Chapter Nine #2
I laugh and shake my head. “I think every unattached girl at your party wanted a piece of you.” He’d been surrounded by them yet still managed to make me stand out somehow.
I’d seen the looks thrown my way, trying to tease out what was going on between us and reluctantly concluding that whatever it is, it’s something.
“Nah,” he says, taking a sip of his beer. “You’re the one everyone notices, Pines.”
“I’m not actually trying to be noticed.” Silver hair with lavender streaks is meant to make me blend into artsy Dos Torres, as much as to make me look as different as possible from my old self.
“Epic fail, princess.”
I shrug. “God, this feels so amazingly good,” I say, sliding farther into the water, tilting my head back and closing my eyes.
Brady says something in a choked whisper that I don’t catch.
“What?”
“Nothin’,” he mutters. I reluctantly open my eyes and look at him. He looks like he’s in actual pain.
“What’s wrong with you?” I demand.
He takes a long drink of his beer, practically draining it. “Nothin’,” he says again.
I settle back into the hot water.
“So, you got a boyfriend lurking around somewhere, Pines?”
“No,” I murmur, the heat and the alcohol making my limbs heavy and my mind light. “Do you?”
“I don’t play for that team, no,” he says, a smile in his voice.
I grin. “I meant a girlfriend.”
“Nope. I don’t have one of those, either.” I feel his foot tap mine under the water. “So, no one’s gonna come after my ass if I make a move on you?”
I laugh nervously. Make a move on me? What does that even mean? Well, whatever it means, I want it to happen, no matter how nervous it makes me. “I take care of myself, Brady. No one’s in charge of this,” I gesture toward my body, “except me.”
“No doubt.”
“Why do you ask? Have you been chased from some girl’s place by an angry boyfriend before or something?”
“No.”
That’s a suspiciously brief answer for Brady. I force myself out of my haze of drowsiness and alcohol and sit up to look at him. He’s staring at me.
“Why would you want to make a move on me, anyway?” I ask.
“I didn’t say I did,” he says, but his eyes give him away.
“Okay…” I say, calling him on his bullshit.
“If I did,” he continues, “it would be because I need something from you that I can’t get from anyone else.”
That cryptic remark is the absolute last thing I expected to come out of his mouth. “You’re hot,” or “You’re cool,” or something generic like that is more along the lines of what I was thinking. I’m momentarily stunned.
“And what would that be?” I’m finally able to make words come out of my mouth.
“I don’t know yet,” he says. “But when I look at you, I feel like you’ve got answers to stuff I didn’t even know I had questions about.”
I realize with a shock that he’s being serious. Funny Brady is attractive as hell. But serious Brady has me trembling from my head to my toes.
“Looks can be deceiving,” I say.
He shakes his head. “It’s not your hair. It’s not your eyes. It’s not even your gorgeous body. It’s something else, Angie Pines, and I can’t put my finger on it.”
I swallow. “What are we going to do about that, then?” I ask, barely able to breathe.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I’ll think of something.”
He doesn’t seem so far away now. Our legs are long enough to touch across the pool, and he hooks his ankles around mine.
A pulse of heat burns through my body. The hot water has made me weak and languid, but Brady drawing me to him with his legs wrapped around mine burns away the weakness, leaving me with only heat.
Before I know it, I’m standing before him, his legs on either side of me. His hands come up to rest on my waist, long fingers gently grasping, then sliding down to my hips, his thumbs caressing my bare stomach. His pressure on my hips increases slightly as he pulls me down toward him.
“C’mere,” he whispers.
As I straddle him and sink down onto his lap, my breath is coming in small gasps and my heart is beating like it’s going to explode.
One of Brady’s hands comes up to my face and holds it, his thumb brushing across my parted lips.
I close my eyes as his hand goes to the back of my neck, drawing my face closer to his.
I feel his lips against mine, warm and gentle but decidedly not innocent.
My mouth melts into his, gently exploring, waiting to see what he’ll do. He’s not aggressive, shoving his tongue down my throat like most guys I’ve kissed. He’s taking his time, like he wants it to last forever.
I open my eyes briefly to see that his are closed, those long, coppery lashes resting against the freckles under his eyes.
I close my eyes again and kiss him, my entire body trembling despite the heat.
His tongue gently sweeps across my bottom lip.
My hands go into his hair. All tentativeness evaporates as our mouths crash and our bodies press together and our hands anchor us to each other.
Brady McDaniels can kiss like he can throw a party.
I’ve imagined his mouth all over my body, but now that I know what it can do, imagining isn’t enough. I want him to kiss every inch of me. I need him to kiss every inch of me. I will not be satisfied until he kisses every inch of me.
As if he’s read my mind—shit, I hope I didn’t actually say what I was thinking—his mouth begins to move from mine to my cheek, my jaw, my ear, my neck.
Every kiss is slow and perfect and tailored to the part of me he’s kissing—a little bit of teeth for my ear, a little bit of sucking for my neck.
He tilts my head back so he can reach my throat, and I almost moan with the pleasure of it.
By the time he reaches my shoulders, I’m practically panting.
And apparently, that’s just the warm-up.
Up until now, his hands have remained on my waist and neck, hips and shoulders.
Erotic but relatively safe. But when his hand cups my breast and his thumb brushes across my nipple, I go from having fire in my veins to feeling like my entire body is molten lava.
Then that warm, perfect mouth is where his thumb had been, lightly circling with his tongue through the fabric of my bikini. And I see stars.
“Brady,” I whisper.
“Hmm.” The vibration of his voice against my nipple makes me gasp, and then he moves on to the other breast.
Everything is slow, unhurried, perfect.
“Brady,” I whisper again.
“Mm-hm.”
I want to tell him we need to stop, that we can’t go any further, not tonight, at least. But I can’t form any words other than his name.
To my surprise and relief and disappointment, it’s Brady who stops us. He wraps his arms around me, and I rest my head on his shoulder and play with the small silver medal that hangs around his neck on a thin silver chain. I wonder why he stopped, but I’m too dazed to form a coherent sentence.
“Do you want to go upstairs?”
I sigh against his shoulder. “We can’t. I mean, I can’t. I want to, though.”
“Why can’t you? You too tired? I’ll carry you.”
I laugh at the soft teasing tone of his voice. “That’s not what I mean.”
“What do you mean, then?”
“I mean, you know, I just want to do this for now.”
“Yeah, me too. Let’s do it outside of the pool and preferably in bed.”
“I think things will maybe get a little, uh, carried away if we do that, Brady.”
“Don’t worry, Pines,” he says, snapping the back of my bikini top. “I’ll keep you in check.”
I smack his shoulder. “It’s not me I’m worried about,” I protest. Big, giant lie. I’m entirely doubting my ability to control myself. It’s been months since a man touched me, and it’s been approximately, oh, forever since a guy as intensely tempting as Brady touched me.
“Hey,” he says, drawing back and taking my chin in his hand. He smiles. “I’m a good Catholic boy. I won’t take advantage of you.”
I raise a dubious eyebrow. “Really. Waiting for marriage, are you?”
“Hell no,” he says, looking horrified. “I totally believe in sex before marriage. Just not necessarily on a first date.”
“I’m not sure the papal authorities would agree with your interpretation of Catholic doctrine.”
“Fortunately I don’t give a shit about the papal authorities.”
“So is that what this is?” I ask. “A first date?”
His luminous eyes study my face. “Do you want it to be?”
I swallow. “If it means there’ll be a second one,” I say.
His mouth turns up in a smile. “Yeah, I think that can be arranged.” He runs his hands down my arms. “Any more negotiating before we head upstairs?”
I shake my head. “No. We’re good.”
This is so not good. I’ve never been more vulnerable in my life. I’m lonely and scared and stressed. Even worse, I’m turned on as hell. I’m rapidly losing control over my heart, body, and mind.
But Brady seems laid-back as ever, in control despite the effect my body obviously has on his. I remind myself that he isn’t like the men from my world. He’s a sweet, funny boy who loves his mom and the Yankees. I can trust him, right?