I continue down to her shoulder as I move one hand around the front and seek out her clit throbbing against me. My thumb rubs over her a couple of times before I find the spot that makes her cry out again. I want to make her scream like the first night when she was so far gone, I had her speaking Spanish, but tonight is more about exploring each other instead of our pleasure.
Her hands move up my abdomen and to my chest raking her nails across me as I circle her clit and feel her clench me tighter and tighter. Her lips are pressed into my neck as she comes silently before moaning aloud and panting into higher pitch squeals as I turn her over. Her thigh hitches around my hips and opens her up wider to me. With one hand on her thigh and the other holding her waist down, I drive into her with harder, deeper thrusts.
Cora holds her arms at my biceps and then draws her hands up my arms and around my shoulders as I hold myself up. Her lips are parted, her back arched, and eyes closed as she moans beneath me. I could keep this image in my head forever and never have to look at anything else.
Every inch of my desire for her boils up to the surface and threatens to come exploding over. As I hold her down, I use my free hand to massage her breast and circle her nipple. She lets out a strangled moan as her eyes fly open. I communicate with her through hooded eyes, and she reaches down to rub her clit and come with me.
There isn’t much more left for me and no way for me to hold back. I come with a hard thrust and grunt over her as she clenches around me and shudders with her orgasm as I silence us both by kissing her.
Our tongues dance together, her taste floods with mine, and I kiss her harder at every turn. I slip out of her, and she still holds herself to me, her soft thighs latched around me and her fingers in my hair. I kiss her well beyond not being able to breathe until I collapse next to her with a sigh. I roll over and dispose of the condom before I turn back to her.
Her swollen lips twitch with a smile, and I grin at her.
“Will you stay?” I ask before even thinking.
Cora sighs and moistens her lips as she curls up. It’s hard not to look over her supple, naked body next to me and not react to it, but I manage.
“I have to be at work very early. And I can’t exactly wear what I have on.”
I lean up on my elbow and smirk. “That’s your excuse?”
She giggles and narrows her eyes at me. “What, are you about to tell me your personal assistant will bring something after you guess my size?”
I laugh. “No, but I know that’s not a valid excuse.”
Her frown is short-lived before her face softens a little. “I have to get home to someone. A nosy someone,” she murmurs like I don’t hear her.
“Like a boyfriend or something?”
“You think I would cheat on my boyfriend?” She sits up halfway, and my eyes trail to the sway of her breasts before I smile at her.
“No, but what else could that mean?”
“Nothing. I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“You just don’t want to stay…”
She interrupts me, “No, that’s not it.” She leans across and kisses me once, but I cup her face and deepen the kiss for a few seconds before releasing her.
“I just don’t want to dive into this too fast.”
“I think we’ve already dove.” I chuckle.
She rolls her eyes and shifts up to my side. The tone of her voice feels like she doesn’t trust me or something. I get it, the stereotype about rock stars or musicians is true most of the time, but it doesn’t mean that I’m it.
Not with her.
So, I know what I need to do to prove it to her. It’s just I’ve never thought this much about another person before who isn’t family. I’m wondering why she can’t tell me who she is going home to, why she is still straddling the line between yes and no with me. Maybe she needs to know how serious I am.
“I wrote a song about you.” I absently twist her hair around my fingers. She lifts her head from where it was on my shoulder to look at me.
“Really?”
I laugh. “Yes. It’s a very rough draft, all three of them.”
Her brown eyes widen and catch under the low light of my lamps. “Wow, Brant…”
“Relax, it’s not a marriage proposal. Do you want to hear one?”
Her cheeks flush, and some of the fire leaves her eyes. I can’t decide whether I like the intense look in her eyes more or the softer one where she lets down some of her walls, and the swirl behind her eyes calls to me even more. She’s a mix of the two right now.
“Okay,” she whispers, drawing her bottom lip in as she blinks.
I smirk and get up making the quick walk to one of my music rooms down the hall. My acoustic guitar is good enough for the composition I already have in my head, and I strap it over my chest before heading back.
She laughs as she sees me, and I love the sound of it. She is sitting up in the bed with her arms around her knees smiling at me because I’m sure I look foolish with a guitar on and naked.
“Don’t judge me, I haven’t warmed up yet.” I grin and sit next to her.
My arms brush against her as I tune a little bit and test some notes. I start the small riff and hum into the tune that’s been playing in my head since I met her.
Right now, in this state of mind
If I could be like this all the time
It would be you and me
So guilty of it all we might be a crime
But I’m leaving it all, leaving it all
So much in your eyes all I do is fall
I strum out the rest of the bridge. Usually, I never give a shit what someone has to say about my music. I have always written my own songs and music but seeing Cora’s face makes me nervous. When I take off my guitar and peer at her, she has her ‘I’m pleased’ smile on, and I blow out a breath unaware I was holding.
“You like it? Well, it isn’t finished yet, but I have a little more work to do on it. I need a few more bridges.”
“I do like it… you can get all that from just me?” Her voice is incredulous.
“Yeah.” I chuckle. “You’ve got my creative juices flowing. Among other things.” I lick my lips before smirking, and her cheeks darken again.
“You’ve been playing a long time?”
“Since I was fifteen, about twenty years. But I’ve only been performing for about five.”
“You have a nice voice.” She giggles.
“Never been autotuned.” I puff my chest out, and she laughs at me.
“There are two more?”
I grin and play what I can remember of the other two because I hadn’t written them down yet. After, I play a little bit for her until she starts to nod off against me.
She is set on not staying, so I don’t bother her about it again, but when she decides on a shower, it’s easy to join her and make it take way longer than it should. I can’t get enough of her—her beauty, her body, everything that comes with her and everything I don’t know yet.
I need it all.
12
Cora
The kiss I get from Brant when I leave his house in the wee hours of the morning is as toe-curling as it is confusing. In a perfect world, I would waltz right back into his house and never leave his bed. Especially not when he is singing to me.
That just made shit get really real, really fast. A song about me? I think it’s crazy and never would have imagined it, but there he was singing about me. It’s hard to wrap my head around it, and so I don’t try to. I just let it spin and spin on the way back home hoping Damien hasn’t noticed I left earlier this morning when Brant called. He isn’t a kid anymore, so, of course, I can tell him if I’m dating or something. I just don’t want him subjected to a bunch of men coming around. Not that there are a bunch.
I’ve never met anyone I felt was worthy of meeting Damien not until Brant, and that may be what’s scary. We barely got out of our parents’ drug problems, and while I know Brant is nowhere near that, and from where I sit
seems to be a lot better—it would be too close to home to get so involved like this. I don’t know if he will ever relapse, and how it will affect me. I went through enough with my parents growing up, and I don’t need a replay.
Even still, that isn’t what kept me from staying with him or not wanting things to get serious. I am terrified of this unchartered territory. The way I can’t stop thinking about him, how I feel when he is near me or touches me… it’s scarier than the first time I took the LSAT.
Once I get back home, I collapse on the couch, so I am less inclined to snooze my alarm still wearing the clothes that have Brant’s scent lingering on them. And even after the shower I took, my skin still feels his touch. I suppose it’s redundant since he gave me the best shower sex I’ve ever had. I used to think it was stupid. Not anymore.
“Cora, wake up. Are you drunk?” Damien’s rattling of my arm wakes me up.
My eyes open, groggy and confused. The sun is too bright through the windows, and so I shield my eyes and sit up.
“You look trashed, sis.” Damien sits at the table, already in his khaki pants and polo uniform, and hands me a glass of water.
“I’m not.” I swallow down the water in a few gulps. “What time is it?”
“Seven.”
I groan. He starts school in forty-five minutes, but I have two hours to get to the office.
“Thanks… did you eat?” I ask him.
“Sort of. Pop-Tarts.”
I snort at him. “That isn’t real food.” I rub my eyes and yawn as I stretch out.
“I’m grabbing breakfast with Jude at school… why are your tits out?” He laughs, and I stare down mortified as I cover myself.
“They’re not.”
“What did you do last night? I heard you leave late.”
I groan again and stand up. I’m too old for odd sleep schedules. Or to be sleeping on the couch.
“I had to go help a client. Secret business.” I start the coffee pot before I head into my room.
He calls after me, “I don’t believe you.”
I get my life together and get dressed for work. Laundry needs to be done, so I’m forced to wear a dress which I don’t usually do. Its different colors in abstract shapes confuses even me wearing it. My most basic pair of heels complete the last-minute look, plus my hair is in a bun because honestly, it’s so tangled.
Brant texts me as I drive, and I ignore it, but Damien turns the music down and peers over at me.
“What?” I sigh. He likes to stew in his questions and annoy me, to see how much I’m going to give away.
“Nothing. You look different. That’s all.”
“How do I look different?” I look down at myself. Besides the colorful dress, I look the same.
“I don’t know. Like your itch has been scratched.”
I gasp and swat at him. “You can’t say that to me!”
“What? You ask me about my sex life all the time.”
I scoff, “Because I’m your elder, and I’m allowed to. Plus, you don’t have one. You better not have one.” I pinch him playfully, and he does the same to me. I end up getting the horn because I’m not paying attention to a green light.
“I’ve just met someone, but it’s not serious.”
“The musician you swore off? He’s the one who needed help?”
I nod in answer.
“Let me guess, he was drunk at a party and needed bail?”
I frown and turn at how generic that sounds. Brant was drunk but sobered up by the time I got there. Everyone is allowed to let loose and have fun, they only get judged if it goes bad. Just because they fit the bill like I do sometimes, and because I can have a fiery attitude on occasion, I fit the stereotype of Latinas.
A sigh of regret leaves me. “Yeah. But it wasn’t that bad, I don’t think. At least he was honest.”
Damien laughs as he sifts through his bag. “It isn’t about him being honest, but that’s a plus. He likes you?”
A smile plays at my lips as I try to keep a goofy grin at bay, but Damien catches on and coaxes it out of me.
“Yeah. I like him, too, but I can’t go all in with him.”
“Well, don’t judge him.”
“I’m not.” I raise my voice, surprised my kid brother is a little smarter than I thought. “I’m just not jumping at the opportunity to possibly get hurt.”
“Then I guess you’ll be alone forever. I don’t mind being your pseudo kid, but I know you want some of your own. A real relationship. Take some risks, sis.”
We get to the front of the school, and it’s time for him to get out.
“I’ll see you later, bro. I’ll make dinner.” I half smile at him.
He stares at me, deadpans, and shakes his head dramatically. I roll my eyes and laugh him out of the car. But I did hear him. I do want those things, and I want to know why it seems so possible to have it with Brant.
On the long line out, I check the text he sent me.
Brant: Let’s have dinner tonight. I’ll pick you up at seven.
Cora: You don’t have my address.
I giggle once and pull out of the lot.
The drive to work is fast on the highway. I get coffee from the lounge to drink over my usual morning email check. I don’t currently have pressing issues with clients, just maintenance. Except I remember that Brant is my client now, and his arrest might be a problem. This is what I hate, having to talk to him about it and somehow glaze over it later on if we’re together. He texts me back.
Brant: I see you’ve got your rest.
Cora: A lot of it. We actually need to talk, Brant.
Brant: About work?
Cora: Yes.
I chew my lip nervously and swivel in my chair. The coffee buzzing in my veins makes me even more jittery as he doesn’t respond. I don’t think he would ignore me. I’m proven right when he calls me instead.
“Hello?”
“What’s so important you didn’t answer my dinner date?”
I smile and let out a strained laugh. “I have pressing matters here in grown-up land.”
“Oh, I see, singing isn’t a grown-up thing?”
“No.” I laugh.
“Not even last night when I serenaded you right into the shower?”
I laugh way too loud for work and compose myself.
“Brant, I’m serious.”
He does something in the background, and then I hear his voice echo. “Okay, I’m listening.”
I clear my throat and push through the awkwardness. It’s never like this with other clients. I tell it like it is—tell them they might go to jail or might be blacklisted for the rest of their career. But I never care about their reaction, only about how it will affect the agency.
“Your arrest could be a matter of public record. I need to plan for any damage control if it gets out. Lawsuits, class actions, people like to hit musicians hard. Were you with anyone that would talk?” I ask. I know it hasn’t gotten out yet, but it could always turn up.
Brant kind of groans in the background, and I imagine him letting this just roll off his shoulders.
“I was with someone, but I doubt he would say anything. He was too wasted and hammered to know what happened. I don’t even know where he is.”
“Who was it?” I ask, knowing I can find out.
“Jackson Brown.”
I find him on a generic site and quickly scan his record. Surprisingly, it’s short. But I get to what is important and see no arrests, ever. So not last night either.
“Well, he didn’t get arrested. What’s your connection with him?”
He half snorts and laughs. “I guess he was my old dealer. We were never really friends.”
I swallow back old memories—shitty ones of my parents and their dealers, or their connections to the right clubs and parties that ended up back at the house if a half trailer is even a house. I have to tell myself that Brant isn’t the same. That he… not to judge him.
“Okay. I don’t think he
will say anything. But your manager, Rick—”
“Shit, don’t say anything to him. Please?”
“Who is also my boss,” I finish the sentence.
The thing about Rick is he owns the agency. I’m just an employee in Legal. He only takes on the agency’s biggest clients which are Brant and some pop singer I haven’t even encountered, so she must be squeaky clean. Keeping shit from him is asking for a performance review that will end badly. The first thing I’m told by Human Resources is not to get involved with the clients. Yeah, I met Brant before this, but going in deeper and not only that but lying to my boss is asking for a shitstorm.
So why am I even considering it?
“Fuck. I forgot about that.”
“I haven’t.”
“So that’s why you… Cora, I know you can tell me no. But I’m just asking you to consider it. I know Rick, he’s all talk. Except when it comes to me.”
I scoff. “Oh really?”
“Yeah. His best performer income wise. I put his agency on the map. And so if I get into bad shit, it rains down on him. If he finds out about this, he’ll start digging, and the only person who knows is my assistant, Julie. It won’t take long before he decides to throw me in rehab until the next tour.”
“But, I thought you got clean.”
“I have. And I’ve stayed clean. But Rick doesn’t take risks. Right now, I’m one of them.”
I sigh and close my eyes wondering how the hell I got here. I hear Brant on the other end and get a break from his sexy, deep voice.
“I’m asking you as… whatever we are. I’ll tell him later on, but just for now, can we keep it between us?”
I bite my lip and think about a million other things I would rather have between us, but that’s what got me into this position. My instinct, my gut feeling that has gotten me through my entire life tells me not to do this, but just recently, my heart has started rearing its head into conversations it has no business in.
“Yeah. Okay. Fine.”
I feel him smiling on the other end, and it makes me smile despite how insane this is.
“Cora, you’re golden.”
“I don’t feel right about it, but just for now…”
Wilde About Brant - The Brothers Wilde Series Book Two Page 9