“Hi.” She smiled against my lips and then sank back down on her heels. “How are you?”
“Suddenly hard,” I admitted, adjusting myself in my jeans while she watched.
“Fiend.”
“Yep.” I nodded eagerly.
“Darling.” Brody’s deep voice echoed from the stairwell leading to the private office upstairs as he walked down. “What are you doing here?”
“Hi,” She smiled up at him and gave him a much spicier kiss considering he was fresh and grease-free. “I wanted to talk to you two. Are you free?”
“No.” I nodded to the truck. “But for you, I’ll pretend I am.”
“C’mon,” Brody nodded back to the office, hollering to Tito, the apprentice who worked with us three days a week. “We’ll be right back.”
“Sure thing, Boss.” He called before going back to polishing the rims on a Chevelle we just rebuilt.
“What’s up?” Brody asked, shutting the door to the office behind us as we all sat down.
“I want to talk about Lex,” Hannah said and I could feel the trepidation in her body language and I instantly went on edge.
“What about?” Brody sat back in his chair, on edge like I was.
Hannah rubbed her palms up and down her thighs, “I asked for her permission to share this with you because I didn’t think she was comfortable talking about it, but I think it needs to be said. At least the cliff note version.”
“Hannah.” I implored her to get to the point.
“She admitted to me yesterday that she’s sexually attracted to both of you. Which I think we all knew.” Hannah smiled softly, but I felt like there was bad news still to come. “Lex’s never been with a man before. She’d never even kissed one before you,” She tilted her head to the side and dropped my gaze. “When she was thirteen, a stranger assaulted her. She confessed that her initial attraction was always toward women, but the assault led her to turn completely away from men. It’s why she built the alpha personality and fought to control of every aspect of her life.”
“To protect herself,” Brody uttered.
“Because she couldn’t back then,” I added.
“Exactly.” Hannah sighed, “But when she dropped that wall and told me the truth yesterday, she said she didn’t want to be alone anymore. She’s ready to jump in, but she’s scared.”
“Jesus.” I sighed, “How do we tread carefully when we don’t know her boundaries?”
“We let her be in control.” Brody mused, looking over at me. “Last night, she called for you. She invited you in.”
“That’s how.” Hannah nodded. “We listen, we watch, and we ask.”
Leaning back in my chair, I blew out a deep breath. “I don’t know how to do this.” Anxiety burned my gut as I imagined causing Lex undue harm. “I don’t want to do something wrong. There’s so much pressure.”
“What are you saying?” Brody snapped. “That she’s too damaged to try?”
“No!” I bit back and scowled at him. “I just don’t know how to treat her with kid gloves. I don’t know how to walk around on eggshells, afraid of fucking it all up.”
“Learn!” Brody stood up and pointed his finger at me. His anger came out of nowhere and took me back about ten steps. “I know you had a shiny, perfect life growing up and don’t know what the fuck trauma is, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. The least you can do is think with your brain instead of your cock while you’re around her for a while.”
“Dude.” I stood up, so he didn’t tower over me. “I’m not allowed to vocalize my fears in my relationship now?”
He scoffed and turned away from me. “Whatever. Just don’t fuck this up for Hannah.” He leaned down and gave her a chaste kiss before grabbing his leather jacket off the back of his office chair. “I have a meeting.”
And with that, he left in a huff.
“What did I just do?” Hannah whispered, and her eyes were wide as saucers and her skin as white as a ghost.
“Nothing.” I scooped her up and put her on my lap, potential grease stains be damned, and held her in my chair as we both calmed down from the entire bizarre situation.
“I just wanted you guys to know, so you weren’t too aggressive or pushy with her. Not yet.”
“I know.” Sighing, she rested her head on my chest and hugged me. “I’ll check back in with him later and maybe get to the bottom of it.”
“You’ll be gentle with him, right?” She looked up at me with those big green trusting eyes.
I snorted and rolled my eyes at her, “No, I’m going to beat him with a sock full of batteries.” She giggled and relaxed in my arms. “I’ll be as gentle with him as he needs me to be. But no more.”
“That’s fair. You always know exactly how to handle both of us and what we need.”
“I’m a gifted man.” I joked, already replaying the entire thing in my head, trying to figure out what exactly went wrong and what triggered him so badly.
Hours later, Brody’s bike roared back into the parking lot of the garage. It was well after closing time, but I still stayed because I knew he wouldn’t go home looking for a fight. He would come to the garage and I would wait for him.
Like I told Hannah, I would only be as gentle as he needed me to be. Because sometimes Brody needed to be put into his place and he knew I would do it, damaging nothing between us.
We were solid.