Chapter Ten
Brady
Wrong, wrong, wrong. I was so wrong about how this was going to play out tonight.
It all started with seeing her coming out of my bedroom, tall and elegant.
She looks cute and artsy in her poodle skirts and other quirky clothes, and she looks hot in tight jeans or a short skirt.
But wrapped in a sheer scarf, looking like she should be on the deck of a yacht in the Mediterranean?
I’m from model-infested New York, so I’ve seen a lot, but I’ve never seen anything like that up close before.
And then the body under the scarf. I mean, like, wow.
Speech-stealing, reason-negating, dick-hardening wow.
Angela Pines is five feet ten inches of pure fantasy.
She’s all smooth, deep curves, soft in all the right places, toned and defined in all the others.
I couldn’t resist touching her. When she arched her back in the hot water and said how good it felt, I thought I was going to come right then and there.
I want nothing more than her underneath me looking and sounding exactly like that.
I knew I’d kiss her tonight. I didn’t know how much I’d want to. I sure as hell didn’t know that I’d never want to stop.
Kissing Angie just makes me want more. A lot more.
We go upstairs, towels wrapped around us, empty drinks in our hands. It takes every ounce of control I have not to grab her, wet bathing suit and all, and pull her onto the sofa to continue where we left off.
“Do you want a T-shirt or something?” I ask her. Do you want me to peel that bikini off you?
“I brought stuff to change into,” she says, heading down the hall to my room.
“Cool.” Please don’t let it be something that turns me on even more.
No such luck. When she comes out a few minutes later, she’s in short cotton shorts and the FDNY sweatshirt I’d given her in class. Fuck me. Like literally. Right now.
“I’ve been meaning to give this back to you,” she says, giving the sweatshirt a little tug.
“It’s cool,” I say, heading to my room to change.
I manage to walk past her without pushing her up against the wall and yanking off that sweatshirt and whatever she might be wearing under it.
Once I’m safely in my room, I put on mesh shorts and a clean T-shirt and brush my teeth, taking my time and thinking hard about the Yankees to get my mind off the gorgeous girl in my living room.
Stats, bullpen, latest trades… Yeah, okay, that’s kind of working.
When I go back out to the living room, she’s sitting on the sofa, knees tucked up under her chin, arms wrapped around her legs.
“It’s almost five o’clock in the morning,” she announces.
“Yeah, I know. You want to go to sleep?”
She stares at me. “Here?”
I look around. “Uh, yeah.”
More staring.
“Good Catholic boy, remember?” I remind her.
“Um, so, do you want me to sleep on your sofa?” she asks.
“Not that good.”
She cocks her head at me, a slight smile playing on her lips. “You actually want me to sleep in your room with you.”
“Yeah. What’s the matter, Pines? Can’t handle it? Am I going to have to fight you off all night?”
That makes her laugh a little. But she’s nervous as hell. I can see it in her eyes.
“Come on, princess. I’m wrecked. You don’t want me to crash my car driving you home, right?” A little guilt never hurt. I start heading back down the hall, not giving her another chance to say no. Sure enough, I hear her get off the sofa and follow me. Yes.
I climb into bed and pull the covers back for her.
She hesitates in the doorway for a few seconds, but then she comes over and climbs in next to me.
I turn out the light. She takes off my sweatshirt, revealing a thin cotton tank top.
There’s just enough light from outside for me to watch her unpin her silver hair and let her braid fall over her shoulder.
She takes the elastic off and is about to unbraid it.
“Can I do it?”
Her hands freeze. “You want to unbraid my hair?” she says, her voice hushed.
“Yeah. Is that weird?” It’s definitely weird, and not part of the plan. I don’t know where the hell that came from.
“No, it’s okay,” she says. “You can if you want to.”
I sit up, and she turns her back to me. I pull her braid over her shoulder and slowly begin to unravel her hair. My hands are shaking slightly. I’ve never touched a girl’s hair like this, and I’m not sure why I’m doing it now. It’s oddly intimate without being sexual.
“Am I hurting you?” I ask, worried that I’m pulling her hair.
“No,” she says. “It feels nice.” Okay, well, that’s good.
Finally, all of her hair is loose, hanging down her back in damp, rippling waves that smell like some kind of coconut shampoo. And I have an answer to the question that’s been on my mind for a while: yes, it’s still as long as it was in the pictures of her, back when it was honey-streaked brown.
I swing it back over her shoulder, giving myself access to her neck and shoulders.
I can’t help kissing her soft, warm skin.
She tilts her head back for more, and that small sign of desire ramps me up all over again.
Before I know it, she’s straddling me, her arms wrapped around my neck.
My mouth is on hers, and she’s kissing me back with everything she has.
“Jesus Christ, Pines,” I manage to say when I can drag my mouth away from hers. “You’re going to kill me.”
“You don’t feel like a good Catholic boy right now,” she teases, grinding against my raging hard-on.
I growl and fall back onto the bed, pulling her with me and rolling on top of her. “I’m actually a terrible Catholic,” I say. “The worst.”
She laughs and brings those full, perfect lips to mine again. Her licorice-flavored tongue swirls with mine.
“Where the hell did you learn to kiss like that, McDaniels?” she asks, pulling away from me slightly, catching her breath.
“I’ve never kissed like this in my life,” I say. “It’s all you.”
She laughs. “You’re ridiculous.”
I kiss her again. I want to kiss her all night and well into next week. “I’ve never been a big fan of licorice, but now it’s my favorite flavor in the world.”
“Better than Guinness?”
“Better than anything.”
As she lies there gazing at me with those fake turquoise eyes, she looks relaxed and amused. Happy. It occurs to me suddenly that I’ve never seen Angie look happy before.
“We’d better go to sleep,” I say. “Before you make a liar out of me.” I grind against her to emphasize the point.
“Mmm,” she groans. I cover her mouth with a kiss.
“Don’t,” I warn. “I’m so close to losing it, you have no idea.”
“I’ve got to admit,” she says, her hands running through my hair and down my face. “You’ve got some impressive self-control.”
“Not as impressive as other things I have.”
She laughs and smacks my shoulder.
“Or you, for that matter,” I add, my hand sliding up under her top.
But her hand stops me. “We should go to sleep.”
“We should. Yep.” I slowly, reluctantly withdraw my hand. “Okay, Pines. Try to keep your hands to yourself, okay?”
She nudges me, and I wrap my body around hers. Girls love that shit. And okay, if I have to admit it, Angie’s gorgeous body pressed up against mine isn’t the worst thing in the world.
“Thanks for the first date, Brady,” she says. “I had fun.”
I get that feeling like a punch to my gut again. “This was nothing,” I say. “I’ll take you on a real first date. In like twelve hours, when I wake up.”
“If you insist,” she murmurs, sounding like she’s well on her way to sleep.
I close my eyes and breathe in her coconut hair and citrus perfume and warm girl smell.
I feel her body relax and listen as her breathing slows.
I wasn’t lying when I said I was wrecked.
Partying for an entire day in the sun, then cleaning up before going to get Angie from work, then making out with her in a jacuzzi, has made me bleary-eyed with exhaustion.
But a ton of shit is on my mind, and I can’t fall asleep right away.
Finally, I reach for my phone, careful not to disturb her. I pull up the selfie I snapped of the two of us. Angie has a reluctant smile on her face. She didn’t want her picture taken, but she let me do it anyway.
I sent the picture to Lou from the parking lot of BevMo after dropping Angie off at work.
A few minutes later, his reply had lit up my phone. Nice work. I’ll be in touch.
As I look at the picture again with her lying next to me, I see real fear in her eyes.
It reminds me that as much as she owes me, she might truly be in danger.
I assumed she was just taking a break from princess-ville until things blew over with her father, but maybe there’s more there. Maybe I’m putting her in danger.
I delete the texts, set the picture as my phone background—more shit that girls love—and turn back to Angie’s warmth and citrus smell. Damn, I love her perfume. And her coconut shampoo. And the way her ass is pressed against me.
I think about the possibility of her dad or some meathead cousin showing up here and dragging her back to New York, all because of the information I’m feeding Lou. Am I okay with that?
I grab the FDNY sweatshirt she’d been wearing and look at the name scrawled in permanent marker twenty-some years earlier: B. McDaniels . The old sadness briefly engulfs me before fading away. I lie down and slide a lock of silvery purple hair between my fingers.
Yeah, I’m okay with that. I have to be.