Eternal Brand (10 page)

Which he probably did. Because he was bisexual.

And Emily decided that, based on most recent events, she was totally and completely okay with that.

Chapter Twelve

“He was rougher with you than I am.”

Brand's soft whisper made Emily lift her head from her favorite spot in the crook of his arm. She rested her chin on his chest and faced him in the murky light of the room. “You were rougher with him than you are with me.”

“Well, yeah.”

Emily cocked a brow. “You say that like there's an obvious reason behind it.”

“There is,” Brand said in that same tone. “Jet's a guy.”

“Oh, I see. I never realized my gender was so limiting for you.”

“Em.” A note of frustration made the volume of his voice rise. “You know what I mean.”

“Shh. You'll wake the man in question if you use your annoyed tone.”

Brand said nothing more for a moment, and the ensuing silence was filled with the sound of Jet's deep, even breaths. After the three of them had made love earlier, Emily had claimed exhaustion, so Jet and Brand had taken on the task of making her comfortable and warm beneath the covers. As it turned out, Jet was the only one who'd fallen asleep.

Emily had lain awake, trying to find a more fitting term for what had happened than “making love”. She'd failed, and she wondered what that failure said about her feelings for Jet. Sleep had obviously evaded Brand as well, and Emily wished she knew what he'd been thinking beyond the relative roughness of Jet's sexual performance compared to his own.

But at least he was willing to talk about what they'd done. That was a place to start.

Emily idly stroked the small tuft of hair beneath Brand's breastbone and worked up the courage to prod him to carry on their whispered conversation. “You don't have to be more careful with me because I'm a woman, you know.”

“Em, I'm a big guy.”

“Horses are big. I get thrown off them occasionally but it doesn't stop me from riding them.”

“Are you comparing me to a horse?”

Giggling softly, Emily shifted her hand downward until it covered his now flaccid package. “Close enough.”

“Stop,” he drawled. “You'll make me blush.”

The idea of Brand blushing was so ludicrous Emily laughed louder, and Brand covered her mouth to stifle the noise. “Shush, woman. You really will wake him up.”

When her laughter settled, Brand removed his hand. Then Emily said, “Maybe I want to wake him.”

Within her cupped hand, Brand's cock twitched, and Emily gave him an encouraging squeeze.

“I hope you know what you're doing, Emily.”

Brand hardly ever used her full name. His use of it now underpinned the concern in his words. It let her know he was wondering, as she was, about the consequences of what was happening between the three of them.

“Tell me how it happened. How did you and Jet get together the first time?”

He paused. “Why does that matter?”

“I'd like to know. Jet says you had lot of girls before him.”

“Oh yeah? What else did he tell you?”

Emily refused to be put off by Brand's clipped tone. “I know his parents are foster carers, Brand. Why didn't you ever tell me how young you were when your parents died?”

She heard him swallow. “There are some things you just don't want to revisit.”

A pressure came to Emily's throat, making it hard to talk. She sounded like she was on the verge of tears, but didn't care. Didn't he know she would wish away every bad thing that had ever happened to him if she could? “I'm sorry, Brand.”

“Don't feel sorry for me. God, don't do that.”

The censure in his tone made Emily blanch. Brand lifted her hand to her lips and kissed along her knuckles, soothing the small emotional wound. Emily snuggled into him, hooking her leg over both of his and sliding onto him. He held her close, his arms wrapped tight around her back.

“I'm not like Gus or George,” he said at length. “I'm not some pathetic stray who needs you to take care of him.”

“I've
never
thought that about you.”

“I know. So don't start.”

Emily took a breath, letting it out slowly. She wouldn't let him hear the threat of tears in her voice again. Letting that subject drop, she repeated her earlier question. “Tell me how you knew you wanted Jet.”

Brand sighed. “I didn't really. At least I didn't want to know.”

“Not until Taylor Garrison.”

Emily turned toward Jet in surprise. “I thought you were asleep.”

“You two weren't exactly whispering anymore.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“No worries.” Jet shifted closer and placed his hand on the small of Emily's back. “I only needed a cat nap. Was up shooting the sunrise this morning.”

“How you suffer for your art.”

Jet transferred his touch to her ass, where he gave it a light pinch. “Oh, I suffer all right.”

Emily wiggled, her body responding with enthusiasm to Jet's touch. Combined with the wealth of muscle and sinew laid out beneath her, it was more than pleasant. “So who was Taylor Garrison?”

It was Brand who responded. “A girl I was seeing.”

“And by seeing, you mean…”

“He was giving it to her behind the back shed every chance he got.”

“Nice, Durante,” Brand groused.

“You were the one doing it.”

“Right. You only watched.”

Emily raised her eyebrows at Jet. “You used to watch him?”

“Only once, with Taylor. And it happened completely by accident.”

“I can't wait to hear how you
accidently
perved on Brand having sex with someone else.”

“Look who's calling me a perv.”

Emily showed him a sheepish smile. “Touché.”

Jet returned her smile and gave her ass an affectionate rub. Her pussy fairly hummed with delight.

“So one day, after Brand had come back to stay with us for the third time and I was already halfway in love with him, Dad sent me out to the shed for something,” Jet said. “It was late in the afternoon, and the sun was starting to slant in that way I loved because it made the orange trees cast such incredible shadows on the grass. My parents' orchard is beautiful in the spring, Em. A real sight to see.”

“I can picture it,” Emily said, closing her eyes and doing just that.

“Anyway I get to the shed and I hear these noises. I know what they are before I see anything, but I keep heading in that direction. Maybe I wanted to see, even though it used to kill me the way Brand would flaunt his girls in front of me.”

Brand interjected. “I didn't flaunt them.”

“You figured out I had a hard crush happening, and you wanted to make sure I knew you were straight.”

The only assent Brand gave was silence. After a moment, Jet moved on with the story.

“So I walk around behind the shed, and there they were. Taylor was on her knees showing Brand a great time. I didn't need to see how into her Brand was, so I tried to back away. That's when Brand saw me. He saw me and he just…stared. He didn't tell me to piss off, and the way he looked at me kept me rooted to the spot. Then he started talking, like he was talking to Taylor. But he was looking at me.”

Emily was barely breathing from the suspense. “What did he say?”

Jet's gaze flicked to Brand's before reconnecting with hers. “He said ‘I know you want this', and a few other things like it. My heart nearly beat out of my chest. I couldn't breathe. Because I did want it. But I'd been with a girl and liked that too, and I was confused. So I turned and ran.”

Emily once again rested her chin on Brand's chest. He wasn't looking at Jet or her, but at the ceiling. “You must have been confused too,” she prompted.

His deep voice rumbled in his chest. “No, I knew what was going on. I knew I wanted to fuck a guy, and I didn't want to want it. So I acted like an asshole. More so after that day. As far as I was concerned, Jet couldn't do anything right. I knew I was blaming him for something neither of us could help. But I figured he'd go off me if I acted badly enough.”

“And did he?”

The corner of Brand's mouth kicked up. “No. The worse I behaved, the happier it seemed to make him. He just kept coming at me with that smile, taking off his shirt like it was too hot to work in it when it wasn't. Little shit was trying to seduce me.”

Emily smiled, thinking only Brand could call the six-foot-tall Jet Durante little.

“I assume he succeeded.”

Jet snorted. “I seduced him? He's the one who came to my room in the end.”

“Only so much a man can take,” Brand growled. “And you didn't lock me out.”

Emily turned back to face Jet, fascinated by the gruff affection that was passing back and forth between the two men. “What happened when he came to your room?”

Jet caressed her ass again, running his hand all the way down the back of her thigh and up once more. Emily bit her lip on the pleasure of his sensuous touch, well able to imagine Brand struggling to resist Jet's advances. “It was unseasonably warm for spring, one of those nights when there's lightning in the distance and the far-off rumble of thunder, but the rain never eventuates. You know nights like that?”

“Yes,” Emily answered, imagining the crackle of electricity in the air, the surprise of a summerlike heat in midspring.

“My parents' house had a veranda that ran all around it, French doors on the bedrooms. I was lying there in the dark watching the night light up, when suddenly there's a shadow at my door. I knew it was Brand so I wasn't scared, but I could barely breathe anyway. When he pulled the door open, I just lay there.”

“He was on top of the sheets,” Brand added. “Wearing nothing but a pair of blue boxer shorts.”

The unmistakable thickness of remembered desire was in Brand's voice, and it made Emily's inner muscles contract. Wetness seeped out of her and onto Brand's cock, which was beginning to stiffen against her folds. Emily undulated her hips, making her clit slide over his smooth shaft. Brand sank his fingers into her hair and brushed his lips over the top of her head.

Jet continued to caress her ass, his fingers moving ever closer to her wet center as he relayed more of the story. “When Brand came into the room, I didn't know what he was going to do. From the look on his face, he might just as likely have killed me as kissed me. But then he stalked to the bed, sat on the edge and yanked down my shorts. All of it without a word. Then he proceeded to do to me what I'd seen Taylor do to him the week before.”

Emily pictured it all so vividly. The dark night illuminated by flashes of lightning, Brand's thunderous emotions thrumming inside him like the storm that vibrated outside. His head bending to Jet's rock-hard erection.

“His mouth was so hot, so possessive. He didn't ask, he took. It was so good I didn't last long. Before I knew it there was come everywhere, all over me, and Brand was just staring at it like he'd never seen come before. I suppose he hadn't seen any other than his own.”

Emily was caught up in the picture Jet's words painted, captivated by the vivid scene as though she were right there. Her pussy throbbed wildly. She never would have thought hearing the story of how two men had first made love would turn her on so much. But when Jet approached her opening with his finger, he found her drenched and easy to penetrate. He pushed inside her and she moaned.

Jet dipped his head to brush his lips over her ear. “You want to know what happened next?”

“Yes,” Emily said, rocking her hips in time to Jet's thrusting finger.

“He left. The prick up and left without a word. But he came back the next night, and the next. We made each other come in so many ways it becomes this blur of pleasure in my memory. But the first time he fucked me, that I'll never forget.”

Jet withdrew his finger from her depths, taking the moisture he'd gathered and coating her back entrance with it. Emily's hole puckered at the unexpected touch. He asked, “Do you know how good it is to have Brand fuck you here, hon?”

Emily knew what he was asking—if she and Brand had ever had anal sex. She nodded, her cheek scraping against the silky tuft of hair on Brand's chest. Her body filled with delicious tension as Jet took more of the cream from her cunt and spread it around her ass, because she also knew why he was asking. His cock was pressing, hard and hot, against her outer thigh, a question and an answer all at once.

When Jet sunk a finger into her ass, breaching the outer ring, Emily swore and clung to Brand's shoulders. His big hands moved to her hips. He held her while Jet reached to the nightstand for one of the two remaining condoms from the three he'd had in his wallet.

Wetness gushed out of her. Jet was going to fuck her ass while Brand held her against him. Her heart thudded and her nipples stiffened against Brand's body. When Jet returned, his cock now sheathed and prodding her back hole, Emily shivered with anticipation.

Brand's fingers dug into her hips. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. Oh God, yes.”

Jet took that as his cue to push the head of his cock past her outer barrier. Emily froze, breathing hard as she adjusted. Brand had taken her this way but not often. He was usually so delighted with her pussy that the issue never came up.

“The first time Brand fucked me,” Jet went back to relaying his story as he nudged inside her another inch. “It was fast and frantic. He couldn't wait to get inside me and I couldn't wait for him to be there. But I'm going to take my time with you, Em. Because I've been thinking about your luscious ass since the first moment I laid eyes on it, and I'm not going to rush through this.”

“Oh, Jet.” Emily rocked her hips, encouraging him to seat himself fully inside her. Against Brand's cock, her clit fluttered in delighted response to her movements. “Oh please.”

“Tell him what you want.”

It was Brand's voice, gruff and urgent against her temple. There was such a steely command in it that Emily grew wetter. Brand had never bossed her around in bed, yet it seemed so right, so damn hot when he did it. Jet reached between her legs and gathered more of the cream she spilled.