LUST: A Bad Boy and Amish Girl Romance (The Brody Bunch Book 2) (20 page)

“
D
on’t answer it
,” Hannah whined, pulling my shirt off over my head. “Please, for the love of all that is holy, do not answer that fucking phone.”

I grinned. Damn, that was a tempting plea. And cool new phone or not, the last thing I wanted was to deny my girlfriend my cock in favor of answering a call from…

…well, from anyone, really.

“I’ll let it go to voicemail,” I told her, leaning back on my elbows as she worked at my belt. We were on my bed this time. It was the first time I’d had Hannah over, and she’d decided we really ought to christen the place—get rid of the bad juju from Fuck Buddies of Christmas Past, she’d said. I liked the way she thought. Other women might’ve put on a pout about what had happened previously at my bachelor pad, but not Hannah. She didn’t want to dwell on who’d had me before. She wanted to establish dominance and have me
now.

Who the hell was I to complain? Especially when we were both getting exactly what we wanted…

I drew her tight little body against mine, hastily unhooking the back of her bra so I could watch those beautiful tits bounce free. I took one in my mouth immediately, swiping my tongue in frenzied circles until she threw back her head and moaned. There was nothing quite like a fuck after some cathartic bullshit had come to pass, and considering how many issues we’d worked out over the past week, we had a lot of fucking to do in order to break even.

My phone rang again. Somehow, it seemed more insistent this time. Hannah clutched two handfuls of my hair and ground against my hips in protest.

“Don’t. Answer,” she said between her teeth.

I looked up at her, brows raised. “Shouldn’t I at least see who it is?”

Hannah huffed and pushed me onto my back. “No!”

I grabbed her hips, pulling her until her panty-covered slit was flush with my hard-on. “Are you sure? What if it’s one of our siblings? What if Reid’s down a well, and we’re his only hope?”

Hannah brought her face very close to mine. “Let him drown.”

I laughed and slapped her thigh. “Come on, love. If it’s not important, I’ll hang up. I promise.”

Rolling her eyes, but with a smile that told me she surrendered to my superior logic, Hannah let me dig into the pocket of my jeans and pull out my brand new phone—the one she’d bought me as a gift for the one she’d destroyed. I loved that she felt bad about that, but damn, shit happens.

I picked up when I saw who it was. To Hannah, I mouthed,
It’s Wyatt.

“What’s up, bro?” I asked him.

“Hey, man,” Wyatt said. He sounded distant. A little staticky. “I just, uh. I wanted to let you know we won’t be around for a while. Me and Beth, we’re gonna take off for a bit. On our own.”

“Yeah, I’m trying to get some alone time with my girl too,” I said pointedly, hoping Wyatt would get the picture and hurry off the phone. But there was something strangely serious about his tone. Something that didn’t quite sit right with me.

“It’s not like that,” he said, followed by a heavy pause. The kind you lapse into when you said more than you’d meant to.

I narrowed my eyes. “Where are you?”

Silence. I was starting to think maybe he’d lost signal, but then I heard him shift. It sounded like he was sitting in his truck. “We’re just… going off-grid. Just for a little while. I wanted you to know ‘cause we’ll probably be out of contact for the next few days, or so. I… I didn’t want you to worry.”

I wanted to ask him what the hell he was hiding from me, but I didn’t want to unduly worry Hannah. Wyatt could be a little cryptic sometimes, a little secretive. Comes with being the baby of the family, I guess. You feel like nothing’s really yours, so you start hoarding whatever you can. Maybe I was reading too much into it. Poor kid might still be reeling from that fight he and Beth had.

And I had every reason to assume there had been a fight. News like that, about how this had all started off as a stupid bet? No way there wasn’t one.

“Did Reid tell you that you could borrow the fuck cabin?” I asked him, and Hannah gave me a weird look. “Because I was thinking of taking Hannah up there soon…”

Again, she rolled her eyes. And again, as always, she smiled.

“No, we’re not at the… jeez. Look, don’t worry about it. You’ll have the cabin whenever you want it. You’ll have no scheduling conflicts on account of me.”

I sat up a little. “Where did you say you were again?”

This time, Wyatt was quick to answer. “I didn’t.” And then he hung up.

I tried calling him back right away. But it went straight to voicemail.

“Huh,” I said, setting my phone down on the bed.

Hannah arched a brow. “What was that all about?”

I frowned. “Nothing… I hope.” She prodded me and I looked up at her. “Wyatt and Beth are going away for a few days. He said not to worry, they just might be incommunicado.”

“Seems my sisters are the forgive and forget types, after all,” Hannah said, running her hands down my chest. “At least, when it comes to boys.”

She looked so sad. I knew Beth hadn’t returned any of her calls yet, and hearing that she was with Wyatt and everything was fine had to hurt. I took her hands in mind and kissed them. “Beth will come around, love. Just give it time. Sometimes, the people who hurt the most are the ones we think can take it. Beth just thinks you’re a strong woman. Take it as a compliment.”

Hannah eyed me. “That was… profound, Ash. Don’t tell me it was another quote you found on…”

“…the back of a bar napkin?” I grinned at her. “Oh, yeah. I love those things.”

Hannah pinned my arms above my head with a shake of her head. “You’re damn lucky I love
you,
Brody.”

She was right. I absolutely was.

I
f you’d told
me ten days ago I’d find my happily ever after, I would’ve laughed so hard I ended up spitting my beer right in your face.

But there I was, standing in my kitchen cooking brunch—with Ash Brody, of all people!—trying to get the table set and the food all sorted before Reid and Sarah came over.

Well, to be fair, Ash was sitting. Which was exactly where I wanted him. My kitchen was small, and two of us in there trying to coordinate multiple dishes was a nightmare. I much preferred him looking pretty on the other side of the counter, and he much preferred this view of my ass. It was a win-win situation. We had achieved symbiosis.

“They said ten thirty, right?” I asked, checking on the French toast.

Ash chuckled. “Yes, love. Ten thirty. I know you’re anxious, but take some deep breaths. Sarah’s gonna have one hell of a job getting Reid up this early in the morning.”

He was right—I absolutely was anxious. I hadn’t seen Sarah in days, and though it seemed she’d forgiven me, I still felt like I had a lot to make up for. Ash and I hadn’t talked about it—we’d been too busy fucking to talk about much of anything, really—but I also knew I was going to have to confide in her, sooner or later, about why I’d left home. I didn’t want any more secrets or bad blood between us. I mean, look what it had done to Beth. I hadn’t heard from her since our fight.

“No luck with Wyatt, huh?” I asked, preemptively getting my potholders out.

“None,” Ash confirmed. “But he said that might be the case, remember?”

I nodded. “Mm hmm.” That didn’t stop me from worrying, though.

I heard Ash take a big breath, like he was going to remind me once again that I needed to settle down and let Beth have her space, but then the doorbell rang and I spun around. “I’ll get it,” he said, but I was already hurrying into the foyer, pulling open the door to reveal Sarah and Reid standing there, big smiles on their faces.

“Hi, sister,” Sarah said, and I responded by scooping her into a tender hug. She stiffened a little at first, but in time, she hugged me back. I closed my eyes and held her that way for several moments, savoring this wordless reconciliation, before Reid ruined everything with his big mouth. Again.

“So, uh… am I allowed to come in, or…?” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I mean, I was told there would be food…”

“You are the worst,” I told him, letting go of Sarah and moving out of the doorway to let him in. As I was locking up, he leaned down unexpectedly and kissed my cheek, and my scowl disappeared, replaced with an expression of shock.

“Thanks for having us,” he said in a stilted way that made me think it was something Sarah had coached him to say.

I looked at her. She looked back at me. And then we laughed, and Reid stalked into the kitchen to sit with Ash while Sarah and I followed.

“So, how has all your time alone with Reid been, he finding ways to keep you busy?” I asked her. I cackled at the furious blush that spread over her cheeks, reddening even the tips of her ears. “That good, huh?”

“Better than good,” she whispered, and I didn’t blame her—no reason to stroke Reid’s ego, when he was so full of himself already.

“I’m glad, Sarah,” I told her, turning off the timer on the oven as it blared. “Really, I am. If you’re happy, I’m happy. You have to know that.”

Sarah smiled at me. She opened the oven door so I could get in and pull the pan out. “I do. And I… I’m happy you’re happy, too.”

I was so wrapped up in our conversation that I missed all but the tail end of the commentary Ash sent my way. “…you know how it goes. These girls are used to the wild. They need to return to their roots every now and again to de-stress.”

“You make it sound like we’re Amazons, or something,” I said, shaking my head at him. “Maybe it’s just that we know you boys act like asses when you’re around each other, so we want to get you alone to figure out who the
real
you is beneath all that machismo.”

Reid looked at Sarah and raised a brow. “Is that it, darlin’? You girls just wanna get us men civilized?”

Sarah grinned and shrugged at him. “Sounds about right,” she said.

“It’s a damn conspiracy,” Reid complained. But I could tell by the look the brothers shared that neither one of them minded a bit.

We sat down to eat, and Reid broke the news of Sarah’s decision. She wasn’t going back to the village—she was here to stay, in the English world, for good. I couldn’t have been more relieved. I knew I’d still have to come clean with her someday, but knowing I had time to get to that was so… freeing.

I looked at Ash across the table and he smiled, reaching over to take my hand. Everything about being with him had turned out to be so damn liberating. I’d never expected that from him—in fact, I hadn’t expected anything at all—but somehow the player who trailed a thousand broken hearts in his wake had managed to heal mine. And then he’d
become
mine. I was still having a hard time believing it all.

Because I hadn’t let myself believe in happy endings. Not since I was a little girl, too young to realize that the world was so much more complicated than all that. Maybe I hadn’t grown up with fairy tales, but I’d believed, once upon a time, in the general goodness of people. Believed, more than anything, that if something was meant to be, then it would all work out just fine.

Somewhere along the way, I’d abandoned that kind of hope. Buried it deep inside me under a mountain of betrayal and pain. Ash had dug it back up, breathed life into it once again, and then handed it to me along with his heart. I was so very grateful for that. And I had a feeling I’d be expressing that gratitude for a long time to come.

I still wished that Beth was here with us, and Wyatt too. But maybe Ash had a point. Maybe she needed some distance to process everything that had happened. I couldn’t begrudge her that—she was my sister. Whatever made her happy made me happy.

And at the time… I really did believe she was happy.

Sitting here with Ash, Sarah, and even Reid—like this—over brunch—exchanging stupid stories, with both sets of couples grinning like idiots and holdings hands—I certainly was.

T
hanks to everyone
that has taken the Brody Bunch journey with me, from my beta and ARC readers, to my editors and family. And thanks especially to everyone that took a chance on reading book 1 even before books 2 and 3 were available. I know sometimes that is a scary proposition, which is why I did my best to make sure that each story stood on its own.