Taking Chances (12 page)

“Asshole.” I
murmured.

Looking up
slowly, I made sure to avoid my boyfriend's eyes. I think he liked being
protective of me, and honestly I loved that he was, but I'm not going to cower
down and play the damsel when a boy that's sick in the head treats me like
that. I knew Carter and the other guys would have been proud that I used some
of the moves they were always teaching me, but I didn't know what Brandon would
think about it.

The few people
that
had
seen the little exchange were razzing Mr. Tall Guy for letting
a “little girl” bring him to his knees. I smirked at him still curled up on the
ground, but my face fell when I finally looked at Brandon's wide eyes and
dropped jaw. My cheeks blazed and I bit my lip, worried about what he was about
to say.

He blinked and
shook his head in disbelief, “Damn, sweetheart. That was hot.”

I laughed and
jumped over my victim and into Brandon's arms, kissing him fiercely. He still
had his shirt off and was covered in sweat, but I didn't care. He was okay,
he'd won the fight, and he liked the way I was able to take care of myself. He
hissed and sucked in a sharp breath before setting me down.

“Are you okay?”

He was
grimacing, but pulled me close, “Yeah, I'm good. Let's get out back and find
Scarecrow.”

When we got out
of the main room and found Scarecrow and Brandon's shirt, I pulled out my phone
to call Bree, but she'd sent a text saying she caught a ride with the guys.
Brandon introduced me to Scarecrow who let out an appreciative whistle and
clapped Brandon on the back.

“Nice catch
man, keep bringing your good luck charm around, I like the money she's making
me.” He smiled at us and handed over a massive wad of cash.

Brandon didn't
even count it, just shook his hand and wrapped an arm around my shoulders,
leading me outside. I noticed the rigid way he was holding himself, and how it
took him a little extra time climbing into his Jeep, but didn't ask. Instead I
wrapped my hands around one of his and silently inspected him. He didn't look
like he had any cuts, or bruises, but I couldn't see much of him now. I wished
I'd looked earlier, while his shirt was still off.

He smiled and
moved his hand from mine to place it on my thigh, “Do I pass inspection?”

I blushed and
looked out at the street, “Sorry.”

“Don't be, I
was joking. Did you have fun?”

“Well I wasn't
really able to see anything because of that guy, and then I was focused on
getting him away from me.”

Brandon laughed
and cut off abruptly, sucking in another quick breath, “Seriously Harper, that
was by far the best thing I've ever seen. I couldn't believe my girl put
someone down faster than I did.” He smiled, his eyes bright.

I smiled back
at him and shrugged, “I really don't understand why you all think I'm so
breakable. Remember, I spent almost every day of my life with a bunch of horny
Marines that treated me like I was their little sister. They made sure from
early on that I could handle myself against guys like them.”

“Well, I'm glad
for that, and I do know that you can take care of yourself. I'm sorry if I go a
little caveman when it comes to you sometimes, but I've never met anyone like
you. You're precious to me, and everything in me screams to take care of you.”

My heart
started hammering in my chest. How was it possible that he was mine? “Did you
just say you go caveman?”

 His smile got
even wider, and I leaned over to kiss his dimple, “You can't act like you
haven't noticed. I was worried it was going to start pissing you off. That's
why I tried to stay calm tonight.”

“I'm pretty
sure you were justified every time you've done something like that. And don't
worry, you're protective, you aren't possessive.
That
would piss me
off.”

“I don't want
to own you, Harper, I just want to be with you.”

“I know.” I
said softly, thinking about actually
being
with him, even though that
wasn't what he'd been talking about. “Can I stay with you tonight?”

He kissed my
hand, “I'd hoped you would.”

When we got
back to the house Brandon took me to the bathroom and after helping me onto the
counter, proceeded to clean the blood off my leg. I left him in there so he
could shower, and went into his room to put on some of his clothes. I inhaled
his scent surrounding me and smiled while climbing into his bed. I'd left off
bottoms, opting for one of his shirts that came down to my thighs. I hoped it
would get my message across, since I didn't exactly know how to tell him what I
wanted. He turned off the light when he came in and got in the bed, each
movement was stiff and he winced twice.

“Are you sure
you're okay?” I really had planned on waiting for him to tell me, but he looked
like he was in a lot of pain.

“I'm fine
sweetheart, come here.”

Brandon pulled
me close to him and kissed me softly at first, when I brushed my tongue across
his lips he groaned and deepened the kiss. Before I could let my nerves take
over, I pulled myself up and swung a leg over his body, keeping myself from
pressing my body to his. I wanted him to be the one to pull me closer. His
hands were on my legs, slowly sliding up my thighs and under the shirt, when he
realized I wasn't wearing shorts he growled against my lips. “Jesus Harper.”
Keeping one hand on my hip, and bringing the other one to the top of my back,
he slowly lowered me to him, freezing and cursing when I pressed harder against
him.

“Okay, you're
lying.” I quickly hopped off and tried not to touch him at all until I knew
where he was hurting.

He grumbled and
placed a hand back on my thigh, “I bruised or cracked a rib,” he tried to sit
up and fell back onto the pillows, “or two.”

“Brandon!
When?”

“Kale got a
pretty good kick in, but I'm positive they aren't broken.”

“Well do you
need to see a Doctor or something?” I started to get off the bed but he held me
there.

“I promise I'm
fine,” he chuckled lightly, “this wouldn’t be the first cracked rib I've had
sweetheart. I just need to take it easy for a few days.”

“Is there
something I can do?”

“You can stay
here with me,” he kissed me softly, “and when I'm better, we can pick up that
conversation where we left off.”

“I'm looking
forward to it.” I pressed my lips to his neck and curled up against his
pain-free side, falling asleep quickly.

***

“Oh. Dear.
Lord! Bree, I can't wear this.” I stared in horror at my reflection in the
mirror.

“Why? You look
hot!”

“I'm almost
completely naked!”

“Uh, that's
kind of the point of a bikini. As little fabric as possible.” She was fixing
her own suit and checking herself out in her mirror.

I failed at
moving the top around to cover more of my chest. “Do you not have anything
bigger than this? It's barely holding in my boobs.”

“No that's the
one with the most coverage.” She threw a shirt at me before putting her own on
over her suit. “Honestly Harper, you have a rocking body. I would kill for your
chest, you need to embrace it.”

“I'm not sure
that's possible when I'm going to wear this around a bunch of guys.” It was now
Thursday, and we were already packed for a weekend at Chase's house. But what
Bree failed to mention until the last possible minute was that the guys were
barbecuing tonight and we were going to be hanging out in their pool all
afternoon.

“Once again,
that's the point. It's the best way to show off the goods. Brandon's gonna die
when he sees you.”

“I think I'm
gonna die before he can see me.” I mumbled.

She rolled her
eyes at me and grabbed her bag and keys, “I'm sure you'll live. Let's go.”

I complained
the entire way there, and kept it up even after I was in nothing but the bikini
and a pair of shorts walking out to the backyard.

“Harper, stop
trying to cover yourself. You're not succeeding and you look stupid.”

I glared at my
friend, but stopped trying to cover myself. At least none of the guys were home
yet. I pulled off the shorts and lay down on my towel next to Bree. She had
turned on her iPod docking station on the patio and we rocked out to the songs
while we tanned. We had flipped onto our backs again a few minutes earlier when
a huge splash followed by freezing cold drops of water interrupted us. We both
screamed and jumped up, apparently that's what they'd been going for since we
were tackled into the pool as soon as we'd gotten vertical. I came up
sputtering and smacked Derek across the head as soon as he surfaced.

“Are you
serious?!”

“I'm going to
kill you Drew!” Bree shoved Drew back under the water and held him there.

I looked over to
see Zach laughing from the side of the pool, I guess he'd been the one that did
the cannonball. I swam to the side and hopped out, running to my towel I picked
it up to find it soaked from the numerous splashes.

“Awesome.”

I ran my
fingers through my hair trying to get the tangles out, and stood there long
enough so I was no longer dripping. Bree was still in the pool with the three
guys so I decided to go get a few more towels for everyone. I was halfway to
the hall closet when Chase walked out of his room. He froze and his eyes got
wide as he took in my body.

“Damn Princess.
You look...” He cleared his throat and finally met my eyes, “wow.”

I blushed
fiercely and crossed my arms over my chest. “I was uh, just coming to get more
towels.”

He reached into
the closet and pulled out a few. Dropping all but one on the floor next to me,
he shook out the one still in his hand and wrapped it around my shoulders. “How
are you?” He brushed his fingers across my cheek and down my neck causing me to
stifle a moan.

“Huh?”

Chase chuckled
against my neck and lightly pressed his lips to my throat. “That good, huh?”

I blinked a few
times and pushed away from him, ignoring that smirk I loved so much, “Why do
you keep doing this to me?”

“What do you
mean?” He went to wrap his arms around me, but I stepped out of his reach.

“This!” I
pointed to an outstretched arm, “You can't keep doing this. I'm with Brandon
now, you have to stop.”

His face fell
into an unreadable mask and he dropped his arms to his side.

“No more notes,
no more touches, no more putting your lips on me. This isn't fair to me. Do you
have any idea how crazy you're making me?”

Okay, maybe I
shouldn't have asked that, his eyes lit up and that stupid smirk was back.
“Really now?”

“Chase I'm
serious, this has to stop.”

“Give me one
good reason why I should.”

I huffed and
wrapped the towel tighter around me, “I told you, I'm with Brandon now.”

“I said a good
reason Princess.” He deadpanned.

“That's a
perfectly good reason! And it's the only one you're going to get.” I bent down
and picked up the towels, when I stood back up he was right in front of me.

“Harper.”

“No Chase,” I
shut my eyes so I wouldn't get distracted again, “Please just – just don't. I
really like Brandon. Besides, you have plenty of girls who are fine with being
treated like shit by you, I'm not one of them. Go find another brainless bimbo
to screw and get out of your system.”

I heard his
sharp intake of breath, but kept my eyes closed until I was on my way back
outside. Setting out the dry towels, I flopped onto my stomach and tried to
forget about Chase. Brad fired up the grill a little over an hour later, and
Bree was lying out next to me as the guys talked about going surfing tomorrow.
It was easy enough to keep my eyes off Chase's bare chest, but the stupid goose
bumps wouldn't go away and Brandon was taking forever to get here. I was so
focused on where Chase was, not even five feet away, and trying to hold a
conversation with Bree that I didn't even notice Brandon until he wrapped his
arms around me and lifted me off the ground. I shrieked and kicked for a second
before I realized it wasn't one of the other guys about to throw me back in the
pool, which had happened two more times since my hallway encounter with Chase.

Brandon just laughed
and pressed his lips to mine, “Mind if I steal you away for a few minutes?”

I didn't miss
the fact that Chase abruptly stopped talking, “Not at all, I'm yours for the
next three days.”

We were in the
house before he spoke again, “We need to cover you up sweetheart.”

“Why? Do you
know how long it took Bree to talk me into wearing this thing?”

He set me down
on his bed and slowly raked his eyes over my body. Heat spread across my cheeks
and I had to force myself not to cover myself. “Remind me to thank her for that
later, but I don't have enough patience tonight to continue watching the rest of
the guys look at you like they want to eat you.”

I frowned and
ran my fingers down his cheek, “Bad day babe?”

“Something like
that.” he snorted and dropped his head to mine.

“You wanna tell
me about it?”

“It's not a big
deal, just people trying to piss me off.”

“Like...?”

He kissed me
hard and crawled onto the bed to hover over me, “Don't worry about it
sweetheart, it's nothing I can't handle.”

I just stared
at him for a few minutes, hoping he'd elaborate, he didn't. “Fine, I'll go
change so we can get back out there.”

Brandon's eyes
warmed and the corner of his mouth tilted up. “I just got my girl alone again, I'm
not ready to share her just yet.” He bit at the hollow at the base of my neck
and let his teeth lightly graze across my collar bone. The shivers I never
seemed to be able to control surged up my spine, causing him to grin. “I love
knowing I do that to you.” His husky baritone voice was enough to make it
almost happen again.