Dirty Little Mistake (Dirty #2) (3 page)

Chapter Three

Ridley

My feet hit the pavement, smacking it rhythmically. 

Usually, each thud of my rubber-soled shoes pounding against the ground had a positive effect.  It drew my heart rate up and drove my emotions back a little further, easing the tension in my body and my mind.  At that moment, it wasn’t working.

I pressed harder, willing myself to feel less. 

The thump-pause-thump of my steps became a steady thump-thump-thump.  I sucked in breath after breath, relishing the way the air burned through my lungs. 

My pace increase
d even more, making one step melt straight into the next. 

Th-th-thuuump.

Blood pulsed through my body at double time and at last the roughness inside me began to dissipate.

I pushed my body to its limit, and I kept going until every muscle ached and I had no choice but to slow my feet and come to a
near stop.

I paced
on the path, staring up at the stars as I waited for my breathing to normalize. 

Just as it did, a poorly disguised sob carried through the air. 

I glanced up and down the path and saw no one.  I took a step forward.  The muffled sound came again. 

“Hello?” I called softly.

There was no reply.  I took a step in the direction from which I thought I heard the cry in the first place.

“Is someone there?”

There was a pause before the soft reply. “No.”

I recognized the feminine voice immediat
ely and it made my heart trip over its next beat. 

Turn around and walk away,
urged a voice in my head.

My body didn’t listen.  Her name popped out of my mouth automatically instead.

“Brenna?”

There was a long pause, and for a second I thought maybe I was going crazy.  Then her cautious answer carried through the bushes, punctuated by a hiccough.

“Yes?”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m f-f-fine,” she stuttered.

“It’s Ridley.”

“Okay.”

“From next door,” I clarified.

“I know who you are.”

“You want to talk?”

“No.”

I needed to walk away.
  Almost as badly as I needed to stay.  I took a step closer to the bushes.  I couldn’t see a damned thing.

“Are you
hiding
in there?”

“No. I don’t know. Sort of.”

“You want me to go away?”

I didn’t know if I wanted her to
say yes or no, but I was damned sure that either way, I couldn’t leave her sitting there in the dark crying.

When she replied, it was in a tone that might’ve been more convincing if it wa
sn’t so small and broken-sounding. “Yes. I want you to go away.”

“I’m coming in anyway.”

I pushed my way through the bushes, wondering why the hell I was doing it.  She told me to go.  Gave me my out.

I moved forward again and was rewarded with a solid tree branch in the face. 

Where is she?

“Marco?” I called.

I bit back a holler as I stumbled away from the branch but found myself trapped by a bramble bush.  I yanked myself out of it, tearing my t-shirt and my skin in the process, and getting my shorts stuck on the thorns instead.  I gritted my teeth.  I tried to maneuver my way completely free only to get my foot stuck in a root. 

“Fuuuuuuuu - ”
I yelled.

My drawn out swear word was cut short as I fell face first into a pile of bark mulch.

Soft hands closed over my arms.  I let Brenna pull me to my feet and guide me away from the floral onslaught.  She was dressed in pajamas and she looked vulnerable in a way that made my heart lurch. 

“Polo.” Her voice was as soft as her skin. 

She guided me to a worn-down tree stump, sat me down, and then knelt beside me.  She picked a few pieces of leaf and wood from my cheeks.

“Did you burn down a rain forest in your previous life, or what?”

“Hardly.”

“Then why does the plant-life seem to have such a hate-on for you?”

I leaned in and whispered, “I’m not sure. I’m afraid to make an assumption in case it’s wrong and they attack me again.”

I watched the corners of her eyes crinkle up in amusement and her lips purse temptingly while she tried to suppress a giggle.

I nudged her knee with mine. “It’s okay to laugh at my expense.”

“
Thanks.”

“Aren’t I so kind
?” I winked. 

She continued to pluck bits of bark mulch and twigs from my face.  I allowed myself a brief moment of indulgence as she did it.  Each time her hand came close to
my nose, I caught a whiff of her light, buttery – and oddly sexy – scent. 

Breakfast,
I thought absently.
She smells like the world’s best breakfast. Pancakes and syrup and whipped cream.

It only took a few seconds, though, before it all started to feel
too
good.  Blood rushed from every part of my body to
the
part of my body and I had to pull away.

I shuffled over on the stump a little, but it was too small to put any useful kind of space between us.  I was still hyper-aware of how close she was and I was torn between standing up and running away to persevere my sanity and turning and devouring her body to sate my libido.  I was leaning heavily toward the latter.

“Ridley?”

My name on her lips didn’t help.

I took a breath. “Brenna?”

“What are you doing out here?” she asked.

“What are
you
doing out here?” I countered.

“I asked you first.”

I smiled. “Yeah, but I was jogging along the path in plain sight. You’re the one skulking in the dark. Creepy has to yield to non-creepy.”

In
response, I heard a click, and the small clearing where we sat was illuminated by the soft glow of a flashlight.

“Now it’s not creepy,” she told me.

“Oh, it’s not?” I teased. “Sitting out here alone with a flashlight?”

“I’m not alone!” she protested.

I looked around pointedly. “You’re not?”

“Not anymore,
” she amended.

“Okay then. If it’s not creepy, what is it?”

“Romantic.”

Brenna’s face fell before she even finished saying the word.  Tears pooled in her eyes.

“Ah, shit,” I muttered and slung an arm over her shoulder.

She sunk straight into my chest like she belonged there.  Her body shook silently against mine and I stroked her back soothingly for a few achingly long minutes before she stopped crying.  The intoxicating smell of her seeped into me and I let it.  Happily. 

When she finally stilled, she didn’t sit up and her face stayed pressed against me as she murmured an apology.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she whispered.

I bit back an urge to tell her just how fucking perfect she seemed right at that moment and said instead, “Hey. You’ll be okay, Brenna.”

“I don’t think I will be,” she replied. “This is just too hard.”

“I’m going to kick myself later for asking this,” I said. “But are you having a problem with a guy?”

Her fingers took up a strand of her long hair and twirled it self-consciously.  As she twisted it up and released it and twisted it up again, her knuckles made a small circle just above my knee.

I swallowed. 

Twist.

Release.

Stroke.

Twist.

Release.

Stroke.

If her hand moved up any further up, she was going to find a different kind of hardness. 

“Do you know Ian very well?” she asked abruptly. “I mean, I know you guys live together, but are you friends, too?”

I pulled away. “Why?”

“Do you think he could like me?” she asked.

“Why wouldn’t he like you? You seem easy enough to like.
I
like you.”

She blushed a little. “I don’t mean in a friendly way.”

Not in a friendly way? Jesus.

Desire left me like air leaving a balloon and I drew my arm away from her shoulders. 

“Well?” she pressed, a sad little smile touching her lips.

“Before I answer, can I ask
you
something?”

“Sure.”

“Most of the girls who come after Ian can barely string a whole sentence together.” I paused, unsure how to say what I meant without sounding like both an asshole and a cheeseball.

I must’ve been silent a few seconds too long, because Brenna nudge
d my knee. “Ridley?”

“Mm hmm?”

“That wasn’t a question.”

I bumped her shoulder with mine in an attempt to cover the true emotions that rolled through me.

“Give me a chance to get there,” I teased. “I’m just wondering what an apparently smart girl like you want with a meathead like Ian?”

She looked up at me, eyes wide and serious. “Do I have to tell you?”

“Of course not. I just…” I ran my fingers through my hair. “How bad can it be?”

“Pretty bad.”

I forced another smile. “It hardly seems fair to drag a guy out in the woods, cry on his shoulder – literally – then not tell him why.”

“I didn’t drag you out here!” she protested.

“No?”

“I was already here when you came.”

“Are you saying I’m following you?”

“Are you purposely avoiding my question about Ian?”

“He’s my cousin.” I relented. “And I know him better than I want to.”

“And from what you know…Could he like me?”

I sighed. “What do you want me to say, Brenna?”

“Honestly? I want you to say that I’m as hot as every other little creampuff that’s rolled through his bed and that I stand a chance.”

I’d never heard such an apt description of the women in my cousin’s life before.  It might’ve been funny if she didn’t sound so serious.

A war waged itself inside of me.  I could tell her what I thought of her in relation to Ian and his creampuffs.  I could tell her that Ian didn’t deserve her and that even if he had her, he wouldn’t know what to do with her half as well as I would.

Of course, I’d sound like a crazy person.

She was looking at me so hopefully with that little bit of a tremor in her lower lip and the leftover tears in her eyes and I just couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t make her any
more sad than she already was.

“The thing is…I don’t think you’re much of a creampuff,” I said slowly.

“No?”

I shook my head. “Nope. You’re more of a quindim.”

“A what?”

“Exactly.”

“Explain,” she commanded.

“Do I have to?”
I teased with a grin.

“Well. You can’t just drag a girl out into the woods and call her names and not tell her why.”

My smile widened even further. “So that’s how it’s going to be?”

“Yes.”

I let out an exaggerated sigh and prepared to hand her a flip explanation.  What came out instead was the truth.

“When I was ten, my mom took me with her
on a trip. She was following some asshole around South America – bad habit of hers, by the way – and we wound up in Brazil, in some poorer neighbourhood and somehow we got separated. One second I was holding her hand, the next I wasn’t. I remember thinking I should stay in one place, like they tell you to do. Only it was midday and the streets were crowded with people and all of them looked dangerous to me. So I panicked and I ran. Who knows
where I thought I was going? I sure as hell didn’t.”

The words tumbled out, and in two minutes, I’d told her more about my life before my time in foster care than I had ever told anyone else.

“That must’ve been scary.” Brenna placed a gentle hand on my arm.

I met her eyes, then cleared my throat awkwardly. “Eventually, o
ne of the vendors took me in. While he had someone search for my mother, he fed me these little custards. They were the best damned thing I’d ever tasted. So a quindim…It’s a Brazilian dessert.”

A cute little frown creased her forehead. “And you think Ian would
like
quindim?”

“I know that asshole better than he knows himself, and I guarantee you he’d never want to eat anything else if he got a hold of a quindim. All he’d have to do is try it once.”