Brown Siblings - 01 Laid Bare (2 page)

“Thanks for asking, but it’s really not my thing.” He shoved his hands in his front pockets before he did something stupid like reaching out to trace around the ring in her belly button or to test the texture of the dread hanging nearest to him.

She smelled of something unique. Heady, smoldering and sweet all at once. Every time they came in close contact he had that scent in his nose for days.

“If it’s too noisy, come by and pound . . . on the front door.” She drew out the last bit and his cock jumped in his jeans.

He cleared his throat. He took scum down on the streets every fucking day and this woman had him on the ropes. What was up with that?

“I have a date. I won’t even be here. But thanks. Have a good time.” He stepped back and started to close the door and she actually smirked before moving away down the walk.

“Okay then, Todd. Have a good time.”

Damned if he didn’t watch the captivating sway of her ass as she went back to her own door and inside. And damned if she didn’t stop and wink at him before she disappeared from sight.

Erin Brown had been his neighbor for a year. She and her brother had moved in next door, and even through he tried hard not to judge on looks alone, he couldn’t help but wonder if they’d be trouble. Adrian, the brother, had hair nearly as long as hers and neck tattoos. He rode a motorcycle and the group of people in and out of the place looked like they came from an episode of
America’s Most Wanted
.

Happily, they’d proven his initial wariness wrong. They’d been great neighbors. They kept up their small front walk and yard. They weren’t loud. Hell, the brother took the trash cans out for the elderly woman across the street on Friday mornings. Long hair, motorcycle and neck tattoos hadn’t stopped the Browns from being really nice folks.

He knew they played in a band. He’d seen Erin walking in and out of the apartment with a guitar case, and her brother often had black equipment cases as well. And a woman couldn’t get away with looking the way she did without being in a band or something equally unconventional.

Still, it worked on her. The dreads, the tattoos and the piercings didn’t make her look hard. They made her look exotic and raw. She was a walk on the wild side and he’d always avoided that sort of thing.

He was a cop. He listened to country music and drove a big truck. She had belly tattoos and played guitar. He went out with nice, quiet women who wore pink dresses and let him open the door. Women who responded gently in bed. Todd bet Erin fucked like the rockstar she embodied. He bet she was loud and demanding. Pushy, probably.

Not that he thought about what she’d be like in bed. Much. It was taboo, that had to be it.

Erin went inside, slamming the door in her wake. God, why did that cop have to look so damned good? All masculine and clean-cut in his jeans and snug cotton shirt. He was so earnest with his big, white smile and his good manners. Not her usual type at all, but he sure did fill out the aforementioned jeans. Right into her masturbatory fantasies.

The guy watched her every night when she got home from work. Sometimes she thought she saw interest in his eyes. Other times she thought he was just making sure she didn’t steal anything.

Tonight as he stood there in bare feet, his dark brown hair looking soft and sexy, still wet from his shower, she was pretty sure it was the latter.

In fact, he’d looked practically panicked when she impulsively invited him to their party. Stupid.

It
so
was not his scene, but she wanted to talk to him. To hear the smooth and yet rough voice; to see that slight afternoon beard shadowing his jaw. There was something about him, just beneath the surface. An edge she was dying to expose and rub herself against like a cat.

“Oh for fuck’s sake! God, Erin, just do the man already. Watching the two of you circle each other pretending not to be interested has ceased to be amusing and now chaps my ass.”

“Evening, Adrian.” Ignoring his comment, Erin sauntered into the living room, where her younger brother sat re-stringing her guitar. A bottle of ginger brew sweated at his right hand, as Tool played in the background.

“I tuned it for you while I was at it.” He put her beloved Fender P-Bass back in the case and flipped the latches closed. “And I’m serious. What’s stopping you? If this guy was some dude at any of the clubs we played or the coffee shop, you’d have turned the full power of your magic on him and bagged him by now. What’s so different about the cop?”

“I don’t think he’s interested, Aid.” She plopped into a chair across from him.

“He think he’s too good for you?” His deep green eyes narrowed.

Erin laughed at how protective he sounded. “I think I freak him out. I invited him tonight and you’d have thought I asked him to eat kittens in puff pastry.” Adrian shrugged. “Maybe so, but the dude watches you every night when you get home. And not like a stalker. Believe me, I’ve checked. I’d squash him like a bug if that were the case, cop or not. No, he likes to look at you because he’s interested. You want him, you take him. He should be so lucky to have a woman like you.”

“Aww, thank you.” For a man who had spent most of his life until adulthood and then some tormenting her, he could really be a sweetie pie sometimes. She stood again. “I’m gonna shower and get ready. Brody is due by with food and drinks in an hour.” Adrian shook his head sadly and then raised his eyebrow in challenge. “I’ve never thought of you as a quitter.”

He knew her vulnerable spots. She’d never let him call her a punk and a quitter. It was on.

2

For the next week Erin tried to ignore the eyes watching her every night, but it was futile. Adrian knew exactly what to say to push her buttons. Quitter indeed! She wasn’t a quitter, damn it.

Finally, Friday night she took off her bra, smeared on some cherry red lip gloss and stomped downstairs, condoms tucked into her pocket.

Adrian waited for her at the bottom with a six-pack of beer in one hand. “Finally. Took you long enough.” He handed the beer her way. “Take it. An ice breaker. Invite him to the gig tomorrow.”

“You’re weird. I thought brothers were supposed to pretend their sisters were sexless.” She took the beer and kissed his cheek.

“I’m your brother, not an idiot. If he hurts you, I’ll crush him, but I want you to be happy. You want him and that’s enough for me.”

Warmth settled inside as she hugged him quickly. She’d lucked out with both her brothers. Good men. They’d saved each other after their parents had died. “Thank you.”

“Go on now. Let’s not spoil this by making me think about any details.” Adrian winked and she left.

Erin slid into her stage persona. Pulled it on like a costume and felt the confidence roar through her as she sauntered over to Todd’s front door and knocked.

He opened up and started a moment before catching himself. But not fast enough that she didn’t catch the perusal from toes to eyes.

She gestured toward him with the beer. “So, you know what? I’m thinking we live next door, and other than the few times we’ve spoken here and there around the neighborhood, we’ve never shared a beer and hung out.”

He opened his mouth to speak and settled for nodding.
Ha!

“Are you alone, Officer Keenan?”

He nodded and she pushed past him and into his apartment. Clearly one of them had to make the first move or she’d be at the front door forever.

In the middle of his living room she turned to face him as he closed the door. “Want a beer? I brought a few.”

“Make yourself at home.” His lips twisted in a sarcastic smile and she liked it. He had spirit.

She put the beer on the table and bent at the waist to untie her boots before taking them off. “I wish we had hardwood floors.” She sashayed past him and put her boots next to his at the front door. Instead of moving back into the living room, she leaned against the wall in the entry hall where he stood.

“Why are you here?” he asked. Not hostile. Wary. Curious.

“I’m a very blunt woman.” Her reply was a challenge, and he barked a quick laugh, deep and husky.
Lord
.

“I’ve noticed.”

“I know. Every night when I get home from work.”
Take that.

The air thickened with tension as they took each other in. He wore a cotton T-shirt—
ugh
Toby Keith. Still, her revulsion tempered as she meandered south and saw the taper of a slim waist and thick thighs covered in worn denim. Dirty denim. She’d always thought the term was stupid until she looked at the nearly threadbare spot over his fly and never felt dirtier. His cock strained at the material and it was her he stood at attention for. A particularly vivid impulse to drop to her knees and suck him off right then and there sped her pulse.

“So?”

His voice brought her back, her gaze moving to his face. That sexy evening stubble gleamed in the low light from the lamp in the other room.

“I’m here because I want you. I think you want me too.” She toyed with the button on her jeans as her nipples pressed wantonly through the material of her own T-shirt. PJ Harvey. Probably gave him the same mental lip curl Toby Keith gave her. Good god, if they did fuck, it was going to be all teeth and nails and feral action.

A shiver worked through her at the thought.

She what?
Todd drank in the sight of her. Leaning indolently against his wall, her breasts offered toward him with the arch of her stance, she shouldn’t have been so ridiculously hot but she was.

Presented like a gift.

He couldn’t find fault with the tight nipples on what appeared to be braless breasts, high and proud. What healthy man could look away?

Her belly was flat and he caught the tip of a tattoo that had to cover her just above her pussy.

Dizzily he tried to tell himself porn stars had those tattoos. That wasn’t sexy, right? A laugh nearly escaped him at the thought. She was ridiculously sexy.

Fuck. His cock was hard enough to drive nails with.

“So this is what? A booty call?” He tried to sound casual, disinterested, but her eyes flicked back to his cock straining against his jeans and that smile, her
I’ve got a secret
smile, broke over her lips.

“Tell you what, Todd. Let’s have a beer and we can go from there. Unless you aren’t interested and that cock is hard for someone else. In which case, I can leave and we can pretend this never happened.” One of her brows rose slowly, the one with the ring in it.

He contemplated telling her he wasn’t interested. For like a third of a second. Instead he nodded and walked into his living room.

“I’ll put the beer in my fridge.” He pulled two out before disappearing with the rest. In his kitchen, he desperately struggled to get a handle on his rioting hormones as he tossed the bottle caps.

When he got back, he found her kneeling backward on his couch, looking at the CD rack behind it. Her sweet ass canted in his direction.

“Country, huh?” She spoke without looking back as he walked around behind the couch to face her, handing her a beer. Better not to be back there with her ass presented that way. He loved to fuck from behind with a woman in just that position. It didn’t happen very often, but he craved it nonetheless.

She took a long pull from the bottle and he watched as her throat worked. A visual of how she’d look as he fed his cock to her shocked through him a moment.

“Yeah. I take it you don’t like country.” A smile threatened until she put her beer aside and reached to grab the belt loop on his jeans and pull him closer.

“I like some country.” Her voice was little more than a hoarse whisper. An involuntary shiver worked through him as he watched her hand move from the loop, nails scoring his cock through the thin denim.

He hissed, arching toward her, and she smiled.

“I like Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn. The Dixie Chicks are good. I just heard them the other day.

My mom raised us on Conway Twitty and Tammy Wynette. I love music of all types.” Her fingers traced down the line of his zipper as she looked up into his face—waiting for him to refuse. Yeah, like that was going to happen.

He flexed his hips instead and watched, rapt, as she slowly pulled his zipper down, the metal rasp loud over his breath.

Gentle, cool hands pulled him out.

“No underwear. My. Surprise, surprise.”

“I like it when my cock rubs against my jeans this way.” He’d never spoken like that to a woman before. It made him harder.

She angled him and the air shot out his mouth as her tongue circled the head, the tip digging into the sensitive spot just beneath.

He did what he’d wanted to do for the last year. He ran his palms over her hair, wondering at the texture of the ropes. Not hard or wiry, not fragile. Unique and unexpected, a lot like she was. A wisp of tenderness wafted through him briefly.

He grabbed it in his fist as she swallowed most of his cock, taking him as deeply as she could.

“Holy shit,” he muttered, sliding his hips forward to meet her mouth. She hummed her satisfaction and it vibrated up his cock.

She shoved his jeans down farther and cupped his balls. He thought he’d jump out of his skin when she licked down the shaft and tongued his sac.