Chapter 6
Brody
I see what she’s doing. She’s testing me.
Testing us. She thinks if she starts firing off questions, eventually we’ll burn through everything and realize we’re not compatible.
It’s not going to work. I feel that in my bones.
But I’m all for trying because after she’s exhausted all arguments, she’ll have to face the facts.
She’s mine.
The sooner she accepts that fact, the sooner I’ll have her permanently in my arms.
There’s no denying we have hurdles. One of them is that I live in San Antonio. That hasn’t changed. I’m here to help my family for a few months and then go home.
I guide her toward her kitchen. “What should we cook?”
“Do you like fish? I have some salmon. We could make a salad to go with it.”
My stomach grumbles. “That sounds delicious.” I head straight for the fridge because the first thing this woman is going to learn about me is that I can cook.
I doubt either of us will be cooking much once she joins me in the mansion because Gretchen does that.
She’s the house manager, and she runs the entire household like a tight ship.
Especially now that she’s hired several other people to help.
The point is, I won’t have Melody thinking that just because I can’t wait to see her barefoot and pregnant, I will also expect her to cook and clean. Never.
When I turn around, my hands are filled with vegetables to deposit on her small butcher-block island. As I catch her eye, she’s grinning. Fuck, she’s pretty. I hesitate so I can stare at her. Soak her in. This moment. I want to memorize all of our moments. This one feels important, though.
She turns toward the corner of the room, grabs a stool, and drags it over to the island before perching on it. “Twenty questions,” she declares. “I’ve met your brother Dallas and your sister Emilia. Are there other siblings?”
“Nope. Just the three of us. It was really just Dallas and me. Our parents got divorced late in life. My father remarried, and they had Emilia. She’s twenty-three years younger than I am.”
“Wow. That is an age gap.”
I start chopping vegetables, well aware that my girl is watching me. Judging me. Let her. She will not find me lacking in this skill. I’ve been living alone for most of my life. I like to eat, and I want to stay fit. The only way to accomplish that was to learn to cook healthy.
“Where are your parents now?”
“Dad’s in Europe with his wife. My mother died of cancer several years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. Now, tell me about your family.”
“Only child. My parents were missionaries overseas. I don’t think they expected or planned to have a child. They’re dedicated to saving the masses. But I came along later in their lives anyway.”
“Where are they now?”
“Africa. They made a life for themselves in Uganda. They still do a lot of missionary work, but they’ve made a home there.”
“So you grew up overseas?”
“Yes. I didn’t come to the US for the first time until I was about ten.
I was homeschooled, and after passing my GED, I decided I wanted to go to college in the States.
So I did. Much to the dismay of my parents, who think my time would be better spent serving others.
College opened up a whole new world for me.
I’d always kept a journal and written short stories, but after getting an English degree, I knew I wanted to be a writer. ”
“How did you end up choosing romance?” I ask her.
She shrugs. “I’m a hopeless romantic, I guess. While my parents think they need to feed the nations, I like to make people smile. The messages I get from readers fill my heart. They love my books. So I write. It’s my calling.”
“How beautiful. Do you see your parents often?”
“No. It’s been a few years. We catch up by phone every few weeks, but they’re busy, and our lives don’t mesh. It’s okay. I’m not upset about it. I made different choices. I’m happy.”
I grab the lettuce and start ripping pieces. “How many boyfriends have you had?”
She shakes her head. “Nope. My turn. Have you been married?”
“Nope. Never even close. Like I said, I’ve been a workaholic for many years. I’ve never let anyone get close enough to me to consider marriage.” I glance up at her. “Until now.”
She visibly shivers. “No long-term girlfriends?”
“None. I’ve occasionally dated women for a few weeks or months, but then they would get clingy, and I cut them loose.”
She frowns. “Clingy? Clingier than you marching into my house five seconds after meeting me and declaring yourself to be my life partner? That kind of clingy?”
I laugh. “Touché. I don’t think I’ve ever dated a woman as clingy as that, no. So I guess the point is that they were never the right woman for me.”
“And I am?”
“Definitely.” I don’t have any doubts. I’ll tell her that every hour until she believes me. “Now you. Boyfriends?”
She hesitates, staring at me for long seconds. “One.”
I stiffen, wondering what I’m up against. “How long ago?”
“It’s been about an hour.”
I nearly drop the knife as I jerk my gaze to hers. Her adorable cheeks are that deep pink again. I can see splotches on her chest above the neckline of her sundress, and I really want to see how low the blush extends..
“Yeah, like I said, I’m a hopeless romantic.
I went on a few first dates in college. My roommates would try to set me up with their boyfriends’ buddies, but there was never a spark, and I didn’t see the point in carrying the farce on if there were no fireworks.
After a while, I decided marriage wasn’t in the cards for me.
Maybe I’m jaded from spending so much time reading and writing fiction, but I swore a long time ago I would not settle. ”
I’m still holding the knife in one hand, not moving. This perfect woman sitting two feet from me, looking all cute and sexy, perched on her stool with her legs crossed and her hair a wild mess of curls, has never had a boyfriend?
I swallow hard. I should feel the pressure her words convey. I feel the challenge, but not in the sense that I might not get the prize. I will. And I’m going to enjoy proving to her that I’m the one.
After setting the knife down and releasing the green pepper, I wipe my hands on a towel and round to her. Her face is a few inches closer to mine with her on the stool. I cup her cheeks and hold her head. “How many men have you kissed?”
“My parents have a story about a little boy in Africa kissing me on the lips when I was about three, but I don’t remember it. Then there was you in the car.”
My nostrils flare with my sharp intake of breath. “That was not a kiss. That was the briefest brush of lips.” I slowly lower my head. “This is a kiss.” After giving her a moment to turn away, I close the gap and drop my mouth onto hers.
The soft purr she makes drives me out of my head. So sweet. She even leans into me, uncrossing her legs as her hands come to my chest. At first, she flattens her palms on my pecs, but then she fists my shirt. I doubt she’s aware.
I angle her head to one side and deepen the connection, dragging my tongue along the seam of her lips until she parts for me. Taking my time, I taste her lips, stroke along the ridge of her teeth, and then gently suck her tongue into my mouth.
When I release her tongue, I soothe it with mine, tangling, learning every detail about my girl’s mouth. Every moment is perfection with her. Every step we take forward proves that she is mine.
This angel was sent to me. I had to wait forty-five years for her, but she’s here now, and I will spend the rest of my life reminding her how fucking romantic I can be, fulfilling her fantasies every single day.
I kiss my girl until she’s panting and dazed. When I release her, I stay close, meeting and holding her gaze while I continue to keep her face in my hands. Fuck, I’m lucky.
“Brody…” Her voice is husky, sexy, satisfied.
“Is that how you write a kissing scene?” I ask softly.
“I will now.”
I grin. Score.
“But you’ll need to kiss me in a slightly different way every day so I don’t run out of material.”
“I can do that, baby. You’ll never run out of material with me. How the hell have you been writing kissing scenes without ever being kissed?”
Her cheeks turn a deeper pink as I ease back.
“Brody, I write about a lot of things I’ve never done.
That’s the beauty of fiction. I don’t have to do all the things in my books.
I’ve never kidnapped anyone or been kidnapped, and yet I write dark scenes with that in it.
I’ve never jumped out of a plane. I’ve never crawled through the jungle or hunted someone down in a cave or shot a gun or built an explosive device or eaten live cockroaches.
But all those things have happened to my characters. ”
I stare at her, mesmerized by everything she’s revealed. She might not want to share her pen name with me yet, but I suspect she doesn’t usually divulge that much information either.
“So… Just to be clear…”
“I have not had sex,” she says without my prompting.
“But I’m well-read on the subject matter.
And, just to be clearer,” she adds with a giggle, “no one has sex like romance authors describe in books. It’s exaggerated.
Every man has a giant cock. Every woman has a tight pussy.
She can come multiple times, even from penetration.
” She rolls her eyes. “See? Unrealistic.”
I laugh. “What if my cock is huge?”
“I’ll never know, will I?”
I lift a brow. “Only because you’ll never see any other besides mine. Not in person anyway. I assume you’ve watched porn.”
She sits taller. “I’ll have you know that I watch porn regularly. It’s how I know half the things I put in my books.”
My eyes widen in surprise. My girl watches porn… Not sure how I feel about that. She’d lose her mind if I barred her from doing such an activity, especially if it’s for research purposes. I lick my lips. “You do realize porn is not remotely realistic.”
“Of course. I’m not an idiot. But it can be sexy, and it helps me know how to use different sex toys or how to hold a flogger or whether or not a woman can really suck cock while being eaten out.” She shrugs.
I’m stunned. Truly. This girl is so sweet and innocent on the outside. But on the inside, she’s a naughty sex fiend. I shouldn’t be shocked. She writes romance for a living. I can’t expect her to do that with no research, especially if she doesn’t have sex herself.
Didn’t.
Didn’t have sex.
As soon as I convince her she’s mine and slide a ring on her finger at the altar, she will have so much sex that she won’t remember what she did for all those hours every day.
I don’t know when I decided to follow in my brother’s and cousins’ footsteps on this issue, but I suddenly like their thinking.
The fastest way to get this woman to the altar is to tempt her every day, give her just enough of a taste of what it will be like between us to whet her appetite and drive her wild with arousal.
Eventually, she’ll be so needy that she’ll agree to marry me just to put an end to the ache she’s going to feel deep in her pussy.
It’s startling hearing her use words like cock and pussy so flippantly. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by that either, since she cusses like a sailor. And writes sex scenes for a living.
“New question,” I begin, my curiosity through the roof. “Do you own any of these sex toys you write about?”
“Of course. Dozens of them.”
My eyes feel like they will bug out of my head. “Dozens?” My cock goes from hard to rock solid in one-point-five seconds.
She shrugs. “I mean, I haven’t counted them, but I own a lot. Research, remember?” She winks at me.
I release her and take a step back. I have to.
It’s either that or drag her to her bedroom and demand to see this stash of sex toys.
I will see them. Before the end of the night.
But first, I need to feed her. Once we get to her bedroom, we’ll never make it back out until we move to step three of our date—breakfast.
Melody is a pile of incongruency. She cusses, she uses words like cock and pussy without a second thought, she probably knows more about sex than most humans… And yet, I was the first person to kiss her, and she’s still a virgin.
I really need to pick up the pace and get her fed so I can kiss her again.