by Amelia Wilde
“Your friends from Dorchester?” I asked.
Brandon glanced at me sharply. “No. I told you, I don’t go down there anymore.”
“Yeah, but that’s because you said the people you want to see left. Do you ever see them, now that you don’t live there either? This looks like the kind of place they’d like.”
“Why, because they’re blue-collar, from the bad side of town?”
I frowned. “What? No! I just meant this looks like a guys’ hangout, what with the beer and the pool and the games and stuff.”
His shoulders relaxed, and the dark look that had flashed through his eyes just a moment before dissipated. “Oh. I’m sorry, Red. I just…no, I don’t see them. It’s a sensitive subject.”
“Yeah, I see that.”
Before I could ask him more, Brandon tugged me across the room toward a spiral staircase behind the pool table. At first, I resisted the urge to pinch his perfectly shaped ass as he climbed the stairs ahead of me, but upon second thought, I decided he would do the same thing to me. I reached up and made a nice grab.
Brandon hopped in surprise, but rewarded me with a mischievous grin. “Like what you see, Ms. Crosby?”
I batted my eyelashes. “I don’t know what you mean. It was right there. What do they say to women? That we really shouldn’t wear such revealing clothes, or else we’re asking for it?”
Brandon looked down at his jeans, which were the opposite of revealing, and waggled his eyebrows in a way that made me burst out laughing. “You better watch out, Red. I give as good as I get.”
“Promise?” I asked as I chased him up the rest of the stairs.
At the top, Brandon opened a door into a small room that was completely constructed of glass. At the far side was another door that led to the roof of the townhouse. There was a view of the Commons just over the ledge, but also a beautiful garden set up around the various amenities. Most of the potted plants were either empty or covered with plastic to protect against the Boston winter weather, but that didn’t detract from the outdoor lounge area on a wood deck or the cedar-planked hot tub built directly into the roof.
I turned to Brandon. “Is this an excuse to go skinny dipping?” I asked with a nod toward the hot tub. “Because I’m not gonna lie. I’m a sucker for jets.”
Another crooked smile melted my insides.
“I’ll remember that,” Brandon said. “Maybe after I show you what’s in here.”
I turned around to observe the room I was actually in as Brandon turned on a space heater. Unlike the rest of his pristine house, this room was a mess. Wood worktables bordered two of the glass walls, which were partially covered with perforated plywood on which to hang various tools—those that weren’t scattered over the tables, anyway. Various half-built contraptions also littered the tables, while a few larger power tools and other unidentifiable equipment took up the rest of the room.
I leaned down to inspect a bit of metal with several multi-colored wires sticking out of it. “This reminds me of one of those mousetrap cars we had to build in my high school Physics class.”
“This is sort of my version of the piano in the basement,” Brandon said behind me. “It’s where I let loose.”
I stood up and faced him. “You’re an inventor? It wasn’t enough to be Gordon Gecko; you had to be Thomas Edison too?”
It was hard to see against his tanned skin, but I thought Brandon blushed at the comparison.
“Ah, not quite,” he said. “I just mess around.”
He picked up the contraption I had admired and touched the wires gingerly. “This one works with sonar technology to monitor heat waves in a baby’s bedroom. I’m trying to get it to identify the living being in the crib and monitor its temperature and possibly other vitals. You know, for SIDS and stuff like that.”
He set the project back down.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, counselor,” I said, “but this looks a lot like engineering. Electrical engineering, to be precise.”
Brandon folded his arms across his chest and pressed his lips together as if to say, “Yeah, so what?”
“I thought you didn’t like engineering,” I prodded further.
“I never said that. If you recall, I said they did a lot of cool stuff.”
“You said you didn’t want to waste your life, and I quote, ‘fiddling with wires.’” I picked up the device. “These look like wires to me.”
Brandon stared at the device until I put it down again, then continued to stare at me, like we were playing some demented game of owl. The guy definitely gave me a run for my money in the stubbornness department.
Finally, his poker face cracked a smile, and Brandon sighed. “I was fifteen,” he said. “So, a complete idiot. Can I show you the rest?”
“There’s more?”
I was speechless as he toured me through several other multimillion-dollar ideas. When he was finished, he looked at me shyly. I was completely dumbfounded. Knowing someone graduated high school at sixteen and seeing the actual products of their genius are two very different things.
“Brandon,” I said slowly. I touched the last semi-prototype, some kind of sonar device that might one day regulate sea life populations. “Why don’t you just fund a lab yourself? You already have the money to hire a whole bunch of engineers to put these ideas into motion, don’t you?”
He shrugged. “It’s just a hobby. And…I don’t know…I guess I like to know that I did it myself. Business is business. This is more where I get some peace of mind, you know?”
“Has your dad—I mean, Ray—seen this? It looks like something he’d like.”
Brandon shook his head. “No, he doesn’t really have the time.”
“Oh.”
I looked at all the works in progress. Brandon was like a mad scientist, minus the crazy and the puffy gray hair and plus a whole lot of gorgeous. Plus a major lawyer. Plus a shark on the market.
How many other personalities was Brandon Sterling hiding?
“This must impress a lot of people,” I said, thoroughly intimidated.
“I’ve never brought anyone up here before,” he murmured, suddenly very interested in picking at a few wires.
I was unsure of what to say. I asked him to show me who he was, and boy, had he ever. In one evening, he’d brought me to meet his foster father with whom he obviously had a difficult relationship, had revealed painful experiences from his difficult childhood, and then opened other recesses of his heart here in his workshop. More than any of the other places I had seen tonight, this place, with its awkward, messy, brilliant labors of love, was Brandon.
“Ah, so I have a question for you,” Brandon said, interrupting my train of thought.
“What’s that?”
“What we did…ah…earlier tonight…You, ah, liked it, didn’t you?”
I flushed. It was obvious he wasn’t talking about pizza. I bit my lower lip.
“I…yes,” I mumbled. “I did.”
“That’s what I thought.” Brandon’s gaze, at first nervous, softened. “You don’t need to be shy about it. I just wanted to make sure. Some girls say they like it rough because they think it’s going to be some kind of Fifty Shades shit, one light slap on the ass and they’re coming five times in a row. But really, they just want hearts and flowers, and that’s about it.”
Hearts and flowers. That definitely wasn’t me, at least not all the time. I didn’t think. The truth was, I wasn’t really sure what I liked.
“Do you…do you always need it to be…like that?” I asked quietly.
I didn’t know the right words to describe what we’d done. Rough? A little. Public? Very. Raw? No doubt. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear his answer.
Brandon frowned. “I thought you said you liked it.”
“I…I did. I do,” I said, tracing my finger on the edge of the table. “But I think I might like it a lot of ways.”
“Okay,” Brandon said. “Like what?”
This conversation was be
yond mortifying, but I persevered, trying to ignore the likelihood that I looked like a giant tomato. But if he could bare himself the way he’d done for the past several hours, I could tell the truth too.
“I…I don’t know,” I admitted weakly.
Brandon sat back thoughtfully. “What do you mean?” He looked up with sudden panic. “Christ, Skylar, you weren’t a virgin, were you?”
His expression made me laugh hard from my gut. “No! No. I mean, I don’t have eons of experience or anything, but I’m not a virgin. And I wasn’t before we had sex, either,” I clarified snarkily.
“So, it’s just never been that good?” Brandon asked with a leer.
I shook my head and tried to explain it to him. “No. I mean, yes. But no...um, it’s been fine. I just…after a while it starts to feel the same. Once the excitement dies away, my mind starts to wander…and I don’t know how to make it stop.” I looked up helplessly. I wasn’t even sure why I felt like that, so it was hard to explain it to someone else. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It doesn’t seem like men have that kind of problem.”
Brandon came to sit next to me on another stool. He took one of my hands and tinkered with it delicately, pressing my fingers straight and touching the pads of my palm.
“I read somewhere,” he started, “that for men, sex is ninety percent physical and ten percent mental, and for women, it’s the other way around.” He shrugged. “I don’t know about that. I’ve always felt like it’s a solid fifty-fifty for me. Okay, okay, maybe seventy-thirty,” he said at my skeptical expression. “But the point is, it definitely seems like sex is more of a mental game for some people than for others.”
I pondered that. “Yeah, I guess so. I mean, for me it definitely is.”
Brandon nodded. “I can see that. You’re too quick for most.”
We sat there, examining each other.
“So, I’m thinking that in the bedroom, you probably don’t want to have to work so damn hard,” he continued, his voice falling just a bit lower. “I’m guessing you want to be with someone who’s as observant as you are, who doesn’t become predictable. Because being ten steps ahead of anyone in the bedroom is boring.”
My mouth fell slightly open.
Brandon cocked his head. “I’m right, aren’t I? I didn’t really intend for that to be our first time, but you liked what happened tonight because you didn’t have to think about it, didn’t you?”
I thought back to our encounter under the stairs and the one in my bedroom. It wasn’t just Brandon’s touch that had made me want him so badly—it was his words too, the way he had controlled my focus. He was right. I did like the fact I hadn’t been able to think. But there was something else that was bothering me.
“Was that just some kind of a game?” I finally managed to ask.
The best sex I had had with other partners had also been with people willing to play around in the bedroom, but there was only so many times you could be blindfolded and told you were a dirty bitch before it stopped being exciting and started feeling misogynistic. Sex with Brandon had felt so honest, so raw. I didn’t think I could bear it if he’d planned it all out.
Brandon shook my hand, forcing me to look at him. “It wasn’t premeditated, if that’s what you’re asking. But the mental connection was as intense as the physical, don’t you think?”
His eyes shone brightly. The memory rose, unbidden, of him shoving my pants down, fucking me with his fingers, and taking me harshly against the cold stone wall. I had barely had a choice in the matter, but that was part of what had turned me on so much. It was completely unexpected.
Suddenly I felt short of breath again as my eyes flickered to his full lips.
“Yes,” I said confidently. “I agree.”
23
Another light snowfall was visible through the glass walls, but all I could see was Brandon.
“So,” he said softly. His eyes burned with obvious desire.
“So,” I said, just as softly.
Wires and temperature monitors didn’t matter anymore. He had already had me against one wall this evening, and now I was more than ready for him to take me on a table where the whole world could watch if they cared to look. The thought of it had me licking my lips. His eyes trained on my mouth like a big cat’s on its prey: glowing, blue and magnetic in the dim light.
Brandon breathed in and out, the rise of his chest the only betrayal of his calm. As he stood up, his shoulders blocked the shadowy moonlight. With two fingers, he tipped my chin up to make me look him in the eye.
“Stand up,” he said in a low voice just a few decibels above a whisper. It was a quiet voice, but no less menacing.
Obediently, I slid off the stool and stood before him. His gaze walked up and down my body with a heat that seared my skin.
“Take off your clothes,” he commanded. “Slowly.”
Wordlessly, I bent down; he would get an ample view of my modest cleavage when the wide neck of my blouse fell forward. I unzipped my boots and kicked them away. My socks followed, and without breaking our eye contact, I stood back up, trailing my hands up my legs until I could grab the bottom of my shirt and tug it over my head with a dramatic flourish.
When I let it drop, the vibrant blue irises of Brandon’s eyes had darkened to the color of the night sky. Momentarily, I was struck with doubt. I had never attempted a naughty striptease before. Was I doing it right? I thought I was, but Brandon’s fierce expression didn’t change.
Ignoring the nervous goose bumps rising on the backs of my arms, I offered as coquettish a look as I could manage. I drifted my hands back down to unbutton my pants and peeled them down my legs. When I stood back up, Brandon was tugging his collar away from his neck. I hid a smile. Yeah, I was doing this right.
The space heater had turned the room from a chilly glass igloo into a toasty little greenhouse, pleasantly fogging up the windows with condensation. Despite the dropping temperatures and snow outside, I was quite comfortable standing in front of him in nothing but a black lace bra and underwear. As he perused my body, I silently thanked God for my swimming habit and the presence of mind to wear decent lingerie.
Brandon reached out and traced the elastic edge of my bra, from the pin-thin strap across the delicate skin of my upper breast. He dropped into the hollow between the lace cups and back across the other side. My breath became shallow as he slid a finger under the other strap, worrying it provocatively before letting it snap back into place against my clavicle.
“I like this,” he said, his voice catching noticeably. “A lot. Where did you get it?”
“La-la Perla,” I managed to stutter.
He continued to play with the strap, and I bit my lip to prevent myself from grabbing his hand and forcing him to do the same thing with my nipple.
“How does a poor law student afford that kind of lingerie?”
I gulped. It was an indulgence—my only real one, beyond one expensive pair of shoes—that I allowed myself. I loved knowing that beneath my consignment suits and ten-year-old jeans, I was wearing something truly beautiful.
“It’s…my thing,” was all I could barely breathe out. “It makes me feel pretty.”
His eyes flickered back up to my face. “You couldn’t be anything but gorgeous, Skylar,” he breathed, and I swore that both of us could hear the thump of my heart in return. “Has anyone else seen it?”
I looked down at the set and back up again.
“Uh…no,” I answered.
Was that good? Bad? It was that irritating moment that always seemed to ruin the mood whenever any guy asked a similar question. No man, no matter how enlightened, seemed to want to think of their date as having a sexual history, but they didn’t want her to be ignorant either. It was infuriating.
Brandon snapped my bra strap again—harder.
“Ow!” I cried as I pressed at the suddenly sore spot.
“You’re thinking too much, Skylar,” he said curtly. “If I didn’t want to know, I wouldn�
�t ask. And so we’re clear, I couldn’t give a shit if you’ve been with one or one thousand other men, because none of them are going to light a fucking candle to what you and I can do together.”
Well, that was confident.
As if he could read my mind, Brandon gripped my bicep and pulled me tight against him. “You know I’m right,” he breathed into my ear.
There was no escaping his unique scent as he hovered his mouth over my lips and cheeks, fluttering over my skin without—quite—making contact. I started to shiver with anticipation, but he dodged every attempt I made to capture his lips with mine.
Finally, he released me with a heavy inhale and took a heavy step back. His gaze traveled down my body and up again, burning every place it landed.
“Skylar,” Brandon said, his voice low and almost menacing. “I said take off your clothes. I meant all of them.”
Something about the way he ordered me to do it made my skin prickle in anticipation. Mind game or not, I didn’t have a choice here. I had to do whatever he told me. And the hell if I wanted otherwise.
I quickly unlatched my bra, letting it fall to the ground while my breasts bounced free. His breath sharpened, but Brandon kept his eyes zeroed in on mine. I shimmied my panties down my legs and kicked them to join my other clothes.
I wasn’t perfect. My skin, despite its light-olive tone, was mostly covered with light freckles. While I had a nice flat stomach and decent muscle from my swimming habit, I had smallish breasts and enough wiggle to my parts that I wasn’t ever going to walk around in Daisy Dukes, no matter what my grandmother said.
But standing in front of Brandon, I felt brazen, confident, and sexier than ever before. His steely blue gaze, which was by this point heating up the entire room with its intensity, made me feel like I was the only person in the world he’d ever seen this way. Like nothing could ever make him look away from me.
“Sit back on the stool,” he said, his voice still low but menacing. “Spread your legs. We’re going to do this slowly this time.”
When I did so obediently, Brandon nodded in approval. He stood up in front of me, and I tilted my head back, practically begging for his touch, his taste. My whole body was humming for those deft fingers.