They talked for hours the next week—late into the nights and on and off throughout the days. Gwen had been to Belfast on Tuesday, but Brody had been out with vendors that night, and with schedules tight, they hadn’t seen each other since their kiss. Maybe it was better that way, because that kiss was sticking with her. Popping into her head at inopportune times and leaving her staring into space with her fingertips pressed to her lips. Not something she needed Brody to see when the guy was just helping her out.
And not that she’d suddenly fallen for him or anything… She hadn’t.
Not really.
So the break hadn’t been the worst thing. At least not for the first few days, but now Gwen was ready to see her friend again. She was ready for those big, strong arms to pull her to his side and to see the smile on his face when he laughed, because hearing it through the phone simply wasn’t as good.
She missed her friend.
Unfortunately, before she got to see her friend and get her hugs and smiles and all the other good stuff, she had to get through this pre-wedding madness.
The club was fine. Spin Out was kind of a meat market, with its high-octane music blasting through speakers, smoke machines, strobe lights, and chrome. And while it was a fun place to hit once in a very rare while, Gwen preferred Belfast’s warmer, more welcoming vibe. The honeyed tones, glittering strung white lights, and pressed copperplate ceilings. The pub seating, Back Room, darts, and pool that always offered her and her friends a variety of entertainment as they hung out. But Bret and Claudia had met at Spin Out, so it was sentimental for them, hence the bachelor and bachelorette parties closing out the night together there.
But until the guys showed up, it was the usual shenanigans.
Glancing over her shoulder, she cringed at the sight of Claudia wearing a candy-covered T-shirt and offering some overeager stranger the opportunity to bite one off her ass for a dollar. The guy was making a big show of getting on his knees and wrapping his hands around her hips to steady himself or some such nonsense while he took his time pulling the candy free. Claudia loved it, along with most of the girls there, but out of every part of the wedding, including sorting the seating chart for divorced families, the bachelorette party was Gwen’s least favorite.
Pulling out her phone, she texted Brody.
Gwen: How’s the gentlemen’s club? Are you going to need a Lysol spray-down after you leave?
She’d figured she wouldn’t hear back from him right away, considering he was probably in a place as loud and distracting as this one. Who was she kidding? The distractions Brody was facing were probably of the double-D variety and, she was guessing, with little to no coverage.
More than that, she imagined those distractions would be in his face. Not that it was any of her business or that she had the smallest right, but the idea of women from the club wanting to touch him—as women everywhere else seemed to—was putting her on edge.
The phone vibrated in her hand, and she grinned.
Brody: Counting down the minutes until we get out of here. No Lysol required. I know better than to sit down in one of these places, and the girls know better than to waste their time with me.
Gwen: Not into the dancers?
Brody: Call me old-fashioned, but if a woman is going to “dance” for me, I sure as hell don’t want fifty other guys getting hard watching her do it. Private type.
Gwen: Says the guy who practically dragged me down the alley to make sure we got caught kissing.
Brody: There’s a difference. You’re not mine.
Right. Of course not. It was stupid that she’d phrased it that way. She should have made sure he knew she knew that, because now… What if he thought she didn’t know?
Brody: If you were, things would have been different… And no way would I have let some other man walk you home after.
A smile that didn’t quite make sense curved her lips. She wasn’t his, and that’s not how he’d felt, but still, there was something about the idea of Brody being the private, possessive type that appealed to her on a level she couldn’t quite account for. She was about to respond when Tina caught her with an exaggerated hip bump.
The petite brunette had been throwing shots back like water since about an hour before they’d gone out, but somehow, she barely looked affected. Dancing in place, she asked, “What are you doing all the way over here, all by your lonesome?”
Gwen fanned her face with her hand. “Just taking a breather.”
“Really? Because we were kind of thinking it looked like you were on your phone.” She giggled, cupping her hand around her mouth, and then whisper-yelled, “And we want to know who you were texting with.”
Another look back to where a handful of girls from the party were congregated, and Gwen saw all of them watching her with grins as wide as Tina’s. Busted. Holding up the phone, she wiggled it in the air and mouthed over the heavy beat of the music, “Brody.”
A round of cheers erupted from the girls, and then they were bouncing over toward her, the questions coming rapid-fire.
“Oh my God, that is so freaking cute.”
“You guys are adorable.”
“You’re so lucky, because he is, like, inferno hot.”
“How did you guys hook up?”
“Oh my God, yes! Tell, tell, tell!”
Gwen took a step back, laughing as her hands came up in front of her. “Whoa, take it easy. This is Claudia’s night. She’s the one we want to hear from, right?”
But then Claudia was right there with them, half the candy missing from her shirt as she shook her head like Gwen was out of her mind. “Not a chance. Come on, spill it, Gwen. Details!”
This was the conversation Brody had been talking about when he’d asked her for her list. Was there anything the guy couldn’t foresee?
“Here’s the thing, girls. I’m not sure what’s going on with Brody. I mean, there’s something, but it’s still really new.”
“Yeah, yeah, we get it. Not at the planning-the-wedding stage. Disclaimer accepted,” Tina offered, going to her toes as she tried to flag a passing waitress.
Claudia was rolling her hand in the signal for more information. “Come on already. The boys are going to be here pretty soon, and I’ve got more dollars to earn before they do. So spill. What got you thinking Brody?”
Giving in, Gwen grinned. “First, he’s just an incredible guy,” she answered honestly, her grin stretching to stupid proportions, because it was absolutely true and she loved saying it out loud. “He’s got a heart even bigger than all those huge muscles, and seriously, the way he makes me laugh…” She closed her eyes, getting lost in all the outrageous things he’d done and said solely to get a rise out of her. “Honestly, he kind of snuck up on me. We were friends, and then all of the sudden, I found myself thinking about him when we weren’t together.” When she was at work and the kids said something adorable, while she was waiting at her L stop. Before she fell asleep at night. Every time she thought about the snow.
“And then I started wondering what he was up to. Looking forward to the next time I’d run into him. Hoping it would be soon.”
Claudia was shaking her head. “I love that you feel like Brody snuck up on you.”
Gwen bit her lip. “I know…pretty funny, considering the man’s not exactly hard to miss.” It was more than his build or his looks. There was just something about him that drew the attention of nearly everyone in a room.
Tina leaned in, clutching her hands together. “Okay, so it started all stealthy. But when did you notice things had changed? That maybe you weren’t exactly looking at him like a friend?”
The answer was on Gwen’s tongue before she’d thought about it. “He laughed. That’s what it was. We were talking on the phone over Thanksgiving, and I was lying back in my bed. My eyes were closed. And suddenly, he was laughing about something we were talking about, and that sound…” She pulled in a deep breath and shook her head, remembering the impact of that laugh the first time she really heard it. The first time she’d been listening enough to recognize how amazing it was. “It was this low, rumbling, rich sound in my ear, and I felt it all the way through me.” She peered up from one girl to the next. “You know what I mean?”
Claudia was nodding enthusiastically, a starry look in her eyes. “I do.”
If she’d been lying about any of what she’d just said, she might have been able to deny it a little longer. But she hadn’t been. So fine. She’d developed a small but legitimate crush on the man who was helping her out. Big deal. Brody didn’t have to know, and even if he found out, she was guessing he was used to anyone who spent more than five minutes with him developing at least a little crush.
Besides, it wasn’t like she thought anything would come of it.
“That’s really sweet,” Tina said, elbowing the blissed-out bride-to-be out of the way. “But, Gwen, who cares about his laugh? The only thing I want to hear about is whether you’ve test-driven that criminally hot mouth of his…or anything else.”
Everyone’s focus went laser sharp as they crowded in.
“God, yes. Tell us about his mouth.”
* * *
By the time they spilled out of the party bus at Spin Out, Brody was pretty sure most of the guys were going to be hating life the next day. Some more than others.
Bret elbowed Brody and nodded over to where Ted was trying to fish his phone out of his pocket—but his hand kept missing, and the confusion just kept getting worse.
“He’s more fucked up than me,” Bret grunted with a shake of his head. “Something’s off. Tried talking to him about it, but he clammed up.”
Based on the handful of times Brody had caught Ted giving him the side-eye throughout the night, he had a pretty good idea what the problem was. Prick.
It didn’t surprise him Ted hadn’t wanted to confide in Bret. While Ted was in the wedding party, that had more to do with Bret not having much family and needing to even out the lines than the two men being particularly close.
“Don’t worry about him. Just have fun.” Brody clapped Bret on the shoulder, urging him up to the club entrance where he gave their names to the bouncer. A minute later, they were being led up to a VIP area where the bride’s party was already waiting.
Gwen was standing by the private balcony that overlooked the dance floor. The girls were all wearing black dresses, mostly the kind that were tight and left less to the imagination than if they’d been wearing nothing at all. He had a deep and abiding affection for those dresses, but when he saw Gwen’s, his heart started to pound in a way he couldn’t remember happening before.
By comparison, her dress was conservative, with a skirt that flared to a few inches above her knees and a top that gathered across the chest and came together into a halter behind her neck. It was a dress that had his imagination working overtime, and in the best possible way. She was gorgeous. And with her hair pinned up like it was, showing off the smooth length of her neck, he could clearly see the hint of a smile playing on her lips as her thumbs blurred over her phone.
He wanted to know what that barely there smile was all about, and a second later, the vibration of his phone promised he would. A second after that, those whiskey eyes came up, finding his.
Damn, he liked the sight of that smile.
Then she was crossing the distance, meeting him halfway, and stepping easily beneath his outstretched arm for the hug that had become standard with them. The one he’d gotten hooked on like some kind of junkie and had been waiting to get again all week.
When she peered up at him from beneath her lashes, his heart started hammering, and it took everything he had to keep his hands where they were instead of letting them coast over the bare skin of her back, then lower to the cut of her waist and curve of her hip.
“Miss me?” she asked.
“More than I should.” He looked around and found Ted watching them from where he was holding up the wall. Someone had already gotten him another beer, and Brody didn’t like the look in those eyes. Signaling one of the other groomsmen, he pointed to Ted and mouthed “water.”
Then peering down into Gwen’s upturned face, he asked, “What do you say we get out of here for a few?”
She nodded, her smile going wider still. “Perfect.”
Taking her hand, he led her down the stairs and through the main part of the club. “Hope you don’t mind, but I promised the owner I’d stop for a drink. He’s a good guy. You’ll like him.”
Gwen shook her head, letting him guide her through the club to the back hall. “I’d love to meet him, but I would have been fine if you’d wanted a few minutes to catch up with him on your own.”
She might have been fine, but Brody wouldn’t have been. Not after he’d seen her. Not after he’d seen the way Ted was watching them.
“Call me selfish. I wanted my fix.” But then he knew he needed to tell her the rest. “But so you know, Ted’s had too much to drink tonight. It might be better if you give him a wide berth.”
She stopped walking and turned to look at him. “Is he okay?”
Of course, she’d be worried about Ted. She wouldn’t be Gwen if she wasn’t. “Yeah, but he’s going to feel it tomorrow. And I’d feel better if you stuck with me.”
Grant Wendel’s office was in the back of the club on the second floor, and when they arrived, the guy took one look at Gwen and let out a low whistle.
“Come on, man. Ever heard of ‘Nice to meet you’?” Brody demanded, giving Wendel a light jab in the shoulder while tucking Gwen closer beneath his other arm. To her credit, Gwen wasn’t fazed and, once proper introductions were made, seamlessly joined their conversation. With Christmas only a week away and the wedding on New Year’s, they talked about the usual things. Holiday plans and horror stories of weddings past. A half hour later, Wendel was in love, and Gwen was as oblivious as ever about how she’d affected the man.
They were passing the exit on their way back to the main part of the club when Gwen pulled Brody to a stop. “Hey, umm…one second.” She peered up at him with apologetic eyes. “You probably ought to know it’s been a bit of a feeding frenzy with the girls tonight. They’ve scented romance in the water, and when you get up there, they’re probably going to eat you alive.”
“That right?” Brody asked, not concerned at all.
She blew out a breath and rubbed the pointed toe of her high heel over a spot on the floor. “They’re relentless.”
Was that guilt he detected in her pretty eyes?
“Gwendolyn Sidney Danes, did you kiss and tell?”
Her neat white teeth bit into her bottom lip, and she glanced away. Definitely guilty.
“I held them off as long as I could. But they were determined.”
He had no doubt. But now he wanted to know what she’d said.
“At least tell me you were complimentary.” He was only half teasing and didn’t expect her to blush so hot, he could see it even under the club lighting.
“Gwen, that good?” he pressed, his ego inflating to monumental proportions. “Now you’ve got to tell me.”
Her mouth fell open in shock. “Brody!”
“What?” he asked, all innocence as she leaned back against the wall, covering her face with her hands. This was going to be good. “You’re going to have to tell me what you said.” He moved closer, bracing a hand at the wall above her head as he leaned in to speak into her ear. “You know, so we’re on the same page.”