Knocked Out By Love (Love to the Extreme) (4 page)

It was a relief to know he wasn’t the only one thinking Scarlett wasn’t acting like herself. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got it. I’ll take her back to my room and make sure she doesn’t leave.”

“Thank you, Brody.”

He nodded then stepped toward Scarlett again. She pointed at him. “Stay back. I won’t go to my room.”

Heat crept up his neck, from embarrassment or anger he wasn’t sure. He was feeling both pretty damn hardcore right now. He hated being in the middle of public drama. People were gawking like they were watching a live taping of
Days of our Lives
. And that pissed him off. Not to mention the fact he was completely over Scarlett’s antics. Drunk or not, she needed to get her shit together.

The more she backed away from him, the angrier he was getting. Charging her, he grabbed her around the waist and tossed her over his shoulder, not missing a step toward the exit. Thunderous clapping erupted around him, making the moment even more humiliating. God, he couldn’t wait to tell Scarlett every goddamn gory detail of this encounter tomorrow so she’d be as mortified as he was.

As he stormed out of the club and made his way down the garden path, he ignored the curious stares from the people he passed. Fuck, he’d stare, too, if there was a man carrying a raving lunatic over his shoulder.

And that was exactly what Scarlett was right now. Raving. Lunatic.

She beat her fists against his lower back, sputtered obscenities, demands, and threats. By the time he shoved his card in the lock and banged open the door to his room, his patience was completely gone. He strode across to the bathroom. After opening the glass door to the walk-in shower, he dropped Scarlett onto the natural-colored marble floor then turned on the shower full blast.

Icy cold water hit her square in the face, and she sputtered then scrambled to get out. He put his hand on top of her head and kept her there. When she tried to wrestle away and crawl between his legs, he stepped over her, ignoring the biting chill of the water as it saturated his shirt to his skin. Crouching, he wrapped his arms around her waist, lifted her up, and sat down with her.

The water beat down on her face and neck, splashing up onto his face. She struggled to get free, raking her nails across his knuckles and bucking against his hold. If he hadn’t been so damn furious with her, he would’ve laughed at her feeble attempts to wiggle free from him. When she apparently realized that he had no intention of letting her go, she screamed—long and loud. He grimaced. Fuck, he hoped no one heard that. The last thing he needed on top of all this was to deal with local authorities.

Suddenly, she went quiet and completely still. He waited for a renewed burst of energy, but she remained silent. Had she passed out?

Just as he had that thought, a weird sound came from her, and her shoulders jerked. He loosened his grip, and her head flopped forward, shoulders still shaking.

“Scarlett?” Fuck, had he hurt her? He leaned around her and fumbled to turn the water off.

As the sounds of the cascading water died, the sad muffled whimper came again. He shifted to her side and gently brushed back the curtain of drenched blond hair. Her teeth clamped down hard on her bottom lip, her chin wobbling.

“Scarlett?”

She slowly looked up at him. Mascara stained the skin under eyes and streaked down her cheeks as tears illuminated the blue of her eyes.

“I just wanted to be wanted,” she murmured before the slight control she had over her emotions broke, and she pressed her face into his wet shirt and sobbed.

They were deep, soul-wrenching sobs, the cries of someone who’d been hurt terribly. Unsure of what to do, he kept his arms to his side, but the longer she wept, the more he needed to hold her—to take away whatever pain she was feeling.

He wrapped his arms tight around and let her cry herself out. When she finally grew silent, he asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

He felt the shake of her head against his chest.

I just wanted to be wanted.

What could she have meant by that? Ryan had told him just last week how he had taken her on a romantic getaway to the mountains. How they had had such a wonderful time together…

A soft snore reached his ears, and he glanced down. Lips slightly parted, eyes closed—she was more passed out than asleep. He felt for her. She was going to be hurting in the morning.

This presented a bit of a dilemma, though. He couldn’t put Scarlett to bed in wet clothes. While stripping this woman had always been a forbidden fantasy of his, her drunken weeping had never played into the picture.

He stood then lifted her in his arms and carried her into the bedroom. After laying her down on the couch, he closed the shutters on the sliding glass doors that overlooked the ocean. He returned to the bathroom and grabbed one of the white terry cloth robes, then came to stand beside the couch.

Looking down at her, he allowed his gaze to follow the soft lines of her face. Even passed out cold from too much alcohol, she looked more like the Scarlett he’d known for years.

Soft. Sweet. Innocent.

The hard woman from before was a mystery to him, a layer of Scarlet he never realize existed. It was too bad it took…whatever had happened…to free this side of her.

Taking a deep breath, he shifted her so he could unzip the back of the dress. He kept his eyes adverted while the fabric fell loose. God knew, he was going to have to look eventually, and there was no need to torture himself sooner than necessary. Once he had the zipper undone, and the top of the dress had slid from her arms, he laid her back down. Keeping his gaze on the dress and not on her skin, he quickly yanked it the rest of the way off and let it plop to the ground.

A lump formed in his throat when he was faced with an undressed Scarlett. The only thing covering her beautiful, sun-kissed skin was a slip of black lace between her legs and a matching bra. Jesus.

He snatched the robe off the arm of the couch and quickly wrapped her in it, knotting the belt at her waist. He carried her to the bed, and after covering her with the blankets, he knew he had to call Ryan.

This was no longer about Scarlett out to cheat on her husband. This was something else entirely. Since Ryan seemed oblivious to it, he needed to let his best friend know what he’d witnessed so he’d be ready for her when she came home.

As he stepped out to the patio then onto the sand, he pulled out his cell phone and pressed the number for his friend. A light breeze blew his hair as he listened to the crash of the waves.

Ryan answered after a couple of rings. “Hello?”

Brody opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted by a feminine voice that caused a rock to form in his stomach.

“It’s two o’clock in the morning. Who the hell’s calling?”

A scraping noise came through the speaker, sounding very much like a palm being pressed over the phone. Though it dulled Ryan’s voice, it didn’t mute it. “Shhh. A friend of mine. Go back to sleep.” Then in a much louder voice. “Brody? What’s up?”

Feeling bitch-slapped, he dropped his arm and stared at his phone. What the fuck? He lifted the cell back to his ear, but he couldn’t get one word to pass his stunned mouth. He hung up.

Turning back toward the room, he stared at the woman curled up in his bed, reheard her words, replayed her sobbing.

He’d had it all wrong. She wasn’t cheating on her husband. Her husband was cheating on her—and Scarlett knew all about it.

The sudden excitement he felt scared the fucking shit out of him.

Chapter Three

Scarlett’s stomach lurched as she rolled over onto her back, groaning. Her mouth felt like a sandstorm had passed through, and she licked her dry tongue across her parched lips, trying to spur on some moisture. The pounding behind her eyes was cruel and unusual punishment.

Kill me now.

She had no one to blame but herself. What had started as a way to relax had spiraled completely out of control.

Prying open her eyes, she flinched away from the bright room, groaning again.

“Here. Drink this.”

The deep, masculine voice surprised the crap out of her, and she stiffened as she stared at the ceiling, refusing to look at the unknown man. She tried recollecting a name, a face, but last night was nothing but a big blur.

She hadn’t really gone through with bringing a man back to her room, had she? She talked a good game yesterday, but that was all it had been—talk. Oh God, what had she done? Not once in her life had she ever done a one-night stand. She didn’t even know the proper etiquette for such a situation. Did she stay for a while to chitchat, or did she get up and leave ASAP?

“Scarlett? Drink this.”

Wait. That voice sounded very, very familiar. Turning her head on the pillow, she found Brody towering beside the bed, the same disapproval as yesterday still radiating from his caramel-colored eyes. Refusing to witness his obvious judgement, she lowered her gaze to his broad shoulders then to his red cotton tank. They continued down his muscular arm, taking in the amazing, colorful comic-book themed sleeve, then settled on the orange sports drink in his hand.

Yuck.

She looked past him. Right outside the overly large sliding glass door was the beach. That wasn’t her view. What was she doing in Brody’s room? She slowly pushed to a sitting position. As the covers fell to her waist, she stilled at the terrycloth robe wrapped around her.

“Where are my clothes?”

“Don’t remember anything, huh? Can’t say I’m surprised.”

She swallowed, panic squeezed her chest. “Did we…I mean…”

Mortifying heat warmed her face. She hated that reaction whenever she tried to talk about sex. It happened every damn time. All she was trying to get out was had they hooked up. And like all the times before, she found herself struggling for words.

“Sleep together?” Brody lifted a brow. “No. I slept on the couch.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank God. Then what happened to my clothes?”

“I hung them outside last night to dry them out.”

Scarlett stared at him as she tried to remember why her dress would be wet in the first place. Nothing came to mind. “Did I jump in the pool or something?”

“That would’ve been preferable.”

Jesus. What
had
she done last night? From the disapproval radiating from Brody, nothing good. “Just tell me. I can’t remember anything.”

“I tossed you in the shower to shock some sobriety into you. You passed out. I couldn’t put you to bed soaking wet.”

Well, if that didn’t give her a cringe-worthy impression of how bad off she’d been. “How did I end up with you? I know I was with Delaney, and we’d gone to a couple of the bars, but I don’t remember bumping into you.”

“You didn’t really bump into me. I inserted myself into a situation between you, some fucker, and Delaney.”

“At one of the bars?”

“Yeah. It’s pretty safe to say you won’t be easily forgotten by a lot of people around here.”

A scene flashed inside her mind. She pressed her hand to her mouth. “Ohmygod. You actually carried me out over your shoulder.”

Brody confirmed her words with a tight smile. “Some of that memory coming back?”

She lowered her head into both hands and groaned. “I’m so sorry, Brody.”

“Honestly, it’s Delaney you probably want to apologize to.”

Her head snapped up, and then she immediately wished she hadn’t done that, as a slice of pain went through her temple. Rubbing the throb with two fingers, she asked, “What did I do?”

“She was trying to be a good friend to you, and you got pissy about it.”

If Delaney was trying to stop her from doing something, then whatever it had been was bad. “I suck.”

“I’m not going to argue with that.”

Ouch
. “You can stop with the holier-than-thou crap. It’s clear I screwed up. I’m human. It happens.”

“You’re right.” He took a deep inhale and released it in one huge rush. “I apologize.”

She’d known Brody a long time. Something was bothering him. He was stiff, snarky, and uncomfortable. Had she said something last night about the state of her marriage? There was a good chance she had, and God only knew what confessions had spewed from her drunken mouth. She felt heat warm her skin again. To distract herself, she took a sip of the sports drink and winced at its strong orange flavor. She abhorred sports drinks, but knew she was dehydrated and needed the electrolytes. Brody stood staring at her intensely. Avoiding his gaze, she looked around his room—a much larger and nicer room than hers.

On her budget, she couldn’t afford one of the rooms that opened right on the beach like this one did. Their room was located on the third floor, and was a good distance from the ocean. The view was still beautiful, but nothing like the one a few feet away through the floor-to-ceiling sliding glass door.

“This had to cost a small fortune,” she said, trying to steer the topic away from last night.

“Yeah. Most likely.”

“You don’t know for sure?”

“Didn’t pay for it. Tessa’s fiancé did. He paid for the entire trip.”

That got her to look back at him and his intense stare. “Wow. You’ve got a
huge
family. Who’s she marrying? Donald Trump?”

“Something like that. I’ve only met the guy a few times, with her living in New York now.”

“How’d they meet?”

“According to Tess, it was a classic Cinderella story. She was falling flat on her face in New York and needed some extra money. She started cleaning apartments on the side. He’s a job she landed, and, well…she went from scrubbing floors to riding in limos.”

Poor Tessa. She was so wrapped up in the fantasy of it all. One day, though, reality would seep into the relationship, and that was when love was really tested.

“I hope her fairy tale doesn’t end,” she muttered.

“What was that?” Brody asked.

“Nothing.”

Silence stretched between them, then a heavy sigh came from Brody’s direction. “Scarlett, I’ve known you for a long time. Even before you got completely shit-faced last night, you were acting weird, like someone not you at all.”

She glanced away. “Maybe I wanted to be someone different.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why? Don’t people do that all the time? Hell, don’t
you
do that every time you step inside the cage? I happen to know for a fact the fighter isn’t the same man I used to sit around and chat superhero movies with.”

“Okay, fine,” he said between clenched teeth. “I was trying to let you do this on your own, but I guess you’re going to make me the douche and just come out and slap you with it.”

“Slap me with what?”

“Your behavior concerned me last night, so I called Ryan.”

Her entire world stilled. “You called Ryan.” She swallowed. “And what did he say?”

A wave of humiliation surged through her. She cursed it. She had nothing to be embarrassed about, nothing to be ashamed of.
She
had done everything right. Those reminders didn’t help. All she could think about was Ryan telling Brody how disappointing she was in bed, how he had to go outside their marriage to find a woman who could actually please him. Things he had most likely already told the fighter, but having them reiterated when she’d been at her weakest was mortifying.

“He didn’t say anything. I hung up.”

She blinked. “Why?”

“Because I got my answer without having to talk to him.”

It took her a second to follow his words. A gust of air shot from her mouth.

Brody hadn’t known. Ryan had never shared his dirty little secret with his best friend. To confirm this, she asked, “She was there, wasn’t she?”

He sucked on his teeth for a second, before he gave an awkward nod. “Yeah. Asked from the background who was calling so late.” He paused before saying, “Scarlett, I didn’t know.”

It would’ve been easier on her if he had. At least then she could be angry at him. Now she couldn’t be. “I often wondered if he was really with you when he claimed to be. You used to hang out at our place all the time, but over the last year you stopped coming around, and when he started going to your place…I was rarely included.”

A slight grimace crossed his face, which she didn’t understand. “I can’t say that every time Ryan said he was with me he was, but we still did hang out a lot. I just got busy, and he was busy, so it got easier to hang out at my place or meet at a restaurant and have a few drinks to catch up.”

“I guess there’s a small comfort that not
every
word that came out of the bastard’s mouth was a lie.”

“How long has it been going on?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know for sure.”

“When did you find out?”

“A few days ago.”

The last thing she’d said to the asshole before she’d gone to stay with Delaney was they were over, and she was filing for divorce. The relief on his face had one clear meaning—he wanted the divorce as much as she did. She’d gone to a lawyer and started the process the very next day.

“Well, that makes things a lot clearer.” He shook his head, muttering a curse. “Ryan’s an idiot, Scarlett.”

She rubbed her forehead. This was not a discussion she was comfortable having with Brody. “It is what it is, right?”

She could now move on without any
what ifs
.

Except one big one. That
what if
didn’t apply to her marriage falling apart, but it could keep her from completely letting go of the past—what if she got involved with another man and was just as disappointing to him in bed as she’d been to Ryan? What if she became the woman all men cheated on because she was lousy in the bedroom?

She hated herself for even thinking that about herself. But over the last couple of years, as things between them had gotten edgier, Ryan had started to constantly critique her lovemaking—made it clear he was bored with their intimate time and she had to loosen up to spice it up. The added stress had only made her tense up more. As it was, they hadn’t had sex in eight months. Though, his girlfriend probably had a lot to do with that. Still didn’t change the fact he’d sought someone else to please him in the bedroom because she was apparently lousy at it.

“What, exactly, was the point of this trip?” Brody asked.

How did she respond to that? Hell, how did she
want
to respond to that?

“I wanted to get reacquainted with the single me.” When his eyes narrowed, she quickly added, “It’s been a long time since I’ve been single, Brody. Ryan and I have been together almost eight years. I didn’t keep my flirting skills warmed up during our marriage, not like he apparently had, so I’m rusty.”

“Scarlett.” He raked a hand down his face. “Do you have any clue that you were going to allow some strange man to escort you back to your room last night?”

No. She didn’t remember that.

“Listen,” he continued. “If you want to flirt some, then go for it, but for God’s sake, be safe about it, and leave the liquor out of the equation.”

She bit her lip. That had been a very foolish, rookie mistake that could’ve had terrible consequences. The only reason she’d drunk the way she had last night was because she’d needed the liquid courage. Unfortunately, she’d drunk way too much of it.

“I was nervous,” she admitted hesitantly.

The way Brody’s eyes rounded would’ve been funny if she hadn’t been dead serious.

“About talking to guys? You’ve got nothing to be worried about.”

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

“You’re kidding, right? Jesus, Scarlett, you have to know how fucking hot you are.”

Flutters erupted in her stomach. No one had called her fucking hot before—not even Ryan. “Now you’re going overboard.”

He gave her an incredulous look. “You’ve lost your damn mind.”

“Brody, you’ve known me a long time. When is the last time you saw me in anything outside of teacher clothes or casual jeans and a T-shirt?”

He shrugged. “You’re hot as fuck in anything you wear.”

Again her stomach fluttered in unexpected excitement at his words. She never thought of herself as hot. Pretty, yes. But when she thought of hot women it was always along the lines of Sofia Vergara—even she thought that woman was hot—and she definitely didn’t fall into the same category as the voluptuous Columbian.

Ryan had said she looked beautiful and in the beginning, had thought she looked adorable in pigtails and such. But hot had never been one of the adjectives he’d used to compliment her. She found she liked it—a lot. It made some inner vixen she didn’t even know she had perk up and take notice.

“So, you think I’m hot?”

Brody blinked, then swallowed. “I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.”

“Would
you
date me?” She was stunned at her own audacity, but the question just popped out.

His gaze slid away toward the patio before returning to hers. “If you weren’t my best friend’s wife—” Her eyes bulged in protest, and he held up his hands. “Sorry. Ex-wife.”

“I know it’s not official. I know it’s a process, but the moment I found out—”

About the baby
.

She inhaled deeply, then released slowly. No. Don’t even go there. It was enough he was cheating. That Ryan was going to be a father after their infertility struggles was an agonizing pain she couldn’t bear just now. “The moment I found out he was cheating, he ceased being my husband”—she patted over her heart—“here. To me, that’s all that matters. I’m no longer his wife in anything but a legal sense, and that’ll be easily remedied.”

“Divorces takes a while, Scarlett.”

“Not if it’s uncontested. Since I don’t want a damn thing from that sorry piece of shit, other than to take my name back and be legally free of him, we’ll have this wrapped up in a few weeks.” She waved her hands in frustration. “We’ve gotten off topic. I don’t want to talk about Ryan. You never finished your answer. If I hadn’t been married to your jerkface friend, would you date me?”