As they crossed the small side yard that led to a white wooden staircase, Brynn glanced over her shoulder. “The third step is a little wonky, so be careful.”
Axel nodded as they started up the staircase that had seen better days. Before he reached the top step, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He took it out and wasn’t surprised to see that it was Izzy again. He silenced it and shot her a quick text saying he’d call her right back. But before he could put the phone back in his pocket it was buzzing again.
“You can take that, if you need to,” Brynn offered as she unlocked the door and pushed it open.
“It’s fine.” He tried not to let his worry or irritation keep him from the task at hand as they stepped inside. “It’s just my sister.” Axel heard the words coming out of his mouth, but he couldn’t believe that he was saying them.
Axel had always been a private person. Even at five years old, his kindergarten teacher had said that getting him to talk about himself was like pulling teeth. He never volunteered information to anyone.
He’d served with his boss for four years in the Marines and had worked for him for the past three and he’d bet Seth couldn’t tell you a damn thing about his personal life. He knew that Seth was aware that he had a little sister, that his mother had a proclivity toward matrimony, and that Axel himself had an ex-wife, but that was only because of the background check he’d run before hiring him. He’d never talked about any of that during his years in the service and some of those men had been like brothers to Axel.
So why in the hell was he sharing personal information with Brynn Daniels?
His phone buzzed again and Brynn’s wide green eyes lifted to his. “Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. She just started a new school and she doesn’t like it.”
Brynn’s smile made the tightness in his chest relax. “Oh, that can be tough. How old is she?”
“Thirteen.”
Her eyes softened and now the feeling in his chest was unfamiliar to him. It was a warm, tingling sensation.
“Thirteen is rough. Ryder, my son, is thirteen. And I’m a counselor at the high school so I talk to kids her age all the time. Does she live around here?”
“Chicago. She’s going to Mercy Prep.”
“Wow.” Brynn appeared genuinely impressed. “That’s a great school.”
“I know. All she talked about was how much she wanted to go, and now that she’s there she hates it.”
Stop talking, Axel told himself.
“If she’s going to Mercy Prep that means she’s really bright. Sometimes it’s the gifted ones that are the trickiest to raise. Intelligence and emotional maturity are two very different things and it can be difficult to remember that.”
Axel knew that Brynn had a master’s degree in psychology, so he shouldn’t be surprised by her insight. But he was.
“I’m sorry!” Brynn apologized. “I tend to speak out of turn. My son hates it. He declared the house an ‘analysis-free zone.’ Sometimes I just can’t help myself.” Her shoulders bunched as she lifted her hands in a what-are-you-gonna-do gesture. “I love to help people. Anyway, the water pressure…” She turned her back to him as she listed details about the rental.
He was glad that she was no longer looking at him because he needed a moment to regain his composure. She’d just melted his heart that had been as frozen as Han Solo in carbonite.
I love to help people.
She wasn’t just saying that. He could see that she meant every word.
If Axel hadn’t met her, seen her, spoken to her himself, he wouldn’t believe that Brynn Daniels was real. She was beautiful, and yet seemed completely unaware of it. Smart, she had a master’s degree. Hardworking, she had a full-time job at the high school and also counseled people online. Resilient, she was a teen mom who hadn’t let that slow her down. Not to mention she had the combo punch of being adorable and sexy.
She was a unicorn. A once-in-a-lifetime woman.
And there wasn’t one damn thing Axel could do about it.
CHAPTER 3
“This is the living room,” Brynn waved her hand, spokesmodel style, as she gave the same tour she’d given a couple dozen times to tourists renting out the apartment.
“And this is a Murphy bed in case you have company.” She lifted her arm and tugged on the wall unit.
I can’t believe he saw me naked. I can’t believe he saw me naked. I can’t believe he saw me naked.
That sentence was playing over and over in her mind as she struggled to ignore the fluttering in her stomach. She tried telling herself that the uneasiness she was experiencing was the leftover macaroni and cheese that she’d warmed up for lunch earlier, but she knew better. Her butterflies were her body’s response to the man that was making the cozy apartment feel much smaller than it ever had before.
She pushed the bed back up into the wall and walked across the room and through the door that was directly across from it. Reaching up, she tugged on the string that hung from the ceiling fan and light to illuminate the tiny room.
“And this is the bedroom.”
A queen size patchwork quilt covered the bed that sat in the corner of the room. It had been plenty big enough for her, but thinking of Axel in it made it look like a twin bed.
Axel’s presence was more than just his impressive height and muscular frame. He filled the room with an overwhelming dose of testosterone that had her body shaking like she was a 1950s teenage girl seeing Elvis for the first time.
“Over there is the bathroom.” Her voice had a slight quiver in it as she motioned to the open door next to the antique dresser across the room.
She scooted past Axel and her breath hitched as she walked into the kitchen waving her hand over the two-person dining table that sat along the wall. “And conveniently you have a dining room and kitchen in one. It’s very handy if you need to grab a soda during dinner,” she joked, miming a reach for the fridge while she stood near the table.
Her nervous laughter at her not-so-clever joke filled the small space as she headed back into the front room.
“And that’s the grand tour.” She held her arms out as she spun in a circle.
When she stopped, she was facing him. Her head had to tilt up to meet his gaze and for the first time she understood the phrase “bedroom eyes.” She’d read the term in her books more times than she could count, but she’d never had a frame of reference for what that looked like.
Now she did.
And those bedroom eyes had seen her naked.
I can’t believe he saw me naked. I can’t believe he saw me naked. I can’t believe he saw me naked.
She inhaled slowly, trying to calm her frazzled brain. When she did she was overwhelmed with his very male scent.
She tried to remember the last time she’d had this kind of a reaction to a man. She’d had a couple of crushes as a teen, but she didn’t remember any physical symptoms.
This was the kind of over-the-top response that happened to the people in her books. Not in real life. She’d never experienced this in real life.
Maybe it was because he’d seen her naked. Maybe there was some kind of instant intimacy that had formed.
Oh lord. He’d seen her naked. It’d been years since a man had seen her naked.
It’s not a big deal, she assured herself.
Her mom had always said that Brynn reminded her of Lucy from I Love Lucy. Not just because she was a redhead, but also because she was prone to finding herself in embarrassing situations, although unlike the character, they were not of her own making.
She’d embraced her proclivity to humiliation even going so far as to name her pug after the iconic television character. Her pug, who earlier had contributed to her most embarrassing situation to date when she pulled off her robe in front of the man that had flipped every switch in her body to on.
So yeah, she was just going to chalk it up as another “Lucy moment.”
She could feel her cheeks warming at the memor
y and knew that her face was going to turn bright red if she didn’t make a quick exit. “Right, so, here’s the key.”
Brynn lifted the ring in her right hand and the key and crystal dangled in front of her before slipping from her fingers. She automatically reached out to grab them with her left hand at the same time that Axel took a step and reached out to do the same. Their simultaneous motions ended up with her hand cupping him.
Between his legs.
They both froze as her eyes shot to his.
She gasped in horror as she jerked her hand back.
As she bent down to retrieve the fallen keys, she began apologizing profusely. “I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to…I just…”
“It’s not a big deal. I was just waiting for you to ask me to turn my head and cough.”
A high-pitched sound that turned out to be a nervous giggle filled the silent space as she straightened and offered him the key ring. When their gazes met she could feel her cheeks flaring with heat. “Sorry,” she heard herself apologizing again.
“It’s fine.” His deep voice rumbled as he took the key from her hand and a warm, comforting smile spread across his face. “Really.”
His fingers grazed hers as he cradled her hand in his. His touch felt strong, safe, and super-charged. Just like their handshake, except even more intimate and connected.
Brynn sucked in a startled breath at the electricity that sparked between them. She pulled her hand away and tried to shake off the feeling of familiarity that was there. Her body was responding to him as if he weren’t a stranger, but her brain was doing its level best to remind her that that’s exactly who he was.
His pants buzzed and her eyes shot down to the same area where her hand had been just a few moments before.
She watched as he removed the phone from his pocket and her palm tingled at the memory of what it had just touched. His hand wasn’t the only thing that felt strong and super-charged…
Axel lifted the phone to his ear. “Let me call you back in—”
He was cut off by a sound that Brynn was very familiar with. Hysterical teenage girl. She couldn’t make out what the girl was saying but she knew from the pitch and tone that it wasn’t good.
Figuring Axel would probably like some privacy, Brynn started toward the door. He quickly held up his hand indicating for her to stay.
She remained in place, easily held captive by the depths of his stare.
As a person that studied people and their behavior for a living, she’d always believed that there was some truth to the saying that the eyes are the window to the soul. From a purely anthropological perspective, eye contact had always fascinated her. How long people held it. What their body language was like during contact; did they look away or maintain a constant stare? These were all things that revealed personality traits.
It wasn’t an exact science, but there were commonalities in behavior that rang true more often than not. From what she was seeing with Axel, her mother might’ve just been on to something in her reading of him. Brynn was definitely picking up confident, strong-willed, protective, and grounded.
And passionate and sexual. Her core tingled and clenched as those descriptors ran through her head.
“Pita…” Axel tried to speak but the voice on the other end just got louder. “Pita, I ne—”
He shut his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose. When his arm fell at his side, he spoke with a command that he hadn’t had before. “I’m going to call you back.”
The authority in his stern tone did something to her insides that Brynn didn’t want to admit or acknowledge. She swallowed over a newly formed lump in her throat and tried to sound as unaffected as possible as she asked, “Your sister again?”
“Yeah.”
“Sounds like you’ve got your hands full.” Her cheeks started to flush at her choice of words.
What she’d felt behind the zipper of his shorts was definitely a handful.
Thankfully, it didn’t seem like Axel picked up on her double entendre. He looked distracted and…worried.
Brynn watched as he ran his hands through his dark brown hair. Her mouth automatically watered when she saw the prominent vein pop out on his forearm. A shiver ran down her spine at the chiseled perfection of his triceps. He blew out a breath. His eyes closed briefly and she noticed just how long and thick his eyelashes were.
Her mouth was alternating between watering and going dry as a bone. He had an effect on her that was making her senses go haywire.
When he opened his eyes again, her mind switched from hot and bothered to concerned.
There was a pain and vulnerability in his whiskey stare. She’d always been highly empathetic. It was a big reason she’d chosen the career path she had. But over the years, she’d picked up methods to protect herself when counseling people, or even just watching the news. It helped her not be a blubbering mess each night when she lay in bed, otherwise she felt the pain of all the hurting people and animals in the world. But Axel shot right past the barriers that she’d constructed.
It seemed her hormones weren’t the only thing that this man triggered; her heart was about to join the party, too.
“Are you okay?”
* * *
“No,” Axel admitted.
Stop talking.
Axel couldn’t believe that he kept sharing details about himself with Brynn. She was definitely in the right line of work because he couldn’t stop revealing personal things to her. It was more than just unnerving, it was unprofessional. He was here on a job.
He watched as Brynn’s lips parted and curled into an easy smile that had his entire body relaxing and strung tight at the same time.
“I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing.” He was referring to more than just the conversation with Izzy.
She tilted her head to the right and one of her perfect curls slipped out of place, falling along the side of her porcelain cheek. Her green eyes twinkled as she said, “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that’s not something you’re used to feeling.”
“No. It’s not.”
“Well, coming from someone who always feels like they have no idea what they’re doing, feeling just means you care.” Her smile widened. “I’d love to tell you that it gets easier, but, based on my experience working at the high school, I don’t want to give you false hope.”
“So you’re saying this isn’t going to end with her telling me what a great brother I am and thanking me profusely for knowing what was best?”
Her nose scrunched in an adorable expression as she shook her head. “I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
He felt a wide smile pull on his lips. It wasn’t something that he did often. Usually, he only smiled around Izzy. Not teenage-mutant-hysterical Izzy, but sweet, funny Izzy.
His phone buzzed again and he glanced down to see that she’d sent him a meme of her favorite comedian Jim Gaffigan in an orange jumpsuit staring longingly through cell bars.
She was so dramatic. Funny. But dramatic.
“Are you two close?” Brynn asked.
“Yes. We’ve always been close, but I’m not used to…,” Axel stopped himself. He wanted to superglue his mouth shut. He wasn’t just sharing, he was oversharing. When did his life turn into an episode of Oprah?
“What?” Brynn prompted. “You’re not used to what?”
“I’m not used to having to tell her no.”
Her brow furrowed in confusion but she nodded as if she understood what he was talking about.
“I just became her guardian.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“No, it’s not…” It was obvious that she was giving him her condolences. This was why Axel was not a fan of conversations, communication was not his strong point. “Our mom didn’t die. She moved to Brazil a few months ago. Izzy moved in with me over the summer. I dropped her off at school yesterday.”
“Your mom moved to Brazil?” she repeated, looking more confused than ever.
&nbs
p; Axel nodded. “She met a guy that she thinks is going to be husband number nine.”
“Nine?!” Her eyes widened. “Your mom’s been married nine times?”
“Eight,” Axel clarified. “But if things work out the way she wants them to, then Rodrigo will be number nine.”
“Wow.” Brynn shook her head back and forth slowly. “That sounds…exhausting and expensive.”
He couldn’t help but chuckle. Usually other people laced their responses with judgement. But Brynn actually seemed to empathize with his mom. It was refreshing and endearing.
“A few of them only lasted a weekend, so those were relatively painless.” He wondered if there was some kind of James-Bond-style truth serum in the air in Whisper Lake. “Izzy calls them Mom’s Britney husbands.”
Brynn chuckled, obviously getting the reference to Britney Spears’ forty-eight-hour Vegas wedding.
She looked at him slightly confused. “What’s your sister’s name?”
“Izzy. My mom was a big Guns N’ Roses fan.” Which was why he’d never understood why she’d spelled his name with an “e” instead of Axl like his namesake Axl Rose. And Izzy’s namesake Izzy Stradlin was actually Jeffrey Dean Isbell which he would think would make more sense to call a girl Isabel, but then again he didn’t understand most things his mom did.
“Oh.” Her head shook slightly. “No. I just…I thought I heard you call her Pita.”
“I did,” he grinned. “Pita’s a nickname.”
“Oh.” A crinkle appeared at the corner of her eyes.
“It stands for pain in the ass.”
Brynn’s eyes widened as she chuckled. “Does she know that’s what it stands for?”
He pulled up his sister’s contact info and lifted his phone to show Brynn the screen. “She takes pride in being a pain in the ass. She’s the one who changed her name in my phone.”
Her smile widened further and for a moment, Axel relaxed and everything in his world felt…right. The fleeting moment of peace was another feeling he wasn’t used to.
Axel couldn’t help but be charmed by Brynn. He’d never had such an easy rapport with someone before. It’d taken him a long time to bond with his MARSOC unit in the Marines. And even when he’d finally trusted them with his life, he’d never trusted them with any personal details about his life. And here he was, opening up to Brynn like she was Dr. Phil.
Whisper of Attraction Page 3
