Chapter Twenty-Seven

Rio

I had been doing everything I could to not think about Bryn. I hadn’t laid eyes on her in fifteen days. Shouldn’t that be enough time to get the fuck over it? Instead, she was all I could think about anymore. She was the main show in my fantasies. I’d woken up after dreaming about her yet again with need of a shower to give myself some relief.

I had tried going out with Drake and picking up someone to get my mind off Bryn. I couldn’t even find someone who interested me. Drake was so damn confused when I left a smoking-hot redhead at the bar with the excuse of a headache. I had been disgusted with myself.

What was wrong with me? Was it the unknown?

Bryn had a damaged past, a shit-ton of baggage, but I had to accept that I didn’t care. Not anymore. I’d seen too much. I knew she was still the same deep down. All the shit I had been so sure had changed her hadn’t.

I had been so damn relieved when I pulled into the parking lot at her apartment that I hadn’t even noticed her car wasn’t there. Giving in and coming to see her felt like a weight had been taken off my shoulders. I wanted to see her. Fuck all the reasons it might be a bad idea.

I looked down at my phone again. I’d been sitting on the stairs, waiting on her, for over thirty minutes now. It was eight in the morning. Where the hell could she be? What if there was an emergency with Cullen? Why the fuck hadn’t I saved her number in my phone?

Just before I started to call Henley to get Bryn’s number from her, I heard Cullen’s voice. When I looked up from my phone, Cullen was standing at the bottom of the stairs, smiling up at me.

“It’s Rio!” he called out over his shoulder, and then Bryn appeared.

She looked like she had just woken up, and I realized Cullen was still in pajamas.

“Hey,” she said, placing a hand on Cullen’s shoulder.

“I, uh—is everything okay?” I asked, wondering why they would have woken up and left the house so quickly.

“Yes,” she replied. “I was going to ask you the same question.”

I hadn’t thought through what I was going to say or do once I got here. I’d just had to see her. “You look like you just got out of bed,” I pointed out.

She glanced down at the T-shirt and shorts she was wearing, then laughed. “Oh yeah. Well, we did.”

“Aunt Bryn is going to cook breakfast. Did you come to eat with us?” Cullen asked.

There was still no explanation for why they were in pajamas.

I looked from Cullen back to Bryn. “If I’m invited, I would love to,” I said, watching her face closely for her reaction to my staying.

“Of course,” she said quickly, then frowned.

Cullen started up the stairs to meet me and took my hand to pull me toward their door.

“We stay the night at Marley’s, but we leave early and don’t eat there,” Cullen said. “I’m always real hungry when we get home.”

Who was Marley?

“I bet,” I replied while watching Bryn unlock the door.

She opened it up and stepped back to let Cullen run inside.

“Go use the bathroom and wash your hands,” she called out to him, then looked back at me. “What is wrong? Did someone get out of jail? Are we in danger?” she asked in a low whisper.

I shook my head. “No. Has someone been bothering you? Who is Marley?”

She sighed in relief, and her shoulders relaxed. “No one has bothered us. I just saw you and thought there had to be a serious reason to bring you here and agree to stay for breakfast.”

She still hadn’t answered my question.

“Who is Marley?” I repeated.

She closed the door, locked it, and turned back to me. “My boss. She has a baby, and Cullen stays at her house with the sitter. He goes to bed there, and I come there after work. We sleep there and then come home in the mornings.”

So, she was back at work.

“I see,” I replied. “How long have you been back to work?”

“Two weeks,” she said, walking toward the kitchen. “Do you want some coffee?”

“Yeah, that would be great.”

“What brings you here if not to tell me bad news?” she asked.

She was back to working topless in front of dozens of men every night. I had come here to be around her. See if we might … hell, I wasn’t even sure. But was her job going to drive me crazy? If we spent time together, wouldn’t I have to deal with that too? I didn’t know, but I did know I couldn’t get her out of my head.

“I wanted to see you,” I admitted. Might as well be truthful.

She paused with a coffee cup in her hand and looked at me. “You did?” she asked with a confused look on her face.

“Yes, Bryn, I did,” I replied.

Cullen came running back into the kitchen, wearing a Spider-Man T-shirt and a pair of blue shorts. “I dressed myself too!” he announced with pride.

“Thank you, Cullen,” Bryn told him. “Why don’t you watch one of your movies while I talk to Rio?”

Cullen looked to be considering it, then turned to me. “You are staying to eat, right?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Okay,” he said, smiling, then turned and hurried to the television.

When he was settled on the sofa, Bryn placed a cup of coffee in front of me. “Maybe you could be a little clearer on the reason you wanted to see me,” she said in a softer voice so that Cullen didn’t hear.

I could tell her the truth, or I could make up an excuse. The first meant I had to be serious about this. Bryn wasn’t someone I could date casually. I had to accept her and her job. If I made up an excuse, then I would be in my shower again tonight, getting her out of my system—or at least trying.

“Because I can’t get you out of my head,” I said.

Her eyes widened, and she licked her bottom lip nervously. Damn, I was turned on that easily. There was a kid in the room, and I had no business getting a hard-on.

“Really?” she asked as if the fact that a man couldn’t stop thinking about her was hard to believe.

Did the woman look in the mirror?

I grinned. “Yeah, Bryn, really.”

Some of her hair hung loose from the messy bun she had it in, and she tucked a strand behind her ear. “Okay.” She let out a small laugh and blushed. “I’m sorry. I just, uh, wasn’t expecting that. I think I’m n-n-nervous now.”

“Want me to help you make breakfast? I’m real good at frying bacon,” I told her.

She licked her lips again, and I must have studied her lips a moment too long because her breathing picked up.

“Yeah, th-th-that would be n-nice,” she said with a small tremble to her voice.

“Good.” I went to the fridge to find the bacon and to stop thinking about her lips that she kept wetting.

“I was going to, uh … I m-m-mean, I thought I mi-mi-might do biscuits a-a-and gra-gravy,” she stammered out.

I set the bacon down and closed the space between us. Slipping a finger under her chin, I lifted her head to look up at me. “You’re stuttering. You don’t do that with other people. I don’t want to make you nervous, Bryn. It’s just me.”

She blushed and let out a small laugh. “I’ll try. If I concentrate on my words, I can control it.”

I looked down at her mouth and wished like hell we were alone. I’d thought about kissing her mouth since I had been a kid. When I finally did, I wasn’t going to do it with an audience.

“Th-th-at,” she sighed. “That makes it h-h-hard for me to con-con-concentrate,” she said softly.

“My looking at your mouth?” I asked.

She nodded her head.

“Good,” I replied.