"She's your age and never been married, clearly a winner when lookin' for man advice."
"Brock," I whispered again and suddenly his hand snaked up, caught me behind the neck and pulled me down so my face was close to his.
"You know what's goin' down with you and me. You know what you feel when I kiss you.
You know what you feel when you sit with me like you're sittin' right now. You know what you felt when you were watchin' me move inside you after I made you come. And you know how you felt in your fuckin' kitchen six fuckin' hours ago. She does not know any of that shit."
"I haven't been exactly good at picking men," I pointed out then instantly wished I hadn't.
In fact, I wished I had the power to grab my words and shove them back in my mouth when his hand got tight at my neck, his eyes got hard and glittering and the extreme voltage of his anger started snapping in the room.
"I am not Heller," he growled.
"I know," I whispered, my hands moving to rest on his chest.
His eyes seared into mine, his were molten and not in a good way.
"Okay," I said softly. "You're not Damian but right now, I have to admit, you're freaking me out."
"Yeah?" he shot back. "Well you just linked me to a man who supplied Denver for years with shit that fucked a lot of people's lives and the lives those people's shit fucked in turn and who also took his hands to and raped my woman. Sorry I'm freakin' you out, babe, but you gotta get that doesn't make me too happy."
God, for years, no one knew about what happened to me and now...
Now it was right in my face and it was Brock who kept putting it there.
I closed my eyes and twisted my head away.
Brock kept speaking.
"I know why you aren't lookin' at me, Tess, but that shit happened to you. You gotta face it and, for this shit to work between us, one of the people you gotta face it with is me," he declared, I opened my eyes and turned them back to him.
"So, you're a law enforcement officer and Denver's resident sage on how to deal with being raped? Is this what I'm learning about you now?" I asked sarcastically, finding myself no longer hesitant, cautious and unsure but totally pissed off.
"Yeah, since my sister and a girlfriend of mine both got raped, both of them were bad as that shit always is but only one of them was by someone they thought they could trust, I think I know something about it," he fired back and I blinked in shock as this unwelcome but somehow crucial knowledge filtered through me.
Then I whispered, "Sorry?"
He didn't repeat himself. Instead he shared, "My sister got help, she talked about it, she faced it, she dealt with it. Now she's married and has three kids. Her life's a fuckin' mess but it's a mess of the grape jelly smears on her car upholstery variety. My old girlfriend didn't get help, she didn't talk about it, she buried it deep and her life went right down the toilet. He took what he took from her but, babe, with her not fightin', she gave him the rest."
Oh man.
"Brock "
He cut me off to announce, "Straight up, baby, I wanna explore this with you. I liked what we had, I fuckin' missed it when it was gone, I want that back and I wanna know how it feels to have it not havin' my job comin' between us. This is why I'm here. You want that too, we have to have this conversation. Because I'm in your bed, you're in mine, I'm in your life, you're in mine, that motherfucker isn't going to be there too. You get what I'm sayin'?"
I got what he was saying.
And I also liked that he wanted to explore this with me with everything clear between us and that he missed me when I was gone. I liked it a lot, a whole bunch because for three months I felt the same exact way.
"I've moved on," I assured him and just like that, the snap of angry electricity left the air and the sweet, steady hum of his humor hit it.
"Right, my sweet, sexy, totally clueless Tess with her glasses and thick fuckin' hair and great fuckin' rack who can bake a cake most men would trade their balls for and who looks at you like you're the only motherfuckin' guy on earth goes six years without a fuckin' date when half the guys at your bakery probably come onto you and you have no fuckin' idea, that Tess has moved on. I see this. Totally. We're obviously good."
Okay, there was a lot there that I liked.
A lot.
But there was some of it I didn't like.
At all.
Therefore, I snapped, "I'm not clueless," and pulled back on his hand at my neck which only served to make it tense and bring me closer.
"Tess, darlin', of all the men who walk into your bakery or come in contact with you through your life, the last one you should take one look at, he smiles at you and asks if you wanna get a beer, you should never have said yes to."
"That's you," I informed him acidly.
He grinned. "I know. I'm the only person lucky you're totally clueless."
Contradictorily, I felt all warm and gushy inside from his earlier Brock-like compliments at the same time I was totally pissed and the totally pissed won out so I pushed against his chest with my hands while announcing, "I've decided I want a beer. Let me up."
He ignored my mood and I knew this when his hand with his beer wrapped around my back and he brought me even closer.
"I'm also lucky my girl had a craving to take a walk on the wild side," he muttered, his quicksilver eyes dropping to my mouth.
Mm. I knew what that meant.
I also knew that for three months, one of the things I seriously missed was making out with him.
And, last, I knew at that moment I was not prepared to go there.
"Brock," I hissed and again pushed.
He ignored my push, his eyes lifted to mine and he whispered, "I can't make any promises about where this is gonna go but what I can do is give you me, keep you safe while you walk on the wild side and work my ass off to do what I can so this never goes bad for you."
His quiet words made me stop pushing, they also made that warm gushiness warmer and gushier and I stared at him.
Brock kept talking. "That's all I got to give, babe, but I'll also tell you the only thing I'll take is what you're willing to give back except you need to give me what that asshole left in you so you don't have to carry it around anymore."
Oh God.
Oh God.
Okay, maybe he did know a little something about women who'd been violated.
I felt my body ease in his hold but still, I told him honestly, "I don't think I can give you that."
"Yes you can, Tess," he replied softly. "He cut you deep and that kinda cut leaves an ugly scar but my girl hasn't drifted clueless and without a man for six years because of a scar. I didn't get it because you didn't talk about him when we were together but I get it now. My girl's done that because he left something ugly with you and you have to unload it, Tess. You have to let it go so you can see me right now the way I really am and how I am with you. You have to let it go so when you let me in and, baby," his hand squeezed my neck, "when I say that, I mean when you let me in, the only thing you feel is me moving inside you and the only thing you see is me likin' right where I am."
"I already let you in," I whispered my reminder and I saw a shadow pass through his eyes before he replied.
"Yeah, darlin', you did but after you came, you looked at me like I was the only guy in the whole fuckin' world and then you called me Jake."
"I thought that was your name," I defended and his hand at my neck and arm around me gave me a squeeze.
"I know that but when I'm inside you, I wanna hear you say my name. That was between us then, for me. And now that's gone. I wanna clear the path of what might be between us for you. Can you get that?"
That was when my mouth suddenly formed the words, "Who's Darla?"
The heavy warmth of his mood disappeared in an instant and the static came back.
"What the fuck?" he asked softly.
"Who's Darla?" I repeated.
His eyes narrowed and his jaw turned to stone before he clipped out, "Who told you about Darla?"
I stared at him. Then I decided what I saw I did not like.
Then I whispered, "Right," and started pushing again.
This didn't go well for me mainly because he let me go with one arm only to lean us both to the side to put his beer on the table then he whipped me around so I was on my back in my couch and he was not only on top of me but also his hips were between mine.
Our last position wasn't conducive to us having an intense chat about the future of our relationship in a way where he couldn't boggle my mind with his hotness, sexiness and outspoken honesty but this one was way worse.
"I'll ask again, Tess," he growled. "Who told you about Darla? Was it Elvira?"
"Um..." I mumbled, his eyes narrowed so I rushed on. "She was at the shower with her girls and one of those girls was a lady called Gwen. Gwen told me."
His neck bent back so his eyes could look over my head and he snarled, "Fuck. "
"Brock " I started and his eyes sliced back to me.
"Who Darla is, is not you," he bit out.
"But "
"No, Tess, she is not you. I told you earlier I liked my job for the four months it meant me bein' with you. Suffice it to say, I did not at all like my job when the only play I had to make was bein' with her."
"You're hot," I said softly.
"What?" he clipped roughly.
"You're hot," I repeated. "I can see this. I can see them sending you in when they "
"Unh-unh," he shook his head, pressing his body into mine as the electricity snapped and sparked through the room. "I am not the DEA's resident prostitute with a dick," he growled.
"The play I made with Darla was my choice, a long job, a sacrifice I decided I had to make 'cause the life I was livin' bein' under that cover I had to get out of. It was sucking me under.
It was suffocating me. That shit, those people I had to spend time with, no contact with clean air, decent living, good folk, it was dragging me down. I had to make a statue of liberty play and I made it. And the fuck of it was, I made that sacrifice and the whole thing got fucked in a bad way, Tess, where I had to watch those morons take a good man down and almost take him out. You were not that. My assignment with you was light cover. Getting close. Nosing around. They investigated your finances, your bakery and they knew you were less likely a suspect involved in his operation and more likely a possible witness and knew he was jacked but the amount of communication and your name on his accounts, they had to be sure. I took it where it went because after about an hour with you I knew you were clean and I knew where I wanted to take it after the investigation was over. I came in late on this one because I'd just come off that last one. And when I took that job, you were the light of a warm, sunny day, Tess. Darla was the dead of a cold, dark fuckin' night." His face got close and his voice got low when he finished, "It felt good to feel the sun again."
I stared into his glittering eyes.
Then my mouth whispered, "Your job is pretty intense, Slim."
He stared into my eyes. Then the sparks disappeared, the warmth invaded and he rolled to his side, back to the back of the couch, taking me with him, his arms tight around me, his legs tangling with mine.
"Yeah, baby, it is. And it can fuck with your head. That's why when I met a woman whose house always smells like there's a cake in the oven, who holds tight and presses her tits to my back when she's with me on my bike, who looks at me like I can make the rest of the world melt away and for her its only me, I know I wanna hold onto that woman."
To those sensational, warm gushiness inducing words, I blurted, "It's in my belly."
I watched him do a slow blink before he asked, "What?"
"It's tight, a poisonous snake curled up tight. It can get really small, so small, I forget it's there. But when it uncurls, it swells and gets so big it fills me up, crawls up my throat, so deep up my throat, Brock, sometimes I think it's going to choke me and, when it starts uncurling, I'm always terrified it's gonna strike."
One of his hands slid up into my hair and the skin around his eyes got soft before he whispered, "What he left you?"
"Yeah," I whispered back.
I watched him lift his chin as his fingers sifted into my hair against my scalp and then he shoved my face in his throat.
And when he spoke again, his voice was thick, thick in a way I knew what that meant, thick in a way I knew what it meant to me and I pushed closer to his long, lean body as he asked, "You gonna work that shit out?"
"I..." His hand tensed on my head and my fingers curled into his tee before I whispered, "Yeah."
"You gonna let me help?"
I closed my eyes.
Then I repeated my whispered, "Yeah."
His arms got tight, drawing me close and I held on.
"You scared, baby?" he asked.
I didn't repeat my "yeah", I just nodded.
His arms got tighter and his voice got thicker as I felt his neck bend and his lips say against my hair, "Don't be. There's a wild that's fucked and there's a wild that's just, plain wild. You just hooked yourself to a different kind of wild, Tess, and I swear, baby, swear, "
his arms squeezed before he finished, "I'll show you that's a good, safe place to be."
I sighed deep and I did this because I believed him.
Then I whispered, "Okay."
Brock had no response. He just held tight. He did this for a long time. Long enough for me to relax in his arms. Long enough for my fingers to uncurl and then settle flat on his warm, hard chest. Long enough for me to realize that cosmopolitans on a back deck at a really bad baby shower with girls who were good to the core and wanted the best for me didn't shed even a little light on what I had on that couch in that moment. The only people who knew what was happening there were Brock and me.
And after that time went by, he pushed up, grabbed his beer then settled with his back to the couch, his head to my toss pillows at the armrest, me mostly on his body, his beer in his hand resting on his chest and when I lifted my head to look at him, I saw his quicksilver eyes on me.