“You can stay here, darling,” he had said. “I know I’ve been asking so much from you lately, but you have your own stuff going on. Stay in and study, and then get some rest. I’ll be back before you know it. I’ll tell Brady to stick around the house just in case you need to go somewhere.”
I knew Brady wasn’t there just to escort me though. He practically camped out at our house every day, especially on days when I was home alone. He had become the eternal look-out, making sure there was no suspicious activity happening anywhere near our home.
“Yeah?” I said glancing to my closed bedroom door.
“Just letting you know I’m ready whenever you are,” his voice sounded through the door.
I sighed, pulling on my sports bra and then reaching for my yoga shorts. Although I should have been studying, I had decided to go out to a yoga class instead, figuring it would refresh my mind so that when I got back home, I could focus on studying better.
“Be there in a second,” I said, my tone lackluster. I already felt annoyed, thinking about the expressionless gaze Brady always kept on his face whenever he was with me.
I supposed yoga would help distract me from him as well.
I stood in the mirror and reached for a comb, detangling my hair before pulling it up into a high ponytail.
Suddenly, it occurred to me that I no longer wanted to go out to a yoga class.
I looked toward my door, practically sensing Brady’s presence on the other side. Visions of that night in Turkey began to replay in my head, making me quiver at the memory of his skin on mine.
My imagination spinning into overdrive, I began envisioning recreating the night, right here and now, in my bed while we had the entire house to ourselves.
Indecent thoughts prancing through my mind, I slowly approached the door. There was a certain level of shame underlying what I was about to do, but I couldn’t stop myself. I needed to know once and for all whether Brady still felt the slightest bit of attraction toward me, or if it had all been a meaningless drunken fling that he wished to forget.
When I opened the door, just as I expected, he stood outside. He was leaning against the wall with his arms folded. “You ready?” he asked, turning his back already and heading down the hall. When he realized I wasn’t following behind him, he stopped and turned around.
God, he looked good today. He wore a black sleeveless tank, showing off his muscular forearms and tattoos, with a pair of jeans and combat boots.
No suit when my Dad wasn’t around. Interesting.
I was so busy looking at him that it took me a moment to realize his eyes had widened upon seeing me. I stood perfectly still as his eyes traveled down to my chest, my exposed abdomen, and the tiny yoga shorts I wore. Seeing that my feet were still bare, he raised an eyebrow and then let his eyes travel back up to my face. “Uhm…don’t you need some shoes or something? I thought you were going out to your, uhh…” His voice trailed off as he got distracted by my body again.
My heart hammered in my chest, an uncontrollable pleasure coming over me at the fact that finally, I had his attention.
“I think I’m going to stay in,” I said, opening my bedroom door wider. “I’m not sure I feel like being bothered with going out today. I can do my yoga right here and then head downstairs to get some studying done.”
Brady nodded. “Well, I’ll be downstairs. Call me if you need anything.”
My breath hitched in my throat. His leaving hadn’t been part of the plan. “Wait!” I said, thinking fast.
He turned back around, his eyebrows raised. “Yeah?”
“I, uhm…need my yoga mat.”
“Okay…”
“It’s downstairs. Can you bring it up for me?”
“Downstairs where?”
“In the exercise room.”
“Well, why don’t you just do your yoga in the exercise room then?”
“I…Because, I—” I sputtered, trying to answer the question quickly, but failing to come up with a logical explanation.
Brady shook his head and sighed. “Never mind. Be right back.”
As I watched him retreat down the hall and then down the staircase, I wanted to kick myself. I hated how desperate he made me feel and act. No wonder he had lost interest in me.
Yet, there was a ridiculous streak in me that just didn’t want to give up so easily. The way he’d stared at me in my yoga outfit was proof that he still found me visually appealing to some degree. It wasn’t much, but I was more than willing to work with it.
Using his absence as an opportunity to clean my room, I tossed dirty clothes out view, smoothed out the comforter on my bed, and then opened the blinds, permitting sunlight to stream through the windows.
When I heard him coming back up the stairs, I hastily sat down on the edge of my bed and began picking with my fingernails, not wanting him to know that I had just cleaned my room in record-breaking speed.
“Where do you want me to put this?” he asked, stopping in my doorway with the mat balanced on his shoulder.
“Just put it right there,” I said, pointing to the spot in front of my bed and trying my best to sound nonchalant. Once he set down the yoga mat, I stood up and stretched. His eyes roamed my body yet again.
Goodness, Autumn—you’re acting like such a slut, a voice in my head chastised. But I ignored the voice.
“Have you ever tried yoga?” I asked as I approached the mat. I kept my eyes glued to him, determined to engage him in conversation so that he wouldn’t try to leave again.
He shook his head. “No. Not my thing.”
I began to stretch on the mat. “Really? What is your thing then?”
“I’m more into cardio, weight-lifting. Stuff like that.”
“Yoga is really relaxing. You should give it a try sometime. It’s really easy too. See look—this is a basic yoga stretch.” I demonstrated for him, once again pleased to see his eyes roaming my body.
“Are you trying to get me to do yoga with you, Autumn?” he asked, folding his arms across his chest.
I gave him a sly grin. “Is it working?”
He laughed, the sound of it being music to my ears. It seemed like such a long time since I’d heard him laugh or even seen him smile—at least in my direction.
“No,” he said.
I pouted. “Well, will you at least keep me company?”
His brow furrowed. “It gets lonely being the Speaker’s daughter, huh?” he said. “I imagine it’s hard to know who to trust.”
I swallowed, having not anticipated the conversation taking such a serious turn. I lowered my gaze to the floor, this time genuinely focusing on my stretches rather than on him. “No. Being the Speaker’s daughter is all right. It’s lonely feeling like the only child of a widowed potential vice-presidential candidate.”
“You have a sister, right?”
“Yes. Anna.”
“How come she doesn’t come around?”
I shrugged. “She’s busy with her own life, that’s all. She’s older and has always done her own thing.”
“What about the rest of your family?”
I shook my head. “My mom was an only child. And my dad is an only child. So there isn’t much other family.”
“Wow.” Brady ran a hand through his silky dark hair.
“You don’t have to stand there. You can take a seat if you want,” I said, pointing to the chair across the room. It was a comfortable reclining chair that I had been stingy about since childhood, never letting anyone else sit in it. It was where I liked to curl up with a good book and read late into the night whenever I had trouble sleeping. Yet, for some reason, I didn’t mind Brady sitting there.
He crossed the room, removed the pillows from the sides of the chair, and took a seat. With a sigh, he leaned back and closed his eyes for a second.
“Long day?”
“Taking care of you is a lot of work. I mean, looking after you, rather.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling as
if I had literally been stung.
He smiled. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world.”
I blinked, startled by the sincerity in his voice. I also noted that his face looked slightly flushed, as if he had said more than he meant to. An involuntary smile spread across my lips, and Brady averted his gaze just for an instant as I went into another yoga stretch.
After a while though, he couldn’t keep his eyes off me. I glanced at him throughout my workout, seeing lust creeping into his eyes each time I twisted my body into an interesting position. Purposely contorting myself into erotic poses, I finished my workout feeling just as hot and bothered as he looked. I suppressed a smile when he reached for one of the pillows he’d removed from the chair and placed it in his lap.
He abruptly cleared his throat. “Uhm…excuse me,” he said, standing awkwardly from the chair and making a rather obvious effort to not face me as he returned the pillow.
Then he bolted from the room.
I had a feeling I wouldn’t see him up close for the rest of the day, which left me feeling a bit disappointed. But thinking of the way he watched me put a smile on my face. I flipped over on my yoga mat and just lied there for a while, my body yearning for him and wishing so desperately that he had taken the bait.
CHAPTER 8
Brady
“Hello, Speaker Harper,” I said. I’d been sitting in the living room, reading news articles on my phone while keeping an eye on the surveillance cameras displaying the surrounding grounds of the Harper estate. When I’d seen the vehicle returning him home, I couldn’t have been more grateful. A couple of hours had gone by since I’d been with Autumn, but I was still overly aware that I was in this big house alone with her, and I’d been fantasizing entirely too much about going back into her room and asking if she would mind doing those yoga poses again, preferably on top of me with her clothes off.
Since the yoga demonstration in her bedroom, I’d heard her retreat to the library. I hadn’t approached her again though, not even to check if she needed anything.
“Hi Brady,” the senator said, his voice friendly, but tired.
I smiled at him. “Looks like you’ve had a long day.”
“Don’t I always.” He took a seat at the dining room table across from me. “How was your day? Autumn didn’t drive you too crazy, did she? I see you took me up on having a casual Tuesday.”
I laughed, hoping it didn’t really sound as strained as I thought it did. “No…She’s uhm…studying. And yeah thanks, it’s nice to be out of a suit once in a while.”
“My poor girl. She’s been studying all day, hasn’t she?”
“No…she…she went to work out for a little while earlier.”
“Well, let me see if she’s up to going out for dinner. I could use a nice meal, and I’m sure she could too. In fact, why don’t you join us?”
I swallowed. My only plans for the rest of the day had involved going back home and taking several cold showers while trying to force the images of Autumn and those poses out of my head.
“No, that’s all right, sir,” I said, trying to politely decline and disguise the panic in my voice.
But Speaker Harper waved his hand dismissively. “Nonsense. I won’t take no for an answer. It’s my treat. To thank you again for your services.”
* * *
“Right this way,” the waitress said.
Speaker Harper, Autumn, and I followed her through the restaurant, where she led us to a table for three. Once we reached the table, I faltered for a moment, trying to decide which seat to take. Two chairs were on one side of the table, and a single chair was on the other side. I hurriedly approached the single chair, so that Speaker Harper could sit beside his daughter. Once we all took our seats though, I knew I’d made a mistake. I’d been reluctant to sit next to Autumn, but failed to realize sitting across from her was even worse because she would be plainly in my view for the whole dinner. I would have to carefully control my expressions, because God forbid Speaker Harper saw the lust in my eyes when I looked at his little princess.
It was going to be a long evening, to say the least.
“Can I start you all off with something to drink?” the waitress said, smiling amicably at us all.
“I’ll just take water,” Autumn said.
“Same for me,” I said.
Autumn met my gaze briefly, and I averted my eyes to the menu although I wasn’t really reading it.
“Water?” Speaker Harper said. “You two are going to make me look bad! Oh, what the hell. Give me a beer.”
The waitress winked. “Coming right up, sir.”
“Looks like you have an admirer, Dad,” Autumn teased, nudging her father’s arm with her elbow.
“Oh, nonsense. I’m too old for those shenanigans.”
“No, you’re not. Plenty of women would be more than willing to be your future first lady.”
“Let’s not jump ahead of ourselves, dear,” Speaker Harper said with a chuckle. He pulled a pair of eye-glasses from the pocket of his shirt. “Besides, you’re the one who should be keeping your eyes open for prospects. You don’t want to wind up old and alone. You’re far too pretty for that.”
“Oh, Dad,” Autumn said, exasperated.
My mouth having suddenly grown dry, I looked around, wishing the waitress would come back with our drinks already.
“What about you, Brady?”
“Huh?” My eyebrows shot up. I looked across the table at Speaker Harper, noticing that he was staring at me.
“Anyone special in your life? Strappingly handsome young lad like you must have somebody.”
Right on time, the waitress returned with our drinks, sparing me from answering. “Are you all ready to order, or do you need more time?”
“More time, please. My eyes haven’t even adjusted to this dim lighting yet!” Speaker Harper said.
The waitress laughed as if he had just said the funniest thing in the world, making it seem that Autumn had a point. Either the waitress was being flirtatious, or she was simply being extra nice because she recognized Speaker Harper and wanted to be left a hefty service tip.
“I’ll give you a moment then. Just wave me over when you’re ready,” she said before leaving once again.
Autumn laughed. “Goodness, she is trying so hard,” she said. A flush suddenly coming over her face, she reached for her cup of water. She seemed to be consciously avoiding my gaze and I suddenly realized why.
I supposed she felt a bit hypocritical, considering that whole yoga display she had staged for me earlier.
Unable to stop myself, I chuckled.
“All right, you two,” Speaker Harper said, under the impression that we were laughing about the waitress. He narrowed his eyes at the menu’s dinner entrees and I breathed a sigh of relief, seeing that he had likely forgotten his question about my love life.
Although the answer to the question really wasn’t all that complicated, I just didn’t feel like talking about it in front of Autumn. It was too awkward, especially since she was the only woman I wanted right now, but couldn’t have.
I stared at the menu before me, trying to focus. But the only thing I could really focus on was Autumn’s presence across from me. Under the table, her foot brushed against mine. She looked at me, startled, and mouthed a ‘Sorry’ before turning her gaze back to her menu.
Just at the brush of her foot, my heart had begun to race.
It didn’t make sense, the effect this woman had on me.
I looked up again when she cleared her throat and gave a start to see that both she and Speaker Harper were looking at me. I raised an eyebrow, confused. And then I realized one of them had likely said something to me and I had been too lost in my thoughts to realize it.
“I’m sorry?” I said.
Speaker Harper laughed. “Was just wondering what you were having, but I see you need your concentration right now.”
I forced a laugh. “Yeah, sorry…” I said, rememb
ering that he was treating me to dinner.
“And don’t worry about the price of what you want. Get whatever looks good to you,” he added, as if sensing my thoughts.
“Well, I’ve got simple taste,” I said. “I’ll settle for baked chicken, steamed vegetables, and mashed potatoes.”
“Simple, but hardy,” Speaker Harper said. “I like it. I think I’ll have the same, but I’ll switch out the chicken for a nice steak. Do you know what you want, dear?”
Autumn closed her menu. “I’ll just have a grilled chicken Caesar salad.”
“Looks like we’re all set then,” Speaker Harper said, and waved his hand to alert our waitress. She had been on the other end of the restaurant, but it seemed that she had been watching our table the whole time, waiting for the Speaker’s signal.
She returned with a smile on her face. “Ready for me to take your orders?”
“Certainly,” the Speaker said. “I’ll take the steak—medium rare—with vegetables and garlic mashed potatoes. And if you got any more beer back there, I’ll take that too!”
“Of course, sir. And for you, ma’am?”
“Grilled chicken Caesar salad.”
“And you?”
“Baked chicken breast, steamed vegetables, and mashed-potatoes,” I said.
“All right. Coming right up.”
“I don’t know, Dad…” Autumn said once the waitress had left again. “Seems to me you should take a chance every now and then. You’ll never know if the right woman is out there if you aren’t willing to take a leap of faith.”
She stared off into the distance as she spoke, but something told me she was well aware of how her words resonated. I halfway wondered if she had noticed the way I looked at her after all, even though I had been trying so hard to keep my feelings hidden. I should have known better though—Autumn wasn’t dumb.
“I guess you’ve got a point there,” the Speaker said. He fixed his gaze on me, clearly about to say something else, but my attention was suddenly drawn elsewhere.
It appeared the waitress wasn’t the only one keeping an eye on Speaker Harper though.
Fearless Hero: A Military Bodyguard Romance (Savage Soldiers Book 3) Page 4
