Mine to Protect

by Sarah J. Brooks

  They both stopped moving as they heard women’s voices very close to them, probably only two stories above them. Rose quickly put her clothes back on, except her underwear, which had been ruined. She slid those into Bronx’s pocket; he tried to kiss her, but she pulled back as she tried to listen to what the women were saying above them.

  “Elaine told you to stop talking about people in the office, Susan; you should probably stop. You know Rose heard you when she came into the lunchroom,” one of the women said.

  “It’s not gossip. I saw Rose hugging him the first day she got here, and then I saw her again today at the courthouse. And please, they have never had more than three first years and suddenly this year they have four.”

  “What about Bronx? He’s Elaine’s nephew—he’s getting special treatment too,” the other woman added.

  “He’s handsome as fuck and nice to everyone. Rose is a royal bitch to everyone and an old hag. Isn’t she like forty or something?”

  “Susan, she’s beautiful, and you know it. And she’s not even thirty. You know her husband died, right?”

  Susan didn’t seem to care at all about the specifics regarding Rose’s age or why she was so mean to the other people in the office. All Susan cared about was making Rose look bad in the eyes of the other women in the office.

  “Yeah, he probably killed himself because she was such a bitch to him,” Susan said. “Let’s get back to work, though. I don’t need Elaine yelling at me again.”

  As the two women exited the stairwell, Rose started up the stairs without even acknowledging what she had just heard. Bronx reached out to grab her hand and see if she was alright. He knew what those women had said must have hurt Rose’s feelings.

  He also found it odd that she had been hugging Mr. Conley at the courthouse that day, but the arrangement Bronx had made with Rose made him feel uncomfortable about asking anything about her relationship with Mr. Conley. It was none of Bronx’s business, and if there was something going on, it didn’t seem to be interfering with him and Rose, so he left it alone for the time being.

  “They are just stupid and petty; don’t listen to them,” Bronx said as he stopped Rose from going up the stairs.

  “Nothing I haven’t heard before. Let’s get back to work,” Rose said with a straight face.

  She didn’t show a single shred of emotion as they walked back up the stairs to their office and sat down at their desks to work. Bronx felt a cold chill as he looked at Rose and realized she really didn’t have the same emotions as other women. Not even close.

  Chapter 14

  Rose was tough; she didn’t need other people to like her, and the last thing she was going to worry about was what some silly women in the office thought of her. The only thing that had bothered her was them bringing up Derek.

  In fact, the thought of their words made Rose want to find them and punch them in the face; although she assumed that would be frowned upon as a lawyer. Rose didn’t really understand why those women disliked her so much. She hadn’t even really talked to them, and all Rose had been doing was constantly working.

  Derek had been the kindest man in the world to her. Sure, he was ruthless around people at work and even with Noah, but Derek loved Rose, and she loved him. The idea that anyone would try and ruin that for her was the only thing that had bothered her about those two stupid women in the stairwell.

  If those women from the stairwell had ever actually met Derek, then they would have loved him just as much as Rose had. But then again, if Derek were still alive, Rose wouldn’t have gone to college, and she wouldn’t have a job at one of the most prestigious law firms. Although she wasn’t specifically a fan of saying things happened for a reason, Rose thought that maybe she had found a reason to move forward.

  Coming to work at Wolfe and Conley had started to raise a lot of emotions for Rose. Emotions weren’t something she liked at all, and it bothered her that she came home from work several days that week thinking about her dead husband.

  Rose had spent years learning how to lock away all her emotions and only let them seep out in a very slow process. It was a delicate process to manage to pretend to show emotions so people would leave you alone, and actually showing emotions. Rose wasn’t sure she was all that great at any of those emotions and wasn’t going to be able to teach others about them. For the time being, Rose would have to sit on the sidelines again while she gathered her emotions and blocked them off for life.

  She was supposed to be moving on with her life; it had been a few years now, and it was time to move on. Rose was doing everything she could to drown out the feelings and emotions, and nothing was working for more than a few hours at a time. She needed a long-term solution to move forward and just had no idea what it might be.

  Rose wished she could wave a magic wand and be over the loss of her husband, but that hadn’t happened. No matter how far she traveled or how much work she did in her life, Rose knew that she would always have to deal with the deep dark emotions that sat too far under the skin for her to deal with at that moment. She just couldn’t take any further information on her plate and no further emotions either. Rose just wanted some peace and quiet for a little bit of her life.

  Life was getting more and more exhausting each day as she tried to navigate everything that was going on. When she got home, all she wanted to do was slide into bed, but when she heard someone knock at the door, she did get a little excited that Bronx was there to see her.

  He had turned into a bit of a drug to her, and she could use a hit of orgasm before going to bed. But when she looked through the peephole, it wasn’t Bronx at all; instead, it was Noah. Rose didn’t bother to straighten up her hair or cover up her T-shirt she had on without a bra, she just opened the door to see what was up.

  “Hey, Noah, what’s up?”

  Noah had come straight over from work and was going to tell Rose about everything he had read in the file from court that day, but as he stood there in front of her, he couldn’t find the words to tell her why he had arrived. It was shocking to see just how damn beautiful Rose was while she stood there half-dressed with her hair in a ponytail. Of course, Noah knew she was beautiful; everyone knew that. But to be so damn pretty when she was standing there without makeup or her hair done and only in a t-shirt—that took a lot of special energy.

  “Um, wow,” he said as he stared at her hard nipples and bare legs. “Do you always walk around looking like a goddess?”

  Rose smiled at what she took as a compliment, but she was too tired for flirting. And she wasn’t going to flirt with Noah. They were friends; it had been established for years, and she couldn’t move past that aspect of their friendship.

  Sure, Rose felt something between her and Noah, but it wasn’t anything more than an urge that she knew she could control. Rose needed a friend much more than she needed a lover in her life. She had Bronx for her lover position and was actually pretty damn happy with him in her life.

  “What’s up?” she said, totally ignoring his flirtation.

  “I was going to go over this information from the file. Do you have time?” Noah moved into the apartment and shut the door behind him. “You said you’d email me later, but then you left. Did you forget?”

  The truth was that Rose had totally forgotten to follow up with Noah, and it really pissed her off. She would never be able to show them how responsible she was and able to handle her own cases if she couldn’t even remember to send her boss an email when she had promised to. Rose didn’t like breaking her promises.

  He didn’t want to be sent away so quickly, though. Noah wanted to stay with Rose for a little bit, and even more so after he had seen what she was wearing. Rose was gorgeous, and all Noah could think about was what she would look like naked. She certainly wasn’t helping things with her tiny thin T-shirt on that practically showed him everything, yet not enough at all.

  “Could we look at it tomorrow? I’m exhausted,” Rose asked.

  She had energy for Bro
nx and a quick orgasm, but only because that would numb her thoughts so she could sleep well through the night. But she didn’t have the time or energy for a long conversation with Noah about work and certainly wasn’t going to open the door to him and have sex. They were friends, and she was tired; that was the end of it.

  “Sure, if that’s what you’d like,” Noah said as he took a step closer to Rose.

  His hand gently touched her cheek, and Rose felt every nerve in her body start to pay attention to Noah. Her body wanted him as much as Rose tried to deny it; she couldn’t stop her body and the reaction it had around Noah. She felt drawn to him when he was around. Always needing to hug him, touch him, wrap her arms around him. Rose hadn’t even noticed just how much she was touching Noah on a regular basis and how the other people in the office were observing her.

  The warmth of his hand on her face made her lean toward him in utter denial of everything she had said up to that point. She wasn’t going to be with him—she couldn’t go there. Noah was one hundred percent off-limits. They were friends and nothing more. Never could they be anything more, and Rose wasn’t going to go against that despite what her body said.

  “Yes, I think you better,” Rose said softly as she looked up at him.

  But everything in her body felt a pull toward Noah like she hadn’t felt in a very long time. It wasn’t lust alone, it was much more than that, and she was scared by it. There was something more between them, more than a friendship, and she wasn’t going to let herself find out what it was.

  She remembered back to the first time she had seen Noah. She actually saw him first while she was at a party with one of her friends, but Noah never came over to her and talked to her. Instead, Derek had been the one to talk to her and ask her out, so he was the one she continued dating and eventually married. Rose couldn’t help briefly imagining what her life would have been like if Noah had come to talk to her first.

  Noah was handsome, just like Derek, and Rose was sweeter back in the day than she was at that moment. She knew she would have said yes to Noah if he had asked her out, and Rose also felt like she would have liked him and continued dating him. But the past was the past, and she couldn’t change that. Rose had to deal with who was there in front of her and what her options were to continue forward.

  Noah moved in like he was going to kiss her, and she was saved by another knock at the door. But the instant relief over having been saved from the moment was followed by shock that there was someone at her door. The only person it could be was Bronx, and Noah couldn’t see him at her house, and Bronx couldn’t see Noah. She was in serious trouble.

  Chapter 15

  Rose tried to hide the flustered look on her face as she looked from Noah to the door. She certainly couldn’t answer the door when she knew it was Bronx outside, but she couldn’t get Noah out of her apartment without answering the door.

  Bronx wasn’t about to just go away if Rose didn’t answer it. She knew he would stay out there and wait for her, and she would never be able to get Noah out of her apartment. She briefly pondered telling Noah the truth, or some form of it, but then decided she wasn’t ready for him to know that she was sleeping with Bronx. Instead, she had to think of some other way to get one of them out of the picture.

  “How about I wait in the other room so you can get rid of whoever is there?” Noah offered.

  He didn’t wait for Rose to respond and instead strode down the hallway to her bedroom where he went in and closed the door. It was a relief that Noah was so willing to go hide without asking her questions about who was calling. Rose opened her front door and saw Bronx as he stood there ready to pounce. Her plans for a quiet evening at home were totally ruined by the two men in her life, yet she wasn’t going to get the orgasm she desired at all.

  It was funny how she had two men at her house yet was going to end up going to bed sexually frustrated. The man she wanted to have in her bed was going to be sent away, and the man she couldn’t have in her bed was sitting in her room at that moment.

  “Not tonight,” Rose said as she started to shut the door on Bronx.

  “Wait, really? You have someone else here already?” Bronx asked.

  His tough face looked hurt by the realization that Rose really didn’t care about him like he cared about her. Only a day after setting up their little arrangement, Rose already had a man in her bed that wasn’t Bronx. She hated the feeling she had when she looked into his eyes and saw the disappointment in them. But it wasn’t Rose’s fault that Noah had stopped by; she wasn’t sleeping with him, but it would certainly seem that way if Bronx saw Noah coming out of her apartment at that hour. Bronx was just going to have to put up with some hurt feelings.

  “We said we weren’t exclusive,” Rose protested.

  “Yeah, but come on. One day, you couldn’t wait more than one day to bring someone home?”

  “It’s not like that, and you’ll just have to trust me about this. If we are going to do this, you’ll have to be able to trust me. Can we talk tomorrow?”

  Rose looked back toward her bedroom to ensure that Noah was still tucked away in there. She wasn’t going to sleep with him and would much rather have Bronx in there, but unfortunately, there was no way to make that happen for the night.

  “Yeah, we can talk tomorrow,” Bronx said as he turned to leave.

  But before he left, Bronx grabbed Rose and pulled her out into the hallway. His muscular arms pressed her up against the wall, and he leaned his body tight against hers as his lips took hers in. Quickly he pulled her T-shirt down and exposed her breast before he wrapped his lips around her nipple and drew it in hard until she moaned out.

  Rose closed her eyes, her breathing heavy, and let Bronx play with her. Nothing else mattered but the feeling of pleasure that he was giving her. She didn’t care that Noah was in the other room, Rose just needed a release from the tension she felt all over. Bronx was so good at getting her to relax, she couldn’t deny him a little fun if that’s what he wanted.

  Bronx slipped his fingers into her panties and moved them feverishly as her body started to react to him. Rose felt her knees getting weak as she held onto Bronx for support. She grabbed his head and pulled his lips back up to meet hers as his fingers continued to work. Faster and faster, he thrust them into her, and she was just about to release when he withdrew.

  “Keep going,” Rose whispered.

  “Like you said, we can talk tomorrow,” Bronx said as he gave her one last kiss and walked away.

  “Oh, you’re horrible,” Rose hollered after him, smiling.

  He was absolutely atrocious to leave her all worked up like that without anyone around to play with. But it served her right for not being available for him after they had made their arrangement. She hoped he wouldn’t be too upset with her for pushing him away that night, but there really was no other option.

  Rose made her way back into her apartment and shut the door. She checked her hair and made sure everything was covered up before yelling at Noah to come out.

  “You can come out now.” Rose laughed as Noah poked his head out of her bedroom.

  “Is your boyfriend gone?” he joked.

  “Oh, you know me, not a boyfriend. Just an admirer.”

  “I’m an admirer,” Noah said, walking straight from the bedroom to Rose.

  For a minute, she thought that he was going to kiss her, but instead, he stood close to her, much closer than he normally did at the office, and again she felt the sexual surge of desire pounding through her body. It didn’t help that Bronx had just gotten her all worked up and in desperate need of some sort of release. But it was different with Noah, there was a long-standing history between them, and the more Noah pushed for a relationship with her, the more Rose pushed away from him.

  “You and I would never work, and you know it,” Rose said as she took a step back and found herself flush with the front door.

  “How do you know if you don’t give us a try?”

  The sincerit
y in Noah’s remark drove right down to her gut. She should give Noah a chance, and she knew it. He was a good man who knew almost everything about her. Noah knew her before she got married, throughout her marriage, and he knew the terrible mood she had been in since losing her husband. But Noah was one of Rose’s only true friends and now her boss too; there wasn’t room to ruin that relationship. And all Rose did with men was ruin the relationships.

  “Noah, you know me well enough to know that I’m not the right one for you,” Rose said as her hands rested on his forearms.

  Noah’s hands were pressed against the door, holding himself only a few inches away from Rose. The desire in his eyes vibrated throughout her body, and she took in a deep breath of longing. She couldn’t deny that she wanted Noah, especially when he was that close to her. But she had to resist him. Rose didn’t date men, she fucked them, and that would certainly not work for Noah. He wanted the real deal. He wanted all of Rose, and she just wasn’t ready to give her heart to any man yet, not even Noah.

  “That’s where I think you’re wrong. I think you are exactly the right one for me,” Noah said as he leaned in and gently let his lips touch the side of her cheek. “But if you think we shouldn’t take this any further, I’ll honor your request.”

  Noah leaned to the other side of Rose’s face and gently kissed that cheek. Her breath was heavy as she closed her eyes and tried to resist the force that was drawing her in to Noah. Her hands continued to stay clenched on his forearms as Noah moved back to the other side of her face and kissed down her neck.

  “Noah …”Rose said softly as his kisses moved from her ear to her collarbone.

  “Do you want me to stop?” he asked.

  Rose didn’t answer him. She kept her eyes closed as the touch of his lips sent pleasure signals to every nerve in her body. When Noah finished kissing down one side of her neck, he moved to the other side and started to deliver kisses there.