24. Brooks
TWENTY-FOUR
Brooks
S he’s floundering in my presence, more so than I’ve ever seen her do before. Her cheeks are as red as her hair, and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know how to act any more than I do.
Before, when it was just her and I in a bubble of protection that the wager between us offered, we were freer. Less cagey. Now, I feel like a tiger in a sideshow. I’m ready for anyone to open the cage, but fuck, I hope it’s her who does it.
“What are you doing here?” she breathes, and I’m caught in her green-eyed stare as if it’s made of quicksand.
“I came to…” I sigh, scrubbing my coffee-scented hand over my face. “I came to get you back.”
“Get me back?” she snorts derisively. “You never had me, technically.”
I step into her, and she backs up on instinct.
Sometimes, she drives me crazy, and today is one of those times.
“Don’t do that. Don’t belittle what we had. You felt it, too. Even if it fucking scared you.”
This gets her attention and has her stepping back into me. “And what’s your grand plan for getting me back?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
The smile that tugs her perfect lips up nearly knocks me breathless. As if she knows the power she holds with it, she deepens it, bringing out the tiniest dimple on her cheek. “So cocky that you think your mere presence is all it’ll take to win me over?”
Wrapping an arm behind her back, I tug her into me, bringing her breasts to my front. She gasps, and my soul gobbles up the sound as sustenance.
“The time for your sassy little quips is over, red.”
Like two magnets drawn together, our lips seek one another’s, dancing back and forth in a wicked game of who’s going to cave first.
“Is it now?” she teases.
My hand at her back drops to her ass, gripping firmly. “It is.”
Her breathy little moan tells me she’s missed me, even when her mouth won’t.
“Now, all we need to do is figure out where I’m going to stay, and that’s that.”
She laughs. “That is most definitely not that. ”
“It is if I say it is.”
“Will you stop being pig-headed? You can’t just leave everything behind, Brooks. You have a home and a business and…”
“I don’t have you,” I cut in, which has her blinking up at me through thickly-painted lashes. “And come to find out, that’s the one thing I can’t live without. All the rest of it is neither here nor there.”
“But I saved the bar,” she whispers, her eyes growing headier under my admission.
“You did, and I’m so grateful—Nick’s back home, running it as we speak. And I didn’t have a home. Not until I found you.”
She scoffs, raising a hand to her hip in offense. “I found you, for the record.”
I roll my eyes, shaking my head. “You’re insufferable.”
“Yet, you can’t live without me,” she counters.
“I can’t.” I tighten my arms around her, sidling one hand up to cup her face. “Because I love you, red.”
Her breathing hitches. “Brooks.”
“You don’t have to say it back right now. In fact, I don’t want you to. I want you to say it in your own time. This is my time. No matter if you turn me away today, I needed you to know.” My thumb brushes over her bottom lip, uncaring if makeup is smearing across my skin. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Her eyes water as she lifts on tiptoe to crash her lips to mine.
Her kiss is always like a violent tornado, decimating all land in its wake, but this one is more—more than I ever could have imagined for myself.
I tip her chin with my hand beneath her jaw, deepening it as I turn us toward the conference table and press against her.
All of the energy oozing off of her tells me she needs this, locale be damned.
If she’s going to tell me to go home, I’ll at least go home smelling like her. Even if it’ll drive me fucking crazy.
Easing her onto the edge of the table, I hear a bunch of her papers crackle as she presses against them. “Brooks,” she warns, looking at the door.
I ignore the warning, uncaring of anyone but her obvious needs. Shoving her skirt up her legs, I eye her for any more rebuttal, but she gives none as she watches me intently, opening her legs to me with explicit permission.
I grin. “That’s my good girl,” I coax.
She’s got silky panties covering her center, and there’s evidence of her arousal seeping through them, more evident in the light as I get her skirt out of my way.
Running my finger over the outer confines, right over the very slit that’s haunted my dreams, I look up to watch her reaction. “Seems you’ve missed me as much as I’ve missed you.”
“Sh—Shut up,” she stammers as I slide her panties to the side and bare her to me.
Lifting one of her legs, I run my eyes at its length, right down to her stilleto-covered foot. “I love these on you.”
Dropping her leg over my shoulder, I tease her lips open as I lean forward, all the while watching her reactions.
Her sassy mouth is finally silent as I descend on her, lashing at her pussy with my tongue, savoring every bit of her flavor that I’ve been missing since she took it with her.
“Holy shit,” she breathes, one of her hands coming down to tangle in my hair.
I grin against her warmth as I find her entrance with two fingers, knowing my girl needs more.
Thinking of her as mine spurs me on, and I sink them deep inside her heat, eating up the moan she tries to stifle.
“Indie, are you alright? I thought I heard…”
I don’t stop. If anything, I fuck her harder, deeper, licking around her clit with fevered circles.
She bows forward, digging her hands into my hair. “Get the fuck out!”
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” I hear the door slam on the girl’s exit, and I pull back and grin up at Indie, covered in her arousal.
“I’m going to have to pay her not to leave, you know?” she gets out.
I shrug. Twisting my fingers toward her front wall, I curl them forward and find the spot that’ll make her go off without a doubt and wage war on it.
She tugs my face back down, begging for what she can’t coherently get out at the moment.
Lapping at her with renewed vigor, I nearly come unglued when she screams my name as she comes, her center violently clamping around me like a vise as I try to drag the orgasm out.
“Fuck,” she whispers as I look up at her.
I stand, pull my fingers from her center, and shove them in her mouth for her to clean off.
She obliges, and it makes my erection press harder against my jeans. The flick of her playful tongue over my fingers is enough to make me bend her over the table, but I try to refrain.
“Now, where was I?” I taunt, tugging her panties back over her swollen, satiated center. “Oh yeah, where am I going to live? With you, or a hotel?”
“You’re already assuming I’m going to say that I feel the same way you do?”
I can’t help how her words stab through me, but I try to hide the reaction from Indie.
I ruefully grip her apex, making her gasp and try to scoot away from me. “Part of you is on the same page as me.”
“Brooks. I—” she starts, and I want to cut her off and tell her not to decide right now. I’ve put her on the spot, and it’s not very fair of me.
I want her to have time to acclimate to the idea that I’m here, waiting, wanting only her, but then again, I want her to leap into my arms and ride off into the sunset like in the movies. But this isn’t the movies, and Indie isn’t that kind of girl. She’s vexing and hard-headed, which is part of why I love her.
“This is a lot, and I’m mid-workday, and then you’re here, and I wasn’t expecting…”
“You need some time,” I realize.
She bites her lower lip. “I do.”
I nod. “It’s only fair. I had all this time to realize you’re who I wanted. Not that I wanted it.”
She gets off the edge of the table and shimmies her skirt back down, covering the curves I’d love to get lost in for the rest of the day.
“I’m at the Hilton a few blocks from here.” Leaning over, I pocket her business card from the mess of papers across the table.
I deleted her number, thinking it was smart, so I wouldn’t call or text her after she left. Then, when I wanted to contact her, Taylor tried to be difficult and told me to get her number myself.
“Brooks,” she says as I reach the door. I turn and look at her. She seems more refreshed than when she walked in the door, and I grin inwardly at my being the cause of the new color in her cheeks and the swell of her lips. “It was good to see you.”
After grabbing my hat off the conference table, I tip it to her. “It’s always a pleasure, red.”
Leaving her leaning against the side of her conference table, I tip my hat to the very red-faced assistant before finding my way back out into the California sun.
Hours have passed, and I’m sprawled out on the bed in my hotel room, toying with her card over my knuckles back and forth as I contemplate bothering her. She said she needed time, but time is relative, or so I heard somewhere.
What are you wearing?
It’s well after ten p.m., so I know my little redheaded minx is probably stripped down to nothing but her undergarments, sipping a glass of something to relax from the day. Though, I’d like to think I’d given her a dose of relaxation earlier.
Who is this
Really?
Oh, sorry, Steven. Is this your new number?
Who the fuck is Steven, and why does he have your number?
I wish I could see your face right now.
The comment has my insides clenching like a schoolboy.
Not funny.
Neither was you asking what I was wearing.
I was genuinely curious.
My mouth drops open as an image loads into the text thread. The angle tells me she’s lying down, and her hand is somewhere I can still taste, beneath dark panties I’d like to shred.
Not fair.
I don’t play fair.
Clearly.
You know, I was thinking…
Don’t hurt yourself, red.
Shut up. I was thinking that we really don’t know one another. The circumstances of us were… different.
You want me to sweep you off of your feet all over again?
You’re something else.
We have all the time in the world to get to know one another. But if you want me to take you on a date, all you have to do is ask.
Can you be serious?
Let’s do it. Let’s go on a date. I won’t rush you. If anything, I’ll get more time with you before you toss me back into the ocean of discarded men.
Stop it.
Tomorrow night? I’d say I would pick you up, red, but this is your city.
I’ll come get you at six.
I’ll be waiting.
This picture is of her hand sunken further under her panties, and the angling tells me she’s arched, and her fingers are deep in my favorite place.
So, I hit Facetime.