Chasing His Brother's Bride
Chasing His Brother’s Bride – Chapter 28

Jolie’s eyes fluttered shut as his lips tentatively touched hers. Gingerly as if worried she would freeze and panic with the intimate touch, he tugged her closer to him. His one hand was still on her waist, his fingers lightly holding her. His nose brushed hers as he slanted his head sideways and kissed her mouth tenderly.

Her senses were on overdrive. All of them. She could smell the aftershave he’d put on this morning and the hint of coffee clinging to his lips. He tasted of the bitter dregs of the caffeine he probably had only sipped a few times during the entire day. His heart beat a steady rhythm under her palm placed on his chest and she could hear the rush of her own b***d from the crazy thundering her heart was making.

His mouth moved over hers as she sighed leaning into him. She felt tense and on edge as his tongue traced the contours of her lips and she could feel a moment of panic singe along her skin when he licked his way past her teeth. He was deepening their k**s, his tongue tangling with hers and for a nanosecond she considered pulling way. Then he g*****d when she stepped closer.

The almost throaty growl escaping his chest should have made her nervous with its predatory tone, yet she shivered with excitement and let her tongue taste him the way he was tasting of her. Her palms slid up his solid pecs to his shoulders and they wrapped around his neck as he lifted her clear off the floor. Her body pressed to the length of his as he effortlessly held her to him. His k**s grew hungrier now, her fingers deep in the hair at his collar and his fingers gripping her a*s tightly.

His teeth nipped at her lower l*p and she responded with a m**n as he sucked her bottom l*p deep between his plush lips. She held on tight pressed to his torso as he devoured her mouth.

He broke the k**s panting, his eyes closed and his forehead touching hers. A whispered curse left his lips as they both gasped for breath.

“Malik was right,” he whispered suddenly.

“About what?”

“He seemed to think I would enjoy kissing you.”

“And do you?”

“Very much,” he slowly put her on her feet.

She noted her body was dragged down a very overt e******n and she blinked with the knowledge, her body freezing in response. She closed her eyes as her breathing skipped. He was hard as a rock and the very real s****l response she was feeling had her gasp when her breathing started again.

He knew she’d felt him and he immediately distanced himself, “I’m sorry Jolie. I should have more restraint. I will –”

“Don’t apologize,” she couldn’t look at him if he was going to regret the best k**s she’d ever had in her life.

“I got carried away and I’m sorry for,”

She cut him off a second time. “You can say anything you want but if you ever again apologize for making me feel,” she waved at her body flippantly, “like this, I will never forgive you.”

She turned on her heel before he could say anything else and beelined for the door, ignoring Keely’s racing after her when she moved straight to the elevator.

“Jolie, I wanted to apologize –”

“No need, Keely. You were doing your job and doing it well. I have nothing but respect,” she shook her head as she punched the call button multiple times. She needed to get to her office and get her emotions under control. He regretted kissing her and felt bad about it. For the first time since before her body had been tainted, she had wet panties from a man’s attentions and he was regretting it. It made her want to cry in the angriest of ways.

She gave a huff of relief when she got into the elevator but then g*****d when Malik appeared out of nowhere and jumped in with her.

He frowned, “are you okay?”

“Fine.”

He hit the stop button on the elevator, trapping them between floors. “No. You are bright red in the face, breathing erratically and,” he leaned closer and sniffed her, “you smell like Brix’s aftershave. Did you know he has to shave at lunch time because he’s so full of testosterone his beard grows an inch a week?”

“I know he shaves multiple times a day. I spent an entire weekend with the pair of you in a hotel room.” She tried to slap his hand away from the stop button. “Malik,” she finally looked up at him, her eyes watering as she tried blinking to stop from crying. “Please. I want to go to my desk.”

He tilted her chin and noted the tears, wiping them with his thumb, “not until I know what he did to make you cry.”

She sniffed, “he kissed me.”

“You didn’t like it?”

“He apologized,” she sniffed, “said he got carried away and shouldn’t have done it.” She was staring at her shoes, embarrassment eating her alive.

“Aw, Jolie, sweetheart, I’m sure it wasn’t what he meant,” he hugged her tight to his chest.

She wrapped her arms around his middle sniffling. “I haven’t let a man near me in six years and I let him k**s me and he regretted it.” She almost wailed with the humiliation. “I’m so stupid.”

“No baby, you’re not stupid. You’re perfect. Perfetto,” he kissed the top of her head. “I am certain this is a misunderstanding.” He rubbed his hands over her back softly. “I cannot imagine anyone being able to k**s those beautiful pouty lips and regretting it.”

She heard his words and looked up to him frowning, “very funny.”

“Do I look like I am kidding?” he was serious as he studied her. “Jolie, you are very special. You have a strength about you which most people don’t have. You are so incredible and every minute I spend with you is one more minute my life is blessed. Brix feels it too. You are important to us. I was in his office when he told his mother he needs you in his life. Nobody has instincts like Brix does. Nobody. He’s never wrong on anything when he trusts his gut. It’s when he doesn’t trust himself, he has issues.”

“He said he regretted it. First real k**s I’ve had in years and he regrets it.”

Malik chuckled, “you want a k**s and it not be regretful, huh?”

She grimaced at his teasing. “Not funny.”

He cupped her cheek with his palm. She noted his eyes were brown, like Brix’s were, though shaped differently, and they were deep with flecks of amber in them. His lashes dark and short flicked up and down as he studied her facial expressions. Her eyes flicked to his lips and noted the tip of his tongue along the edge of his lips. She was hugging him tight because she’d been sulking and under his suit jacket, she could feel the muscles of his back twitching against her palms. She started to pull away from him but he held her close, his breathing shallower, his eyes fixed.

She closed her eyes feeling overwhelmed but when he touched his lips to hers, she shivered. He dragged his mouth, oh so gently, across her lips in the sweetest, most innocent k**s she had ever had. No tongue as he pressed his lips to hers. She was about to lose herself in the k**s when he ended it almost as soon as he started it.

When he lifted his head from the ten second peck, he met her eyes bluntly, “not a single regret.”

“Brix will be mad,” she said quietly as she stepped away from him. “He said upstairs loyalty above everything and we kissed.”

“No, he won’t,” he chuckled, “will it make you feel better to know I kissed him not ten minutes before you came to his office?”

She made huge eyes. “You did not. You’re screwing with me.”

“Am I?”

“On the mouth? The cheek? His ring?” she questioned as images of the two big burly men embracing.

He winked, “can’t k**s and tell now, can I?”

“You just did!”

“Fine,” he lowered his head to her ear as he pushed the start button. “He was about ready to tell Will to go f**k himself during his call. Will is a good man and a great stepdad but occasionally he pushes Brix’s buttons and Brix wants to put a bullet in his head. I distracted him from issuing the order.”

“How?”

“Kissed and groped him a bit. He is quite easy to distract.”

“And you’re not gay?”

“I have been around thousands of men, naked ones, multiple times in gyms, hospitals, and various other situations and not once has my d**k even twitched for any other man. None of them.”

“Is he gay?”

“Nope. I’m the only man he ever lets anywhere near him. I think it makes him hard to know he can make me beg.”

“So neither of you are gay but you both flirt around with each other. Never with any other guy, not even once?”

“Not once. If it’s a woman, it’s the opposite. I’ve met women who have made me nearly nut in my pants from a look. You are one of them.”

“Me?”

“Mm,” he was still whispering when he dropped an arm over her shoulder to escort her from the elevator to her desk, ignoring the questioning glances they were getting. “When you’re angry, you look ready to fight to the death. It’s sexy as f**k.” He stopped her at her desk, “get your coat as I need to get you home to Pia and Elio.” He turned to Opal, “hello Opal. How are you this afternoon?”

“Better than poor Jolie. The peanut gallery has been a nightmare today.” Opal tossed a look between them and jerked her head in the direction of the HR department.

He leaned against the glass partition and spoke raising his voice enough the eavesdroppers wouldn’t miss what he was saying, “really? A nightmare? I must say if Mr. Beckwith gets wind his fiancée is being treated with anything less than the respect, she deserves I won’t be sad when he orders me to escort them from the building with excessive force.” He rolled out his broad shoulders under his coat.

Opal gave him a once over. “You’re a giant.”

“It’s what makes me a good shield,” he smirked.

“But you’re not bullet proof,” Jolie shoved him and he didn’t budge on his feet. She rolled her eyes and put her jacket on. “I’m leaving. Mordecai is on the call with the bank. He told me I could go early today once the report I had was done. It’s in his email. I have to go meet Elio. It seems he took Pia out of school for lunch and didn’t bring her back because she complained about the boy, she punched out last week.”

Opal laughed at her, “hey. Do you know how much I would love it if my ex’s family even showed an ounce of interest in Axl? I’d be thrilled if one of them took him for lunch and then spent the day with him. Though as I’m saying it out loud, no, I wouldn’t like it because they’re all homophobic assholes who need to be buried alive for the cruel things, they’ve said to him.” She looked away as she considered it. “Yeah, I change my mind. f**k them all. I wouldn’t want them to pay him more attention than they already do.”

Malik leaned over Opal’s desk and put his card down, “if ever, and I mean ever, one of them disrespects your son in such a way again, you call me and I will personally straighten them out. If Axl wants to learn self defence, you call me and I will set it up. You took care of her,” he pointed to Jolie, “and made her feel safe enough she confided in you. We are in your debt, Opal. Any friend of Jolie’s automatically is a friend of the Cacciola family. You call that number any time.”

Opal blinked as the big man spoke as if he was making a solemn vow to her and then nodded sliding the card off the desk and into her drawer. Jolie couldn’t fight the big smirk on her face as she exited the glassed off partition of their office space. Opal was impressed and she didn’t normally impress easily. It made her chuckle. She patted Malik’s shoulder, “come on tough guy. Let’s go rescue Nonno from Pia. I’m sure by now she’s drained his bank account with purchases of stuffies and frilly dresses.”

“He sent me the photo of the playground she picked out for the backyard. The boys are going to be busy installing it. It’s huge,” Malik kept his hand to her low back. As they approached the elevator again, he paused near Mavis’ desk with an easygoing smile on his face. “Mavis. You met with Mr. Beckwith this morning?”

“Yes, Mr. Norman.” She nodded smiling broadly and addressing him by the name which he’d signed to the emails he’d sent out earlier in the day surrounding new security protocol. She batted her eyelashes flirtatiously.

Malik’s smile dropped. “I am certain part of those conversations involved the rules he expects to be followed. One of those rules was on gossiping and you were also requested to sign off on the electronic monitoring policy. I personally have been monitoring the departments emails and messaging applications to review for contract violations.” He held her startled gaze. “When the boss takes over a new venture, he tends to give me three to four departments to monitor in depth because he feels they are the ones we need to ensure understand the dynamics of BrixWith Holdings. This department,” he waved around her and the other HR representatives, “was flagged as one of interest to him and he asked me to survey the lot of you. Imagine how he’s going to feel when I put the conversation you and Celia had online this afternoon, on his desk first thing tomorrow morning. Also, if you feel inclined to call me a snitch for giving him the very explicit details of your conversations, don’t be so chicken s**t to do it with a candy bar the way I saw you do to Jolie earlier on the cameras. Balls up and come see me in my office. Nobody likes a coward.”

She gasped and blinked, her face pale with his not-so-subtle threat.

He straightened and winked to Jolie, “Ms. Haversham, shall we?”

“Of course, Mr. Norman.” She was struggling not to laugh in Mavis’ face.

The elevator doors opened and Brix was in the elevator ready to step out. He frowned, “told you to wait for me here.”

Malik winked, “I was bringing her back up to you. Thought we could all go together.”

Brix held his hand out and she stepped away from Malik into the elevator and took Brix’s hand.

When the doors closed and it was the three of them in the elevator, Brix chuckled at her nervous twitching.

“Why are you laughing?”

“You look like the kid who got caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Did you like the little k**s Malik gave you in here on the way down?”

She flicked a startled gaze to him and then over to Malik who appeared nonplussed by the question.

“How?”

Brix pointed to a tiny black circle in the ceiling grate, “goes straight to my office. I see everything on my monitor. More people gossip in elevators than anywhere. It’s how Malik weeds out the bad apples. I watched him k**s you. For the record, I didn’t regret kissing you. I regretted letting you see how f*****g hard you made my d**k when you aren’t ready.”

“Oh.”

“I underestimated how responsive you are and I do not want to rush you into anything, Jolie. We’re moving very fast and I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage. Everything we do, all it, must be with express consent.” He kissed the top of her head. “As for kissing Malik, I don’t care if you’re shoving tongues down each other’s throats but no s*x unless I’m in the room. You’re to be my wife, Jolie and I would never want to share you with anyone else. However, Malik is my exception to every rule, including you, unless it isn’t what you want. I think though, you replace us equally attractive.”

She couldn’t deny it and gave a curt nod.

“If you want to make us a closed throuple, as he calls it, I’m fine with it but I mean it. No s*x without me. No penetration unless I am part of it until we are all completely comfortable with each other. Understood?”

She swallowed and nodded, shocked not even nearly an accurate descriptor for her feelings. She was truly going to get both of them? Was this what she really wanted? “Yes.”

“Good. I want this too. Malik?”

“I’ve never wanted anything more in my life,” he lifted her fingers and kissed her knuckles softly. “Thank you, Jolie.”

The doors opened with a loud ping to the glassed lobby and the two men, each with one hand on her low back escorted her through and towards the waiting SUV.

As she sat snugly between the two men in the back seat, each of them holding one of her hands, she felt more sexually aware and more terrified than she’d ever been in her life. What had she agreed to?