Eternal Brand

by Sami Lee

  “I thought about it. But Rio wasn’t home.” Jet stared levelly at Brand. “And Raul wasn’t you.”

  Brand’s stomach flipped over at Jet’s admission. “Fuck you, Jet. This is not a rollercoaster I want to ride on.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That means if you’re going to be a prick, be a prick. Don’t call me out for being an asshole one minute and then try to tell me that…that you screwed up other relationships because you…”

  Jet filled in the words Brand bit down on. “Because I never forgot you? Because no other man I was with compared to you? Because I’m a stupid sucker who never stopped loving you? It’s all true. I don’t care if you want to hear it or not.”

  Brand held Jet’s dark, challenging gaze for long moments. Beneath him, Daisy quivered, as though sensing the tension. Brand used the excuse to turn his attention to the horse. He didn’t think he’d ever needed an excuse to break eye contact with someone before. He stroked Daisy’s neck, mollifying her, while he could do nothing to calm the crazy thumping of his pulse.

  Jet loved him. After all this time, after all Brand had done to piss the guy off, to abandon him, to deny what they had because he didn’t know how to just exist in it and be grateful, Jet, the stupid sucker, still loved him. The knowledge filled Brand’s chest like an inflating balloon. But the second he felt big and overflowing with…something, something ebullient he couldn’t name, the balloon turned to lead and dropped to the pit of his stomach.

  Somehow, without meaning to, he had managed to fuck up Jet’s life. He didn’t deserve love like this, love that didn’t die no matter how much of a bastard he was. He didn’t deserve anything remotely like it.

  “It’s all right, you know.” Jet spoke quietly, filling in the silence that had stretched out too long because Brand hadn’t said anything. Most notably, he hadn’t said I love you too, even though he felt it. Felt the surety of it down to the tips of his toes. “I know you’re with Emily, and she’s good for you. I see it. I see you’re trying to be better, for her. And I’m glad about that at least. I guess sometimes I just wish…I wish you’d gotten this devotion bug while you were with me.”

  “Ah, Jet. Christ.” He barely had a voice, and he had to clear his throat to try again. “It was always shitty timing with us. After that spring at your place— Hell, I was only eighteen. I wasn’t ready to contemplate living a gay life. And I figured you’d forget about me quick enough.”

  Jet didn’t add the obvious remark, but it hung in the air between them. I didn’t forget about you. “What about four years ago? That night in Sydney. You needed me then, I felt it.”

  “I was shipping out to Afghanistan the next day. You knew that.”

  Jet scoffed. “There’s that convenient excuse again.”

  Brand’s blood pressure spiked, launching fast and high like a missile. “If you think war is convenient, you’ve never seen your buddy’s head get blown open not two feet away from you. You’ve never seen a mother screaming over her child’s lifeless body. You’ve never met a ten-year-old kid who’s had his legs blown off by an IED, but who somehow was still able to smile just because you gave him a chocolate bar. War is not very fucking convenient for anyone.”

  Even as he snapped the words, the images of all he’d spoken about came back to him in a rush. That kid especially, the way he’d smiled with such delight when Brand had given him the chocolate. He had no fucking legs because he’d come in contact with a bomb that was meant for someone like Brand, he’d become the innocent victim of dirty battle tactics, but he’d smiled.

  That kid had affected him in ways soldiers weren’t supposed to be affected. It had been the beginning of the end for Brand, the moment he knew he was going to have to leave the army, the only home and family he’d known since he’d left the Durantes’ orchard more than a decade before.

  A wave of nausea swept over him, and for a second Daisy’s movements coupled with that memory of that kid, of all the other kids and mothers and victims he’d seen devastated by war, made him think he was going to throw up his lunch.

  “Shit, Brand. I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry.” Jet reached out as though to touch his arm, but their horses were too far apart. “Are you okay?”

  Brand wanted to tell him to fuck off, to stop loving him, but his throat had closed over. He managed to nod in the direction of the trail that would take them back to Mulholland and say, “Let’s get back.”

  They covered the trail in silence as thick as a winter fog. Even the horses refrained from whinnying, and hurried their pace as though eager to get back to their pastures safe and sound. They wanted to be away from him, because anything with half a brain knew to stay away from him.

  Except, it seemed, for Jet Durante.

  Impatient to be alone, Brand gave Daisy a nudge, sending her into a trot. Duke got into the excitement and followed suit without necessity of a command from Jet.

  “Hey! Oh…sh-shit, Brand. He—won’t—stop.”

  Trotting was the least comfortable speed to ride at, especially for a newbie, but Brand didn’t give a crap about Jet’s discomfort at the moment. He kept up the pace until they got to the gate, and he had to step off the horse to open it.

  Jet remained astride Duke, hanging on to the saddle for grim death. “What the fuck are you trying to do to me?”

  Brand didn’t answer. He swung the gate open and led Daisy into the paddock. She snickered at Brand as he secured her to a post so she wouldn’t run off and break her saddle. When Duke approached, Brand took the reins from Jet and held the horse steady. “You right to dismount?”

  Jet sent him an affronted look. “Think I can handle it.”

  He pulled his right foot from the stirrup and arced his leg over Duke’s rump, landing on the grass with a thud. Brand looped the horse’s reins over the fence, knowing the horses would be fine where they were for now.

  “You want to talk or what?”

  Brand glowered at Jet. He took a step forward, until they were well and truly in each other’s space. Their faces were only an inch apart. “No. I do not want to talk.”

  Brand stalked off. He’d thought he wanted to be alone but when the sound of Jet’s boots thumped in the wake of his, his pulse jumped sharply. The nausea of before had passed, leaving behind a trembling hollowness in his gut. He needed something to fill the emptiness, and being the offspring of addicts Brand had never seen turning to drink as a viable option.

  Jet would do. Jet would fill the cold vacancies in his soul.

  Brand ripped off his denim jacket as he approached the stables and tossed it haphazardly onto the creaky old chair by the door. Jet’s leather coat landed atop it a second later, and a moment after that they were both in the darkened stables, the stalls empty now because all the horses were out enjoying the sunshine.

  The darkness of the stable’s interior suited Brand’s mood. Once inside, he rounded on Jet, grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him up against the wall. He planted a hand on either side of Jet’s head and stared hard into his eyes. “What are you doing here?”

  Jet drawled, “My guess is you want to fuck.”

  “I mean here. How do you think this thing between you, me and Emily is going to go? Do you see any kind of happy solution?”

  The tilt of Jet’s lips was melancholy, and for that alone Brand was almost sorry he’d asked. “I know it’s messy. I know it’s probably going to end badly. But I’m here anyway. Can’t help myself.”

  “It’s only sex, Jet. I’m not going to let you love me.”

  Jet raised a cocky brow. “You let Emily love you. Why her and not me? She’s less of a challenge for you? She doesn’t ask the difficult questions?”

  “Fuck you!” Brand slammed the flat of his hand into the wall beside Jet’s head. He barely flinched, which only increased Brand’s ire. “Don’t you talk about her like that. You
don’t know anything about Emily.”

  “I know she’s let you skate by with only giving her parts of yourself. That’s her way of loving you. This is mine.”

  Jet reached down between their bodies and cupped the bulge at the front of Brand’s jeans. He was pissed off and tense and, on a level he didn’t want to admit to, he was truly fucking scared. But he was as hard as nails because Jet made him that way. Always had. Always would, probably.

  “Tell me what you want,” Jet murmured.

  “I want you gone.” Even as he said it, Brand thrust reflexively into Jet’s touch.

  “If Emily asks me to go, I’ll go.”

  “I’m asking you.”

  “Are you?”

  Through the denim, Jet grabbed Brand’s balls and molded them to his palm. Brand groaned, frustrated at the layers of fabric between him and Jet’s touch. He glared. “You’re pissing me off.”

  Jet merely smiled. “Try again. Tell me what you want.”

  “I want to fill your smart mouth with my cock, if that will shut you up.”

  “It might.” He was still smiling, the bastard. “But first, kiss me.”

  More than ready for Jet to stop mouthing off, more than ready for a taste of his lips, Brand hooked his fingers around Jet’s neck and brought him close. Before their lips connected, Jet spoke again. “The way you kiss her. Just once, kiss me the way you kiss Emily.”

  If they’d been farther apart, Brand might have been able to deny Jet his request. But they were close—too close. Jet’s hand, which had been roughly massaging his balls, turned gentle and teasing. He could taste Jet’s breath. Brand’s need for Jet had already gripped him to the point he would not return to a place of sanity until he took him.

  So Brand leaned in and kissed Jet, his eyes drifting closed as their lips met in a slow teasing brush. He sent his tongue out to trace the line of Jet’s lower lip, and trembled when Jet shivered. He cradled Jet’s head, angling him so he could explore his mouth with the full sweep of his tongue. But he did it slowly, with deliberate care and sensuality, the way he did with Emily.

  He thought of Emily, held Emily in his mind and heart, as his senses were consumed by Jet. Jet yielded to him, offered his body and soul in his kiss, turning Brand’s erection into a pained and needy thing. But all the while Emily was there too, adding to Brand’s torment. Emily, who loved him so openly she also accepted his need for Jet. Not only that, she reveled in it and shared it.

  It was then he knew he would never unlink them in his mind. Jet and Emily, they were both in him now, burrowed deep. Things could never go back to the way they were.

  Abruptly, Brand yanked out of the kiss. He brought the back of his hand to his mouth as though he could wipe the kiss off, wipe the knowledge away. He loved them both—Jet and Emily—in a way that would not enable him to go back to loving only one.

  And what was worse—God, so much worse—they both loved him. He was barely scraping by being enough man for Emily. And Jet was right. Any success he had with that was only because she took it easy on him. The thought of two different sets of expectations weighing on him…it was too much.

  To give yourself to anybody—let alone two people—you had to be whole to start with. Couldn’t they see that he was broken?

  Jet was staring at him, his eyes wide and dark and—for the first time in Brand’s memory—afraid. “We’ll do it your way now,” he choked out. “Just tell me what you want and I’ll do it.”

  His voice was a mere rasp. “Go. Leave.”

  Jet shook his head. “Not that. I can’t leave either one of you, not now.”

  “You love her.”

  “I know it’s stupid, but yeah. I won’t hurt her.”

  No, he wouldn’t. Jet wasn’t the type to hurt people, that was Brand’s MO. Had Jet forgotten that?

  “This won’t work, Jet. A permanent threesome—are you crazy?”

  “Why can’t it work?”

  “Because I don’t want it.” Brand seethed. “I don’t need it. I don’t need you and I don’t need her.”

  Jet’s eyes were sad as he held Brand’s gaze. “You can’t go on lying to yourself like this.”

  That much was true. But the lie was this life he’d been living, playing happy couples with a woman he couldn’t bring himself to marry, because he’d never be enough to marry anyone. The lie was the past month and the happiness that had crept into his being whenever he had found Emily and Jet laughing together or whenever they’d all made love.

  It was all a lie.

  “You’re right.” Brand backed away from Jet. “I can’t.”

  He turned on his heel and stalked away, ignoring the way Jet called after him. Jet had forgotten that he couldn’t do relationships of any kind. He certainly wasn’t up for the complexity of a triad. With Emily he’d merely been playing house. No matter how many times he’d tried to warn her, she’d never accepted that he wasn’t worthy of her. She was blind to his faults.

  It was well past time Brand opened her eyes.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “But where did he go?”

  Emily paced the floor, glancing again at the wall clock. When Jet didn’t respond to her query, she halted her strides to look at him. “Jet?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “He took Daisy out again. He didn’t take the same track we came in on, that’s all I know.”

  Emily narrowed her eyes at him. “Did you two have a fight?”

  “Sort of. Nothing unusual for us though.”

  He was lying. Emily could tell by the way he didn’t quite meet her eyes. She could always tell when Jet was lying. Even in the beginning when he’d lied about only being an “old friend” of Brand’s, she’d suspected something was off.

  “You’re a sucky liar,” she told him, and started pacing again.

  Jet smiled. “Okay, we had a fight. But I’m sure he’ll be back.”

  “He knows Penny’s party is tonight?”

  “Yeah, he knew.” Yet he wasn’t home, and according to the clock on the living room wall, they ought to be leaving about now. As though sensing her thoughts, Jet said. “He won’t let you down.”

  “I hope not.”

  She wanted tonight to go well. Her whole family was going to meet Jet, and it had become very important to Emily that they like him. They were merely going to introduce him as Brand’s friend, of course. No way was her family ready for the truth. But Emily hoped someday they might be.

  She really hoped there would be a someday for her, Brand and Jet.

  “You’re not helping my cause you know.” Emily scowled at Jet. “The two of you fight like two dogs in a cage sometimes. It doesn’t exactly promote domestic harmony.”

  “Is that what you see happening with us, Em?”

  Emily froze once more and stared at Jet. The doubt inherent in his query frightened her. “Don’t you even ask that. I thought we were getting somewhere.”

  “Because Brand likes to watch us fuck, you think we’re going to live happily ever after?”

  The brutality of his sarcasm winded Emily. She sank to the couch opposite the one on which Jet sat. Her voice sounded small and far away. “Is that all we’ve been doing?”

  She saw remorse gleam in his dark eyes before he turned away. He gazed out the window at the purple sky. “Maybe I shouldn’t come tonight.”

  Emily’s stomach plummeted. “You have to come. I want you to.”

  “Brand probably won’t.”

  “Oh, Jet. Be honest now—how bad was this fight?”

  He turned back to meet her gaze, and in the dim twilight, dark shadows fell across his face. One side of his mouth lifted in something that parodied a smile. “I fucked up, Em. I pushed him too hard.”

  “But that’s what you do,” Emily said, desperate to hang on to hope that Jet was simply being melodramat
ic. “You push him and he gets aggravated, then I sweet talk him and we all make out and everything’s fine.”

  Jet didn’t respond in kind to her joke. His face held that same sober expression that scared the hell out of her. “I don’t think this is going to work, Em. The three of us. Not the way you want it to. My being here could ruin things between you and Brand.”

  “No, I don’t believe that.” Emily stood and crossed the floor. She settled onto Jet’s lap. She held his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her. “You being here has been the best thing that’s ever happened to Brand and me.”

  “Are you trying to tell me things weren’t easier when it was just you and Brand?”

  “If this is about my Monica-related freak-out today, I’m sorry.” She’d thought over her outburst this afternoon and now felt silly. So what if Monica had been interested in Jet? Jet wasn’t going to do anything with some random woman who came here for a trail ride. He loved Brand. Maybe he even…

  Too soon to be thinking that, Em. Although ever since the day of their shopping trip, she’d been preoccupied with thoughts of Jet and what he might or might not feel for her—what she definitely felt for him, which was something much stronger than like and longer lasting than lust.

  “I’ll tell people whatever you want me to,” she continued, knowing her voice was climbing an octave in her desperation to plug whatever hole had been punched in the perfect bubble of paradise she’d created here with Brand and Jet. “I’ll lie, I’ll cheat, I’ll do whatever it takes. Just don’t tell me there’s no point trying. Not you, Jet. If you lose faith I’m the only one with any shred of it left, and I can’t fight the both of you.”

  “Ah, shit, Em.” Jet’s arms were strong and fierce as he drew her tighter to his body. He cradled her on his lap, fitting her face into the curve of his neck and gently rocking her. “I don’t want you to lie. You’re too damn sweet and honest, and I love that about you.”