by Addison Cole
Rex lifted him higher with one arm and slammed him against his truck.
Jade was too stunned to move. What was he doing there? Why was he helping her again? He was gonna kill that guy. Rex cocked his right arm and her brain kicked awake.
“No, Rex! He’s not worth it,” she screamed in a shrill voice through her tears.
Rex looked between Jade and the guy, then with one snap of his wrist, pulled the guy to his face. Like an angry dog baring its teeth, he seethed, “If I ever catch you treating a lady like that again, I will rip you to shreds.” He tossed the guy to the ground and grabbed Jade roughly by the arm.
“Get in the truck.”
She took one look at Tim writhing on the ground and scrambled into the truck.
Rex started the engine, and without a word, drove down the road and then turned into a CVS parking lot, stopping beneath a streetlight. When he turned to face her, anger hovered behind the blatant concern in his eyes.
Jade’s body trembled and shook, and she couldn’t stop the flow of tears that wet her cheeks. She flushed with embarrassment. What would have happened if Rex hadn’t been there?
Rex gently took her face in his hands. They were so big, so strong, lethal when wrapped around that man’s collar, and now his touch was tender and soft.
“You okay?” he asked.
She sniffled, nodded.
“Did he hurt you?” His eyes ran down her arms.
Jade instinctively rubbed where Tim had grabbed her arm, and it hurt to the touch. Rex ran his fingers lightly down her arms. His body visibly tensed with the intimate touch.
“Why did you do that?” she asked. “Why did you grab him like that?”
Rex furrowed his brow. “He was hurting you.”
“But I could have handled it.” She knew she couldn’t have, but the idea of being a damsel in distress again—twice in two days—was too much. She wasn’t weak, and she didn’t need saving—even if Rex Braden made the perfect, handsome knight in shining armor.
“You couldn’t and you didn’t,” he said.
He smelled like warmth and alcohol. His eyes narrowed, and she felt a tug down low. Suddenly, she was leaning forward. Oh no, she was going to kiss him. No, she couldn’t do that. He’d all but thrown her in her car earlier in the day and sent her away. She had to get away before she did something stupid. She flung open the truck door.
“I don’t need saving!” She stumbled from the truck and stood in the dark, clutching her purse. She swiped at her tears as sobs rose from her chest. How the heck could she forget him if he kept showing up and saving her? What the heck am I doing?
She heard his door slam, and he stalked toward her, slow and determined. His legs were slightly bowed, his arms arced out from his sides from the sheer volume of his biceps. Jade pressed her lips closed tight.
“I’m not leaving you here,” he said in a deep, sexy voice. He might as well have said, I want to take your clothes off and lick you all over.
He took another step closer, and she watched the muscles in his chest, straining against his shirt, rising and falling with each breath.
“Please get in the truck, Jade,” he said.
I don’t trust myself. She shook her head.
Rex let out a loud breath and ran his hand through his thick hair. Jade ached to do the same, to slip her fingers beneath his hair and ease the tension at the base of his skull, to tame the inflamed muscles on his neck.
“Jade, Bradens don’t leave women in dangerous situations. Get in.” His tone was firm, his eyes pleading.
She shook her head again.
“I’m not going to ask again.”
There was the anger. Jade crossed her arms. If she set foot in that truck, she would not be able to keep herself from reaching over and doing heaven knows what that she’d regret in the morning when she was sober. Her father’s words rang too clearly to ignore: You know better than to do anything to embarrass this family.
“I can call Riley to come get me,” she said.
“I’m right here. She’s twenty minutes away and probably asleep by now.”
“So what? She’d come.” She sounded like a petulant child when what she really wanted to say was, Don’t call Riley. I want to go with you. Her father’s warning held her back.
He stepped even closer. His exhalations became her inhalations as he lowered his face so close to hers she could see the pupils of his eyes deepening. Jade’s heartbeat thundered in her ears, blocking out the noise of the traffic. Her cheeks became warm, and she closed her eyes, thinking he might kiss her. Suddenly she was draped over his shoulder, his muscles digging into her stomach.
“What are you doing?” She pounded his back, her small fists barely making a dent as he opened the truck door with one hand and tossed her onto the seat with a firm command.
“Don’t move.”
Chapter Eight
JADE FLUNG HER body toward the door, trying to escape. Rex was too big, too strong—an immovable wall. He grabbed both of her wrists in one hand and held them over her head. In an effort to push him away with her feet, she fell back on the bench of the truck, taking him with her. Her hands were still held captive in his palm, his other hand pressed into the bench beside her head. Her body lay beneath him, and boy, did he feel good. His hardness against her leg sent shocks through her core.
Face-to-face, breath-to-breath, they didn’t say a word.
Kiss me. Just kiss me already. She could barely breathe under the weight of him, but she didn’t care. Her body ached for him, and she had no control of her hips as they pressed against his, or her chest as she arched toward him. She had to know how his lips felt on hers even if for only one kiss. Her heart might burst from her chest if he didn’t kiss her soon.
“I told you not to move,” he finally said. His words were forced, harsh.
Jade couldn’t answer. All she could do was remember to breathe in and breathe out as he released her wrists, swung her legs into the truck, and flung the truck door closed. She lay there in the awkward position, her arms high above her head, her legs on the floor, the vee between her legs pulsing, wanting, and then his door was open and he was settling into the driver’s seat. Jade pulled herself to an upright position as he started the car. Her pulse still raced, her body still ached, and he wouldn’t even look at her.
When they turned off the highway into Weston, her urges and her anger simmered to a boil.
“You had no right to kidnap me. I was just fine. Maybe I wanted to be with that guy. Maybe it felt good that he wanted to be with me. You don’t know what I was—”
Rex looked at her from the corner of his eye. He drove down the three-mile stretch of rural road that led to her father’s property. Trees lined the pavement and arched over the road like an umbrella, creating a long, dark tunnel.
“Look at you. What kind of a man throws a woman into a truck like a hostage? What kind of a man doesn’t talk to her?” Jade didn’t feel the truck slowing beneath her as she flung accusation after accusation at the man who had just saved her from a guy who wanted nothing more than to screw her. “Look at you, sitting there all smug and proud of yourself for rescuing me. What the heck makes you think I wanted to be rescued?”
REX COULDN’T SPEAK. He didn’t trust himself to say one single word to her, not when she was all riled up, with her breasts heaving up and down, calling out to him. When she was beneath him, it took all of his willpower not to answer the plea of her pressing hips. She smelled so sweet, he had to stifle a groan when she pressed her breasts into his chest.
Every accusation she thrust about his manhood spurred him on. Desire had been mounting all night as he’d watched her press her body against that guy on the dance floor, the guy’s hand sliding down to her butt. If she said one more word about him being a man, he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to restrain himself. A man could take only so much before he gave in to the urges that adrenaline and testosterone pumped through him.
“What kind of a man hauls a
woman over his shoulder like a sack of feed? I swear, Rex Braden, no wonder my father hates your family.”
Rex swerved to the side of the road and slammed the truck into Park. Jade flew across the seat, falling into his arms. He could taste the sweet alcohol on her breath. Every nerve caught fire with the weight of her hips against him. He tried to deaden his simmering rage, and as he pulled her closer and looked into those seductive sea-blue eyes, he recognized that simmering heat for what it was and lowered his mouth to hers. Her body went rigid, then relaxed beneath his touch as he deepened the kiss. Every lick of her tongue gave rise beneath the zipper of his jeans. Man, she tasted good. He explored her mouth with his tongue, learning every curve, the arch of her palette, then drew away with her lower lip between his teeth. She licked the tender spot, and he had to have her again, had to savor her. His mouth was on hers and he never wanted to come up for air. He placed his hand beneath her silky hair and pulled her mouth tighter against him. She moaned as he dropped his hand to her waist. She was so small in his grasp, so feminine and sweet. He’d waited to feel her lips on his for nearly fifteen years, and they were everything he’d dreamed and more.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled her legs beneath her, leaning forward on her knees as she kissed him deeper.
He parted from her long enough to look down at her dress hiked up to the crest of her thighs, her knees opened to him, and her eyes—those deep valleys of blue—tantalized his already raging desire.
“You’re freaking delicious. I’ve wanted to taste you for years.”
“Taste me,” she said, and reached for his mouth again. She took his hand and drew it to her thigh.
Rex’s chest swelled with need as he ran his hand beneath the edge of her dress. Something in the back of Rex’s mind told him to stop. His father would never forgive him if he found out that Rex had dishonored him this way. But he knew he had entered territory from which he could not retreat.
“Rex,” she said breathlessly, trailing kisses down his neck to the ridge of his shoulder, where she sucked until he thought he might lose his mind.
He buried the lingering thoughts of his father and wrapped his arm around Jade’s waist. In one swift move, she was beneath him, and his hands were on the move, soaking in her sweet curves, the heat of her body. She fumbled with his shirt, and he tugged it over his head, dropping it on the floor.
She leaned up and kissed his bare chest, her delicate hands moving over his skin. He groaned as she continued her exploration of his pecs. He couldn’t breathe; he had to have more of her. He kissed her again, lowering her down, and then he pulled her dress up to her neck. Her eyes danced with challenge and desire.
Her skin shimmered against the darkness. “Sweet mother of all things holy, you are beautiful,” he growled.
She grasped the back of his head and pulled him into another scorching kiss, before he broke away and kissed a slow path south, needing more. His eyes met hers, silently seeking approval, which she gave in the form of pushing him lower, guiding him just where she wanted him.
Chapter Nine
I’M DYING. I just know it. Jade lay beneath Rex, unable to think past what just happened. If he could send her soaring by just touching her, what could he do with the monster trapped in his jeans? She could barely breathe. Her legs were numb, and heat simmered beneath every inch of her skin. If he touched her again, she just might ignite.
Rex had a hungry look in his eyes as he licked his lips, and Jade’s body responded with a gentle burn from the inside out. So cowboy is a dirty boy. A thrum of excitement ran through her as he rolled his eyes down her body.
“Jade,” he said in an unsteady voice.
His voice alone had her craving more of him.
“We can’t do this,” he said as he moved away.
If she wasn’t dying before, she surely was now. What the heck was he talking about?
“Rex?”
He leaned over her and snagged his shirt from the floor, slipping it over his head.
Jade sat up and touched his arm. “What’s going on? Did I misunderstand something here?” When you were touching me everywhere!
“It was a mistake,” he said, staring straight ahead at the darkened street.
“A mistake?” she snapped. “This? This was a mistake? I was a mistake? Is that what you really mean?” She tugged her dress down. “Look at me,” she said, barely keeping the neediness and anger from her voice.
Rex dropped his eyes.
“Rex Braden, what is wrong with you? Are you trying to make me feel like a cheap whore? Was that your plan all along? Take me so no one else would, then toss me aside like I was a conquest?”
Rex met her angry eyes with a sorrowful gaze. “Jade, if you were a conquest, then I didn’t do a very good job of conquering you, did I?”
She felt the sadness in his voice like a slap to her angry face. “Why, then? Is it me? You don’t like who I am?” She looked out the window, stifling tears. “That makes no sense,” she said with a feigned laugh. “If that were the case, you wouldn’t have even helped me in the first place.”
He pulled her to him, brushing her hair from her cheek. “It’s not you. It’s our families. This could never work. No matter how much we might want it to, it’s not like the Hatfields and McCoys of Weston are going to throw their arms up in the air after a forty-year battle and be done with it. It’s a fantasy. You’re forbidden fruit.”
Our families. You know better than to do anything to embarrass this family, right?
“That is ridiculous. We’re adults, for heaven’s sake. Why does it even matter what happened so long ago?” She pushed away from him and stewed. “Why can’t we just be like any other couple? Make out? Date? Tell them and make them deal with it? Be a man, stand up, and stake your claim.”
“We don’t even know what this is,” he said testily. “And if you question my manhood one more time, Jade Johnson, I swear to you, I’ll…” He scrubbed his hand down his face and eased the tension from his tone. “Look, you’ve only been back a few months. My family is going through changes. This whole thing might be nothing more than a reaction to circumstance.”
She spun in his direction and narrowed her eyes. “A reaction to circumstance? Is that what this was?”
He shrugged.
“Is that all you’ve got? A shrug? Really, Rex? You just told me that you’ve wanted me for years. I don’t call that a reaction to circumstance.”
His silence was like a spear through her heart. She wasn’t going to sit there and try to convince him that whatever it was between them was worth exploring. She liked him—a lot—and every time she looked at him, she craved his touch. Having tasted him, and felt his intimate touch, she’d crave even more of him now. But she’d misjudged him. If she wasn’t worth standing up for, even in the discovery stage of whatever this was, then the heck with him!
She swung open the door, grabbed her purse, and jumped from the truck. “Thanks for the ride,” she said right before she slammed the truck door and stomped off toward the driveway.
REX PUNCHED THE steering wheel with a grunt. This was so messed up. He finally felt something for a woman—really felt something—and he’d screwed it up. When he’d seen her with that guy, it had triggered a massive protective urge that until then he’d thought belonged only to his family. When he kissed her, when that sweet tongue was stealing his brain cells lick by delicious lick, everything became fragmented. He wanted to touch her, taste her, and consume her, protect her, love her, and heal her in equal measure. And as he watched her stomp down to the barn, with only the moonlight leading her way, all those feelings radiated within him like little pinpricks. The divine feeling of being with her coalesced with the guilt of having been with her and left him watching the one person he wanted spiraling away out of reach.
Chapter Ten
STUPID DIDN’T EVEN come close to describing how Jade felt when she woke up the next morning. She’d gone into the barn the night before, flick
ed on the light, and sat outside Flame’s stall. Her body was still reeling from the feel of Rex’s rough, strong hands, and his hot, insistent lips. She’d shivered with the memory, then given in to the tears that pulled at her heart. Before she’d gone to bed, she showered, trying to scrub the thoughts of him away, washing herself under the cold water until her skin went numb.
Now, hours after he’d touched her, after trying to wash his touch away, she could still feel the way her body hummed to life with the first thrust of his tongue in her mouth. When he touched her, he’d brought her to new heights. No man had aroused her like that before. That had to mean something.
She looked in the mirror as she dried her hair. “Right?” she asked her reflection. At thirty-one years old, she knew how these things worked. The chances of her and Rex ever getting together again were slim to none, and maybe that was for the best. She really didn’t want to hurt her father. She knew the damage it would cause if he ever found out. She’d chalk last night up to a mistake. The heat of the moment. Now, if she could only convince her heart to do the same.
She iced and massaged Flame’s leg and was pleased to see that he was still walking normally. She was fairly certain that he was perfectly fine and what he’d experienced was a quick nag of pain rather than a sustained injury, but she’d still take it slow with him for one more day. She knew he was climbing out of his skin to be set free. Like me.
Inside the house, she was reviewing her schedule for the remainder of the week when her mother appeared in the kitchen.
“I thought you were sewing Daddy’s new curtains for his office today.” Jade’s mother was the best seamstress around, and her father was continually asking for new curtains, blankets, even shirts, to keep her creative juices flowing.
“I am. I just wanted to visit with my daughter.”
Her mother sat beside her on the couch in her capri pants and flowery blouse. “Jade,” she said in a voice that made Jade stop what she was doing and look into her mother’s brown eyes. “What’s your plan?”