Tethered to Him
by
Michelle F. Adams
Tethered to Him
Copyright © 2019, Michelle F. Adams
ISBN: 9781949300413
Publisher: Beachwalk Press, Inc.
Electronic Publication: June 2019
Editor: Pamela Tyner
Cover: Fantasia Frog Designs
eBooks are not transferable. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
Back Cover Copy
Their love tethers them together.
Julia Marshall has been in love with her brother’s chief of security since the moment she first met him at sixteen. Believing he would never feel the same way, she left to attend college abroad, but now she’s back, and the intense way his eyes devour her whole tells her she was wrong. Very, very wrong.
Brandon Stone has been in love with his boss’s little sister for years. Letting her leave to study abroad was the hardest thing he ever did. For three years, he faithfully waited for her. Now that she’s returned, nothing will stop him from claiming her…forever.
Content Warning: this book contains an over-the-top alpha who’s waited for his woman for three long years, and hot, steamy sex scenes.
Dedication
To all the completely safe authors out there, I owe Brandon’s fidelity to you. Thank you.
Chapter 1
Julia
I inhale deeply as I exit the airport terminal and step into the hustling, bustling crowds. The air is humid and hot, and I can feel sweat gathering at the back of my neck. I take off my jacket and dig in my purse for my cellphone when it starts ringing. I smile when I see my brother’s name on the screen.
“Hey, big brother,” I greet cheerfully.
It’s been three years since I last saw James. After I went to university abroad, he would urge me to come home during my breaks, but I always took classes and internships and told him I was busy.
Staying away from James was hard. He and I have always been close. He cares for me and is very protective of me, especially after the untimely death of our parents.
“Jules.” His voice uttering the nickname I haven’t heard in a long while sends warmth coursing through my body.
I close my eyes and revel in the feeling of being home. Yes, staying away has been hard, but I don’t want to think about the reason behind why I did it. Or about what will happen now that I’m back.
“Are you in the car?” James asks, concern tinging his voice.
“No, I’m standing at the front of the arrivals terminal. I can’t see any car. Who did you send to pick me up?”
I know he wanted to come himself but Clarissa, his wife, is pregnant and suffering from morning sickness, and he didn’t want to leave her alone. I love how devoted he is to his wife. For so long after I left, I worried about him being alone. James has always focused on his business, and women haven’t been on his radar since for as long as I can remember.
I can still recall the shock I felt the day he called to tell me he was getting married.
“What? Say that again. I swear I thought you said you were getting married in three days.”
“I am getting married in three days, Jules,” he confirms.
I detect a trace of amusement in his voice but immediately dismiss the idea as ludicrous. My brother laughing is as likely as an elephant doing ballet. I can’t even imagine it.
“B-but you don’t date. How did you meet her? When did you start dating? Wait, when did you leave the office long enough to find a woman? Where did you find her?” I can’t stop the barrage of questions as all the possibilities circle in my mind like ravens around a carcass.
Maybe she’s his secretary. Maybe he’s marrying for a business deal. Maybe he’s agreeing to a contract marriage. Maybe he’s in financial trouble and needs someone to bail him out. No, my brother is a business whiz. He can’t have made such bad decisions that he would agree to marriage as his last resort.
“Jules, slow down. Take a breath.” Now he is definitely laughing.
“Tell me everything,” I say, ignoring what he said.
“I met her today. She’s the daughter of one of my business acquaintances,” James replies.
“You met her today? And you’re marrying her in three days? Have you gone mad?”
“When you know, you know. She’s it for me.”
My brother’s voice in my ear brings me back to the present. “Stone must have assigned someone from his security team to come pick you up. I don’t know why they’re late. Hold on, let me call and ask him.”
He hangs up, and I stand there with my phone in my hand, suddenly feeling light-headed. His words from that day come back to me. The ache in my chest is a reminder that I agree with him: when you know, you know.
“Julia!”
I turn when I hear my name being called to see Oliver jogging lightly toward me with his suitcase trailing behind him. He was in the same class as me, and we both graduated with honors in three years. I didn’t know he lived in California as well. He’s a nice guy, and he has shown me at many instances that he is interested in me, but my heart belongs to only one man, and even thinking about going on a date with someone else feels like a betrayal of that truth.
“Hey, Oliver. How are you?” I ask as he comes to stand beside me. The airport is crowded this time of day, and he moves a little closer to me. I start feeling uncomfortable and take a step back.
“Hi. I’m good. It’s good to be back home, right? I can give you a ride, if you want,” he offers when he sees I’m looking around.
“Oh, no. That’s very nice of you, but my brother has sent someone to pick me up. They’ll be here any time now, I’m sure,” I say as I look back at him.
“Listen, Julia. Now that university is over, I was wondering if you’d like to go out sometime. How about this Friday? Are you free?” Oliver asks.
“Oh, uh, well…” I stammer, not sure how to reply.
When I was younger, my brother was very protective and made sure all the boys in my school knew I wasn’t allowed to date until I turned eighteen. Then I went abroad and focused on my studies, with my social life being sorely neglected. So I’m not used to guys asking me out on dates, and I don’t know how to refuse. I know Oliver likes me, and I don’t want to hurt his feelings.
“Oliver, I—” I start to tell him I’ll be busy, but I abruptly stop when a muscular arm wraps around my waist from behind and hauls me backward into solid, unyielding warmth.
“She’s not interested.” A deep baritone voice comes from above my head, and I stiffen immediately. I might not recognize the body holding me so close, but I would know that voice anywhere. Brandon Stone. What is he doing here?
I register the look of shock on Oliver’s face, but I’m too busy reeling from the sensations flooding my body to pay any attention to him. It’s so unfamiliar; the feel of Brandon’s body behind me, his masculine scent enveloping me, his huge frame rigid with tension. This is the first time I’ve been this close to him, and I hold still, wanting to savor this moment before it’s taken away from me.
“Brandon,” I whisper softly, not sure what else to say.
I want to turn around and look at him; this man who has been haunting my dreams for the past three years, this man who I fell in love with before I even knew what love was. And yet, at the same time, I want the world to stop
spinning so I can spend eternity pressed to him like this, his warmth seeping into me through the thin barrier of our shirts.
He must have heard me, because he shudders before his hold on me tightens further, lifting me so that my feet leave the ground, and I’m left holding onto his forearm with both hands.
Oliver looks up at me and gives me a sad smile before waving goodbye and leaving. His departure suddenly spurs Brandon into motion, and before I know it, my suitcase has been deposited in the trunk of his SUV and I’m sitting in the passenger seat of the car, watching as he comes around and gets in the driver’s seat.
He doesn’t make a move to start the car. His hands are clenched tightly on the steering wheel, his head bowed as he takes deep breaths. I sit there, unsure what to say and quietly watching as he tries to get in control. It’s fascinating to witness, like trying to rein in a turbulent wave. Brandon is like that; his energy is tempestuous and violent as it fills the interior of the car, making me feel as if I’m standing in the middle of a raging storm.
For the first time in three years, I feel as if I’ve come alive. How can I let him do this to me? When did I give him such power over me?
“Brandon, what—” I start to ask him if there is something wrong, but the forbidding expression on his face stops me in my tracks.
In the two years I knew him before I left, he never spoke much. Always quiet and still, standing in the shadows, his eyes blazing with intensity. They are not merely intense right now, they are lit with an inferno from within, and I want to know what is the cause.
The sixteen-year-old girl who first saw him basks in the comfort his presence always brings, but the twenty-one-year-old woman wants to know what makes him lose control. So she can do it again, again, and again. Make him lose control, shatter it. Make him want me. Crack his carefully neutral, hard mask and unearth his true self.
His expression is not neutral now, I see, as he raises his head and turns those burning eyes my way. No, not neutral at all.
“Were you going to say yes?” His voice is still controlled, because that’s the kind of man Brandon is. He would never raise his voice to me, no matter how much I anger or frustrate him. But his hands wind tighter around the wheel until his knuckles are white, and his jaw is tightly clenched so the words sound like they’ve been grinded and crushed to dust before being spit out.
“Say yes? I don’t understand. Say yes to what?” I ask, confused.
“To that boy asking you out,” he growls. As if the words have reminded him I was approached by another man, his head whips around to look outside the window, and he makes a move as if he’s going to get out of the car and go look for Oliver.
Oh God. What is happening right now? In all the different possibilities I imagined when I thought about how Brandon and I would meet the first time after I came back home, I never in my wildest dreams could have predicted him behaving like this.
“Brandon, stop!” I place a hand on his arm, my fingers curling around his stiff muscles.
He goes still. Completely and utterly still. It seems like he isn’t even breathing.
“You know I wouldn’t have said yes,” I whisper quietly. “You must know that.” My voice shakes at the last word, and a note of desperation slips in.
He has to know how I feel about him. I was sixteen when he came to work for my brother, and from the first look I had of him standing inside James’s office, his hands clasped behind his back, looking solid and somber, I knew I had found what I was looking for.
Comfort, warmth, peace.
He became my home that day, and every chance I had to soak those feelings in, to soak him in, I grabbed at with greedy hands. Trailing behind him as he assigned duties to his men, doing my homework on the couch in the living room as he sat in a chair with his laptop, pretending to work. Going to the kitchen late at night for a glass of water because I knew he would be there, waiting for me.
He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, the tension draining from his shoulders. I start to remove my hand from his arm, but in a flash, his hand drops from the door handle he was clutching and captures mine, pressing it into his skin.
“You’re back,” he whispers reverently.
My eyes start to water, because I hear so much in those few simple words. Relief, anticipation, happiness, fear. It’s the last that makes me stop from reaching out to touch his face. I want to, so desperately, but the fear he tries to hide from me stops me. I get the feeling he’s not ready for this yet. So I gently ease my hand out from under his, sit back in the seat, and put my seatbelt on.
“Yes, I am.”
He looks at me for a moment longer before turning to face forward and starting the car. As we ease out into traffic and leave the airport behind, I feel something akin to hope—the hope of a new beginning.
Chapter 2
Brandon
She’s back. Jesus, she’s back. It feels like I’ve lived and aged a lifetime since the last time I saw her. I was standing at the balcony with my hands clutching the railing, watching her drive away. Away from me. And I had to stand there and let her go. I can’t do that again. Not anymore. Not when I’ve lived three years without looking at her beautiful, beloved face.
She’s more beautiful than I remembered. Her blonde hair falls in waves past her shoulders, midway to her back. Her soft, baby-blue eyes are inquisitive, roaming all over me as I drive her to her brother’s house. I can see a million questions swirling in them.
Julia is a sweet angel with a heart so full of love, of caring, I sometimes wonder how she can hold it all inside her small body. She brings out emotions in me I’ve never experienced before, and I feel like I will explode as they bubble inside me, more powerful than ever.
At sixteen, she was a young girl I would have died protecting with my last breath. At twenty-one, she is the wild, hot fantasy of every red-blooded male, and I would die to possess her. She is mine. I dare anyone to try and stop me. I would kill them with my bare hands.
My thoughts fuel me with violent rage. After waiting two years for her to grow up then letting her go study abroad when every molecule in my being rebelled against that idea, my patience has finally run out. Not when she is sitting there, looking so soft and sweet, as if it were only yesterday. As if I didn’t spend the last three years in agony without her around to keep me sane.
“How is Clarissa doing?” Her quiet, low voice reaches out to me from the other side of the car where she is sitting with her hands in her lap, her sunshine hair enveloping her in a golden halo. The black edges of my soul fade in her light.
Small talk. She expects me to make small talk with her during this journey when I feel like parking in the middle of the road and claiming her for all to see. Look at her. This angel who has fallen from heaven is mine. You can look, but no one—other than me—will touch.
“She gets sick a lot. Drives James crazy,” I reply bluntly.
The way James runs after her each time she needs to go to the bathroom is crazy. But I understand. I understand because I’ll be the same with Julia. Possession runs through me at the thought, and Julia just sits there innocently, no idea how she keeps me up at night. The things I would do to her would keep us both up. All. Night. Long.
I hear soft, tinkling laughter and turn to glance at her. Her eyes are the color of a tranquil sea, the wind blowing the hair in her face. Her smile makes her whole face glow.
“I’m happy for him. I honestly never thought he would settle down with someone. I’m glad he found the one meant for him,” she says, her voice filled with wonder.
I can be that for you. I want to be the one for you, I silently tell her. But the fear takes hold once more so I grunt in answer. She looks over at me questioningly but doesn’t say anything, and the rest of the drive passes in silence.
When we pull up to the front of the house, I see James standing at the top of the stairs, his arm around Clarissa’s waist as she cradles her growing belly with both hands. The picture of contentment and lo
ve. Will we be like this, I wonder? Will I get over this fear and claim Julia fully, or will I lose her to the demons that haunt my soul?
I’m interrupted in my musings as Julia squeals with delight and launches herself from the car, up the stairs, and straight into James’s waiting arms. He hugs her tightly as Clarissa stands at the side, looking at the pair lovingly.
I get out and grab Julia’s suitcase from the trunk, carrying it up the stairs and coming to a stop beside Clarissa. I make sure there’s a respectable distance between she and I, or James will kill me. As it is, as soon as he’s done hugging Julia, he steps back and hauls Clarissa back into his side.
Julia sighs dreamily while Clarissa just rolls her eyes. She’s used to his possessive caveman ways by now. She turns and looks at Julia fondly before opening her arms, and Julia smiles as she hugs her. They both start talking right away, as if they’ve known each other for years instead of meeting for the first time. Females.
I turn to look at James, and he raises an eyebrow in question. “Didn’t know you were going to pick her up yourself.”
“There was no one else available.” The lie rolls easily off my tongue.
I hear Julia pause in mid-sentence, but I don’t look at her.
“I’ll give you guys some time alone,” I say as I grab her suitcase and take it inside with me.
For the next two hours, I pace in the office upstairs and make some calls to arrange for Julia’s security team. The sound of laughter occasionally trails up from the living room, making me smile. I should get back to the main office and hold the meetings I had canceled today, but I can’t leave. Not yet. So I pace. And I wait.
Tethered to Him (Alphamen in Suits Book 2) Page 1
