He held out the handles and tried not to jump back when her fingers got tangled in his. Normal people could touch other people’s fingers and not get hard-ons. Not spontaneously erupt in their uniform pants. He needed to be normal.
“Mac and cheese? You remembered.” She looked up at him with a real smile, and it hit him dead center in the chest. Ah, fuck. This was a huge mistake.
“Everybody likes mac and cheese,” he said gruffly.
“This is really sweet of you, Brick.”
“Yeah. I’ll get you a key.” He ripped the front door open. “I’ll see you around.”
“Is it okay if I put my boots on first?”
Fuck. “Yeah. You can let yourself out. I have to…” He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. “Get back to work.” Yeah, that was it.
Without another word, he turned his back on her and headed for the back of the house as if he was running toward an emergency. By the time he got to the bathroom door in what was now Remi’s new studio, he already had his dick in his hand.
Before he slid the pocket door closed, he was already giving his shaft a violent stroke.
He barely had time to brace one hand on the vanity, barely had a moment to imagine himself peeling down those leggings and bending her over before he was already coming. It was an unrelenting torture, being this close to her and still fucking his own goddamn hand. That first wrenching spurt dragged a groan out of his throat as he painted the countertop with his release, wishing it was Remi’s tight little ass.
“God damn it,” he panted, stroking his way through it.
The woman reduced him to this. To an emergency jerk-off session in the middle of the fucking work day after a simple conversation. Was this what it would be like with her here?
He grabbed the hand towel off the hook.
“‘Here’s a bag of meat.’ Idiot.”
6
Fourteen years earlier…
Brick paused on the porch outside the screen door that led into his grandparents’ kitchen to brush the dust and dirt from his jeans and peel off his boots. It was a new routine that came with a new life. One he wasn’t sure he was adjusting to.
It had been a good day of hard work. He’d picked up some odd jobs as a handyman but most recently had landed a full-time position at one of the stables. Being able to continue working with horses was the highlight of the move to Mackinac Island with his little brother in tow. The rest of it basically sucked. Because as much as he enjoyed working in the stables, he still had to return to someone else’s home. To people who were strangers to him. To a grandfather who looked at him and saw nothing more than a reflection of his father.
But he could deal with it. He’d bear it as long as it took for Spencer to feel comfortable here. Then Brick would be free to move on with his life. At twenty-four, he felt like if he could get far enough away from his father’s shadow, there might still be good things in store for him.
He bent and peeled off one boot when a cheerful voice carried out to him.
Remi Ford. He knew it without peering through the screen. The wild child redhead who lived two blocks away was in his grandparents’ kitchen. He debated slipping around to the front door and hightailing it upstairs. There was something about the girl that made his palms sweat.
She looked at him like she had plans for him. But then he heard his name from her lips and paused.
“You must be so proud of Brick,” Remi said.
He dared to sneak a glance inside. His grandfather, an old man with wispy hair and a wheelchair, sat at the kitchen table with his back to the door. Remi sat next to him, spooning up something bright yellow and holding it to the man’s thin, chapped lips.
It should have been sad, devastating even. The withered old man whose life had whittled down into a handful of rooms and a wheelchair being fed by the vibrant, bubbly teenager. But Remi was the wild card. There was something almost beautiful about it. About her.
“William,” his grandfather muttered gruffly in his painful, post-stroke speech.
“I call him Brick,” she insisted, scooping up another spoonful.
“Dad prison. Same name. Same blood,” his grandfather rasped.
Brick shrunk back from the doorway, away from the truth of the words. Apparently Mackinac wasn’t far enough to escape a father’s sins.
“Well, that’s just silly,” she chided. “Brick’s as far away from a criminal as you can get. I’ve never met anyone with a bigger heart.”
“Big,” his grandfather wheezed.
“Can I tell you a secret?” Brick could hear the smile in her voice. “That’s why everyone thinks I call him Brick. Because he’s so big and strong. But really it’s because he’s impermeable. Indestructible.”
His grandfather chuckled then opened his mouth nice as you please for another spoonful. Brick shook his head. His grandmother was at her wit’s end trying to get her stubborn husband to eat. And all it took was a pretty girl who didn’t make him feel like an invalid. He couldn’t blame the man.
“While we’re on the subject, what did Brick and Spence’s dad do to end up in jail?”
Brick closed his eyes and leaned against the wall, willing the dread away. It didn’t matter what she thought. She was a teenager. The eight years that stood between them might as well have been an entire generation. She was the youngest of a tight-knit, loving family. He was the oldest of a splintered, scattered faction that didn’t have things like Christmas morning traditions or family cookouts.
His grandfather struggled with the words. She waited with what looked like patience and interest, just the right amount of both to defuse Pop’s automatic rancor at his condition.
“Hang on!” She lit up like the world’s greatest idea had just landed in her head. “Why don’t you write it down? I’ll get you a piece of paper.”
That sneaky little redheaded manipulator. Gram had mentioned to her in passing last week that they couldn’t get Pop to do his physical therapy. Which included writing.
“Here. I got you a pen, a pencil, and a marker,” she said, dropping the items in front of him on the sheet of paper.
Brick watched in amusement as Pop picked up the pen, then discarded it in favor of the thicker marker.
“I’ll get the cap for you,” Remi insisted. “There you go.”
Pop took the marker and, with a shaking hand, guided it to the paper. She leaned over the table, red hair falling over her face like a curtain of fire.
“Oh! He was a con man!”
At his grandfather’s harrumph, she rolled her eyes. “Well, it’s not like he’s out there kidnapping and murdering people.”