Never Been Kissed (30 page)

Her blushes were epic. And the effect on him was epic. He got hard and soft all at once. He wanted to show her all the things in his head that would really make her blush and he wanted to preserve that innocence, pull it close. Absorb it into his own dark life.

“What about Sean and the bar?” she asked.

“I’m not Sean’s partner. I help when I can and I leave when I have to. He understands that.”

She pulled her hands free, her blush replaced by a furrowed brow and narrowed lips. Christ, he even liked that. The disapproving schoolteacher.

“You’ve got everyone warned away, don’t you?”

He knew exactly what she meant and didn’t pretend otherwise. So he nodded. “Yeah, I do. No one needs to get hurt.”

“You think no one is hurt when you leave?” she asked. “Just because they don’t show you, or tell you?”

The sun came out from behind the clouds and hit the windows of the Peabody and Ashley’s face and hair making everything sparkle. He wanted to kiss each freckle across her nose. Find the ones on her body he hadn’t seen last night.

“Brody—”

“Of course not, Ashley,” he snapped. “I’m not an idiot. But it’s easier this way.”

She shook her head. “Not for me. When you leave me you’ll know how I feel. And if you don’t like it, stop looking at me that way. Stop offering to help me. Stay away—”

He barely even realized he was doing it but he was stalking her, until her back was pressed against one of the wide white pillars that ran up the Peabody’s front façade.

“You want me to stay away from you?” he whispered.

“No,” she said. “But I’m not like your brother and
I’m not like your dad. I won’t make it easy for you to leave and pretend like you don’t care. Because you do.”

He pushed a curl away from her eye. She had a three-star constellation at the bottom of her lash line. An obtuse triangle, right there. He touched it with the tip of a rough finger.
She deserves better than you,
he tried to remind himself, but the current where he was standing was just too strong.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I do care. But what’s between us won’t work out long-term. You just haven’t realized it yet.”

He stepped back and turned away from her, because they were practically making out in the middle of town. He took another few steps, because the magnetic pull of her was outrageous and he was actually considering going inside and getting them a room since he was positive he’d be hard-pressed to make it to the bar without kissing her.

“What did that guy mean about Shelby?” Ashley asked when they started walking again, but this time with a wider distance between them. He didn’t hold her hand or tuck it into his elbow. He shoved his hands in his pockets.

“This summer a guy said some pretty crude things about her on television.”

“Television? How?”

Brody explained the Maybream cracker competition and the weird love affair Shelby had with the biggest asshole in the world, Dean Maybream, and how when she rejected him he got back at her on live television.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “I can’t imagine anyone saying that about her.”

“It was hard on her and apparently she’s been pretty reclusive ever since. Sean said today was the first he’d seen her out in a long time.”

“I hope Sean kicked the crap out of that Darryl guy.”

Brody laughed and, unable to fight it anymore, slid his arm over her shoulders. “Who knew you were so bloodthirsty?”

They were in the alley behind the bar and Ashley climbed the first step but Brody stayed on the ground, his hands braced on the metal railing.

She turned, an invitation in her eyes. His blood leapt and he gripped the railing harder.

“You need to call your brother,” he said.

She nodded, but the invitation didn’t go away.

“I’m working on the bar. Sean only lets me work when the place is closed and he opens at one today.”

The same nod, but now her fingers toyed with the button on the bottom of her shirt and it slipped from the hole, revealing the white skin of her belly and the top of her skirt. The glimpse of a freckle just north of her belly button made his knees buckle.

“You were a virgin,” he whispered, and that blush … he put one foot on the first step. Unable to stop himself.

“You noticed, huh?” He laughed at her deadpan delivery. “Well, I’m not anymore,” she said. “And I’m …” She tilted her head, playing coy so perfectly, his guts twisted. Blood hammered to his dick. “… curious.”

“I’ll come up there,” he whispered. “But nothing changes.”

She climbed the stairs backward, her smile a mysterious womanly curl that was terrifying in its beguilement.

“That’s what you think.”

He’d walked away from her so many times, once more should be a piece of cake. But it was impossible.

He followed her up the stairs.

On the stairs, Ashley felt him at her back, a breathing wall of heat, of man and intent, and she had no clue
where she’d found the courage to act the tease, but she had.

The second the door closed behind them, he spun her, pushed her up against it, away from him. His hands found the edges of her shirt and yanked, buttons scattered across the room.

She closed her eyes, so close to coming she couldn’t stand it. One touch, one of those thick rough fingers between her legs, and it would be over.

And that was not what she wanted. She pushed away from the door and he stepped back; she turned and pushed him back farther until he was in the middle of the room, his chest heaving as he stared at her.

“Take off your shirt,” she said.

One hand behind his head, he yanked it off and dropped it on the ground.

“You didn’t let me touch you last night,” she said.

“You sucked my dick.”

Oh God, the words out of his mouth had such power. Such unbelievable force. It was a wild, hot punch of desire, low in her belly. “I did. But I didn’t get to touch you.” She stepped forward and ran her hands over his chest. Her short fingernails scraped across his nipples and he hissed.

“Do you like that?”

He reached out and did the same to her, through her bra. “Do you?”

“Yes. But you knew that.” She circled him, running her hands over the muscles of his back and sides, down his butt. “What do you like?”

His laughter was knowing and rich, like silk and sunlight and dark chocolate and all the good touches. “Honey, everything you do to me, I like.”

Is that true?
Or maybe it wasn’t specific to her. But then he grabbed her hand and turned to her.

Oh, that face. Such magic in that face, it grew flowers under her skin, wild blooms on her heart. She was a garden of feminine delights when he looked at her like that.

“You can touch me wherever you want. We can do whatever you want, and I will love it, because it’s you.”

She wanted to tell him it was because it was the two of them, but she didn’t want to scare him away. So she curled her hand into the front of his jeans and pulled him backward to the bedroom.

“How many condoms do you have?”

“I’m not …” She stared up at the ceiling, trying to urge Brody out of this snail’s pace he’d set. “This … this isn’t what you promised.” She arched her hips up to him, trying to urge him into something a little more exciting than small gentle kisses to her neck.

He braced himself on his elbows and looked at her. “You were a virgin, Ashley. I’m trying not to hurt you.”

“You’re not going to hurt me.”

He made a disbelieving noise in his throat and went back to slow, sweet kisses. They were nice, and perhaps another time they could enjoy slow and sweet. But now she was hungry.

“Brody.” She pinched him and he yowled.

“I am not made of glass. I like the way you make love to me. I like being rough and raw.”

“You deserve—”

“What I want. And I want you. Just the way you are.”

He laughed, a little huff of breath like she’d made a joke, but she hadn’t and she watched that knowledge seep into him. She couldn’t argue with him. So she would have to show him.

Trust me,
she thought.
I can love you and you can love me back and we can make this work.

Ten minutes later, mindless and crazy, she was pressed face-first into the mattress, his weight, solid and sweaty, on top of her.

“Brody,” she gasped, pushing back at him with her hips because he was being too careful. Too slow.

“Stop it.” His open palm smacked her ass, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough that she groaned and clutched the railings of the headboard with both hands.

His laugh was wicked. As wicked as his breath against the nape of her neck, as wicked as the long slow press of his cock into her from behind.

“This is what you wanted,” he breathed into her ear. Moving so slowly. As with everything she thought she wanted, he somehow made it more. Showed her what an illusion her desire was versus the reality of it.

She’d been so convinced her loving him was something she could survive. She was used to not getting her happy endings. Joy, unless she brought it with her, was often a barely growing plant in the desert.

But he would devastate her when he left.

“Stop,” she said and he did. On a dime. Inside her, she felt him twitch, his chest heaved. But he didn’t move.

She shook her head and pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, which made him moan and shake. Slowly, she slid over him. Forward and back, taking him and letting him go. Taking him and letting him go. His stillness was stonelike. But she felt his wild heart, the beat of it inside of her.

I will hoard this,
she thought,
because a drought is coming.

“You’re going to need an industrial stove,” Cora said, taking a tour through Sean’s imaginary kitchen between the bar and the garage. It was small, but with some tidy, clever planning, Sean and Brody could make it happen. “I know where you can get one cheap.”

“Where do we put the fridge?” Brody asked. She pointed to the corner and Brody boxed off a square, just like he’d boxed off the place she’d said he should put the stove and the fryer.

Sean, leaning against the studs, looked like he was going to pass out.

“I can’t afford this.” Sean shook his head. “I mean, not all at once.”

“I can help.” Brody took out his tape measure. He was being downright jaunty with it. She’d just closed the café, and Sean had called and asked her if she could come over and help him figure out what to do with the kitchen.

She hadn’t expected Brody to act like he had so much invested. And she certainly hadn’t expected the jaunty tape measure.

Sean, however, looked stressed in a way that made her want to push those mad curls off his face and let him rest his head on her lap.

Honest to God, after that scene today in the café and then later in her office, she sort of thought she’d run a pretty large gamut of emotion toward the guy—but nope, add a little late-afternoon empathy to the list.

“I don’t want to keep running to my big brother every time I need money,” Sean said. Brody stood and the tape measure slithered and snapped shut.

“Your big brother has money. A lot of it.” He wrote a few more things in his notebook and then shoved it in his back pocket. “I think I’ve got a handle on this. Thanks, Cora.”

“My pleasure,” she said. “I didn’t know you were a builder.”

“I’m not, I just play one on TV.” She blinked at the joke and he immediately calmed his smile, as if it were something he needed to be embarrassed of.

“I am planning on building a patio behind the café,” she said. “It would—”

“I’m not looking for work,” he said. “I probably won’t be around to finish this.”

“Oh God,” Sean groaned and rubbed his forehead. “Now you tell me?”

“I’ll make sure whoever takes over can do the job, don’t worry, Sean.”

Sean turned and hugged a two-by-four, banging his head against it. “Why did I let you talk me into this? I’m not ready.”

“You’re ready, Sean. You’re totally ready,” she said.

Not entirely sure of her welcome she reached out and patted Sean’s shoulder, prepared to leave it at that, but he grabbed her hand, opened her palm and pressed a kiss there.

Oh. Well. She swallowed a giddy giggle.
That’s a very nice welcome indeed,
she thought.

Brody didn’t act like anything was different. Judging by him, Cora and Sean went around holding hands all the time. She on the other hand felt like a balloon, grounded only by his hold on her fingers.

“So what’s the story with Ashley?” Sean asked.

Brody shrugged, but his nonchalance didn’t fool anyone. He was wired. “She’s talking to her brother.”

“What are you going to do?” Sean asked.

Cora remembered her mom when Pastor Frank asked her that after Dad died.
What are you going to do now?
Mom hadn’t yet figured out that her life was about to get better. Because at that moment, she just looked sad. Like a kid who’d been left behind. Alone. A little scared.

Brody looked the same way.

But he smiled and said: “I’m going to go check on Dad. And then maybe take Ashley for ice cream.”

Sean couldn’t seem to lift his jaw up off the floor to say anything.

So Cora said, “Sounds good.”

Brody walked out the door, waving goodbye to the few Saturday afternoon regulars who were coming in the door.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him happy,” Sean said, watching him go.

“That’s happy?” Cora asked, because at best he’d seemed bittersweet.

“It is for Brody.”

“He needs more practice,” Cora said.

Sean pulled her close and then closer still until he could press a kiss to her lips in front of God, and Bill Barnes at the corner of the bar.

“Is this okay?” he asked against her lips, his blue eyes twinkling.

In answer she kissed him right back.

Ashley sat down on the metal steps of the staircase and finally, after two weeks and roughly twenty-seven years, she faced the music.

Harrison picked up on the second ring and she imagined
him with this cell phone on the edge of his desk, waiting for her call.

“I swear to God, Brody—”