by Maria Luis
Involuntarily her fingers went to her face, and yep, sure enough, the tip of her nose was sore to the touch. “Guess I’m still getting used to the New Orleans heat,” she said with a smile, grateful that he’d changed the topic. This wasn’t the place or the time for heavy conversations. Not with Julian waiting to play football or with Meme Elaine on the verge of setting Audubon Park aflame, thanks to the fact that she seemed unwilling to accept any help at the grill.
Most of all, Shaelyn felt awkward sharing her thoughts with him. In the days since she’d spilled her darkest secret, he’d been as tight-lipped as a clam. Relationships were a two-way street, and right now Brady was sharing the characteristics of an exclusive gated community without even a passcode.
“You’ll have some time to get used to the heat, I hope,” he told her, his fingers dropping to the column of her neck. “Unless you’ve still kept your plans to move?”
The brim of the hat blocked out his face, and she tipped her head back to get a good look at him, fingers reaching up to hold the hat in place. His gaze found hers, searching. She desperately wanted to tell him that she had no plans on leaving anytime soon. Instead she blurted, “Where else might I find you wearing a booty-hugging red dress?”
For a second no one moved. Not Anna, not Julian, and definitely not Brady. Shaelyn wasn’t even certain if the birds were still chirping up in the trees.
Then, from Julian: “Why would you wear a red dress, Brady?”
Brady turned to Jules, then to Anna. “Does the kid know nothing of New Orleans culture?” His blue eyes snapped to Shaelyn, narrowing in on her face as he flicked the hat’s brim back. “You saw me decked out for the Run and never said anything?”
“I saw you at Rite Aid.” As I stood there with a basketful of tampons. “You looked busy.”
“Not too busy to talk with you,” he corrected. She suspected that however flippant the remark sounded, he genuinely meant it. His arms crossed over his broad chest, and he added, “Even if I did look like part of a Vegas show.”
“Vegas might be a little too classy for you,” Shaelyn said. “Bourbon seemed more your speed.”
Brady’s chin tipped back with a hearty laugh. “I’m not sure if I should take that as a compliment.”
“I would,” Julian put in, as though he were twenty-three and a Bourbon Street vet, and not a thirteen-year-old who’d never even had a classic New Orleans cocktail like a Sazerac.
Anna leaned forward to softly whack her son on the back of the head. “I better not catch you anywhere near Bourbon, Jules.”
In answer, he drew his feet up onto the bench to rest his elbows on his knees. “You do realize that the boutique is only two streets away, right? I could just cross Royal Street and then I’d be right there.”
“Royal Street is the borderland between the innocent and the depraved, kid,” Brady said solemnly. “Never make the mistake of crossing over.”
Julian’s face scrunched with teenage annoyance and the three adults laughed in unison. That is, until a hot-pink cane announced Meme Elaine’s arrival with a pan of food.
“What are we talking about?” she demanded, plopping down the pan onto the table and grabbing her usual sweet tea-vodka concoction. She slurped the cocktail through a neon-yellow straw. “What’d I miss?”
“Brady in a red dress,” Shaelyn supplied helpfully. She ignored the hot glare sent her way from the man in question.
With a tilt of her head, Meme Elaine took her time perusing Brady from his messy dark hair to his bare feet. “You tryin’ to tell us something?”
Brady smacked his hand on the picnic table. “It’s a Red Dress Run, people. For charity.”
“And cross-dressing,” Shaelyn added, laughing freely.
Blue eyes zeroed in on her face. Shaelyn wondered if she should be worried about the little vein visibly throbbing by his hairline.
“Everyone wears a red dress for it,” Brady tried again. “No discrimination involved.”
Eyes practically glowing with mirth from behind her black-frame glasses, Meme Elaine sucked again on the neon-yellow straw. “That’s exactly what I said, Brady.”
Shaelyn felt an abrupt sense of foreboding when her grandmother spared her a quick, mischievous glance. “Didn’t stop your girlfriend here from asking if you’d come out of the closet, though.”
Four pairs of eyes found Shaelyn.
The pair belonging to six feet plus of hot, incredulous male held her immobile. She offered him a sweet, pardon-me grin. “I think you’ve since proven that assumption wrong.”
In a voice pitched straight from the bedroom, he whispered, “Oh, I’ll make sure there’s no doubt in your mind.”
Shaelyn took that as a promise that she was going to thoroughly enjoy.
25
“Please . . . ”
Brady tossed back the covers and glanced up at the naked woman sprawled out on his bed, her hands fisting the sheets. God, how had he gotten so lucky? He’d never even thought to hope for Shaelyn to come back into his life, not after those first few years when she’d left New Orleans. Somehow—by the grace of God or Cupid or whoever the fuck was shooting love arrows at the public these days—Lady Luck had shown him some pity by bringing back the love of his life.
Only, apparently she’d thought he batted for the same team in the bedroom.
He dropped his head to her pelvic bone and pressed a kiss to the sensitive skin there. “Please, what?”
One of her hands sank into his hair, which he desperately needed to cut. Her nails unintentionally scraped his scalp and he let out a sharp hiss.
“Oh no, I’m sorry—”
Her apology cut off as his mouth drifted south to more erotic pastures, eliciting yet another one of her hot-as-hell moans.
“Brady, I can’t,” she pleaded. “No more.”
With one hand skimmed up the soft, satin skin of her rib cage, with the other he rolled her nipple between his index finger and thumb. “Any doubt left about my sexuality?” he teased, rejoicing when her hips kicked up with pleasure.
Her gaze sharpened on him with wry delight. “I think you satisfied any questions I might have had about three orgasms ago.”
“Damn right I did.”
Planting his hands down on either side of her hips, he shifted onto his knees and stared down at her. Her curly brown hair was completely disheveled, spread out on his bed like some sinfully orchestrated halo. The pillows—Brady glanced over the side of the bed to find four of his pillows scattered on the floor. He lifted the covers to find the fifth shoved to the foot of the bed, having been discarded after he’d used it to prop her hips up for a better angle.
“I need a shower,” Shaelyn said with what she must have intended to be a subtle sniff to her armpit. “Standing outside in the heat mingled with sexy times means that I feel absolutely gross.”
Wiggling his brows, he asked, “Can I join?”
The look she gave him was one of pure horror. Brady would have felt insulted if she hadn’t tried to lift her arm to pat his face, only for it to fall limply back to her side. “I think you’ve proved your sexual prowess enough for one day.”
He tilted his head. “‘Sexual prowess.’ I like the sound of that.”
“You would.”
Brady slid off the bed and stood, straightening his arms into the air for a full stretch. He turned back to see that Shaelyn hadn’t budged an inch. “You sure you’re going to make it to the shower? I’ll bet you five bucks you never move from that spot.”
“I’m not taking you up on that,” she sniffed.
He grinned. “Because you know you’ll lose?”
Her silence was answer enough, and Brady gave a low laugh. He figured he’d kept her in bed long enough, and decided to offer a deal that she couldn’t refuse as motivation. He drew the sheets down her body, exposing her skin to the cool air as the ceiling fan whirred above. “Go take your shower, and I’ll have popcorn and Charlie Hunnam waiting for you when you get out.”
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Her eyes flashed with anticipation. “Sons of Anarchy marathon?”
“Would I raise your hopes just to dash them?” Brady rested his hand on her knee and squeezed gently. “Get clean and meet me so you can ogle Charlie’s ass while I pretend not to notice.”
The happy grin she gave him warmed him from the inside out, making him feel as though he’d been dunked in a hot tub with the temperature spiked to about a hundred degrees. And that was before she said, “You’re a keeper, Brady Taylor.”
That’s the plan, sweetheart.
He bent down to give her a quick kiss, then tweaked her nipple once more before he moved to the door.
“Brady!”
He paused, one hand on the doorframe. “Yes?”
“Just wait until you’re naked and at my disposal,” she warned. From the way her lips were quivering, he could tell that she was trying to maintain a stern expression.
“Name the date and time, sweetheart, and I’ll be there.” He winked, just because he could, and stepped to the side as a shoe came sailing at his face. Laughing, he headed down the interior hallway of his traditional shotgun style house. Legend had it that if you stood on the front porch and left the doors to each room open, you could fire a single shot through the doorways and out the back of the house.
Brady wasn’t all too sure if there was any accuracy to the story, but the circa 1916 shotgun had caught his eye the minute he’d showed up at the open house. A little run-down, a little tired, the property had certainly seen better days. It was sandwiched amidst a row of similarly designed houses, though Brady’s had certainly been the one needing the most work.
In the span of four years, he’d refinished the original hardwood floors, revamped the entire kitchen, and brought life back to the delicate fireplaces that now could be lit in the winter months without fear of starting a massive four-alarm fire.
Opening the pantry door, he pulled out one of the popcorn bags before popping open the microwave door and setting the timer. He leaned against the counter, listening to the quiet whirring of the microwave as he watched the bag circle around on the little glass tray.
In the last year his poor house hadn’t seen much renovation, or tender love, or care. He’d started project after project, and yet never managed to complete any of them. A gallon of paint still sat on his front porch with the brush on top, and the stained glass window he’d purchased from a recently demolished church was still sitting in the kitchen pantry as opposed to replacing the window above the kitchen sink as he’d intended.
Brady wasn’t sure when he’d developed a knack or an interest in fixing properties, but he sure as hell knew when that particular hobby had taken a back seat. For a year now he’d spent every waking moment gearing up for the possibility of a promotion. He’d quit going out, he’d given up his season tickets to the Saints—and until Shaelyn had reappeared, he’d given up women too.
He should have been frustrated with himself for letting his need for a promotion take over the rest of his life. But, until he’d first seen Shae at his grandparents’ BBQ almost two months ago, he’d ignored the signs that his personal life was suffering. Nothing had mattered aside from climbing the ladder at the NOPD. But was that any way to live his life, especially now that his chances at actually making sergeant were pretty much nonexistent?
Over the sound of the microwave, he could hear Shaelyn singing in the shower. It was awful—the kind of tone deaf that made other tone-deaf people reel back in shock. For all of her skills, singing had never been one.
Thing was, he loved hearing her shitty singing. Even wanted to knock on the bathroom door, tell her that he was doing the world a public service, and then shut her up by putting her mouth to better, more pleasurable, uses. There wasn’t one part of him that didn’t want her in his house, in his shower, and in his life, even if that meant the sergeant position would never be his.
He was, strangely enough, at peace with that.
Not that it meant he wanted the job going to Summers, who was the equivalent of a teacher’s pet. Brady and Summers had worked together on a few cases before, and while he was nice, Brady found it hard to stomach being thrown over for a guy who had only been in the department for a year. Hell, Summers had even rolled out with Brady a time or two when he’d been in training.
The microwave beeped, the pop-pop-pops dwindling into silence. He made a grab for the corner of the bag to keep from scorching himself, and snagged a plastic bowl from the cabinet. As he poured the popcorn out of the steaming bag, Brady wondered if Shaelyn could ever see herself with him on a more permanent level.
Hanging out with Anna, Julian, and Miz Elaine that afternoon had been a highlight he hadn’t expected. He wanted that life with Shaelyn—a carefree life where they had each other’s backs.
You have to tell her about Mardeaux.
Fuck. Brady threw out the popcorn bag, and then headed into the living room with the plastic bowl. After setting it on the coffee table, he switched the TV on and made his way to Netflix.
Whichever way he looked at it, he was screwed. The issue with Anthony Mardeaux was now police business. They still hadn’t found him, which both ticked Brady off and made him nervous. As for Shae . . . there were only so many ways he could ask for more time as he evaded her questions.
Brady heard her feet padding across the hardwood floor, before he heard her say, “We stopped at Season Three. They just got to Ireland.”
He pulled up the correct episode and pressed play on the controller as she settled on to the other side of the couch, feet coming off the floor to sit cross-legged. He snuck a glance at her, grateful for the living room’s dim lighting so that she couldn’t make out the way he absorbed her presence like a starving dog after a bone.
The wetness in her hair weighed down her normally chaotic curls, making her hair as straight as he’d ever seen it. She’d clearly rifled through his dresser because she wore one of his old Loyola T-shirts, and she had also pulled on a pair of his drawstring shorts. She looked ridiculously cute.
“Come here,” he murmured as the Sons of Anarchy theme song played around them.
Leaning forward, she made a grab for the popcorn bowl and settled back into her position. “Can I put my feet on your lap?”
“You can put them wherever you want, sweetheart,” he told her.
They settled in like that for the next hour, at least, passing the bowl of popcorn back and forth until only the kernels were left. They indulged in Sons of Anarchy in the only way true fans could: by yelling at the characters when they did something outrageously illegal (him) and by audibly commenting on Charlie Hunnam’s abs that were chiseled by God himself (Shaelyn).
When the scenes lagged, they turned to each other and talked about everything and anything. How she felt being back in New Orleans—good, surprisingly, but sometimes a bit like a fish out of water. How his grandparents had taken his dropping out of Tulane—shitty, but they’d had no choice but to accept his decisions when he’d entered the police academy. How she liked working at the boutique—she loved it more than she had ever thought possible, and took pride in helping the men and women who came to the store look and feel their best. How he worried about Luke re-enlisting when he’d already given twelve years to the Army—they both agreed that only Luke could decide what was best for him, though perhaps another tour of duty wouldn’t do him any good.
As they spoke, Brady massaged her legs, working from the soles of her feet to the tight muscles in her thighs. He enjoyed the feel of her skin under his hands as he brought her a different sort of pleasure.
“Brady?” she asked when the episode ended and the room went black while the credits rolled. “Can I ask you a question?”
His hands stilled over her calves. “Sure.”
The next episode began, illuminating her face as motorcycles revved and something blew up on the TV. “Can you pause it?”
“Yeah.” He had a feeling that he wasn’t going to like the direction of the conver
sation. Brady paused the TV and set the controller back on the coffee table. Shadows danced on the wall behind her head, and the utter quietness of the room enhanced the sound of their breathing, as well as the rasp of her feet as she pulled them off his lap and wrapped her hands around her knees. “What’s up?”
“It’s silly.”
Brady sincerely doubted that anything that diverted her attention from Charlie Hunnam could be classified as “silly.” “Hit me with it, Shae.”
She drew in a big breath, as though she were gearing herself up for a battle. Brady mentally girded himself.
“Why don’t you ever talk about your job?” she asked.
Brady breathed a sigh of relief. This, he could explain. “Honestly? Doing what I do . . . I can’t say that it’s bedtime reading material. I see the worst of society every day.”
In the dim light he could make out her frown. Her chin settled into the dip where her knees touched. “I understand. Actually, I probably don’t get it at all.”
He felt his lips shift into an involuntarily smile. “I wouldn’t want you to be in my position. Truthfully, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, cliché as that is.”
“Why did you choose the homicide department?”
That was harder to answer. Brady lifted his feet to the coffee table and crossed his arms over his chest. Not a defensive maneuver, but a thoughtful one. Had there been one moment where he’d decided to move into homicide? He couldn’t pinpoint a specific event. Instead his transition had been more of an accumulation of respect for the homicide detectives covering crime scenes.
Respect for the detectives, sympathy for the victim’s families, even when the victim turned out to be the perpetrator too. Homicide cases were black and white with every swath of the rainbow in between.
“I guess I want to help the families who lose a loved one,” Brady said finally. “I want to provide whatever comfort I can with the knowledge that their son or daughter, wife or husband, did not die in vain. I also want to do good by the city that raised me. Try and leave her a better, safer place for the next generation.”