21 - Lauren
Lauren
“It’s a little past your work hours, no?” I asked, my hand tightening around the knot keeping the towel around my body.
Brock didn’t let his eyes wander, but I noted that they were snapped on mine in a way that felt intentional, as though he couldn’t afford to break eye contact. A small muscle in his jaw ticked.
“I just wanted to apologize for losing my composure earlier. I felt the need to explain myself.” Ever the foreman. “About what Merrick said…I’m not jealous, exactly. Not that I don’t find you attractive, I do,” he added.
I raised an eyebrow.
“It’s just that I take pride in my work. It’s part of who I am and who I’ve always been. And when he threatened the integrity of my work ethic, I just freaked out. It was unprofessional and that’s the one thing I refuse to be,” he continued.
I put a hand on the doorframe and Brock went so still that he seemed to stop breathing. I didn’t know how I looked in his eyes and what he was seeing right now, but I knew enough of him to get an idea of how the sight of me made him feel.
“Do you ever indulge in your impulses, Mr. Lawson?” I asked, dropping my voice to a seductive lilt. I was only half-teasing him, but that was part of the fun of messing with someone as stoic as Brock.
We both knew that he wasn’t here to defend his professional integrity. He could bullshit himself but he wasn’t going to bullshit me.
“No,” he said firmly. “That’s not the way I was taught.”
“You’re still human, though. Nothing that’s happening right now is normal and you can’t expect yourself to be a brick wall all the time. You’re going to break,” I said.
“No, I won’t.” And yet he still couldn’t let his eyes linger anywhere on my body beyond my neck.
“Is there a reason you’re holding yourself to that impossible standard?” I asked.
His mouth opened automatically, but no sound came out at first. It was almost like it took his brain a while to register that he was actually prepared to be honest with me and it caught him off-guard.
“You came all the way to my house to speak to me in the middle of the night,” I pointed out. “Look, I’m not going to force you to tell me anything you don’t want to, Brock. But I’ve been working with you for months and still feel like I know too little about you.”
“You know what you need to know,” he said.
“It’s not enough.”
His eyes widened slightly, surprise creeping in at the edges—a rare victory for my ego. I took a small step towards him, still clutching my towel. He didn’t back away.
“Your pride bleeds into your work. And as someone who needs to trust you to work on my home, all I’m asking for is a little bit of clarity. A peek into the mind that keeps everything running like clockwork,” I said.
I held my breath, expecting him to dismiss me with my name again. Only, he didn’t this time.
“I hold myself to that standard because I’m the only one left who can carry on my father’s legacy. And my grandfather’s. That means something to me, Lauren. It gives me purpose and without that, I’m nothing,” he said.
Brock had just thrown the ball straight back to my court. He’d answered me and the offer of that part of his truth was disarming.
This was the most vulnerable he’d been with me, even more vulnerable than the kiss we shared in the gallery. This was a piece of his own history that he was voluntarily sharing, not because he had to but because he felt safe enough to do so. Why else tell me any of that?
It also put things into a broader context.
“This whole thing with Rafe threatening your business isn’t just about professionalism, is it?” I asked. “It’s about the personal record you keep to uphold your family name.”
His shoulders, the same ones I’d usually admired for their strength and broadness, now suddenly seemed overloaded. I couldn’t imagine the weight of that, and for how long he’d been bearing it.
“That sounds like a lot for one man to carry,” I said. “Aren’t you getting tired of doing that alone?”
It was now that he allowed himself to really look at me. I could feel the night air cooling my still-wet skin. Under his gaze, I was aware of the feeling of my hair sticking to my back, and the heat pooling between my thighs.
“Aren’t you getting cold standing in that towel?” he finally shot back, his voice low.
A small smile tugged at the corner of my lips. I took a step back.
“We’re at a stalemate,” I announced, my own eyes raking over him.
I slipped my hand off the bunched-up knot until I was holding my towel with only two fingers.
Brock’s entire body tensed up. Unlike with Callum and Rafe, his stillness meant something else.
Whereas Callum’s blush gave him away, and Rafe’s eyes were his biggest traitors, it was Brock's stillness that offered the biggest clue about what he was thinking.
And I thought we were finally on the same page.
“You think I need to get warm. I think you need to cut yourself some slack,” I said as casually as if I was proposing a late-night stroll. “I think we can both help each other with that.”
I dropped my towel.
He didn’t waste even a second before he swept into the house and grabbed me with a helpless kind of aggression. I met him there, my hands tangling in hair I’d only dreamed of touching this way. It was soft and sable between my fingers, and a low groan left my throat as I pressed myself against him.
Finally.
This was finally happening.
His grip on me was firmer than both Rafe’s and Callum’s had been. It felt like more than passion; there was a kind of anger behind it, and I wondered if he was mad at himself for giving in, or at me for pushing him to that point.
But then he sighed into the kiss, and it was such a sound of relief that my thoughts just blanked.
I’d been curious for so long about what Brock was like in bed. Well, I wasn’t exactly going to get that answer right now because I had a feeling we wouldn’t even make it up the stairs.
I was so lost in the surprising softness of his lips that I only vaguely registered him slipping just out of my grasp to close and lock the door behind us. That gave me the opening I needed to shove him back against it.
His hands moved from my waist to my neck and then the sides of my face as he cradled it.
His thumbs stroked my cheeks, light as a feather and in return I bunched my fists up in the front of his shirt and shoved him harder against the door.
His head thumped lightly off its frame and his eyes only widened for a moment before clouding over with a heat that sent shivers down my spine.
His hands on my jaw tightened and his lips found mine again with a renewed eagerness. This was a hunger that was greedy for self-betrayal. He was losing himself in it and I wanted every part of that. I wanted every part of him.
I tore at his clothes, tired of being the only one naked. Together we tossed them aside where they landed in a heap on my floor. I took a second to just appreciate what I was looking at.
Years of manual labor had hardened his body into a mountain of packed muscle beneath smooth skin.
He didn’t have any tattoos like Rafe, but he wasn’t completely smooth like Callum either.
He had a few scars littered across the canvas, and I traced over them with my hands, entranced.
Brock shut his eyes, putting his hands over mine but not controlling their movement.
He had a light dusting of hair on his broad chest, and a narrow happy trail that I couldn’t stop myself from exploring with a finger.
He was beautiful, such a perfect combination of strength and power and size but I wanted to see it all unravel like a spool.
I wanted to see him come undone and I wanted to be the reason behind it.
His dick was already half-erect, and my mouth watered as my exploration dipped lower only for him to stop me.
He gathered both of my hands in one of his and spun us around until I was the one pinned with my arms above my head.
His mouth moved to my neck and ear, his body bracing me against the door and one of his thighs slipping between mine.
“Ride it,” he commanded, his voice a harsh whisper. I shook my head, denying the intense urge to listen and find some kind of relief for the ache of arousal that was rapidly drowning out my sanity.
“No,” I said. “I want to taste you, Brock. I’ve been wanting to taste you for a long time.”
His eyes flashed, not with affection or challenge but something deeper. Something darker.
“I’m not Cal or Rafe, sweetheart,” he said, his voice laced with a low growl. “I’m not going to play fetch.” Hearing their names was like being drenched in cold water. Despite the rabid horniness, my mouth dropped in indignation.
“What? But how did—?” I started.
He chuckled and my whole body shuddered against his.
“You really think I didn’t notice? I knew the first time you fucked Cal after the community meeting,” he said, driving his thigh up higher and I gasped as the pressure caused a pulse of pleasure to ripple through me.
Brock’s breathing deepened. Whereas earlier, he avoided eye contact, his gaze was fully devouring me now.
It felt like he was analyzing every single move I made or every hitch of my breath; cataloging, calculating, constructing something that he would ultimately tear down again. And I wanted to let him.
“He told you?” I whispered and Brock rocked his thigh against my center again. I groaned, grabbing a handful of his hair. The pressure on my clit was delicious but I refused to move against him the way I so desperately needed to.