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There was only one way to respond that made any sense. Lifting her chin to reclaim her dignity, she turned to get into the truck.
He shifted behind her as she stepped onto the running board. She intended to rest a hand on his ready arm, but her palm landed on his chest instead. She stopped, one foot still on the pavement, and looked up at him.
Some of those co-eds were passing on the sidewalk, chattering. Girls with shiny hair and bright eyes, and majors that didn’t suck up every second of their lives. Les curled her fingers over the placket of the flannel, against a smooth button. Another denial—that she did it to send an ownership message to their ogling faces.
The man really was a wall. Most would assume he’d acquired his nickname on the football team, but he’d been called Brick by his family even before then. He’d lived up to the name, getting broader and more solid after he left behind high school and college to embrace full manhood.
He put a hand over hers, holding it between his palm and the thump of his heart. Doctor’s habit, tracking the beat. It was healthy, no skip. “What is this, Brick?” she asked.
“I’ll tell you in a minute. How hungry are you?”
She didn’t think about hunger. She ate when needed. But a meal eaten in a restaurant, without her tablet open to a medical textbook, a stylus in her free hand to mark paragraphs, held appeal. “I can eat. Just, seriously, it better not be anywhere fancy, or they’ll throw me out.”
“This is my very favorite look for a woman.” His gaze skimmed over her. “Working hard on what matters to her, and it shows. She’s not worried if her hair’s a little messy and she’s wearing mismatched socks.”
Her attention flew to her feet. She shot him a glare as he chuckled. “Made you look,” he said.
She shoved at him, and suddenly they were on an easier footing, even if it seemed he’d followed her lead and was teasing her the way he would have when she was younger.
“If you feel more comfortable getting cleaned up and changed, I can wait. But I’m telling you, you look and smell”—he leaned in, exaggerating a deep inhale of her hair that made her chuckle, even as it was distracting as hell—“fine, to me.”
“No, I’m good.” Though she’d dearly love to put on something that would make her look like a date, every minute with him would be borrowed time. She’d be up studying past midnight to make it up.
A reminder it was best to stay in scrubs, and in this mode. Just a casual visit, something she’d tell her mom about on the next phone call. Brick stopped by. Elaine would tell Brick’s mother, because they’d stayed in contact. They’d talk about what a good boy he was, checking on Elaine’s daughter.
Brick handed her up into the truck and closed the door. She watched him circle around the front. The man had a blatant sexuality, as if he was built to command a woman into his bed and then give her so much pleasure, she couldn’t find the strength to leave it.
Hell. On a normal day, sexual desire accommodated her by staying dormant, not trying to boil over to upset the pot lid clamped over her life. But her own word choice, command, bumped things up several notches.
During her senior undergraduate year, some of her classmates at a nearby lunch table had giggled over a popular book with bondage in it. Beulah teased Les about being a small-town Catholic girl, not as comfortable with bawdy humor. Some of that was true. But she was also afraid if she indulged in it, she’d let the truth slip.
What those classmates viewed with light-hearted curiosity took her into dark and mysterious places, filled with a yearning a giggle couldn’t mask. They’d left the book on the table, to shock the next person. Resisting the urge to tuck it into her backpack had been like resisting her mother’s peach cobbler, fresh out of the oven.
Brick, with his authoritative presence and the threat to spank her, had the juices bubbling around the melt-in-your-mouth flaky crust. She needed to find a way to turn down the heat. If she didn’t have time for casual sex, she definitely didn’t have time to delve into that kind of dessert.
Brick got into the truck. With his size, she’d have expected him to rock the metal body with the settling of his weight in the seat, but his grace was always surprising.
It had added to his skill as a football player, and as a firefighter. She’d watched him scale up a ladder to sound a roof at a residence fire, making sure it was stable for him and the other firefighters to use their hooks to tear open a hole and vent the flames.
During her middle school years, when he’d joined the fire department, she learned a lot about firefighting.
In their small community, people gathered to help in a crisis, as well as to see what was going on. So no one had questioned one young girl sitting on her bike watching, though her eyes remained glued to the figure with the number 285 on his helmet and jacket. Her heart had pounded, the creases of her hands damp, as she prayed to keep him safe.
When Brick leaned toward her now, she wouldn’t have been surprised if he tried to put her seatbelt on her like she was still that twelve-year-old girl. Instead, he crooked an arm around her neck, another circling her waist. In one smooth motion, he brought her across the seat to him, the console against her hip as he put his mouth on hers.
That did surprise her.
A few weeks ago, there’d been a cold snap here, temperatures dropping down to the twenties. When she stepped into the warmth of the condo, the contrast was so welcome and extreme, she had gone still, absorbing the sensations. This was like that. Her eyes closed at the strength of his grip, the first rasp of his jaw against her tender flesh. The dual soft and firm texture of his lips, experienced through full, exploratory touch.
Hard and deep he kissed her, hand moving from her neck so he could cup her head, fingers tangling in the messy bun of her hair. She’d stuck two ballpoint pens into the twisty part, an extra if she needed it. She was distantly aware of the clatter as he plucked them free and dropped them into the cupholder. He pulled her hair down, the locks tumbling against her throat. His fingers followed, thumb along her jaw, her cheek.
When he drew back, he pressed his lips together, taking in her taste. She stared up at him.
He'd kissed her thoroughly, in a way she’d never experienced. Not even from Bart, her undergrad fiancé, who’d taught her that first sex wasn’t really love.
But firsts mattered, and this was her and Brick’s first kiss. A really fucking fabulous, ground-quaking, first kiss.
“You have my gum,” she managed.
