Page 29 of The Brave and the Reckless (Bravetown #1)

He shifted behind me. I tried to shake strands of dark hair from my face to see, but the position made it impossible.

I didn’t even get the chance to ask him what he was doing before his mouth joined his fingers, torturing me.

His tongue came down against my clit mercilessly.

The taut coil inside me snapped, and I dropped over the edge.

I writhed against him, and I moaned his name, and he didn’t stop touching me, licking me, holding me until I stopped trembling, slumped over the table and breathing hard.

Bone-deep satisfaction unfurled inside me.

I let out a disappointed whine when he loosened his grip on me and pulled my clothes back into place.

“Noah, I…” I pushed up, blinking at the hazy room and the blurred orange glow above the door. My muscles had gone weak, my knees trembling too much to fully keep me upright. But I still wanted more. I wanted him to keep touching me and I wanted to touch him, feel him.

Noah slipped an arm around my middle, steadying me with my back against his chest. I let him take my weight, my head dropping back. I blinked up at him, forgetting what I was going to ask when his blue eyes pierced down at me.

“God, you’re fucking gorgeous,” he said, his voice breathless and husky.

“Of course,” I chuckled, “I am the Pretty Annie Lou, aren’t I?”

His responding smirk disappeared as he pulled the bandana back over his face. “Don’t even bother with panties tomorrow.”

Just like that, my dread over having to perform four shows over two days evaporated.

I floated through the rest of the weekend on a cloud of endorphins. The new ankle braces, which perfectly fit into my costume boots, helped with the floating, too. But it was mostly thanks to my new favorite version of seven minutes in heaven.

On Saturday, Noah laid me out on that table and ate me like his last meal.

He also discovered that, in that position, he could pull my dress down enough to free my tits.

He grumbled something unintelligible when I pushed his mouth away from my chest. His tongue was close to making me lose all coherent thought, but I still wasn’t walking out into the park with beard burn all over my cleavage.

On Sunday, I reached for his belt. He grabbed my hands and flattened them against the tabletop instead .

“I want to see how many times I can make you beg,” he rasped against my ear in that deep Ace Ryder voice, and I almost fell apart before he’d even touched me.

“I’ll beg when hell freezes over,” I huffed, fully aware that I was making promises I couldn’t keep. Five. Five times over a total of fourteen minutes. There was a line in Ace Ryder’s official character description, about how he was known for his silver tongue. And goddamn. They had no idea.

“How are you holding up?” Zuri asked.

We’d settled into Sanny’s favorite booth in the saloon.

It was fairly quiet in here on Monday nights.

Most park guests visited on the weekends, and those who stayed for a couple of days tended to stay in the park until it closed, or they had dinner in their hotel.

That, and the ease of access, was probably why Sinan had suggested we should have weekly dinners here.

We hadn’t spent much time together in recent years.

He hadn’t been home a lot, and I’d been busy, so we’d just seen less and less of each other.

It also hadn’t come naturally over the last few weeks unless there was something happening. Putting in the effort felt good.

“I’m fine,” I replied, “what about you guys?”

“Do you need me to talk to Renee?” Sanny leaned across the table.

I blinked, only now registering the genuine concern on their faces.

There was no reason for it as far as I knew.

The combination of ankle braces and boots had been saving me from a lot of pain, so that was fine.

And their expressions weren’t touched by that hint of awkwardness I’d expect if they wanted to talk to me about my sex life. “Why would you talk to Renee?”

“Because of all those trolls online,” Sanny said.

“You look a little tired.” Zuri tilted her head, her thick black curls falling sideways. “You’re not doom-scrolling the comment sections all night, are you?”

Oh, shit. Right. I’d been getting bad feedback online. Somehow that had completely slipped my mind over the last few days. Just as I considered why that might be, Noah stepped up to our booth and dropped on to the bench next to me with a vague greeting.

“Noah, would you mind giving us a couple of minutes? We’re in the middle of discussing something with Esra. It’s kind of important,” Sinan said, sounding more like a big brother than he had in weeks. Shit. Were the online comments that bad?

“It’s fine,” I said quickly and motioned for Noah to stay.

I just shot him a quick glance from the corner of my eye.

He was the very reason I’d forgotten about the trolls, and why I looked so tired.

The show had been exhausting before, but now I was getting an extra workout in every day.

Not to mention lying awake, debating whether or not I should just knock on his door to get more than seven minutes.

I always ended up slipping my own hand between my legs instead.

Keeping this thing perfectly compartmentalized to Ace Ryder’s hideout seemed like the best option.

I got all the orgasms without any of the emotional or interpersonal mess of hooking up with your brother’s best friend.

“It really is fine,” I reassured Sanny and Zuri, “I’ve not been online much. I don’t care. He’s the one posting thirst traps for likes.” I jerked my thumb at Noah.

“Pointing is impolite,” he said and caught my wrist. He pushed my hand under the table and into my lap, where his fingers dropped from my arm to my leg.

He squeezed my thigh and his pinky reached high enough to slip up my shorts.

It grazed the sensitive skin where his stubble had left its mark.

The audacity. Didn’t he realize that I was compartmentalizing?

Blood rushing in my ears, I glared at him, only for him to pull his hand away and reach for the menu without a single glance in my direction.

“Can we pause whatever feud this is for a few minutes, please?” Sinan waved between me and Noah.

Was “feud” the right word to use when you wanted to kill someone by banging their brains out?

Since I could hardly do that here, I held up my hands in mock surrender.

“I’m not doing anything,” Noah said and shrugged. I still caught that little twinkle of mischief in the corner of his eye. Yeah, right. Not doing anything except feeling me up in front of my brother.

“You’re being obnoxious,” I hissed.

“I’m reading the menu.”

“You’ve lived in this place for how long?”

“Twenty-nine years in Wild Fields, five years in Bravetown.”

“And has the menu changed over the last five years? Or are you going to order a glass of water and a cheeseburger? Maybe a single bottle of beer if you’re feeling wild.” I wasn’t sure why I knew his order, but the fact that I did just annoyed me more .

Both Sanny and Zuri sighed in perfect sync, loud enough to interrupt us, their gazes locking. Some silent understanding passed between them. Putting on a bright smile, Zuri pushed out of the booth and waved for me to come with her. “Let’s go get some drinks at the bar.”

Ah. They had formulated a Plan B for their “kind of serious” talk.

I debated staying at the table and letting Zuri get the drinks, but I didn’t trust myself enough next to Noah. My urge to strangle him had turned into a Pavlovian compulsion to wrap my thighs around his neck instead.

While Adriana was getting our order ready for us, Zuri tried again. “I know you’re only here for a few months, but it’s still a lot of pressure to play Annie Lou. If you ever want to talk about it, I’m here, you know?”

“Thank you, Zuri. I appreciate it, but I genuinely haven’t been online in days. I decided to go the ignorance is bliss route.”

“Right.” She pursed her lips, clearly not fully content with my answer.

“If it really bothered you, or you know… something else bothered you, there’s other people to talk to.

Not here, necessarily, but in Nashville.

There’s a lot of good people in Nashville.

You could make a day of it. See the Parthenon. You like attractions, right?”

I blinked, the gist of her ramble computing slowly. “Are you sending me to therapy?”

“You’ve been through a lot of life changes recently.”

“Ohmygod. Please stop talking.”

“We just thought it might help you figure things out.”

I ran my hand down my face. “Figure what out?”

“What you’ll do when summer’s over. Do you want to go back to grad school? Maybe here? Or back home? Change your major?”

“Jesus, did Sanny talk to Mom?”

Zuri’s guilty expression was all the answer I needed. Of course. Sinan hadn’t actually been interested in spending more time with me. Monday-night dinners were just the Bravetown-friendly version of Mom’s Friday-night dinners. She’d probably planted the idea in his head.

Adriana had quietly put the drinks down on the counter in front of us, and I pushed three toward Zuri. “Take these back to the table. Talk to me when your entire life plan has gone up in flames, okay?”

Zuri didn’t fight me. She looked genuinely defeated as she carried the drinks back to the booth.

“So,” Adriana said, clearing her throat, “as someone whose entire life plan has actually gone up in flames, can I talk to you?”

“Sure,” I huffed and climbed on to the barstool across from her.

“Who’s the guy?” she asked, grinning widely.

“What?”

“Or girl.” She shrugged. “Who are you sleeping with?”

“Guy,” I said and shot a quick look over my shoulder to make sure nobody overheard. “How did you know? Is it that obvious?”

“Nah, you just have that exhausted glow of someone who got plowed in the backseat of an old jeep behind a Wendy’s. Takes one to know one. Meanwhile, Sinan and Zuri are all rainbows and unicorns. Totally oblivious.”

“That was very descriptive, thank you.” I laughed, my mood instantly lightening. Adriana was good at that. I figured that it did take one to know one. She knew what it was like when you wanted to leave shit in the past and move on.

“So? Who is it? I’m surprised I haven’t heard anything yet. I know for a fact it isn’t Lucas.” She narrowed her eyes at the room. “The gossip mill is running slow.”

“Excuse me?”

“What? Bart’s Mart is the only place in town to buy condoms. If someone was suddenly stocking up, the whole town would know.”

“That’s fucked up. You know that, right?” I groaned and dropped my head on my arms on the counter. “We haven’t gotten to that part yet.”

“Damn. If your skin glows like that just from…” She trailed off, eyes wandering over the people in the staff section.

“Who plays guitar? Or maybe piano?” Her fingers strummed through the air to demonstrate why she thought someone with musical skills would also be otherwise skilled.

Really, she should have looked for muscles.

Noah wrangling my body like I was his personal plaything was half the fun.

Instead of replying to her, I pulled my phone out and added a new item to my growing to-do list. I was more than happy to support local businesses, but not if doing so would air my sex life to the entire town.

Summer Bravetown

To Do

Research horse noises

Buy Adriana’s albu m

Test new ankle braces for a whole day

Order new leggings

Start budget planner

Buy condoms (out of town!)

Appointments

Notes

Neigh (also whinny or bray) = normal horse sound, method of communication, mouth open Nicker= lower clucky sound, often used as greeting or in courting Now/Here by Adriana Banks