Eternal Brand

by Sami Lee

  Instead of reassuring her, his words made her shoulders droop. “In a relationship, huh? Is that what you call it?”

  “You’re in love.”

  “I am. Have been since ten minutes after we met. The second I saw him with Daisy, I fell for Brand.” She turned around and leaned her back against the glass door, keeping her hands buried deep in her pockets. “But he didn’t tell me about you. He didn’t tell your mother about me. What does that say about our ‘relationship’?”

  “Don’t do that. Don’t second-guess everything he’s ever said to you or made you feel. Brand’s never been overly demonstrative. Although I thought…” Jet shrugged. “Maybe that was just with me.”

  “Because you’re a man,” Emily concluded.

  “Yeah, there’s that.”

  Her gaze tracked over his face, then down over his chest. She examined his red sweater, his black jeans, as though looking for intel in the clothes he wore. When she looked into his eyes once more, her brow was furrowed. “Jet, are you gay?”

  It wasn’t the first time he’d been asked that particular question, but for some reason hearing it come out of Emily’s mouth was a shock. He smiled lopsidedly and held out his hand. “This is going to be too long a conversation to be had standing by the window. Come sit on the sofa and I’ll get you that drink.”

  She accepted his hand immediately, then withdrew it the instant their fingers met. “No. Don’t you dare be nice to me. I don’t want to like you.”

  “Okay, take a seat wherever you want. I’ll be right back.”

  He found the bottle of red he’d purchased last night but hadn’t opened and unscrewed the cap. He pulled the bucket-sized wine glasses down from the cupboard and poured them both one.

  The heater had warmed the apartment, so when he carted the glasses back to the living area, Jet saw that Emily had taken off her jacket. The checkered shirt she wore was open to the middle of her chest, a white singlet with a tiny bow on it visible beneath it. The whole ensemble molded to her breasts and teased a man with the notion of opening the last remaining buttons on her shirt to reveal that tiny white singlet, then to lift it and…

  And his thoughts were causing his groin to fill with heat, so Jet tamped them down. Emily had asked him something before he’d gone to get the wine, and he tried to focus on what it was.

  Oh right. She’d asked if he was gay.

  If he hadn’t been concentrating so hard on not being turned on, Jet would have laughed.

  He took a seat on the sofa beside her—with a whole cushion between them—and took a gulp of his wine. Emily followed suit, then gripped the glass with both hands and rested it on her knees, which were clasped close together in a pose that conveyed all the tension she felt.

  At last she spoke. “So…I asked if you were…”

  “Gay,” Jet supplied, trying not to stare at her chest as he took another mouthful of wine. “I’m not. I’m attracted to men but I love women too. I figured you would have guessed that.”

  A little color stole into her cheeks. “You mean because you flirted with me at the house?”

  “I mean because I thought it was pretty obvious I find you sexy as hell.”

  Way to yank the cloak off the elephant in the room, Durante.

  “Oh.” Emily took another swallow of her wine, then another, gulping down the moderately pricey Merlot as though it were water. “I thought maybe you were humoring me, or distracting me so I wouldn’t realize you were actually there to seduce my boyfriend.”

  “Jesus, Emily. Is that what you think?”

  Emily lifted one shoulder, staring down into her wine glass. “It’s possible.”

  Jet set his glass on the coffee table and shifted on the couch so he was closer to her. He put a hand on Emily’s shoulder. “That’s not how it was. I’m not perfect but I’m not that much of a bastard. I told you, I came to see Brand, but the minute I realized he wasn’t free I knew nothing was going to happen between us.”

  Emily looked at him then, her green eyes sharp with knowledge. “But something did.”

  “I know. That was totally my fault. I didn’t mean to do that to you, Emily. I like you. I respect you, I honestly do. But when I get near Brand I tend to lose control.”

  Much as you’re doing now, Jet chastised himself, realizing that his thumb was tracing lazy circles over Emily’s shoulder, his fingers inching ever closer to the collar of her shirt. He shifted his hand away, resting it instead on her back. His fingertips brushed her braid, and the silky softness of her hair sent an electric tingle through his arm.

  “You’re not the only one who lost control. I saw the way Brand kissed you.”

  The mention of Brand’s name had Jet pulling his hand back from Emily altogether. Best not to touch her at all. “It was just a kiss, Emily.”

  “No it wasn’t.” She shot him a fierce look. “He kissed you like he wanted to devour you. Like he couldn’t wait to get inside you.”

  Her words brought back a memory, flash-fast and vivid, of the last time he and Brand had spent the night together. The first time that night had been wild, primal. They hadn’t even made it to the bed in Jet’s hotel room. Brand had kissed Jet like he wanted to swallow him whole, then he’d pushed him up against the door and penetrated Jet’s ass with his fingers, preparing him for the bigger, more brutal push of his cock that would follow moments later.

  No chance of controlling his arousal anymore, not with that mental image filling him with remembered heat and Emily’s scent teasing him with the delights of the unknown, the feminine wonders that had gone untasted for too long.

  Jet was horny as all hell, but thankfully, Emily was too mired in her own concerns to notice the mayhem going on inside him. She took another gulp of the wine, finishing off the glass. Then she rose to her feet and went to the kitchenette to fetch more.

  She returned with her glass restocked and the almost empty bottle in her hand. Jet had used the few minutes of space to get himself more or less under control—or at least to pull his sweater down so Emily wouldn’t see how close to out of control he was—so he felt ready to look her in the eye again.

  He shouldn’t have, because the injured expression on her face nearly flayed him open. “He’s never kissed me like that.”

  Instinctively, Jet reached for her hand and held it in his. “Oh, hon. I’m sure that’s not true.”

  “It is. He hasn’t. He holds back, he’s…careful with me. Maybe that’s because he’s not sure I’m what he wants. Isn’t that possible, Jet?” Her eyes pleaded with him to help her make sense of things. “Will you please tell me if Brand is gay?”

  Jet squeezed her fingers. “He’s not.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He’s been with you two years. You tell me.”

  “What if he’s been experimenting with me?” Emily took a swig of her wine, then waved her glass around as she spoke. “What if he’s been using me to try sex with a woman, to see if he can be heterosexual, when he’s just gay and doesn’t want to accept it?”

  “No, hon. You’re working yourself into a state over nothing. Come here and sit down.”

  Jet tugged on her hand until she complied, plonking on the couch beside him once more. The wine nearly sloshed over the edge of her glass, so he took it from her and set it on the coffee table next to his. He kept a hold of her hand because she needed reassurance, and he schooled himself to ignore how much he liked the contact.

  “Brand is not gay. I know because he had quite the reputation with girls in our small town, long before he ever touched me.” Jet smirked. “He was as much of a player as a seventeen-year-old punk could be.”

  “I can’t imagine that,” Emily said. “Sweet talk is not his forte.”

  “He didn’t have to say a thing. He was taller than all the other guys in town, and he was built like a man in his twenties. Believe
me, the girls came to him.”

  “Reputations can be exaggerated.”

  “Not Brand’s. I know because I caught him in the hayloft with a girl more than once. I never told my parents because my dad probably would have tanned his hide, no matter what had happened to Brand in the past.”

  Her brow furrowed. “What do you mean, what happened to him in the past?”

  Jet bit his lip, regretting the slip-up. “That’s the kind of thing Brand should tell you.”

  Emily scoffed and pulled her hand out of his. “Right. I’ll go right home and ask him then.”

  She picked up her wine glass and took another healthy mouthful. It occurred to Jet that he was going to have to drive her back to Mulholland if she didn’t stop swigging her wine, but he didn’t have the right to suggest she stop. She was confused and angry because the man she loved had been lying to her by omission for two years. Not to mention pissed that Jet hadn’t revealed the true nature of his connection to Brand when they’d first met.

  Emily had every right to have a meltdown. She deserved to get rip-roaring drunk if she damn well wanted to. And then Jet would take her wherever she asked to go. He took a sip of his own wine, deciding as he did that it would be his last. He pushed his glass away and turned back to Emily.

  “My parents are foster carers. They take in kids whose lives are in limbo because their own parents are either absent or unfit or downright abusive, and they give them shelter and security until those kids have a safe home to go back to. That’s how I know Brand. That’s why he stayed at my parents’ orchard on and off from the time he was fifteen.”

  “Brand was in foster care?”

  Jet nodded. He watched Emily’s throat work as she swallowed her distress at the notion. “What happened? Where were his parents?”

  “His mother died when he was ten. His father had custody of him after that.”

  “But obviously he didn’t do a good job,” Emily concluded, her voice low with banked anger. “Or Brand wouldn’t have been in foster care.”

  “Right.”

  When he didn’t say anything more, Emily prompted in a quiet, careful way, “Jet, what happened to Brand?”

  “Em…I can’t say. I only know because I snuck a look at his file, something I should definitely not have done. I wish I didn’t know what I know.”

  Her small gasp was clearly audible in the tense quiet, as was the tremor in her voice. “It was bad, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah. And it was none of my business. I thought I could help him if I could just figure out what made him tick. But all I did was throw it in his face when I found out he’d enlisted in the army without telling me. I accused him of being afraid to love me because of how his parents had neglected him.”

  Even now when Jet recalled the look of horror on Brand’s face when he realized Jet knew the details of his past, he felt sick to his stomach with remorse. “I was a self-interested shit. But because I loved him I thought all was fair. Whatever it took to make him admit he loved me, I’d do it. It only made him leave faster. No goodbye, nothing.”

  “Oh boy. All this time I’ve been afraid to push him to tell me his stories, like I’ve told him mine. I was right to be afraid. He would have bolted if I’d demanded too much.”

  “You don’t know that. He’s thirty-one now, not eighteen.”

  Emily rested her head on the back of the couch. Her smile was sad. “But he’s still hurting. So much he doesn’t want me to see. Either about this, or the things he saw in Afghanistan that he won’t talk about.”

  Jet slumped back on the couch, mirroring Emily’s posture. He tilted his lips. “I guess we’re both in love with a brick wall, huh?”

  “Yeah, but he’s a great brick wall.”

  They shared a strange sort of doleful laugh. Emily’s went on a little longer than Jet’s, and he figured the hastily consumed wine was starting to hit her. Maybe he’d suggest she take a nap here and he could call Brand to pick her up. Of course, that would require him to talk to Brand, when the last words the man had said to him were leave me and Emily the hell alone.

  One way or another, this afternoon was probably not going to end well.

  “Em?” Jet realized only after the word was out that he’d used the shortened version of her name, the way Brand did. But she didn’t pull him up on it, so he said it again, enjoying the sound of it. “Em, does Brand know where you are?”

  “No.” That gleam of fury returned to her eyes. “Why should I tell him?”

  “Because you love him and want to work through what’s happened.”

  “Can we though? Can we come back from this?”

  Jet rested his hand on her thigh, squeezing it in a gesture of reassurance. “Yes you can.”

  Her voice dropped to a whisper, a timid sound that didn’t suit her. “What if…what if it turns out he’d rather be with you?”

  Jet’s heart skipped. No way, Durante. Never going to happen. “I’ll be gone soon and he doesn’t even want to see me, anyway.”

  “But I can’t give him what you can give him, Jet.”

  “Hey.”

  Jet turned so he was facing her. He touched her cheek with his fingers, urging her to look at him. When she did her green eyes shimmered, and Jet was overcome with the need to fix this, to put back together the part of her that he’d inadvertently broken.

  “You’ve got everything, Emily Irving. You’re sweet and funny. You’re smart and capable. You’re a natural beauty who doesn’t need fancy dresses or decoration because she looks as sexy as hell in jeans and boots. You’re feminine but there’s a toughness about you lets a man know you’re up for adventure. You’re accepting and forgiving and loving and you have a mouth that’s made for kissing. So you see, there’s nothing Brand needs that you haven’t got.”

  A single tear spilled out and ran down her cheek. Jet used his thumb to wipe it away. “Any man who meets you would choose to be with you if he had even half a chance, hon. Trust me on that.”

  Emily opened her mouth as though to speak, but no sound came out. Her lips formed a surprised O, the bottom one trembling a little. Instinctively, Jet moved his thumb to stroke it. It was so soft. He’d forgotten how damn soft a woman’s lips could be.

  When her breath fanned out over his thumb, his whole hand felt electrified. His chest burned where she rested her palm on it. When had she touched him? He wasn’t sure, but he knew he should tell her to stop. Suddenly he was teetering on a knife’s edge of lust that had risen violently from the closeness he’d encouraged in his attempts to soothe her pain.

  He didn’t tell her to stop, not even when her fingers started moving, tracing the muscles of his chest through his shirt. He was caught up in her eyes, those huge green eyes that gazed at him like he had the answers she’d been searching years for. Then she was leaning, or he was, or maybe they both were. All Jet knew was that his blood pumped so hard through his veins that his head spun as they moved closer, so close Emily’s warmth and delicate feminine scent wrapped around him.

  And then somehow they were kissing.

  Chapter Nine

  I must be drunk.

  Red wine had never been Emily’s friend, and she’d consumed the alcohol a lot quicker than she normally would. Her head was spinning, and she was definitely lacking her usual measure of emotional equilibrium today, but none of that adequately explained why she was kissing a man who wasn’t Brand.

  What are you thinking, Em? This has to stop!

  The voice of reason shook her out of the momentary haze of insanity she’d been in when she’d let Jet put his lips on hers—or had she kissed him?—and Emily started to pull back. But then Jet moaned into her mouth, the primal, male sound calling to Emily’s basic femininity. Next, Jet cupped her face to bring her in closer, his tongue gliding along her bottom lip as though seeking entry to her mouth.

  Emily made
a sound of her own, less a moan than a whimper of surprised acceptance. When her lips parted Jet swept inside. He held her face while he stroked his tongue over hers in a sensuous motion that shot heat straight to her very core. In reaction, a tremor raced over her skin, igniting every nerve ending. Her belly clenched, and her nipples puckered hard against the soft cotton of her singlet.

  And evidently she lost her mind as well as control over her body. Because she didn’t pull back. Instead she shoved her hand into Jet’s longish hair, twisting it around her fingers as she kissed him with a vigor that mounted quickly, so quickly reason couldn’t catch up.

  Jet groaned an epithet against her lips and pulled her closer. Her breasts grazed the solid wall of his chest, causing the ache in them to intensify. Emily arched her back, seeking relief from the need gnawing at her. Jet slipped his hand inside her shirt, moving it to the underside of her breast. He stroked her with his thumb until the flesh burned against the material of her singlet.

  Emily squirmed and pressed closer, her thigh sliding between both of Jet’s. Her hips rocked helplessly. She wanted him. Harder and faster than she’d ever wanted a man, besides Brand.

  Oh God, Brand. Was she doing this to get back at him for kissing Jet? Or was she trying to work out why Brand hadn’t been able to resist the man?

  If it was for the latter reason, she’d definitely gotten her answer. Jet was a phenomenal kisser who knew how to use his hands. Reading the urgent writhing of her body, he tugged the snaps of her shirt open and parted the fabric. When he held her breast fully in his hand, Emily melted into one giant mass of aroused goo.

  He stroked back and forth with his thumb, teasing her nipple to new hardness. She should have worn a bra, another barrier might have helped. But the heat of Jet’s touch penetrated the single layer of cotton, and as fast as a flash flood, she wanted her singlet gone. It was shocking how much she wanted to strip off so Jet’s hands could sooth her quivering flesh.