Taking Care of Business (23 page)

'You've been a very bad girl,' he said and, incredibly, gave her a leer. Leah didn't move when he crossed to her and grabbed at her wrist. 'Why don't you let me give you what you deserve?'

When he took her hand and put it on his crotch, Leah didn't even give her next action a second thought. She squeezed. And squeezed. And then some more.

'Shall we play a little game?' she said conversationally, keeping her tone light. Bored even. 'I'm sure you've heard of CBT, Mike? Since you are the master and all.'

He grunted, face paling, but didn't squirm away from her.

'Cock and ball torture,' Leah continued with another, harder squeeze. 'Are you into it?'

Mike gasped, 'No.'

Leah let him go. 'Me neither. When I said it was over, I meant it. Please go.'

Mike straightened, both hands going to his crotch to rub and rub. He swallowed hard, cheeks still pale underneath the stubble. He didn't go though, and she was just about ready to get angry when his sad small voice stopped her.

'But . . . why?'

A small sound from the bathroom reminded her they weren't alone. Brandon was probably stewing in the bathroom and Mike wanted an explanation why she'd ended nearly two years of what must have been domestic bliss for him? Leah didn't have the energy.

'I thought you loved me,' Mike said.

Oh, shit.

'Mike . . .' Leah couldn't even continue. 'Mike, listen . . .'

He shook his head and straightened up. 'How long have you been fucking him?'

The accusation startled her into asking, 'Who?'

He shook the belt at her. 'Whoever this belongs to!'

'None of your business,' she began, and he cut her off.

'You sure as hell didn't waste any time, did you? It's that punk kid, isn't it? That twink?'

Leah had never felt threatened by Mike. Their games had been played and she'd played a part she'd thought she wanted, but she'd never really worried he'd hurt her. He was selfish, self-absorbed and arrogant, but he wasn't abusive. So now, when he fisted the belt in his hand and moved towards her, she didn't flinch.

She laughed.

Mostly it was because the thought of him calling Brandon a twink - a twink? Wasn't a twink some sort of hairless-chihuahuawith-hands type of boy? Brandon was so far removed from being a twink all she could do was shake her head and chuckle.

'It is him!' Mike scowled.

'It's none of your business, Mike,' she cried. 'Now get the hell out of here! And, by the way, I didn't love you.'

'Lying bitch!'

She merely shrugged, refusing to give him the satisfaction of an answer.

With a growl, Mike slapped Brandon's belt across his open palm, hard.

The bathroom door flung open. Leah and Mike both turned. Brandon, a towel wrapped around his waist and one fist keeping it closed, didn't even give Mike a chance to yelp before he had the other fist wrapped in the front of Mike's shirt. Mike didn't exactly dangle in Brandon's grip –that would have made it a movie-perfect moment –but he did stumble while Brandon held him upright.

'Get the fuck out of here,' Brandon said in a voice as deep and dark as the bottom of a lake.

He'd said 'fuck'.

Leah's knees went weak.

Mike seemed to be having the same problem, because he fell over his own feet when Brandon shoved him back. He dropped the belt. The buckle clinked on the floor. Mike gave Leah a sneering, angry look, but Brandon had already grabbed Mike's upper arm without waiting and marched him to the door.

He let go of the towel to open the door and pushed Mike through it. The towel fell over the door jamb and into the hall, but Brandon didn't bother picking it up. Bare-assed, he tossed Mike out after it, then shut the door firmly and turned to her.

Leah had watched this all with a little gasp, her cheeks flushing. She'd put a hand over her mouth to hold back the flurry of semi-hysterical giggles threatening to fly out. Without saying anything to her, Brandon pushed past her and found his clothes. She turned as he pulled up his briefs with a snap of the elastic and bent for his trousers.

'Brandon,' she said, but stopped herself when he held up a hand.

He wouldn't look at her. Even in profile, he looked pissed. He grabbed up his pants and shook them out, not paying attention to the jangle of change as a few quarters and pennies flew out on to the carpet.

'Brandon,' she tried again, stifling the stupid laughter that had nothing to do with humour. 'Look at me.'

He stopped, his pants still in one hand. He turned. He looked more than pissed off, he looked furious.

'You're laughing. At me.'

The last bits of laughter died in her throat. 'No, I'm -'

Again he held up a hand and turned, disgust clear in every line of his face. He pulled on his pants, his feet still bare, and stuffed his socks in his pocket as he stepped into his shoes. He sat on the chair to tie them, and that he'd make the effort to do that when he wouldn't take the time to put on his socks gave her such an insight into his character she wanted to cry again.

Leah shivered, though the room was warm, and wrapped her arms around herself. The slippery silk robe rode higher on her thighs when she did that and she untucked a hand to pull it down. She hadn't minded being naked with him before, but this was different.

'I'm not laughing at you,' she whispered.

He stood, ignoring her, looking for his shirt. When he found it, he thrust his arms into it and misbuttoned, let out a low curse and rebuttoned while she watched in silence.

His tie went in his other pocket.

'Look at me,' Leah said. 'Please.'

He did, finally, his brow furrowed and mouth set into a hard unfriendly line. His hair had fallen over his forehead in a dark curl she wanted to brush away. He flinched from her when she tried, as though he thought she were going to slap him instead.

Leah tucked her hands under her arms again, willing her teeth not to chatter. This wasn't going how she'd planned. 'Brandon, please.'

He shook his head, hard. It was killing her that he wouldn't speak. He shoved his shirt into his pants.

He was going to leave.

It might be easier that way, but it wouldn't be better. She sighed and rubbed her arms through the silk. She kept her distance, the fact they'd fucked so raucously seeming much further away than she wanted it to.

'I'm sorry,' Leah said.

He paused, just barely, before finishing with the shirt. She thought he'd head for the door, but he didn't. He ran a hand through his hair. He put his hands on his hips. He looked up at the ceiling and blew out a gust of air from his pursed lips.

And finally, he looked at her.

'Why were you crying?'

His question took her off guard. She didn't answer right away, just backed up a step. She didn't have an answer, actually. Not one she could articulate, just like that.

'I wasn't -'

He shook his head again, and this time Brandon was the one who laughed. 'No. See? I'm not an idiot, Leah. Maybe you think I am. But I'm not.'

'I know you're not an idiot!' His look said he was weighing her and finding her lacking. 'Why were you crying?'

Because for the first time as long as I can remember, I felt like someone fitted me.

Because when you gave me that belt, you gave me what I'd been looking for.

Because this all turned out to be too much, too soon, and none of it at the right time.

'I wasn't crying,' she said and looked straight into his eyes.

He might not be a good liar, but she was.

For a split second those broad shoulders slouched, but so fast she wouldn't have noticed if she hadn't been trying to imprint everything about him in her brain. Once he walked out that door, it would be the last time she'd ever see him like this again, she was sure of that. He wouldn't want to come back, and she would be unable to let him.

She wasn't ready for any of this. It didn't matter how good the sex had been, or how sweet his mouth and hands, or how hard he'd made her come. It didn't matter that he'd been willing to give her his trust, or that he hadn't judged her for admitting what she wanted. None of that made a difference in the end, when the truth was she'd just broken off a long-term relationship with someone and there was no way in hell she was going to get tangled up in something else right away. Not even if it meant missing out on something that felt so right she couldn't believe she'd ever settled for anything else and thought herself even close to satisfied.

'I'm going to ask you one more time,' he said quietly. 'Why were you crying? Was it something I did?'

'No,' she told him, and knew there was no hiding the lie all over her face. 'It wasn't anything you did.'

It was everything he'd done.

He really couldn't hide anything. Every emotion flickered in his eyes as he stared at her. Hurt. Anger. She wanted to deny the glimpse of shame there too, but couldn't.

Without a word, Brandon bent and picked up his belt from where Mike had dropped it. He didn't put it in his pocket, and he didn't slide it through the loops and buckle it. He didn't even curl the leather into his palm and carry it out with him when he left.

Instead, he pressed it into her hand and walked out of the door without another look back .

The cab carrying Kate to Dix's suburban home drew down a side street as Kate finished leaving a voicemail for Leah. Apparently, Band Boy was making everything all right, in a sweaty naked sort of way.

She hadn't been at the afternoon sessions and when Kate had cruised by Leah's door the noises on the other side kept her feet moving through the lush carpeting in the hall, heading to the stairwell and downstairs.

Nervousness fluttered in her stomach, little leaves skittering across the sidewalk on a windy day, as they pulled into a driveway. Absently, she handed the driver some money and dragged herself from the backseat and headed up the walk to the front door.

The house wasn't what she'd expected. It was, for wont of a better word, homey. Comfortable. A glider swing occupied the front porch, the yard was manicured but clearly people lived here. The neighbourhood was upper middle class but filled with families. Bicycles leaned against the garage of the house across the street and she caught the tops of large play sets over back fences.

She'd expected a pristine palace of white and chrome and she got, well, the 'burbs. Her nervousness battled the smile she fought as she knocked on his door.

He opened some moments later looking relaxed and ridiculously sexy. Not like the man she'd seen so far. This man was in his element, totally at home. He wasn't supposed to have complicated layers.

'Right on time. Come in.' Stepping back, he waved her inside and she found herself standing in a hallway with coat pegs on the walls and pictures of the last fifteen years of his life as a father.

Pure joy on his face, picture after picture showed him on vacations, at the seaside, at baseball games, cooking out, doing all that suburban-dad stuff dads did. What the hell could she do with that? This side of him was disarming and yet slightly repellent, because she didn't think she could compete with it, wasn't sure she even wanted to or whether it was right to. Fuck. She'd never been in a place where she simply had no idea what to do before.

He stood behind her, his body pressing to her back. He smelled good, felt even better. 'That's Adrienne, the taller one. She just finished her school year and she'll be a sophomore in high school this fall. The other one is Kendall, she's a year older so she'll be a junior.' The pride and love in his voice were unmistakable.

'They're beautiful.' It'd been an automatic response but it was true nonetheless. They had his eyes, wide and green, and the tilts of their mouths indicated they had the bullshit streak their dad did.

She kept on into the heart of the house, her attention snagged by the part of her lover she'd only had the faintest of glimpses of. He'd spoken of his daughters before on many occasions but seeing him be a father was different. More real.

'You're so quiet. It's making me nervous. Tell me what you're thinking.'

Turning to him, she drew a big breath. 'It's, um, strange to see this part of your life. I'm just taking it all in. They're gorgeous girls, you're clearly an involved dad. That's a wonderful thing.' She shrugged. She certainly couldn't remember any times when her dad had come to any of her soccer games. She froze as she caught a photo of the whole family.

'Ah, yeah. That's Eve, their mom. Kendall got an academic award, her grandparents –Eve's parents –took that photo.'

He moved her away from the wall and into the kitchen.

She'd known Eve was blonde and small, but shit. The ex was tiny. Fragile looking. Perfectly coiffed and artificially blonde. Kate didn't care about that so much, oh, so she did, fine. But it was the fact he had a picture of a woman he'd been divorced from for seven years on his wall. Kate understood his kids, they were his first priority, but she didn't plan to share a man like that.

'You're bothered.' It wasn't a question.

He handed her a glass of wine and she sat at his dining-room table and looked out over his large backyard. The pool beckoned, surrounded by lounge chairs.