She shoved at his big, broad chest. Soft flannel over hard muscle. He didn’t move an inch. Dear God, that turned her on. She was well on the road to humiliating herself and needed to take a hard detour before she threw herself at his feet and begged him to take her hard and mean. Just this once.
“Back the fuck up, Brick. You’ve said your piece. I’ve said mine. I’ll just go back to pretending you don’t exist. And you can go back to wondering just how wet I get. Just how hard you’d have to work to get all the way inside me. How tight I’d squeeze you when I come.”
He pulled her hair hard and snarled something unintelligible, but she wasn’t about to be intimidated.
“For the rest of your life, you can comfort yourself that you’ll never know. Congratulations on your sky-high morals, Brick Callan.”
“Fuck.”
In one swift move, he swung her around and bent her over the desk. One hand gripped the back of her neck. The other rested on the curve of her ass, fingers flexing into her flesh.
Her thighs quaked with anticipation.
She wanted this. Wanted what he was fighting his instincts to do. She wanted to be the one to push him too far and to take everything he had to give.
The hand on her bottom vanished, and in her mind’s eye, she could see him hauling back, ready to strike. But the slap didn’t come. Tears, hot and suffocating, blurred her vision. If Brick couldn’t give this to her, she’d never have it.
What was so wrong with her that he couldn’t give her what they both wanted?
He was breathing like a stallion behind her. She wished for his chest at her back, belt buckle digging into her skin above the waistband of her jeans. But he made no move to touch her. To take her.
“Sorry, Brick. The only man who gets to slap this ass is the one who’s going to fuck me.”
Both hands tightened on her for a second. Just long enough to give her hope that he was finally going to let her win. That he was going to shove down her jeans and ride her right here until they both came.
She was so wet she was sure he could see it through her jeans. The denim was going to freeze to her crotch on the long, lonely walk home.
Carefully, as if she were made of glass, he removed his hands. He stepped around her, putting the desk between them. His thick, swollen cock strained behind his fly, hands clenched at his side.
At least this time, it was his breath that was ragged. It was a small, pointless victory.
Remi straightened away from the desk. She didn’t look at him as she tugged the hem of her sweater down. “That was your last chance, Brick. I hope you don’t regret it.”
He didn’t say a fucking word as she marched out of the office without a backward glance.
27
He was too lightheaded to take orders or make change. Small talk was impossible when his thoughts were filled with how close he’d come to losing his mind. He’d bent her over his desk. The threads of control that had once been so tightly wound were frayed to the breaking point.
“So. You and Remi, huh?”
At the mention of her name from his brother’s mouth, Brick flinched. “What?”
“You two just about committed arson with that little bonfire on her way out,” Spencer said, toying with the coaster.
“Fuck,” Brick muttered. The last thing he needed was word to get back to the chief that one of her sergeants practically dry-humped her daughter in public then yelled at her when she tried to leave. And then almost climbed over a dozen bodies to get to her when she flipped him off and stormed right on out the front door.
Remi Ford was bad for a man’s sanity.
“There are rules,” he pointed out to his brother.
Spencer smirked. “What good is having your own rules if they just keep you from doing what you want?”
“That’s exactly what rules are for,” Brick said dryly. The pulsing in his blood was still there. Adrenaline making him sweat. He was like a junkie who needed a hit.
“What rules specifically apply to this situation?” Spencer asked. “You’re both single adults living on an island within feet of each other. What’s the problem?”
“For one, she’s your ex-girlfriend,” Brick reminded him.
“That was a million years ago. That’s not a rule. That’s a fucking excuse, man.”
“It was not a million years ago. It was barely ten years ago. You don’t date your brother’s exes,” Brick insisted.
“Really? Would you care if I dated Audrey?”
“Audrey?”
“Your ex-wife,” Spencer said. “Would you have a problem with me dating her?”
Brick frowned, recalling a seventeen-year-old Remi predicting exactly that. “Do you want to date her?”
Spencer rolled his eyes. “Come on, man. We’re focusing on that rule-abiding stick you’ve got shoved up your ass.”
But it was there. That glimmer of interest in his little brother’s eyes.
How had he missed it? And had it been there for long? Had Spencer had feelings for Audrey when he’d… Fuck.
Brick turned his back on his brother, pretending to rearrange the bottles on the shelf behind him while trying to decide if he’d already committed the crime he’d been trying to avoid by marrying Audrey.
“You can’t avoid the question,” Spencer said behind him. “I’m coming home with you tonight, so you might as well just get it off your chest now.”
Brick turned back to him, a bottle of his favorite bourbon in hand. He poured them each two fingers. “No. I wouldn’t mind if you asked Audrey out.”
“Then I have no problem with you having sex or whatever you’d like to do with Remi,” Spencer said, as if it were the easiest decision in the world. “What’s the next rule?”
“I married her best friend. I can’t date my ex-wife’s best friend.” He’d stick with “date.” It was a tame word for all of the many, many things he longed to do to Remington Ford.
“From what I hear, they haven’t talked in years. Maybe since you married Audrey,” Spencer mused.
Brick wasn’t mentally ready to try to draw any parallels to that observation.
He’d fucked up marrying Audrey. He’d known that, but he was only now becoming aware of just how big of a fuck-up it had been.
“Still. It should be a conversation I have with Audrey first.”
These were his rules. The things he clung to when his sanity was threatened.
“Uh-huh. So does Audrey run her dates past you?” Spencer asked.
Brick shrugged and stared at the amber liquid in his glass. “I don’t know. But she’s not seeing anyone from here. And that’s the point.”
“What about two summers ago? She and Billy Pellingham had that hot and heavy fling for a week or two over the summer.” Spencer raised his glass to his smirking lips.
“She did?” Brick frowned, trying to remember. The summer two years ago, Remi had been in town for three long-ass weeks. He’d actually made up a fake fishing trip to get out of town for a weekend just to put some distance between them.
“Did she ask your permission?” Spencer pressed.
“No.”
“So why do you have to get a permission slip from her if you want to strip Remi naked and—”