Always and Forever (13 page)

Our waiter, who looks like a college kid, comes up and tells us his name is John then
asks if we’re ready to order. Brody orders a beer and I ask for a tea but we haven’t
even had a chance to look over the menu so he leaves to get our drinks.

“Do what?” I whisper when we’re alone again.

“Stay away.”

Our eyes lock and moments pass. I’m not sure what’s going through his head, but I’m
a total mess inside.

Our waiter returns and places our drinks on the table. “Here you go, folks. Ready
to order yet?”

“Not just yet,” Brody answers him but keeps his eyes on me.

“Okay, I’ll give you a few more moments,” John replies and leaves us.

“Brody…”

He reaches a hand across the table and takes mine in his. “I love you, Piper. I fucked
up. I
’m so sorry.” I can see the pain in his eyes and it makes my own water.

“’Fucked up’ can mean a lot of things,” I answer and he barks out a laugh.

“You’re so right. But I wanna explain it all to you. Should’ve done it in the first
place but I guess I was scared of losing you. Lost you anyway.” He looks at me remorsefully
as he rubs his thumb over the back of my hand.

God.

I see our waiter coming over again as does Brody and he suddenly looks back at me.
“Wanna get outta here?”

I nod and we stand. He pulls his wallet out of his back pocket and throws a twenty
on the table.

“Oh, not eating?” John asks.

“No. Changed our minds,” Brody informs him and nods toward the money. “That’s for
your trouble.” He takes my hand and leads me out of the restaurant and I hear John
say, “Thanks!”

Brody leads me to the stairs and I hesitate, pulling on his hand but it doesn’t stop
him. “Wh-what’re you doing?”

“What I should’ve done a long time ago,” he replies, continuing to pull me up the
steps. We get to the top and he looks at me. “Yours or mine?”

“Uh, yours?” I answer, not knowing what this is about but I do want to see if his
room is the same as mine.

We go to his door and he pulls his keycard from his back pocket, swiping it then pulling
me inside his room where he closes the door and turns toward me. My eyes get big at
the intensity on his face and when he starts stalking toward me, I back up farther
into his room. “Brody,” I say quietly as I keep backing away and he keeps advancing
and it’s at that time I realize his room is arranged exactly like mine is just opposite.
It also hits me that he wants me. Yeah, I know. I’m a little slow on the uptake. But
this situation brings all kinds of emotions to the surface for me: apprehension, panic,
guilt.

“I love you, Piper. None of it’s true. Peyton set me up,” he says as he keeps moving
forward and I know I’m going to hit the bed soon which, honestly, I don’t think I
really mind. “She drugged me. It was when you were at Greer’s when Addie was born.
She set me up.”

The backs of my legs meet the bed, then without warning, he literally picks me up
and throws me on it then climbing on and moving over the top of me. My heart’s racing
like crazy as he gets right in my face.

“Piper… I love you… I need you,” he says hoarsely before his lips come down hard on
mine.

At first I’m still in a daze at the speed of what’s going on here, my head still stuck
on our rooms being mirrors of each other and all, on the mental state I’m in, but
when I feel his tongue gliding along my lower lip seeking access, I tell myself I’ll
deal with my emotions later and all negative thoughts disappear as I open up to him
letting the kiss fully happen because if there’s anything I’ve always known about
myself it’s that this man makes me stupid with lust and it won’t do any good to fight
it.

And I find I don’t want to fight it. It’s been so long since he’s kissed me or touched
me this way and
I
need
him
,
want him,
so badly that I finally just push every doubt out of my mind, fully committing to
this.

My hands move down between us where I grab the bottom of his t-shirt to pull it up
and I feel his abs suck in as my fingers skim over his torso. He breathes a groan
into my mouth and when I taste the beer on his breath it’s inexplicably hot making
me moan right back. And that’s when things get wild. He immediately goes up on a hand,
reaching the other behind his neck to yank his shirt off then his lips slam down onto
mine again, his tongue thrusting into my mouth, twisting furiously with mine as he
moves a hand underneath me grabbing my ass and jerking me up roughly to him, plastering
my hips to his as he grinds his hard cock against me. I dig my fingers into the flesh
of his back feeling his muscles bunching under them as I try to pull him closer. I
need him closer.

He suddenly flips us to where I’m on top then knifes up off the bed so that I’m straddling
him and although the tension is thick between us, he now changes the pace from frantic
to almost languid, bunching my sweater in his hands at my waist, his eyes following
the rise of it as his hands slowly slide up my sides to my armpits continuing up until
my arms are raised above my head and he lifts my sweater off. I see a spark glitter
in his eyes as they focus on my breasts then things switch abruptly back to frenzied
when his hands on my waist pull me up and I’m on my knees in front of him then his
mouth covers one of my breasts and he sucks hard on my nipple through the lace of
my bra.

“Brody!” I cry as my back automatically arches and my head goes back, my fingers clawing
at his shoulders. Panting, I bring my head up and look down at him only to see he’s
looking up at me as he draws fiercely on my other nipple and my God the look of hunger
in his eyes almost makes my breath hitch and I almost come with just that.

“So fucking beautiful,” he says huskily as his lips move to my neck, his hands moving
the button of my jeans out of the loop and the zipper down. He turns us again and
pulls my boots off then hooking his fingers into the waistband of my jeans and panties,
jerks them down and off. He gazes down at me and I see a glint of surprise which quickly
turns to desire when he notices I’ve had a Brazilian wax. “So goddamned beautiful,”
he mutters then his mouth is there.

It doesn’t take my body long to respond to what he’s doing because he does it so well,
his tongue lapping, penetrating, flicking, his mouth kissing, sucking, all of it bringing
me to the brink of ecstasy and just before I succumb, a mewl of objection slips from
my mouth as I lose him. I watch as he shoves his jeans down around his hips and he
puts on a condom which triggers something deep inside my brain but I’m so far on the
edge of coming, it’s only a fleeting notion. His hand goes behind my knee and he draws
my leg up then he’s sliding inside me, so hard and long and thick and that’s all it
takes as my body instantly clamps down on him as my climax blasts through me.

“Baby,” I rasp as my toes curl and my hands clutch the comforter as my body soars.

“Fuck,” he breathes out, his beautiful face above mine, his eyes closing for a few
seconds as he appears to be savoring the moment. “Been too long,” he grinds out, his
voice all deep and gravelly. When he opens his eyes, they pierce mine once again taking
my breath away at the heat in them, and when he begins moving inside, his thrusts
are slow and measured as if he’s reveling in our joining, taking his time to get all
he can out of it but also giving everything to me.

And I love that. Love that he’s always been so attentive to my needs, has always been
an amazing lover (although he’s been my one and only). But I’ve listened to friends
enough to know that even with my having had only one partner, Brody’s good at it.

He’s now driving in harder, going so deep and it feels so good, so right, and I feel
my body heating up again.

“That’s it, baby. I feel you,” he says with a grunt as he pounds inside me harder,
faster. He lets my leg go and I twist it around the back of his thigh as his hand
moves under me to the back of my neck bracing me against his thrusts. His other hand
snakes down between us, his thumb pushing against my clit making me moan long and
loud. Then he seals his mouth over mine, groaning into it as he’s about to reach his
peak, and when he does his double thrust, slamming inside forcefully then pulling
back to do the same but staying deep and grinding into me as he releases, I follow
right after because like I’ve said, that gets me every damned time.

We lay there for several minutes, a twisted jumble of sated limbs, both of us breathing
heavily, our bodies slick with perspiration, his face buried at the side of my neck
before he pulls back to look down at me.

“Fucking love you, Piper. I missed you more than you’ll ever know, baby. God, I missed
you.” He keeps his eyes on mine and my forehead wrinkles at the fact that he looks
like he almost tears up. He next kisses me soft and sweet then pulls out of me with
a grimace as if he hates leaving me. “I’ll be back,” he says quietly, his eyes warm
on mine then turning to his back and hoisting up his jeans, he leaves the bed.

I watch him walk to the bathroom and admire his muscular back that has a tattooed
Celtic cross with “Fiona” written in the middle of it in tribute to his baby sister
who’d died of SIDs when he was ten. Kade has the same tattoo which they got one drunken
weekend in Richmond when Kade was home on leave from the Navy. I look at the tattoo
that’s situated between his broad shoulders, which I also ogle, along with his tight
ass, and his, oh, hell, his everything.

And as I lie there in a state of bliss, closing my eyes and letting what’s left of
my orgasmic euphoria cascade over me, it’s then that it hits me what he’s doing, why
he’s in the bathroom, what my brain tried to compute earlier but couldn’t in my aroused
state.

Oh, my God.

I get up and start dressing because I think I’m going to be sick.

Chapter 11

“What’re you doing?” Brody asks when he comes back into the room.

I’ve got my jeans on and turn and face him as I pull my sweater down over my head.
He’s standing there jeans unbuttoned, gorgeous chest on display, his Adonis belt (those
damned sexy v-lines) disappearing into his jeans and I don’t think I’ve ever seen
a finer specimen of a man. Even Charlie Hunnam doesn’t compete and that’s saying a
lot.

I take in a shaky breath and watch as he walks to me, a look of trepidation on his
face.

“What is it?” he asks, running the knuckles of one hand down my cheek.

I bite my lip and taking another breath declare, “You wore a condom.”

His eyes narrow on mine not comprehending what I’ve said.

I look up at him knowing I’m going to have to spell it out for him. “You’ve never
worn a condom with me. Ever.”

I see realization register on his face and again, a remorseful look flashes over his
countenance.

What this means to me is he felt he needed protection because he actually slept with
Hannah even though he’d just told me none of it was true, that Peyton set him up.
Heck, it could also mean he’s slept with other women either when we were together
or after we broke up. Who knows? At this point, I’m clueless and don’t know what to
believe.

I swallow at his silence which pretty much verifies my suspicions and sit on the bed
to pull my boots back on.

“Piper…” I look up at him and watch as he kneels in front of me putting his hands
on my thighs. “I know I didn’t sleep with Hannah.” He shakes his head. “Peyton fucking
drugged me. I don’t remember anything but I know I wouldn’t have done that to you,
would never have cheated on you. Kade only knows about it because she called him,
scared because I guess I was seizing or some shit, reacting to the GHB she put in
my drink. He says when he got there, I was in bed fully dressed but Hannah was in
bed with me and she was…” He blows out a breath. “She was naked.”

I look down at his hands on my thighs. This is really hard to hear, as in
really
hard to hear. But I need to know everything, so my eyes move back to his and I ask,
“Why didn’t they call an ambulance?”

“I’d just passed the firefighter’s test. If they’d found out, I would’ve been fired
and that would’ve killed me. You know how hard I worked for it, how badly I wanted
it. No, Kade did the right thing.”

My eyes again go to his hands. “And the baby?”

I hear him blow out a breath. “That’s a load of shit too, I’m beginning to think.”

I look at him and frown. “How so?”

He runs a hand through his hair then puts it back on my leg. His fingers smooth over
it as he watches them. “Kade threatened Peyton that if she said anything, he’d ruin
her, and you know she’s a conniving bitch and didn’t like that. I mean, she’d been
after him for years but he wasn’t interested in her so I guess in some sick, twisted
way to get back at him, she went after me. When I blew her off too, she found a way
to screw us both.”

“She screwed both of you? How?”

“Got Kade with his house.” He looks up at me now. “After he bought the lumberyard,
he decided he wanted the Lombardi house, the one he and Amelia live in now. You know
she always wanted it, so he bought it hoping she’d come back. Anyway,
he found out Jerry Capps, Peyton’s dad, held the mortgage on it, so they worked out
a lease-to-buy deal on it until he got the lumberyard loan paid down and could finance
it. Of course, Jerry thinks Peyton’s a fucking angel, so she talked him into signing
the mortgage over to her and Kade came unglued when she told him, but what could he
do? Thank God Mill came back in the picture because last month, she talked Kade into
letting her pay off the loan to get him out from under Peyton’s thumb.”

Wow. Peyton is a serious piece of work. “And you?” I whisper.

I see his jaw muscles bunching as he grits his teeth then he stands and buttons his
jeans then finds his shirt, putting it on. He goes to his fridge and pulls out a beer,
holding it out toward me, eyebrows raised. I nod because uh, hell yeah, I’ll take
it since I know this is going to get bad. He pops the tops off both beers and tells
me to come sit on the couch. I get up and walk over taking the beer from him and sit
but he stays standing and paces a bit as he begins explaining. “A month after everything
went down, I’m on duty at the firehouse and Kade comes by that morning when Jeremy
and I are working out. I’d never seen him so pissed.” He stops pacing and looks down
at me. “He hauls my ass outside to sit in his truck and tells me Peyton just came
by the lumberyard and tells him Hannah’s pregnant and it’s mine.”