Sanctuary (Family Justice Book 3) (4 page)

The shivering wracking her was not from the cold as she dropped her skirt back into place. Scrunching the undies in her hand, she bolted across the room to her purse. Shoving the wad of white inside, she snapped a close-up with her phone.

Stopping to catch her breath, she worried her bottom lip with her teeth and tongue as she opened a new message on her phone. Knowing what to do, she selected the panties pic to insert and immediately clicked send. No words necessary. He hadn’t asked for words and chitchat wasn’t where they did their best work.

And then she waited. Sure, the temptation was there to skip ahead and peek at the next few notes, but these encounters didn’t go like that. Though it was completely out of character for her, she completely surrendered to Brody. Giving him that power just felt natural. And right.

He expected her obedience … there really wasn’t any other way to put it without sounding like a moron … and she gave it willingly. Why? Because nobody but this man ever made her feel safe. Feel okay. They might not connect through words, but they did through actions. She trusted him, and since trust was his number-one issue, her willingness strengthened him over time. More than her equal, he was becoming the master.

Did the thought rattle her cage? Of course, it did. But it didn’t stop her from letting go of every bit of common sense she possessed.

Pacing as she waited, Heather knew whatever work she’d hoped to get done today was now a joke. Brody being back changed everything. The boredom she was wrestling with earlier heard the bell and left the ring. Now, all thoughts and feelings focused solely on what she knew was coming.

Her. And by no means was this particular play-on-words a joke.

He waited to make contact. She knew he would. Brody had the patience of a saint, and she’d never known anyone who could be as still as he could. But making her wait was all about control. In many ways, it was a reminder of who was who and what was what in their unorthodox relationship. Since she went to great lengths to insist all she wanted from him was sex, he went out of his way to make her beg for it.

After the longest half-hour of her life, the phone dinged. Hands shaking, she groaned when she saw the screen. He’d sent a picture in return. Of his groin. In some sexy white briefs with a heavy black waistband stitched with the H&M logo. And those damn briefs were just that … brief. And bulging. Bulging big. A purple note stuck to his thigh with a dick doodle earned a second groan from her.

Jesus. Tearing the current note off the paid, the next one simply said,
Wait
.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

Click. Click. Click.

She most certainly did not do patience or waiting with any pretense of ease. Work
. Yeah
, she thought.
I’ll work
. Some time later, Heather eyed the file spread out on her desk and frowned.
I’m really too distracted to be doing this
.

Throwing the pen down, she swiveled in her desk chair and glared at the old-school analog clock above the door. Two thirty. It was two thirty in the afternoon, and she was still waiting.

“If you wanted my attention, you got it,” she growled to the empty office.

Pushing back from the desk, she stomped to her little hot pot and poured steaming water into a mug with the school’s mascot on one side. Dunking two tea bags at once, she worried she’d be so jacked up on caffeine and adrenaline by the time he made his next move, she just might freak out before things went any further.

It wasn’t exactly helping that she was super-conscious of her bare bum. Thank god the heat returned right before lunch because the chilly draft up her skirt, when she moved around, hadn’t been fun. But now that she was warm again and her sweater discarded, she was self-consciously aware of her nakedness. And why.

Hurrying back to the desk, she set the mug aside and reached for her phone. Opening their message, she clicked on his picture and then fingered the screen to enlarge the image. Blown up, she studied every gorgeous inch. It didn’t hurt that the snap was of just his stomach, groin, and the tops of his thighs.

The ache between her legs intensified.

Examining the well-defined V disappearing into his briefs, she took a couple of moments to admire what she could see of his muscled torso. The man was built, no doubt about it. His skin was also deeply tanned … Arizona, remember? That small nugget of information explained a lot. Like why he was always so buff and bronzed.

Her eyes admired the sturdy thighs covered with light-colored hair that were casually spread wide. Typical man-pose. But the bulge demanding attention? That was far from typical.

Brody Jensen was the fucking Clark Kent of hot guys. Unassuming, the bookish loner played the college instructor part with ease. Clean-cut and button-down, he was the epitome of a modern educator. Conservative, just like her, he drove a bland sedan and carried an old leather satchel that, judging by the looks of it, had been through a lot. Nothing about his public persona even so much as hinted at the virile masculinity hidden out-of-sight.

Clark Kent, indeed. The guy was, as her mom liked to put it, built like a brick shithouse. She wasn’t quite sure what brick shithouses had to do with drool-worthy men, but whatever. It was a cool expression and summed up her odd attraction to the enigmatic English teacher with the secret second life.

C
HECKING HIS WATCH
, Brody smirked when he saw the time. Almost three. Perfect. Somehow, he’d managed to get some shit done while he kept Heather on pins and needles.

Not sure when she’d amble back on campus after the semester break, he’d made a ten-minute visit to the college on Christmas Eve and let himself into her office. Had it technically been breaking and entering? Sure. But a locked door was hardly an impediment. Not for him.

He’d taken the purple pad from his jacket pocket and carefully placed it right in the center of her desk … noting at the same time what was scribbled on the desk calendar. He shrugged off that he found nothing important because he knew her, and important or not, she’d end up at work before the break was up because she was a lot like him. In the absence of a personal life, what you ended up doing was working.

Afterward, he simply waited to see how long before she figured out he was back and whether she still wanted him.

Was he been surprised when the picture of the panties stuffed in her purse appeared in a message? Shit. She always surprised him. Their entire involvement was beyond fucked-up and about as weirdly mental as it could get and still claim to be in the realm of normal.

In every way that mattered, she’d become his refuge. A personal sanctuary from the darkness in his head. Being with Heather reconnected the dots inside him. Had he been a dick by clinging to that silent loner bullshit well past its sell-by date? Yeah, but old habits were hard to break down. Or justify. Especially considering they’d been sleeping together for three years.

Tossing a pile of clothes he’d rescued from the floor into a big wicker hamper, he let out a troubled sigh. Sleeping together was a polite way of saying they fucked each other’s brains out. No goddamn sleeping was involved. What they had was purely physical—almost animalistic at times.

He wasn’t stupid. They both had some serious and very fucked-up demons nipping at their heels. The sex started as a way of dealing with all that shit. And the silence? It was mutual. She didn’t want to yammer at him any more than he wanted to share his every thought.

But along the way, something was changing. For him. He actually trusted her and that was saying a lot. Outside of Justice, he didn’t do trust. But … miraculously, Heather was the exception. And now look where they were. He was sending cards and acting like a crushing teenager.

Oh yeah, and he was fantasizing about this woman being part of his future.

What the fucking fuck? If he was serious about that, he’d better find the balls to open their relationship up, and quickly. Because time was moving on and in six months, when the spring term ended, he’d be leaving Maryland behind to start a new life thousands of miles away.

At exactly three o’clock, he texted her. Just one word.
Continue
…

It was playtime.

Bzzz.
Heather jumped half a foot when her phone vibrated. Holding her breath, she read his message and swallowed hard.
Continue
…

Carefully peeling the top note off the purple pad, she added it to the others on her desk. They told a story. A tale of her seduction. A shiver of excitement danced along her nerve endings.

The next note almost made her vapor lock.

Come to me
. A drawing of a car was in the corner. She glanced sharply at the clock. How fast could she get across town?

Driven by powerful urges, she hurriedly stuffed what was important into her bag, turned off the lights, pushed the flimsy knob lock on her office door, and headed out of the building. Carefully making her way along the freshly shoveled walkway, she avoided the obvious icy patches and made for her car. If she could have sprinted to the parking lot and not drawn any attention to what she was doing, she would have.

As she walked along, instead of frowning as winter caressed her thighs and bottom, she welcomed the frigid air. Hours of waiting helped fuel an inferno between her legs, which definitely benefitted from some cooling off.

Throwing her stuff onto the passenger seat, Heather tore off her coat … it was too bulky to drive in … and hurriedly sank onto the frozen leather seat. Okay, so she was in the car, door locked and engine on. She’d followed directions and could go to the next note.

Peeling the top away, she whimpered as his next directive appeared.

Are you wet?
He drew a naughty index finger raised in a sexy salute.

Was he kidding? Of course, she was wet! Making her wait and wonder for hours pretty much guaranteed she’d be dripping. And now, he wanted her to touch herself. Frankly, she wasn’t so sure that was a good idea. It had been six months since they’d been together. He knew damn well that once they started, after waiting so long, it wouldn’t take more than a few swipes across her clit to lose herself.

A bit of defiance wrapped in aching need made her peel off the top note and go straight to the next.

Don’t deny me. You know what I want.
The doodle was of a wide chest, arms crossed.

Damn. He knew her too well. Knew she’d try to cut corners. He also knew when he took control, she’d willingly submit. Groaning helplessly, she checked her surroundings and assured that she wasn’t in anyone’s line of sight, Heather slid her hand beneath her skirt as she scooted her butt forward to the edge of the seat. With her head on the backrest and thighs spread, she let one finger drift softly along the seam of her lips.

“Oh, fuck,” she moaned. Wet didn’t quite do justice to what she found. A thick slickness clung to lips that parted easily when her finger headed for home. If she got anywhere near the tight bundle of nerves that governed her response, she was doomed, so giving in to his demand without any extras, she held her breath and pushed the finger deep.