Page 29 of Forever Finds Us (Wisper Dreams #7)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Roxanne

“You look beautiful,” Brand said when he picked me up for dinner at Bax’s house with his family.

I’d had an easy shift at work. It was a long day, six to six, but we’d had no more reports of missing people, Teton Tom, or old ladies in a tither because someone parked too close to their mailbox. I was more tired than I could ever remember being, though.

Last night was exhausting in the best way. I’d never been so happy to be wrung out.

Figuring out I’d fallen in love took a lot out of me, too, and now, as I looked at the man in question walking up my porch stairs to take me on a date, it occurred to me that maybe I should tell him about my midnight revelation.

But maybe waiting for another time would be better, when we weren’t both exhausted and about to out our relationship to the world.

Lifting my hand as we descended my porch steps, Brand placed a soft kiss across my knuckles and then guided me with his other hand low on my back.

He held the truck door open for me as I admired his crisp, light blue button-down and tight jeans, then climbed up, trying not to flash him when my pink-and-purple floral sundress rode up my thighs. Static cling—the struggle was real.

Mr. Begley watched from his front stoop as he enjoyed his evening cigar, but when Brand shoved the fabric higher and smacked my bare ass because I’d worn a thong, Begley huffed and slammed his door shut when he went inside.

Brand leaned down and bit my ass cheek. I yelped and flopped onto the seat, and he leaned over me to adjust the dress and make me pious again, or at least appear that way.

Reaching for the seat belt next to my arm, he tugged it down and stretched the strap across my chest. When he clicked it into place, his eyes met mine, and I had to hold in a moan because all I could think about was how his body fit similarly inside mine, with a click.

And now, I was imagining him using the seatbelt to bind my wrists and eating me out right here on the street curb, with Mr. Begley watching from his window.

Get a grip, Roxi!

Brand had worn perfectly casual clothes, but it was the way he wore them, the way his jeans molded to his butt like Levi Strauss himself had crafted the damn things.

And his shirt was close-fitting. Not too tight, but snug enough that I didn’t have to imagine the shape of his pecs or biceps.

His charcoal suit jacket had been tossed on his back seat, and I thought if he put it on, I might pass out from the sheer sexiness.

I felt underdressed. And I was utterly turned on.

He’d shaved, but already I saw the hint of stubble growing back in. And God, he smelled good, like fresh-cut wood and some kind of warm musk that had me inching closer to him. I wanted to burrow into his skin, become part of him so I’d never forget the scent and the way he looked tonight.

When he was sitting next to me, he put his big, fancy white truck in gear and grabbed hold of my hand as he headed west out of town. “You nervous?” He’d asked an innocent question, but I couldn’t put my finger on the change in his voice.

Something was different today.

“A little,” I said, trying to discern what could have changed the shape of his face and the sound of his voice in less than twenty-four hours. “Are you okay?”

He nodded but didn’t actually answer me.

My nerves kicked up as we drove. I’d meant to call Abey to warn her that I would be her brother’s date for dinner, but I chickened out. I truly didn’t think she’d mind, but there was a little part of me that was terrified she would and it would cause a rift between us.

When I talked to her on the phone so she could help me decide what to wear, Aubrey yelled at me. She felt Abey deserved the warning. I agreed, but insecurity made the decision for me.

What if this was just a fling for Brand?

If he dumped me and moved on, things with Abey would go back to normal. But now I was freaking out that Aubrey was right. What if the fact that I hadn’t come clean to Abey was the thing that caused the rift and not that I was sleeping with her brother?

My hands itched to grab my phone tucked away in my purse and text my boss, but I didn’t because now I was worried that the change in Brand was because he’d realized I’d fallen in love with him and he didn’t want me like that.

God, why can’t I shut my mind off? My fingers tapped one-two-three over and over against my leg next to my door so Brand couldn’t see.

“Are you nervous?” I asked him.

He looked the picture of calm with his hand resting on the top of his steering wheel, not gripping it, but there was a buzzing beneath his skin, like the sound of an old radio when the volume had been turned all the way down, but the thing still crackled somehow.

“I’ve never brought a woman home,” he said. “So yeah. Maybe a little nervous.”

“Never? Why not?”

He shrugged. “I wasn’t here. And when I did come home, it was as brief a trip as I could make it. Plus, none of the women I dated were what you’d call family oriented.”

“Like Gina?”

His eyes slid to mine, and there was a warning in them. “Exactly like Gina.” He didn’t like me talking about his ex and didn’t want me comparing myself to her. But if he didn’t love me too, why would he care?

I babbled because the look in his eyes sent butterflies screaming in my stomach, the sexy kind and the nervous kind.

“Well, I don’t have kids and I’m too old for them now, anyway.

I’m forty-one, you know. I saw your birth date on your driver’s license that first night, so I know I’m four years older than you.

“But I’m a family girl. Kind of have to be with five sisters and brothers-in-law and fifteen nieces and nephews.

Can I tell you a secret? I think my sister Maureen is in an open relationship with her husband Drew.

I mean, I think they’re screwin’ other people, or they’re, like, swingers or somethin’. ”

“So?”

“Well, I mean, I don’t care, but you know, in small-town Oklahoma, it’s a big deal. If my parents found out? Yeesh. The whole family would implode.”

“Mm. And if they found out I tied you up, fucked you with a whiskey bottle, and smacked your ass and your pussy to make you come?”

Instantly, my face felt hot, and the little squiggle tugging at the inside of my stomach made a laugh tumble out of my mouth in a breath.

“I would die. Full stop.”

“Roxanne, you’re a grown woman. Why do you care what they think?”

“I don’t. I don’t care what their opinion is, but I don’t want them to know that I…”

We turned off the highway onto Old Fish Creek Road and shortly thereafter onto Bear Lane, but Brand pulled off to the side, into a little divot a fallen pine had made in the tree line. He left his engine running but put the truck in Park.

“That you what?” he asked, and he turned to face me and let go of my hand.

“That, you know, that I like…”

His voice was a low murmur when he asked, “What do you like, Roxanne?”

“You know.”

“I do not. I need you to say it.”

“I-I— No. You’re teasin’ me.”

“I am most certainly not teasin’ you.” His hand dropped to his lap, and he fisted his hard-on beneath his jeans. My eyes followed the movement, and a soft moan slipped from my mouth. “Tell me now, and maybe you’ll be rewarded later.”

An impending reward made the words rush from my lips. “I like when you tie me up and spank me. When you control me.”

“And did you wear a thong tonight to tease me, so I would be forced to punish you?”

My mouth dropped open. “No. I?—”

He raised one perfect eyebrow.

“Yes, sir, ” I said, my eyes cast down and my voice easing out of my mouth like smoke, thick and curling, and just like that, the butterflies in my stomach stilled.

With one finger under my chin, he lifted my gaze back to his. That was all it took. One touch from him. One look and my anxiety bled away. All those intrusive thoughts and doubts disappeared, as if my submission to him allowed me to feel confident and not second guess myself.

Brand saw the desire on my face, and he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. When he opened them again, he stared at my breasts beneath my dress.

Growling low in his throat, he reached over and tugged the square neck of my dress down, then leaned closer and slid his hand inside my bra cup.

Before I knew what he was doing, the dress was down around my waist, and he ripped the bra in two, tore it right where a little blue bow had been sewn between the cups.

Silently, he dragged one strap off my shoulder and down my arm, and then the other.

Discarding the tattered fabric onto his back seat, he leaned closer and licked my nipple into his mouth. Goosebumps rose on my arms and at the back of my neck, and then he was lifting the dress up my thighs, his hot fingers searching between my legs.

“When we’re together, you will not wear a bra. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You may wear one when you’re workin’, but if you’re off the clock and in my presence, I don’t want these beautiful tits bound. Ever.”

I nodded. What else was there to say to that? A thrill rushed through me. Knowing that I would be braless around him and that he’d demanded it of me but no one else would know it was for him made me smile.

I had begun to think every single thing I did was for him.

“I think now’s the perfect time to discuss your limits.”

“M-my limits?”

“Yeah. What you’ll let me do to you. Restraint is okay?”

I nodded. Restraints were more than okay.

“Say the words, Roxanne.”

“Yes,” I said, “restraint is okay.”

“Good girl. And bondage. Rope. They’re okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

“May I gag you? Blindfold you?”

“Um,” squeaked out of my mouth, and his eyes lifted from my breasts.

“Does that make you nervous?”

“A little, but I’m willin’ to try with you.”

“And,” he murmured, “clamps?”

“Clamps? Like nipple clamps?”

“Yes, and they make them for other parts of your body.”