Bruised (Brody Brothers, #3) Read online

  Wow.

  So this was what it was like to be kissed by someone who knew how to do it, was the one clear thought that surfaced, while the rest of her got blown to pieces by the feel of him. He didn’t just kiss her. This was a conquering, an overt domination, an insistence that she surrender.

  That was fine with her. Surrendering was exactly what she wanted to do, as long as he kept on kissing her like his life depended on it.

  Maybe it was the texture of his beard that added that extra dash of delirium-inducing heat. The unfamiliar friction of it was downright exhilarating.

  Maybe it was how his big hand fisted in her hair, demanding her submission while he invaded her mouth with the bold sweep of his tongue.

  Maybe it was how that tongue enticed hers into a dance that was down and dirty and making the place between her thighs ache.

  Or maybe it was just Killian, in all his fierce an unapologetic glory.

  The truck’s console separated them and they had all their clothes on, but it didn’t matter. This kiss was a blatant form of sex, a feverish grinding of sensitive body parts that could only lead to bigger and better things.

  Which would be amazing, if this kiss had come from any other man.

  But it came from him.

  A Brody.

  His mouth lifted from hers just as that glimmer of sanity surfaced in her brain. In the darkness lit only by the cockpit-like dashboard, Dallas lifted her eyes to his, only to find him watching her as if he’d never seen her before.

  Here it comes, she thought, slamming up her defenses even as she edged back into her seat. He was going to make some crappy comment about her being just like her whore mother, or something idiotic like that, because he was the one who’d been weak enough to kiss her—

  “That might be the best damn kiss I’ve ever had in my life,” he announced, shocking her. There was no judgment in voice, or resentment that she’d made him feel something. There was just sultry, hungry heat, and all she could do was stare at him as he licked his lips in an undeniably sensual move. “You kiss like a damn angel, Dallas.”

  “Perspective,” she blurted out, not as a response, but as a word of caution she hoped her brain would listen to. “We’ve got to keep perspective here. I’m Dallas Faircloth. You’re Killian Brody. That means we don’t make sense. I mean, the history we have—”

  “Woman, that is not our history,” he cut in, his expression hardening. “We had nothing to do with that bullshit your mother and my father put everyone through. They were two selfish fools who should have remembered they were married and had families who depended on them to keep themselves in line. We don’t have a history. But that sure as hell doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy each other in the present.”

  “Enjoy each other.” She said the words out loud in the hope of making them more real. She had to, because until a few minutes ago she’d never seriously imagined getting involved with a Brody. Now she couldn’t think about anything else. “That’s a pretty big change. Yesterday you couldn’t stand the sight of me. What happened to make you suddenly realize I’m not the worst thing to ever walk the earth?”

  “Sudden? You couldn’t be more wrong,” he corrected, surprising her all the more. “The first day we met was the first day I fully understood the meaning of attraction. The moment my eyes hit you, I got so damn hot it’s a wonder I didn’t set off the damn sprinklers.”

  And she’d thought she’d been the only one. “You certainly didn’t show it.”

  “What, that I wanted to jump you there and then? How would that have gone over with you?”

  Now that he mentioned it... “I probably would have introduced you to my can of pepper spray.”

  “Exactly. I was there on a mission to save Des, but that didn’t change the fact that just looking at you made me harder than I could ever remember being.”

  Wow. “I don’t get why you’re telling me this now. What’s changed?”

  “The phone.”

  “The phone?”

  “All this time you’ve had that landline at your disposal. You could’ve bounced out of here and made a shit-ton of trouble for me along the way, but you chose to stay.”

  “I told you I wanted to be here.”

  “I know what you told me. I didn’t believe you then, but I do now. You really are something special, Dallas Faircloth. I’m just sorry I couldn’t get that through my thick head earlier.”

  Something almost painful shifted in her chest at his apparently sincere praise. “I’m not that special, trust me.”

  “You want to be here for Des. You love him so much you’ve put your life on hold for him just in case his liver gives out, and you’re willing to do it even though he barely remembers you. You’ve got a beautiful heart, Spice, maybe the most beautiful I’ve ever come across, and I’m genuinely in awe of it. But that’s not the only reason I’m interested in seeing what all this heat between us is about.”

  Did he really expect her to be able to breathe after all that? “What’s the other reason?”

  “You know you’re not a prisoner here. The moment it sank in that you’ve had that phone all this time, it hit me that I don’t have to be careful around you anymore. I’m not your captor, you’re not my captive, and now we both know that. You’re free to do whatever the hell you want, so fuck it, baby. Do me. I can guarantee you won’t regret it.”

  She’d just bet. “Damn, aren’t you the romantic one.”

  To her surprise, he blanched as if struck. “The last thing I want is some dumbass illusion like romance fucking things up between us. That’s the trap our respective parents fell into, so you and I are going to avoid it like our sanity depends on it, yeah? Save that bullshit for whoever we eventually settle down with. But the two of us, right here and now, can set the world on fire by being the best damn fuck buddies in history, and we’ll be as honest and open about it as any two people can be. No lies. No strings. No promises. Just the two of us enjoying each other.”

  “Fuck buddies.” She laughed as she said it, because the phrase wounded her in a way she hadn’t expected. If he’d spat in her face, he couldn’t have made it any clearer how he viewed her. She wasn’t good enough for him to think of as long-term. She certainly wasn’t good enough to take seriously. She was, however, good enough to scratch an itch, like her mother had been with his father.

  Yeah, no.

  “Thanks for the offer, Brody, but I’m good.” Unhooking her seatbelt, she opened the door and slid out. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m tempted, because it gets pretty damn boring around here, and being your fuck buddy is probably better than being bored to death. But I’m not that bored yet, and I doubt I will be now that I’ve decided to take on the job of being Green Rock Ranch’s in-house temp secretary.”

  “Wait.” The narrowing of his eyes looked downright dangerous in the light from the dashboard. “You’re turning me down?”

  “I’m not turning down the job offer, so that’s a win, right?” With a casual smile she was nowhere near feeling, she waved a hand. “All I need now is an office to work out of and I’m golden. Thanks for the ride.” Before he could say another word—and before she could weaken and give in to whatever he offered—she slammed the truck door and all but ran up the verandah stairs.

  Chapter Five

  A loud crash jolted Dallas upright in bed. A heartbeat later she was on her feet, wrestling with the bedclothes tangled around legs bared by the shorts that made up half of the pajama set Killian had bought for her. He’d taken the liberty of choosing pattern and style, and for some reason—spite or amusement, or he was just that cracked in the head—he’d chosen a pajama short set that had images of Pikachu all over it.

  Personally, she was going with cracked in the head.

  “What the...” Half-asleep, she shambled down the hall leading from the nanny’s suite where she’d decided to hole up, and into the main house’s front living room. That was where she stopped dead in the arched doorway, too dumbfounded to move as se
veral people moved furniture and boxes into the mostly empty room. Killian and his brothers, Finian and Ry, were also there in the mix, along with Ry’s wife Celia, while the sun was barely peeping over the horizon.

  She took a deep breath. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Oh, hey. ‘Morning, Spice. Glad you’re up.” Carrying one end of a heavy-looking polished wood desk with fancy inlays, Killian looked to the man holding the other end of the desk, his younger brother Finian. Fin’s hair was as black as his brother’s, and just long enough to show its natural tendency to curl. His eyes, that classic Brody green, were narrowed in what looked like irritation as they maneuvered the bulky piece of furniture to the middle of the room. “To the left, dumbass. It should be closer to the wall so we can plug shit in.”

  “You’re the dumbass, dumbass,” Fin shot back, sounding about as pissy as Dallas felt. “Don’t you remember where it was before, geezer? This desk was in the middle of the fucking room.”

  “Yeah, and Dottie tripped over electrical cords every damn day. I’m not having Dallas go through that shit when we can just put the desk by the wall, so go fucking left.”

  “Geez, whatever. Your left or my left?”

  “This can’t be happening,” Dallas muttered to herself, reaching hitherto unknown levels of supreme grouchiness as she watched the madness unfold. “I’m still sleeping, and I’m having a nightmare.”

  “What was that?” Killian craned his neck around so he could look at her, then nearly dropped the desk when he began to laugh. “Damn, what the actual hell are you wearing?”

  Asshole. “I’m wearing the fugly pajamas you picked out for me, Tim Gunn.”

  “Who?”

  “Forget it. Just like I’m going to forget you forced me to sleep in Pikachu pajamas, because some memories are best left suppressed.” Unfortunately, the one memory that wouldn’t stay suppressed was their kiss that had taken place only a handful of hours ago. It was as fresh in her mind as if it had just happened, a fact which didn’t help her mood one bit. “Enjoy your crack-of-dawn furniture-arranging. I’m going back to bed.”

  “No, you’re not,” Killian said, grunting as he maneuvered the desk close to a wall. “Grab some coffee, Celia’s got it for you. She can explain what’s going on. Then get dressed. You’ve got a big day ahead of you.”

  It was certainly going to be a big day if she wound up murdering him, she thought, reluctantly reversing course. After a quick search of the room, she found Ry’s wife hanging back near the room’s foyer archway, holding a cardboard tray of large coffee cups and looking almost as sleepy as Dallas felt. The moment Dallas looked her way, she lofted the tray up like prey she’d hunted down and killed herself.

  “Coffee, or as I like to call it, liquid life,” she called over the chaos. “Want some?’

  What Dallas wanted was to bury her head under the nearest pillow, but coffee would do in a pinch. “Yeah, thanks. What time is it?”

  “Half past seven,” she said ominously while Dallas worked her way around the edges of the room toward Celia, and gratefully took an offered cup covered with a plastic lid. “When Ry told me what was happening this morning and insisted I had to pitch in to get the computers up and running—my forte, apparently—I asked if it could be done at some point other than the butt-crack of dawn, but no. The brothers have some kind of business concerning Pure Angus planned for midmorning, and they needed this done before then.”

  “This? What is this? What are they doing? I’ve only had four hours’ sleep and Killian knows it, so why am I not justifiably killing everyone in this room? I think I’d be within my rights, because again, nobody knocked on the damn door or rang the bell before coming in.” If they had, she could have happily ignored the hell out of them.

  Celia had the grace to wince. “I know, and I’m sorry about that. These Brody men have a bad habit of barging in when everyone else on the planet knocks politely or rings a freaking doorbell. You should’ve seen the state of my screen door when Ry and I had a blow-up right before we got married. Both the door and the doorjamb had to be replaced.”

  Wow. “So it’s not just me, then? I thought it was because I was Delphine’s daughter.”

  “Oh, no. The problem lies in the Brody man’s bulldozing, get-it-done-now mentality, so don’t even think about taking the blame for any of this. Every chance you get, be the one thing they can never, ever bulldoze. It’s fun to watch them flail.”

  She was liking Celia more and more. “So what exactly is all this? What are they doing?”

  “Putting together an office. They actually had the ranch’s main office right here in this front parlor for well over a decade, but when Dottie—the ranch’s long-time secretary—got forced into retirement this past spring, the room was emptied out with the idea of having it gutted, redesigned and updated from the wiring up. Then Des got hurt and Killian, uh, brought you to stay here,” she went on with another cringe while Dallas snorted. “So obviously, the renovations had to be put on hold. Now they’re trying to put the office back the way it was so you’ll have a place to work as an official Green Rock Ranch employee. At least your commute’s an easy one.”

  “Aren’t I the lucky one?” Shaking her head, Dallas took a sip of coffee, then grimaced. “This girl needs cream and sugar. Want some?”

  “Lead the way.”

  Leaving behind the hubbub of speed-building a functional office, Dallas led Celia past the main kitchen and straight into her cozy little area. When she shut the door behind them and blocked out the noise, she couldn’t help but sigh in relief. “If we’re really, really quiet, maybe they won’t find us.”

  “I didn’t even know this place was back here.” Wide-eyed, Celia looked around while Dallas fetched a small carton of half-and-half from the fridge, then dug out a couple of spoons from a drawer. “It’s like a little apartment inside a house.”

  “I think my last apartment in Sugar Land was smaller than this.”

  “I love it.” Celia smiled her thanks as Dallas handed her a spoon and waved her invitingly toward the round table that separated the kitchen area from the living room. “Still, I’m surprised Killian didn’t put you up in one of the suites upstairs. They’re kept move-in ready for whenever Green Rock Ranch plays host to prospective buyers and clientele.”

  “It was my decision to hole up here, not Killian’s.” Dallas settled into the chair opposite Celia’s and went about doctoring her coffee. “He basically walked me in through the front door, stopped just inside the threshold, and told me that I had complete run of the house. Then he left like the place was on fire. I doubt he even knows which rooms I’ve chosen to use.”

  “I’m not surprised.” Celia pulled the sugar bowl over and dumped in a couple teaspoons. “There are no happy memories for the Brody brothers when it comes to this house. I’m sure it was the same for you at your place after everyone found out Des wasn’t a Faircloth. How did that happen, anyway?”

  Dallas lifted a shoulder. “During a routine checkup, it was discovered my dad had hemochromatosis—a weird genetic thing where you have too much iron in the blood. It’s kind of common in the Faircloth family, so my dad wanted us kids to be tested for it.” She shrugged again. “On the upside, I don’t have it. Yay me.”

  “Wow.” Celia snapped the coffee lid back on her coffee cup. “Life must have been fun after that little bombshell dropped.”

  “Fun?” In her head she could hear the screaming and crying, and her own frantic breathing mere moments before the closet door flung open and the image of her father’s face, twisted with violence, swam into focus. “Oh, yeah. Like a barrel full of rabid murder-monkeys kind of fun.”

  “It was the same for the Brodys, except their so-called fun never stopped. With Des ensconced in this household, it was like someone had lit a match to an open gas main, with no way to shut it off. It was just one never-ending disaster that went on day after day, for well over a decade.”

  Dallas sipped at her coffee, not sure w
here this was going. “Hm.”

  “All four brothers reacted to living in that kind of environment in their own ways, and naturally none of them enjoy being back in this house for any length of time. So, if Killian seems a little, ah, weird with, um... you know, kidnapping you and then, like, abandoning you—”

  Aha. “Celia, you can relax. Killian and I have worked through his, um, impulse issues, which is the best description there is when it comes to how I came to be here. We’ve made our peace.” Sort of.

  “You have?” A huge whoosh of breath escaped her, and Dallas wondered if she’d been holding it ever since she got there. “Oh, thank God. When Ry let it slip last night that Killian had frigging kidnapped you, I had to be stopped from gathering up my girl-posse and riding in to save you from the grips of a crazy man. I mean, I get that Killian was terrified Des was going to die. I get that at the time, the doctors were desperate for Des to have a potential donor ready to go in case he suddenly crashed. But, oh my God, Killian kidnapped you! Who the actual hell does that?”

  Oh, yeah. She definitely liked Celia. “You didn’t know?”

  “Of course not! Ry is buried about a mile deep in the doghouse right now because he kept me in the dark about that little fact. Obviously he knew I’d never put up with that sort of insanity, so he didn’t tell me a damn thing. I’ve been wanting to come over to say hi and get to know you better, but he said you were antisocial and that you didn’t want any company. So, since he flat-out lied to my face about that, his ass is on the fucking couch until further goddamn notice.” She huffed furiously, then slapped a hand to her mouth. “Pardon my language.”

  Scratch that. She loved Celia. “Give him hell for lying to you, honey, but in the meantime, I promise I’ve been well taken care of here. I even have a part-time job outside the ranch at a place called The Dive, and I have my own personal babysitter—this little old guy named Gus who’s terrified of me. I think he thinks I have cooties.”

  “The Dive,” Celia repeated, staring at her. “You’re working at that tiny bar on the edge of town?”