I watched him as he wandered around my room, clearly trying to put his thoughts together as much as I was trying to come to terms with the idea that Braden hadn’t moved on at all. But I still couldn’t understand why Ellie would hurt me like that. I also wondered when the hell she’d started getting so good at lying. She couldn’t lie for shit when I met her.
Oh.
My fault?
“I still don’t understand. I met Isla, buddy, she’s exactly your type, and she was definitely flirting with you.”
“Why do you care?” he grinned, running his hands along my bookshelf. “You said you don’t want—” he stopped, his body tense with a sudden alertness.
“What?”
He pulled at something on my bookshelf, his head bowed, and then he turned to me, eyes accusing. “Going somewhere?” He held up my e-ticket printout for my flight to Virginia.
My brain and emotions were still trying to decide whether this new information affected my plans, so my brain just said the first thing that was technically true. “I’m going home.”
I knew it was bad. I knew it was bad because Braden didn’t say anything. He seared me into my walls with a look I never wanted to see in his eyes again, and then he spun on his heel and slammed out of my room.
No argument. No discussion.
I wanted to cry again. Once I’d started down that path of giving into tears now after years of holding them back, there seemed to be no stopping them. My mouth trembled and I hugged my arms around my body to still the tremors running through the rest of me.
Ten minutes later I felt calm enough to make everyone coffee and take it into Ellie’s room. Braden sat in the corner and didn’t even look at me.
Suffice to say we created a horrible tension in Ellie’s bedroom. Everyone had heard us arguing and everyone had heard Braden nearly splinter the wood on my bedroom door when he slammed it on me. It was awkward.
Finally realizing his mood was poisoning Ellie’s triumphant return home, Braden got up, kissed her forehead, and told her he’d check in later. Ellie nodded, biting her lip in worry as she watched him walk out. She cut me a look and like a guilty school child, I quickly glanced away.
Elodie and Clark left soon after and I was just getting up to leave her and Adam alone when Ellie stopped me.
“What’s going on with you and Braden?”
“Ellie, I’m not dragging you into our drama when you’re still in recovery.”
“Is it about that tiny white lie I told you about Isla?”
I spun around, my eyebrow raised at Ellie’s shamefaced expression. “Yeah. I just found out about that.”
Ellie glanced at Adam who was frowning, clearly confused. “I did a bad thing.”
He nodded. “I’m getting that. What happened?”
“I told Joss that you and I had lunch with Isla and Braden and they were all over each other.”
Her boyfriend reared back just like Braden had. In fact I noticed the two of them had quite a lot of similar mannerisms. They spent far too much time together. “We never had lunch with them. We stopped in for two seconds at the club.”
“Okay this game isn’t fun anymore,” I snapped, forgetting I was snapping at a patient. “Why would you lie to me?”
Ellie’s eyes were all wide and pitiful. Girl could get herself out of murder she was so damn cute. “Braden told me that since getting in your face all the time wasn’t working, he’d come up with this stupid plan to back off and make you miss him so much you came back to him. I told him you were too stubborn to fall for it.”
Actually, I had been missing him. Bastard knew me too well. “Mmm,” I answered non-committedly.
“You were being really obstinate, Joss. I thought if I provoked your jealousy you’d get scared and go running off to get him back.” Her face was pale as she looked into Adam’s eyes. “It really backfired.”
“I can see that,” he murmured, trying not smile.
This was not funny!
“You are so lucky you just had brain surgery.”
Ellie winced. “Sorry, Joss.” Then her eyes turned hopeful. “I meant to tell you before the surgery but I was so scared that day I forgot. Now you know the truth though. You can just stop fighting and go get him back.”
It was my turn to sigh. “He’s mad at me now.”
“For not trusting him?”
“Something like that,” I mumbled, wondering what the hell I was going to do next.
“Am I forgiven?” Ellie asked quietly.
I rolled my eyes at the question. “Of course. Just . . . quit the matchmaking business. You suck at it.” I gave them a little forlorn wave and left the room, closing the door quietly behind them.
I sat down at my typewriter, staring at the latest page, trying to figure out what this meant to me now. Dr. Pritchard said I’d regret not being honest with Braden. And the truth is, all the things that I’d worried about—me not being good enough, Braden being so intense, what could happen to us in the future—seemed like small change after discovering a little taste of what it had felt like when I thought he didn’t love me.
I should talk to him.
I was still going to Virginia to face my family’s death.
But I should talk to him.
Wait a minute. I jerked around in my chair to look at the bookshelf where my ticket had been. It wasn’t there. And now that I thought about, I hadn’t seen Braden put it back.
Oh my God, he’d stolen my ticket!
My ire fuelled me into hyper energy. Intense! Braden intense? He was a freaking, overbearing asshole! I shoved my feet into my boots, shrugged into my coat, buttoning it up wrong and then screaming under my breath in exasperation. I grabbed my keys, my purse, and I attempted a little bit of calm when I told Adam and Ellie I was going out. They called okay back to me through the door and I slammed out of there, my hand in the air for a cab.
I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe. I mean, that took the cake. Stealing my plane ticket!
He was such a caveman!
I practically threw my cab fare at the driver and hopped out, running down the Quartermile to the entrance to his apartment. I knew I was on camera when I buzzed up, so I glared up into it, half-expecting him to not let me in.
He let me in.
It was longest elevator ride of my life.
I got out of it to find Braden standing at his door, looking casual and unaffected in his sweater, jeans and bare feet. He stepped back quickly to hold the door open for me as I stormed past him.
I spun around, almost losing my balance I had such an angry momentum going for me.
The idiot was smirking at me as he closed the door and strolled toward me into the sitting room.
“This isn’t funny,” I bit out, probably overreacting . . . but I was dealing with a whole mess of emotions that HE had put me through the last few weeks.
Okay, I maybe put myself through half of them but I was angry at me too, but I couldn’t have an argument with myself so HE was getting it!
The smirk dropped from Braden’s face, the scowl appearing. “I know it’s not bloody funny. Believe me.”
I stuck out my hand. “Give me my ticket back, Braden. I am not even kidding.”
He nodded, and pulled the ticket out of his back pocket. “This ticket?”
“Yes. Give it to me.”
Then he just shot me into volcanic rage.
Braden tore up my ticket, letting the pieces flutter to the floor. “What ticket?”
Despite the thought that was tucked somewhere in the back of my brain that told me I could print out another one . . . I lost it.
With an animalistic growl I didn’t even know I was capable of, I threw my body towards his, my hands out as I shoved at him with enough might to make him
stumble. Suddenly it was all there in my gut, the last six months of emotional upheaval, the dramatic changes he’d brought into my life—the uncertainty, the jealousy, the heartache. “I hate you!” I yelled, the words tumbling out of my mouth with a mind of their own. I spun away from him. “I was fine until you!” My eyes started to sting as I stared back at his stony face. “Why?” My voice broke, as the tears spilled down my cheeks. “I was fine. I was safe and I was fine. I’m broken, Braden. Stop trying to fix me and just let me be broken!”
He shook his head slowly, his own eyes bright, and I stood frozen as he came to me. I closed my eyes at his touch, his hands wrapping around my arms to tug me close to him.
“You are not broken.”
My eyelashes fluttered open and I stared up into his beautiful face, his anguished beautiful face. “Yes I am.”
He gave me an angry shake now. “No, you’re not.” He leaned his face into mine and I found myself caught in his pale blue eyes, mesmerized by the glitter of silver striations in them. “Jocelyn, you’re not broken, baby,” he whispered hoarsely, his eyes pleading with me. “You’ve got a few cracks in you, but we all have some.”
More tears spilled, my mouth trembling as I whispered back, “I don’t hate you.”
Our eyes locked, so much emotion, so much uncertainty, so much of everything had built up around us in this thick tension. The air felt charged, desperate. Braden’s expression changed, his eyes burned as they dropped to my mouth.
I couldn’t tell you who reached first, but seconds later my lips were crushed under his, and his hand was tugging almost painfully at my hair as he took out my clip to let the mass of it fall around my shoulders. And then I felt his tongue slide against mine, and could taste him, smell him, feel his strength all around me.
I missed him.
I missed how amazing it felt to make him laugh.
But I was still angry, and from the bruising kiss I wasn’t pulling away from, I felt how angry Braden was too. That didn’t stop us. We broke from the kiss for two seconds so Braden could pop the buttons on my coat and rip me out of it. I tugged at the hem of his sweater, my hands frantically chasing it off of him and then coming back to roam his hot hard chest and abs. I threw my body against his for another kiss, but Braden wasn’t done ridding me of clothes. Impatiently I pulled back to help him whip off my sweater, but I wasn’t waiting any longer after that.
My hands on his nape brought his head down to mine and I kissed him for all the days I hadn’t been kissing him. It was a desperate, sexual tangle of tongues and hot breath, my sex pulsing readily just from the wet hardness of that one kiss.
So into it, I barely felt Braden haul me none-too-gently against a wall, his mouth breaking from mine as he trailed kisses down my neck, his strong arms hooking under my thighs to wrap my legs around his waist. My body slid up the wall, his hard cock nudging against my crotch, jeans to jeans.
“Fuck,” Braden murmured hotly, his mouth dipping to the rise of my breast. He held me up with one hand on my backside, the other peeling my bra down, letting the cool air whisper across my nipple. It puckered up for Braden’s kiss and I gasped at the bolt of pleasure that shot between my legs as he sucked it into his mouth. I jerked my hips, rubbing against Braden’s erection.
“I can’t wait,” I breathed, gripping at his shoulders.
As if to test that, Braden unbuttoned my jeans and slid his hand inside my panties. I whimpered, pressing up against his fingers as they dipped inside of me.
“Christ.” His head fell against my chest as he slid them in and out. “So wet and tight, babe. Always.”
“Now,” I growled, my nails digging into his skin. “Braden.”
And then we were moving, me holding onto him as he turned us and brought us down onto the couch, his hands fast as he pulled back and tugged my jeans down my legs. I unhooked my bra as he returned for my panties, my foot giving a little flick to get them off of me. Panting with anticipation, my skin on fire, I fell onto my back, my legs parting for him. “Braden, now.”
He had stopped, frozen, as he looked down at me lying naked beneath him, my chest rising and falling with short, excited breaths, my hair spread out all around me. I watched his expression change, no less turned on, but softer somehow. He pressed a hand to my quivering belly, and he coast it gently up my stomach, between my breasts, to my jaw and he moved over me, his jeans abrading my bare legs. “Ask for it,” he whispered gruffly against my lips.
I glided my hand down between us, pulling down the zipper on his jeans. My fingers slid under his boxer briefs, curling around his dick. I tugged it out of his jeans and watched his eyes close, his breath stutter. “I want you to fuck me,” I gave a little lick at his lips that shot his eyes back open, blazing down at me. “Please.”
With the growl I had missed, Braden shucked his jeans down a little, and then wrapped his hand around mine so we both guided him between my legs. At the slightest brush of him against me I grew even wetter. I let go, my hands moving around to grasp his ass as he slid slowly into me. I squeezed his backside, urging him to go faster.
Which he did with pleasure.
“Harder,” I moaned. “Harder, Braden. Harder.”
Asking for it hard never failed to spur Braden on. He kissed me and then slammed home. Pleasure coiled tight in me his cock kissed me so deep, I threw my head back to cry out, my cries getting louder as he pounded delicious strokes into me. What he was doing to my insides, the sight of him straining above me, the sounds of our excited pants and groans and the wet, primal noise of sex, all of it surged me towards satisfaction and fast. I blew apart, screaming his name as I came. I came so hard, my sex pulsing around Braden, that I milked him into his own orgasm, his body tensing as it shot through him, his hips continuing to jerk him in and out, prolonging both our releases.
Best. Sex. Ever.
Braden groaned and collapsed against me. I stroked my hands against his ass soothingly before gliding them up his back to hold him close.
He turned his head against my neck and pressed a familiar kiss there.
“You still mad at me?” he murmured.
I sighed. “I was going home to do what I should have done eight years ago. I was going home to say goodbye to my family.”
Braden grew still and then he pulled back to gaze down into my face, his eyes full of remorse. “God, I’m so sorry, babe. About the ticket.”
I bit my lip. “I can reprint it. And . . . I was thinking about staying in Virginia permanently after Ellie is back on her feet.”
The remorse fled quickly. “Over my dead body.”
“Yeah, I thought you’d say that.”
He frowned. “I’m still inside you.”
“I can feel that.” I smiled, bemused.
“Well at least let me get out of you before you tell me you’re attempting to leave me.”
I leaned up and kissed his lips. “I don’t know if that’s what I’m doing yet.”
Used to everything not being straightforward with me, Braden exhaled slowly and withdrew from me. He tucked himself back into his jeans and he sat up, holding out his hand. Deciding to trust him, I let him pull me up to my feet, and followed him up the stairs to his room. He nodded at the bed. “Get in.”
Since I was naked and sated and really in no mood to argue, I scrambled across his bed to my side of it and got in. I watched with pleasure as Braden stripped down to nothing and got in beside me. I was immediately settled into his side, my head on his warm chest. “So what are you doing?”
That was some question. And where to begin?
“I had a really good family, Braden,” I told him softly, pain I’d been hiding for too long threaded in every word. Braden heard it and his hold on me tightened. “My mom was an orphan. She grew up in foster care here, and then moved to the States on a work visa. She was working
at the college campus library when she met my dad. They fell in love, they got married, and for a while they lived happily ever after. My parents weren’t like my friends’ parents. I was fourteen and they were still sneaking around, making out when they didn’t think I could see them. They were crazy about each other.” I felt my throat close up but tried to hold it together. “They were crazy about me and Beth. My mom was overprotective and a little overbearing because she didn’t want us to ever feel as alone as she had felt growing up.” I smiled. “I thought she was cooler than all the other moms because, well, she had a cool accent, and she was kind of blunt, but in a really funny way that shocked some of the preppy housewives that lived in our town.”
“Sounds like someone I know,” Braden murmured, amusement in his voice.
I grinned at the thought that I might be a little like my mom. “Yeah? Well, she was awesome. And my dad was just as great. He was the dad who checked in with you every day to see what was up. Even as I got older and became this entirely new creature called a teenage girl, he was still always there.” I felt a tear fall now. “We were happy,” I whispered, just managing to get the words out.
I felt Braden kiss my hair, his grip on my arm so tight it almost hurt. “Babe, I’m so sorry.”
“Shit happens right?” I swiped quickly at the tears. “One day I was sitting in class and the police came to tell me that my dad had swerved into a truck to avoid a motorcyclist who’d come off his bike. Gone. Mom. Dad. Beth. I lost my parents and I lost a little girl I hadn’t really had a chance to get to know. Though I knew enough to know that I adored her. I knew she would cry if she couldn’t see her favorite teddy bear—this ratty old brown bear with a blue ribbon around his neck that used to mine and still smelled like me. His name was Ted. Original, I know. I knew that she had a sophisticated taste in music because all you had to do to stop her from crying was play Mmmbop by Hanson.” I laughed sadly at the memory. “I knew that when I was having a bad day, all I had to do was pick her up, hold her close, smell her skin, feeling her tiny warmth against me and know that everything was okay . . .
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