by Rie Warren
I settled her on the couch nearest the fireplace and struck a match. The dry kindling quickly caught, and I fed a few logs into the fire.
Wiping my palms down my pants, I sat beside her after pulling out my phone. “Look, Delaney. I know Eric’s here.”
Her startled eyes flew to mine, and she started to rise.
I laid my hand on her arm. “Sit. Please. We’ve gotta talk about this. I need to talk about this. And it’s not like you don’t know he found you.”
“What do you mean?”
Clicking on my phone, I flipped her the photos Frankie had sent me earlier. The ones that showed the biggest asshole of all standing at her door that morning.
“How’d you get those? You’ve been stalking me too?” Fiery anger turned her eyes brittle gold.
“No. I hired a PI to investigate your cunt of a husband to make sure he didn’t hurt you again.” I was mad at Delaney for risking shit, for not coming to me the second that dickweed showed up in town . . . but more than that, I wanted to rip her husband’s head from his neck and his cock from his balls.
Harsh breaths rocked in and out of my chest, but I dialed down the full-throttle fury because I’d sworn I’d never frighten Delaney. And definitely not because of that shithole of a husband.
“You what?” she asked, pointed finger shaking as much as her voice.
“Hired this guy Frankie, because apparently you had no intention of telling me if you got into trouble again.”
“You’ve been investigating him behind my back.”
“Damn right I have!”
Delaney punched to her feet, shoving her finger at my chest. “I never asked you to protect me!”
“There sure as hell isn’t anyone else looking out for you.” I stamped to my feet, too.
“Are you kidding me?”
“I’m so very far from kidding you it’s not funny. I’m so worried about you I’m fucking up my game because of you!” I roared.
Delaney blanched back, and I struggled for a deep breath. Struggled to reel in the anger that wasn’t even meant for her.
“I’m sorry, babe.” I touched the side of her cheek with a fingertip then moved away from her when she flinched. “I feel so fucking helpless about all this. And it’s been building inside me all day.”
“I knew something was wrong.” She raised bleak eyes to mine.
“The most important thing is you’re okay. You’re okay, right?” Raking my hands through my hair, I shook my head. “Jesus, I’m such a schmuck. I should’ve asked you that first. I should’ve called off this Thanksgiving dinner so I could make sure you were all right.”
When I glanced at her my heart nearly busted apart.
Giant tears glimmered in her eyes, but she swiped them away. “I’m okay. He didn’t get to hurt me this time. Remember—self-defense.”
I swallowed, nodding, aching to go to her. “Can you tell me what happened this morning?”
“It’s not just this morning,” she whispered.
“Jesus, Delaney.” Another punch to my gut.
She stood across from me. “That package, remember? The morning you dropped me off? It was from him. I should’ve told you.”
“What the hell was in it?”
“A prepaid cell phone. A note saying he’d be in touch.”
I was tempted, so very tempted to slam my fist against the wall. “What’d you do with it?”
“Smashed it to pieces.”
“That’s my woman.” Finally releasing a gust of breath, I took cautious steps toward her. “Can I—?” I opened my arms, offering comfort if she wanted it.
Her forehead crumpled. Her lips quivered. She walked into my waiting embrace. Shivers wracked her body.
“You’re here now.” I kissed the crown of her head, thankful, so very thankful she wasn’t harmed. “What about this morning?”
“He said he owns me. He’s never giving me a divorce.” Her muffled voice drove another spike into my heart. “He threatened me, but I . . . I kicked his ass and kicked him out.”
Pulling her head up, I peered into her eyes. “You hurt him? You hit him?”
“Yeah. I won this time.” Her expression firmed into the fearless one I recognized from when she was on the field.
“But what about next time?”
“I’m hoping he doesn’t come back,” she said.
“We both know he will. And that fuckhead needs to be served divorce papers as well as an arrest warrant,” I muttered, the rage rekindling.
“No.” She shook her head furiously. “I don’t want the police involved this time.”
“Why the hell not?”
Delaney broke free. “How dare you even ask me that when you of all people know they did nothing the last time I reported him!” Her hands cradled her tummy, but her eyes blazed like hot molten fire. “I miscarried because of Eric, and they turned a blind eye!”
“Not all cops are the same.” I hated the hurt she was going through again, and god-fucking-dammit, Eric the Asshole needed to be put behind bars.
Or in the ground.
“After what I survived, how am I supposed to trust them?”
“What about me? You trust me, right?” I asked because I didn’t understand . . . why. “Why didn’t you come to me?”
“You’ve already been going behind my back,” her shout reverberated through the room.
“Because I protect the people I love. Goddammit!” I blasted back with every single feeling in my body cracking wide open like my stupid heart.
Chapter Nineteen
Pause Button
Delaney
I FUMBLED BACK A step, completely blindsided. “What?”
“Jesus Christ. I love you, Delaney.” Clenching his fist at his chest, Brooklyn thumped his hand there. “Maybe I don’t have the best delivery, but isn’t it obvious?”
He thumped his chest again, and my heart knocked in time.
“I didn’t see this conversation ending like this.” My eyes rose to his.
“Trust me, I didn’t plan on blurting it out either. Or ranting like a madman before.” His cheeks looked pink above his thick beard, and his brows beetled again. “Sorry.”
The fire roared away behind him, lighting him in a soft glow.
My gentle giant.
Tears swarmed in my eyes, and that time I let him see them as I stepped closer. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Well”—his gruff voice rolled out—“you’re not supposed to say it back. Jesus. And that came out all wrong too.”
Sweet. Humble. Protective.
He loves me?
“You don’t want me to fall in love with you?” I kept as straight a face as possible, dashing away the tears, loving the way he scowled then took my cheeks in his hands to brush his thumbs against the dampness, lifting away the teardrops.
“I just mean you don’t have to because I do,” he grumbled.
“Okay.” I shrugged, a smile canting the corners of my lips.
“Are you seriously teasing me right now?” His arms ran around my waist.
“Am I?” I snuck up to kiss his lips—the firm, moist pressure perfectly divine.
“No more of that until you say it too.” He pulled his face back, narrowing dark delicious eyes on me.
“I dunno.”
“Delaney Jones.” He aligned me against his erection. “Don’t fuck with me.”
“But you like it when I fuck with you.”
“Say it.” He growled.
Flinging my arms around his neck, throwing myself against him, I drew his ear down to my lips. I poured hot breath over his sensitive skin before barely breathing out, “I love you, Brooklyn Holt.”
Throwing his head back, he lifted me off the floor. “About damn time!”
I pushed at his chest. “I thought you said no pressure.”
“That was before I decided I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you.” His lips landed on my neck, as sizzling hot as the fire behind us.
/> “You decided?”
He raised his head to grin. “Oh, damn, babe. Fight me every step of the way. I welcome it.”
“When have I fought you before?”
He traced a warm rough fingertip over my mouth—my lips I pursed to suck him inside.
“Hmm?” I asked.
He cleared his throat, drew the wet digit free, scanned me up and down. “Let’s see. How to count the ways? You wouldn’t let me take you to dinner, didn’t want me at your games, blew me off pretty much all the time.”
“Because you’re dangerous.”
“I’m not.” Easing down to the couch, he settled me on his lap. “I promise I’m not.”
“Not that way. I didn’t mean it like that.” I ran my fingers across his chest, popping the buttons of his shirt open so I could get at all that muscular flesh. “Dangerous to my heart. But it’s too late.”
“It’s not a bad thing to be in love,” his voice husked against my ear.
“Even after Brianna?”
“Not even remotely the same, Delaney. And you’re not going it alone against Eric this time. Promise me.”
“Okay.”
“You’ll let me help.”
“Yes.” I nuzzled his lips. “I won’t let Eric get to me again.”
“We won’t let him.” Growling, Brooks drew me to his mouth.
The hungry kiss lashed my lips. His seeking tongue delved inside. His hands dropped to my hips, and he grinded up against me.
The kiss turned greedy. Our hands seeking. Our tongues searching. Our bodies searing.
Pulling back with a grunt, Brooks looked at his watch. “Crap.”
“What?” I perched on his lap.
“It’s gonna be hard Skyping with my family with a hard-on.” He planted his head against the cushions. “I’ve got two minutes to cool down before I’m supposed to get on video with them. Kind of a Thanksgiving tradition since I can’t be home.”
“Maybe I could help with that.”
“My hard-on?”
“No. Not yet anyway.” On my feet, I tugged his hands. “Can I meet them?”
“Not sure how that’s gonna help with the erection of the century.”
We sat side by side at the island in Brooklyn’s kitchen with his iPad open.
“I’m nervous.”
“Bullshit. They’re gonna love you like I do.”
My cheeks heated. “But I’m not from Texas.”
“Even better. We need some new blood in the family.”
My heart pounded. “I won’t know what to say.”
He snickered. “Oh, don’t worry. You probably won’t get a word in edgewise with this tribe.”
The Holt family’s screen popped open—and there they were. His mother, his father, his granddaddy.
I had to blink hard when Brooks waved, his arm wrapped around me, drawing me onscreen.
“How’d the sweet potato dish go down?” His mom—silver-haired and pretty—asked.
“They licked the dish clean, Ma.”
“And who’s that pretty lady beside you?” his dad asked, the long mustache curling around his mouth.
“Delaney Jones. Remember I told you about her. Carolina Cougars and why I needed Cinnamon here?”
“Did Cinn break her in?”
Brooks chuckled. “Pretty sure Delaney broke me in.”
I hit him on the arm. He just laughed.
A jumble of voices filtered over the tablet’s speakers—his mom and his dad throwing questions at me in a confusing muddle.
I started shrinking back but Brooklyn’s arm around my shoulder kept me in place. “Told you they’d be like this,” he shushed. “Just hang on.”
“She’s as fine a filly as that mare.” His granddaddy cranked white eyebrows together and leaned toward the camera.
“Pops, she’s a pro footballer too.”
“Hmmph. I know that. I’m deaf, I ain’t blind. Seen Delaney’s games too since we got that Dish hooked up.” Then he turned up his hearing aid until it blared . . . just because it pissed everyone else off apparently.
“Stop, Pops!” Brooks turned down the volume. “You’re such a crackpot.”
“And just for that you can break in the new bull this summer.” The older man’s muted brown eyes danced devilishly.
“I’m not going anywhere near Zeus’s offspring.”
“Zeus?” I asked Brooks.
“The meanest bull-daddy on the planet. And the best breeder.”
“Yeah you are. And the broncos too.” Pops stood up, a cane aiding his balance.
Beside me, Brooklyn groaned before nuzzling his lips against my ear.
“Ahem.” His dad cleared his throat. “Looks like it’s time to leave the young’uns to it.”
“Don’t tease them, James.” His pretty mom kissed her husband before turning back to the screen to waggle her fingers. “We love you, son. Take care of her.”
“Delaney, sure hope to meet you in person soon.” His granddaddy winked.
My voice broke, and I couldn’t even say goodbye, settling for a little grin instead.
After Brooklyn shut the iPad, he turned to me, a very heated stare in his eyes.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked.
“I want you. I think you know that.” His suddenly rough voice sent shivers all along my body.
“But we were just on the phone with your folks.”
“Skype.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” He tore his gaze away. “I’m always turned on by you no matter what. The way you handle every situation thrown at you.”
“I thought you didn’t like me handling things on my own,” I teased lightly.
“Well, you’re as strong-willed a filly I ever met so I might have to find a way to convince you to accept my help.” His brows arched.
“Mmm. How do you propose to do that?” I purred, moving against him.
He groaned, quickly grabbing my hips. But then he shuffled back. He rubbed a hand against his neck. “We don’t have to fuck, we can just cuddle.”
But the second he said fuck . . .
“Take me to bed, Brooks.”
I lay naked in the middle of his bed after he’d undressed me, and the look in his gaze nearly stopped my heart.
“God, you take my breath away every time I see you.” He lowered himself on top of me, fully hard, fully man.
I trailed my hands from his butt, over the tats of the horses I knew spread across his back, and into his hair. His mouth found mine, the intensity of the kiss stealing through all my senses. I broke away only to whimper when he slid two strong fingers into my slick pussy.
“I never said how much I liked your . . . pie.” His lips curled up at the corners.
“So did Calder and Bunyan.” I teased, spreading my thighs wider.
“And that’s not funny.” The pad of his thumb rolled around my clit.
“Just a little?” I gasped.
“Here’s what’s not little.” Grasping the base of his cock, he slowly speared all that thick length into me.
My back arched. “Definitely not little.”
That time the bed didn’t rock. The pillows didn’t fall off. We didn’t land on the floor. Locked completely around one another, Brooklyn made love to me with a burning fire and immense slow strokes that healed everything, that brought me fully to him.
Clamping my hands over his straining biceps, I cried out, nipping at his throat. My hips lifted, and he gave me more, he gave me everything.
The heat spilled inside me, climbing through my entire body. “I’m coming,” I wailed out.
“Wanna feel it.” He quickened the rocking rhythm, driving the strokes harder.
Powerful feeling rippled through me, inside me, all over me.
“Fuck yes, come, babe.” Brooks pistoned his hips, binding us together the moment his hot seed pumped into me.
Hoarse shouts tumbled against my ears. He craned up, all muscles bulging. His cock kic
king, thrusting, filling every emptiness.
“Oooh!” Another delicious orgasm pulsed through me.
Breathing hard, kissing his neck and his shoulder, I traced his body with my fingertips until he gentled me with a long wet glide of his wonderful tongue in my mouth.
He flipped onto his side, still buried deep and rigid in me. His pelvis rolled again, and I knew he wasn’t done with me yet . . . not tonight . . . maybe not ever.
Hopefully not ever.
A secret smile hovered on my lips, a smile the outside worries threatened to wash away.
“Brooklyn?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you really think you’re messing up the games because of me?”
Chapter Twenty
World’s Biggest Schmuck
Brooklyn
“DO YOU REALLY THINK you’re messing up the games because of me?”
Ahhh, fuck. Didn’t I feel like the world’s biggest schmuck, and I deserved a swift kick to the nads. Probably several swift kicks.
Carefully pulling out of Delaney, I scooped her closer.
I tipped up her chin so I could meet her eyes. “No. I’m a fucking jackass. Just need to get my mojo back.”
“Well, my shit can’t be helping any.”
“Don’t you dare blame yourself for me being a tool.” I wrapped her in my arms, wishing I could take back every dumbass thing I’d said. “You’ve taken some goddamn hard knocks. Came out on top. In control. A powerhouse in every way. And I love you.”
Her lips glided against mine. “I love hearing you say that, but I feel a but coming on.”
“I do have one suggestion.” I flipped the covers over us.
“A suggestion.” Her golden eyes gleamed in the darkness.
“Move in with me.”
She stiffened immediately, completely. Rolled off me and took about all the blankets with her as she stood at the side of the bed. “No.”
“It was a thought.”
“So you can keep me safe?”
Spinning to the edge of the mattress, I clasped my hands between my knees.
I peered up at her. “My suggestion isn’t just because of . . . him.”
Her nose rose to the air. “It’s not, is it?”
Snagging her hand, I brought her palm to my lips. “Nope. You can’t deny we’re damn good together.”