CHAPTER 3
“This is the living room,” Brynn waved her hand, spokesmodel style, as she gave the same tour she’d given a couple dozen times to tourists renting out the apartment.
“And this is a Murphy bed in case you have company.” She lifted her arm and tugged on the wall unit.
I can’t believe he saw me naked. I can’t believe he saw me naked. I can’t believe he saw me naked.
That sentence was playing over and over in her mind as she struggled to ignore the fluttering in her stomach. She tried telling herself that the uneasiness she was experiencing was the leftover macaroni and cheese that she’d warmed up for lunch earlier, but she knew better. Her butterflies were her body’s response to the man that was making the cozy apartment feel much smaller than it ever had before.
She pushed the bed back up into the wall and walked across the room and through the door that was directly across from it. Reaching up, she tugged on the string that hung from the ceiling fan and light to illuminate the tiny room.
“And this is the bedroom.”
A queen size patchwork quilt covered the bed that sat in the corner of the room. It had been plenty big enough for her, but thinking of Axel in it made it look like a twin bed.
Axel’s presence was more than just his impressive height and muscular frame. He filled the room with an overwhelming dose of testosterone that had her body shaking like she was a 1950s teenage girl seeing Elvis for the first time.
“Over there is the bathroom.” Her voice had a slight quiver in it as she motioned to the open door next to the antique dresser across the room.
She scooted past Axel and her breath hitched as she walked into the kitchen waving her hand over the two-person dining table that sat along the wall. “And conveniently you have a dining room and kitchen in one. It’s very handy if you need to grab a soda during dinner,” she joked, miming a reach for the fridge while she stood near the table.
Her nervous laughter at her not-so-clever joke filled the small space as she headed back into the front room.
“And that’s the grand tour.” She held her arms out as she spun in a circle.
When she stopped, she was facing him. Her head had to tilt up to meet his gaze and for the first time she understood the phrase “bedroom eyes.” She’d read the term in her books more times than she could count, but she’d never had a frame of reference for what that looked like.
Now she did.
And those bedroom eyes had seen her naked.
I can’t believe he saw me naked. I can’t believe he saw me naked. I can’t believe he saw me naked.
She inhaled slowly, trying to calm her frazzled brain. When she did she was overwhelmed with his very male scent.
She tried to remember the last time she’d had this kind of a reaction to a man. She’d had a couple of crushes as a teen, but she didn’t remember any physical symptoms.
This was the kind of over-the-top response that happened to the people in her books. Not in real life. She’d never experienced this in real life.
Maybe it was because he’d seen her naked. Maybe there was some kind of instant intimacy that had formed.
Oh lord. He’d seen her naked. It’d been years since a man had seen her naked.
It’s not a big deal, she assured herself.
Her mom had always said that Brynn reminded her of Lucy from I Love Lucy. Not just because she was a redhead, but also because she was prone to finding herself in embarrassing situations, although unlike the character, they were not of her own making.
She’d embraced her proclivity to humiliation even going so far as to name her pug after the iconic television character. Her pug, who earlier had contributed to her most embarrassing situation to date when she pulled off her robe in front of the man that had flipped every switch in her body to on.
So yeah, she was just going to chalk it up as another “Lucy moment.”
She could feel her cheeks warming at the memory and knew that her face was going to turn bright red if she didn’t make a quick exit. “Right, so, here’s the key.”
Brynn lifted the ring in her right hand and the key and crystal dangled in front of her before slipping from her fingers. She automatically reached out to grab them with her left hand at the same time that Axel took a step and reached out to do the same. Their simultaneous motions ended up with her hand cupping him.
Between his legs.
They both froze as her eyes shot to his.
She gasped in horror as she jerked her hand back.
As she bent down to retrieve the fallen keys, she began apologizing profusely. “I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to…I just…”
“It’s not a big deal. I was just waiting for you to ask me to turn my head and cough.”
A high-pitched sound that turned out to be a nervous giggle filled the silent space as she straightened and offered him the key ring. When their gazes met she could feel her cheeks flaring with heat. “Sorry,” she heard herself apologizing again.
“It’s fine.” His deep voice rumbled as he took the key from her hand and a warm, comforting smile spread across his face. “Really.”
His fingers grazed hers as he cradled her hand in his. His touch felt strong, safe, and super-charged. Just like their handshake, except even more intimate and connected.
Brynn sucked in a startled breath at the electricity that sparked between them. She pulled her hand away and tried to shake off the feeling of familiarity that was there. Her body was responding to him as if he weren’t a stranger, but her brain was doing its level best to remind her that that’s exactly who he was.
His pants buzzed and her eyes shot down to the same area where her hand had been just a few moments before.
She watched as he removed the phone from his pocket and her palm tingled at the memory of what it had just touched. His hand wasn’t the only thing that felt strong and super-charged…
Axel lifted the phone to his ear. “Let me call you back in—”
He was cut off by a sound that Brynn was very familiar with. Hysterical teenage girl. She couldn’t make out what the girl was saying but she knew from the pitch and tone that it wasn’t good.
Figuring Axel would probably like some privacy, Brynn started toward the door. He quickly held up his hand indicating for her to stay.
She remained in place, easily held captive by the depths of his stare.
As a person that studied people and their behavior for a living, she’d always believed that there was some truth to the saying that the eyes are the window to the soul. From a purely anthropological perspective, eye contact had always fascinated her. How long people held it. What their body language was like during contact; did they look away or maintain a constant stare? These were all things that revealed personality traits.
It wasn’t an exact science, but there were commonalities in behavior that rang true more often than not. From what she was seeing with Axel, her mother might’ve just been on to something in her reading of him. Brynn was definitely picking up confident, strong-willed, protective, and grounded.
And passionate and sexual. Her core tingled and clenched as those descriptors ran through her head.
“Pita…” Axel tried to speak but the voice on the other end just got louder. “Pita, I ne—”
He shut his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose. When his arm fell at his side, he spoke with a command that he hadn’t had before. “I’m going to call you back.”
The authority in his stern tone did something to her insides that Brynn didn’t want to admit or acknowledge. She swallowed over a newly formed lump in her throat and tried to sound as unaffected as possible as she asked, “Your sister again?”
“Yeah.”
“Sounds like you’ve got your hands full.” Her cheeks started to flush at her choice of words.
What she’d felt behind the zipper of his shorts was definitely a handful.
Thankfully, it didn’t seem like Axel picked up on her double entendre. He looked distracted and…worried.
Brynn watched as he ran his hands through his dark brown hair. Her mouth automatically watered when she saw the prominent vein pop out on his forearm. A shiver ran down her spine at the chiseled perfection of his triceps. He blew out a breath. His eyes closed briefly and she noticed just how long and thick his eyelashes were.
Her mouth was alternating between watering and going dry as a bone. He had an effect on her that was making her senses go haywire.
When he opened his eyes again, her mind switched from hot and bothered to concerned.
There was a pain and vulnerability in his whiskey stare. She’d always been highly empathetic. It was a big reason she’d chosen the career path she had. But over the years, she’d picked up methods to protect herself when counseling people, or even just watching the news. It helped her not be a blubbering mess each night when she lay in bed, otherwise she felt the pain of all the hurting people and animals in the world. But Axel shot right past the barriers that she’d constructed.
It seemed her hormones weren’t the only thing that this man triggered; her heart was about to join the party, too.
“Are you okay?”
* * *
“No,” Axel admitted.
Stop talking.
Axel couldn’t believe that he kept sharing details about himself with Brynn. She was definitely in the right line of work because he couldn’t stop revealing personal things to her. It was more than just unnerving, it was unprofessional. He was here on a job.
He watched as Brynn’s lips parted and curled into an easy smile that had his entire body relaxing and strung tight at the same time.
“I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing.” He was referring to more than just the conversation with Izzy.
She tilted her head to the right and one of her perfect curls slipped out of place, falling along the side of her porcelain cheek. Her green eyes twinkled as she said, “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that’s not something you’re used to feeling.”
“No. It’s not.”
“Well, coming from someone who always feels like they have no idea what they’re doing, feeling just means you care.” Her smile widened. “I’d love to tell you that it gets easier, but, based on my experience working at the high school, I don’t want to give you false hope.”
“So you’re saying this isn’t going to end with her telling me what a great brother I am and thanking me profusely for knowing what was best?”
Her nose scrunched in an adorable expression as she shook her head. “I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
He felt a wide smile pull on his lips. It wasn’t something that he did often. Usually, he only smiled around Izzy. Not teenage-mutant-hysterical Izzy, but sweet, funny Izzy.
His phone buzzed again and he glanced down to see that she’d sent him a meme of her favorite comedian Jim Gaffigan in an orange jumpsuit staring longingly through cell bars.
She was so dramatic. Funny. But dramatic.
“Are you two close?” Brynn asked.
“Yes. We’ve always been close, but I’m not used to…,” Axel stopped himself. He wanted to superglue his mouth shut. He wasn’t just sharing, he was oversharing. When did his life turn into an episode of Oprah?
“What?” Brynn prompted. “You’re not used to what?”
“I’m not used to having to tell her no.”
Her brow furrowed in confusion but she nodded as if she understood what he was talking about.
“I just became her guardian.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“No, it’s not…” It was obvious that she was giving him her condolences. This was why Axel was not a fan of conversations, communication was not his strong point. “Our mom didn’t die. She moved to Brazil a few months ago. Izzy moved in with me over the summer. I dropped her off at school yesterday.”
“Your mom moved to Brazil?” she repeated, looking more confused than ever.
Axel nodded. “She met a guy that she thinks is going to be husband number nine.”
“Nine?!” Her eyes widened. “Your mom’s been married nine times?”
“Eight,” Axel clarified. “But if things work out the way she wants them to, then Rodrigo will be number nine.”
“Wow.” Brynn shook her head back and forth slowly. “That sounds…exhausting and expensive.”
He couldn’t help but chuckle. Usually other people laced their responses with judgement. But Brynn actually seemed to empathize with his mom. It was refreshing and endearing.
“A few of them only lasted a weekend, so those were relatively painless.” He wondered if there was some kind of James-Bond-style truth serum in the air in Whisper Lake. “Izzy calls them Mom’s Britney husbands.”
Brynn chuckled, obviously getting the reference to Britney Spears’ forty-eight-hour Vegas wedding.
She looked at him slightly confused. “What’s your sister’s name?”
“Izzy. My mom was a big Guns N’ Roses fan.” Which was why he’d never understood why she’d spelled his name with an “e” instead of Axl like his namesake Axl Rose. And Izzy’s namesake Izzy Stradlin was actually Jeffrey Dean Isbell which he would think would make more sense to call a girl Isabel, but then again he didn’t understand most things his mom did.
“Oh.” Her head shook slightly. “No. I just…I thought I heard you call her Pita.”
“I did,” he grinned. “Pita’s a nickname.”
“Oh.” A crinkle appeared at the corner of her eyes.
“It stands for pain in the ass.”
Brynn’s eyes widened as she chuckled. “Does she know that’s what it stands for?”
He pulled up his sister’s contact info and lifted his phone to show Brynn the screen. “She takes pride in being a pain in the ass. She’s the one who changed her name in my phone.”
Her smile widened further and for a moment, Axel relaxed and everything in his world felt…right. The fleeting moment of peace was another feeling he wasn’t used to.
Axel couldn’t help but be charmed by Brynn. He’d never had such an easy rapport with someone before. It’d taken him a long time to bond with his MARSOC unit in the Marines. And even when he’d finally trusted them with his life, he’d never trusted them with any personal details about his life. And here he was, opening up to Brynn like she was Dr. Phil.
Another buzz sounded, but this time it wasn’t from his phone.
She took her phone out of her back pocket and her smile fell when she looked at the screen. “Oh crap.”
“What’s wrong?” Axel had always been a person that fixed things for the people he loved but that list had always been very short. When he was younger, it’d been just his mom. Once Izzy was born, it was just Izzy. He’d stopped trying to save his mom from all of the questionable situations she got herself into.
Now, he felt those same instincts with Brynn. Technically, he was supposed to be protecting her, so it wasn’t a bad thing. But it still felt odd that she inspired such strong, base-level impulses in him.
“My standing order is here. I totally forgot.”
“Your standing order?”
“Yeah. I have a standing Saturday night order with Pizza, Pizza for a large, half combo, half pepperoni pizza to be delivered at seven o’clock. Saturday nights are pizza night. But Ryder, that’s my son, he’s not here and I forgot to cancel it.” She shook her head as she rushed past him.
Axel was surprised at how disappointed he was that she was leaving. He didn’t want their time together to be over.
When she reached for the knob, he noticed that she hesitated and took a deep breath before glancing over her shoulder. “If you’re hungry and like pizza, I have plenty…,” her voice trailed off.
He knew the right thing to do would be to decline. This was getting personal. He couldn’t let things get personal.
You saw her naked and she knows you’re hanging to the left, this is already personal, the devil on his shoulder pointed out.
Ignoring the devil, he opened his mouth to decline, but instead he said, “I love pizza.”
Her lips titled up in a huge grin before she licked them. He tried to tell his body that the only invitation she was extending was dinner, but it jumped to its own conclusions. Literally. His dick leapt as it hardened in his pants. He was glad that her hand wasn’t accidentally cupping him now.
“Great! I’ll meet you on the back deck in ten.”
“Sounds good.”
Just before she turned and left, he noticed that her smile grew even larger and the apples of her cheeks flushed. He was glad he wasn’t the only one that was affected.
When the door shut, he looked around and took in the space. It was tight quarters, low ceilings, and if he stood in the doorway, his shoulders practically brushed the sides. He stepped to the window and looked down. He saw Brynn hurrying across the small patch of grass that was the backyard.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone and dialed. “I’m here.”
“You have eyes on?” Seth Sloan asked.
“Yes.”
He did have eyes on. Unfortunately he also had a hard on.