CHAPTER 15
Axel dipped his head beneath the ice-cold water and half expected to see steam rise off his heated skin. Never in his life had he been this turned on. Brynn had almost proved too much of a temptation for him to resist.
Cursing under his breath, he moved so that the freezing spray cascaded down his chest and back. He was coming to the conclusion that taking a cold shower was a myth and it was not going to do the trick. He might be harder now than he was before he’d stepped under the chilly water.
It wasn’t the shower’s fault. He was beginning to accept that there was no antidote to what ailed him. Brynn was too potent.
The faintest touch of her soft mouth brushing his was all it had taken for him to lose his mind completely. He’d asked her if she wanted to go home, and when he’d asked that question he’d had no plans to leave her on her doorstep.
Thankfully, during the five minutes it took to walk back to her house, he’d realized that there was no way he could follow through. He was here to do a job, and crossing that line was not part of it. He knew the right thing to do would be to remove himself from the assignment, pack up, and have someone who was not personally involved be reassigned to Brynn’s case.
That was the right thing to do.
So why did the thought of doing it sound so fucking wrong?
He blew out a frustrated sigh as he shut the water off and grabbed a towel from the rack hanging on the wall. After drying off, he stepped into his sweats and when he straightened he noticed that he was still at half-chub. It seemed to be a permanent condition around Brynn. His body had no concept of what was appropriate and what wasn’t. It had no grasp of what or who was off-limits. And Brynn was off-limits.
As he left the bathroom, he was prepared to put on mindless television before spending another restless night with visions of Brynn’s naked body playing like a peep show in his brain.
There were some things that once seen could not be unseen. As much as he wished he could erase the image, Brynn naked was forever imprinted in his mind’s eye. Axel adjusted his semi-hard junk and wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to live a normal life.
He’d just stepped into the bedroom when there was a knock at the door. His heart slammed into his chest. His visitors were limited to two people: Ryder and Brynn. Ryder was spending the night at the high school so that meant there could only be one person standing on the other side of that door.
Axel flexed his hands as he stared at the doorknob. He’d barely managed to escape tonight without his self-control snapping. If he opened that door, chances were he’d do something he couldn’t undo. He could ignore the knock and let her believe that he was already asleep.
That would be the smart, safe thing to do.
His feet moved and he watched as his hand turned the knob.
Apparently, smart and safe was not the route he would be taking tonight.
The second the door swung open, he knew he’d made a mistake.
He was in big trouble.
Brynn stood in front of him dressed in cutoff sweats and a T-shirt. Her face was scrubbed clean and her eyes were wider than he’d ever seen them. She had an air of vulnerability and strength, combined with a complete lack of self-awareness that was turning out to be his Achilles heel.
Any other woman that looked like Brynn did, that had everything going for her the way she did, would be fully cognizant of it. But she honestly had no clue of her effect on him. And that was sexy as hell.
The energy between them crackled with unspoken tension as they stared at one another.
“Hey,” he managed to croak out, keeping his hands at his sides so he didn’t drag her into the apartment and kiss her until he forgot all the reasons why being with her was wrong.
“Hey.” She lifted her hand in a small wave as a nervous smile pulled up on her full, pouty lips. “Um…” He watched her eyes dart beside him as she swallowed hard. “Can I come in?”
“Of course.” He backed up, careful to leave a good three feet between them as she stepped inside.
When she shifted to shut the door behind her, he noticed that her hands were trembling just like they’d been when she’d tried to unlock her front door.
She was clearly nervous then and now. Of what, he couldn’t be sure. But he was sure that everything in him was screaming for him to fix it. To assure her. To pull her into his arms and hold her until all of her trepidation and anxiety were gone.
Instead, he crossed his arms.
Her eyes followed his movement and the look of unabashed appreciation made him remember he wasn’t wearing a shirt. He’d been so focused on Brynn that he forgot that the only clothes he had on was a pair of sweats.
Which meant that if he kept watching her watch him, the soft cotton that was covering his lower region was going to be in tent formation.
Not trusting himself to speak, he cleared his throat.
Her eyes jerked up to his and a pink tint flushed on her fair cheeks.
Damn. Axel loved how real and unfiltered Brynn was. It was as if her body rejected any kind of pretense. When she felt something, it showed.
“So, I was hoping we could talk. I feel like we need to clear the air.” Her hand waved between the two of them.
As much as he was trying to focus on what she was saying, his mind was preoccupied by how her lips moved when she spoke. He’d only barely felt them against his, but from that brief contact he knew they were soft. He knew that her breath was warm and minty and that her eyelids fluttered the moment before their lips touched.
“I um, I’m a little confused about what is or isn’t going on between us.”
I’m not. I just can’t do anything about it.
“I mean, tonight I thought…” She took a deep breath and blew it out as she shook out her hands. It was clear to him that she was building up courage in the most adorably endearing way. “You asked me to dance.”
He waited for more and when she didn’t continue he dipped his chin in a nod. “I did.”
“Right, you did. And I told myself that you were just being neighborly, but then we…I thought…” she stammered over her words and Axel fought back the urge to kiss her and show her exactly what was going on between them. “I thought you were going to kiss me.”
Don’t do it. Axel heard the voice of reason, he just wasn’t sure he wanted to listen to it.
* * *
What am I doing?
As soon as Brynn heard her words out loud, it was clear that coming up to Axel’s apartment was a huge mistake.
She wasn’t a heroine in one of her books. This was real life. In real life, no one shows up on someone’s door to say that they thought they were going to kiss them.
Panic replaced the bravado that had filled her moments ago as she stared into Axel’s deep brown eyes. His poker face hadn’t changed since he’d opened the door. Shirtless. His expression was one-hundred percent unreadable. And his body was one-hundred percent male perfection that she’d been caught gawking at.
Not that she blamed herself. How could any woman not. She felt like Emma Stone in Crazy, Stupid, Love when Ryan Gosling takes his shirt off. She couldn’t believe that Axel wasn’t photoshopped.
Brynn had almost reached out to touch his bionic abs, like Emma had actually done in the film, but he’d cleared his throat and snapped her out of the magnetic hotness that his naked upper body had sucked her into.
That should’ve been the moment that she aborted her mission. But, she didn’t. She’d doubled down and admitted that she wanted to know what was going on between them.
And now she was standing in front of a half-naked Axel, waiting for him to tell her…what?
She really hadn’t thought this plan through. What was the best-case scenario in this? He tells her why he didn’t kiss her? Or that he never planned on kissing her at all? Because either way, he hadn’t kissed her. Nothing he said now would change that. It would only clarify why.
Forget tomorrow morning, she was in full-blown regret now. Her chest ached with embarrassment as panic seized her.
Thankfully, to Brynn’s knowledge no one had ever died of humiliation, so as bad as this was, at least she wouldn’t be leaving her son motherless.
“I’m sorry.” A nervous chuckle bubbled out of her as she turned to leave. “This seemed like a much better idea a few minutes ago. Forget I said anything.”
When she grabbed the doorknob she felt Axel’s fingers wrap around her wrist. Her eyes shot down and locked on his grip. His large, stained, and work-roughened hands enveloping her china-doll wrist was erotic in its contrast. Goosebumps broke out over every inch of her exposed skin and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up as she waited to see what he was going to say. What he was going to do.
She didn’t have to wait long to find out. She sucked in a startled breath as he spun her around so that she was facing him once again. In what felt like somehow both the blink of an eye and slow motion, he tugged her so that her body slammed against his, holding her in place by pinning her arm behind her back.
They were even closer than they’d been during their slow dance. It took a moment for her brain to catch up to what she was feeling but when it did, she realized that his arousal was pressed up against her belly. There was no mistaking or misreading what his body wanted, now she just needed to make sure it was what he wanted.
Her neck bent as her eyes lifted to meet his. The moment that their gazes met, every question she had about what he wanted was answered. The desire and desperation that she saw in his whiskey stare ricocheted through her and lit up her body like a pinball machine.
Axel’s free hand lifted and his fingers speared through her hair. The tips of his fingers grazed her scalp and sent a jolt straight between her legs. Her brain was going haywire as she tried to process what was happening.
The strength of the magic she felt from the ravishing kiss had Brynn’s head spinning and sent a shockwave through her body. His lips were a heady combination of enticingly persuasive and masterfully demanding. As much as she wanted to meet his savage intensity, she was unable to resist the pleasure of being swept along for the ride. Instead of fighting against the impulse to let him have complete control, she leaned into it and surrendered completely.
She reveled in the seductive pulse that was throbbing in her core as she succumbed to the forceful domination of his mouth covering hers. A dizzying rush swept through her as he drugged her with tantalizing expertise, alternating between frenzied passion and deliberate possession.
And then, without any warning, Axel released her arm and broke their kiss. He didn’t abandon her completely, he rested his forehead against hers. Her freed arm immediately joined the other and held onto his shoulders as her mouth searched for his. But instead of finding his kiss, she felt the pad of his thumb brush along her bottom lip, keeping her at bay as his hand cupped her jaw. She opened her eyes and saw his pained expression as his heavy breaths fanned across her face.
She didn’t move, didn’t blink, didn’t breath, for fear that she was dreaming and she would wake up to find herself back in her bed with Lucy and her romance novel resting on her chest. All she wanted was for this kiss to be real. For the rock-solid erection she felt between them to be real. And for the night between them to continue with both of those things.