Page 59 of Forever Finds Us
Get a grip, Roxi!
Brand had worn perfectly casual clothes, but it was the way he wore them, the way his jeans molded to his butt like Levi Strauss himself had crafted the damn things. And his shirt was close-fitting. Not too tight, but snug enough that I didn’t have to imagine the shape of his pecs or biceps. His charcoal suit jacket had been tossed on his back seat, and I thought if he put it on, I might pass out from the sheer sexiness.
I felt underdressed. And I was utterly turned on.
He’d shaved, but already I saw the hint of stubble growing back in. And God, he smelled good, like fresh-cut wood and some kind of warm musk that had me inching closer to him. I wanted to burrow into his skin, become part of him so I’d never forget the scent and the way he looked tonight.
When he was sitting next to me, he put his big, fancy white truck in gear and grabbed hold of my hand as he headed west out of town. “You nervous?” He’d asked an innocent question, but I couldn’t put my finger on the change in his voice.
Something was different today.
“A little,” I said, trying to discern what could have changed the shape of his face and the sound of his voice in less than twenty-four hours. “Are you okay?”
He nodded but didn’t actually answer me.
My nerves kicked up as we drove. I’d meant to call Abey to warn her that I would be her brother’s date for dinner, but I chickened out. I truly didn’t think she’d mind, but there was a little part of me that was terrified she would and it would cause a rift between us.
When I talked to her on the phone so she could help me decide what to wear, Aubrey yelled at me. She felt Abey deserved the warning. I agreed, but insecurity made the decision for me.
What if this was just a fling for Brand?
If he dumped me and moved on, things with Abey would go back to normal. But now I was freaking out that Aubrey was right. What if the fact that I hadn’t come clean to Abey was the thing that caused the rift and not that I was sleeping with her brother?
My hands itched to grab my phone tucked away in my purse and text my boss, but I didn’t because now I was worried that the change in Brand was because he’d realized I’d fallen in love with him and he didn’t want me like that.
God, why can’t I shut my mind off? My fingers tapped one-two-three over and over against my leg next to my door so Brand couldn’t see.
“Are you nervous?” I asked him.
He looked the picture of calm with his hand resting on the top of his steering wheel, not gripping it, but there was a buzzing beneath his skin, like the sound of an old radio when the volume had been turned all the way down, but the thing still crackled somehow.
“I’ve never brought a woman home,” he said. “So yeah. Maybe a little nervous.”
“Never? Why not?”
He shrugged. “I wasn’t here. And when I did come home, it was as brief a trip as I could make it. Plus, none of the women I dated were what you’d call family oriented.”
“Like Gina?”
His eyes slid to mine, and there was a warning in them. “Exactly like Gina.” He didn’t like me talking about his ex and didn’t want me comparing myself to her. But if he didn’t love me too, why would he care?
I babbled because the look in his eyes sent butterflies screaming in my stomach, the sexy kind and the nervous kind. “Well, I don’t have kids and I’m too old for them now, anyway. I’m forty-one, you know. I saw your birth date on your driver’s license that first night, so I know I’m four years older than you.
“But I’m a family girl. Kind of have to be with five sisters and brothers-in-law and fifteen nieces and nephews. Can I tell you a secret? I think my sister Maureen is in an open relationship with her husband Drew. I mean, I think they’re screwin’ other people, or they’re, like, swingers or somethin’.”
“So?”
“Well, I mean, I don’t care, but you know, in small-town Oklahoma, it’s a big deal. If my parents found out? Yeesh. The whole family would implode.”
“Mm. And if they found out I tied you up, fucked you with a whiskey bottle, and smacked your ass and your pussy to make you come?”
Instantly, my face felt hot, and the little squiggle tugging at the inside of my stomach made a laugh tumble out of my mouth in a breath.
“I would die. Full stop.”
“Roxanne, you’re a grown woman. Why do you care what they think?”
“I don’t. I don’t care what their opinion is, but I don’t want them to know that I…”
