at his knees. The cotton pouch covering his obvious bulge was directly in her line of vision, and dammit if the naked, tanned skin and the longer hair weren’t messing with her composure. Big time.
When she was finished, he immediately urged her on. “Come on then. Get to it. Did you find the lace undies? You look hot as fuck in lace,” he murmured almost as an afterthought.
“Be right back,” she said while dashing back to the bedroom. “And be ready to start talking. No more diversions.” His laughter followed her.
Five minutes later, she walked back out as if she strolled around every day in practically see-through lace panties with her boobs teasing the bottom of a skimpy crop top. Two could play.
Two could play? She nearly stumbled over her own feet. Oh, my god. That was what this was. They were playing. Playing changed everything. Right? Maybe she’d better think this through.
He didn’t give her a chance to think about anything. Except him. Especially not with the way he was checking her out. When his gaze lowered to her undies and stopped, she nearly hyperventilated at the look on his face. She knew the stretchy lace left nothing to the imagination. His sharp inhale and the lusty gleam in his eyes made her shockingly wet.
“Thank you,” he muttered huskily.
No need to ask why. He’d been so pleased with her lady parts in their natural state that despite some minor grooming so she didn’t come off like a sixties flower child, she’d left the fluffy curls he found so sexy.
Launching straight back into their earlier discussion, he simply started talking as he pressed a champagne glass into her hands.
If keeping her off-balance was the goal, he was succeeding.
HOLY MOTHERFUCKING SHIT. When Heather returned, he almost lost his mind in spectacular fashion after getting an eyeful of what she put on. That was no plain work bra he found peeking from the hem of the cut-off shirt. It was blue, like the matching lace boy shorts, and was mostly see-through. No woman should look so delicious. Fuck. Was he drooling? Only his determination to redefine how they dealt with one another kept him from dragging her into the bedroom and tearing off what few clothes remained.
My god, she was lovely. His days of craving young, impersonal ass fizzled out about the same time he started doing Heather. And while he kind of cringed at the tacky expression, it was actually the least offensive way he could find to describe their unusual relationship.
A grown woman who got what she wanted in the bedroom was deeply sexy. And in Heather’s case, the deeply sexy vibe doubled because she was comfortable in her skin. Not as a result of any sort of body acceptance epiphany, either. In her case … she simply didn’t give a fuck what anyone else thought. The woman had some issues, that was for sure, but who didn’t?
That don’t-give-a-fuck attitude was on full display when she swaggered toward him with a charmingly smug expression. Having met the challenge in a balls-out way, he was sure the lady imagined she was still in control.
Only, it was bad news for her since she gave off a couple of tells he instantly noticed. The slightly puffy bottom lip was the giveaway that she’d been working the little ridge with her teeth almost nonstop. And her eyes? Her eyes were making his insides quiver. He’d not seen that brightness before. And control? Pfft. She’d checked that shit at the door a while ago.
He hit the danger zone when it was clear she’d kept the sweet cluster of soft curls between her legs. It’d been a couple of days since he’d surprised her with a high-voltage welcome back hookup. Plenty of time for a wax. That she hadn’t told him a lot.
Brody picked up like they were in mid-conversation.
“So you already know the four-one-one on my, uh, dark time.” Matter-of-factly pressing the champagne glass into her hand, he raised his in a silent toast and took a sip. He thought there was a flash of surprise in her expression, which she quickly masked when he launched straight back to their earlier discussion. Settling on the sofa, not too close, she crossed her legs and sipped with her eyes glued to his face. The counselor is in, he wryly thought.
“I was … I am, by my own admission, one fucked-up unit. After the ambush when I got shot, they assigned me to a new unit. Everything was cool for a while and then one day my former superiors called me back for one final head fucking. While I was gone, some shit went down in my personal life and …
Brody closed his eyes and willed the tension to back off. This was hard for him; it didn’t matter how much time went by. “Anyway, by the time my boots were back on U.S. soil, the life I left behind was gone.” He shrugged and looked away after deciding not to reveal everything about the past. For now, he’d leave out the missing daughter and the involvement of the Justice Agency in trying to track her down.
“Not imploded or destroyed. Just … gone. So the struggle was real.”
“Understood,” she murmured.
“The first year was awful. Got the college gig, which was cool and everything, but the rest, well … it fucked me up. Someone at the VA used his connections and brought me to the attention of a bunch of guys with a security company that hires veterans.”
“This is where the Arizona connection comes in, isn’t it?”
“Yep, yep. The Justice Agency. Saved my life. Or my sanity. Maybe both.”
“So what? You lead a double life? College instructor half a year and then what happens?”
“Well …” He chuckled. “Just for shits and grins, how ‘bout you tell me what you think happens.”
“Oh, my god.” She laughed. “Are you trying to use my own shtick against me?”
“Ha-ha … and yes, there’s always that. But for real, what do you imagine goes on in Arizona? I’m honestly curious.”
“Hmm.” She sipped and looked him over with a critical eye.
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br /> Aw, man. This ought to be good.
“Security company, you said?”
He nodded. “Think global, though.”
“Ah. Good to know. Good to know.”
Maybe a minute of silence ticked by and then she surprised him with an amazingly astute response.
“While I can’t imagine exactly what you’d personally be doing, I think whatever it is … takes place on the periphery. You’re a key member of the team, but you aren’t after glory and recognition. And I’m guessing what you do doesn’t involve weapons.”
His derisive snort was pure reflex. Heather knew quite a bit about his complicated relationship with guns. One time at a therapy meet-up, a bunch of people were discussing some big-name sniper movie and she’d given them all a stern talking-to. Watching her put a couple of grizzled old-timers on blast, and the aw-shucks reaction she got, made him feel real good. Was the first time it occurred to Brody that Heather had feelings for him. No matter how hard she pretended otherwise.
“Would I be right in assuming you do what you do with a great deal of autonomy, yet somehow manage to be part of the inner circle without actually being part of it? Shit. Did that even make sense?”
Good lord. She had no idea. “You’re good, lady,” he lauded with a laugh. “They teach you how to do that in psych school or are you just naturally perceptive?”
“Little of both, I imagine. You’re not easy to read, Brody. Keeping half your life a secret probably has a lot to do with that.”
“Or the fact you’ve never asked. About anything.”
She didn’t react. Not really. “Wouldn’t you figure what we share in group is enough?”
She was trying to dodge the real question. “We both know that’s not true. Everyone holds back. It’s human nature. You’ve said so yourself. And I’m talking about the basics. Not therapy stuff.”
“Fair point,” she acceded with relative ease. “Guess I’m not good at this.”
“At being a friend?” The rapid, direct way he fired the question made her draw away. He didn’t mean it to sound like an attack.
Sanctuary (Family Justice Book 3) Page 8
