Rock Solid (7 page)

“No, that’s not what I mean,” he added, leaning down to nip the tender flesh behind her knee as a reprimand for her comment, making her jump slightly before he licked the spot. “Not at all.”

“Ordinary, then?”

“Only in the sexiest, ‘I want to peel that gray suit off you’ kind of way.”

He continued up her thigh, nipping again, and then licking. Hannah found she liked that subtle sting soothed by the kiss, so she egged him on.

“Exceedingly dull?” she goaded, holding her breath for the next touch of his teeth to her skin. Instead, he raised his head, looking at her with molten, knowing eyes.

“Oh, you’re very bad,” he said in response, parting her legs and moving up in between. “You play the good girl, but you’re not, are you?”

His words pleased her immensely, and she shook her head. She wanted to be bad.

“I think you need to pay for that,” he said with mock severity.

“Please,” she said encouragingly at the first touch of his tongue to the overly sensitized nub between her thighs.

No more nibbles—he tempted her with his tongue until she writhed on the bench. She wished she could sink her hands into his hair and put him where she needed him, but the inability to do so fed her increasing arousal, sending her to the moon.

Hannah might have screamed his name, she wasn’t sure. The release he drew from her was so powerful she couldn’t do anything as it took over. Waves of climax thrummed through her entire body, the undertow pulling her for as long as it pleased, carrying her where it wanted and pushing her back up to the surface when it was done with her.

As she caught her breath, her body shaking and spent, she looked down to see Brody watching her, the raw emotion and desire in his expression stunning her.

He grabbed a shaving mirror from the shelf, held it up to her.

“This is what I see in you, Hannah. When you let go, when you’re playful and lose control and you do it with me... It’s anything but boring.”

She looked at her reflection in the steam-edged glass and hardly recognized the thoroughly satisfied woman in the mirror.

“Oh,” she said, unable to say anything else as he stood up and gently untied her hands, kissing each palm in turn as he did so.

Brody cradled her against him for a few minutes under the spray. Locking his lips to hers, he pulled her leg up around his hip, slipping inside her so easily and completely, it was perfect.

Hannah held on again as he started moving, loving the connection and the warmth as the shower rained water down over them. She didn’t have another orgasm in her after what he’d just done, but that didn’t matter. It gave her more time to notice and experience his body, his pleasure, separate from hers. That was a wondrous thing, too, and she memorized every detail.

She kissed his neck, whispering hot things in his ear until he was tense, every part of him hard and ready before he let go on a long moan, his face buried in her shoulder.

Seconds later, as he lowered her leg back to the floor and his breathing slowed, he stilled.

“Oh, I completely forgot—”

She put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay. I’m protected. And I haven’t been with anyone since you. You know, when we were together, before.”

He was clearly surprised at that revelation, and the tenderness in his eyes at her bald admission moved her.

“I’m sorry to say I was, but not since the hospital. I was checked out thoroughly and I’m fine.”

“Then I guess we don’t have to worry about any...barriers, especially since we’ll be married after all,” she said.

If she kept saying it, maybe it would start to sound real.

“We should still be cautious. Can’t have a new addition, given the circumstances,” he said.

The words were a reality check in her fuzzy postcoital moment, but he was right. Their situation was what she had to keep first and foremost in her mind.

They stepped out, drying each other off, and the results of that nearly sent them back into bed for more. But when the phone rang, Brody shook his head.

“That’s Brandi’s ringtone. I should check it. We’ve been playing phone tag.”

“Go get it. I’ll forage in the kitchen. I’m starving, and there are probably leftovers I could heat up for us,” she said, pushing him toward the door, appreciating the view from behind as she did so.

Hannah hummed and smiled all the way down to the kitchen, mulling over what had happened in the shower. She’d liked it. A lot. More than she would have thought. She wanted to do it again, and she wanted to do more. It was like getting to know herself for the first time in her life, and she liked what she was discovering. It could only get better from here, right?

She rummaged through the fridge and took out the leftover sauce from the day before just as Brody walked into the room.

“We have enough sauce if you have some more pasta, or—”

“I have to go, I’m sorry,” he said, tense and looking worried and irritated all at the same time.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s a family thing. Brandi’s son has been acting out, and she needs me to go find him.”

“You know where he is?”

“I have a good idea. He’s been street racing, and he’s already been picked up once by the cops. They won’t let it go if he’s picked up again. I shouldn’t be long, but I’m not sure. You go ahead and eat.”

“I can go with you.”

“No, these street races can be in some rough areas—backstreets and bad neighborhoods. It’s better if I go alone.”

He turned away, planting a quick kiss on her mouth as he headed for the back door.

Hannah hardly had a chance to say another word, but she knew she wasn’t a fan of getting the brush-off, especially like that. Especially after everything that had happened between them.

As if she didn’t have any part in his life, except when it came to sex. Obviously, Brody didn’t understand that making a marriage real meant more than making it real in bed.

Besides, this sounded like something she wanted to see.

Street racing... It sounded exciting.

She heard him get in the Charger and start the engine. Before Hannah could think twice, she grabbed her keys and headed out the door, waiting until he was down the driveway. When she knew he couldn’t see her, she followed him.

* * *

B
RODY
PINCHED
THE
bridge of his nose, hating the stress that had been in Brandi’s voice as her plea rang in his head.
Brody, please, find him before he gets killed. He’ll listen to you.

Aiden was supposed to be in his room—grounded, again—when Brandi noticed he was missing.

Brody headed out onto the highway, hitting the gas until he exited a few miles south.

The roads narrowed and closed in, but he knew the area like the back of his hand, having traveled these roads many times in his youth, much like his nephew, when he should have been home studying.

This one led out to an old airstrip in the Everglades, abandoned, just as it had been when he raced there. Brody knew the races still happened—a few times he’d even gone to watch—but he didn’t like Aiden being involved any more than Brandi did. However, he did understand it more than his sister could.

It wasn’t long before he could hear the roaring engines in the distance, and that took him back, too.

How many times had he sneaked off to race down here in the very car he was driving now? Way too many. Back then, it was different.

He could see them now from the crest of the hill that led down to the strip, the light from dozens of cars illuminating the pitch-dark. They’d also set up some construction lights to brighten the strip, and parties were in progress.

He parked the Charger in a secluded spot at the side of the road and put a jacket and baseball hat he had in the backseat on, walking out into the clearing. There were hundreds of kids here, the cars more expensive and tricked out than any he and his friends had had back in the day.

The use of nitrous and other dangerous modifications was typical these days, and then there was the fact that a good number of these cars or their parts came out of chop shops, bought on the black market, obtained from stolen vehicles. Illegal betting, bookies and even drug runners came to the races to find new talent.

Still, he had to admit, casting an eye over the lines of a sweet Chevy as he walked by, there were some really,
really
nice rides here. And while they were dangerous in the hands of amateurs, he knew more than one professional driver who had raced on the streets before going pro. Some of these kids really could drive.

The bigger problem was the ones who only thought they could, or who thought they’d be able to walk away after rolling a car at a hundred and fifty, brush off the dust like it happened in the movies.

Aiden should know better—his father had been in the stock-car circuit, too, and had died driving to the grocery store one night. He’d had a heart attack at the wheel and couldn’t be revived. But Brody suspected that only egged his nephew on even more. It made sense that Aiden would feel close to the father he’d never known by trying to walk in his footsteps, but even so, this wasn’t the way.

Brody scanned the crowd for his nephew. Aiden didn’t even have a car yet, but that didn’t matter. There was always someone willing to lend a ride for the right price. Aiden was here somewhere, and Brody kept to the edges of the action, walking around, appearing to check out the cars while looking for his sister’s son.

He heard his voice before he saw him.

“You need to find that line and follow it through, man, like this...”

Brody listened as his nephew offered another kid some advice, waiting until Aiden’s friends moved on.

“You forgot to tell him that the trick is being able to find the apex of the curve,” Brody said, walking up behind him. “But you know finding that sweet spot is really more about instinct. If he’s messing it up, he could do more than lose. He could get hurt. Or worse. You know that, too.”

Aiden spun around, his expression clearly frustrated.

“Yeah man, you’re busted. Let’s get out of here. Your mom’s worried.”

“No way. I still have my heat to run.”

“Not tonight.”

Aiden leaned in, almost as tall as Brody now, at sixteen. Brody lifted an eyebrow at the kid’s chutzpah
.
Just like his old man, all right.

“You’re not my dad, Brody. Who are you to say? You used to do this all the time. I heard you talk about it once in an interview.”

Brody felt some regret for that. It was true. It was years before, but he couldn’t help but feel responsible for unintentionally encouraging an illegal activity. He’d been called out for days after that interview by parents whose kids were street racing. He’d tried to set it right, but what could he say? He
had
street raced, and he’d been honest about it when he was asked. Those days had been some of the best times of his life.

“You’re right, but—”

“Don’t tell me, it was different back then,” Aiden mocked.

“It was. Listen, Aiden, I know you’re only doing this because your mom tells you not to—”

“I’m doing this because I
love to drive
. She doesn’t get that. She wouldn’t even let me get my license.”

“What? You don’t have your license?”

“I have a license,” Aiden said a bit too deliberately.

A
license. Probably a fake or stolen one. Brody realized that he had been far too absent from Aiden’s life. How could he not have known this? It wasn’t good. He understood his sister’s reasoning—she was afraid for her son—but it was going to backfire.

“Whose car are you driving?”

“A friend’s. I win, we split the take.”

Brody shook his head.

“Listen, you come home with me this time, and I’ll talk to your mom. We’ll get your license, a legal one, and I’ll teach you some things. Maybe you can start working on that piece of junk Mustang down in the old barn with me, and it will be yours when it’s done,” Brody added.

He’d thought of doing that before with the kid, but he wasn’t home long enough, usually. “We can even go to the track, but only if you give up the street racing. Completely. Got it?”

For once, Aiden was speechless. Brody didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad one. There’d be hell to pay with Brandi, who wasn’t going to go for this idea at all, but she was going to have some hard choices to make, too. She couldn’t wrap her son in wool forever.

“You mean it?” Aiden asked, wary in the way only a teenage boy could be.

“I don’t lie, Aiden. You know that.”

Not about this anyway.

His nephew was about to say something when they both heard a shout from the starting line and saw the flag go down; the sudden roar of the engines and screeching tires distracted them both from their conversation. Brody was as mesmerized as Aiden, watching the cars speed down the strip.

“I
have
to run this heat, Brody,” his nephew said. “The money’s already set.”

Brody shook his head. “Tell me who and how much. I’ll settle it.”

Aiden frowned, but after a few seconds, he sullenly pointed to a guy standing off the side of the starting line with two girls who looked too young for him. Hopefully, the money was small-time, and he would be able buy out Aiden’s stake with what he had on him.

“Hey,” he said, approaching the guy, ignoring the two boys behind him who stepped up.

“What you want, old man?”

“I want to buy out my kid’s bet. He’s going home.”

The man laughed, and shook his head. “No way. Once you’re in, you’re in. He drives or loses the car.”

“How about I double his stake?”

“Unless you can pay more than the car is worth, which I seriously doubt, the answer’s the same.”

He turned to his two girls, effectively brushing Brody off.

Brody stepped around, facing him again.

“What if I drive for him, then? It doesn’t have to be him, right? I could take his place.”

All of them laughed then. “What’s wrong with you, dude? You got money to throw away?”

Brody shrugged. “It’s my money. Here. I’ll even double down,” he said, reaching into his wallet for some bills.