One Night of Trouble(56)
She arched her hips, and a shock of pleasure raced down his spine and tingled in his balls. Slow. He had to go slow. Make it last. Make it good.
But Brett had clearly had enough of the painstaking pace he’d set. Her ass rose off the bed to meet his thrusts, her legs trapping him against her, giving him no choice but to thrust back. To wildly grind into her and make both of them moan with abandon.
Ecstasy twisted in his gut, spilling over before he could stop it. AJ came with a groan, burying his face in her neck as release barreled through him in pulsing waves and stole every coherent thought from his head.
Later, after they’d devoured fifty dollars worth of Chinese takeout, they nestled together in each other’s arms, Brett’s cheek pressed to his bare chest as he lazily twined a strand of her hair between his fingers.
Her warm breath fanned over his pecs. “Why don’t you ever want to hang out at your place?”
AJ was surprised it had taken her this long to voice the question, but he supposed there was no avoiding it now that they were dating.
Dating. Man, the concept still felt so foreign to him. He hadn’t expected to get attached to this woman. Hadn’t expected the gut-wrenching stab he’d felt last week when he’d imagined saying good-bye to her.
“I like it better here,” he answered, absently stroking her back.
“Why?”
“I don’t know… Your place feels…lived in, I guess. Welcoming. It has personality—your personality.”
“And yours doesn’t?”
“Not really.” He paused. “My mother decorated it, and honestly, it’s never felt like home to me.”
Brett sounded upset. “Didn’t you have any say? You didn’t pick out furniture or colors or artwork?”
“Nope. She did it all.”
“You could have said no,” she pointed out.
“I could’ve, but I didn’t. I guess I didn’t see the harm in letting her have her way. I’d already let her down about so many other things. If decorating my apartment made her happy, then I figured, why not.”
“But it’s your home.” Brett raised herself up on her elbow. “You should have done it your way.”
“Maybe, but I didn’t, and now I’ve gotta live with it. Or in it. Whatever.”
He shrugged, ready to change the subject, but he didn’t get the chance, because loud knocking suddenly blasted through the apartment, causing him and Brett to exchange startled looks.
“What the hell?” she muttered, with a quick glance at the bedside clock.
He followed her gaze, noting that it was nearly midnight. What the hell, indeed.
Brett sat up uneasily and pulled the sheet over her naked breasts. The pounding on the front door didn’t let up. It only got louder and more persistent as the door remained unanswered.
And then a muffled male voice reached their ears.
“Brett! Let me in!”
AJ’s chest stiffened at the same time Brett’s eyes went as wide as Frisbees. “Shit,” she blurted out. “Shit.”
AJ was out of bed in a heartbeat. “Who is it?” he demanded, his protective urges roaring to life as the voice continued to scream Brett’s name.
She met his gaze, anger and horror flashing on her face. “My ex-boyfriend.”
Chapter Fifteen
Brett flew off the bed in a frenzied search for something to wear. AJ’s T-shirt was the first item her panicked fingers collided with, and she slipped it on in a hurry, only realizing afterward that commandeering his shirt left him with nothing to wear. But she was too panicked to care. Troy’s voice continued to reverberate in the apartment, growing more and more desperate by the second.
“Brett! I know you’re in there! I saw your car outside! Open the damn door!”
As the pounding on the door escalated, honest-to-God fear pricked at Brett’s flesh. Troy hadn’t gotten violent with her when they’d been together, but she’d never heard him sound like this before.
“Stay here.” AJ’s low command penetrated the shrieking alarms going off in her head.
She turned to see him buttoning his black trousers, his blond hair tousled and mouth carved in a deadly line.
Her faculties swiftly returned to her. “No,” she blurted out. “You stay here. I’ll deal with him.”
“If you honestly think I’m going to let you handle this alone, then you’re…” He didn’t even finish the sentence.
He was already marching out the door.
Brett hurried after him, her panic intensifying when she glimpsed the inflexible set of his broad shoulders. Bare-chested and barefoot, he painted an imposing picture that would go over like a sack of bricks with Troy. Her ex might not have been violent, but he was possessive as hell, and Brett was suddenly terrified of what he’d do when he found another man in her apartment.