Page 72 of Whisper Of Attraction (Whisper Lake 3)

He really hoped that wasn’t the case or he would have to call the paramedics like he’d had to do when Izzy superglued on her favorite shirt so that their mom couldn’t make her take it off to wash it and she could wear it to preschool every day. Looking back, it was a pretty ingenious plan for a preschooler, but she still had faint scars on her shoulders from the toxic adhesive.

He tried different angles, including wrapping one arm around her waist to keep her in place and yanking the material. It was not going anywhere.

“If I pull any harder, I’ll rip it.”

“Riff it. Camp breaff.”

He wrapped his fingers around the edge of the material that was up by her hands and tore it apart and down, not stopping until the offending dress was pooled at her feet.

The second she was free, she gasped for air and he pulled her into his arms. Every muscle in his body was tense. He still had no idea what was going on, but he was just so happy she was safe.

He ran his hands through her hair and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. That’s when his body realized that he was holding a half-naked Brynn and it started to respond accordingly. Maybe he should care that his reaction was about to be noticeable as his pants grew snug, but he didn’t. Right now all he cared about was holding Brynn. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she assured him, nodding against his chest. “Just embarrassed.”

He leaned back so he could look down at her. “What happened?”

Her eyes lifted to him beneath dark, thick lashes. “I couldn’t sleep because I’ve been staying up every night working on the kids’ costumes, so I figured I might as well come here and work on the costumes for the play since I’ve fallen behind.”

“The costumes were amazing by the way.” Axel was blown away by Brynn’s talents and was wondering if there was anything this woman couldn’t do.

“Thanks.” She dipped her head shyly and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, causing his dick to jump beneath his zipper. “Anyway,” she reached up and tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “I had to do some alterations on Juliet’s dress and saw that Emmy is broken.”

“Emmy?”

“The dress form.”

Those were three words he understood, but put together in a sentence and she may as well have been speaking in French.

“It’s a mannequin that you use to make alterations.” She motioned to the left and he saw two halves of what looked like a cloth woman’s torso. “I named her Emmy after the movie,” She paused for a moment. “Mannequin.”

Axel smiled remembering picking that movie to rent from the video store because the cover was a guy leaning against a motorcycle, and he’d thought it looked cool. “That’s the one with the guy from Weekend at Bernie’s?”

“I would say that’s the one with Samantha from Sex and the City, but whatever.” She smiled and warmth spread through his chest. Totally clueless to what her smile did to him, she continued, “Anyway, I thought I could do the alterations while the dress was on me but I was wrong. I think I might be delirious from lack of sleep, because that was a horrible idea, but I thought it was genius. I was trying to get it off and I kept shimmying and it only made it worse. It was like one of those mesh finger traps. The more I fought it, the more stuck I got.”

“But you’re okay?” He felt himself tearing up as it sank in that she wasn’t in any danger, she was really fine and the adrenaline and shock of what he’d thought he was going to face started to wear off.

“I mean besides the mortification, yeah, I’m great,” she chuckled as she looked up at him.

When she saw his expression, and the shimmer of emotion in his eye, she reached her hand up and touched his face. As the tips of her fingers brushed his jaw she asked, “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

The tenderness in her touch overrode the part of his brain that had everyone on a need to know basis. He wasn’t sure if he’d always closed himself off as a protective mechanism or if it was just in his DNA, but he did know that he’d thought he’d always be that way. An island unto himself. And then she opened her front door and changed his life.

“I thought you were…” He didn’t finish that sentence, because to do so he’d have to tell her that he was here to protect her and he thought someone had found her. Which would open up a can of worms that needed to remain sealed. For now, anyway. “I’m glad you’re okay.” Even he recognized that his tone was flat and impersonal.

Brynn’s brow creased before she awkwardly moved away from him and started looking around at the ground around her. “I have clothes here. Somewhere. Why do I always seem to end up naked around you?”

“I’m not complaining.” His voice was rough with desire.

“Ha, ha, ha,” she pretended to laugh nervously, as if she wasn’t sure if he was serious or not.

For some reason seeing it made him need to tell her just how serious it was.

“If it were up to me, you’d be naked every time we were alone.” Fuck. He’d really just said that out loud.

And boy, did it get her attention. Her head popped up and the look of somber vulnerability that he saw in her eyes tore his heart out. “So then why do you avoid being alone with me?”

Damn. He loved that she said exactly what she was thinking. There were no games with Brynn. She called him out. She thought they were going to kiss and when they didn’t she confronted him. She wanted to know why he avoided being alone with her and so she asked. He knew that she deserved the same from him, but he couldn’t do that without revealing too much.

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