Quiet Protector: Brandon's Story

by Shandi Boyes

  As my fingers plait through the dirty blonde waves pinned off Melody’s face, the reason for her newfound hearing is exposed. The faintest slither of coolness breaks through the heat teeming between us when my fingertips brace a speech processor behind her right ear.

  “You got them done.” My words are barely whispers and more a confirmation than a question, but Melody has no trouble picking them up.

  After nodding, she places her hands over mine so she can gently float them over each processor. Once my fingertips have traced the processors and transmitters responsible for her hearing, she glides my hands down her ears and across her wet cheeks before stopping them within a millimeter of her lips. Our odd display of public affection has gained us many eyes, but not even being scrutinized by a million people could dampen the intensity brewing between us. It is as if we’re in a room full of mute, tone-deaf people.

  It’s just us.

  “Hi, BJ,” Melody whispers a short time later, allowing me to feel the vibrations of her lips as she speaks my name for the second time. It’s just as good as it was the first time around, if not better from the memories it floods my head with. I often murmured her name on sensitive regions of her body to enhance our sexual connections whenever we slept together. This seems innocent to anyone outside of our little bubble, but to me, it’s just as provocative.

  “Hi,” I reply, still too shocked to articulate any of the millions of thoughts in my head. Only one will come through, which isn’t surprising considering it’s the most important of them all. “I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you, too,” she replies as she throws her arms around my neck to hug me tight. “So very much.”

  19

  Melody

  A blistering smile stretches across my face when Brandon mutters, “I’m sorry. I’m still having a hard time processing everything.” He pinches himself for the third time the past ten minutes before he continues guiding us to the side of the room so we don’t get trampled by the partygoers eager to enter the main part of the ballroom since the doors were recently opened for guests. “Are you sure I’m not dreaming?”

  “If you were dreaming, wouldn’t you have your hands down my pants by now?” My words flutter at the end, staggered by the heat creeping across Brandon’s cheeks. He was a blusher when we were kids, but it seems to have grown worse as he progressed into adulthood.

  The redness of his cheeks jumps onto mine when he replies, “Most likely. It’s how most of my dreams end up.”

  When I slap his chest, the most beautiful noise in the world is exposed. His laugh… kill me now. I’ve never heard something so seductively enticing. I thought his voice was perfect when he called me a smart-ass all those weeks ago, but nothing compares to hearing it in real life. It’s strong, clear, and mannish but with a smoothness that would have you nodding off like a baby if he read to you while holding you in his arms—that’s, of course, if the book had a PG rating. If it wasn’t, you’ll be in for a very long and entertaining night.

  “How long ago did you get the implants done? From the quality of your speech, I’m assuming it was a couple of years ago.”

  “Nearly three years,” I reply, grateful he doesn’t sound pissed. “I wanted to tell you when we were texting earlier this week, but I held back when a little birdie told me your name was on the guest list for this event.” If the proud gleam in my eyes doesn’t disclose to him who the little birdie was, I’m sure my quick wave to his mother gawking at us from afar will expose the truth. “I wanted to see your reaction firsthand.” My teeth graze my bottom lip as I struggle to hold back my smile. “The wait was worth the torture. You looked a cross between wanting to chop off my head to make sure I wasn’t a robot to fainting.”

  Brandon laughs again, still incapable of denying the truth. “I’m glad you waited. I don’t think it would have had the same impact if it wasn’t in person. Your voice…” I could kill him for his pause. It has me on tenterhooks and not in a good way. “It’s beautiful, Melody. Kind of completes the package. Humble and sweet with the slightest twang you’d expect from a country girl living in the city.”

  “Thank you.” My reply is pathetic, but what more can I say? Your praise means the world to me even though you’re looking at me like you always have. I truly don’t think he would have cared if I was still deaf. We had no trouble communicating when we were kids, and my deafness didn’t create a barrier between us. If anything, it made us closer.

  “Do you still know how to sign?”

  My smile competes with the flashy chandeliers in the hotel bar when Brandon signs, “It is like my love of peanut butter… everlasting.”

  “Still? Jeez, BJ, you should extend your palette at some stage during adulthood. There is an entire menu of non-nutty dishes you are missing out on.”

  The earth shifts beneath my feet when he replies, “Why? Lives end, but love does not. It never dies.” After tilting his head to hide the heat creeping across his cheeks, he asks, “What made you decide to get implants? You were pretty opposed to the idea when we were kids.”

  “People have changes of heart all the time.” This is the first time I‘ve wished I was still deaf. Then I wouldn’t have heard Brandon’s painful sigh. He’s assuming I meant him. I wasn’t, but that’s a conversation for an entirely different day.

  After slipping onto a bar stool recently vacated by a man with dark, stormy eyes and a well-fitted suit, I signal for the bartender. I need a drink or perhaps twenty. Warming my veins with alcohol may be the only way I can excuse the extra flutter in my pulse when Julian arrives. He’s waiting on an important call and asked Fetu to accompany me to the gala, so I didn’t have to show up stag. Fetu is keeping a safe yet amicable distance, acting as oblivious to Brandon’s presence as Brandon is his.

  “I’ll just have water, thanks,” Brandon says to the waiter after he jots down my order of an apple martini.

  Curious as to why he isn’t taking advantage of the free bar tab, I ask, “Are you on the job?”

  His simple reply does weird things to my stomach. “Not officially.”

  When we were younger, he often said he was always on the job when it came to me, but I didn’t think his pledge was in effect anymore, especially after how I ended things.

  Certain it’s too early in our reforming friendship to add a steaming pile of shit onto the stack, I shift my focus onto someone we both mutually admire and respect. “Have you been by the ranch? Your mom’s contractors are making good headway on the restoration.”

  Brandon jerks up his chin, answering both my question and thanking the waiter for the bottle of water he sets in front of him. “I have. I arrived there earlier today.” When he lifts and locks his eyes with mine, the butterflies in my stomach drop several inches lower. His beautiful eyes are a little greener today, which means they’re being fired by love and devotion. His eyes are very telling. They’re the gateway to his soul. “I saw you walking Socks around the property line.”

  “You did?” I don’t know why the thought has me so misty-eyed, but there’s no denying it. I’m on the verge of crying. “It wasn’t a ploy this time around. I just wanted to take him for a final walk.” I dap at the tears threatening to spill down my cheeks with a napkin, warning them to stay put before adding, “He’s being rehomed later this month. I’m selling the ranch.”

  Brandon chokes on his spit. “You’re selling the ranch?”

  When I nod, a handful of rogue tears escape my eyes. “I’ll never move back there, and even with it just being an old farmhouse, the costs to keep everything running is more than I can afford, so it’s time to let it go.”

  I realize Brandon knows more about my personal life than I do his when he mutters under his breath, “I doubt it’s outside the means of a gazillionaire.”

  Even though I hate how quickly our conversation is becoming heated, I can’t harness my reply, “The ranch isn’t Julian’s responsibility. It’s mine.”

  You have no idea how hard it was for m
e not to say ‘ours.’ Brandon was as much a part of the ranch as me. He’s embedded in its bones, so I hate that I had to make this decision without him, but I didn’t have a choice. If I want to be the strong, independent woman my parents raised me to be, I can’t allow any man to pay my way—once best friends included. My loft is covered by my salary while the ranch’s maintenance was paid for with my inheritance, but since that well dried up quicker than anticipated thanks to my cochlear implants, I have no other option but to sell.

  My eyes snap to Brandon when he offers, “Let me help you.” The brutal shake of my head lessens when he retorts with the same argument I internally battled only moments ago, “That place was a part of my childhood, Melody. I don’t want to see it being demolished by some idiot who has no clue of its worth.”

  “Sentimental value can’t enter the equation, BJ, or I’d never let her go,” I blubber, quoting the words of the real estate agent I met earlier today.

  “Good, then don’t. Keep it.”

  Half of my martini spills on the countertop when I shout, “That’s not an option.” My voice was so loud, I startled the bartender so much he jumped.

  Ignoring the bartender mopping up the mess with a napkin, Brandon asks, “Why? Because it reminds you of your past? Because you want to run from it as you did me seven years ago? Why do you have to sell it, Melody?”

  “Because it reminds me of everything I lost. It reminds me of you and what he did to me.” I take a quick breather before whispering, “What he did to us…” My haunted words trail off again when confusion crosses Brandon’s face. An ordinary person would have excused my rant as anger at my father keeping us apart. Brandon isn’t close to ordinary. When we were kids, he knew me better than I knew myself, which means he knows this goes way deeper than even he could comprehend. “I have to go.”

  When I snatch my clutch purse off the countertop, Brandon snatches my wrist just as fast. “No. I’m not letting you run this time.” His eyes bounce between mine. They’re as wet and brimming with the same amount of pain as mine. “Not until you tell me everything. And I mean everything, Melody.” How he can express such pain and anger with only one word would usually be impressive. Today, it just hurts.

  “I don’t owe you anything, Brandon.” I purposely use his real name, hopeful it will have him backing down.

  It was foolish of me to do because all it does is get his back up. “You don’t owe me? How don’t you owe me? I gave up my entire life for you… my childhood, my teen years. I even gave you a good chunk of my adult life, yet you don’t feel like you owe me an explanation for running out on me the week my brother died! That’s shit, Melody. Absolute and utter shit.”

  “That’s nothing compared to what he took from me! He broke me, BJ. He broke us!”

  “Who? Who broke us?”

  I slam my mouth shut, the pain in his eyes too much. He wants me to place the burden on someone else’s shoulders, believing it will alleviate him of the heaviness on his, completely unaware it will make it ten times worse. My confession won’t ease his pain. It will destroy him as it did me. For that alone, I’ll take my secret to the grave.

  “The keys for the Hellcat are in the glove compartment. You’ll need to pick it up before the twelfth as appraisers are coming through to value everything. Old restored cars included.”

  “I don’t want the Hellcat.”

  With our shouted words gaining us the attention of a handful of gala attendees, I resort to signing. It’s my go-to when I’m stressed. “Then what do you want, BJ? Help getting off charges? A file—”

  “I want you…” the stranglehold his three little signed words placed on my heart is quickly relieved when he finalizes his sentence, “… to stop running. To tell the truth. To come clean on the real reason you cheated on me. What did I ever do to deserve that, Melody? What made you hate me so much you had to hurt me like that?”

  “I never hated you. I loved you.” Tears roll down my cheeks as I sign words I’ve never signed to another man. “I still love you. I will always love you.”

  Using his shock to my advantage, I spin on my heels, prepared to make my dash.

  “Mellowy.” Brandon stomps down my name as loudly as he shouts it, but before I can remind him he’s not my protector anymore, much less the fact I’m not a child who melts over a silly nickname, he seizes my wrist, yanks me back, then seals his lips over mine.

  His kiss is barely a peck, however, the damage it causes to my heart is catastrophic. It breaks the wall I built around it in an instant and has me acting recklessly.

  Instead of acknowledging his embrace as a taken woman would, I take it from friendly to flirty by dragging my tongue along the seam of his lips. His growl sends liquid ecstasy rolling through my veins. His moans were hot and panty-wetting when I could only feel their vibrations, so imagine how unbelievable they are to hear them as well. It has me deepening our kiss in an instant, needing the fireworks sparking from the roots of my hair to the tips of my toes to be felt all over.

  For how angry our embrace started, it should be filled with painful bites and cruel lashes of our tongues. Our kiss isn’t anything close to that. It’s a scorching embrace full of teasing nips and lingering touches. It fades the world from my mind as quickly as it drains the pain from my heart.

  I’m not the only one caught unaware by our embrace. Brandon tugs me in closer before piercing his tongue between my wet lips. His growl is felt by both my heart and my pussy when he drags his tongue along the roof of my mouth, then I feel how turned on he is from my moans when our groins meet. He’s thick and heavy against a part of my body that’s only ever thrummed this way for him. His size is impressive considering how well-fitting his tuxedo is. I thought the nasty bite of his zipper would impact the size of his erection. It has to be digging in as every morsel of space in the crotch of his pants is being hogged by his cock.

  Our kiss isn’t a quick its-over-before-it-started embrace. It lasts for several long minutes, only weakened when a strange, yet somewhat familiar voice trickles through my ears. “He’s gone. You’re good now.”

  Brandon continues kissing me, acting ignorant to the man with tangy aftershave tapping on his shoulder. I want to ignore him too, but the quickest scan of piercing blue eyes, snow-white hair, and cut chin covered with thick, wiry hair ensures that will never happen. The last time I stood across from these two men at the same time, my life had ended only minutes earlier.

  “Hi,” Grayson signs, smiling to ward off the heat of my uneasy stare.

  My eyes bounce between Grayson and Brandon like silver balls in a pinball machine when Brandon asks, “What’s Henry doing here? He wasn’t on the guest list.”

  Grayson’s smile grows as he waits for Brandon to remove my spit from his lips. Once he has everything cleared away, he answers, “I don’t know. We got reports on his whereabouts partway here. I wanted to tell you, but I also didn’t want to ruin your mojo, so…” He locks his eyes with mine. They’re twinkling with cheekiness. “You good, Melody? You look good.”

  Don’t let his words fool you. He’s not asking about my mental well-being. His focus is on nothing but the lust beaming from my eyes, and we’re not going to mention the scent leeching from my pores, or Grayson will have you convinced he walked in on us fucking, which isn’t the case, despite the silent pleas of my libido.

  My eyes snap to Brandon’s as quickly as Grayson’s when Brandon asks, “Did Henry see her?” He doesn’t need to say my name to know who he’s referencing. His whole I-was-born-to-protect-Melody-Gregg persona is vibrating out of him. It used to feel suffocating when we were kids, and today isn’t any different.

  A topsy-turvy feeling hits my stomach when Grayson halfheartedly shrugs. “I doubt it. Your big noggin had her face pretty well covered.”

  Grayson stops playfully ribbing Brandon in the stomach when my lust-sluggish brain finally clues on to what’s happening. “You kissed me to hide me?”

  My lunch threatens to spill when Brandon
’s focus shifts to me. Even if he wanted to lie, it would do him no good. His eyes are too telling. They reveal his lie long before his mouth produces it.

  “Why would you do that?” And why did I stupidly fall for your trick? “You were hard.” I thrust my hand at the crotch of his pants. “You still are.”

  Grayson’s laughter is nipped in the bud when two suffocating auras steal the air from his lungs. I don’t know who the man in the crisp black tuxedo is, but even in a room full of wealthy aristocrats, a man with a presence like Henry Gottle stands out.

  When Brandon steps in front of me, butting his shoulder with Grayson’s, I’m tempted to slap him out of my way before charging across the room. I’ve barely been at the gala for forty minutes, yet I already want to leave. Can you blame me? I returned the kiss of my first love because I thought he couldn’t hold himself back for another second.

  How foolish am I?

  And let’s not get me started on the guilt creeping through my veins. I only agreed to attend this stupid fundraiser because it was a great campaign starter for Julian’s push for office, and what do I do within the first hour of arriving? Kiss another man in front of witnesses.

  God, I’m not cut out for this life.

  When Henry and the unknown gray-eyed man disappear under the hotel’s awning, Grayson’s naturally ingrained investigative instincts kick in. He moves to the far corner of the room to survey them from a close yet innocuous distance.

  Brandon appears just as desperate to snoop, but since the sexual chemistry that forever crackles between us is quickly switching to unease, he maintains his command as my bodyguard, breaking my heart further.

  “Why would you do that? Why kiss me to hide me?” My words are barely whispers since I had to force them through the pain clutching my throat, but I’m praying they’ll reach Fetu’s ears. If he realizes Brandon’s kiss was a ploy to keep me safe, he may grant my plea for me to tell Julian about my stupidity before him. Julian should hear it from me since I’m the one who fucked up. “Despite his… title, Henry Gottle isn’t a threat to me.”