Page 11

Brooke

“He’s staring at you like he wants to gobble you up whole. My goodness!” Jade, Saint’s fiancée, elbows me with a knowing smile as she fans her face. “Is it just me, or is it getting hot?”

“It’s definitely hot!” Ingrid responds, fanning her face too with exaggerated movements, which makes me laugh.

She’s the newest girlfriend in the club since she recently started dating Blaze, the Steel Rebel’s chief enforcer.

The two girls are closer to my age than the other wives and girlfriends, which makes it easier to open up to them.

Although I haven’t known either girl for long, we instantly clicked the second we met. “I think he likes you.”

“Likes her?” Jade chimes in. “The man hasn’t taken his eyes off her since he came up here. He’s staring at her like he’s seconds away from bending her over the picnic table and—”

“Girls! Jesus!” I cry out, mortified. I’m blushing fiercely as I look around to make sure no one’s heard us. I could have sworn Jade was shy. At least, that was the impression I got from her when we met. Maybe Saint has begun rubbing off on her. “Keep your voices down.”

“Why?” Ingrid asks with a smirk as she sets the napkins down. “Axel is making it obvious. I mean, look at him.”

I slowly turn around to spot the man leaning against a wall, looking hot as ever and staring me down.

There is that look in his eyes I witnessed a few hours earlier when he was rutting me like a bull against my kitchen counter.

God, I can still feel him inside of me. “What?” I mouth to Axel, who simply raises an eyebrow at me and doesn’t look away.

People are starting to notice. I thought he would want to keep our relationship a secret from his brothers, at least for a while, but if that’s the case, he’s failing terribly.

A hand closes on my arm, and I look away from Axel to see Jade leading me away from the picnic table and the other women. Ingrid follows behind, and I blink in confusion when I find myself crowded by the girls to a small alcove.

“You slept with him.” It’s not a question, and from the way Jade’s bright green eyes widen with surprise, she must read the truth in mine. “Oh my God, you finally slept with Axel! When? How? Tell me everything!”

“Everything?” I ask, my cheeks burning with embarrassment. “No one wants to hear that.”

“I do!” Ingrid chimes in. “Wait, is that why you asked me the other day what lipstick shade would look best on you? Did you…” She looks around to make sure no one’s listening before she completes her sentence. “Did you seduce him?

I bite my lip and look away. Ingrid is a cosmetologist and I wanted her opinion. She was sweet about it, not prying into why I needed the advice. It seems I can’t hide from that anymore.

“Um, sort of,” I say, not really sure how to explain what happened. I still don’t quite understand it myself.

“What do you mean? How do you sort of seduce someone?” Jade asks, just as Ingrid says, “Tell us the details!”

“I can’t tell you that!” I say in horror. Surely my friends don’t expect me to admit that the man pushed me hard against the wall then spanked my ass cheeks raw before fingering me. That’s too much even for them. “We just…uh, had a moment.”

“And by that moment, you mean sex.”

“Jade, come on!”

“Fine,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Everyone with two eyes can see that you want that man. You’ve never made it a secret—”

“Wait, you knew?” I ask the girls, surprised when they both nod.

“You weren’t exactly subtle. Even the guys had bets going on when you two would stop dancing around each other.

Oh my God, I just realized Knox won the bet!

Ugh, he’s going to so arrogant about this,” Jade finishes with a groan.

Blood drains from my face at the thought of these men, possibly even my father, knowing about my feelings for Axel for years.

I thought I’d hidden them well. Apparently not.

“You wear your heart on your sleeve, Brooke,” Jade soothes as she reads my expression.

“Axel sometimes does too. You weren’t the only one with unrequited feelings. So, have you guys talked about it?”

“In a way,” I say, avoiding meeting the girls’ eyes. A part of me doesn’t want to admit that I’m scared to know Axel’s true feelings. I know he wants me, that much is obvious with how sore I feel between my legs, but I wonder if that’s all it is. “I’ve been putting it off.”

“Why?” Ingrid asks, blinking at me with her mesmerizing eyes—one a cool shade of blue and the other a warm shade of brown. “What are you waiting for, Brooke?”

For Axel to admit that he loves me. That he cares about me not because he was burdened with the responsibility of looking after me, but because it’s me . “I don’t know,” I lie, and if they read it in my eyes, then they don’t call me out on it.

“Don’t you want to know beyond a doubt if he has feelings for you or not? What his plans for you are? Isn’t it easier to get it all out now and not have the questions loom over you every time you’re together?”

I turn away from Jade and her question. It’s easy for her to say.

Saint proposed marriage a few days into knowing her, professing his undying love to her even before they really knew each other.

I’ve known Axel for years and have loved him for as long as I can remember.

Growing up, any time I imagined my future, he was there in some capacity or another.

And the older I got, the clearer that future—and his role in it—became.

He knows me better than anyone, including Scarlett, and now that I get to be with him, do I really want to venture into murky waters and risk losing whatever it is we have?

A part of me wants to push everything under the rug and enjoy the moment, but it’ll probably hurt avoid it much longer. Like Jade said, the questions will haunt our relationship if we don’t address them.

“I’ll talk to him,” I say, as someone calls out for everyone to grab a plate. “Let’s get back to cookout. I’ll tell you how it goes.”

The girls nod and we head back to the table, and after some fairly obvious maneuvering by Jade and Ingrid, I find myself seated next to Axel.

This is not the first time we’ve been close during a gathering, but now that I know what his lips taste like and how his hands feel on my body, I find it hard to keep my composure around him.

I nearly jump out of my skin when I feel a weight on my thigh, looking up at Axel in surprise to find him watching me.

“Are you okay?” he asks, stroking his hand over my thigh and sending a fiery heat licking up my body.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

He raises a single brow at me, and I can tell he’s going to say something before he’s drawn into a conversation by the guy seated across from us.

I shift my attention to the food, occasionally trying to engage the other people at the table with us, but the hand on my thigh keeps drawing me back in.

Axel squeezes, making my sensitive sex pulse with need, and I have to bite down hard on my lip to stop a moan from slipping out.

I suck in a sharp breath when his hand moves further up my leg, and I find my thighs parting for him.

God, this is beyond inappropriate and I should stop him, not revel in the feeling.

And yet, I do nothing to put an end to it, nearly whimpering when he runs his hand over my jean-clad sex.

I grip the table when he presses his middle finger right over my clit, making it thrum with need.

“Hey, Brooke?”

My head whips to the left when Jade calls out to me. “Are you staying for the games after dinner?”

“Yeah. Why do you ask?”

“You missed the last cookout, and we missed you,” she says, and I try to keep my expression neutral as Axel’s teasing hand leaves my body; it’s all I can do to stop myself from pulling it back to me. “We played Pictionary, and the girls lost against the guys because we were outnumbered.”

Someone at the table snorts back a laugh, and I follow the sound to see Kyle, a familiar prospect and a bit of a protégé to Saint shake his head in amusement.

“You really think you were going to win an artistic game with people who draw tattoos in their free time? Some of us even do it professionally.”

This seems to spark a debate, and soon, there is a heated discussion at the table with everyone arguing and cheating allegations being thrown around.

Feeling a bit of my recent rebellious streak flare to life, I decide turnabout is fair play and put my own hand to Axel’s thigh.

He’s just about to take a bite of food as I do and nearly chokes on it when my hand makes contact.

His reaction pulls a few glances, but the debate is too lively for anyone to really pay attention to Axel’s coughing.

Everyone is oblivious to my daring hand exploring under the tablecloth.

Axel takes a drink of his beer to ease his coughing and I wait for him to bring the bottle to his lips before sliding my hand higher and cupping his growing erection.

He jumps in his seat, knocking his knee against the bottom of the table, rattling plates and beer bottles as he fumbles the beer in his hand.

I watch in horror as it slips from his fingers onto the table, only to tip sideways and pour right into his lap, soaking his jeans before he snatch it up.

“Shit, sorry,” I cry out, flustered when everyone’s attention turns to me.

I grab a handful of napkins and pat Axel down, but it’s no use; the beer has soaked through his clothes and stained them.

“Oh God. I’m so sorry.” I hadn’t meant for this to happen.

I only wanted to tease him a little like he had me, not cause a scene.

“It’s fine,” he says with a wicked smile on his lips. “I’ll just go down to my room to change.”

“I’ll come with you,” I say quickly, jumping up as well, and I note a few surprised expressions at my statement. “I mean…”