Pierce My Heart (Women of Willowbrook Book 1) (7 page)

Just smiling, but it’s enough.

I suddenly don’t want to get out of the car.

My hands feel clammy, my nerves skyrocket, and I get this weird feeling in the pit of my gut.

I want to run.

Why, I have no idea, but even wanting to, there’s no way I can. I can’t move, let alone run. All I can do is sit here, staring, with my nerves shot to hell and this feeling deep down like
something
is about to happen, but I’m utterly lost as to why I feel
any
of that.

I jump when I hear the passenger door shut.

I hadn’t even realized Evan moved, let alone had gotten out of the car. Of course I shouldn’t have expected her to stay put long with all that male beauty out there.

Evan likes her men (as in enjoys looking and occasionally more), and these are men even a nun would have an issue staying away from.

I watch her sway (yes,
sway
) her ass over to them and introduce herself to the wall of muscle first before moving down the line, ending with the tall, dark, and handsome; who she seems to stay rather close to. After chatting for a few minutes, she turns her head back in the car’s direction and starts to wave me out.

Huge, body shaking waves.

When I don’t hop to and get moving, she yells, “Get your ass out here, bitch!”

“Hell. Yelling at me to get my ass out of the car in front of super-hot guys. She’s freaking
crazy
,” I grumble to myself, getting out of the car because after that if I don’t
I’ll
be the one who looks crazy.

I clear the door and reach in to grab my bag, swinging it onto my shoulder before straightening my clothes and bumping the door shut with my hip. Beeping the locks, I busy myself with searching in my purse for my glasses case (I
seriously
need to clean out my purse) before dropping my gaze to the ground. This way I don’t have to watch them to see if they’re watching me walk to them.

The last thing I need to do was trip over something and go down because I’m not watching where I’m going.

I shouldn’t have turned my head away.

I should’ve kept my head down while I was walking but…I didn’t.

When I felt my fingers bump the glasses case my eyes flick to my bag so I could watch what I was doing (I’d dropped my case and sunglasses on the ground more times than I liked to admit because I wasn’t paying attention) and just as my hand clears my bag,
it
happens.

My toe catches on a raised part of concrete and I feel my body fly forward. I manage to let out a quick, “shit”, fully prepared for my face to meet the ground when I hit
him
.

My body seems to come alive when I feel his hands settle on my arms, keeping us right-side-up. The feeling I had deep in my gut doubles in size and I’m not sure I’m even
breathing
.

I squeeze my eyes shut, embarrassed as all get out knowing I not only tripped in front of everyone but I managed to knock into
him
.

I feel one, then both of his big hands leave my arms after I’m steady. Fully expecting him to step back, I’m surprised when I feel his left hand land softly on the side of my neck, noticing distractedly that it feels calloused as it slides along. He moves his other hand to my chin and tilts my head back gently.

My eyes had popped open when I felt his hand on my neck, but I’d been too busy absorbing everything to notice much else.

Greedily, I take in everything my eyes could land on; his wide chest covered in a heather gray tee—a tee that’s so tight you can
see
the ridges of the muscles on his chest—a corded, tan throat that leads the way to a strong jaw covered in what is definitely at least a week’s worth of stubble. My perusal pauses when I take in his full, soft looking lips. His mouth is firm—for reasons unknown to me—but that doesn’t mean my body doesn’t react to the idea of those lips on me (anywhere, really; I’m not a picky person). His nose has a small crook in it like it’d been broken before, making him that much hotter (which is already an incredible feat), and his cheekbones are so high and sharp that they’d make any girl envious.

And when I
finally
land on his eyes? I go still.

God
, his eyes.

If I thought his smile was something, his eyes are
beyond
.

My breathing starts to stick when I feel his hands move on me, but when I catch his eyes I’m gone.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t move.

I can’t see anything,
but
him
.

Total tunnel vision.

Lashes, I fear will kick up a gust if he blinks, and laugh lines that radiate from the slight downward angle of his eyes make his appearance all that more pleasing; knowing that he’s seen plenty of laughter in his life. The color and the depth of them is what draws me in. A grayish blue that I know I could lose myself in just by searching out and counting every fleck of navy that dots the iris, but there’s more to them than just a pretty color with interesting details.

His face hadn’t shown much emotion other than the tightness of his mouth (whatever that was about), his eyes, though, had shown
everything
.

And right now they’re showing humor and an edge of something I can’t read.

Something that would’ve sucked all the air in my lungs out, if there’d been any left.

Something that started to push its way through everything I’d built up around me over the last couple years the moment I caught his smile, but the look in his eyes only cements the fact for me.

Something that makes me yearn for more, but that leaves completely unsure.

“Are you okay?”

I jerk at his voice.

Rough and deep, but warm. Almost…soothing.

“What?” I whisper.

I watch his eyes change. The something I couldn’t read becoming more pronounced, making me definitely yearn but all that more unsure.

“I asked if you were okay, sweetheart.”

I blink, take stock of the situation, notice his hands haven’t moved and smile a little on the inside as I push away the doubt.

“Other than my raging success at setting the record for the clumsiest moments in one lifetime, I’m peachy. How about yourself?”

My response earns me a smile that reaches his eyes, and the shock I have over my answer is forgotten as I take in his smile.

A smile that was great from a distance but is downright beautiful to watch up close.

I lean toward him, not in control of my body, and his thumb at my neck starts stroking softly. My eyes flutter, my pulse spikes, and I feel a tingle worm its way through my body.

It’s been so,
so
long since I’ve been touched by anyone but myself intimately, and he’s able to draw that reaction from me with a simple thumb stroke. I can only imagine what effect a full blown caress would have on my senses. Part of me is dying to find out while the rest of me wants to run, but I know I won’t,
can’t
, do that.

There’s something about him that draws me in, even if a part of me is trying to convince myself otherwise.

“I’m doing much better now,” he says quietly.

A small blush touches my cheeks.

When he sees it, his hand leaves my chin but only to swipe his thumb along the pink of my cheeks, acknowledging it, knowing it’s because of him, and if his smile that turns a little lazy has anything to say, likes it.

I blush harder.

His eyes get lazy too.

“Mothereff, woman, are you okay?”

His eyes lose the lazy and his smile drops, an annoyed look flashing so fast I’m sure I imagine it, before he takes a step back from me.

I don’t move.

Inside I’m having a small freak out at the realization that the chill I suddenly feel move through me is from the loss of
him
and not the shifting of the seasons, while on the outside I’m trying
not
to show I’m having a small freak out as I keep my eyes locked with his.

Crimeny, my body is going haywire. And he’s the culprit who crossed my wires.

Reluctantly I shift my focus towards Evan.

“I’m fine, Ev,” I say, plastering a smile on my face.

I hear a grunt and my eyes swing back to him to see a look of amusement on his face.

Why, I don’t know. It’s not like he can read my mind.

Can he?

I shake the thought off.

Of course not.

God, his presence is wreaking havoc on my sensibility too.

“Well, are we going in? You’ve gotta get back to make those brownies for tonight,” she asks.

I look back at Evan and nod, ignoring the look she has on her face as her eyes ping back and forth between us, and start to take a step away when he speaks.

“Brownies?”

Halting my movements, I look up at him, realizing something.

Sheesh, he’s tall—has at least eight inches on me.

I mean, all the guys in my family are around his height but he seems huge. Bigger in a way that’s more than
just
his height and muscle.

It’s
all
of him.

“Yeah, um, family dinner tonight. I agreed to make my younger brother cupcakes and then my older brother talked me into making him my brownies. Well, they’re not mine. I mean, I got the recipe from a TV show years ago, but I tweaked it to make it my own by adding a fudge layer before throwing crunchy bits of toffee and a caramel drizzle on top. So, it’s part mine and part whoever came up with it. His wife is an awesome cook, she’s always trying out new stuff and having dinner parties to share, but she isn’t the best when it comes to baking. And our mom is the one cooking dinner so they’re definitely not going to ask her; there’s a fifty/fifty chance she’d smile and agree or threaten them with a rolling pin.” My eyes widen and I start to backtrack. “Not that she’d follow through or anything, she doesn’t beat us, never even spanked us growing up, it would just be a threat, but her bark is worse than her bite. There’s no way either one of the boys would even lift a cook book, let alone open one to figure out how to make the sweets, and I love baking, and my brothers, so it’s not like it’s a hardship, just time consuming. But I’ve learned to multitask so it’s not that—”

A hand covers my mouth, effectively cutting me off and shutting me up.

My eyes trail up the arm and see it attached to Evan.

An Evan whose eyes are bugging out at me, clearly saying I need to shut my mouth and, since I didn’t do it myself, she did it for me.

And that I should thank her.

She’s
good
with her looks.

I swing my eyes back over to him and see a full-fledged smile going on.

As a matter of fact, all the guys have big smiles. A chuckle escapes, not that he tried hard (or at all) to keep it in, the well-formed, full lips of tall, dark, and handsome, and another blush hits my cheeks.

Swinging my eyes back to Evan, I send her a look that says if she doesn’t move her hand I am
not
to be held responsible for what I do to it with my mouth.

She jerks her hand away and rubs it on her jeans while making a face.

I roll my eyes, barely holding back the urge to stick my tongue out at her.

Barely, but I manage.

Giving my attention back to the men, my eyes are pulled right back to him—almost like I can’t help myself. I take two steps toward the door, putting three feet between us, and raise my arm, hand out to shake.

“Thanks. For catching me, I mean.”

He looks at my hand a beat, then my eyes before he grasps my hand to shake; at least, I think that’s what he’s doing.

Instead, I find myself pulled the three feet separating us. Both my hands end up trapped between us—one because I’d thrown it out to slow me down, and the other because he still has a firm hold on it and doesn’t seem to want to let go (I know, I tried tugging on it).

He raises his free hand and slides his thumb along my cheek again.

I want to close my eyes, savor the feeling of his touch and the way my body is warmed by it, but I keep them opened wide and looking into his—so I see when it happens. His eyes get this weird look, an alert awareness mixed with not a small amount of determination.

It’s odd, intense, and a little frightening, but a whole lot hot.

My body melts a little deeper into him and I hit tunnel vision; where he’s the only thing I see, feel, or hear.

“Catch you anywhere, gorgeous,” he says quietly, almost like a promise, while his thumb keeps moving.

I lose the tunnel vision.

My body goes solid and I pull slightly back—slightly, because he’s
still
not letting go of my hand.