The Brody Bunch Collection: Bad Boy Romance Page 8

  I glanced down at the penguin in my arms, the one I was clutching to my chest like a shield. So Wyatt had found out about that? I supposed it made sense that Reid was irritated with Wyatt for needling him about it.

  Still, there must have been some nuance I was missing, because the veins in Reid’s neck were beginning to bulge. He couldn’t be that mad about a simple question. Could he?

  “Nah,” Wyatt said, raking his self-assured gaze over me before turning back to Reid. “I’m talking about this other game. One we’ve all been playing. Wanna hear the rules?”

  “She does not,” Reid answered before I could say anything myself. I frowned at him.

  “I can speak for myself.”

  Reid stared at me a moment, lips parted in surprise. Then he set his jaw. “Sure you can, darlin’, but what me and Wyatt are talking about wouldn’t make sense to you. It’s… slang. An inside-joke kind of thing. You wouldn’t understand.”

  I raised a brow. “Inside of what?” I asked.

  Wyatt grinned and looked away. Reid tried to stifle his own smile. “That’s exactly it. You don’t get it, and by the time we explained, it wouldn’t even make sense anymore.” He reached for my hand. “Come on. I’ll get you some cotton candy—”

  I pulled out of Reid’s grasp, hard. “I’m not a child,” I said darkly, my heart hammering now for a different reason entirely. I felt a prickling heat in my chest and throat, working its way up my neck like a collar made of angry thorns. “And I’m not stupid, Reid. You don’t get to treat me like I’m either of those things just because things are done differently where I come from.”

  Reid sobered. Grabbing my hand again, he pulled me up against him, forcing me to look up into his eyes. “No, Sarah. You’re not stupid. And you’re not a child. And I told you before, anything you want to learn, I’ll teach you. Is that what you want me to do, darlin’? You want to play student and teacher, right here, right now?”

  I opened my mouth to answer him, then shut it firmly. Reid’s eyes kept darting to my lips, like at any moment he’d claim them with his own again. I’d enjoyed the kiss we’d shared up on the Ferris wheel, but here, in front of people—in front of Wyatt? It seemed… untoward. Lewd. The thought of it made me simultaneously uncomfortable and intrigued all at the same time.

  I ducked my head. This was overwhelming. We were moving so fast, and I got the feeling that if I gave Reid an inch, he’d take a mile. He was already pushing me past the boundaries I’d set for myself at lightning pace. I needed to put my foot down or I was going to end up in a situation where we both could get hurt. His desire to consume me was obvious, and it scared me a little.

  Okay, more than a little.

  “N-no,” I stammered, once again pulling away. Reid let me, his face wrenched in confusion. “Not here, Reid. This is too much. I think we should slow down a little.” Or maybe stop.

  “Sarah, look, I didn’t mean to upset you,” he began, his tone much softer and warmer than the way he’d growled at me before. “I say stupid shit sometimes. It wasn’t meant to hurt you–“

  “It’s not just that,” I admitted, fidgeting with my skirts. “It’s everything. It’s the lights and the sounds, and the smells and the people. It’s these unfamiliar surroundings, and everyone is a stranger to me in more than one way. It’s the man who grabbed me, and… yes, our kiss, but… you aren’t the only reason I need time to breathe, Reid. It’s so much more than that. And I hope you can respect that, because if you can’t, I imagine this will be our last time out together.”

  “Wait, someone grabbed you?” I had almost forgotten Wyatt was even here until he spoke. If I had thought about it, I wouldn’t have mentioned the kiss. I guess if he didn’t see us after all, then I just admitted to it anyway.

  “It was nothing,” I stammered, hoping his focus would be on that instead. “A misunderstanding.”

  Wyatt took a slow breath, staring between Reid and I, and I wondered what, exactly, was going through his head. Was he thinking about the disagreement we’d just had? About someone grabbing me? Or about the kiss I just revealed? Either way, any confidence I’d mustered began to wane and I lowered my head, avoiding both brothers’ gazes. I wasn’t ashamed of the ultimatum I’d just delivered to Reid, but I was afraid of its consequences, because deep down I really did want to see him again. I wanted to learn a little more about the world I’d been thrust into and his place in it. And deeper down still, I really, really wanted to kiss him some more.

  Just not now.

  Reid studied me for a moment, his brow furrowed, his gaze hard, as if just now really seeing me for the first time. I watched several expressions flash across his handsome face in quick succession, but most were veiled by his beard, making their nature almost impossible to read. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he gave a little nod and a shrug.

  “Well, you heard the lady,” he said to Wyatt. “Looks like we’re calling it a night. Why don’t we get something to eat before we go, huh? Something that’ll warm us up.”

  Wyatt nodded and left us, presumably to head back to find Beth. As I looked up at Reid, I felt dread coil tight in my stomach. I wasn’t sure what this concession meant. Was he ready to let me go? That kiss had felt so passionate. So real. Like there could be something more behind it. Like things between us might… evolve. I knew it was silly to think so far ahead, to begin imagining life with an English man, but it was in my breeding. Amish girls weren’t raised to date around, Hannah’s track record notwithstanding. I couldn’t just betray the expectations I’d been brought up on, but I had to keep in mind that Reid probably had no such scruples holding him back. I had to stay realistic, or I was going to get hurt.

  “Does that mean… it’s over?” I asked him warily. “That you’ve decided we won’t see each other again?”

  “Well, darlin’,” Reid said, slipping his hands into his pockets, “after the way tonight went, that’s kinda up to you, isn’t it?”

  We walked side-by-side toward the far end of the fairgrounds, and I held my penguin close, thinking of what Reid had just said. Was it really up to me? If so, what would I choose? What was it that I really wanted?

  Unfortunately for the both of us… I really had no idea.

  11

  Reid

  What. The. Fuck?

  This was not going according to plan. Shit. I’d thought I’d had this all figured out. I’d thought the second I felt Sarah’s lips on mine, I had the bet in the bag… among other things. What had I done wrong? I’d shown her a good time, hadn’t I?

  No. This wasn’t my fault. This was Wyatt’s. Goddamn him.

  He just had to show up at the Ferris wheel and be a dick. Just had to make me say something stupid to Sarah to cover up the fact we were openly talking about the bet we’d made about her—and her sisters. He’d sabotaged me, the little fuck. I wasn’t sure whether I ought to be proud of him, or if I should’ve prepared myself to wring his fucking neck once we hit the parking lot. In the end, I settled for a little bit of both.

  After all, I knew how to play dirty, too. And had I been in Wyatt’s position, I probably would’ve made the same call. Only I would have gone for the jugular—that boy was still too young and too soft. But that meant I still had a chance with Sarah, and a chance of winning this bet.

  Maybe.

  Sarah and I hit the food trucks lined up alongside the far end of the fairgrounds. They came in all sizes and varieties, but mostly primary colors. There was a truck devoted to soups and sandwiches, one to burgers and fries, a Tex-Mex deal, and a few others that seemed to specialize entirely in sweets. I pulled out my wallet and sauntered up to the Tex-Mex truck, ordered some street nachos, and hooked Sarah up with some regular tacos—I figured that was the safest thing on the menu I could expose her to.

  She’d already been exposed to too much tonight, apparently. And even if it put a damper on my plans, I understood. For her, the real world was like a foreign country—she barely even spoke the damn language.
Clearly, she felt completely out of place, and I had no doubt the events that had transpired this evening had made her feel even less comfortable. Sure, she’d enjoyed the kiss—I could tell—but it was bookended by Wyatt’s bullshit on one side and that grabby asshole on the other.

  What was up with that guy, anyway? I’d told myself he was some pervert trying to cop a feel, but the more I thought about it, the more it looked like he was trying to… abduct her. That was one hell of a ballsy move, there in the middle of a crowd. Still, he’d almost gotten away with it.

  But if that was true, what did he want with her? What, exactly, had I protected her from this evening? Was there something she wasn’t telling me? I hadn’t known Sarah long, but one thing was clear: she wasn’t a liar.

  As I handed Sarah her basket of tacos and we settled into one of the picnic-style tables near the trucks, I watched her innocently inspect the fare and shook my head in wonder. I had expected this evening to be such a simple one. Sarah didn’t exactly strike me as complicated. How had it all gone so sideways? Even before Wyatt opened his big mouth, I’d felt like there was something between Sarah and I that was more on the side of caution than attraction, a barricade I had yet to tear down. Was it her religion holding her back? Or was it just that she was a timid little virgin, giving into the fear that had no doubt been instilled in her from practically birth about what terrible things men could do to women?

  Sure, sex should be sinful—but only in the right ways. Not because some guy wrote a book that basically amounted to if it feels good, stop. After all, sex was what had gotten us all here, wasn’t it? Not that reproduction factored into my plans with Sarah. Well, not yet.

  Fuck, what the hell was I thinking? She had me all messed up, considering her priorities instead of mine. My only thought should have been how the hell I was going to see her again, how I could convince her to go on another date with me so I could score. So I could win this stupid bet and be done with these damn feelings and all the complicated shit that came with them.

  But then, was that what I actually wanted? I had to admit, it had felt good when Sarah grabbed my hand on the way down from the Ferris wheel, and when we’d kissed… well, she was inexperienced, sure, but… it was… nice. She tasted so pure. The meeting of our lips had left me feeling all warm and safe inside, like that was where I belonged—with her in my arms.

  How could I lure her back to me so I could hold her again? I’d left the matter of a second date up to her… but surely there was some way I could sway her opinion of me again. There had to be, because what I’d felt, the way I’d acted—so gentle, so unlike me—couldn’t have all been for nothing. I wasn’t ready to accept that.

  As I thought on it, I watched Sarah tentatively pick up one of the tacos and glance around at a few other patrons occupying the tables around us. She scanned them until she saw someone taking a bite of the same thing I’d ordered for her, then adjusted her grip on her food and slowly sank her teeth into one end. She lost quite a bit of lettuce and shredded cheese when she pulled away, but her eyes lit up when the cornucopia of flavors hit her tongue. Holding one hand over her mouth, she looked at me and said, “This is… this is really good!”

  I couldn’t help but smile. Shit, this was the Sarah I liked—the one who popped up any time it was just the two of us. Yeah, we were surrounded by people—most of them shoveling food into their faces—but they were all at a safe distance and I could see she was starting to come out of her shell again, just like she had at the top of the Ferris wheel.

  If I wanted a repeat experience of that magic moment, I was going to have to engineer a situation where we could be alone. But not too alone—I didn’t want to spook her that way, either. Someplace away from the sphere of influence our families posed, where we could both explore our desires without judgment. Somewhere we’d both be comfortable.

  I wasn’t sure where that place was, or if it even existed, but if it did, I’d damn sure find it. Because there was no way I was giving up on Sarah now. I should’ve been focused on winning this stupid bet—and part of me was—but I was way more interested in the things she made me feel. The things I knew I made her feel, too. And if I could kill two birds with one stone…

  I watched Sarah enjoy her tacos for a long time, the thrill of some new adventure plain as day upon her face. I hardly even touched my nachos, because suddenly, I wasn’t hungry for anything but her. For this simple Amish girl who was turning everything I thought I knew on its head already, even after just one date.

  When she was done, I collected our baskets and stood, smiling reassuringly at her. “C’mon, darlin’,” I said, reaching for her hand, “let’s find your sisters and get you home.”

  Sarah smiled. And suddenly, everything we’d dealt with tonight had been worth it.

  She took my hand. I noticed that in the other, she clutched that stupid penguin I’d had to shoot way too many wooden ducks for.

  And that made me smile, too.

  12

  Sarah

  “Morning, sunshine,” Hannah said as I shuffled down the hall toward her kitchen table. She raised an eyebrow when she saw my disheveled appearance. “Sleep well?”

  I hadn’t, in fact. Usually, I was a morning person. Force of habit, really—getting up at dawn was perfectly normal in our community. But I’d had an awful time getting to sleep after we’d come home from the fair, mostly because I was thinking about Reid and all the strange and wonderful things he’d made me feel—but there was something else, too.

  Rubbing my eyes, I sat down across from Hannah. “No,” I said. “How do you get any sleep at all with those lights outside your windows?”

  “The streetlamps?” she asked, and I nodded, staring longingly at her mug full of rich, dark coffee. Taking the hint, Hannah stood up and walked behind the kitchen counter to fetch me some. “Shit, that’s a blast from the past. I’d almost forgotten how much they freaked me out when I first got here. They’re different from candles and stars, huh?”

  She placed the mug down in front of me and I grasped it with both hands, warming myself. “Just a little.”

  Hannah brought over cream and sugar for me, which was disorienting in and of itself. Of course I’d seen store-bought sugar before, but we’d had fresh cream for as long as I could remember, and this carton of non-dairy liquid—how could cream be non-dairy, exactly? Didn’t it come from a cow?—smelled nothing like what I was used to. It didn’t taste like anything I’d ever had, either. I wrinkled my nose after taking a sip of my too-bitter coffee with the disconcerting aftertaste, but Hannah only spooned more sugar into the cup.

  “Was that the only thing that kept you up?” she asked me in that faux-innocent way she always did when she was fishing for something. It had always annoyed me as a girl. I’d never thought I would have come to miss it, but here I was, being annoyed by my sister after years of silence… and I was glad for it.

  “If you’re asking about my ‘date’ with Reid, then… yes. That was a factor.” I took another, wary sip and found the coffee a little more palatable. Still nothing like what we had at home, but at least there was caffeine in it. “Not in the way you might think, though.”

  Grinning, Hannah leaned her elbows on the table and set her chin between her palms. “Oh, really? Do tell.”

  I shook my head at her, but couldn’t stop my smile. “It… didn’t go as well as he’d hoped, I think. I was just so overwhelmed by everything around me, and it seemed like we were moving so fast, and… I panicked. I have a feeling I ruined his night.” I flinched, remembering the man who’d grabbed me and the violence Reid had endured trying to defend my honor. “He took a punch for me. Do you think I came off as ungrateful, after all that?” I had mentioned the incident with the man on our way home last night, but only because Hannah brought it up. Apparently Beth had already told her about it. Hannah seemed very concerned at first, but calmed down when I assured her it was nothing, and that Reid figured he was just a drunk trying to “cop a feel,” a te
rm that I had to have Hannah explain to me.

  Hannah shook her head. “Nah. Reid took a punch for you ‘cause he chose to. You can’t blame yourself for that. And you certainly don’t owe him anything, either—not for doing what’s right. Don’t ever let a man make you feel that way, Sarah. I mean it—because oh, they’ll try. They’ll make you feel like you’re this… undertaking and that the sun shines out of their ass, if they can. But we know better, don’t we? Say that you do.”

  I stared at her a moment, at her pleading eyes, trying to comprehend why this was so important to her. It was sound advice, to be sure, but why did Hannah sound so urgent? I nodded, and the tension in her face passed.

  “It isn’t just what happened with Reid that kept me up, though,” I continued. I was slowly getting accustomed to the coffee and taking more frequent sips as we talked. “I was thinking of other things about last night, too. Everything new I learned. Everything I didn’t, but wondered about. I’m still wondering—it’s all so new, so shiny, so… frightening, in a way. But even though I’m not completely comfortable with what I’ve experienced so far, I feel… curious about it, too. I want to know more about the English world, Hannah.” I blushed fiercely. “Does that make me a bad daughter?”

  She reached across the table and grasped my hand. “Hey. No. Of course not. What you’re feeling is perfectly natural—I experienced the same thing when I left home. This is your Rumspringa, Sarah. You’re entitled to explore. You shouldn’t let the hang-ups of our community hold you back from that.” Gently, she squeezed my fingers. “There’s so much about this place I know you’ll learn to love, if you just give it a chance. Immerse yourself. Leave the teachings behind.”