Lost in Distraction

Chapter Eleven



Since Christmas Day I’ve noticed that Brax has not been himself.

Don’t get me wrong, he is still loving, affectionate and thoughtful but I can tell something is troubling him and I know it is nothing I’ve done. Whatever the problem is, it is affecting his sleep. The last few nights I’ve woken up to find the bed empty beside me and when I’ve gone looking for him, he’s always sitting in the loveseat by our front window, looking out into the night. The rest of the time he seems distracted in his thoughts, like he’s trying to figure out some complicated situation in his head. I’ve asked him so many times if everything is okay, but he always shrugs it off and says he’s fine, telling me not to worry. But I know that look, it’s the look I had for over three years. He’s being haunted by something and I don’t know how to help him.

I want my happy go lucky Brax back.

Even after five months together, he can still make me burn with a simple look and the passion has not waned even slightly. We still make love like we’re junkies to each other’s touch and I swear it keeps getting better every time. But I am worried about him. I know how toxic it can be to bottle everything up inside. You don’t want to trouble anybody else with your feelings so you put the walls up around yourself, trying to protect yourself and keep everyone else out. That used to be me, embracing the dark and blocking out the light.

I’m starting to think that something happened on Christmas Day. I’ve tried thinking back to work out what it could be, but all I have is happy memories of a perfect day. I thought that something might have happened when he went out to buy beer, but when I asked him he just shook his head and told me not to worry.

It’s New Year’s Day and I’ve been woken up with a kiss and an orgasm—my new favorite way to wake up. Lying in bed afterwards, Brax starts gently stroking my arm up and down. I look over and see that he is staring at the ceiling in contemplation.

“Why don’t we go somewhere for the rest of our break?” he asks absentmindedly. I sit up and look down at him with a huge grin.

“You mean a real holiday?” Pulling me back down onto his shoulder, he laughs at me.

“Yeah, darlin‘. A real holiday. I thought we could drive down to Atlanta and I could show you where I grew up. What do you think?”

It’s now impossible for me to hide my excitement.

“Yes! I’d love that. Can we even meet some of your old friends?” I’m acting like a kid at Christmas. He’s letting me into his past. Maybe this trip might help him snap out of his bad mood from the past week.

He hasn’t stopped smiling at me since he made the suggestion. “I don’t know about my old friends, but we can certainly try.”

“Well, I better get packing then,” I say as I jump out of bed and bound into the bathroom.

Just as I’m about to step into the steaming hot shower, I feel Brax’s arms wrap around my waist as he pulls his hard body against mine.

“Hello again,” I say as I lean my head back onto his shoulder, leaving my neck wide open for him.

He doesn’t miss my invitation and slowly starts nipping and kissing around my neck and collarbone, a trick he has learned is a sure fire way to make me ravenous. I move my hand behind my back and slowly start stroking his hard length. An illicit groan escapes his lips as his nips my earlobe with his teeth.

“You better not start something you’re not going to finish babe,” he murmurs, his hand drifting down between my thighs as he starts to massage me.

I move my hips in time with his hand, matching his rhythm. As things start heating up, I realize we should move this to the shower before we start devouring each other on the tile floor. I pull my hand off him and turn around. With a huge grin on my face, I pull him towards me while moving backwards into the shower, my eyes full of desire and intent.

Once we get under the hot water, we lose all sense of control and start consuming each other with a renewed hunger. You wouldn’t have thought that we were doing the same thing only an hour ago, I can’t get enough of this amazing man of mine. I lap it up, deciding it’s time to give him a wakeup call of his own. I drag my hands down through his hair and around his shoulders, lightly raking them down his chest as I lower myself onto my knees in front of him. I see his whole body shudder at the realization of what I’m about to do.

Without breaking eye contact, I bring my hand up to guide him into my mouth, making sure I take my time and worship his body like he has done many times to me. Stroking and kissing, I know I’m taking him right to the edge when his breathing picks up and his hand tightens its grip in my hair. When it gets too much for him, he hooks his arms under mine and pulls me back up his body. He turns my back to the shower wall and lifts me up, forcing me to wrap my legs around his waist to accommodate him. Without warning, he enters me in one long thrust, forcing a loud moan out of my throat as we slam hard up against the wall. I revel in how good he feels inside me.

I tighten my legs around him and dig my heels into his ass to push him deeper inside me, marveling at the way he makes me feel. I love it when we’re making love like this, it’s so raw and uninhibited. As our hips continue to rock together, I feel my climax building and with one last thrust I’m screaming out his name as I fall apart around him. He follows me over the edge with a growl, murmuring loving endearments as we come back down to earth.

“Definitely a morning to remember now, babe,” he says as he turns around, grabbing the soap and wash cloth and proceeding to wash every inch of my body. After I return the favor, he leans over to turn the water off then carries me out of the shower, all with a huge smile on his face.

A good morning to remember indeed.



For days I’ve been thinking about how I can get Elle out of town for a while without making her suspicious. She’s noticed that I’ve been distracted because I haven’t been able to hide it. Being so close to her and knowing that she is in danger is consuming me. She’s tried everything to snap me out of it, but knowing that Evans is poking his nose around because of me is too much to bear.

Shay ran a trace on the black car I saw on Christmas Day and as expected, it was another stolen plate. Two black cars seen hanging around, our apartment, both with stolen number plates is no longer a coincidence.

It’s keeping me awake at night, too. I’ve even been getting up in the night to watch out the front window, looking for this stranger in the black car, or anything else out of place or anybody suspicious, but he hasn’t been back. I’m starting to wonder if he’s been called off. In my sleepless haze I’ve even started wondering if he is even here for Elle? What if he’s here for me? For all we know, he could be on Evans’ payroll. It would kill me if anything happened to her because of me. It would break me. I know I wouldn’t be able to come back from that.

This morning in bed I came up with a brilliant plan to surprise Elle and get her out of town at the same time—a road trip to Atlanta. This means I’ll be able to tie up any loose ends down there and show her where I was born and raised at the same time. Just as I hoped, she is so excited and she can’t get out of bed quick enough. Never one to let an opportunity go by, I follow her into the bathroom and proceed to show her exactly how happy she had made me. Watching her walk into the bathroom, naked as the day she was born and with a huge smile on her face, makes her damn near irresistible.

I still can’t get over the change I’ve seen in her since we first met. She’s so much more alive now. It’s like being with me was the fire she needed to be set alight, and God does she make me happy. Even the little things she does without thinking make me smile. She has completely opened herself up to me, despite her painful past. She has given herself to me completely and, irrespective of the reasons that brought us together, I feel like I was meant to be here with Elle.

While Elle is busy in the bedroom packing her bags, I call Shay and give him a rundown of our plans.

“Do you think that’s a smart move, bro? Going back home?” he asks, sounding worried.

“It’ll be fine, dude. I’ll be with her the whole time and while I’m down there, I’ll find a way to see the boss man to sort things out with him, too. I need to find out exactly what is going on here because I think the danger is not just coming from Brimstone and Evans, and that scares the shit out of me” I say quietly, hoping Elle doesn’t overhear.

“Me too, B. I know something is not adding up, but I don’t want you to put yourself in any danger, either. You sure you don’t want to go to Canada instead?” he adds, laughing at his own suggestion.

“Hell no, I want to show her my home town and the house where I grew up. I want to show her what molded me, you know what I mean? She’s given me so much of herself, now I want to try and give her something back.”

He’s silent for a moment. “Yeah, I know. And I like you being with her, you’ve never been so relaxed and happy. The circumstances suck, but we’ll sort it out, we always do”

“Yeah, bro. Okay, well I want to do this right, so just to be safe can you jimmy the GPS on my car? I don’t want Gibbons tracking me this time,” I ask, knowing that Shay will have my back.

“Not a problem, I’ll pop over now. Give me half an hour” he says. “And B? Stay on your game.”

“Will do. I won’t let anything happen to her, you know that. I’ll keep in touch. Keep your ear to the ground and maybe find out a bit more about what’s going on. Just a hunch, but quietly look into how the boss man and Brimstone know each other. There may be a connection we don’t know about,” I suggest before saying goodbye and hanging up. Shay is the only one I can trust with my suspicions.

Elle walks in with a duffle bag of clothes, all packed and ready to go just as I end the call. She looks relaxed and happy, the sparkle in her eye shining as bright as the sun. I just hope that nothing I do will put it out.

“Hey, gorgeous. Let’s grab some breakfast before we head off,” I suggest, knowing that we’ve got at least half an hour to kill while Shay knocks out my car’s GPS.

“Good idea,” she agrees, putting her bags down and turning towards the kitchen.

I follow her, hoping like hell I’m doing the right thing with this road trip.

An hour later the car is packed and we’re heading south. Elle squealed when she saw my car. I’ve had it garaged since I’ve been in town, borrowing Shay’s Toyota if I needed to drive anywhere, but there’s nothing like a road trip to bring a car out of its temporary retirement. I’ve had it for four years now, since my adoptive father Roger died and left it to me. It was his pride and joy. He sanded her right back to steel and fixed her up from scratch. It took him five years by the time he had finished but he was damn proud of her. ‘Blue Beauty’ is what he used to call her, and now she is all mine.

We head down the interstate towards Pennsylvania, taking our time to enjoy the sights on the way since Elle has never been on this side of the country before. The scenery is beautiful. Every now and then I glance over, seeing her eyes wide open and taking everything in. She looks so carefree and relaxed. I’m so glad I suggested this trip now, it seems like it is exactly what we needed.

Knowing that it will soon be dark and that we still need to find a place to stay overnight, we stop at a rest stop for a bathroom break and I use the internet on my phone to find a nice hotel. I make a reservation at one in Harrisburg, right along the river. I’ve worked out that if we drive to Virginia tomorrow then we should make Atlanta the day after, all going well.

I see that I’ve missed a call from Gibbons. I decide to give him a quick call while Elle is in the bathroom.

“Hey, G, what’s up?” I say when he answers.

“Brax, where are you? Shay says you’ve gone off duty for a few days.” He sounds pissed off.

“I’m okay, Gibbs. The job is still going as planned. Elle’s with me right now, as a matter of fact. We’re just getting out of town for a few days. It solves the problem of having to explain to her why we had to go to a safe house.” I hear him growl down the phone in frustration.

“Brax, this is taking it a bit far, don’t you think? I can’t even track your GPS right now.” That makes me smile because that’s exactly what I wanted. It means Shay must have worked his magic on the GPS tracker.

“I’m fine. Shay knows where I am and where I’m going. Nothing to worry about.”

“Don’t get smart, boy. You work for us remember, not the other way around. I don’t like you going rogue like this,” he says angrily.

I scoff at him. “I’m not going rogue, what the hell? Just relax and I’ll be back online in a week. Elle is with me and she’s safe and that is all that matters, right?” I state, knowing that it’s going to rile him up.

“Hmmm. Yes, just don’t get any funny ideas, Brax. We have to stick to the plan” he reminds me.

“If I remember correctly, the plan was to see if Elle knew anything and see if she was in danger then pull out. That is not going to happen now.” I spit out. I see Elle heading back towards the car and I know I have to end the call.

“Anyway, I have to go.” I hang up on him just as she opens the car door. He’s going to be pissed at me for that, but I’d rather have him annoyed than be forced to lie to Elle any more that than I have to.

“Was that Shay, babe?” she asks, looking at me with those bright green eyes of hers.

“Uh, yeah. He just wanted to see how far we’d gone today. He’s annoyed he couldn’t come along, but to be honest,” I say, inching towards her, “I’m glad I have you all to myself. My hot girl, in my hot car, it’s kinda hot, don’t you think?”



Hearing Brax say the word hot so many times in one sentence has my blood racing.

“Mmm hmm,” I say, darting my tongue out to slowly lick my lips. His gaze drops to my mouth and when he sees what I’m doing, a small growl rumbles in his chest.

“I see. Like that, is it?” he whispers, moving in closer so that our lips are barely touching.

He mimics my action, licking his own lips while gently grazing mine. It’s like the fire that we’ve been stoking all afternoon has been well and truly lit. Suddenly his hand is around the back of my head and he is pulling me towards him, plundering my mouth the moment I open my lips in shock. I grab his shirt, holding on for dear life as we struggle to control ourselves. Our tongues entwine as we pour all of the pent up sexual tension from the last few hours into this one kiss. It’s hard, it's raw, and totally uninhibited.

Brax has to pull away first, resting his forehead against mine as we struggle to catch our breath. I can’t help but give him a sly grin—I’m getting better as this little game of ours.

“You, my little minx, are gonna be the death of me if you keep that up,” he teases. “But if you can wait just another hour, you can have me as much as you’d like. It’ll just be in a nice clean hotel room, instead of being parked up at a highway rest stop. We can even get room service,” he says, giving me a cheeky wink before starting the car up.

The next hour can’t go fast enough.