Behind the Pines (The Gass County Series Book 3) (19 page)

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“Brody, hi. What are you doing here? It’s very, very late,” she said holding her hand on the door handle, not yet having decided to open up.

“I realized,” he started and ran his hand across his jaw. “I’m long overdue to make an apology for how I’ve behaved. I feel like I’ve made you feel . . . used, maybe.”

Sunshine swallowed hard and chewed on the bottom of her lip. “Used is an understatement. Ugly, undesirable, and naïve are better ways to explain what you made me feel. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m not taking the chance of you making me feel like that again. Good night.”

Brody held his hand on the door and she found it hard to close it. “Sunshine, listen. I was an idiot, a jackass to quote you, and I want to apologize for that.”

“What made you change your mind all of a sudden? You haven’t seemed too eager to talk to me at all since the last time we met at Hayley’s house.”

Brody suddenly stroked her cheek and she felt unable to move. “You had me the moment you ran across the road yelling for Brutus. You shook things up in me I thought were dormant, if not dead. I had no interested in feeling anything ever again. I’ve been divorced and our marriage was never very good to start with. I’m afraid I might not do you any good either.”

“Still holding on to your past, it seems.”

“She struck me hard, Sunshine. Real hard.”

“Where?”

“If you let me in for just a few seconds . . . I can show you, I guess.”

Sunshine held the door open, catching a wisp of Brody’s aftershave as he walked by her and into her kitchen, rolling the brim of his hat under his fingers.

“I’m not sure I deserve you after the way I left things, and I know that. It’s just,” Brody tummed some more on his hat. “It kills me seeing you laugh with another man, or getting a friendly hug, even from someone I know wouldn’t make a move on you.” Brody walked to the kitchen table and stared down at the papers, lifting one up to his face. “Even Hayley,” he turned to face to Sunshine leaning against the doorpost.

“It’s nothing between me and Hayley.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m not gay, Brody.”

“Are you sure Hayley knows that?”

“She does
now
, and you should too. Otherwise it would be her I’d let into my house tonight and not you.”

“Then who sent you these?” Brody fingered through the pink envelopes and their messages in a pile on the kitchen table. “Seems like someone likes you a lot. Knowing I had this kind of competition, I should have buckled down and written you pages.”

Sunshine walked across the floor and emptied Brody’s hands of his hat and the letter. “Nothing to worry about and the letters are from a friend. Nothing more.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she answered and looked at him from top to toe. “You said you had something to show me if I’d let you in. Well, here you are in my kitchen. Your time to shine, Officer.”

Brody sighed and looked around, eyeing the window where he saw the road he traveled a lot lately. “Got somewhere other than the kitchen?”

Sunshine walked ahead of him and rounded the corner to the hall leading into the bedroom and sat herself down on the bed, watching Brody look around the room, taking it all in. “Nice,” he said and placed his hat on her folded pile of laundry by the wall.

“I’m divorced,” he began.

“That’s old news, Brody,” Sunshine answered, pulling her leg up underneath herself.

“I was in Afghanistan, too.”

“I know most things about you. If you haven’t yet mentioned it, I’ve done my own thorough research.”

Brody untied his tie, unbuttoned his shirt, and put in neatly on the side of the bed before reaching down to his belt, ready to pull down the zipper of his work pants.

“Wait a second.” Sunshine stood and held her hands on Brody’s, halting his undressing. “We´re not having sex. What are you doing?”

“No,” Brody answered and looked her in the eyes. “We’re definitely not.”

Sunshine watched Brody push down the beige uniform pants down to his knees before bending down to take off his shoes. “This is quite humiliating,” he sighed and stood straight, folding his pants and putting them aside. “If things never work out between us, I would appreciate you never mentioning this event to anyone.”

Sunshine shook her head in response and felt the heat of Brody’s large hands as he guided hers to his bare chest. She swallowed hard and an instant flame burst through her chest as she felt the light dust of hair under her fingertips.

“Feel me,” Brody asked and somehow Sunshine had forgotten what they were doing, the reason behind it all, and she let her hands caress his wide chest moving down over his flat abs until her fingertips grabbed the waistband of his boxer shorts.

“Not now.” Brody stopped her hands only to move them around his waist, pulling her closer as he did. Her breasts heaved against his warm chest and she traced the skin on his waist, up his arms, until she found him looking down at her.

“Smooth?” She nodded in response and felt Brody tense against her. “Trace the curve of my . . . lower back all the way until you reach my upper thigh. Just do it.”

Sunshine watched his eyes close, his breathing became strenuous, and his body resembled a stone statue. Her hands investigated his back, his strong muscles curved towards his spine and slightly apprehensive her fingertips found something different, something intriguing and she felt the urge to continue inside the back of his boxer shorts. Brody grabbed her arms and swallowed, a shimmer of sweat coated his forehead.

“Are you all right?” she whispered and watched him nod with his eyes shut. She pulled her hands out of his underwear and grabbed his arm to turn him around. Her eyes traced the path her hands had traveled and without Brody’s consent pulled down the fabric of his underwear and froze.

“You don’t have to look at it, Sunshine. It’s okay. Women have walked away for less.”

Sunshine sat down her knees and traced the deep stiches across the deformed skin with her fingertips down a deep valley formed in his backside all the way from his lower back to his thigh until she heard him wince.

“Did I hurt you?”

“It hurts constantly,” he breathed heavily. “You touching it doesn’t make a difference.”

Sunshine flattened her hand against the separated muscle. “What happened?”

“War prisoner.” He swallowed and cursed the memories coming back to him as he spoke. “Not only were we starving, but so were their dogs and we were the next best thing to dog food.”

Sunshine stood and covered up Brody’s backside, walked around him and stroked her hands up his arms until she reached his shoulders, stopping him from grabbing his pants and pulling them on. “Why didn’t you just tell me? Would have been better than making me feel like crap for so long thinking I was repulsive.”

“There is absolutely nothing about you that can be seen as anything close to repulsive.” Brody sighed and took her hands in his, rubbing his thumbs over her hands. “I adore you, Sunshine, and figured if I kept my distance I still have a chance to run into you now and then, maybe have a conversation or coffee, instead of having you run out on me, telling the world about my misfortune.”

“You don’t think highly of me, do you?”

“Fear does crazy things to your mind. Survival makes you grab for the easiest way out not to get hurt.”

“Oh, Brody, I would never do anything that could hurt you, and if your wife left you because of that,” she motioned for his backside, “it’s her loss, not yours.”

“I was dejected and humiliated when she walked out on me, and I felt determined to show the entire town I was still a man in charge and that I had my shit together. My work was my cover for never having to feel anything again.” He sighed and looked down to where their feet touched.

“When I’m in pain, I get grouchy. I take painkillers but they don’t always work. The time you came over and I was not in the best of mind, I’d taken a Vicodin to have a chance to sleep a few hours before the next shift. Keeping up appearance is a lot in this job.”

Sunshine turned Brody’s back against the bed and when his calves hit the bedframe, she pushed him down and fell with him onto the bedspread and seated herself across his waist. Her hands moved from his waist up his chest and as she cupped his face in her hands, she kissed him as thoroughly as she possibly could. His arms found their way around her back and as she deepened the kiss, he grabbed her bottom, grinding her against a very sizeable erection inside his boxers.

“When someone leaves and instantly you feel your future is heading with it, you better saddle that horse and gallop after it, everything else falls behind. That, my dear, is what I felt the first time I laid eyes on you, you crazy woman. Running across roads, chasing dogs, telling off an officer only to give him a lap dance in his office. If I didn’t get my shit together and follow you, my life would be dull, dead, lost, if you will.”

Her fingertips traced the form of his mouth. “Kiss me.”

“Now?”

“Yes.” A laugh escaped her mouth and touched his before his mouth moved onto hers for a taste. Her lips tingled as the roughness of his skin touched hers, his tongue finding hers, teasing until she let out a sigh of pleasure.

“No more, Brody, of this secrecy bullshit. You have a definite reason to dislike dogs,” she smiled and nodded toward the doorway where Brutus had fallen asleep from boredom. “You have a new deputy taking half of your shifts at the station, and you have a woman who’s is crazy about you. It’s all good.”

“Crazy you say?”

“In a good way, not the kill-you-with-a-knife-while-you-sleep way. I’d rather do other things than sleeping.”

“I second that.”

“So,” Sunshine broke away framing his face with her hands, “can we finish what we have started twice already?”

Brody’s hands moved to her waist and she watched him chew on the inside of his cheek. “As in, when we’re done here, I shouldn’t return?”

“Brody, I’ve wanted you for a long time. This, tonight, will be the first of many wonderful moments.”

“So, you’re
my
girl?”

“I’m your girl, Brody. Undress me, it’s not like you haven’t done so before.”

Brody grunted and flipped Sunshine over on her back and revealed her naked body in mere seconds, causing Sunshine to laugh at his urgency, before he dove down and settled himself onto of her.

“I like that you’re already turned on,” Brody said, then bent his head and took one already erect nipple into his warm mouth, circling his tongue around it, tasting her skin. His palms tested the weight of her breast while he licked and suckled her buds until he heard her gasp and felt her arch her body upward, asking for him to take more of her. A request he wouldn’t decline. Her hands dug deeper into his hair, fingernails scratching his scalp in an attempt to hold him in place as he sucked and licked her nipples, his voice humming in pleasure. Her head tossed from side to side, hands moving from his head down his shoulders, and along his arms, just to return the same way.

“You taste so good,” he mustered and felt her hands halt at the back of his head.

“I . . . think I’m coming,” she said, her voice a quiet surprise.

“You can come and I will continue to devour these breasts, these nipples, in my mouth,” he answered, sloppingly licking around her nipples, kissing around her breasts until he felt her jerk below him in silence, and he felt nothing but happiness for what he’d given her.

With the help of his knee, he pushed her legs apart and felt the wetness against his cock while he kissed her neck, stroked her clit.

“Brody,” her voice the kind of sexy low and husky a man wanted to hear in the bedroom, whispering his name as she begged him to take her again and again, “Take me, hard.”

“Couldn’t do anything but, love.”

THE END

"
A LITTLE BIT OF LOVE
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