“Say again?” Her face looked a bit like his English language learners did when deciphering a word or phrase.
Speaking slowly, he said, “A leap of faith. With me.” Lifting her hand to his mouth, he kissed the top then turned it over and stroked her open palm and fingers with his free hand. Placing a second kiss in the heart of her palm, he speared the wide-eyed woman gazing at him slack-jawed with what he hoped was a masterful look. “I want you to come with me.”
“Where?”
Her fog of confusion made him want to laugh. “Arizona. I want you to get in this car with me when the term ends and drive cross-country. I’ve been talking to the others. We feel the organization needs an experienced counselor. One with PTSD knowledge for a new initiative. We’re expanding, you see, and …”
“Hold on, hold on. What? What’s expanding? Drive cross-country? PTSD counselor? WHAT?”
Despite raising her voice to a near shriek, she didn’t say ‘no’ so that was good. “Easy,” he replied with a deep growl. She calmed but looked deeply skeptical. And confused. “Yeah, so Justice is going through a top-to-bottom expansion. New facilities, programs, staff, direction. We have plans to develop an outreach for the local veteran’s community. Meghan thinks a licensed social worker could work out what would be needed and um, I knew you were starting to hate your job, so I kind of mentioned that I might know someone.”
“You told this Meghan person about me?”
Goddamn, he wished he could push rewind and listen to the black ice in her question again and again. A little reminder that the lady had a backbone.
Every single goddamn time that Alex looked like he wanted to throttle him over an exaggerated case of territorial possessiveness fired up in his mind. Heather’s tone was a lot like the Major’s. How fucking funny. Alex was jealous of him, and Heather was jealous of Meghan. And for no damn reason. What a perfect world.
“You’re being awfully presumptuous,” she snipped in a pithy voice. He liked pithy too. Reminded him of Victoria. Heather was going to fit in just fine.
“No. Not at all. You’ve said a bunch of times that you got into social work to effect change. Not babysit a bunch of self-entitled kids with helicopter parents who make everything practically impossible.”
She was glaring at him. Hehe. Don’t like having your own arguments used against you, huh? “And no, I didn’t tell her about you. Not like you mean.”
Holy fuck but she gave the whole farm away when she blurted out, “Why not?” Hmph. She really was without defenses.
“When there’s something to tell, something you’re on board with, then I’ll have plenty to say. But this isn’t about Meghan. This is about you and me. Us. And a once-in-a-lifetime chance to redefine how we see the future.”
“And this future. How exactly do you see it?”
Good for her. She was still hanging in there.
The whole time this back and forth took place, he was stroking her open palm. He felt her pulse pick up and raised her hand for another kiss. Only this time right on the most sensitive part of her wrist. He discovered during their ill-fated New Year’s Eve romp that she had erogenous zones out the wazoo. He wasn’t at all disappointed when the soft press of his lips made her quiver.
“Something is happening between us. Don’t pretend you don’t feel it too. Something that makes us better and stronger when we’re together. I can’t turn my back on that. Not even for a new life.”
Took her a minute but she got his meaning. The way her gaze snapped to his made his dick turn to stone. Shame he couldn’t act on what his libido urged. Not yet.
“But you know,” he continued. “Shit happens for a reason. Right?”
“Sometimes,” she croaked. The dilated pupils and the lip licking were sending potent signals to his animal nature. Stuff that was hard to ignore.
“Everything you’ve said, everything I’ve seen firsthand tells me you’re at a crossroads. I want to explore what we already know we have. Isn’t a whole new life the best way to go about it?”
“But I’ve told you. No kids with me. That’s a dead end.”
And there we have it, folks. The only argument she had left.
“Which, by the way, has nothing to do with this,” he snarled. “And besides, that whole kid thing didn’t work out so well for me the first time.”
She snatched her hands away and jumped so high it’s a wonder she didn’t smack her head. “You have a child?”
“Once upon a time,” he murmured. “Once upon a time.”
“What happened?” She sounded horrified. He knew how she felt.
“Don’t actually know. Baby mama sent a fuck-you letter while I was gone, and by the time I got back, she’d vanished into thin air. Kid and all. Not one word since and that was years ago.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Yeah, well … since we’re throwing down all our truth cards, I thought you should know. We’re both majorly fucked up where the kid thing is concerned, I’ll give you that. But I’m not gonna sit around and let my future get blown away by something I have no control over.”
They sat in complete silence for a long time. He thought about everything she said, especially the being afraid thing. That revelation explained a lot. Like why she’d always been so aggressive in the bedroom. Bravado. All of it. Now, he understood the reason she’d been receptive but hesitant when he’d initiated power play in their dynamic. Fascinating.
“Wow,” she eventually muttered.
It started snowing lightly. Not a storm. More like an afternoon snow shower. He studied the swirl of white flakes drifting in the air. The slightest change in the direction of the wind made the dancing flakes shift and sway in the long, slow fall. It reminded Brody of him and Heather. Their lives had been clobbered by some fucked-up shit, but all that hardship, combined with the will to survive and keep moving, was not so unlike the snowflakes. Beautiful in its own way. Damage and all.
“I feel like I should say something wise and supportive, but first, one more thing.”
He shifted in his seat and slumped against the car door, facing her head-on. “Balls. One more thing doesn’t sound like fun.”
She smirked, but her expression was serious as a heart attack.
“Shush and listen,” she chided. “This is important.”
“Well, you have the floor.”
“I tried to say this before but made a mess of it, so here goes.”
Her eyes were clear and her mouth never looked more kissable when she turned her full attention squarely on him.
“I’m more sorry than I could ever say for slapping you. I have NEVER done anything like that before … and there is no excuse for my behavior.”
“Honey.” He chuckled. “Sometimes us guys need a good slap. It’s not like you did any damage, and …”
“Oh, god. That doesn’t matter. I lost my shit and let my emotions get ugly.” He was surprised when a full-body shudder moved through her. He understood why she was being hard on herself, but he knew a little something about holding one’s self up to an impossible standard. Most people didn’t go through life with a kill count in their heads. It’d taken a long time for him to find a place inside where what he’d done wasn’t who he was. Convoluted, yeah. But it worked for him.
They were staring at each other across the front seat with the console stuck between. Maybe having a serious conversation in the car wasn’t such a shitty idea after all. Here, it really was just the two of them. No distractions, no interference, and no room to run away.
“You’re an intuitive and caring person, Heather Clarke. I’ve seen how you are with the people who come to you for help. But the thing I admire most is the way you view personal responsibility as more than a suggestion. Others yammer about being accountable for their actions without actually owning up.” Seeing her face shine made him feel ten feet tall.
“You can’t grow without owning who you are and knowing what you stand for.”
She was r
ight on. He nodded. “But you’ve got a wrinkle in that owning, honey. A bit of a blip.”
“How so?”
With her emotions running close to the surface, Brody chose his response carefully. Bottom line, he was a guy with zero experience in these matters, so there was a distinct possibility that he’d put his foot in it. But he really didn’t want to fuck this up. “Where does it say emotions never turn ugly? You were having a moment, got pissed off, and reacted when I pushed your buttons.”
“That’s no excuse for physical violence.”
“No offense or anything but you and I have entirely different views on what physical violence entails.”
Her expression hardened. That wasn’t what she wanted to hear.
“Here’s the thing, hon. Just because some dickhead punched your lights out doesn’t mean you're sentenced to a life of never being mad. Or feeling anger, or reacting with … passion. I know you think smacking the smug off my face was an unforgivable act of aggression, but I was glad you did it.”
He took her dubious half-smirk as something of a challenge.
“Showed me you weren’t hiding anymore. Admit it. Those raw emotions felt good. Okay, maybe not the slap. I can see why that’d bother you. But wasn’t some part of you relieved knowing you could actually still feel?”
“You pay too much attention to my counselor spiel. Wasn’t that speech a page right out of my workbook?”
Well, whaddya know? She was making a funny. Fan-fucking-tastic. Changing tactic, Brody sat forward and angled till the dashboard clock appeared then announced, “It’s half past five, which means you need a thorough kissing.”
“Oh!”
He chuckled when she bolted upright with a happy gleam in her eyes. “There’s going to be kissing?” She licked her lips. “I can do kissing,” she assured him.
“Cool.” He smiled with a nod. “Lady’s choice. How do you want to be kissed?”
Her expression was really funny. He’d thrown her with the question. She had a lot to learn. Taking away the emotional bluff of being the aggressor meant Heather was about to get an immersion course in quid pro quo. It was his turn to take the lead.
“I dunno,” she scoffed. “Kissing is kissing.”
Challenge accepted! “I beg to differ.” With a chuckle, he winked and added, “Hey, it’s sweet that I know that term, right? Beg to differ? Sounds better than saying you’re full of shit.”
“Watch it, mister. You’re treading on thin ice.”
He had at least fifty things at the ready to say, but only one seemed important. “I like this. Talking. Why were we so stupid for so long?”
“I think for me it was part of being afraid.”
“Come here,” he growled. “Let me show you there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
She dove across the console and threw herself at him so fast he barely reacted in time. They’d play out the ‘how do you like’ game another time. Right now, he just wanted to kiss her until they combusted. And they could too. The amount of heat they generated once they’d peeled all the baloney away could be sold back to the electric company.
The kiss started out frantic. It’d been weeks, and he was desperate for the taste of her. So desperate that he demanded she surrender, and when she did, he went deep. This was kissing the way it was meant to be.
As the edge wore off and he was a lot less urgent in his handling of her, the kiss gentled. It was still deep. And wet. And hella slow but not as furious.
That they weren’t wedged permanently between the console and the steering wheel was a miracle, yet somehow they managed to climb into a serious clinch. She felt so good in his arms. Now that they’d cleared the air and there was a glimmer of hope, he really let himself feel … experience the rightness of being with this one woman.
Getting out of that big ass vehicle and making it to her little sedan was harder than Heather imagined it would be. She halfway expected Brody to press his advantage with a full-on seduction, but he held back. Realizing that nothing was going to happen threw her off. She wasn’t used to this.
Wryly deciding at some point over the last weeks that she was now a card-carrying performer in the Cirque du Fuck My Life, she’d forced herself just to let whatever was going to happen … happen. Seriously. What the hell choice did she have? Feeling like an emotional newborn, the nonstop barrage coming at her was impossible to deflect. Eventually, you learn just to go with it.
But then something that shook her confidence would happen and the struggle got real. When he shifted gears and pulled back, she didn’t have a single rational thought in her brain. And absolutely no space between drowning with desire one second and wondering if he didn’t want her anymore in the next. There was nothing in between – just a complete mood swing.
Her therapist warned her about these things. The fear and anxiety she faced came with deep roots. The slow destruction of identity, a sort of fractured self-concept abuse victims suffered through, was tough to come back from. She’d relied on bluster, balls, and bravado to manufacture a false world where she and only she called the shots. But smoke and mirrors eventually lost their power. She truly felt naked and vulnerable. But through the shattered bits, she found glimpses of who she was before the bad shit happened. That was encouraging.
At the car, he turned her to face him and pressed her against the cold metal. All her nerve endings were firing, and she was having a hard time breathing. I need this man, she thought. Admitting her feelings, though, only made the crushing vulnerability seem worse.
“Don’t overthink, Heather.”
Ah, god. He was using that ‘I’m the boss’ tone. Hearing it made her tingly all over. Was it there all along and she’d just never noticed? And how come she wanted him to take all that newly-discovered alpha-ness and just … Unf. What? Take her the way she’d taken him? Turnabout was fair play, after all.
She met his gaze when he growled her name. Don’t overthink? Good grief. Who was he kidding? And she didn’t doubt there was a glimmer of defiance in her expression. Reflex. His smirk was the wild card. It was as if he was keyed into her thoughts.
“I gave you an order.” The teasing demand was enough to shut down all extraneous sound.
Pursing her lips together, she answered with an arched brow. “Did you just say you gave me an order?”
Brody chuckled and surged against her. It was thrilling to feel his excitement press into her body. “I did. Would it be easier for you to obey if I wrote it on a sticky note?”
Oh no, he didn’t! Heather burst out laughing. “Obey? Demand? Who are you, and what have I gotten myself into?”
“Women. Dogs.” He shrugged and pulled a comical face. “Firm hand is all they need.”
She swatted him on the chest. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Jensen. I am not a dog!”
All her fears that he didn’t want her dissolved like sugar in hot tea when he reached for her ass and quite audaciously massaged and rubbed. “We can test that doggie theory later.” His smug expression made her blush.
A big part of her wanted to wrap her arms around his neck and devour his mouth. She would have handled this moment like that before. But the truth in her heart of hearts was that she didn’t want to be in charge. Not with Brody, anyway.
Instead, she reached inside his leather jacket and put her palm flat on his chest. Feeling his strength and presence calmed her in surprising ways.
“So there’s going to be a later?” Shit. She wished her voice didn’t sound so needy.
“Yes,” he assured her. “But we play by new rules, m’lady.”
Well, pooh! She didn’t like the way that sounded. “Meaning?”
He put his big hand on top of hers and pressed her fingers into his chest. “I’ve been trying to come up with the right way to say this without sounding like a dick.” The warmth in his eyes went a long way to keeping her still. “Pops has this old-time way of putting things. Something about a horse and a cart and which came first.”
“Ah.”
She chuckled. “The cart before the horse conundrum.”
“Using those five-dollar words, are you?”
Heather rolled a shoulder. “You have a distinct advantage in the language department,” she quipped, “being an English teacher and all …”
“Bah! I fell into it, and you know it!” He laughed. “Anyway, back to the horse and cart. Now, don’t take this the wrong way, okay?”
She stilled. Uh-oh. Brody pushed some hair behind her ear then pulled her closer.
“We’ve spent years perfecting the fucking, don’t you think?” He didn’t wait for an answer and just plowed ahead. “But when the dynamic changed, you got more than a little spooked.”
Jeez. She felt the heat rushing to her face and knew she was red as Rudolph’s nose. Spooked? Hell. She’d pulled a full-on meltdown. The things they’d done and felt that night seemed a lot like making love and were about as far away from the high-octane sex they were so good at as Mars was to the sun.
He waited her out while she did that inner dance. The one where scrambling to get your feelings under control was a command performance. Out-of-the-blue dance references from her girlhood notwithstanding, every part of her soul woke up and let a little light shine in when she thought that this dance, at least, was a Pas de deux. She wasn’t alone.
Every horrible thing she said that morning came flooding back. She wanted a chance to make some of that right.
“You know I was unglued, right? And my mouth said things my heart couldn’t back up.”
“Wow, honey. That you even said those words shows how far you’ve come. If you heart’s in this, I’m going for broke.”
“I do trust you.” The cold found its way through her dress and she shivered. Or maybe she was trembling under the weight of her admission. “But you know that’s hard for me.”
“Which is exactly why we’re fixing the cart. Now. Before we fuck things up by being stupid. Talking helps.”
“Where’s this going?”
Sanctuary (Family Justice Book 3) Page 15