Brody

by Victoria H. Smith

  A hand slid down my back, turning me over, and I gripped the sheets as his heat blanketed me, his length sliding inside me from behind. Moans left my lips at every thrust, every forceful pound, his thighs hitting mine while he gasped my name.

  I closed my eyes, trying not to get lost in it all, but in the back of my mind I knew the feat was hopeless. This was Brody and though, I hadn’t known him long, I couldn’t remember not being lost within him.

  I didn’t remember what it felt like not to be completely in love with him.

  Brody

  She had one of her beautiful brown legs curled over my hip, playing with my hair as I brushed my fingers down her arm. For the first time in months, things felt right. About my life… about everything and she did that. She let me have that in her.

  I brought her to me, close, kissing her hair in the dark room. I only had moonlight through the window to see her, but I didn’t need much more than that to see what I had.

  “What’s your name, Brody?” she whispered, burying her face in my neck and moving down to kiss my chest. “Your last name. What it is?”

  That’s something I only recently found out about her as well. How funny we didn’t know such tiny details about each other, but I’d never felt closer to another person in my life.

  I laughed, drawing in the natural honeyed scent of her hair. “Chandler. My name is Brody Chandler.”

  “Hmm,” she said, sighing. “It suits you.”

  That made me smile and I kissed her hair again.

  “Mine’s Vaughn,” came her voice out of the darkness, her fingers curling along my chest. “Alexa Vaughn.”

  I didn’t tell her I knew. I wanted her to share that with me, share this moment with me. I threaded my fingers with hers. “Yours suits you, too,” I told her. “It’s beautiful like you.”

  She hid her face, going all bashful.

  “Want to hear something crazy?” she asked, and I smiled once more.

  “Always.”

  I expected to hear her voice right away, but it didn’t come. I didn’t mind though, lingering in the moment of just being with her. That was enough, but she ended up saying something after all, something that had my heart pounding crazy, something I had no idea how to anticipate.

  “I think I’m in love with you,” she whispered, so soft within my embrace. But I heard her. She couldn’t hide from me.

  I tipped her chin, adjusting to see her, and the fear behind her eyes was evident. I’d seen Alex scared before. It had been an image burned into my mind and one I wanted nothing but to remove. The situation in which we met had been a terrible one and though, this was a different moment, another type of fear had found its way to her brown eyes.

  Her gaze drifted then, taking it away from me, the fear. “And I know how this must sound,” she went on, for some reason thinking she had to explain and go on. “I do, Brody, but I… But I can’t help…”

  I brushed my thumb over her mouth forcing her lips to close, to stop explaining something that didn’t need to be explained. She didn’t need to go there because I understood. I understood completely.

  Using my fingers, I raised her chin in the direction of my mouth, kissing it before finding her lips.

  “No ‘but,’ Alex,” I told her, lowering her to her back. I braced her shoulder, angling my mouth to find hers again. “No ‘but.’”

  I pulled her underneath me, settling in. She pushed her hands up my chest, to my neck, and into my hair, my painfully hard shaft coming to rest against her thigh. I took its width in my hands, putting a condom on before spreading her legs. I filled her, that warm glove pulling me in and pulsating around me.

  “Brody…”

  I covered her mouth, getting drunk off the sweetness of her lips and bracing the mattress behind her, I drove into her.

  Three words left my lips and I said them again to drive them home.

  “I love you, Alexa.” I tasted her tongue, going deep. “But there’s no ‘but’ for me. There never was.”

  Her lids folded, her eyes closed tight, and when she opened them, a glisten wrapped around the starlight there.

  She pressed her palms to my face. “You do?”

  Even still, she was questioning me this. I pressed a kiss to her forehead, moving to her ear. “I’m stupid in love with you.”

  Moving my hips, I beckoned her to do the same. Her hand slid to my ass and I let go of all restraint, rocking her back into the bed, squeezing her breasts until her legs quivered beneath me.

  I joined her in the release, only leaving her body once we both had to breathe. I didn’t relax for long, though. Moving, I brushed kisses down her chest, her tummy, and lower. I told her I loved her again as I made her come with my mouth. I’d tell her forever if I could.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Alexa

  With a hop, I snatched his cap off his head, making a beeline for his truck. Heavy footfalls stomped the rocks behind me and soon my sneakers were lifted from the ground.

  Brody spun me around in his arms, blowing hot air onto my neck, and making me drop his hat I was laughing so hard.

  “Ah!” I screamed, the heat turning into kisses. “Stop! Stop! Stop!”

  He only growled, nibbling now. “You asked for it, Alex. You can’t just go taking a guy’s hat off his head when he least expects it.”

  His accent flowed with every word and I loved the hell out of it. Large hands made it to my ass, hiking me up his chest. I was forced to wrap my legs around his big body, not that I minded it.

  Walking, he pressed me up against the door of his truck, taking the humor away and making me breathless. So caught up, I didn’t think about where we were until I opened my eyes, noticing an audience in the motel’s parking lot. The middle-aged white woman had her lips turned up through the front window of her truck and I patted Brody’s chest to stop.

  He sat me down, eyeing me curiously before following my gaze in that direction. Rolling his eyes, he said nothing but, “Let her watch,” before taking my chin and directing my mouth to his again.

  He kissed the reservations away, kissed me stupid like his love for me, and by the time we finished, we no longer had an audience, the truck long gone.

  Bending down, Brody picked up his hat. He looked to put it on, but then placed it on my head, bending the bill with his fingers.

  “Keep a watch on it for me?” he asked, and I nodded pushing my arms around his neck. His hands went to my hips and he lowered his forehead to mine. “Ready to go? Just a few more hours.”

  The strong sense of certainty I had now, showed me I didn’t really have it before. I’d been ready to go to California because I had to be for Aiden, for my sister. But that didn’t mean I really had been prepared for what I knew I potentially had to deal with mere miles away. My sister and I… we had a past and though, I felt confident, certain, I could handle her, I had no idea what lied ahead of me. I had been wishful though. I had to be and having Brody beside me only gave me confidence.

  She’s going to listen to reason. I’m sure of it. She has to.

  Brody let any anxiety I had of what was to come fade away, pulling me to him as he opened his truck door. He guided me inside, that Brody grin on his full, pink lips, and that certainty made its way upon me again. It wrapped me up in its tightness, a security I not only appreciated, but gratefully had succumbed to. Things would be okay. He made things okay in more ways than one.

  Brody’s hand made it in mine only moments after he started the truck. A humming engine took me back on the road, but that handhold was the real thing that brought me there.

  Biting my lip, I propped my feet up on the dashboard. Brody had air conditioning, but I chose to let the windows bring that cool air in. It was such a beautiful day, but maybe my new lease on life had something to do with that, too.

  “Do you need to stop for anything before we hit state lines?” he asked after a few miles. “We can stop at the store.”

  We did have a continental breakfast at the mot
el, bagels and what not. But now that I thought about it…

  I grinned turning to him. “Let’s stop. I want to get some stuff for Aiden. He likes those oatmeal cream sandwiches. And maybe we could find a cute toy or something for him? He likes Legos.”

  I couldn’t keep those away from him when he was younger and he loved the set I sent for him on his last birthday; his ninth.

  Blue eyes warmed on me. “That sounds like a good idea. Let’s get some fixin’s for sandwiches, too. That way we won’t have to stop for a while.”

  That Texan accent would continue to drive me wild well into my days and I secretly wished they would be well in. Thinking we’d need a list, I asked him if he had any paper as I pulled a pen out of my bag.

  A turn of the wheel and he merged into the fast lane, some slow moving traffic ahead. He glanced my way while he navigated. “There might be some napkins in the glove compartment for you to write on.”

  That worked for me just fine and I popped the compartment open, rooting for the napkins I saw shoved in the back corner behind road maps and thick manufacture manuals. Brody noticed my struggle, doing a double take. Suddenly, his eyes widened and he raised his hand. “Alex, wait—”

  An orange pill bottle fell out onto my lap, but it wasn’t the only thing that rolled down the door of the compartment. Two other bottles followed, both with white pills inside and another white lid shoved in the back told me there were at least four. There were four orange medicine bottles of something and the unknown of that something had the hairs of my arm standing on end.

  I picked one up, the name on the label long and foreign to me and Brody, he was too silent beside me. I lifted it, shaking the pills inside.

  “What is…” But I didn’t want to finish. I’d seen people with meds of this caliber before, stashes like this before. I used to sell them the stash.

  Brody’s gaze found the bottle, then mine. He shook his head. “Alex—”

  “Are you a drug addict?” I couldn’t breathe. My throat squeezed and a slap couldn’t have sent Brody back more by what I said.

  He blinked. “What? No, that’s not… I mean, I’m not. No.”

  The way he fumbled on that quite literally made me sick to my stomach, the bile burning its way up my throat. He reached for me and I drew back, not wanting that at all.

  He cringed. “Alex, that’s not it.”

  And in what way could I take his word as law? I barely knew him. I barely knew him and I was in love with him. The realizations made my stomach turn even more. I leaned my head out the window, attempting to pull in some air and the grassy plains getting closer caused me to look up. We were also slowing down and the fact Brody was pulling us over became evident.

  He put the truck in park and unbuckled his seatbelt. The open environment and a ready accessible door let me know I had an opportunity to run, but the constant ache in my heart made me stay.

  I really do love him.

  He turned to me, resting a large arm on the wheel and the mashup of emotions on his face told me he had so many words before he even said one. He gazed out the windshield to traffic. “I should have said something, but I’m not a drug addict. Though, that? I’d still have power there, I guess. I could fix that.”

  What did he mean?

  He lifted his head, tipping his chin in the direction of the open glove compartment. “Check the labels. They’re all prescription. They got my name on them and everything if you don’t believe me.”

  The reassurance I thought I wanted, I suddenly didn’t need. The feeling replaced rapidly from the anxiety of what he could have been to the fear of what he actually was.

  “What…” My heart sped, rapid. “Are you sick? Are you…”

  My gaze slid down then, to the t-shirt lining a broad chest that once kept me warm, kept me safe all night. It also covered a line, a white one he had yet to tell me about just like his meds.

  “Does it have to do with that?” I asked and his gaze went there, landing on the same area that concerned me the most.

  His hand went there, touching lightly before lifting his head. “Yes.”

  I swallowed before my next question. It was the only way I could ask him.

  “Are you dying?”

  And the words came out with a thick tone to which his eyes followed with a sadness.

  Reaching out, he placed a hand to the side of my neck and I could breathe again with the slight shake of his head. “No, I’m not dying, so I don’t want you to think that. But yes, I do have to take medications for my heart.”

  A sharp hit rattled within my own chest, the feeling he was downplaying something. Because, if he had to take medications, that many medications for an organ that kept someone’s entire body functioning, something serious had to be going on with him. It may not be death, but that didn’t mean everything was all right.

  I couldn’t speak and another hand touched the other side of my neck. His eyes scanned mine. “Ask me anything,” he said, brushing a finger along my jaw. “Ask me anything and I’ll tell you.”

  He gave me the floor, so I started with this: “What’s wrong with your heart?”

  He chewed the inside of this cheek a bit, but then he spoke. “When I was a kid, barely one, I had to have a surgery. It was extensive, an open-heart surgery for a congenital birth defect. It was successful, though, and everything turned out okay.”

  “So you…” I paused trying to figure out how to go next. “So you take all these pills as maintenance?” I asked eyeing them, but shaking my head. He said the surgery was successful.

  He went on. “No. After the surgery, I had a normal childhood. All that,” he broke off, staring at the bottles, too. “All that’s a recent development.”

  And so the breaths became hard again. “What is going on, Brody? Why do you have to take all that stuff?”

  A hand left my cheek. It left to pick up one of the bottles. “Last year, I didn’t drive a truck. I worked with my dad and brother at a large construction company. I did manual labor, heavy, and that’s what I thought it was at first. Just all the hard work, you know?”

  I swallowed as he turned the bottle.

  He lowered it. “With all that, a guy normally gets fatigued, tired, and because I did sometimes, I ignored it for almost a month; the signs. I ignored the shortness of breath and how hard things seemed to get all the sudden. I just didn’t take it at face value. I had worked all my life in hard labor like that and things always came easy to me. Funny enough, I thought I just had a cold or the flu or something. I thought it was something I could lick so I kept working. I kept pushing myself.”

  Shifting, I brought my legs up on the seat and underneath me. I didn’t like what I was hearing, but I made myself listen. I had to.

  He breathed. “My heart condition made me susceptible to all kinds of things as an adult, something I didn’t know until well, I did. I found out the day when things got tight,” he said, putting his hand on his chest. “They got tight right here. I’d been at work at the time and I… I collapsed. I collapsed right there in the break room.”

  I slid my hand over my mouth.

  Oh my God.

  He nodded like he knew my thoughts. “I’d been by myself and like an idiot, I tried to get back up and keep working. Thank God for my pop. He saw how I looked when I got out of the break room, must have caught on to how fucked up I looked, because he made me go home. I tried to, but barely made it to my truck. I ended up driving myself to the ER instead.”

  Chewing my lip, I decided to push him for the rest. “What did they tell you?”

  I lost his eyes to road, his arm over the wheel. “A bunch of shit I didn’t want to know,” he said. “My heart doesn’t work like it should. It’s an issue with the valves and the cocktail,” he said, tossing the bottle over with the rest. “Keeps them doing what they’re supposed to be doing and regulates my blood pressure among other things. The doctor said I wouldn’t need surgery. Just a lifestyle change, which I guess meant leaving the only
job I’ve ever known how to do. My body couldn’t handle the stress anymore.”

  The way he said that last bit hit me hard and something he’d said to me before slammed into me harder.

  “Would it be weird if I said anything I want?” he’d mentioned to me at the carnival, and now, it all made sense. It all was achingly clear. Brody was being bound by something he couldn’t control and that didn’t sit well with him. It wouldn’t with anyone.

  We sat in silence on the shoulder of that highway, other cars zooming by. But I just sat there, thinking, and the longer I did, the longer I found it hard to just sit. Brody couldn’t do anything harsh with his body and though I didn’t know the extent, I knew the situation in which we met couldn’t have helped. He fought for me that day and that’s when I realized something.

  He could have died for me that day.

  Brody

  She was quiet, so quiet.

  I slid a hand over her shoulder, squeezing. “Alex?” I questioned, trying to get into her head space.

  This was a lot to take in, the mental wraparound of it I was still working my way to process through to this day. But she didn’t have to worry about me. Physically, I had this thing down. I had been keeping up on my meds and hadn’t run into any problems yet. Still, I could imagine she had some concerns. She looked up at me and I didn’t see that though, her worry. Instead, narrowed brown eyes stared back at me and full lips went tight into a hard frown.

  She put her hand to her brow, pushing her fingers into her short hair. “So you had to leave your job because your body couldn’t handle it, right? It was too much on your heart?”

  Hearing the words so bluntly made it beat harder. She put it all out there, vocalizing something I, myself, found to be a hard feat. I nodded. “Yeah, but you don’t need to worry. This is something I’ve had to deal with for quite a few months now and I’m to the point where I’ve got it managed. I keep up on my medications and—”

  “But you still went in,” she bit out, nostrils flaring. “You still broke down the door of that bathroom at that diner and… And…”