by Molly McLain
“You don’t need to worry about me, sugar.” He rocked them from side to side and she closed her eyes, savoring his big arms around her.
“It’s my thing. The consummate caregiver.”
“Let me guess—if waxing beavers didn’t work out, you’d have been a nurse.”
She laughed until her knees went weak and Brody had to hold her tighter yet, though he wasn’t much help because he shook with laughter, too.
“I should’ve never told you,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “You’ll never take my job seriously again.”
“Oh, you’ve got it all wrong, sugar—I have a whole new appreciation for what you do.” His hands slid from her lower back to her ass, pulling her hips against his. Unless he had a stick of dynamite in his jeans, he wasn’t lying.
Mmm, so tempting. Her pulse picked up and everything that made her feminine began to warm in response. Her hips rolled of their volition and he pushed back, the thick, taunting length of his erection pressing into her belly.
“Brody,” she moaned, her fingers winding tight into his sweatshirt. God, how she wanted him stay. “You should really go.”
“I know.” His breath was hot against the side of her face, as his lips brushed from hers to her ear, and then to the spot behind her jaw that always made her lose her mind. “Just making sure you don’t forget me.”
“I won’t.” God help me, I won’t. She clung to him harder, coming up on her toes to give him better access, despite her warning. She felt his smile against her skin before the hot, wet flick of his tongue sent shivers racing down her spine. He played, licked, and nuzzled until she turned into a panting, groping pile of jelly in his arms.
Would it be so bad to give into him just one time? What if she never saw him again?
“When you go to bed tonight,” he rasped, “I want you to think about all the things I’d do to you if I stayed. I want you to touch yourself like I would, loving every last inch of your body until you can’t take it a second longer. Make it my face between your thighs, sugar, and be sure it’s my name on your tongue when you cry out into the night, because one day soon I’m gonna want to hear it for myself. When that time comes, I want to know it’s me you’re thinking about, not some selfish prick who never deserved you in the first place.”
Before she could conjure up a coherent thought that didn’t include fuck me now, he brushed one last kiss across her lips and was gone.
She stood on the porch watching him leave, with her silly heart hammering in her chest and her greedy sex pulsing with arousal. She was wet. So, so wet from just his words that it wouldn’t take more than a minute to find the release he’d taunted her with.
But it wasn’t his wicked tongue that fueled the fires of her needy soul—it was the promise that he’d be back.
Chapter Nine
“Mark’s got his money on Vegas, but I say it happened in the fall when he came to town for Josh’s discharge party.”
Polish brush in hand, Jenny shifted her focus from the foot in her lap to her best friend’s waggling eyebrows. No matter how cute and innocent Ally looked with her burgeoning baby bump and cheery, pregnancy glow, the statement still stung.
“I’ve done a lot of questionable things in my life, but seeing two guys at once isn’t one of them.” Assuming, of course, that seeing meant dating and not screwing, because unfortunately she had done that. In one night. At the same time. With some not so reputable guys. Shudder.
Ally’s face fell as she realized what her wager implied. “That’s not...I didn’t...shit. Sweetie, I know you’d never do that. My inner bitch, however...I think she might’ve been trying to concoct some kind of revenge on Reed.”
Now that was funny. “And just like that you’re forgiven.” She wiggled one of Ally’s toes and went to work finishing the polish.
“Thank God, because I’ve been dying for the details since Nicole texted me this picture on Friday night.” Ally turned her phone around and an image of Jenny and Brody standing in Josh’s driveway filled the screen. His hands in her hair and her tongue in his mouth left little question about what they were doing, though she supposed she owed her long-time friend an explanation since the last she’d shared about her love life had been her departure from Reed.
“One, I can’t believe Nicole spied on us. She comes off so sweet and unassuming, but she’s really just as evil as you.” Leaning back quickly, Jenny dodged a hard nudge from Ally’s already-dry foot.
“Just for that, you should know that it wasn’t just Nicole—all of them watched. Even Reed.”
Ugh. “Yeah, I know. We shared a few words about it afterward.”
“So was it Vegas then? Mark said something about seeing Brody there.”
Nodding, Jenny put the finishing touches on the last toe and rehashed the story about meeting him at the bar and then him ending up in her room.
“But you didn’t sleep with him,” Ally reiterated, her eyes narrow, like she couldn’t quite believe what she’d heard.
“Nope. Well, wait—I guess technically we did sleep together, but we didn’t have sex. Or even kiss, for that matter.” She shrugged and capped the polish.
“This is the guy who gave Tony condoms for his birthday, right? The totally hot jokester?”
Hot was an understatement. “Yep, and underneath all the funny, he’s actually a pretty intense guy.”
“That’s usually how it goes. So did you nail him on Sunday, then? Please, God, say yes. My second trimester hormones are kicking in and all I think about is sex.”
Jenny laughed. “Sorry, but you’ll have to get your fix from your husband. Brody and I just talked. It was...nice.” Really, really nice.
“So you’re telling me that all you did was chit-chat in a fishing shanty. In the butt-ass cold. On a frozen disc of ice that could have given way at any time.” Ally blinked disbelievingly.
“That pretty much sums it up, yes.”
Her oldest friend shook her head, her red ponytail swinging. “I don’t believe it.”
“What don’t you believe? That I’ve kept up my resolution this long?” Jenny laughed like it was no big deal that even her best friend didn’t have faith in her. Much safer to erect her defenses than give into the ball of emotion gathering in her throat. “Yeah, I’m surprised, too. I mean, you’ve seen Brody, right? Totally fuckable. Maybe next time I see him.”
“Jesus, Jenn, why do you do that?” Ally climbed down from the pedi chair and pulled up a stool beside her. “We both know you’re not really the slut you claim to be. That’s just a bunch of self-protective bullshit you feed yourself so you don’t have to deal with the fact that the guys you’ve slept with have been complete assholes.”
“Yeah, I sure know how to pick them, don’t I?” She rose, tossed the wet towels into the laundry bin, and brought the pedi supplies back to the cupboard.
“No. Don’t you dare take that on. Guys are good—damn good—at making us believe they’re gonna be our very own version of Prince Charming. It’s in their stupid DNA. Fuck or fail or whatever the hell that biological motivator is that makes them think they need to spread their seed far and wide.” Ally got up and followed Jenny into the back room of the salon, her determination kicking into overdrive. “You like this guy, don’t you?”
Jenny nodded with her head down and hands gripping the edge of the counter. The thing was, she’d liked a lot of guys before. She’d even convinced herself that a few of them had liked her, too. But after the sex, they always left. Always. Reed and Jake were the only two who’d come back more than once and, in the end, they’d left, too. Kinda gave a girl a complex. Made her wonder if the entirety of her destiny consisted of being the town whore turned crazy, reclusive cat lady.
“What makes him different?” Ally asked softly, reaching out and smoothing Jenny’s hair over her shoulder.
“I don’t know that he is different.”
“Maybe you haven’t noticed, but you’re a smokin’ hot chick, and he slept in the same bed a
s you without making a move. Either he’s different or he’s gay.”
Jenny smiled. “He’s definitely not gay.”
“Really? How do you know that?”
No way was she sharing the details of their mini-makeout session on her porch. “Let’s just say he’s made it pretty clear that he’s attracted to me. Which is why I’m not sure if he’s just trying to get into my pants or if he’s legitimately into me. I mean, I am an awesome lay. He’s probably heard the rumors.”
Ally snorted. “I’ll let that one fly because it was funny, but that’s the last time you get to say shitty stuff about yourself. Got it?”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Damn right. Now listen to me...” Ally grabbed Jenny by the shoulders and turned her so they were eye to eye. “You’re off to a great start with Brody, but it’s going to get harder and harder to keep up the Catholic nun routine. As you pointed out, he’s pretty damn fuckable.”
Jenny quirked an eyebrow. “Is this supposed to bolster my resolve? Because it’s not.”
“That’s what I’m saying. Resisting him is going to become more and more difficult the longer you see him. But that’s exactly what you need to do. Not to test him, not to gauge whether you guys could have something more substantial...but to prove that you’re worth more than you’ve ever given yourself credit for.” Tears began to shimmer in her best friend’s eyes and she let go of Jenny’s shoulder to fan a hand in front of her face. “Damn hormones.”
Jenny smiled through watery emotion of her own. “I really want what you and Mark have, Al. I know I shouldn’t be jealous, but I am. Totally.”
Ally folded her arms around her shoulders and gave Jenny a squeeze. “You’ll have it, sweetie. I promise.”
“I hope so.” And for the first time in a long time, she actually believed it might be true.
***
“I know you don’t see it yet, but we’re making progress here, Corporal.” Dr. Sherman slipped off his glasses, set them on the table to his left, and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“When are the dreams going to stop? That’s the kind of progress I want to see.” Leaning forward, elbows on his knees, Brody tapped his fingertips together anxiously. “They stop for a day or two, and then they come back all over again.”
“The subconscious is a complicated thing. It can hang onto things we don’t even know have impacted us.”
“Then how the hell is therapy going to help? How is anything going to help?”
Dr. Sherman gave a sympathetic smile. “Awareness is half the battle.”
Oh really. “What’s the other half?”
“Faith.”
“That’s bullshit.” Brody shoved to his feet and stalked across the office, his focus set absentmindedly on a tall willow tree, its limbs weighed down with silvery ice.
“Why do you say that, Brody?”
“You think I don’t want this to stop? You think I enjoy losing sleep and walking around like a fucking zombie all the time?”
“I’m not talking about wanting the dreams to stop—I’m talking about believing they will.”
What kind of crap was that? “So you’re telling me all I’ve gotta do is blow smoke up my own ass and Ernie’s lifeless eyes will stop keeping me awake at night?”
Dr. Sherman nodded agreeably. “To a certain degree, yes. It’d be most effective if you actually bought into the change, though.”
“I’m not buying into any of this, Doc. The only fucking thing that’s helped me at all is the company of a woman who lives all the way on the other side of Nebraska. You want me to keep talking? To open up? Well, how about this—she’s the only friggin’ reason I’m here right now.”
The older man’s eyes widened slightly and he waved a hand, inviting more. “Go on.”
Yeah, right. “I’m not talking to you about Jenny.”
“But she’s motivated you to continue seeing me. Maybe there’s some substance to that.”
Sure there was. He didn’t want to freak her out when he screamed like a little bitch in the middle of the night. Ideally, he’d have this shit wrapped up by the time she trusted him enough to share her bed again.
“Does she know what happened in Afghanistan, Corporal?” Dr. Sherman was a persistent son of bitch, Brody would give him that.
“The basics.” He lifted a shoulder and moved away from the window.
“And the dreams?”
A loud bark of laughter erupted from Brody’s chest. “I initiated her with that shit, Doc. A proud fucking moment in my life, let me tell ya.”
“How did she react?”
The memory of Jenny climbing into bed beside him, smoothing on her lotion, like dudes boohooing about dying in their sleep happened to her every damn day. Reed Fletcher might’ve shed a few tears in his pillow, but Brody doubted they were over anything more significant than his faded tan or his tiny, prepubescent balls.
“She rolled with it. Didn’t make a big deal of it or anything.”
“Did she acknowledge it or pretend it didn’t happen?”
Scratching a hand over the back of his neck, he reclaimed his seat and sighed. “She acknowledged it, but she was pretty chill about the whole thing. Just asked a few questions and didn’t push for answers I didn’t want to give.”
“How’d that make you feel?” Dr. Sherman leaned back in his seat, steeling his fingers, like he did every time they edged toward more intense conversation.
“Made me want to tell her more.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because she’s the first person in too long who hasn’t looked at me like I’m crazy. And who makes me feel like the man I was before that last tour. If I tell her...” He shook his head, the potential outcome not something he wanted to verbalize, let alone envision. “If I tell her, I risk her seeing me for the mess I really am.”
“You’re not crazy, Brody.”
“I’m not?” He gave another bitter laugh.
“No. You just need to let go of the unwarranted guilt you carry. Nothing you could have done would have stopped that IED from going off the way it did, because you can’t change what you don’t know about.” The doctor gave another easy smile. Probably intended to be reassuring, but it missed its mark. “What you can change is the person you let that awful day turn you into. Will it come in the way of your relationships? Absolutely. Especially if you’re not upfront about what you’ve been through, and what you fear will happen as a result.”
And wasn’t that a shitty place to be? Caught between the fear of missing out on something really great with Jenny because he couldn’t fully open up to her...and the fear of scaring her off because he said too much.
“I need to talk to her,” he said more for himself than Dr. Sherman, but the man nodded anyway.
“From what you’ve said, it sounds like she’ll listen, if not welcome, the conversation.”
She would, without a doubt. But whether she’d want to keep seeing him afterward was another matter.
Ten minutes later, Brody climbed into his truck with a bigger weight on his shoulders than he’d carried into the session. Seemed ass backwards to him, but he couldn’t argue with Doc Sherman’s logic. If he didn’t come clean with Jenny, he might as well stop seeing her now, because he’d never have the kind of relationship with her that he wanted.
More than that, she deserved to know the truth about the kind of man he really was.
He grabbed his phone from the console and grinned like the stupid son-of-a-bitch he was when he saw her latest text: Please tell me you don’t man-scape.
He laughed out loud and thumbed a quick response. You just waxed some dude’s balls, didn’t you?
Ugh, yes.
Damn. He didn’t like that vision nearly as much as he liked the one of her working on another woman. Not your thing?
Clean is fine, but I prefer a man with a little roughage.
Hmm. Now was as good a time as any, wasn’t
it? What do you think about cock piercings?
Three, two, one...
Holy shit. You?
Maybe? He hit send and squinted at the phone like her answer might reach through the phone and slap him across the face.
Tease. I hate you right now.
He laughed. Don’t worry, beautiful, it’ll still be there when you’re ready.
Might be a while.
I’m a patient man.
And hopefully she’d be as patient and understanding with him, too, because the baggage they both carried wasn’t going to unload itself with one conversation.
Call me later, Superman?
Looking forward to it, sugar.
Chapter Ten
Two weeks later...
“Shut the hell up, you stupid GPS!” Jenny yanked the device off the windshield and tossed it into the backseat. She’d been around the same block five times and if she had to hear that lady’s monotone voice tell her she’d reached her destination at a potted plant on the sidewalk one more time, she was gonna lose her shit.
Ugh. Maybe this was a sign. Maybe she should’ve hopped on the interstate right after her conference and headed straight home. It was Saturday night, after all. Brody might not even be home.
Then again, he might. And she was already in Omaha. It would be rude not to try and find him, even if just to say hello.
She pulled her car into an empty elementary school parking lot and double-checked the address Tony had texted her earlier. 11089 Porter St. Last house on the left.
Well, this was a cul-de-sac, not to mention one in the early stages of development, because there were only two houses on the whole street, neither of which sat to the left.
Are you sure this is the address? There’s nothing here, she texted back.
That’s what I’ve got in my phone. Let me text him quick.
“No! Tony!” Gah, she probably looked like a crazy person, hollering at herself in a parked car and thumbing frantically on her phone. Don’t do that! Crap, crap, crap. Unless she wanted to look like a crazy stalker lady, there was only one other way to handle this. I’ll just call him myself. Thank you for getting me this far.