45. Poppy
POPPY
In the time that I’ve spent with Brookes, I can’t recall him ever being this angry.
He’s practically vibrating. His cheeks are ruddy, hands trembling, his chest heaves with the racking breaths he’s trying to contain. He’s furious. I’d almost be scared if I didn’t know with absolute certainty that he’d never lay a finger on me.
“Poppy?” he presses, ducking lower to get into my line of sight, forcing my eyes to his.
I swallow hard, trepidation swirling heavy in my chest because I know that what I’m about to tell Brookes has the potential to ruin everything.
Maybe even his life. Or at least what he’s spent the last year working so hard on.
Licking my lips, I consider my words, thinking back to the night at Brookes’ house.
“The other night, when we got back to your house from the Pro-Am,” I begin, checking he’s following along.
When he nods, I continue, “I-I went to take a shower. But then I remembered I had a heap of clothes in the dryer, so I went to the laundry room to get them, and as I was walking out, I… ran into Blake. Well, he ran into me, really… we ran into each other.” I shake my head, knowing who ran into whom isn’t important.
Brookes closes his eyes for a few seconds, nodding once.
“He seemed… angry.” I shrug. “I said sorry, but when I went to walk around him, he stopped me, grabbed my arm, and—”
“He touched you?” Brooke practically barks, his brutal tone startling me.
“He didn’t hurt me,” I quickly reassure him, placing my hand over his chest to placate some of his anger. His heart hammers beneath my palm. “I promise. He just… he grabbed my arm to stop me.”
Brookes’ throat bobs with a hard swallow, and he closes his eyes again, steeling himself before nodding once. “What did he say?” he grits out, his voice gruff, threatening.
I look down at my hands then, avoiding his eyes, taking a moment, a stammered breath shuddering through me.
“Poppy?” Brookes cups my jaw again, stroking my cheek with the pad of his thumb, and when I look up and meet his eyes, he softens a touch. “It’s okay, I promise. I am okay.”
“He told me that he, and Cam, thought I was getting too close to you,” I say quietly. “That I was… letting you get too close to me. And then he reminded me that… that I’m being paid to do a job. Like a—” My stomach roils at the moment. “Like a hooker, nothing more.”
Brookes’ eyes flare with another flash of anger but he says nothing, his jaw clenched so tight together I’m worried for his teeth.
“Then he told me that, I-I can’t allow the lines to be blurred.
That it’s my responsibility to keep it strictly professional,” I continue, sighing hard.
“That you’re an addict, and the last thing you need is me making a mess of your life and risk relapsing.
” Emotion gets the better of me, and I swallow back a sob.
“The last thing I want is to make your life harder than it’s already been. ”
Brookes opens his mouth to say something, but I hold my trembling hand up in the air, stopping him.
“Blake told me that if I didn’t stick to my end of the bargain…
that he would make sure the whole world would find out about my dad and why he’s in prison.
And I just… I can’t go through it all again.
It almost killed me the first time. I won’t survive it a second time.
” I shake my head, fresh tears sliding down my cheeks.
“I-I’m so sorry Brookes, I… I didn’t know what to do. ”
“Fuck, baby, come here.” Brookes wraps his arms around me, crushing me against him, holding me so tight it’s almost impossible to breathe but in the most comforting way.
Burying my face into Brookes’ chest, I cry harder than I’ve cried in a long time, holding onto him so tight, scared to let him go.
“I need you to listen to me right now, Poppy,” Brookes says after a moment, pulling back enough to look at me, cupping my face again. “I meant what I said last night.” His startlingly blue gaze cuts through the darkness, meeting mine with nothing but raw, unabashed honesty. “I fucking love you.”
I sniff back more tears.
“I do,” he continues. “And I knew I did the moment I saw you lying there on the floor in our hotel back in Tulsa, in pain, when it felt like someone had reached into my chest and ripped out my goddamn heart. I knew at that moment, despite it being way too soon, that I loved you, and that no matter what, I would do anything—anything—in my power to protect you, to keep you safe.”
More tears hit my cheeks at his words and the unfiltered honesty as he says them.
“I’ve never loved anyone before, but I know without a doubt that I love you.” He steadies me with a look of promise. “I need you to trust me. Do you trust me?”
I nod.
“I need your yes, baby.”
“Yes,” I manage through a sob.
Brookes closes his eyes at that, releasing a breath and, when he opens them, there’s this unexpected clarity in his gaze. “I’m never gonna let anyone hurt you. Never again, Poppy. I fucking swear to you.”
“But what about—”
“No.” He cuts me off, shaking his head. “Never again.”
I don’t know how, or why, but I believe him. I truly do.
Wrapping my arms around his neck, I crash my lips to his, kissing him with all that I have, wanting nothing more right now than just to be with him.
Brookes’ hands drift down over my back, gripping my hips and pulling me into his lap, and with a low rumbling groan, he deepens the kiss, thrusting his tongue into my mouth and claiming me in the way only he can from a single kiss.
Tearing my lips from Brookes, I take a moment to catch my breath, staring deep into his eyes, which is when it comes to me hard and fast, hitting me like a much-needed slap to the face. “I love you, too.”
Brookes’ eyes go wide as they search mine, like he’s looking for a lie. “You do?”
“Yes,” I answer him immediately, wanting nothing more than to snuff out his doubt. “I do.”
His lips find mind again, this kiss softer than the last but full of a sentiment I feel through to my heart. I shift in his hips, feeling his hard length between us, and I gasp out, pulling back enough to look deep into his eyes again.
“Take me home,” I whisper, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Peppering kisses along his stubbled jaw, I reach his ear, grazing the shell with my lips as I say, “Make me yours, Brookes.”
Dragging the zipper of my dress down, Brookes watches me from where he’s sitting on the end of the bed, his gaze dancing through the muted light of the villa. My dress falls, bunching at my feet, and I’m left standing in front of him wearing nothing more than a lacy thong and matching bra.
“Fuck,” he whispers under his breath, shamelessly palming himself through his suit pants.
“I’ve never felt as beautiful as I do when you look at me like that,” I admit, my cheeks heating with my confession.
“Poppy, I—” Brookes shakes his head, scrubbing a hand down over his face with a huffed exhale. Hopping up from the bed, he stalks toward me, his gaze trailing over me from my head to my toes and back up again as he husks, “Poppy, I am fucking obsessed with you.”
His fingertips trail up my sides, hands gently clasped around the base of my neck. Leaning in, he claims my mouth, sliding his tongue between my lips and finding mine, coaxing it to dance with his.
Craning up on my toes, I wrap my arms around his neck, moaning into our kiss when I feel his hard length press into my stomach and, breaking our kiss, I look down between us, smirking to myself as I drop to my knees right in front of him.
“What do you think you’re doing, cutie?” Brookes gruffs, pinching my chin between his thumb and forefinger, his eyes blazing as they stare down into mine.
Unfastening his belt, I offer him a saccharine smile.
Freeing him from the confines of his pants, my eyes widen as his big dick juts out right in front of me, the tip glistening.
I lick my lips, wrapping my hand around him, and with another smile, I stare into his eyes as I spit on to the flared head and rub my saliva in with a few slow, determined strokes.
“Chrissake,” Brookes utters, shifting on his feet and widening his legs to anchor himself.
Wrapping my lips around him, I moan as his taste hits my tongue, bobbing up and down, meeting my mouth with my hand in the way he showed me the other night.
“Oh, fuck, you are… so damn good at that, baby,” Brookes grits out, collecting my hair in his hands and holding it back from my face so he can see me. “That’s it. So fuckin’ good.”
I love his words, his sounds, his harsh breaths, the way his thigh muscles tense, and I want more of it. I want it all. I want him to lose all control with me.
Smiling around him, I relax the back of my throat, and then, watching his face, I take him as deep as I possibly can until he’s hitting the back of my throat. And when my gag reflex kicks in and I start to choke, I keep going, my eyes stinging with tears, swallowing him until I can’t breathe.
“Shit!” Brookes shouts, his knees buckling before he catches himself.
I moan around him, pulling back and popping off, strings of saliva connecting my lips to his dick, tears streaming down my cheeks. “Is that good?”
Brookes gapes at me, his eyes cloudy and heady, his cheeks flushed, lips parted, and he manages a nod, croaking out a rasped, “Fuck yeah, baby girl.”
I take him deep and choke on him again, reveling in the way he reacts, pulling on my hair while also holding me right where I am. When I tap his thigh, he releases his hold of me, and I pop off him again, gasping for breath, his fingers gently tracing the curve of my heated cheek.
“Such a good fuckin’ girl,” Brookes praises gruffly. “Choking on my cock.”
“I want your cum,” I say through panting breaths.
“Oh yeah?” He arches an eyebrow, his smirk challenging.
I nod.
“Where do you want it, baby?”
I open my mouth and stick out my tongue, causing him to throw his head back on a low groan. “Poppy, you are gonna be my demise; I’m so fuckin’ sure of it,” he mutters, slapping my tongue with his dick a couple of times and making me jump.
With my hands on my knees, I stare up at him, watching as he jerks himself off, my mouth open wide, tongue hanging out, the anticipation killing me, making me so needy I’m forced to rock my hips, pressing my thighs together as firm as I can to ease the ache.
“You ready, baby?” Brookes huffs. “Open up nice and wide for me.”
I do as he says, and the second I meet his eyes, I see the moment his orgasm hits, his face contorting in a look of pleasure, pain, ecstasy, and torture, all combined into one beautiful expression, the animalistic roar that rumbles up from the back of his throat possibly the hottest sound I’ve ever heard.
And then he’s coming. Hard. Hot ropes of cum spurting over my tongue, my lips, my chin, all over me, making a big, beautiful mess.
I devour what I can, moaning at the way it drips down my face and onto my breasts, rubbing it into my skin as he keeps on coming.
“Fuck, Jesus… fuck!” Brookes shudders, gasping for breath, his release subsiding. And, with wobbly legs, he stumbles a step before swooping down and pulling me up off the floor.
His heavy-lidded eyes flare as he takes me in, looking at his release covering me, a slow smirk spreading across his face. “Look at you, so pretty covered in my cum.”
I stick my tongue out, collecting what I can around my mouth, smiling at him as I do, and he shakes his head with a muttered curse.
“Fucking. Mine,” he growls, wrapping his hand around the back of my head and crashing his lips against mine in a searing kiss that makes my knees weak.