The Brody Bunch Collection: Bad Boy Romance

by Sienna Valentine

  I set my helmet down on the kitchen counter and rubbed my face with my hands. This couldn’t be a coincidence. It had to be something involving Hannah and her sisters. She was holding something back from me, something that made it clear the threat they faced was even greater than I’d imagined it could be. No matter what I thought of the idea—no matter how hard I tried to convince myself it was stupid and it wouldn’t work—I knew I needed to try to get through to Hannah. I needed her to open up. To trust me.

  But how?

  Isolation. When we were alone… Hannah was such a different person. When she wasn’t guarding her sisters with her very life, maybe even literally, she could be so tender with me. So… intimate, on some levels. Reid and Sarah would be gone for the next couple days, which meant Beth was the only one under her watchful eye now. And with a phone call, that could be mitigated. I was sure Wyatt would leap at the chance to get Beth alone.

  This time, I didn’t ask Hannah’s permission. I just called Wyatt and made the arrangements. This “contract,” this “job”—it had just become personal.

  13

  Hannah

  Does “empty nest syndrome” apply to getting your sisters the hell out of your apartment? If so, I suppose that would explain the sudden loneliness I felt at their departure—even though I’d been instrumental in arranging it.

  Or at least, I had with Sarah. Beth leaving kind of took me by surprise.

  Wyatt had called me on my cell phone the previous night, asking to speak to her. After she got off the phone, she told me he wanted to take her on a little getaway—nothing fancy, he’d said, but someplace that meant a lot to him. He thought since Reid and Sarah were getting to know each other a little better, it might make sense for him and Beth to try and do that, too.

  Fair enough, I supposed. But I made sure to give Beth pretty much the same speech I’d given Sarah. Do it if you want to, not because he wants you to want to. And then I’d supplied her with a condom from my stash, answered a few of her burning questions, and sent her to bed wondering what the next day might bring.

  Now that it was here, I found I had trouble letting my sisters go. It wasn’t because I feared for their safety. It was just…

  Well, I’d just found them again. After two years of passing illicit notes between my world and theirs, they’d finally crossed over to be with me. But now they were going off on their own adventures, and as much as that elated me, it saddened me too. I would miss them, even though I knew they’d be back soon. Even though it was my idea to get them hooked up with these brothers.

  My God, I hoped I was doing the right thing.

  “Here,” I said, handing each of them an old cell phone. They were nothing fancy—prepaid mobiles that only included my contact number. I showed my sisters how to use them. Thankfully, since they were so low-tech—they still flipped open, for Christ’s sakes—there wasn’t much of a learning curve for the girls. “You call me if anything gets weird. Okay? I mean it. I don’t care what time it is or where you are. If Wyatt or Reid make you uncomfortable in any way, call me and I’ll be there as quickly as I can.”

  Beth smiled up at me. She’d been doing a little exploring with her phone and had found an old game installed on it called Snake. From what I could see, she was still figuring out what the objective could be—as well as its controls. “Thank you, Hannah. But I really don’t think I’ll need to use it.”

  Sarah, on the other hand, looked far less convinced. She kept flipping her phone open and closed, as if soothed by the rhythm of its click-clack, click-clack. Her gaze was a little distant, a little muddled. I frowned. She was definitely the sister I was the most worried about.

  They both needed to stretch their wings. Abandon the nest. Beth would learn to fly, if she did—I was certain of it. But Sarah? The way she looked right now, she reminded me more of a featherless chick who’d fallen from the nest, vulnerable to any predator who might stumble upon her; utterly defenseless in the face of the big, bad world.

  “You’re going to be okay, Sarah,” I told her, looking into her eyes. “And if you’re not…”

  “I’ll call you,” she finished, closing the phone one last time. “I know. Thank you.”

  I sighed. And I swore to myself that if Reid did anything to hurt her, anything at all, I would end him. No hesitation. I’d find a way. I could be damn resourceful, when it counted.

  After the boys picked them up, I sat for a while on my couch, part of me reveling in my sisters’ absence. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to have the place to myself. Before they’d left the village, I’d gotten used to living alone. I had no one but myself to rely on, and at first that had been incredibly lonely, but over time it became routine. I hadn’t accounted for what havoc breaking that routine might bring to my life, or to my apartment.

  The girls picked up after themselves, of course, and they were always happy to help with whatever needed doing. It was almost like having two live-in maids. But it was also exhausting, explaining every minute detail of my life and the modern world to them. Microwaves were especially an issue. “It heats up food” proved a woefully inadequate description of its function, and I had to stop Sarah from putting aluminum-wrapped leftovers in it.

  And yet with all traces of their calamity gone, the apartment felt… empty. The quietude was almost unnerving. I discovered that, for the first time in two years, I really didn’t want to be alone.

  I pulled out my phone and scrolled through it. I’d accumulated a lot of names and numbers. I had a lot of acquaintances. I wouldn’t really call any of them “friends,” though. That just wasn’t true. The level of trust and intimacy necessary for me to call someone a friend just wasn’t something I extended anymore. Friends were great, sure, but they also required maintenance. Commitment. Sharing. If you couldn’t open up to a friend, they felt slighted. Accused you of keeping them at arm’s length. And that opened up a schism between you, and then you weren’t friends anymore.

  I’ve heard people say things like, “It’s better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all.” But honestly? I think that’s bullshit. I think it’s harder to know exactly what you’ve lost, to wonder about what could have been if you’d just been… I don’t know. Better, somehow. But if you don’t try, you have no frame of reference. You never gave yourself anything to lose. Maybe sometimes you’ll lie awake at night wondering about what it would be like to have someone you were close to, but at least you can comfort yourself with the fact that you came out of that day carrying exactly the same things you started out with. And sometimes, that can be victory enough.

  It doesn’t keep your heart or your bed warm. But it doesn’t make it any colder, either.

  And that can be enough, too. Sometimes it has to be.

  Acquaintances were safe. They wouldn’t expect too much. The downside, though, is that you can’t really rely on an acquaintance to be there when it counts. And there wasn’t a damn person in my contacts list I wanted to call on for that purpose, anyway.

  Except for Ash.

  I sighed. Was I coming to rely on him too much? Probably yes. I had him pegged as a player, and it seemed to me that there was no reason I should look for him to cure my loneliness, however sudden and acute the onset was. The only language a guy like that spoke was Ye Olde Booty Call. I wrinkled my nose in frustration.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t like fucking Ash. On the contrary—I loved it. But tonight, I needed something else. Companionship. Honest-to-God company. But was I allowed to ask for it? And from him, of all people?

  I guessed I wouldn’t know until I tried. I composed a text message and hit send, making sure to keep it casual.

  Hey. What’re you up to?

  His reply didn’t take long. Not a damn thing. You?

  Same. I bit my lip. You wanna come by later tonight? Girls are out. We’d have the place to ourselves.

  I knew how that sounded. It was intentional. I had to bait the hook somehow. I knew I was setting myself up,
tacitly implying we’d be having sex sometime tonight, but it was better than admitting I wanted to see him just to see him, and then having him balk. I didn’t want to scare him off.

  Besides… there was no point in denying how Ash and I got along best. And it wasn’t like I didn’t get something out of the bargain. It served as a reminder that I should use him as much as he used me. The past few days had been pretty stressful, and providing myself with a sexual outlet for that stress wasn’t the worst idea in the world.

  Sounds good. Should I bring anything? he asked.

  I shrugged, even though he couldn’t see me. Wine and dinner would be nice.

  This time, his reply took a little longer. What, like a date night?? You going soft on me, Miller?

  I sank back into the couch. The thing about texting is that it’s hard to tell someone’s tone from words on a screen. It left so much up to interpretation. I found myself staring at the words, trying to discern whether Ash was being Ash, or if he was seriously disturbed by the idea. If he was just kidding, why hadn’t he included an emoji or something? A winking face? Ugh, I felt so stupid applying such meaning to the configuration of a series of parentheses and semicolons.

  After wasting way too much time thinking about it, I settled on the safest reply I could think of. Whatever, Brody. Do you want to see me or not?

  Then I tried not to count the seconds until my phone blinked again. I tried really, really hard. It was a valiant effort, really. But in the end…

  Ninety-two. It took ninety-two seconds.

  I do. Be there around seven.

  I smiled. This time, he included an emoticon wearing a big grin.

  Seven p.m. That gave me plenty of time to get ready. I could relax for a little while, even. Enjoy my moment of respite, knowing that it wouldn’t last forever—that in a matter of hours, I’d have someone by my side again. A very sexy someone who made me laugh. Someone who always left me satisfied, but desperately wanting more.

  I hummed a Heart classic as I lay down on the couch, sighing in relief. Oh, try to understand… try to understand…

  He’s a magic man.

  14

  Ash

  Seven p.m. couldn’t come fast enough.

  I’d already played the whole “I remember your fast food order from months ago” card the last time I’d come over to Hannah’s house, so I knew I couldn’t try to pull the same trick twice. She wasn’t specific, but I’d seen her eat often enough that I had a vague sense of what she liked and what she didn’t. I grabbed some Italian from an authentic little place downtown, knotted the bags around my handlebars, and drove real careful the rest of the way to Hannah’s. Last thing I needed was to take a turn at the wrong speed ‘cause I hadn’t accounted for the weight change. Or to show up at her door wearing marinara sauce.

  I parked in my usual spot, taking a moment to come to terms with the realization that I even had a usual spot. Could I say that about any of the other women I’d been with? No, definitely not. I’d never stuck around long enough to have a usual anything with them. Probably the most lasting, long-term relationship I’d had with a woman was with the barista who knew my order by heart at our local Starbucks.

  And I hadn’t slept with her.

  So, how did I feel about having a usual parking spot at Hannah’s? Strangely… it felt kind of okay. There was something about it that made me feel a little secure, a little relieved, like at least one thing in my life wasn’t a fluctuating variable. This parking spot was a fixed point, something I could always come back to—provided there wasn’t another car in it.

  The more I thought about it, though, I realized it wasn’t really the parking spot that felt like a usual haunt to me. Rather, it was Hannah’s home. In the past few days, I’d spent a hell of a lot of time there. And all of it, every last second, had been good.

  What other place held such consistently warm memories for me? It damn sure wasn’t the house I grew up in, or even the apartment I lived in now. It wasn’t any of the ever-changing venues I worked. It wasn’t any of the bedrooms I’d visited over the years, either.

  No; only Hannah’s apartment felt that way to me. Only her bedroom held the honor of being a place I wanted to visit again and again. Shit, I’d spent the night, hadn’t I? Fallen asleep in her damn arms. To a lot of guys that was probably mundane behavior, but to me… it meant something.

  She meant something. Whether I liked it or not, Hannah Miller was in my heart. I just wasn’t sure to what extent yet. I cared about her… but was it possible I was falling in love with her?

  Those were big questions. And I was sure they had big answers. But they weren’t the reason I was here tonight. Tonight, I needed a different kind of resolution.

  I needed to know what happened to Hannah. I needed to know what she was keeping from me regarding her sisters and her background. Why had she left the Amish community? It clearly wasn’t just ‘cause she’d decided on a change of scenery. The way she talked about the village was so dark, so bitter. Whenever she mentioned it, she nearly spat the words like she was talking about some heretofore undiscovered circle of hell. There was a distance in her eyes, a thousand-yard stare that made me think of some of the vets I’d seen working bouncing and security gigs. They’d seen some shit, and they carried it on their backs where it wore them out and weighed them down. Obviously, Hannah had seen some shit too. And I wanted to help her.

  But to do that, I had to know what it was.

  I untied the bags from my bike and headed to her door, steeling myself for what very well might be an uncomfortable conversation. Having fought my own personal demons—and some of them, I was still waging war on—I knew from experience that someone getting in your face about them wasn’t always welcome. But we were kind of on a time limit here, and I couldn’t wait for weeks or months to ease Hannah into the idea of opening up that part of herself. It needed to be now. Tonight. Else our siblings might end up dealing with the same shit I just had, or maybe even something worse than a trashed apartment.

  That was another reason I was glad to be with Hannah tonight. My place no longer felt like a safe haven. Every moment I’d spent in it today, I’d been downright paranoid, just waiting for someone to burst out of a closet and try to shank me. I had no idea what the motivation was, except that I was pretty sure it had something to do with the girls. The timing on it seemed to coincidental not to be related. So it seemed there was no better place for me tonight than in Hannah’s company, whether it ended in flames or not.

  I knocked on the door, raking my fingers through my hair with one hand and dangling the bags from the other. Ever since the cowlick incident, I was even more obsessive about ensuring I looked all right after putting a helmet on. Fuckin’ Reid. I’d pay that little shit back for that, some way, somehow.

  Then I heard Hannah turning the locks and I straightened, adopting a roguish smirk as she swung open the door. A smirk that quickly faltered into a look of shock as I laid eyes on the woman standing before me.

  Holy. Fuck.

  It was Hannah, all right, but she looked way different than I’d ever seen her. She was wearing a short, sexy Bodycon dress in a shade that straddled the fence between burgundy and plum, making her green eyes stand out all the more in her pretty face. It hugged every inch of her body, every plane and curve, and sported a plunging neckline that made the most of her perfect cleavage. I could see her pulse fluttering in the hollow between her collarbones, watched it quicken as she saw me, and then lowered my gaze down to her waist, her round hips, and finally to her succulent thighs. Legs for goddamn days, this one, and the strappy heels just made them look longer.

  It took all the will I had in my body to meet her eyes again. “Wow,” I breathed. Not my best line. Quickly, I tried to recover. “You look… stunning, Hannah.”

  She grinned, and that made her even more beautiful. I loved the way her nose went up a little whenever she smiled big like that. “Thanks,” she said. “I had some time to kill, so I figured I’d pu
t in some effort.” Her gaze fell to the bags. “Italian?”

  I could still barely form words in her presence. “Mm hmm.”

  She looked at me again. Her grin morphed into a little smirk. “You forgot the wine.”

  I opened my mouth to correct her, but then frowned as I realized I had. Damn. I’d been so excited to see her and so wrapped up in what had happened to me earlier today that it had completely slipped my mind. I was about to apologize when she laughed and shook her head.

  “It’s cool. I have some.” Then she opened the door wider, turned from me, and walked further into the apartment toward the kitchen. “Come on in. We’ll eat dinner at the table tonight like human beings.”

  I stepped over the threshold and shut the door behind me, my eyes glued to the metronomic sway of her ass in that dress. It seemed like her short hemline crept up just a little each time she moved, and I found myself desperately searching for reasons to keep her moving all throughout the evening until I knew what color panties she was wearing.

  No, I chided myself, that’s not what you’re here for. Come on, man, make an effort! Grimacing, I adjusted my half-hard cock while Hannah was turned away from me and took a deep breath, trying to clear my head of any impure thoughts as I followed her to the kitchen.

  “What’re we having?” she asked me, opening a cupboard.

  I smiled as I pulled the Styrofoam boxes out. “Not telling. It’s a surprise.”

  Hannah raised her brow at me over her shoulder. Then she pulled out two bottles of wine. “Well, at least tell me if I should uncork a white or a red?”

  “Red,” I told her, leaving the boxes closed for now. “Where are your plates again?”

  “Up there,” she said with a gesture. Then she pulled a corkscrew out of a drawer and went to work on the bottle.

  I pulled out two plates and brought them to the counter so I could transfer our food. I liked this, too—this familiarity and routine. The way we worked in tandem, perfectly synchronous. It made my heart beat just a little faster and filled me with a warmth that stretched all the way to my fingers and toes. It was like the afterglow of an orgasm, without the sex. Well, so far, anyway.