16. Brooks
SIXTEEN
Brooks
T he stars twinkle brightly overhead as I drop Indie onto the blanket Spencer laid out for us. I’ll have to thank him later for the ambiance of the glowing lantern beside us. Ever since I let my admission that I don’t want her to leave slip out, there’s an odd tension between us.
Her tears startled me. She’s a tough cookie; anyone can tell after five minutes in her presence. Seeing her wear her emotions on her sleeve shook me a bit to my core, if I’m honest.
This thing we’re doing, whatever this is between us, I want to dive in head-first and either drown in it or float inside it for the rest of my life. But I know what we agreed to. I know we said no strings.
She’s perusing the basket as I sit, adjusting on it to face her as a snort makes its way out of her. “What is all this?”
I narrow my gaze as she tosses a box of condoms at me. They hit my chest as she tosses something else, and I barely register what it is before it hits the blanket between us.
Lube.
“What the fuck? I’m going to kill him!” I growl, snatching the basket from her. Or trying because she keeps her menacing little hands on either side of it, tugging it back toward her.
“Oh, come on! This might be fun!” She abruptly lets the basket go, and I wobble at the loss before tossing the basket to my right side.
I turn back, seeing her unboxing something, looking over her shoulder, a rueful grin on her beautiful face.
“What is that?” I ask, knowing that if condoms and lube were the appetizer, whatever it is, can’t be anything wholesome.
I hear a faint buzzing, and I smack my hand over my face. “I’m really going to kill him.”
“He had our best interests at heart. Look at this thing! Ten speeds!” She flails the vibrator around in the air, and I’m distinctly reminded of how we were having such a raw and emotional moment a bit ago, and now there’s a sex toy in her hand.
She clicks it off and places it between us on the blanket. I can feel its presence like a weight on my chest as I look over the multi-colored vibrator as she runs her manicured fingertip over its length. “So, where were we? What were we discussing?”
Her less-than-innocent eyes flick up to mine, looking even greener in the dim light surrounding us as she bites her lower lip playfully.
“I don’t remember,” I answer honestly, because all I can think about is her.
There’s no more deadline floating around in my brain, nor the harrowing feeling of her slipping out of my life. The only thing I can think about is her.
“Hm. Me either.” Her wicked grin is followed by her laying down on the blanket, her eyes searching the sky for something as I run mine the length of her body.
The dress she’d worn for the rehearsal pales compared to the one I witnessed her in earlier when I happened to walk past the dress shop, but I don’t want to bring that up again after how I behaved.
I lay on the blanket, positioning onto my side to look at her. The hefty presence of the vibrator between us still lingers, and every few seconds, I look down at it.
“You ever wonder if we’re living in a shoebox, and the stars are our breathing holes?” she mutters as I palm the cold vibrator in hand and shift closer to her.
“No. What sane person would wonder about that?” I tease, dropping my face into her neck and nuzzling my beard against it to serve as a distraction.
“Hey! I resent that. I’m perfectly sane.”
I laugh into her throat the moment she whimpers. My tongue eases along the column, finding her racing pulse point and taunting it with a few swirling circles. “You are the furthest from sane I think I’ve ever met, red.”
She exhales, and it’s shaky. It does something to my insides, curling them into a ball of need I can barely stand.
With her distracted, I’ve been clicking through the settings on the vibrator, finding the setting that’s high in vibrations right before the ones that start vibrating in pulsing waves. I can’t imagine anyone likes those.
With it on and humming, I touch the tip to the inside of her left ankle. She has one leg cocked up and one straight, giving me great access to the very center of her that I’d love to dive inside and explore.
Being outside, touching her, has a primal feeling gnawing at my stomach, and my cock is aching behind my slacks.
“Brooks,” she whimpers as she arches and tries to hurry my movement with the toy along.
“Ah, ah, ah, I’m going to savor you tonight, red. Worship you beneath the stars and leave you with lingering memories so vivid you’ll never forget how you deserve to be treated.”
She hisses through her teeth as the vibrator eases along the inside of her knee, one direction in its heading. Her head lifts off the blanket, her greedy eyes watching as it disappears beneath the hem of her dress.
“You look beautiful tonight, Indie,” I breathe against her cheek, finding it just as hard to breathe in her presence as the first time I saw her sliding across my bar.
I know this was all supposed to be for show—a way for us to get ahead financially and get through the hardships. The thing is, I don’t know if there was ever a way to do this with her without falling. I was doomed to fail from the start.
However, it’s only at this moment that I’m realizing it.
“What if someone comes down here?” She arches and wiggles as I work the vibrator beneath her panties, helping me with subtle movements that tell me she wants this as much as I do.
“They won’t. This is private property.”
She can’t reply, even when I see questions dancing in her eyes as her mouth drops open and she lets loose a crackled cry of pleasure through the night. It wafts over the unkempt grass and bounces off trees where owls perch onlooking. She’s adding to the forest’s symphony tonight, and I’m her conductor.
I work the vibrator back and forth, teasing her entrance and clit equally as she writhes and lets go of her inhibitions at my machinations.
“You’re so fucking perfect,” I whisper before taking her lips in a bruising kiss that promises more. That there’s more left unsaid that I might not have the ability to form into words.
“Brooks!” Her pleading tone gives evidence she’s close, and even though I’d love to be inside her when she lets go and comes for me, I don’t want to stop.
I draw my face back some, watching her come undone for me as she cries out and tells the world how much she enjoys what, surely, Spencer thought was a joke. Once I’m lying beneath the stars, the vibrator carefully back in its box, and Indie lying on my chest, I decide I don’t think I’ll kill him after all.
“What did you mean when you said this is private property?”
I sigh, wondering how much I should tell her. I guess it can’t hurt, though. Being that it’s the very reason I entered this delusional bet of hers.
“This portion of the estate belongs to me.”
She sits up on her elbow and eyes me. “It does?”
I nod. “Yeah. It was my parents’. They wanted to build on it and never did. I had the same intent, but now I don’t think that’ll happen. It could, but it’s doubtful.”
“Why?”
“Well, I used this as collateral for a second mortgage on the bar back when I helped Nick, and if we don’t win this wager of yours without anyone finding out, it’ll all be gone.”
“I don’t want to be nosy, so you can absolutely tell me to fuck off, but what did Nick need help with?”
“Therapy after a couple of tours overseas. More in-depth, expensive therapy at centers in the city that he couldn’t afford. He was fine not going, but I wasn’t fine with how he was spiraling. He was headed down a dark road, and I wanted to give him a little light to get down his path easier.”
“Wow. I’m sure he’s so grateful to you. That’s an amazing thing to do for someone, Brooks.” There’s emotion in her tone that tells how genuine she’s being, but talking about something so personal still has me on edge.
“He doesn’t know. You can’t tell him. If he knew all I’ve gone through to help him, it’ll only make him spiral worse.”
“Wait, what? How does he think he got to go to the center?”
I sigh, sitting up as I look off over the field. Fireflies dance over the tall grass, moving in the wind, and I zone in on them as I feel Indie sit up beside me. “I told him I applied for some grants for him. It wasn’t a lie; I applied for them. It was just that he got denied.”
“Shit.”
Shit is right.
“I take it you’re behind on the payment for the bar and that’s why you got into this with me?”
I nod. “No one could’ve expected the last few years and how the economy would shift. I hadn’t even thought about what could happen when I locked myself into this deal. I just wanted to help him.”
She squeezes the inside of my biceps before slipping her hand around it. “It was an admirable thing, Brooks. And we’re going to make it right. If anything, Spence telling Taylor about setting this up should solidify her belief in our relationship.”
My stomach coils at the thought of us getting caught and all of this blowing up in our faces, but her confidence in us washes it away almost instantly.
“You can’t tell him,” I say, realizing she could pit Nick against me with this information and growing anxious over it.
Her face pulls tight. “I would never, Brooks. What you did was a great thing. I do think you should tell him, however.”
“Why?”
“People we love deserve to know the depth of that love and the lengths we’d go to for them.”
Her words are so heavy, they nearly press me further into the ground as I stare into her eyes.
“He’ll be so mad.”
“At first, probably. But he’s got all the tools to deal with that emotion now. Thanks to you.”
I lean forward and press my forehead to hers, just breathing her in. Only two more days, and she’ll be on a flight back home. My mind is racing, trying to conjure ways to keep her here with me, but I know that’s not fair. She’s been honest with me from the beginning. This is all a wager to her, and I agreed to go along with it. I have to hold up my end.
Her kiss is soft at first, deepening when I cup her face and open my lips to her. It promises more, even when it has no right to. Even when it knows we’re nearing the end.
There’s just one lingering question after our night under the stars: Does she realize she’ll be packing my heart into her suitcase and taking it with her when she leaves?
Well, maybe there’s also another.
Should I tell her?