by Niki Green
“I’m sorry. Shit. I’m not good at this kind of thing. I never was. You know that.” Again with the blurting. Oh well, it couldn’t get any worse than it already was.
“What do you want? I’ve had a rough enough week already and I don’t need you to make it worse by telling me you don’t want to play house with me or that you only want me when you can’t have me.”
“What? What are you talking about?” Brent moved to take her in his arms, where she needed to be, but she side-stepped him.
“That’s what you said to me. That night. In this office. Right after you fucked me against that damned door.”
“I never just fucked you and that’s a terrible way to describe what went on between us.”
“It’s the truth though. Tell me something, all those times you told me you loved me and that you wanted me, were those just the words you chose to use while you were doing whatever it was you were doing? What is it? When your dick goes hard does your brain goes soft and the only words that come to your mind are sweet nothings you don’t mean?”
“I meant everything I ever said to you and then some.”
“Oh, I believe that. Tell me something, did you start messin’ around with me again because I was engaged, or so you thought? Was it all about the conquest? Were you trying to get back at Carter?”
“Carter had nothing to do with what happened between me and you. And I wasn’t messin’ around with you.”
“But that was part of it, right? Part of the appeal? To see if you could still have me.”
“Stop with that, okay. I said that a long time ago and I didn’t mean it to begin with. I don’t even remember saying it.”
“Well, I remember it. I remember everything you said to me that night. You broke my heart. Does that do your ego any good?”
Brent saw the tears form and glisten in her deep eyes. He knew that as soon as she realized the tears were about to fall she would retreat because she didn’t want to be seen as weak, as vulnerable—as a sappy girl. He crossed the room and, despite her protests, took her in his arms.
She didn’t sob. She didn’t really cry. She stood there in his arms and let the tears fall as they may.
“I never used to cry.” Her voice vibrated his chest—as well as other parts. He shut his eyes against the feel of her body against his own. This was neither the place nor the time, but he couldn’t help it. His body controlled itself when he was around her. That was one of the reasons why he chose to stay away for so long—he couldn’t control himself when it came to her.
“There’s nothing wrong with a few tears now and then.” He pulled her closer to him and tucked her head beneath his chin. He loved the way her body fit his—thigh to thigh, chest to chest and heart to heart.
“A few tears? I could deal with a few random tears. I’ve turned into a regular sprinkler system.”
“This last week or so has been rough on you. It’s normal to cry.”
“I’ve cried over you a thousand times.” She pulled her body from his grasp and stared into his eyes. “I’m no better than those girls I used to make fun of.”
“You’re not like any of those girls.”
“Yes, I am. More than you know. I wanted you to miss me.”
“I did.”
“I wanted you to want me back.”
“I did.”
“I wanted to make you jealous. I wanted you to hurt like I did.”
“I was and I did. Look, I don’t remember what I said that night four years ago. I know I hurt you because I didn’t want to get hurt. I watched Willa take Chase to his knees because he loved her so much. I knew, knew, that I loved you a thousand times more than Chase loved Willa, and if she could bring that much grief to him when she left I couldn’t imagine what would happen to me if you ever walked away.”
“So you walked away first.”
“I did and I’m sorry for that.”
“You wasted four years we could have had together because of a what-if.”
“I wasted four years with you. I don’t plan on wastin’ four more.”
“What?”
Brent looked into her dark, wide eyes and saw all her questions swirling in their depths. He had an answer for them all. “I meant what I said when I said I didn’t want to date you. I’ve dated you. I’m through with dating you. I’m through with the getting-to-know-you part. I know you, Peyton. I’m done with the going home at night alone and getting into an empty bed.”
“You haven’t been going to bed alone. You went home with Kelly Cantrell a week ago.” She sniffed a bit and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. It shouldn’t have made him smile but it did.
“You noticed, did you?” He was rewarded with a scowl and a chuckle fell from his throat before he knew it did. “We’ve already discussed this, as I recall. I may have gone home with her last week, but I’m going home with you tonight and tomorrow night and the night after that.”
“You’re awful sure of yourself, cowboy.”
“Yes, ma’am, I am.” He tucked a wayward strand of hair behind one of her delicate ears and let his hands linger.
“You think I’ll just let you waltz back into my life after what you did to me?”
“No, but I know you’ll give me a chance to prove I’ll never let you down or break your heart again.” He rested his palm on her cheek and tipped her face up toward his own.
“Now why would I do that?”
“Because you love me.” He bent down and took her mouth. He was gentle and kind and caring with her lips—something he hadn’t been with her feelings all that time ago. His lips brushed over her once, then twice before he felt her open for him. He could have taken the kiss then and there, but he waited. He wanted her to know something first.
“I love you, Peyton. I always have and I always will.”
“If you hurt me again—”
“Not going to happen, sweetheart. I’m tired of only the memory of you keeping me warm at night.” He kissed her once more for good measure.
“People are going to talk,” she said before he could kiss her again.
“Let them.” He deepened their kiss and tried to push all of her misgivings away. Their bodies melted into one another’s and Brent could see a repeat against the door of her office in the future, but Peyton deserved better than that—she always had. He broke the kiss.
“What?” she asked, her voice and face all dreaming and far away.
“Come on.” He gave her one more quick kiss on the lips before he took her hand and pulled the office door open.
“Where are we going?”
“Home.” She didn’t ask any questions. She just followed. Brent thought he could make a clean getaway without running into anyone on their way out. He was wrong. Just as they were about to exit the hallway and make a clean break, he saw Jason propped against the wall with a look of agony creasing his features.
“What the hell happened to you?” Brent asked. Jason just smiled, or tried to, and readjusted his damaged goods.
“Nothin’,” Jason said with a groan. “Just stuck my hand in the wrong cookie jar it seems.”
Brent heard Peyton giggle behind him. He wished like hell he knew what Jason’s little cryptic message meant, but that would come later. He had better things to do—and they all revolved around Peyton.
“It doesn’t look like it’s your hand giving you the problem,” Peyton said as she stifled another giggle, and Jason let out another groan.
“It’s not. Evenin’, Peyton.”
“Evenin’, Jason.”
“You need me to drive you home or anything?” Brent prayed like hell that his brother understood he was just being nice and didn’t take him up on the offer.
“Nope, just need some ice for my ego and my balls. I’ll see you two later.”
They both watched as Jason hobbled away and then Brent pulled Peyton along and didn’t stop as they maneuvered through the bar. Once outside in the parking lot, he didn’t give her the choice of where she
was riding—she was with him. Today. Tomorrow. Always.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Sleep eluded him. Among the rumpled and crumpled sheets of Peyton’s bed, Brent lay nestled and sated, tucked against her back. They’d been that way forever. The sleek, soft line of her back caressed the front of his chest and stomach without Peyton ever knowing it. The curvy bottom that had haunted his days and nights rested comfortably against his groin. Every so often she would moan in her sleepy state and rub her bottom across the flesh of his cock. The reaction was immediate.
Without fail or fuss, his cock rose and returned her touch. Lying as they were, Brent lingered in the scent of her sheets, her shampoo and her skin—each unique and erotic in a subtle, sensual way. In the dim light of morning Brent could make out the line of her back, hips and thighs under the clingy sheets. When she moved, they moved. When she breathed, they rose and fell in turn.
His fingertips moved and played against the exposed skin of her arm and those little goose bumps he loved so much formed on her flesh. Sleep couldn’t keep her body from responding to him. Brent moved his body and pulled her closer to him. She fit. Perfectly. No one in his entire life ever fit him the way Peyton did.
She was great in bed. The proof of that fact was throbbing and moving even without Brent’s permission. She could laugh and giggle at herself and him, causing him to do the same. Their lovemaking was both intense and playful in turn. He even looked forward to the words and sentences that fell from her mouth. They made him smile. Really smile. Not just one of those forced, pretend jobs he invented years ago to appease his mother and stop her worrying. The smiles he gave Peyton and the memories she had created long ago and would continue to create were real and true.
His chest tightened. The same way it always had when his heart beat her name. He loved her. He had loved her then, he loved her now and he would love her for years to come. He had told her plenty of times, now he just needed to show her.
“Peyton,” he whispered into the darkened room.
“What is it?”
His thoughts and his lips froze for the moment and he couldn’t speak. He ended up simply pulling her deeper into his embrace and placing a small kiss on the top of her shoulder.
“Nothing. Just like saying your name is all.” After the first kiss to her shoulder came a second and then a third. She arched her body into his touch, causing her backside to flirt with his groin. She wrapped her arm around his neck, but never fully rolled over.
Pulling him closer, she whispered, “I like it when you say my name.”
The angle of her body made her breasts jut out and her nipples peak when they met the cool air of the room. He gave in to temptation and let his fingertips graze and roll a wine-stained bud into an even harder state. Beautiful nipples. Perfectly shaped, hard and ambrosia to a man’s tongue. And sensitive. The lightest brush or lap of the tongue drew them tighter. Beautiful. Every last inch of her was beautiful.
Through her sleep, she muttered once more, “Just keep talking to me until I fall asleep.”
He smiled into her hair and then reminded her, “You are asleep, darlin’.”
The endearment stopped his hands and his wanting body cold. Darlin’. The word he’d wanted to use a hundred times a day when talking to her or about her dripped from his tongue with ease. It wasn’t the sweetest endearment or the most original, but he loved how he felt when he said it to her. Each time it passed from his lips a slight bubbling occurred deep within his chest.
He repeated it again and again in whispered tones, and moved his hands so that they could dance across her breasts once more.
“No, not asleep. Just dreaming.” Her voice was lazy and smooth, full of sleep and tempting promises. Curiosity got the better of him.
“What are you dreaming about?” Casually, he let his fingers roam from her breast, down her flat stomach and to the spot that called his name. She was wet. Slippery with moisture and yearning. When his fingertip brushed her clit, her legs moved and allowed him access.
“You,” she moaned. “I was dreaming about you.”
Moving his hips slightly, Brent let his cock stroke the small of her back. Her touch was a necessity.
“Oh, yeah? What am I doing?” He slipped his fingers through the slick folds and found her opening and slid one finger deep inside of her with ease. She gasped and tried to turn in to his touch, but he held her still. “Tell me. Tell what I’m doing.” In and out, he drove her passion, sinking his finger as deep as it would go and then withdrawing just to enter again.
“You’re kissing me.”
Brent’s tongue found the beating pulse at her neck and he laved it before adding suction to his mouth’s caress.
“Where am I kissing you?” A second finger joined the first after his question was posed.
“Everywhere.” Her hips thrust down, imbedding him fully inside of her. Hot. So hot. She could burn a man alive.
“Everywhere, huh. That’s a little too general. Am I kissing your nipples?” His hand moved faster and with more force. Letting his thumb settle on her clit brought a breath of hissing air from her lungs.
“Yes.”
“Where else?” He demanded with his fingers. “Where else?” He was close to bursting but he held the beast at bay. Not yet. He wanted her closer. Wanted to drive her closer with his fingers, his touch and nothing more.
“My mouth. Down my body to my…to my…” The arm holding his neck and head prisoner pulled at his hair, bringing him closer. There was only one way Brent could get any closer to her. But not yet.
“To your what?”
She tried to turn in his arms but he stopped her. He anchored her legs with his and her body with his weight. “Say it, Peyton. Tell me where my mouth is?”
“On my pussy.”
Holy shit, his body called.
“Your tongue is all over me, licking and sucking.”
Brent increased the speed of his fingers, wanting badly to replace them with his cock, but still he held back.
“Are you going to come, Peyton? Are you going to come all over my mouth and tongue?”
“Yes. Yes!” Her hips bucked against his plunging fingers and he added intensity and speed and brought her orgasm. He felt her clench and grip his fingers, felt the flood of cream coat his hand. That was the breaking point.
He removed his fingers from her convulsing muscles, rolled her to her stomach, pushed her knees beneath her body and gripped her hip with one of his hands. With the other he guided himself into her passage. For several seconds the head of his dick was treated to the most wonderful spasms she pushed out. When her body calmed, Brent pressed forward, parting her folds and feeling her stretch and move to accommodate his size. Then she screamed and moaned. Both noises were music to his ears.
With both of his hands holding her hips in place, Brent moved Peyton’s body back and forth across his flesh. He showed her what he wanted and what he liked and it didn’t take long for Peyton to copy his rhythm.
The harder the better.
The deeper the better.
Peyton caught on quickly.
Her hips took up the rhythm like it was second nature. Brent watched her fingers close and grasp the spindles of the headboard. The action opened her body so he could watch the shift and sway of her breasts as he pumped and glided in and out of her. The little pants from her throat made him jump and throb inside of her. He was almost there. Almost. Then he heard her voice.
“Brent?” The breathlessness to her voice was his undoing. His hips pistoned faster and harder, sending his cock deeper inside of her. “Brent.” The tone had changed but the desire was still there.
“Yeah?” The word was barely audible, but he did his best to release it from his mouth.
“Just like…saying…your…name.”
He liked it too. He felt a tingle rise from his tightened sac and he let his head fall back and his eyes close against the pleasure.
“Brent?”
“Yeah?” Thi
s time the word wasn’t audible at all. He was lucky his mind could even conjure enough sense to speak.
“I love you.”
He smiled into the dark over her words.
“I love you too.” He brushed his lips across her so that she could feel his smile if she couldn’t see it clearly.
“I want…”
“What? What do you want?” He pumped harder. He pumped faster.
“I want…”
“I know you do.”
“I want you.” Her words stopped his movements.
“You’ve got me, darlin’. You don’t have to beg.” His smart-ass remark was rewarded by tight-lipped hard stare from her, which he returned with a deep, hard thrust of his own. She moaned and he joined in. This was perfect. She was perfect. They were perfect—and come hell or high water, he was going to do everything to ensure that it stayed that way. No more memories. No more fantasies. Just this. Him and her—forever.
Epilogue
Jason Kiel pulled into the driveway of his home a little before midnight. It was an early night for him to say the least, but thanks to Cada McCready and her knee, his balls stung—and his pride did as well.
He was fed up with women and their need to make men jealous by using another man. He had been more than happy to play along with Cada’s ruse to get Travis Boyd to look her way. It wasn’t his fault that she hadn’t explained the parameters better. So he had kissed her and kissed her good. What was the big deal? The big deal was that Cada McCready had damned good blind aim—and a hard knee. A knee that had imprinted itself on his balls for the better part of a week, give or take a few days.
Jason was tired of the whole jealousy game. If you wanted something or someone you had to put yourself out there or get over it. Those were the few simple rules he followed as far as the female population went. If a woman didn’t return your attraction or attention there were plenty more waiting who would.
He opened the door to the main house and took the stairs two at a time. For the last month or so he had gotten into the habit of sleeping in the North Cabin, but tonight he wanted his bed—not the substitute that the cabin offered. When he reached the landing he heard the light sound of music coming from the room that used to be Brent’s. It wasn’t anymore. Now Jocelyn was making it her own—for the time being. That would end soon enough. She would return home to her daddy’s house when she got tired of being the spoiled brat she was. Save me from spoiled brats and jealousy-seeking women, he thought.
