“He’s not a pervert!” Brynn shouted.
“Yes he is! He was in your bedroom and you didn’t know.” Her friend’s face scrunched in disgust. “He’s probably one of those guys that gets off on watching women sleep.”
Oh crap.
Brynn knew that she had to come clean. “OK. Calm down. I knew he was in my room. I just didn’t know how he got out of my room.”
Jess’s head tilted to the side while Ali’s brows wrinkled in confusion.
“You knew he was in your room.” Jess repeated slowly.
“Yes. I did. And then you showed up, and then Izzy showed up and I guess he must’ve woken up and snuck out the window so you two didn’t see him.”
A look of realization bloomed as Jess said, “Ohhhh, that’s why you looked over your shoulder like you saw a ghost!”
“What?” Brynn didn’t know what she was referring to.
Her friend smiled and pointed her finger at Brynn. “Remember, you said you thought it was Lucy, but I knew that was bullshit because your face drained of the little pigment your beautiful, porcelain doll complexion has.”
“Oh, right.” Now she remembered.
“I’m sorry, what is going on?” Ali lifted her hand. “What noise? What about Lucy?”
“When I came over to bring Brynn breakfast in bed, she wasn’t alone in that bed.”
“Ohhhh,” Ali’s eyes lit with understanding and a wide smile spread on her face.
“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything. It was just the one night and he’s leaving—” Brynn started to defend herself but both her friends cut her off.
“Never say sorry for getting some.” Jess shook her finger at Brynn.
“Don’t apologize, it’s none of our business anyway.” Ali added.
“Right,” Jess agreed. “You don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to.”
Brynn nodded, thankful that she had such good friends. She took a deep breath as she opened the wine and started pouring. The silence was heavy and she felt like she was being watched. She glanced up and saw that both Jess and Ali were, in fact, staring at her expectantly. “What?”
“That’s it? You’re really not going to talk about it?” Jess questioned in disbelief.
Brynn had to laugh as she finished filling the glasses. “There’s not a lot to say.”
“Really?” Ali looked genuinely surprised.
Jess’s expression was disappointed. “I really thought Axel could put it down.”
Once again, they were getting the wrong idea. She felt her cheeks heating as she explained, “That’s not what I meant. He can and he did. There’s not a lot to say because that was it. Just that night. We haven’t really talked about it since.”
“Because Izzy is here?” Ali’s voice was hopeful.
Brynn lifted her left shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t think so. We’ve seen each other a few times when the kids haven’t been around. And, I mean, he’s staying a hundred feet from me, we work at the same place, and he has my phone number. If he wanted to talk about it, he would’ve.”
“Are you okay?” Ali’s eyes were filled with concern. “With…everything?”
Not really.
“Yeah.” Brynn forced herself to smile. “It was a great night. And I’ve always known his time here is temporary. It’s not like I ever thought that there was a chance for something more.”
She hoped her nose wasn’t growing because she was lying through her teeth. She hadn’t just thought there was a chance for something between them, she’d spent hours of her life fantasizing about it.
But she didn’t want her friends to know that. She hated when people felt sorry for her. In her childhood, she’d seen the look of pity in people’s eyes because her mother was eccentric. As a teenager it was because she was pregnant. In her twenties, it was because she was a single mom trying to juggle motherhood, school, and work.
She’d worked hard to build a great life for herself and Ryder, and the last thing she wanted to do was have that be undermined by some guy that wasn’t going to be here in a month. As much as she’d tried and failed to put him out of her mind, she knew she needed to try one more time.
Brynn handed her friends their glasses. “Let’s take this out on the deck.”
As the three ladies sat around the table, Ali lifted her glass in cheers, “To good drinks.”
“Good friends,” Brynn recited.
“And good sex!” Jess declared happily.
The girls chuckled as they clinked glasses and the conversation turned to Jess’s wedding plans. Brynn was listening, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched. When she glanced up at the apartment window, she fully expected Axel to be staring down at her. But he wasn’t.
Yeah. It was definitely time to take back control of her mind and her life. No more letting him consume her every waking and sleeping thought.
Her new plan lasted all of sixty seconds because one minute later her mind had wandered to what tonight was going to be like since both the teens were going to be at friends’ houses.
What would Axel be doing?
Would he go out?
Would she see him?
Apparently taking control of one’s mind was easier said than done.
CHAPTER 21
The only sound Axel heard as he walked into the darkened theater was his own breathing.
“Brynn?” he called out as his eyesight adjusted, but other than his voice echoing back to him he was met with silence.
He knew that she was in there. He’d followed her when she left her house. As much as he was telling himself that he was checking on her in an official capacity, the truth was that he just wanted to see her.
He missed her. Which he knew was ridiculous since he saw her several times a day, every day. He’d been standing in her living room just hours before.
After the kids left, Brynn and her friends had some wine out on her deck. They stayed for about an hour. It was exactly the night that she’d talked about wanting to have the first night he’d arrived in town. It had only been a couple months, but it felt like years. He didn’t remember what his world looked like without Brynn Daniels in it. And the scariest part of that was, he didn’t want to.
Tonight had been the first night that they’d been alone since Izzy showed up. It had taken every shred of discipline he had not to march down the steps once Jess and Ali left and tell her everything. Why he was really there. What she meant to him. How he felt about her.
But, somehow, he’d managed to keep his ass in the apartment. That is, until he saw her leaving at close to midnight. He’d followed her, which technically was his job. He was to have eyes on her as much as possible. Even if it meant tailing her to a booty call.
He’d told himself that it was none of his business. And had done his best to brace himself for the impact of seeing her meeting up with Liam or Keaton or Sam, or any one of her many other admirers. He knew that it was going to feel worse than a punch in the gut. It was going to be a kick to his balls.
When she’d pulled into the high school parking lot, he’d let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He figured that she must’ve forgotten something and ran over to get it. But she’d gone into the theater over two hours ago, and she still hadn’t come out.
At the one-hour mark, he’d almost gone in, and he would’ve if he’d been able to think of an excuse for showing up. But he couldn’t. An hour later, he still didn’t have one, but he was past the point of caring.
It was two in the morning. He was checking on her.
“Brynn?” he called out again.
Still nothing.
He looked around for any sign of her as he made his way down the center aisle and when he was near the stage he called again, this time a little louder. He didn’t want to scare her, “Brynn, it’s Axel.”
A distressed, muffled sound followed by a crash came from backstage. Axel’s stomach plummeted to the ground as adrenaline rushed through
him. His first instinct was to go back to the car to get his weapon, but he immediately dismissed that idea. He’d made his presence known. Whoever had Brynn knew that he was there.
As quickly and quietly as he could manage he rounded the stage, entering the backstage area from stage left. From there he’d have a sightline of the entire area and no one could sneak up behind him. Within seconds he was in position, primed, and ready to kill anyone and everyone who stood in his way of getting to Brynn and getting her out of here.
Several possible scenarios had played out in his mind in the seconds it took him to get into position, but he could honestly say the one that he was faced with was not one of them.
Brynn was alone, in the middle of the room. It looked like she was taking a dress off, the material started at her belly and went over head and was wound tightly around her arms that were extended up. She had white underwear with a red bow in the center and no shoes on.
Still on high alert, his eyes scanned the room. He didn’t see anything. Didn’t sense anything.
“Ashel?!” He heard her more clearly now, but it sounded more like she was saying asshole than Axel.
“I’m here.” Adrenaline surged through him as he crossed to her in two large steps. As he moved, his eyes searched the room looking for anything out of place, anything to cause alarm. Still nothing. “Are you okay?”
She wobbled from side to side. “Mmm shuck.”
“What?”
“Mmm shuck.”
“You’re stuck?”
“Yesh.” She began to move back and forth like a bobblehead doll as if to demonstrate her statement.
He reached out and tugged on the material. It didn’t budge.
She grunted and wiggled and he pulled again, using significantly more force than before. It didn’t shift at all.
Since up wasn’t working he tried pulling it down instead, but he got the same results. It was as if the sucker was superglued to her.
He really hoped that wasn’t the case or he would have to call the paramedics like he’d had to do when Izzy superglued on her favorite shirt so that their mom couldn’t make her take it off to wash it and she could wear it to preschool every day. Looking back, it was a pretty ingenious plan for a preschooler, but she still had faint scars on her shoulders from the toxic adhesive.
He tried different angles, including wrapping one arm around her waist to keep her in place and yanking the material. It was not going anywhere.
“If I pull any harder, I’ll rip it.”
“Riff it. Camp breaff.”
He wrapped his fingers around the edge of the material that was up by her hands and tore it apart and down, not stopping until the offending dress was pooled at her feet.
The second she was free, she gasped for air and he pulled her into his arms. Every muscle in his body was tense. He still had no idea what was going on, but he was just so happy she was safe.
He ran his hands through her hair and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. That’s when his body realized that he was holding a half-naked Brynn and it started to respond accordingly. Maybe he should care that his reaction was about to be noticeable as his pants grew snug, but he didn’t. Right now all he cared about was holding Brynn. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she assured him, nodding against his chest. “Just embarrassed.”
He leaned back so he could look down at her. “What happened?”
Her eyes lifted to him beneath dark, thick lashes. “I couldn’t sleep because I’ve been staying up every night working on the kids’ costumes, so I figured I might as well come here and work on the costumes for the play since I’ve fallen behind.”
“The costumes were amazing by the way.” Axel was blown away by Brynn’s talents and was wondering if there was anything this woman couldn’t do.
“Thanks.” She dipped her head shyly and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, causing his dick to jump beneath his zipper. “Anyway,” she reached up and tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “I had to do some alterations on Juliet’s dress and saw that Emmy is broken.”
“Emmy?”
“The dress form.”
Those were three words he understood, but put together in a sentence and she may as well have been speaking in French.
“It’s a mannequin that you use to make alterations.” She motioned to the left and he saw two halves of what looked like a cloth woman’s torso. “I named her Emmy after the movie,” She paused for a moment. “Mannequin.”
Axel smiled remembering picking that movie to rent from the video store because the cover was a guy leaning against a motorcycle, and he’d thought it looked cool. “That’s the one with the guy from Weekend at Bernie’s?”
“I would say that’s the one with Samantha from Sex and the City, but whatever.” She smiled and warmth spread through his chest. Totally clueless to what her smile did to him, she continued, “Anyway, I thought I could do the alterations while the dress was on me but I was wrong. I think I might be delirious from lack of sleep, because that was a horrible idea, but I thought it was genius. I was trying to get it off and I kept shimmying and it only made it worse. It was like one of those mesh finger traps. The more I fought it, the more stuck I got.”
“But you’re okay?” He felt himself tearing up as it sank in that she wasn’t in any danger, she was really fine and the adrenaline and shock of what he’d thought he was going to face started to wear off.
“I mean besides the mortification, yeah, I’m great,” she chuckled as she looked up at him.
When she saw his expression, and the shimmer of emotion in his eye, she reached her hand up and touched his face. As the tips of her fingers brushed his jaw she asked, “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
The tenderness in her touch overrode the part of his brain that had everyone on a need to know basis. He wasn’t sure if he’d always closed himself off as a protective mechanism or if it was just in his DNA, but he did know that he’d thought he’d always be that way. An island unto himself. And then she opened her front door and changed his life.
“I thought you were…” He didn’t finish that sentence, because to do so he’d have to tell her that he was here to protect her and he thought someone had found her. Which would open up a can of worms that needed to remain sealed. For now, anyway. “I’m glad you’re okay.” Even he recognized that his tone was flat and impersonal.
Brynn’s brow creased before she awkwardly moved away from him and started looking around at the ground around her. “I have clothes here. Somewhere. Why do I always seem to end up naked around you?”
“I’m not complaining.” His voice was rough with desire.
“Ha, ha, ha,” she pretended to laugh nervously, as if she wasn’t sure if he was serious or not.
For some reason seeing it made him need to tell her just how serious it was.
“If it were up to me, you’d be naked every time we were alone.” Fuck. He’d really just said that out loud.
And boy, did it get her attention. Her head popped up and the look of somber vulnerability that he saw in her eyes tore his heart out. “So then why do you avoid being alone with me?”
Damn. He loved that she said exactly what she was thinking. There were no games with Brynn. She called him out. She thought they were going to kiss and when they didn’t she confronted him. She wanted to know why he avoided being alone with her and so she asked. He knew that she deserved the same from him, but he couldn’t do that without revealing too much.
He tried to be as honest with her as possible while not jeopardizing his assignment. “That’s exactly why. I want things with you that I shouldn’t, that I can’t…” his voice trailed off.
“What things?” she asked sincerely.
A lopsided grin tugged at his lips as he ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “You have no idea.”
“You’re right, I don’t.” Her green eyes were wide as she nodded. “That’s why I’m asking.”
The air b
etween them was thick and crackling with arousal. A flush had risen on her skin “I want you, Brynn. All the time. You’re all I think about and—”
The next thing he knew, Brynn had launched herself into his arms and cut off his declaration with a kiss overflowing with pent-up desire. His arms wrapped around her waist and he kissed her with everything he had. Feeling her lips against his, tasting her minty mouth, was like coming home.
He’d missed her more than he dared to admit. Holding her, kissing her, even just talking to her again, had brought to the surface all of the emotions that he’d been pushing down. A savage intensity burned through him and instead of trying to tamp it down, he let it drive him. Their kiss was punishing, devouring, and all-consuming.
Her hands clutched at his shoulders and he realized that she was tugging at his shirt so he set her down to take it off. As he tugged it up, she unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans. Once the shirt cleared his head, he felt his pants and boxer briefs pool at his feet. He stepped out of them both and his shoes as Brynn wrapped her fingers around his erection, jutting out proudly.
He reached down to cup her face and kiss her once again, but she was just out of reach as she dropped to her knees in front of him. He knew what was about to happen and he thought that he was prepared for it. He was wrong. Nothing could’ve prepared him for what he would feel as he watched Brynn’s perfect, cherry red lips press to his engorged crown. With gentle, yet firm pressure, she covered the area of his mushroom tip in tantalizing kisses before bringing her tongue to the party. Watching her kiss him was sexy, but watching her lick him, tease him, with the promise of more was more erotic.
Pleasure whipped through him as his skin heated from the arousal she was stoking in him. When she sealed her lips around him and sucked, pulling him into the enveloping warmth of her wet mouth, his knees buckled and he grew lightheaded. He grasped onto the table beside him for support. He was glad he did because she began brazenly stroking his shaft with her hand while sucking him in and then pulling him out of her mouth.
The delicious friction the dual forces created was potent and all-consuming. What started as a carnal ache morphed into a pulsing urgency and he knew that if he didn’t stop this, he was going to come in her mouth. As hot as that sounded, he didn’t want to chance not being able to be inside of her and make love to her one more time.
Whisper of Attraction Page 18