by BJ Harvey
“I’ll make a start on moving the furniture out of your room once I get back,” he says, breaking me out of my thoughts.
“I can help if you want to wait until I’m home?”
His face softens, and I decide it’s my favorite expression of his for today. My new mission is to make him look at me like that over and over again. It’s the same face he used to make when we were together. It was a dead giveaway that I’d done something he liked.
He nods. “That would be great.”
Grinning, I stand and down my drink, walk into the kitchen and almost brush against him as I rinse out my cup and leave it to dry by the sink.
“I better go get dressed so I can hurry back.”
“No rush,” he says warmly. “I might run a few extra miles to compensate for Mom’s cooking.”
I shake my head, laughing quietly. “I’m going to dazzle you with my culinary prowess one day,” I say, arching a brow.
“I look forward to it. My stomach, on the other hand…”
Rolling my eyes, I walk around him toward the hallway door. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure I stock up on Pepto-Bismol just in case.”
“Maybe some adrenaline too? Or electrolytes, in case—”
“Haha, yeah. You think you’re so funny. I’m not that bad at cooking,” I say, flipping him the bird as I leave the room, the sound of his laughter waking up the butterflies in my stomach.
It’s not surprising that I’m still smiling when I slide behind the wheel of Betsy and drive off down the road. Two weeks into what I expected to be an awkward and maybe strained marriage and Bryant continues to surprise me. I’m determined to be the best damn wife he’s ever seen, but his open-mindedness is definitely going to make my task of making it all up to him a hell of a lot easier.
We’ve just got to get through our first family meal as a married couple. Then I’ll worry about tonight.
Four hours later, I’m all moved into Bryant’s room, and my bed and drawers from my makeshift bedroom are up against the wall, ready to be transferred to the brothers’ storage unit tomorrow.
Now to face the firing squad known as the four most important people in our lives—our parents.
Bryant parks his truck on the Cooks’ front grass, the driveway and nearby area filled with other cars. I look around, recognizing Ezra and Delilah’s cars in my parents’ driveway. “Is this an extended family BBQ?”
Bry leans an arm against the steering wheel and shoots me an amused look. “Since when did Mom ever arrange a ‘last-minute’ event?”
Realization hits me like a wrecking ball, my mind quickly running through the possibilities. Then it comes to me. “This is something to do with us, isn’t it?”
“Yep.” He accentuates the P, drawing my attention to his mouth.
“Faith Marie Cook,” he warns, his voice low and rumbly. “You need to stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?” I whisper, in a lust-fueled daze, made worse by the fact he said Cook instead of Baker.
“Like you’re starving, and I’m a tasty snack.” His lips twitch, breaking the spell. My eyes snap to his.
“Stop making me hungry then,” I snap before I can think better of it, taking in his surprised expression and knowing I’ve revealed too much. “Men!” I mutter, quickly opening the door and jumping out.
By the time I reach the bottom of the Cooks’ front steps, Bryant is at my side, my new Saran Wrap-covered salad bowl in one hand, his arm wrapping around my waist and turning me toward him, stopping me in my tracks.
The look he gives me is no longer amused. It’s heated and sexy, and I’m forced to lock my knees so I don’t melt right then and there. He dips his head, his warm breath caressing my sensitive skin. “Suddenly, I’m really looking forward to sharing a room with you tonight.”
I lose myself in those amber bedroom eyes I’ve loved for as long as I can remember. He kisses the tip of my nose, his lips curving up in a mesmerizing, swoon-inducing smile. Then it’s as if a force field lifts and his words—and insinuated assumption—sink in, and I find my forgotten backbone.
I step back, putting my hands to my hips and glaring at him. “Let me tell you something, mister. I’m only sharing a room with you because I have to.”
He quirks a brow, but in for a penny, in for a pound… I narrow my eyes and poke my finger into his hard chest. Part of me wants to flatten my palm against him and slide it down to see whether there are some divots to add to the firm pecs. No, Faith. Eyes on the prize… or at least up to his face again.
I jerk my gaze up to his knowing expression. His hand covers mine, and he steps toward me, crushing my arm between us as he pulls me in hard against him. Our bodies are plastered chest to hip and everywhere in between.
I open my mouth to tell him to move back but freeze when his lips press to the corner of mine.
“I missed this cute crooked dimple of yours,” he murmurs, sending a shiver through me. After dragging his lips along my jaw, he gently rakes his teeth against my sensitive throat. “I really missed that famous Faith Baker surliness, but what I missed more than anything…” He sucks my earlobe between his lips. There’s no stopping the tilt of my head to give him access or the throaty whimper that escapes me. His husky, rumbling chuckle tells me he didn’t miss it. “Really fucking missed you in my bed, babycakes.”
My entire body goes still, but before I can try and retreat, the front door to my new in-laws’ house rattles, and we both turn our heads as if in slow motion to find the smirking mirror image of my husband grinning down at the two of us.
“Guess that answers that question then?” Jax says, making my head jerk back.
“What question?”
“There’s a pool going as to whether you’ve jumped each other’s bones yet.” His smirk widens. “I voted the first night under the same roof.” He waggles his brows. “Was I right?”
My mouth drops open, and I expect Bryant to chastise his brother. Instead, he pulls me tighter against him, throws his head back and bursts out laughing. “Yeah, no, my less-endowed brother. There’s no way I’m going to answer that.”
I let go of the breath I’m holding when Bry’s fingers rub slow calming circles against my back.
Jax shakes his head, his eyes shining in approval. He holds back the patio screen door and sweeps his arm out. “Well unless you want to give the neighbors even more of a Hallmark show, then come inside. Everyone’s out back.”
“Of course they are,” Bry mutters, moving away just far enough to grab my hand and tangle his fingers with mine before leading me up the stairs and into the house. It seems like a lifetime—not just two weeks—since I was last here, my heart in my throat and my future happiness in my hands, wondering what Bryant’s reaction was going to be when he saw me again.
Now, I’m walking through the door, down the hallway and through to the kitchen, the house surprisingly empty.
Jax opens the back door and Bryant—having placed the salad bowl on the counter—steps through first, pulling me close behind him.
Then the entire backyard lights up like a night game at Wrigley Field, and a huge united shout of “congratulations” rings out. In front of us is all of our family and Bryant’s friends, clapping and smiling at us—for us. There’s a massive “just married” banner hanging across the fence between my family’s property and his, with fairy lights swung from every hook and post, bathing the yard in a soft romantic glow that takes my breath away.
But my breath doesn’t come back, and when I try to suck in some much-needed air, there’s no budging the giant lump in my throat. Tears sting my eyes, and I stare at Delilah, watching her expression turn from happiness to confusion to wide-eyed concern.
I try to flee, to turn around and run away—again—but Bryant’s hold doesn’t budge. I meet his eyes with my pleading ones. His brows knit together before his expression softens and he nods.
But instead of letting me go so I can go compose myself, he turns his head and murmurs
something I can’t hear to Jax. Then Jax moves away, Bryant is bending down, and I’m being lifted up, turned, and carried back inside. I let go, burying my face in his neck.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
His arms pull me in even closer. “Give me thirty seconds, babycakes.”
I squeeze my eyes closed, a door creaks, a lock clicks shut, then I’m being laid out on a plush mattress and Bryant stretches out beside me. I thought I wanted to curl up into a ball and die of embarrassment for totally losing it in front of everyone, but as his heat seeps into me, I don’t try to stop my body from curling into him. I rest my cheek on his shoulder, placing my palm over his heart and entwining my legs with his.
His arm snakes around my waist, his hand rubbing up and down my back as I swallow hard and try to compose myself, knowing I’m going to have to say things I’m not ready to verbalize just yet. When my breathing normalizes, he pulls me close and moves his arm between us, cupping my jaw and tilting my face up.
“Want to tell me what just happened?” I lean my cheek into him, wondering how he could know exactly what to do when I don’t have a clue myself. I just need him close right now.
“I freaked out.”
His lips twitch, tipping up slightly. “I think I got that much.”
“I think everyone knows now,” I say quietly, breaking eye contact.
His soft caresses stop, his fingertips pressing in and grabbing my attention. “Look at me.” His voice is soft, not angry or demanding, even though he’s telling me what to do. Normally, I’d push back, but I don’t have it in me.
“Baby, tell me what just happened.”
“I had a panic attack and wanted to run and hide, but you wouldn’t let me, then you swooped in and saved me.” I tilt my head back and look around the room before turning my furrowed brow back to him. “Are we in your old bedroom?”
He nods with a sheepish smile. “I didn’t think. I just wanted to get you alone and somewhere comforting.”
A surprised laugh escapes my lips before they turn up. “We have a lot of history in this room.”
He gently sweeps his fingers through my hair from my temple down to the wavy ends. “Not this bed though,” he says, confusingly.
“Um, yeah we do,” I say in my best ‘duh’ voice. He shakes his head.
“In a bed in this room, sure. In this bed? No. Mom and Dad replaced it as soon as I got my own place.”
I hesitate, wondering whether it’s wise to bring up the past again. “Did you live here… after I…”
He nods. “Yeah, for about six months, then Jax and I got a place together.”
We fall into a comfortable silence, his hand running through the length of my hair. It’s so relaxing. My eyes start to grow heavy.
Bry gives me a little shake. “Uh-uh, Mrs. Cook. We have a surprise party to get back to, once you tell me why you had a panic attack. I can’t hold off the vultures if I don’t have the right food to give them.”
I giggle. “Did you just call our family vultures?”
He shrugs. “If the shoe fits.”
“Vultures don’t wear shoes. They actually…”
Bryant’s eyes narrow, and my words disappear. “Damn zoologist,” he says mockingly, but there’s no malice in it.
“Better than a boring ol’ biologist.”
“And you’re still damn good at avoiding difficult questions.” There’s so much meaning in his words, and I don’t miss the twitch in his jaw and his averted gaze.
I sigh, my shoulders sagging. When I meet his eyes, I watch as they morph from blank and guarded to soft and questioning. There are so many layers to this man, and somewhere along the way, I forgot how much that has always intrigued me.
How I was ever able to walk away from this man? “It just hit me how many years I missed out on.”
With you. I don’t say it, but the flash in his expression tells me I don’t need to. He’s read my inference loud and clear.
He doesn’t say a word. His attention shifts over my shoulder, a myriad of feelings shifting through his eyes. He tenses, his body language a picture of restraint and unspoken emotion. I’ve hit a nerve, and immediately I want to make it right again. Get us back to the somewhat relaxed groove he’d gotten me to by bringing me in here.
“I’m sorry, Bry. I just—”
He rolls me onto my back before lying beside me and pressing his body into mine. A sense of warmth and comfort cloaks me. It’s familiar. It’s home—it’s never been just a place for me. It’s always been him.
This is the most intimate we’ve been since I came back and part of me is cursing the party going on outside and the inability to take this any further. I don’t want to move. I’d stay here with him like this for as long as we could.
With his eyes locked on mine, leaning into me, Bryant drops the mother of all truth bombs. He lifts his hand and sweeps my hair behind my ear. “Right now, nobody is thinking about how many years you were gone. We’re all just thankful to have you back.”
Oh my God. Then, it’s like a switch is flicked and the soft, boyish charm returns. “And I had no clue that the BBQ was actually a surprise party for us, but I didn’t doubt the moms would do something. They gave us our space for the ceremony, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t want to celebrate.”
I frown. “But this isn’t—”
His brows go sky high, and his jaw turns granite. “This isn’t what?”
“A real marriage,” I whisper, immediately regretting the words the second they leave my mouth. Then the tension I feel in his body leeches out of him. In a flash, he moves, hovering over me, his legs framing mine, his weight against me. He braces his arms either side of my shoulders and his hardening cock presses into my stomach.
How on earth can he be aroused during a discussion like this?
Then again, I can’t talk, since my thighs are clenched together so tight I’m barely able to think about my panic attack. The only thing I can think about is whether a grab-and-slam is possible right now.
“Does this feel real to you?” he asks, dipping his face so he’s all I can see. “Every single time, it’s always been real. Every kiss, every laugh, smile, frown, back and forth—all of it, Faith. It’s never been anything but real between you and me.”
My eyes fill with tears, and I sink my teeth into my bottom lip to try and stop myself from crying, but in a moment as honest and raw as this, he deserves to know exactly what I’m thinking.
I scan his face, memorizing everything: every crease and line, every freckle and blemish. All of it beautiful, all of it still able to take my breath away as much as it did the day I broke his heart and fractured my own. I lift my hand and gently cradle his jaw. “How did I ever think I could live without you?”
Intense silence falls between us, the enormity of my confession now out there. He dips down to brush his lips against mine, his eyes never once looking away. “That’s what I intend to show you over and over again until you realize deep inside of your soul that my answer will never change. I never wanted to stop you or change you. All I ever wanted was to be with you, wherever life may have taken us.”
Before I can reply and maybe explain, he slants his head and nips my bottom lip. His hand slides around to settle on the back of my neck, then he jerks me closer for a spine-tingling, mind-numbing, end-of-the-world-and-I-don’t-care kiss. It’s a distraction, a detour from the road we were heading down.
His tongue strokes mine, the smell, taste, feel and vision of him overwhelming me in the best possible way. My body melts into the mattress, his welcomed weight cocooning me. I grab hold of his hair and hold him in place as we continue to kiss like we’re the only two people in the world and we have nowhere else to be and nothing else to do.
Party be damned. There’s one undeniable truth to everything he’s said and everything he’s pouring into this kiss.
Bryant Cook is not playing around. Then again, neither am I. I’m going to eliminate every inch of doubt and hurt I’ve c
aused him.
The way he’s been with me tonight, there’s one thing I’m starting to believe.
Just like me, Bryant just might be in this for keeps.
11
Bryant
We meet Jax in our parents’ kitchen when Faith and I emerge after our talk and subsequent clean-up of Faith’s makeup.
“You good?” he asks, switching his gaze between the two of us. I give him a nod and a silent promise in my stare that I’ll explain later. Then he steps forward, steals Faith from me, and gives her a big hug, murmuring something in her ear that I cannot hear well enough to decipher. Whatever it is, it makes her giggle, and when he finally lets her go, she melts into my side, a wry grin playing on her lips.
I glare at him. “What did you say to my wife?”
His wide smirk makes it hard not to chuckle. Damn twin sense.
“I simply offered my commiserations for marrying you and your underwhelming dick.”
“Hey, at least mine is operational. The reason Ronnie calls you Ken is ’cause your junk is made of plast—”
“Boys…” Faith says, her voice low and husky.
Jax flips me the bird before laughing his way through the door.
Faith and I step back outside, we’re ready for ‘surprise party version two.’
“Surprise!”
“Congratulations”
“Woohoo!” Ez cries, followed by a long whistle.
I lead Faith to the bottom of the stairs, her fingers near on strangling mine. She’s nervous, but there’s a different air about her now. And fuck, if I don’t like that our little chat has obviously helped allay some of her fears.
“Bakes,” Patricia Baker says, rushing towards us and pulling her youngest daughter in for a huge hug. Interestingly, when I try to pull away from her, Faith tightens her grip. If she needs me to be her anchor, then I will be unmovable.