He groaned as his eyes almost rolled back into his head. His mouth watered. “God, woman, you’re killing me here. How do you expect me to get these back to the office without digging in on the way there?”
Fancy giggled. “I’m sure you’ll survive. Thanks for taking care of my car. What do I owe you for the tires?”
When he stayed silent and shook his head, she narrowed her eyes at him. Her fists went to her hips in annoyed defiance. “Oh, no, Brody. No way. You wouldn’t let me pay for the security system, but you’re not getting away with that for my tires.” She held out a hand, palm up. “I want to see the bill for them so I can reimburse you.”
He gave her a sheepish grin. “I lost it.”
Crossing her arms and cocking her hip, she frowned. “You lost it? You expect me to believe that?”
“I was kind of hoping you would.” Before she could respond, he quickly continued. “Tell you what, you can pay me in food. They cost about as much as a home-cooked steak dinner with baked potatoes, asparagus, and something for dessert.” He gave her the boyish, “aw-shucks” expression which usually had women falling at his feet.
“They did, huh?” Yeah, she didn’t believe that for a minute, but it was still worth a shot.
“Yup. What do you say? You can cook at my place since we’ve only had one date so far, which means I’m not allowed in your place yet. And I’ll even be your sous chef and help cook.”
She hesitated, thinking it over, but when the corners of her mouth began to turn upward into a smile, he knew it was a done deal. Leaning over, he placed a chaste kiss on her forehead. “That’ll have to do for now, but later, I’m going to kiss your lips for as long as you’ll let me.”
Turning on his heel, he left her gaping at him as he sauntered out the door. Over his shoulder, he added, “See you at six, Fancy-girl.”
Chapter 8
Biting her bottom lip, Fancy trailed behind Brody as he led the way to the front door of his house. She was so nervous about tonight but also excited. The more she got to know the man, the brighter her world was becoming, and, damn it, it was about time. Existing under a shroud of grief over the loss of her husband was expected, but after three years, she was ready to return to the land of the living. Patrick wouldn’t want her to be alone, mourning him for the rest of her life, and now that she’d met someone who made her laugh and smile so often, she didn’t want to be alone anymore either.
After Brody had left earlier, she’d begun to look forward to this evening in earnest. She’d checked to be sure her staff had everything under control, then made a beeline to the gourmet grocery store up the street. While a little more expensive than her usual supermarket, she found the quality of meat and other fresh food was worth the extra cost. She’d picked out two juicy T-bone steaks, baking potatoes, fresh asparagus, and a beef seasoning rub the butcher had recommended, along with the fixings for a salad. Then she’d returned to the bakery and set about making a strawberry shortcake. Now, Brody was carrying the bags from the store while she had the box with their dessert in it. He’d begged for a peek when he’d seen the large, white, cardboard box, but she’d told him he’d have to wait until after dinner for the surprise.
She’d followed him in her car to his house, which was located in a nice, quiet neighborhood. The landscaping was well-maintained, and it reminded her of the house she and Patrick had owned. Shaking her head, she brought her mind back to the present. As Brody unlocked the front door, she said, “Your house is beautiful. Have you lived here long?”
He pushed the door open and indicated with a tilt of his head that she should go in before him. “About a year and a half now. Angie owns the white house next door. When I first moved in, she was living there, and that’s how she and Ian met.”
“Sounds like it was meant to be.”
Chuckling, he headed toward the large eat-in kitchen. “A little divine intervention, huh? Well, despite a few bumps in the road, in the beginning, Boss-man has definitely met his match. When Ang moved in with him, she rented the house to a young couple with four-year-old twin girls. They’re too cute—they call me Mista Brophy.” She laughed as he set the bags on a granite covered island. “Now, what can I do to help?”
“Um. . .well, first, do you have an outdoor grill or am I using the broiler?”
His eyebrows shot up. “I’m a guy. What do you think? I’ll go light the grill.” He pointed to a drawer next to the stove. “Aluminum foil is in there for the potatoes, and pots and pans are below that for however you’re preparing the asparagus. I’ll be right back.”
As he passed through the large family room, she watched him through the half wall cut-out separating it from the kitchen. He grabbed the TV remote and turned on one of the music channels. Tim McGraw’s voice filled the air. When he opened the sliding door to the patio, Fancy glanced around and began opening drawers and cabinets looking for bowls, plates, utensils, and anything else she needed to prepare their dinner. Brody returned moments later and after washing the cucumbers and tomatoes she’d brought, he pulled out a cutting board, then grabbed a knife and start slicing them.
They worked in comfortable silence for a bit, then he suddenly smacked his forehead. “I’m sorry. Here you are slaving over dinner, and I didn’t even offer you something to drink. Forgive me?”
She smiled at him. “Nothing to forgive. I'm all right.”
“I’ve got beer, wine, soda, sweet iced tea, and water. What can I get you, Fancy-girl?”
Needing something to calm the butterflies which suddenly took flight in her stomach at his endearment, she answered, “Wine would be great. A red if you have it.”
“Is Merlot okay?”
Nodding, she rubbed the spices into the steaks. “Perfect. Thanks.”
He set about selecting a bottle from a nearby wine rack and opened it with a corkscrew before pouring two glasses. Fancy was surprised, expecting him to have a beer or something else. At her curious expression, he chuckled. “Yes, I like the occasional glass of wine. I do have a few refined moments every now and then.” He placed her wine in front of her. “So, tell me about Patrick. How did you two meet? I think you said something about him working at your aunt’s bakery.”
Stunned, she gaped at him. “You-you want to know about my husband? Why?”
Reaching over, he grabbed her hand, ignoring the fact her fingers were covered in the rub, and pulled it closer to him. His thumb brushed the skin of her wrist a few times. “Darlin’, I want to know everything about you. Patrick was a huge part of your life, and your relationship and his death helped mold you into the woman you are today. The woman I am very attracted to. If you don’t want to talk about him right now, I’ll understand, but don’t not talk about him because you think it would bother me, because it won’t.”
He’d just wormed his way further into her heart with that little speech. There were very few people to whom she could talk to about Patrick and her loss. Her friends from back then didn’t know what to say to her after she’d emerged from her coma, only to be plunged into a state of grief that had resulted in her being hospitalized again. She’d lost touch with most of them since then. And his parents wouldn’t talk to anyone about the loss of their son. Her family didn’t bring him up either, and several of them, including her cousin Kerry, had been pushing her to move on since a few months after the accident. Corey, Aunt Denise, and Fancy’s best friend Suzanne, who lived in Ohio, were the only three people who still talked about Patrick. Everyone else had let him fade away into oblivion as if he’d never existed.
She gently tugged her hand from his grasp. Taking a sip of her wine, she swallowed the sweet and pleasant liquid. He had exquisite taste in wine, she thought. “Okay. . .um. . .well, yes, we met at my aunt’s bakery. He was going to the community college for business administration, and I was there for my liberal arts degree, but we’d never run into each other before we started working together. He and Corey were the only two children their parents had, and they were devastated whe
n they lost him.”
“Understandable. Where did you go on your first date?”
She raised an eyebrow at him, but his expression told her he was really interested in hearing all about Patrick. “A movie. The Rocky Horror Picture Show to be exact.”
“‘Time Warp’ fans. Awesome. I love practically everything Tim Curry was ever in, but Rocky Horror was his best.”
“I agree.” A grin spread across her face. “It was a midnight showing, and we brought all the props with us. You know, newspapers, water pistols, rice, toilet paper, the works.”
He laughed. “Oh, yeah. I remember all that. In high school, my friends and I must have seen that movie a dozen times our senior year. We brought everything too.”
Grabbing the potatoes she’d wrapped in foil and pierced with a fork, he said, “Hold that thought. Let me throw these on the grill since they’ll take a while.”
While waiting for him to return, she washed the rub from her hands and realized everything else was set for when the steaks went on. The asparagus she’d cleaned was ready to be seared in a splash of olive oil and garlic in a pan on the stove. The salad was all prepared, too, so she picked up both glasses of wine and strolled out to the family room just as Brody was coming back in the sliding door. “Everything else was ready, so I thought we could sit while the potatoes are cooking.”
“That’s fine. It’s too muggy outside to be comfortable tonight so we can eat in the dining room instead. It doesn’t get much use with just me in the house.”
Handing him his glass, she sat at one end of the brown leather couch and got comfortable as he sat in the middle, turning his body to face her. Martina McBride’s sultry voice came over the speakers. “So tell me about Texas. I hear it’s hot and flat.”
“Definitely hot and flat, but aside from the occasional tornadoes, it was a great place to grow up.”
“Do your brothers and sisters still live there or have they scattered around?” She couldn’t imagine growing up with five siblings under one roof.
Brody took a sip of his wine, then placed the glass on the coffee table. “They’re all still in the same vicinity, within forty minutes of each other. My oldest brother Brett was the only other one of us to leave at all. He served in the Marines for four years and is now a cop in Dallas, but lives in the suburbs near our folks. Everyone else went to college nearby and stuck close to home.”
“You never thought about moving back there?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, I’ve thought about it. But I love my job and the family I have at Trident, too. I visit Texas several times a year, so it’s kind of like having the best of both worlds. What about you? Ever think about moving back to Ohio?”
“Not really.” Fancy shook her head. “A lot of my friends from back then have moved on, and there’s not much for me up there besides my aunt. I think if Corey weren't down here, I would have considered it after Patrick died. But I love my shop and the people who work for me, and I love being close to the Gulf and the beach. I kind of feel like I was always supposed to be a Floridian, who just happened to grow up in Ohio.”
“Yeah, that’s something a lot of people down here say if they grew up somewhere else. My buddy Marco is like that, having grown up on Staten Island.” He paused and seemed to weigh his next words. “What, uh—what happened that day? When you—?”
“The day Patrick was killed?”
His eyes filled with compassion as he nodded. Suddenly Fancy felt a strength she hadn’t felt in a long time with someone. She couldn’t deny her attraction to him any longer, and if they were going to date, then he had the right to know about what she’d gone through. “We—” She cleared her throat. “I wasn’t even supposed to be with him. We had been talking about starting a bakery but hadn’t done it yet, figuring it would be a few more years before we could afford to try it. Patrick was working in the sponsorship department of WRBQ radio station, and I had a job in the cafeteria at St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital.”
“Making desserts?”
She grinned. “Yes. My cartoon character cookies were a big hit there.”
“I’m sure. By the way, Marco’s daughter, Mara, loves the PAW Patrol cartoon. Can you make any of those characters for her?”
“Absolutely—I’ll do some next time I make them—I’ll even send some for your little fan club next door.” He chuckled, and she took another sip of wine. “Anyway. Like I started to say, I wasn’t even supposed to be in the car with Patrick that morning, but my car wouldn’t start—I’d left the interior light on all night by accident, and the battery was dead the next morning. Patrick was running late, and it was faster for him to drop me off near the hospital instead of trying to jump the battery. The last thing I remember, we were getting off the exit to the hospital. Then everything is blank until I woke up in the ICU six weeks later. I never had the courage to look at the pictures or video of the accident Corey told me were online, but from what I know, the brakes failed, and we went through a red light. A truck T-boned us on the driver’s side and. . .and Patrick was. . .”
She hadn’t realized she’d started crying until a sob escaped her and Brody cupped her cheeks in his big hands, brushing away her tears with his thumbs. “It’s okay, sweetness. Come here.”
He pulled her into his strong embrace and held her as she cried. There was more she needed to tell him, but she couldn’t right now—it was too much. This was the first time she’d ever told the story to someone who she hadn’t known back when it happened. Her head rested on his shoulder as his hands rubbed up and down her back. He was murmuring words of reassurance and understanding. When her sobs eased, he pulled back so he could see her face, and her cheeks reddened in embarrassment. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Shhh. It’s fine. I think you needed that.”
She nodded. She had needed that. It had been a long time since she’d relived what she knew had happened the morning her world had shattered. “Still. This wasn’t what you expected when you asked me out.”
Grinning, he wiped the last of the tears from her face. “You’ll find I’m an easygoing guy, Fancy. I go with the flow. I don’t freak out when a woman cries. I just hold her until she’s done, and then do what I can to make her smile again.”
And a little bit more of Fancy’s heart opened to him.
* * *
Agony wrenched Heather awake. Tied face down on the mattress, her body was on fire from head to toe, but all she had the strength to do was moan. It didn’t matter, though, because the ball gag was back in her mouth preventing her from screaming in pain. But she’d screamed earlier—for him, the bastard.
He’d tied her to a St. Andrew’s cross on the other side of the windowless concrete room and then taken a bullwhip to her body. She’d never experienced it before—it was on her hard limits—but she’d seen Whip Masters and Doms at the clubs wield them with expertise, which made the whips sing. They never broke a submissive’s skin. She’d even seen him whip a sub before—but never like this. She couldn’t see her back, torso, or legs, but her arms bore the same slash marks she knew covered the rest of her. Dark blood still oozed from the deep lashes. She didn’t think there was an inch of her body that hadn’t been licked by the leather implement from Hell.
She’d tried not to scream, not to give him the satisfaction, but it had been impossible as he’d cracked the whip over and over again. She’d screeched her throat raw and, when she could no longer make a sound, she’d passed out. Now, she was alone and didn’t know which was worse—being alone or wondering what would happen if and when he returned. Never in her life had she wished for death, but as she plunged back into the painful abyss, her last thought was praying she would never wake up again.
Chapter 9
Drying the sauté pan Fancy had made the asparagus in, Brody placed it back in the lower cabinet. Giving the rest of the kitchen a quick glance, he made sure everything else was clean and in its place. After she’d pulled herself together earlier, Brody had inten
tionally switched the conversation back to safer, less upsetting topics. He felt there was more to the story about the accident than she’d told him, but he thought it was best to save it for another time. There was something about this woman which sent all his Dom and alpha male instincts rising, to not only protect her but to make her his. Eventually, he would know everything he possibly could about his Fancy-girl, but that also meant he would have to open up and reveal a few things about himself he’d kept hidden up until now—namely that he was a Dom.
He'd been a dominant in the BDSM lifestyle for so long now he wasn’t sure he could do without it being a part of his life. While he had no problem dabbling in the vanilla world every now and then, any long term relationship would have to include a D/s factor. How Fancy would respond to that, he wasn’t sure. But tonight wasn’t the night to divulge that information. He wanted her to be invested in their relationship before he came clean about that, because hopefully then she wouldn’t go running into the night. He prayed she would at least be open-minded enough to give it a try. She was a natural submissive, despite her outer strength, and the combination had him craving her more and more each day.
“Brody?”
He hadn’t realized he’d been standing there doing nothing until she called his name. Shaking his head, he cleared his mind and focused on her beautiful face. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“I asked if you wanted dessert now or if you wanted to wait.”
A grin spread across his face. If the woman only knew what he wanted for dessert—and it wasn’t what was in the box, but he’d settle for that now. “We can have it now. Do you like flavored or plain coffee? I have both for the Keurig. And decaf if you want.”
“Mmm. French vanilla or hazelnut if you have it. And caffeine doesn’t usually bother me at night, so regular is fine.”
He stepped over to the counter where he had a rack of coffee pods for the machine. Selecting a vanilla/hazelnut mix, he popped the pod in the slot and waited for the light on the brew button to turn green. “Maybe that’s why you’re having bouts of insomnia.” He glanced over his shoulder at her and then did a double take, as his mouth watered. “Oh my God, woman! Is that strawberry shortcake?”
Tickle His Fancy: Trident Security Book 6 (Trident Security Series) Page 9