Eternal Brand (23 page)

“Don't look like that, I've always known. I also know you broke his heart before.” Carla gave him the kind of menacing look only a mother could give. “Don't do it again. Do I make myself clear?”

Brand found himself replying automatically. “Yes, Mrs. D.”

“Good. We'll be gone for a few hours at least. Don't leave before we get back.”

Brand promised not to before he could decide if he wanted to do it. Then Carla walked away, leaving him wondering how she could deceive him into driving seven and a half hours and end up making
him
feel guilty. His lips twitched. The woman was a witch, but he adored her. How had he gone so long without seeing her?

Because he'd been afraid to come back. Afraid to remember the wrecked person he'd been when he was here. Afraid to confront his feelings for Jet. Afraid to accept he'd had the kind of love other people dream about and he'd pushed it away because, as Carla said, he couldn't accept it.

He was lucky enough to find two great loves in his life, and too dumb to hold on to it either time. He stared at the house as the Durantes drove away. Knowing Jet was inside made his heart slam against his ribs and his mouth dry out. Was Jet giving him another chance? He didn't deserve it. But was he still too dumb to grab it with both hands?

Time to smarten up, Walker.

Brand's strides were purposeful as he headed to the house.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Jet's throat constricted as he saw Brand stalking fast toward his parents' front door. Shit. Had he gone too far this time? Getting his mother to lie to Brand was pretty low. But he hadn't seen any other way. He'd had no idea where Brand was, and he didn't think a plea from him would have had an effect.

But Brand had never been able to say no to Jet's mother, and Jet had used it to his advantage. He figured he was about to get the sock in the jaw he'd always courted and never gotten from Brand.

“Talk fast, Durante,” he muttered to himself as he stood in the living room, watching through the window as Brand mounted the front steps. “And if he hits you anyway, you just hit the son-of-a-bitch back.”

Jet crossed his arms over his chest in classic defensive stance as Brand all but crashed through the front door. His eyes landed on Jet right away, and in their silver depths Jet saw molten fire.

Oh hell.
Jet had to admit he was intimidated. Brand looked like he'd walked in from a brawl, or a gunfight if this were the old West. His jeans were tattered and worn, his gray hoodie hung unzipped from his shoulders, revealing the wealth of powerful muscle beneath his black T-shirt. He looked like he hadn't shaved since the night of Penny's party. His six-day growth made him look even scarier.

Not to mention a sexy as sin.
Stick to the script, Durante.

“Before you say anything, hear me out. Please.”

A muscle ticked in Brand's jaw. He said nothing, but he kicked the front door shut with his foot, and Jet took that as permission to continue.

“I'm sorry that I got you here under false pretenses. Fuck.” Jet glanced at the ceiling for a second, then lowered his eyes and tried again. “I'm not sorry because you left me with no choice. I knew you wouldn't come if I asked because—hell, you never have. Walking away from me is your specialty, and I guess that hasn't changed. But I'm banking on my belief that it's been harder for you to leave Emily. It's been hard enough for me, let alone for you.”

He hadn't called Emily any time in the last six days because he didn't think she wanted to hear from him. He missed her like crazy and wished that she'd let him help her through the devastation of having Brand walk out on her. But she hadn't wanted his help. She'd wanted Brand back. That's what he had to focus on doing.

“You fucked up, Brand. Epically.”

Brand didn't deny it. He simply continued to stare at Jet with that steady look, his whole body tense like he was ready to pounce. Pulse pounding, Jet hurried on. “You had a goldmine and you walked away from it. You need Emily. You need her more than you ever needed me, which is why I'm asking you to get your shit together and find a way to go back to her. If you don't, I'm afraid what will happen to you. I love you too fucking much to see you throw your last chance at happiness away. She will accept you, Brand, even with all your faults—and believe me, there are many.”

For the first time, something chipped away at Brand's stoic expression. His lips twitched, the beginnings of a smile trying to break through. Jet's heart just about exploded, and his cock did much the same. Brand had always been able to slay his heart and stir his groin with no more than that faint, too-rare smile.

With effort, Jet ignored his ill-timed arousal and continued. “Go back to her, Brand. Beg her forgiveness. Be better than you have been if you can, but damn it, just be with her. She's good for you. I'm not, so you won't have to worry about me anymore. I'll let you both be from now on.”

Silence fell. Brand continued to stare at him, as though waiting for him to say more. Jet didn't have anything more and suddenly he felt like a dick. Had he walked into this fight with the wrong ammunition?

At last, Brand spoke. He raised one brow. “Are you done?”

Yeah I'm done. I think me and my stupid idea are both toast.
His voice came out hoarse, defeated. “I guess I am.”

Brand started walking toward him, his footfalls measured and deliberate, as though each step was a decision, not a reaction. Jet's stomach flipped over. His breath stopped in his throat as he read the intent in Brand's eyes, in the faint smile he wore. He was both unsurprised and shocked down to his toes when Brand put both hands on his face and drew him in for a kiss.

It wasn't the frantic crush Jet expected, but a slow, soft touch of their lips. His breath left him in a whimper. He stood there, immobile, afraid to move as Brand increased the pressure of his lips by degrees. Jet responded—he couldn't not. He parted his lips and offered his tongue. Brand stroked it with his, sending a shiver of pure delight through Jet's body.

Brand pulled back too soon, leaving Jet aching with arousal and a fledgling, desperate hope. Brand ran a hand through Jet's hair, held his gaze. “Do you remember when I kissed you in the stables at Mulholland?”

As if he could ever forget. His answer was a breathy croak. “Yeah.”

“I shouldn't have stopped.” Brand traced the line of Jet's lower lip with his finger. “I shouldn't have stopped.”

This time when Brand kissed him, Jet threw his arms around Brand's back and responded with more fervor. Brand let him turn up the heat but very much remained in control of the exchange. He took hold of Jet's hips and brought them flush together, but it was a slow, sensual grind and not the primal thrust that had characterized their encounters in the past. Jet felt Brand moving thick and hard against him, and his own erection swelled to the point it was going to start doing the thinking for him.

He couldn't let that happen. If Brand kissed him like this, hope was going to grow with or without his consent, and he had to know if he was misinterpreting things before his heart ran away with him.

It was Jet's turn to pull back. He did it quickly, knowing it was the only way he could. “Is this your way of saying goodbye to me?”

Brand's lips curved fully now. “This is my way of saying I can't be the man Emily needs me to be without you. You're right, I fucked up. I
am
a fuckup. Emily deserves better. So do you. But I need your help to be better, Jet. I've always needed you.”

Jet closed his eyes on the pleasure of hearing Brand say that. How many times had he dreamt he would say something exactly like it? Too many. The hot sting of tears threatened. “Fuck you, Brandon Walker. I had this all planned out.”

“You were going to send me back to Emily and move to Africa.”

“That about sums it up.”

“I won't allow it, just so you know. Africa's too far away.”

Well. If that wasn't the guttural sound of possessiveness in Brand's voice. Jet was secretly thrilled, but he couldn't let Brand get away with high-handed shit like that. “I'll go to Africa if someone pays me to. It's my job you know.”

“Damn it, Jet. I'm kinda going out on a limb here.” At the hint of vulnerability in his words, Jet looked up. Brand's expression showed his fear and uncertainty. “I just admitted I need you and… Hell, if you have to go I'll understand, but I guess I'm hoping… Fuck. I'm asking you not to. At least not until I get my head on straight.”

Jet's heart fell. Not just a slight dip, but a drop like it had been hurled from a thirty-five story building. Brand was not only uncertain, he was terrified. He'd probably always been terrified in one way or another, but this was the first time he'd ever shown it so openly to Jet.

“No Africa,” he croaked. “I'm not going anywhere for a while.”

Brand let out a relieved breath. It shuddered in the small space between them. “Good. I want you close.”

Jet moved his hands down until they cupped Brand's ass. “I want you inside me.”

Brand smirked. “You've never been shy, have you?”

“You love me that way.” Embarrassed to have used the L-word when Brand had never done so, Jet pulled out of Brand's arms and headed down the hall. “You coming or what?”

In his childhood bedroom, which other than a coat of paint and some updated furniture hadn't changed very much, Jet kept his back to the door. He didn't turn around when he heard Brand come in, keeping his attention on his fly as he lowered it. He told himself it didn't matter about the words. He knew Brand loved him in the best way he knew how. He was here and he was going to try to be better. That was enough.

Brand's touch was surprisingly gentle as he started lifting Jet's jumper and shirt. Jet raised his arms, his flesh igniting as Brand drew the garments over his head slowly. It was as though he were unwrapping a gift. Jet trembled when Brand touched his bare skin, first on his arms, then his chest. When he skimmed the taut muscles of his abdomen, they bunched tight in anticipation.

“I do, you know. I love you, Jet.”

The tears that had threatened out in the living room welled again. Jet covered Brand's hands with his, squeezing his fingers in gratitude. They were so much more than words to Jet because he knew how hard they were for Brand to say. But it was only after the L-word was finally out there that Jet realized it was the
I need you
that Brand had already said that meant the most.

Knowing that, and wanting to give something important back, Jet shifted Brand's hand down until it was inside his jeans and on his rock hard erection. “I need you, baby. Need you so bad.”

“Yeah.” Brand deftly stroked Jet's cock until his balls grew hot and tight. Then he gave him a gentle push between the shoulder blades. “Lie down on the bed.”

Jet shucked his jeans and lay on top of the covers, on the blue and black patchwork quilt that he'd had since his teens. He remembered lying on top of this very quilt the first night Brand had come to him all those years ago. Then, Brand had been seething with repressed emotions—anger, lust, grief.

Now he took his clothes off with composed movements, a man who knew what he was doing and wasn't afraid of it. When he kneeled on the bed, Jet propped on his elbows and reached for Brand's cock, more than ready to suck that perfect rod into his mouth.

But Brand stopped him. “No. Lie still.”

Jet lay back down but the frustration came out in his voice. “I want to taste you.”

“Not this time. I'm going to make love to you the way I do to Emily. But this time it's all for you, Jet Durante.”

Jet couldn't have fought him if he wanted to. He considered himself a fairly masculine bloke, but he was pretty sure he swooned like a girl when Brand followed up his pronouncement with a deep and profound kiss.

The kiss went on and on, until Jet was squirming beneath Brand, his needs escalating. Brand eventually released his mouth, only to begin teasing him with a series of kisses down lower—on his throat, over his chest, on his nipples. Jet clutched at the back of Brand's head as he moved even lower, his destination clear but oh so far away.

Brand had given him blowjobs before but nothing like this. This was a slow seduction, the kind of enticement Jet had never needed. “Brand.” He tilted his hips. “This is not my first rodeo, cowboy.”

Brand laughed, and the sound lifted Jet's spirits even as intense arousal made it damn near impossible for him to breathe. “You and Emily are so much alike. She's always trying to rush me too.”

“That's because you're so fucking sexy, Walker.”

Brand skated his hand over Jet's abs, brushing the underside of his cock with his knuckles in the process. Jet groaned and thrust his hips reflexively, needing a more complete touch.

But the serious look was back in Brand's eyes. “You'll help me, won't you? You're right, I need her, but I'm not good enough on my own.”

“That's not true.”

“Jet, I'm asking you to come back to Mulholland with me. Will you?”

Jet pushed out a sigh. “It's you she wants, Brand. Not me.”

“You've got to be kidding.” Brand's look turned fierce as he wrapped his hand around Jet's cock and stroked it. “Who wouldn't want this?”

“Oh fuck! Brand…God.”

“Tell me what you need.”

“Your mouth. Jesus Christ, your mouth.”

“You want to come while I'm sucking you off or fucking you?”

Brand traced a circle with this thumb in a particularly sensitive spot and Jet's hips came right off the mattress. “Both. All of it.”

“You want to be sucked and fucked at the same time we need a third person.”

The sneaky, manipulative bastard.
“That's a low blow.”

Brand merely smirked. “You just think about how good it was when you were in bed with me and Emily while I'm getting you off. Then tell me again you're not coming back with me.”

Jet thanked Brand, the heavens and everything in between when Brand finally took his engorged shaft into his mouth. Brand's tongue worked its knowing magic, causing wave after wave of pleasure to lick over Jet's sensitive skin. God he was good at this, as good as Emily and a damn sight more sure of himself which only increased the thrill.

Emily… She was there in his mind, smiling at him, kissing him, rubbing her gorgeous breasts over his chest while Brand sucked him. The fantasy sent his arousal to new heights, and when Brand prodded at his anus with his finger, Jet cried out.

“Damn! So good…don't stop.”

Brand didn't. He inserted two fingers into Jet's ass, unerringly finding the sweet spot that had Jet bucking his hips. Brand clamped his lips hard on Jet's cock, hollowing his cheeks like he was trying to milk him dry. Jet's gaze locked on the erotic sight, even as his mind's eye also pictured Emily kneeling on the bed beside them, rubbing her clit because she found the sight of him and Brand together sexy as hell.

Brand's eyes never left Jet's and there was a knowing light in them, as if he could tell what Jet was thinking. Using that to his advantage, he wiggled his fingers in Jet's ass, causing a new sensation to shoot through him. At the same time Brand swallowed Jet's shaft to the root.