Chapter 32
Selena
I woke at five on the dot, my watch vibrating on my wrist. I sat up in bed and looked around. I was far less tired than I’d been at this time only a week ago. I supposed the regular schedule and not drinking were having a good effect on my body.
I half expected Brody to burst into my room and try his trick with the wet sponge, but there was only silence in the house.
Don’t tell me I’m up before him?
A wicked excitement stole through me at the thought of having the upper hand for once.
I got out of bed, careful to be as quiet as I could, and tiptoed into the joined bathroom. I listened at his door, and then carefully turned the handle and pushed it open.
It quietly swung inward. The room was still dark, the drapes drawn. A white noise machine played on the bedside table, hiding the sound of my feet on the plush carpet.
He was a lump in bed, hard to make out from here. I was careful not to squeeze the wet washcloth I’d prepared in the bathroom.
For once, I’d be the one giving the harsh wake-up call. Call me petty as hell, but I couldn’t wait.
I reached the bed and tried to figure out where he was positioned under the covers. A floorboard creaked, but the white noise machine drowned it out.
I carefully folded the covers back from his head. His hair appeared first, and then his cheek. Perfect for a nice dose of cold water. I brought the wet washcloth up and was just about to press it to his face, when he moved.
The lump under the covers suddenly came alive, grabbing my stretched-out hand and pulling me so I ended up across his body and face down on the bed.
“And what might you be up to this morning, creeping about my room, heathen?”
His voice was rough and thick with sleep. His knees were under my belly, and when I tried to push myself up, he shifted and clamped one over my thighs, trapping me.
“Very funny, let me up,” I protested and wriggled on his lap. Not only was this position embarrassing, ass up in the air, but it was having an effect that it absolutely wasn’t supposed to be having. It was hot; I couldn’t lie. Brody chuckled and tapped the small of my back.
“You weren’t considering giving me a taste of my own medicine, were you?”
“Like you wouldn’t deserve it.”
“I’m not saying I wouldn’t, only that you’ll have to get up way earlier to achieve your goals.”
He lifted his leg, and I got up slowly. I still had the wet cloth in my hand. I could still get him.
I lunged toward him, and then, we were falling. I’m not sure how it happened, but one second, I was above him, the next, below.
He landed on top of me, my hand with the wet rag clenched in his grip. His body pressed between my legs, and his weight bore me down into the mattress.
Panic blanked my brain for a second. A pure muscle-memory response. Every muscle locked, and my breath stopped inside my lungs, frozen in place.
Suddenly, I wasn’t here, with Brody, but in a terrifying place up near the border, lured by a guy I’d thought was interested in me. I’d gone willingly into Hell.
That had been the last time I’d lain beneath a man, powerless, broken, wanting to die as they took their turns.
I felt sick, fevered. My thoughts raced, and my eyes filled with tears. One by one, they ran down the sides of my face, uncontrollable. I wasn’t crying. My soul was weeping.
“Selena?” Brody’s quiet whisper couldn’t fully break through that crushing paralysis.
I struggled to breathe, to think, to speak.
Then cold touched my face, and I jerked. The damn wet cloth. Brody was using it to wipe the trails of my tears and then sliding it over my forehead and nose. My skin prickled with awareness when the damp material passed over.
Slowly, my mind unglued itself from the past.
See: Brody, the clock on the wall behind his head, the ceiling light, the ray of sunshine falling in a strip across the wall.
Hear: the white noise machine, Brody’s breath, the rustle of the bedspread.
Smell: him, all around me, all over me.
Feel: him again, surrounding me.
“Where have you gone, heathen?” Brody murmured, his gaze traveling over my face.
I took a deep breath, and then another, and slowly, my body unlocked.
There was not here. That place was gone, burned to the ground, and the earth salted in its wake. It only existed in my memory now. I didn’t have to go there, and no one could make me.
“I’m here. I just can’t breathe with your two hundred pounds on me,” I muttered.
A quick smile broke out over Brody’s face. “Try two-forty.”
“Exactly, now get off before you break me.” I shoved at his shoulders. Now that the danger of an annoying panic attack had passed, it felt far too comfortable here, beneath this man.
“Oh, Selena, what man could break you?” He moved off me.
I immediately missed his weight. There was something in his expression that made me feel proud, somehow, and stronger. As if this man really thought I couldn’t be broken.
He stood beside the bed, looking like a deity of some kind with his bare, inked chest and dark-brown waves hanging around his face. His PJ pants hung low on his hips, and one glance was all it took to confirm. Yep. The term “morning wood” was clearly invented to describe this man.
“You’d be surprised,” I muttered, looking at the ceiling, my cheeks hot.
This was getting to be a problem. I was starting to melt at this man’s touch.
The one man I had to stay away from. Well, there were two if you counted Cal.
My stepbrothers. I’d be absolutely finished if my mother ever found out the kind of thoughts I was having about a certain Sinclair.
“Okay, I guess that’s enough exercise for today?” I attempted a fresh start and sat up, pushing myself off the opposite side of the bed. “It’s raining, too, so I guess no training.”
“Meet me in the gym in five minutes.” Brody turned toward the bathroom.
“Wait, the gym?” I wasn’t sure if I was disappointed or relieved that we’d still be working out.
“Yep, the gym. You don’t want to be broken? Time to get stronger, cheer captain.”
I was stretching in front of the mirrors when Brody came in. The gym was bright and airy, with high-set basement windows looking out at the back garden, where the sun had just risen.
“Good girl. Always stretch first.” He settled two water bottles down at the side of the room and approached me.
Good girl. I didn’t know why, but that phrase, said in his deep, accented voice, did something to me.
“I think I know a thing or two about stretching. I was a cheerleader, remember?”
He nodded and considered me, then tilted his head to the side. “That’s right. Let’s stretch each other, in that case. Go deeper.”
Something dark and warm burned in his eyes, and I tore mine from his gaze. I was going to be as red as a tomato if I wasn’t careful. I wasn’t an expert at blushing. I’d never had a lot of experience with it, but I was making up for it lately.
“Sure, I can give you a few pointers. Since you need my help,” I allowed graciously.
He chuckled and came to stand beside me in front of the mirror.
“Point away.”
I moved behind him, correcting his posture first. Honestly, it was already good, but it was fun to poke him in places and get him to straighten up. I walked around the front of him and looked down at the floor.
“Touch your toes,” I ordered, enjoying my chance to be bossy.
Brody bent forward, easily placing his hands on the top of his feet. I put my hands to his shoulders and gently pressed down, stretching my own back as I went.
He bent farther.
I straightened up for a moment and waited for him to stand.
“Feeling okay?”
He gave me a lopsided grin. “Just getting started.”
I sat on the floor and opened my legs wide, facing him. God, it had been so long since I’d properly stretched. I used to do it every single night before bed. Now, my body felt tight and sensitive.
Brody sat opposite me, stretching his legs open as well. He put his feet just inside my ankles and held his hands out for me.
“Know this one?” I rolled as forward as I could and took a deep breath against the burning pain in my hamstrings.
“Of course, I’m not a complete dunce,” he teased. “Ready?”
“Ready,” I confirmed.
He slowly leaned back, taking me with him. Despite my tightness, I still had good flexibility, better than average. My forehead hit the floor inches short of his crotch.
“Don’t say a word,” I warned him.
“Not even one,” he said, arrogant as ever.
After what felt like forever, his tight grip relaxed and I moved backward. The screaming in my hamstrings faded as I leaned back, taking Brody with me.
He rocked forward, stretching far more easily than I’d thought he’d be able to. Then again, hockey players had to be flexible.
His face came toward the floor, but he was so much damn taller than me, his face wasn’t going to touch the mat. It was going to touch me. I stopped pulling him when his face was inches away from my crotch, my cheeks heating again, after they’d only just cooled down.
But he didn’t stop there. He stretched down farther, his hands gripping my upper arms, so his face nudged into me.
“Hey!” I protested hotly and tried to move, but unable to with his feet pushing my legs outward and his hands locked on my arms.
He pressed his damn face into my pussy, right there in broad daylight in the gym. I could only stare as his chest expanded with a long inhale. My yoga leggings were so damn thin I could feel the heat of his exhale, as if he’d mashed his face to my bare skin.
“What are you doing?!”
I panicked. His hot breath felt like it was melting my panties against my pussy. His nose right on my clit short-circuited my brain.
“Stretching, what does it look like?” came his muffled reply.
He hadn’t moved his face from my pussy to speak, so the vibration of his voice only increased the delicious friction.
“I can smell you, heathen. Dripping wet in the gym, where anyone could see,” he rumbled.
Heat charged through me.
He raised his head an inch to look at me, pinning my eyes with his.
“When only I should get to see.”