I try my best to focus on Chase but it’s hard not to let the memory take over.
It’s only been a short amount of time since I’ve reconnected with Katie but it doesn’t matter. I hate the idea of her being hurt, whether it’s now or in the past.
“You with me?” Chase asks, interrupting my thoughts and bringing me back to the present.
“Yeah, man. I’m here. Sorry, memories, you know?”
He turns to the right and the truck skids along, mud flying up behind us. “Jealous that you have so many memories out here. I bet it was a great place to grow up.”
“It was,” I confirm.
After he’s had enough mudding, we take his truck back to my shop and we wash it up.
“I really wish I was taking this thing with me,” he murmurs, wiping it down.
“Transport truck’s arriving tomorrow to bring it to the site.”
“We all set for you customizing one for a charity auction?”
“Absolutely.”
We shake hands and then he takes off in the vehicle he arrived in.
And I head to my girl.
Chapter Eleven
Katie
“Who was it?”
“Brody. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“That night when we were at the cabin and Tate’d been drinking, then I brought you home because you didn’t want to stay the night there. Who was it that had you so scared?”
I stare at him with wide eyes from where I stand next to the counter in my kitchen while he faces me. He doesn’t look intimidating, but he does look seriously ticked off.
“I haven’t thought about that night in years.”
“Me either,” he grunts. “But I thought of it tonight and want to know who had you so scared that you didn’t feel safe that night. You said it wasn’t Tate. Was that a lie?”
“No. It wasn’t Tate.”
“Then who?” he demands loudly, lifting up and slamming the wooden kitchen chair he’s standing next to back down quickly. In the open space of my studio apartment, it makes a loud bang.
I flinch and whisper, “B. Calm down.”
He grips the back of the chair and drops his head, taking deep breaths. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Lifting his head, he says, “I’m sorry. The memory hit me and I remember that night you seemed seriously freaked out and I hated that and wanted to fix it but you wouldn’t tell me what was going on and that’s okay because that night you weren’t mine. But you’re mine now and that means you’re mine to take care of and to protect. I’m not going to go all hulk and kick some guy’s ass for treating you badly fifteen years ago. That wouldn’t be right and I’d probably land in jail but…”
I interrupt him by asking, “Then why do you need to know?”
“I don’t know. I can’t stand not knowing.”
He moves to me and takes my face in his hands, rubbing a thumb over the apple of my cheek. “You get that I like you. You get who I am to you, right?”
“Yes.”
“I will stand beside you, behind you, in front of you, whatever you need from me. I will protect you, Katie. That’s just the kind of guy I am. I can’t change that. I can’t stand the idea of someone hurting you. It makes me sick.”
“It wasn’t a guy.”
“What?” he asks, dropping his hands from my face. “What do you mean?”
“It wasn’t a guy I was freaked out by. That would make sense, I know, but it wasn’t that. It was Mallory. Well, not just her, but mainly her. Her little group of cronies were there, too, which didn’t help.”
“Come again?” he asks, rightfully confused.
“Mallory,” I repeat.
“Mallory. The girl I dated and took to prom our junior year?”
“The one and only,” I grumble, sneering a little.
“Thinkin’ we need to have a little more explanation here. I’m completely lost. Why would you be scared of her?”
“You didn’t see this because she hid it well, but she was awful. Like, the absolute worst. The definition of a mean girl.”
“No shit?”
“No shit,” I confirm.
“I had no idea.”
“Like I said, she hid it well.”
“What’d she do to you? And why?”
This is the part that could be a little awkward. As vivid as the memory is, it was also buried pretty deep so I haven’t thought about it in years. Until this very moment, actually.
I lick my lips and rub them together.
Brody crosses his arms across his chest and scrunches his eyebrows. “Don’t stall, Katie. Explain.”
Taking a seat at the table, Brody joins me and I start in. “It was prom night, actually. She, well… she wasn’t happy. With me, I mean. I was in the bathroom and she and her friends came in. They cornered me and she got in my face.”
“Why?”
“She told me I had a boyfriend, which I obviously knew, and then said it would be good for me to remember the fact that I had a boyfriend. And that boyfriend wasn’t you.”
“What the hell? You’re not making any sense.”
“I’m not? It was her!”
“Okay, okay.” He holds up his hands and sits back. “Sorry. Go on.”
“She thought you and I were into each other, which, I guess knowing what I know now, maybe we were but neither of us acted on it, but then I didn’t know. I told you I had a crush on you, but I was with Tate then and I did like him. I was with him so, no offense, but I wasn’t thinking of other guys, including you.”
“None taken. I think.” He smirks.
“Anyway, she was staking her claim and wanted me to know that you would not be on my radar anytime soon. That you were hers and that was that and I should banish any thoughts of being with you.”
He turns his head and looks at me.
“I remember that night.”
“Do you?”
“I do. You were wearing a blue dress that flowed around your ankles and you looked more beautiful than I’d ever seen you look before. I kept looking at you. I know I did.”
“You… you remember what I wore to prom our junior year of high school?”
“Does that make me a creeper? It probably does.” He laughs. “But for real, it’s good for you to know that I’ve always thought you are beautiful. Even when we were younger. But, she probably saw it. I was seventeen and I’m sure I wasn’t great at hiding how beautiful I thought you were.”
“Wow,” I whisper, feeling my stomach warm at the idea of him looking at me all those years ago. He was wearing this tux that made him look like 007 and even though he was obviously completely out of his element, he looked so incredibly handsome. “I honestly had no idea but that means a lot to hear you say that. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Also. She was seriously pissed off at me that night, and I had no idea what I did.”
“Pissed how? What’d she do to you to make you scared?”
“Like I said, she cornered me in the bathroom. Well, when I dismissed it like she was crazy, she turned physical with me.”
“Physical?” he asks, his voice so low if he wasn’t incredibly angry right now, I would be turned on. He bites out a curse and stands up quickly, the legs of the chair making a loud scraping noise on the kitchen floor. Immediately, he begins to pace around the room with his hands on top of his head. When it seems like he’s cooled down, he returns to the chair and says, “You’re serious, aren’t you? Did she hurt you? Don’t lie to me, either. I want to know.”
I’d actually considered lying because it’s embarrassing that I was physically assaulted by a girl at prom only because she thought I was into her guy. But even if he hadn’t demanded I tell him the truth, I know I would have been honest. “Yes. I told her she was wrong and that you and I weren’t into each other, but that made her even more mad. She said she didn’t believe me for a second and then it was like she turned into a different person. Her face turned red and sudde
nly — no joke because it was completely out of nowhere — she slapped me across the cheek and shoved me backward. I was by the sink so I slammed into it and ended up getting a pretty big bruise on my lower back and hip.”
“What the fuck?” he growls.
“Yeah. It was messed up.”
“That’s more than messed up, Katie. That’s insane!”
“It was,” I agree. It was definitely insane. “I was so shocked that I didn’t know what to do. And honestly, she was really strong for a high school girl and I was scared because all her friends were there and none of them seemed fazed by her behavior. Before she left, she yanked on my hair and pulled my head back, got in my face and told me I’d better remember this the next time I felt the need to hang out with you. She seemed pretty determined to ruin my night and she succeeded. When I finally pulled myself together enough to walk back out to find Tate, I was a wreck and just wanted to go home. I told Tate that I’d gotten sick in the bathroom and he didn’t question it.”
“You should have told me,” he murmurs.
“Maybe. Maybe not. You and I were barely friends, Brody.”
“If you were so afraid of her, why’d you let me take you home that night?”
“Because the alternative of either riding home with a drunk Tate or staying there overnight with her and her friends was worse. Even though you and she weren’t together anymore, I knew whatever threats she’d doled out to me earlier were still possible.”
“But she and I weren’t together then.”
This is where it gets even more awkward and he’ll likely be more upset. I wince and open my mouth to respond but he guesses the reason on his own. “She blamed you for me breaking up with her.”
I nod and give him a little shrug. “Yeah.”
“You getting hurt was my fault.”
“No, it wasn’t. You can’t take blame for someone else’s bad behavior.”
“Yeah. It was. I saw you at prom that night and you looked so damn beautiful. I couldn’t stop staring at you. I knew she saw me, and I made up some lie about looking for someone. But, even being caught staring at you didn’t stop me from continuing to look for you. You were always this light that seemed to draw me in, Katie. I remember how you didn’t smile often and whenever I got you to smile at me I felt like puffing out my chest. But that night, you were full of smiles and I didn’t want to look away.
“I heard you about it not being my fault, but you have to know that I’m going to feel guilt over this. That night of prom, I wasn’t a good boyfriend to Mallory because I couldn’t take my eyes off the gorgeous blonde in the sexy as fuck blue dress and she turned that on you. Then the night of the bonfire, a night that was supposed to be fun for everyone, you didn’t want to stay because they were still being jerks to you?”
I scrunch my nose. This entire conversation is fairly mortifying. I was bullied. Picked on. And dredging up the memories isn’t exactly pleasant. “Pretty much. Mallory had kind of let up. A little bit, anyway. But, she was still sure that I was the reason you broke up with her.”
“You want to know what’s really crazy? First of all, when I told her I wasn’t feeling it she acted like she didn’t care. But second, I kind of did break up with her for you.”
“Huh?”
“I knew it wasn’t right that I was looking at another girl and after prom I couldn’t stop thinking of you, so I told her we needed to break up. She had no right to treat you that way. You didn’t deserve it.”
“It’s fine. Until you reminded me of it, I had forgotten. Besides, remember that’s the summer that she found out she was pregnant so she relaxed her hatred for me.”
He scoots his chair over, his legs spread on either side of mine. “It’s not fine. And I get what you’re saying that it’s not my fault, even if I can’t help but feel that in a roundabout way it was. Thank you for finally telling me about it. Tonight we were out there in his truck and all I could think about was the bonfire and wondered what had happened. I gotta admit, the possibilities running through my head were pretty scary.”
“I’m sorry.”
He gives me an odd look. “Why are you apologizing?”
“Because I can’t help it?” I laugh lightly and we link hands. “It’s a habit, I guess. But now that it’s out in the open and we know that we both had crushes on each other in high school, but never acted on them, we can move forward, right? The past is the past, right?”
“Right. I’m sorry for bringing it up, and also if I was a little demanding earlier but it drove me crazy to think that you had been hurt.”
“It was a long time ago,” I remind him.
He shrugs. “Doesn’t matter whether it’s today or fifteen years ago.”
My heart feels like it could explode right out of my chest. “I like you, too, you know?”
He gives me that crooked grin that I love so much. “Do ya now?”
“Ehh. Just a little bit.”
“Little bit? Let’s see what we can do to change that to quite a bit, shall we?”
Without warning, he pulls me from my seat and throws me over his shoulder. I squeal with delight and grip the back of his shirt. “Brody!”
He slaps me on the butt.
And I don’t mind one bit.
I also don’t mind when he flops me over on the bed, his big, strong body climbing over me immediately.
“Is this part of your evil plan to get me to like you?”
“I thought you already liked me,” he mutters, his lips already latching on to my neck.
“Hmm,” I hum, stretching out underneath him, giving him full access.
He pays close attention to what I like. The spot below my ear that makes me squirm and moan when his lips are touching it. My collarbone, that I didn’t even know was an erogenous zone of mine until he ran his tongue across it after pushing aside my t-shirt. Our fingers link together above our heads, pressed into the mattress and I lift my head, silently demanding that he give me his mouth again.
I moan when his tongue touches mine and I wrap my legs around his thighs, squeezing tightly. He releases one of my hands to grip the back of my thigh, holding it in place as he grinds his strong, powerful body into mine.
Our mouths are fused and bodies tangled together and it feels so good, I don’t want it to end. His fingers tighten their hold on my leg and I’ve never been so glad that I favor leggings over jeans because I can feel so much more.
“Is this okay?” he asks, his voice so deep and husky it sends a tingle down my spine.
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s definitely okay,” I manage to squeak out, using my free hand to wrap around the back of his head to hold him close.
He leans up so he can look at me and grins at my eagerness.
“Just kiss me,” I growl and he barely has time to respond with his, “Yes, ma’am,” before our lips are once again connected.
His lips are warm and perfect and I swear I’ve never felt this way when kissing someone in my entire life. It’s never felt this good. Desperation claws at me, not wanting this to end, even as it’s happening.
If I wasn’t so turned on, I’d be a little embarrassed at the amount of whimpering and clawing at him I’m doing, but I can’t bring myself to care. It feels too good and too right. Every time I’m near him, some switch flips inside me and I just want to sigh and stare at him. I’ve never had this kind of connection with another person before and it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.
And… I feel like a weirdo even thinking that. Next thing I know, I’ll be swooning right in front of him, giggling, and dropping a hankie for him to retrieve for me like in the movie Pride and Prejudice.
Somewhere between the time that I told him I liked him and now, a flip was switched and gone are the hesitant words and actions. Now we’re both all in. Completely and totally gung ho, so to speak. We grind against each other and fight for dominance with our tongues. I buck at him and he smiles against my mouth, allowing us to roll over so I’m on top.
; Before I’m able to get started, he knifes up and removes his shirt, tossing it to the side. And then I’m blessed with a vision that I’ll never forget.
On the eighth day, God chiseled out Brody Redding’s abs and then he rested.
He’s nothing short of perfection. He’s not too lean but he’s built and strong and clearly takes excellent care of his body.
Even on his back staring up at me — scratch that — especially on his back staring up at me, he’s sexier than should be legal. The stubble that’s perfectly groomed on his face makes me excited over the thought of him kissing more than my mouth.
“You’re beautiful,” I murmur.
“That’s my line,” he counters.
And that’s all the on top time I get because he flips us once more and I’m on my back and he’s kissing me, lifting my shirt and nuzzling his face into my stomach. I squirm beneath him, my legs kicking and my center wanting to find some friction. I need more. I need…
A shrill beep alerts, causing us to jerk apart.
“What the fuck is that noise?” he asks, grumpily, obviously irritated at getting interrupted.
“Is that a smoke alarm?”
“Can’t be!” he hollers, standing up from the bed and covering his ears. The sound is only getting louder and louder, though, I agree that it doesn’t sound like a smoke alarm. It’s not just an annoying beep, it’s a different sound but I’m too caught up in what we were doing earlier to make heads or tails of what the noise could be.
As quickly as it starts, it stops.
Only to start again a few seconds later.
It’s then I realize it’s my phone and the noise is a weather alert. I grab my phone and see the alert telling us to seek shelter from a terrible thunderstorm brewing and heading in our direction.
“A thunderstorm? They alarmed us for rain?” Brody grumbles.
But the wind is howling outside and I wonder if there’s potential for more than just a thunderstorm. “I think we need to move to your house, B. It could get ugly,” I say, looking at the radar on my phone and seeing a big red blob moving in our direction.
Without You: A Friends-to-Lovers Small Town Romance Page 13