Racing to Love - Brody's Love (2 page)

The eyes trained on his were melting
him. Brown eyes that he’d never seen before.

Erin had been in his life more years
than not. Her family owned the land next to his parents’ property.
The only thing dividing them was a stream that ran between the
two.

He was homeschooled growing up, and
she went to public school. Both were only children growing up. At
least he had been until Molly came to live with them when she was
fourteen. And it was Molly who brought him and Erin together. Their
families had been acquaintances, more like good neighbors than hang
out on a Friday night type of friends, and he and Erin hadn’t given
the other a thought until Molly.

When she came, Erin was
suddenly around—a lot. They were all the same age, all out in the
middle of the country with only themselves to hang out with, and it
quickly became the three of them, the
together forever
sort of friends.
Molly had followed along homeschooling with him so she could travel
as well, making Erin her only real friend. After a very short time,
they were best friends. Inseparable. Closer than sisters. Erin was
suddenly there all the time—in his house, sleepovers, chocolate
chip cookie baking at midnight, kind of there.

And he loved it.

As teens they were all just close.
Circumstantial? Sure. Because they had a blast together. Hell
yeah.

Brody and Molly taught Erin how to
ride a dirt bike, how to corner aggressively, how to jump it. She
taught them how to play poker. Privately of course—her grandpa had
threatened her into silence. To this day, her parents still didn’t
know where she’d learned the finer points of playing
cards.

That stream running through their
properties was their meeting place, the halfway point between them.
They spent so many hours there, laughing, talking, goofing off, and
dreaming about the future. All huge pipe dreams that were
laughable, even back then.

One day that stream became a different
sort of meeting spot. Molly was out of town for a race, and only
Brody and his mother were home. He’d met Erin that Saturday morning
at ten because they’d done it for four years straight. It didn’t
matter if he or Molly or both were able to make it, Erin was there.
He’d been alone with her hundreds of times. No big deal. Until that
one crisp Saturday in October. Something changed. He didn’t know if
it was the way the light hit her as she sat on the rock next to him
with a twig in her hand, playing with a leaf floating by in the few
inches of water near their boots, or the way she looked at him when
she glanced up and saw him staring at her. But it hit
him.

He leaned over, pressed a light kiss
to her lips, and slowly pulled back. Still to this day, he
remembered not being even the slightest bit nervous as he waited
for her eyes to open. All he knew was it just felt
right.

Erin had looked at him and smiled.
“I’ve been waiting a long time for you to do that.”

That stream held a lot of memories. He
chuckled to himself. Their first picnic—it was where he first
realized he loved her. And it’d been the place for their first
time, laid out on a flannel plaid blanket under the summer
stars.

It was wider than it was deep, and in
some places the clear water barely trickled over the rocks. But it
was the rock she sat on the first time he kissed her that he was
going to sit her down on once again. This time, though, instead of
sitting beside her—he planned on kneeling in front of
her.

Soon. He had the box hidden safely in
his childhood bedroom. After the trip, when they weren’t rushed,
he’d open it up in front of her.

Thinking about it sent a surge through
him. He almost wished he’d just brought it with him tonight, but he
wanted that moment to be special, to happen in a place that was
special to both of them. Not just a restaurant, at a table where
other people had sat before and would again after.

No, it had to be by the stream. In
much warmer weather, because he planned on taking that worn flannel
blanket with him, just for old time’s sake. He grinned to himself,
picturing her lying out on that soft flannel, the sun peeking
through the upper branches of the trees. With nothing on but his
ring.

“
Brody…”

He realized he’d been staring. Her
brown eyes held so many memories that he got swept away sometimes.
A grin tipped one side of his mouth, partially because he knew he’d
been caught, mostly because the smoldering look in her eyes held a
different sort of promise. The kind that instantly had him
hard.

Brody had spent the entire day looking
forward to tonight. It was their last night in a real bed, in
privacy, in peace and quiet—well, maybe not the quiet
part.

Four months on the road was going to
be torture. Having to sneak in quickie sex here and there wasn’t
his idea of a good time, although he wasn’t going to be passing it
up. He wasn’t an idiot since it was going to be the only
alternative, but he definitely preferred being able to lay her out
on their satin sheets, in their own bed, and take his sweet time
with her.

The truck faced the back of the
restaurant, and a six-foot hedge blocked them from the neighboring
parking lot. Erin slid down out of the truck, his hands on her
waist. With her eyes on her fingertips, she painstakingly ran her
finger along the line of buttons on his shirt. When she got to the
top button, she gazed up at him, heavy-lidded, her chocolate eyes
challenging. Leaning in, she pressed a kiss to his
throat.

Brody swallowed hard.

This was not his Erin. His
Erin was a combination of sassy and sweet, totally cute and a blast
to be with. The epitome of the
girl next
door
. The Erin standing in front of him now
was a siren matching him fiery blow for fiery blow. The stakes just
shot higher. Brody was competitive in nature and this little game
he’d started this morning had just thrown him a curveball, but he
knew where her weaknesses lay.

His eyes locked on hers, daring her to
look away as he untied the belt of her dress coat. Slipping one
hand around her side, he settled his hand on her hip, his fingers
spread and digging into her through the thin silk of her dress.
With her in his hold, he backed her into the space of the opened
truck door. Only bathed in the dome light of the truck and the
street light above, Brody was still able to see her eyes
darken.

Glancing down to the hollow of her
neck, her pulse ticked and she swallowed again. Leaning down, Brody
kissed her. Her lips parted, and slipping his tongue past her
bottom lip, he grazed just the tip of her tongue. Pulling back,
Brody saw the flash of frustration on her face. He snickered to
himself, and then slowly began bunching up the silk of her dress in
his other hand. He still had a hold on her hip, keeping her in
place as she drew in a nervous breath.

In all the years they had been
together, he’d never done something like this. If he were to lay
his hand across her chest, he knew it would be pounding. Maybe in
part from fear, but more because of need. It was in her eyes, the
quickening of her breath, the way she pushed hard swallows down her
throat.

Reaching the bare skin under her
dress, he traced circles on the skin of her hip, waiting her out,
seeing who would hold out the longest, wondering how far she would
let him push. The circles he was making with his finger inched
along, his eyes watching hers as he went.

Suddenly the brown eyes looking up at
him went wide, but to her credit, she held perfectly still as his
finger grazed the scrap of lace between her legs.

Oh my God.

“
You’re wet,” he said, his
voice quiet in the cold night.

Erin blinked once and the façade
immediately dropped. Her innocence fell back over her. In the
sweetest voice he’d ever heard, she whispered back, “For you,
Brody…always.”

Where he thought the day had been
long, it had nothing on their dinner. That meal had been the most
excruciating experience of his life, surpassing not one, but two
knee surgeries. He figured he might as well throw in a back surgery
just for shits and giggles. Sitting across from Erin at the
restaurant had been pure torture. And of course, it had to have
been a table for two, because sitting at a booth was what he would
have preferred. Make reservations for a romantic dinner for two and
the hostess assumes.

Brody would have to give the young
girl a pass. After all, she was barely more than a teeny-bopper who
didn’t understand what it was like to be a grown man, sitting
across from his beautiful girlfriend, having to watch every flutter
of her eyelashes, every flush of her cheeks, and the pulse at the
little triangle of her throat at the mere hints he dropped of what
was to come.

Rushing around their bedroom, Brody
dug out the candles he had strategically hidden earlier when he’d
started formulating his plan. After he lit the last one, he picked
up the small remote on the dresser and pointed it at the iPod
waiting in the docking station. Blowing out a breath, he turned off
the bedroom light and headed to the living room to the woman he had
instructed to wait by the fireplace.

As he led her back to their bedroom, a
nervous bit of laughter escaped her. Brody glanced over his
shoulder to see her covering her mouth, grinning as she
blushed.

“
You’re up to something,
Brody.”

He winked. “Me? Nope. Not a thing,
babe.”

Turning the knob, he opened the door
then stepped aside to let her walk into the warmly lit room with a
playlist of her favorite ballads softly playing in the background.
In the orange light of the dancing flames, Brody saw the
astonishment on her face turn to appreciation.

“
Brody? You didn’t have to
go to all these lengths.” Erin eased toward him and lowered her
voice. “I’m sort of a sure thing.”

“
Erin…I don’t care. Even
after we’ve been married for forty years, I’ll still never believe
I’m the guy you chose to spend your life with.”

“
I sure wasn’t expecting
all of this. Now I wish I had something sexy on under my dress for
you. I didn’t know you were planning all the romance complete with
bells and whistles.”

“
I’ve seen every pair of
lace panties and bra you own, sugar. They’re all sexy. Now turn
around and let me help you out of this dress.”

He slowly inched the zipper down, past
where her bra strap should’ve been—he made a mental note to ask her
about that later. His pulse beat faster the lower he got, until the
zipper reached the small of her back and—nothing.

No lace waistband, no thong.
Nothing.

“
Erin?”

“
Brody…” she answered in
return, her voice growing husky.

“
I know you had panties on
when we got to the restaurant. Remember? Because, I distinctly
do.”

“
Um…well. I guess I lost
them,” she whispered.

Erin was exceptionally good at a lot
of things. Hiding her feelings from him was not one of them. Her
voice, although it’d been barely audible, had spoken volumes. Every
quiet word was dripping with desire.

“
Lost them,
huh?”

Brody pushed the sides of the dress
apart so it slid off her shoulders, pooling in a puddle of baby
blue silk at her feet. Wanting to draw out her anticipation, and
wanting to remember this night when he was eighty-two, Brody took
his time turning her around to face him.

“
This is the sexiest thing
I’ve ever seen you wear under a dress.”

Holding her hand, he helped her step
out of the dress and led her to the bed, sitting her on the side.
Bending down, he took off one pump at a time then laid her back
against the navy satin, pressing one promising kiss to her
lips.

Pulling back, he saw the flush on her
cheeks. Her brown eyes went as dark as chocolate syrup and Brody
heard her pull in a long, slow breath. Standing by the side of the
bed, he undid the buttons of his dress shirt, deliberately taking
extra time to slip each button through the hole.

Normally he got turned on when they
undressed each other. But seeing her lying there, staring at him
like she was ready to explode, had him hard within seconds. The way
she was squirming as she bunched the satin comforter below her in
her fists, and watching her as he took in long passes over her
body, nearly did him in. Hearing her breath shudder every time his
eyes dropped to the juncture of her legs, and again with every
pause he took as his eyes drifted over her breasts, had his heart
pounding. Need radiated from her and the need to tease had him
taking his time with each button on his shirt.

Starting with his cuffs, Brody paced
himself, drawing out her desire, ramping it higher and higher. He
could see the need coiling in her. When he slid off the white
button up and moved his hands to the zipper of his pants, she
whimpered.

That sound, so soft, so full of need,
sent him into overdrive. Taking his time with the gray dress pants
he’d worn to dinner was not going to happen. He shucked them faster
than a horny teenager—boxers and all—in one swoop.