I narrowed my eyes in a glare, and as I walked out of his office, I heard a low husky laugh that had goosebumps popping along my arms.
It was that sound that had me sliding into vivid imagery, Aiden kissing along the back of my neck, laughing when I turned and tried to capture his mouth.
Just as I contemplated how long it had been since I’d allowed myself into that headspace, the sound of someone swiping a key card at the door registered, and I blinked a few times to clear my face.
With my polite smile affixed, I looked up, only to see Anya smashing her face against the perfectly clean glass. She waved frantically, and I smiled. Behind her was a tall, handsome guy with Aiden’s eyes and jaw, but his hair was almost black.
I hated how immediately I cataloged all the ways he was less than Aiden.
He was younger, to be sure. If I had to guess, he was probably closer to my age.
He wasn’t quite as tall, though when he pushed open the door for Anya, I knew he was still a solid six-one.
He wasn’t quite as big, even though he looked strong and muscular.
And he didn’t wear that constant broody, grump face that Aiden did, because as he saw me behind the desk, his face spread with a broad, handsome, white-toothed smile.
“Wonder Woman!” Anya yelled, running around the desk to hurtle her small body into my arms.
Emitting a shocked laugh at her effusive greeting, I gave her a quick hug and set her back to study her. “No tricks on the beams today, right?”
She nodded. “Uncle Beckham made me promise too. Only he gave me a giant candy bar.”
“I see the evidence of it.” I gestured to her chocolate streaked cheeks.
“Anya Hennessy,” the man said in a scandalized voice, “that was supposed to be our secret. How quickly you turn on me.”
Her giggle had me smiling again. “Miss Isabel won’t tell daddy.”
He leaned against the wall and gave me a quick study. “Miss Isabel won’t, huh?”
His tone was undeniably flirty, his green eyes were warm and friendly, and honestly, this was the problem. Why ‘going on dates’ was about as far down my priority list as a full body wax. Because that undeniably flirty tone and warm eyes had my hackles up immediately. I felt like a dog who just spotted another dog far off, and instead of waiting to see how they’d act toward me, my instinct was raised hair along my back and the beginnings of a growl in the back of my throat.
This guy didn’t even know me. I’d done nothing to warrant flirty eyes and a flirty tone.
This, ladies and gentleman, was why I was still in full possession of a hymen.
Why only untouchable, emotionally unavailable men seemed to appeal to me, because things like this didn’t happen.
Anya scampered off to find her dad, leaving the two of us alone by the front desk.
He stuck a big hand out. “Beckham Hennessy.”
I cleared my throat to make sure that an actual growl didn’t emerge. “Isabel Ward.”
“The manager,” he clarified.
I nodded.
“Hmmm.”
My eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”
At first, he did nothing but smile, but then he snapped his fingers like I wasn’t sitting there glaring. “Logan Ward is your brother, right?”
“He is.”
“He’s a defensive genius,” Beckham said.
“He is,” I repeated, this time injecting a little warmth into my voice. “Though, I never saw him that way growing up. He was just the guy who forced me to do my homework and told me I couldn’t torture my little sisters.”
That had him grinning. “I had a picture of him on my wall when he used to play.”
My face was on fire when I thought about the fact that I had pictures of Beckham’s brother on my wall around the same time, but boy, did my mouth stay shut.
Beckham strode closer to the desk and dropped his elbows on the bar height counter along the front. Like a weirdo, I pushed backward in the chair so he wasn’t so close.
“You and I could probably trade some absolutely killer stories,” he said.
One eyebrow rose. “Could we?” I murmured. Please, not about posters on walls, I thought frantically.
He leaned in a little farther and dropped his voice. “Just imagine how much we have in common.”
My head tilted. I couldn’t peg this guy, because his eyes—up close—didn’t hold anything except polite friendliness.
“Beckham,” a deep voice snapped.
My back straightened. Because Aiden appeared around the corner, jaw tight and eyes very not-flirty.
Beckham didn’t move from his position, with the leaning and the closeness. His smile spread. “Aiden. Lovely to see you. I was just telling your manager here that we have a lot in common.”
Aiden’s face was stormy. “Maybe you should let her get back to work.”
“Maybe she wants to talk to me,” Beckham said.
“Maybe you should pay attention to how she’s leaning away from you,” Aiden replied.
“Maybe,” I interjected smoothly, “she can speak for herself.”
Aiden’s eyes locked onto mine, and even though all the normal ‘Aiden-induced’ physical reactions immediately kicked off, with the stuttering heartbeat and tingly hands and butterfly-filled belly, I refused to look away.
Beckham whistled. “I really like her.”
My eyes dropped and I took a deep breath.
Beckham leaned back and smacked a hand on the counter of the desk. “See? We could write a book, you and me.”
“On what?” Aiden ground out.
“How to deal with overbearing, athletically-gifted, pain-in-the-ass big brothers.”
The laugh burst out of me so fast, so loud, there was no stopping it.
And the two men had very, very different reactions. As I slapped a hand over my mouth to stem the hysterical sounds trying to escape, Beckham smiled just a little too smugly.
And Aiden … he looked like a thundercloud.
In fact, I’d never seen him look like that, and as my laughter subsided, I tried desperately to ignore the growing feeling that he looked … he looked jealous.
“Beckham,” he said, “thank you for dropping off Anya. Don’t you have to go to work?”
“Nope, I have plenty of time.”
My eyes flipped between them.
Aiden glared.
Beckham smiled. “I was having an interesting conversation with Eloise the other day when she was home from school.”
When Aiden made a growling noise, deep from within his chest, my eyes widened. “Beckham,” he ground out.
Beckham leaned toward me again. “Eloise is our youngest sister. She’s a little nosy sometimes, but we all adore her.”
“Debatable at the moment,” Aiden interjected.
“How many of there are you?” I asked.
“Five,” they said in unison.
My lips curled in a smile. “I have a big family too.”
At that, Aiden’s face finally lost its hard edge, and he nodded.
Beckham glanced at his watch, and like he hadn’t instigated this entire conversation, he twirled his car keys on his pointer finger. “Well, I better get going.” He held out his hand to me again, and I took it. “Isabel, it was a pleasure to meet you.”
My brows lowered. “I think I’ll withhold judgment until I’m not stuck in a verbal sparring match between you two.”
He laughed. “Aiden, I’ll see you later.”
Aiden rubbed his forehead. “Thanks for watching Anya.”
Her head popped around the corner. “Bye Uncle Beckham, thanks for the huge chocolate bar!”
Beckham winked at her. “Anytime, munchkin.”
Aiden glared at his retreating back, and I tried to smother my smile.
What a strange, unexpected exchange to completely change the trajectory of my mood. I’d seen so many different sides of him now, and none of them—not a single one—were any less appealing.
I liked grumpy, older brother Aiden. And I wished I didn’t.
With Beckham gone, and Anya running back to her dad’s office, it was just me and Aiden. I found myself holding my breath to see if he’d say anything. Praying he wouldn’t. I wasn’t entirely sure.
And wasn’t that the problem?
I was in a constant state of push and pull over what I wanted, and what I needed from him.
He opened his mouth to talk, closed it, then shook his head slightly. “You’re off this weekend,” he commented.
I nodded slowly. “I’m watching my nephew while my brother and his wife are out of town.” I gestured behind us at the main portion of the gym. “Kelly is covering for me.”
He hummed in assent. “Have a good weekend then.”
Aiden started to walk away, and I watched him carefully. I wanted him to be jealous over his brother flirting with me.
Like he heard me think it, Aiden paused and faced me again. “I shouldn’t have assumed you didn’t want to talk to Beckham. I’m sorry.”
My eyebrows popped up. “It’s fine.”
He nodded.
I took a deep breath, steadily held his gaze, and lifted my chin a touch. “I’m not interested in your brother.”
Aiden went stock-still, and I cursed myself up, down, and sideways for feeling like I needed to explain it to him.
In the moment we locked gazes after I said it, I imagined all sorts of things.
Me saying that I was interested in him.
That he was quickly becoming my favorite person to spend time with.
That I wanted him.
Imagined Aiden striding toward me, gripping my face in both hands and slanting his mouth over mine. My hands snaking under his shirt so I could memorize the muscles with my fingertips. I imagined the way he’d be able to lift me easily, the way he’d be able to move and press and push my body into a knotted tangle of pleasure. Not once, in my entire life, had I fantasized about someone having the strength to hold me down, pin me in place, but sitting in that chair, I knew that I’d let him.
Let had nothing to do with it. I’d beg him to.
I’d give up all control to Aiden, and I had a feeling that he’d know exactly what to do with it.
“Good,” he murmured, eyes holding mine for just a second longer. And then he turned back toward his office.
It was only when he did that I finally started breathing normally. For a while, it seemed like he and I might have found steady ground, a foothold into a new place that I was enjoying.
Maybe I was kidding myself to think that getting to know him better would ever lead to me wanting him less. Because as he walked away, I knew I wasn’t doing so hot getting my feelings for him under control.
And when he glanced back in my direction, I had to wonder if I wasn’t the only one.
Chapter Fifteen
Isabel
“I think we should go out for breakfast,” Emmett said.
We stood side by side, staring into the fridge. Amazingly, our staring did not magically make food appear.
I winced. “We can make something. There’s like … eggs. And bread. And cheese. That’s enough, right?”
He looked up at me. “You’re asking me what to do with those two things? I’m a kid.”
“You’re almost ten.”
“You’re like … twenty-five. If anyone should be able to cook breakfast, it’s you.”
I stared at the shelves with a heavy sigh. “Everyone has talents in this life, Emmett. Cooking is not one of mine.”
“No shit.”
With a determined lift of my chin, I started pulling things out. “I’m going to ignore that.”
He took the eggs when I handed them to him, setting them on the counter with a skeptical look. “Mom’s gonna be pissed if you poison me with your cooking before they get home.”
“Nah, she’ll forgive me.”
Emmett grinned.
This poor kid. He had no choice but to speak fluent sarcasm considering the family he was born into.
A minute later, the kitchen counter was covered in an array of things that should’ve equaled out to a pretty epic breakfast.
“Don’t they have like, fancy cooking gadgets that make this stuff easy?”
His eyes lit up. “They have one of those air fryer things. And a toaster.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I know what a toaster is, Emmett.”
“Are you sure we can’t just go out to breakfast?”
“Tomorrow,” I insisted. “It’ll be our reward for not killing each other after all this unsupervised time together.”
“If your breakfast doesn’t kill me first,” he muttered.
I shoved him sideways. “Get out of here with that bad attitude.”
Emmett sighed. “Just don’t use the microwave and toaster at the same time. Mom said a really bad word yesterday when she did that.”
Rolling my eyes, I said “I know how to work appliances, Emmett. Go watch those awful cartoons.”
After anchoring my hair in a bun at the top of my head, I mentally rolled up my sleeves and got to work. I managed to crack some eggs in a sizzling skillet, with only a few chunks of the shell that I scooped out. Bread went into the toaster, and I jammed the button down.
Pulling a bag of sausage links up closer to my face, I tried to read the reheating directions. The eggs took up the whole skillet, so I ripped a piece of paper towel off the roll and stuck a few links into the microwave.
For a moment, I eyed the two appliances. I’d never heard Paige complain about running them simultaneously, and even though I hadn’t lived under their roof for four years, I would’ve remembered if it was an issue.
With a shrug, I pressed the start button on the microwave.
The whole kitchen went dark.
“Shit sticks,” I whispered.
“Told you that would happen!” he yelled from the couch.
With my hands on my hips, I let out a deep sigh. “It’ll be fine. I can just go flip the fuse. Can you yell when the lights go back on?”
“As long as you didn’t blow the fuse,” he said, sounding so much like Logan I almost rolled my eyes. “Dad said if Mom did that one more time, he was going to let her change it herself.”
I smiled. “And what did she say to that?”
“That he could shove his fuse up his ass because she’d be just fine if she had to.”
I was still laughing when I walked down the hallway and opened the utility closet. But when I opened the gray metal door, my laughter died a horrible death.
Note to self: listen to the ten-year-old when he tells you not to run the appliances at the same time.
Emmett eyed me when I came back to the family room. “What’s wrong?”
“Fuse is blown.”
“Are you going to call someone to come fix it?”
My thumb tapped furiously on my thigh as I thought about my options. “I may not have to.”
I yanked out my phone and sent a text.
Me: You at the gym yet?
* * *
Kelly: Probably not for another hour, why?
* * *
Me: Nothing. Just trying to remember if I had a box of fuses in my office. Remember when Amy was having all those issues last year?
* * *
Kelly: Someone blew the fuse on the stereo in the middle of a Sunday afternoon class. YEAH, I REMEMBER. You ever tried to teach with only sound of your heavy breathing to motivate people?
* * *
Me: Thankfully, no.
With a glance at the dark kitchen, I decided that the very last thing I felt like doing was to wait around all day for an electrician. I went to find Emmett.
“If you don’t mind a road trip to the gym, we actually have some spare fuses in my office. There’s no point in paying someone to do this if I can figure it out myself.”
“Yeah, except if you blow the house up because you put the wrong fuse in.”
“Do you
have that little faith in me?” I asked.
“You don’t know how to scramble eggs without burning them, Iz.” Emmett gave me a wide-eyed duh look.
I motioned to the front door. “Let’s go, punk. I’ll buy you breakfast on the way.”
Twenty minutes later, he was still inhaling the rest of his breakfast sandwich when we pulled into the parking lot at the gym.
The sight of a familiar black truck at the end of the lot had me utter a curse word under my breath.
Emmett held out his hand. I tossed my entire wallet at him. “Take a twenty, then I’m covered all weekend.”
His eyes were the size of the tires on Aiden’s truck. “Deal.”
I slid the car in park and turned to Emmett. “Okay, so my boss is in there. Be nice, be respectful, and don’t tell him anything embarrassing, okay?”
He shrugged. “What would I tell him that’s embarrassing?”
When we approached the front door, I glanced inside before I slid my new card in front of the scanner. Some lights were on, but not enough for me to see Aiden right off the bat.
As soon as we turned the corner around the half wall separating the front entry from the main gym area, I saw a small body lying like a starfish in the middle of the boxing ring. She was singing a song at the top of her lungs, completely unaware of our presence.
Emmett nudged me with his elbow. “Who’s that?”
Anya jumped up with a startled shriek, white-blond hair flying in all directions. But when she saw me, she smiled. “Miss Isabel!”
“Hey, kid. Nice singing,” I told her.
Aiden’s frame filled the doorway of his office.
Emmett climbed up into the ring with Anya, and they started running in circles. I sighed quietly. Now that there was someone to play with, this would not be a quick trip.
I jangled my keys against my leg as I approached Aiden. “Didn’t think anyone would be here.”
“I could say the same.” His eyes assessed me, head to toe, and I struggled not to fidget. It wasn’t like I got dolled up for work, but this was the first time he was seeing me bare-faced, hair a mess, and wearing the black joggers I’d slid on when I woke up. My white shirt was loose and comfortable, and it constantly slid off my shoulder, so it was painfully apparent that I wasn’t wearing a bra.
Forbidden: A Ward Sisters Sisters Novel Page 14