“No one calls me Brock, they call me Slim.”
I blinked and something about that took me right out of our current scenario and into la-la land.
Therefore, I breathed, “What?”
He pushed away from the doorjamb while speaking. “No one calls me Brock. Mom, Dad, brother, sisters, friends, since I was a kid called me Slim.”
“You’re not slim,” I told him although he was lean he wasn’t what I’d call slim.
“No, I’m not and I wasn’t when I was a baby seein’ as I was over ten pounds when I was born. It was a joke ‘cause I was a big kid. My family’s screwy that way.”
Whoa. He was over ten pounds when he was born? That was one huge kid.
He was tall, at least six one, maybe six two. And muscled. He wasn’t slim at all, his body was built of lean, compacted muscle that had some bulk to it, sure, but I wouldn’t call him huge.
Since babies didn’t come out muscled, I wondered if he wasn’t a big baby but a long one.
It hit me then he’d rounded the island and was getting close and I stopped thinking about his weight as a baby and his current size and started retreating at the same time I came out of la-la land and back into our current scenario.
“I want you to leave,” I stated firmly.
“Yeah,” he replied, still coming at me and I hit the side counter as he kept coming and talking. “I get that but clue in, Tess, I ain’t leavin’.”
Then he was right there. So right there I could feel his heat and I had to tip my head way back to look up at him seeing as I was barefoot and not six foot one or two but five foot six.
“Please leave,” I stated a far bit less firmly.
He leaned in settling his hands on the counter on either side of me and I lifted my hands (and the pastry bag) between us.
He also again ignored me. “You didn’t call.”
I stared into his angry eyes. “I didn’t call?”
He glared at me with his angry eyes. “No, babe, you didn’t call.”
“I didn’t call,” I whispered, my heart, already beating fast, started to pound.
“Three months,” he declared but said no more.
I stared into his glittering, silver eyes.
Then I lost my ever lovin’ mind.
“Are you nuts? ” I shrieked.
“Tess –”
“Fuck you!” I shouted and pushed at him with my pastry bag filled hands, a thin stream of pale yellow icing shot out onto the floor beside us as well as on his Charlie Daniels tee and then I found the bag not in my hands and watched him twist his torso and toss it on the island next to the cake and twist back to me. That was when I put my hands on the hard wall of his chest, shoved and repeated on a shout, “Fuck you!”
He rocked back a couple of inches then moved right back in, his face got into my face and he growled, “Fuckin’ listen to me.”
“No!” I yelled. “No way. No fucking way. You used me.”
“It’s my job,” he ground out.
“Do you think I give a shit?” I asked.
“Maybe if you’d calm the fuck down and listen for a goddamned minute you’d understand why I do think you should fuckin’ give a shit.”
“I can assure you, Brock Lucas, that nothing you can say will make me understand why I should give a shit,” I informed him.
“Your ex, Tess, that motherfucker needed to be taken down. That motherfucker is serious bad news.”
My body went completely still at his words and I held his eyes as my next words trembled.
“I know that, Brock. I know.”
And it was then I watched with rapt attention as his eyes immediately melted quicksilver and his hands moved from the counter to my head, palms at the base of my neck, fingers in my hair and his face dipped an inch away from mine.
Then he whispered a ragged, tortured, “Baby,” and that one word cut through me like a jagged knife.
Oh God.
He knew.
Of course he knew.
Of course.
Of course, of course, of course.
That thing tight in my belly uncurled, filling me up, slinking up my throat and this time it wasn’t filled with the paralyzing poison of fear or despair. It was something else.
Panic.
I tried to tear away but Brock held on, one hand still at my head, the other arm sliced around my back, he shuffled me down the counter and pressed me into the corner.
With no way to escape, I held my body tight, hands pressed against his chest and kept my eyes glued to his throat as I whispered, “Let me go and get out.”
“No one knows that shit happened to you, do they?” he asked softly.
“Let me go and get out.”
“You haven’t told any of your girls.”
Eyes firm on his throat, I demanded, “Let me go, Brock, and get out.”