Brody Read Free Page B

blanket, and I didn’t want to be that anymore. Not when that was all I could ever be to him.
    “I’m here because there’s nowhere else I wanted to be. There’s no one else I wanted to be with. I paced my hotel room after I saw him. Drinking, swearing, seething. I wanted to knock his door down and beat the shit out of him for walking back into my life like he had the right.”
    Sadly, I could imagine Brody doing just that. Especially in his current state. “I’m glad you didn’t do that. You know it would have been a mistake.” I didn’t know anything about his father’s life now or why he’d decided to pay his son a visit, but I knew they couldn’t address their ugly past with more ugliness.
    “Yeah, I knew that because I heard your voice telling me it would be. I knew if I acted on impulse, it could eventually get back to you and you’d be disappointed in me. That’s why I didn’t do it.”
    I was touched that my opinion still mattered so much to him. “Why don’t I fix us something to drink, and you can tell me about what happened tonight?” He looked longingly at my peaked nipples as I rolled my eyes, shoving against his shoulder so I could slip past him. “Keep right on dreaming, ‘cause that’s not gonna happen.”
    I would never tell him how close I’d been to letting that happen. Fortunately, before I’d been able to forget myself, I remembered all the reasons we broke up in the first place.
    “Does that mean you’re not going to send me packing tonight?”
    “You can stay.” Before he could get any ideas, I added, “In the guest bedroom.”
    He sighed, following me into the kitchen. “I guess I can’t complain. I do appreciate you listening, Ri. I could use some advice.”
    I set about making two mugs of hot chocolate. Though he teased me about drinking it, I was addicted. Regardless of the temperature, I always ended my day with a hot chocolate with whipped cream. “So tell me what happened with your dad. Why did he come to see you?”
    He was leaning over the counter less than a foot away from me, one elbow resting on the smooth, dark surface. “He thought I’d want to know that I have two half-brothers. Can you believe that?”
    My hand curled around the flavored pod as I stared at him, trying to imagine what he must be thinking and feeling. I knew how close he and his brothers were. To know that he had two more that he’d never even met…
    “Wow,” I said finally. “How old are they?”
    “Don’t know, don’t care.”
    “I don’t believe that.” Tearing my eyes away from him, I finished my task before going to the fridge for the whipped cream.
    “You sure you want to waste that on hot chocolate?” he asked, his eyes trailing up and down my body. “I can think of a lot more fun ways to use it.”
    Oh God. It wouldn’t be the first time Brody had used my body as his own personal tasting board. Melted chocolate. Whipped cream. Whisky. He’d poured, drizzled, and sprayed so many concoctions over my body, I was getting short of breath just remembering them. And judging by that wicked look in his intense blue eyes, that had been his intent.
    “If you don’t stop, I will kick you out, you know.”
    He pouted, making me smile. When he wasn’t busy being sexy, he was often adorable, which was part of the reason he was so impossible to resist.
    “You wouldn’t do that, would you?”
    “Don’t tempt me,” I warned, thrusting the can of whipped cream at him. “You do the honors while I grab a robe. If we’re going to talk, you’re not going to be ogling me while we do.”
    “Aw,” he groaned. “You’re no fun.”
    I smacked his ass on the way past. “Now we both know that’s not true.”
    I returned a few minutes later, my hair and teeth brushed, a short black cotton robe covering my sleepwear. He’d seen it all before, but this was different. Tonight I was his friend. His confidante. Not his girlfriend or lover.
    “Thank you,” I said when he passed me