Branded, p.9
Branded, page 9
She was never going to be able to thank him enough for giving her such a precious gift.
Brea was afraid more than just her body was becoming entangled with Gage. And she knew that wasn’t at all what he was interested in.
Keep it light, Brea. Keep it fun. Don’t fall in love. She already knew Gage was only in it for the fun and the sex. There was nothing wrong with that. If she pushed for anything more, he’d walk away. And she was having way too much fun discovering great sex to lose him.
He caressed her back, using his fingertips to walk along her spine. “You have a very serious look on your face for a woman who just screamed the rooftop down when she came.”
She giggled. “I’m thinking we’re not quite finished yet.” She reached between them and wrapped her fingers around his cock. It was hard and hot and he thrust against her hand. “You have to be more than ready.”
“I’m patient. I don’t mind waiting while you come a few times.”
Another thing she admired so much about him, and what made him so different from the men she’d been with before. He saw to her needs first instead of his own.
“Now it’s time for you and me to come together.”
He grinned. “I like how bold you’ve become. A few days ago you wouldn’t have said that.”
She pressed her lips to his. “I have you to thank for my newfound confidence. Now, let’s get this inside me.”
He laughed. “Greedy tart.”
She squeezed his cock, sliding her hand up and down the shaft. “Tease.”
Gage flipped her onto her back and kissed her, and she forgot all about talking as he heated her up with his mouth and tongue until she was senseless and craving him inside her. He rolled them onto their sides and lifted her leg over his hip, then quickly grabbed a condom and put it on in record time, before turning back to her and sliding inside her.
She melted around him, surging forward to push more of his cock inside her.
“You feel better than the dildo,” she said, smoothing her hand down his arm.
“Good to know you like a lifelike dick inside you.” His cock twitched inside her and it was so much better than anything plastic or silicone could ever be for her.
“Oh, I definitely like the real thing a lot better. But what you did . . . oh my God, Gage, it felt so good. I’ve never . . .”
He slid his hand down her back, his finger dipping between the globes of her buttocks. “Never, huh?”
“No.”
“Good. I like giving you a first.”
He fucked her with gentle, easy strokes, continuing to tease between her ass cheeks with his fingers, driving her to the brink of madness. Brea had no idea she was so sensitive there, that someone touching her anus could ratchet up her pleasure so much. But the more he touched her there, using just his fingertip to tease the hole, the more she knew what she wanted. Something she’d never experienced before. Something she wanted Gage to do.
“Gage.”
“Yeah, darlin’?”
“I want you to fuck me there.”
He stilled, his cock jerking inside her. “Are you sure?”
She kissed him, rimming his lower lip with her tongue. “Yes.”
His nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply, then thrust forward, his cock seeming to swell thicker with every movement.
Then he withdrew and grabbed the lube and dildo. “Roll over onto your side and slide this dildo in your pussy.”
She did, inserting the phallus into her, unable to resist stroking it in and out.
“I like watching you do that,” Gage said, crawling back onto the bed behind her. “If I was the kind of guy who liked to share, it would be fun seeing you get fucked by some other guy. Or seeing you suck another guy’s dick while I fucked you.”
Visions filled her head of Gage fucking her and some nameless, faceless other man shoving his cock in her mouth. Or Gage fucking her ass while another man thrust his cock in her pussy. She shuddered and shoved the dildo in faster.
“Don’t come yet, darlin’,” Gage said, pouring lube on his cock and settling in behind her. “Not until I fuck you.”
She stilled, panting in excitement and a little fear as he spread her ass cheeks and coated her anus with lube.
“Anytime you want to stop, just tell me.”
She nodded, but she was past the point of stopping. She wanted this.
He teased his cock head against the entrance to her anus, and her nerve endings went wild, her pussy contracting with spasms of pleasure. She held tight to the dildo, pumping it light and easy so she wouldn’t come yet.
And then he pushed the head of his cock inside her, and it hurt. It burned, and yet at the same time, the feeling was pure pleasure. He eased all the way in, and Brea had never felt anything like it before. She had a cock in her pussy and one in her ass, and all she could do was fantasize about having two men. She’d never want that in reality, but what she was doing now with Gage was the ultimate fantasy, and it was more than enough.
“Fuck yourself,” he said as he began to move behind her, sliding his cock ever so slowly inside her ass. “Feel both cocks fucking you.”
She pulled the dildo partway out and slid it back in, dragging it past the part of her that screamed with nerve endings. Everything felt tighter now that Gage was buried in her ass, and she arched her back and laid her head against his shoulder as he began to move in earnest. And so did she, pumping the dildo in rhythm to the movements of his cock.
“Fuck, that’s tight,” he said, his voice laced with a hard edge. He dug his fingers into her hip and pulled her against him, and Brea was lost in the sensation. She slid her other hand down to rub her clit, unable to stand the need rising inside her.
“I need to come, Gage,” she said through panting breaths as she strummed her clit and shoved the dildo furiously into her pussy. “Fuck me harder.”
“Oh, yeah. I’m going to shoot come hard into you, Brea. You ready for it?”
“Yes. Fuck me. Yes.”
She was so lost now, the stirrings of orgasm taking her over, that when he held tight to her hips and tunneled deep, she went over, crying out in wild abandon as her orgasm shattered her.
She felt it in every part of her, stronger than the last one, squeezing everything she had inside her. She bucked back toward Gage and he yelled out and shuddered against her, burying his face in her neck as he came.
She was sweaty and exhausted and couldn’t have moved if she tried. Gage withdrew and somehow managed to get them both into her bathroom and into the shower, where he washed her off and then towel-dried her before carrying her to bed and sliding in behind her.
He kissed her neck and shoulders and threw an arm around her. Brea smiled, realizing that they hadn’t said much the entire time after. But he’d smiled at her in a way that she understood all too well.
No words were necessary. She let herself drift off.
A few hours later, Gage woke her with a kiss and a whisper.
“I’m going to sneak out of here. Don’t want to be found here in the morning.”
She smiled and snuggled deeper into the pillows. “I don’t think anyone would mind that we’re sleeping together.”
“I mind. I have too much respect for you to have people snickering about us. Besides, what we do is our business, no one else’s, okay?”
She yawned. “Okay.”
“See you tomorrow.”
He pressed a kiss to her lips and she heard the soft snick of her bedroom door as he let himself out.
She was smiling as she fell back to sleep.
eight
gage had worked late today so everyone had gone ahead without him. He could barely find a spot in the parking lot. And when he walked in, the scene rocked him back on his boots.
The bar in town was packed. Even for a typical Friday night, it was full up and people were crowded in like cattle in a chute. It was the busy season and new hands had hired on. Gage scooted inside and looked around to see who was there that he knew.
Hell, everyone was there. Mason and Walker nodded as he walked by the pool tables; several other hands were playing poker, and a couple were hitting on women.
Gage moved through the bar, surveying the strangers that mingled with the people he’d known since he’d been at the Bar M. For the first time in a lot of years, there were people he called his friends.
And didn’t that set off warning bells.
He wasn’t the type to set down roots. He liked people well enough to get by, but he didn’t get close to them. Drifting from one job to another suited him just fine. Staying in one place too long meant you’d get attached. And getting attached only spelled trouble. He’d long ago vowed never to get serious about anything, whether it be a place or a thing or especially a woman.
People might say they loved you, but Gage had personal experience in that department. Love was for fools, just a word people threw around when they wanted something from you. If you kept your distance and didn’t get close to people, you didn’t get hurt.
Gage was going to make sure never to fall into that trap. Love was nothing but trouble. Freedom was everything.
Speaking of trouble, he spotted Brea moving through the crowd. She sashayed over to her sisters, who were leaning against the bar talking to Sandy, the bartender. Brea wore a pair of tight jeans that molded to her ass, a green tank top that brought out the fiery red in her hair, and earrings that glittered despite the smoke in the bar. Damn, she looked good enough to eat.
The past few days they’d spent almost all their time together. She’d started helping him with horse training, claiming she was interested in what he did. He figured Jolene had given up on Brea paying attention to any ranch duties since she always seemed to want to be close to the corral where Gage was training.
Even tonight she’d wanted to linger behind and wait for him, but he wasn’t sure he’d even get done in time to make it to the bar, so he told her to go with her sisters, and she’d reluctantly agreed. She hadn’t wanted to leave him.
Not that he minded that. When she wasn’t around, he missed her and wondered what she was doing and where she was. Which was bad. Really bad. He never thought about women other than when he was with them. Out of sight, out of mind.
Except with Brea. Out of sight, on his mind. And that sent the warning bell clanging even louder.
Brea tilted her head back and laughed at something Sandy said. Brea had a beautiful laugh, and now that she’d come out of her shell, everything about her seemed to sparkle with life and laughter. He thought she’d been beautiful before, but now she sizzled.
And apparently others had started to notice Brea, too. While Valerie and Jolene headed out to the dance floor, Brea was left alone with Sandy. When Sandy went to fill a drink order down the bar, two guys moved up on either side of Brea, both leaning in to speak to her.
She looked kind of surprised, but she smiled at both of them and didn’t seem uncomfortable. One of the guys signaled Sandy with a twirl of his fingers for another round for all three of them. Brea sat on the bar stool and accepted the beer one of them handed her.
The guy on the left, tall and lanky with a smile meant to charm the ladies, pulled up a seat next to Brea and leaned in, his body language loud and clear as he leaned his arm on the bar so it would brush Brea’s shoulders. The other one, with long shaggy blond hair, tipped his hat back and stuck out his chest, straddled his bar stool and crowded Brea.
She didn’t seem all that crowded, though. She was laughing.
Gage’s hand balled into a fist and he thought of a hundred different ways he’d like to castrate the two cowboys.
“Looks like a couple of greenhorns are trying to muscle in on your woman,” Mason said as he and Walker moved up on either side of him.
“Yeah,” Walker said, laying a hand on Gage’s shoulder. “And you don’t seem too happy about that. So what are you going to do about it?”
His woman. They saw Brea as his woman. Was he that obvious? Maybe it was the clenched fist or the tight set of his jaw. Things between him and Brea had gone further than he’d thought they would. It was time to pull on the reins, hard.
He relaxed and shrugged. “She’s not my woman.”
Mason coughed and muttered, “Bullshit.”
Walker laughed and slapped him on the back. “You trying to convince us, or yourself?”
He leaned back against a thick column and crossed his arms. “Brea can do whatever she wants with whoever she wants. We just had some fun together, that’s all.”
“Uh huh. Keep talkin’, Gage. In the meantime, those cowboys are rustlin’ your filly.”
He wouldn’t look. He didn’t. Not until Walker and Mason tired of giving him a hard time and went back to the pool table. Then his gaze shot back to the bar stool where Brea . . . had been sitting. She wasn’t there anymore.
Neither were the two guys.
Goddammit. Where was she?
“Were you planning on hiding from me tonight?”
He whirled around to find Brea standing behind him. He smiled down at her. “I’d never hide from you. You looked busy.”
“Oh, those guys?” She rolled her eyes. “They swooped in and hit on me like they’d been living in the desert and hadn’t seen a woman in years. They were kind of obvious.”
“Is that right.”
“Yes.” She hooked her arm in his. “I wasn’t interested.”
“Why not?”
She stilled, then tilted her head back, a look of surprise on her face. “Duh, cowboy. Because I already have the man I want.”
Gage’s gut clenched. “Uh, Brea, I think we should talk.”
She frowned. “About what?”
“About you and me. But not here. Let’s go outside.”
“Okay.”
He led her outside, where it was quieter, but part of the crowd had spilled outside to smoke and talk, which meant they still didn’t have enough privacy. “How about we sit in my truck?”
They slid into the front seat, and Brea snuggled across the bench to sit next to him. She laid her hand on his thigh. “This is nice. Want to make out like teenagers?”
Dammit, he loved her sense of humor, the way she’d broken out of her shell and how comfortable she was in her own skin now. He loved everything about her. Which was why he was going to have to hurt her. Otherwise, he might start thinking he’d like to stick around, keep his job on the Bar M just so he could be near her. He might start thinking he was falling in love with her. And Gage was never going to fall in love.
“Darlin’, we’ve had a lot of fun together . . .”
Her smile died and she removed her hand from his lap. “Why do I think there’s a ‘but’ about to follow those words?”
“Brea, I made no secret of the fact that I’m not the kind of guy to settle down.”
She shifted to face him, but he saw it as her inching away from him. “I don’t recall asking you to marry me, Gage.”
“I know you didn’t. But I know where this is going between you and me. And I can’t go there with you. I can’t be the kind of guy you need.”
She slid farther away, her face showing her pain. He hated doing this to her, but better now than later. “Really. And what kind of guy is it that you think I need?”
He moved toward her, lifted her chin so she’d be forced to look at him, so she’d read the truth in his eyes. “Someone who’ll love you like you deserve to be loved. Someone who’ll be there for you every day, who won’t leave you.”
“You’re leaving.”
He shrugged. “Sooner or later, yeah. I don’t put down roots. I like to keep my life fluid.”
Her eyes filled with tears and she blinked a few times. He knew she was trying to keep from crying, which only twisted his insides more. He wanted to pull her against him and hold her, kiss her, tell her he didn’t mean anything he just said. He wanted to take a chance for the first time in his life, and tell her how he really felt.
But he couldn’t.
“So you’re ending things with me now so I don’t get hurt later.”
“Something like that.”
“How utterly noble of you, Gage, sparing my feelings like this. I mean, I’m sure women fall in love with you all the time, so you must be used to this.”
“Brea . . .”
She held up her hand. “Please, don’t bother trying to placate me. I’m so glad you told me before I did something stupid, like tell you how grateful I am for everything you’ve done for me, for making me feel like the woman I always wanted to be but never thought I could be. How, thanks to you, I don’t feel like a wallflower anymore, and that’s why those men approached me tonight. It was because you showed me I’m attractive and worthy of being desired. It’s just too bad you’re too much of a coward to see this out, because it could have been really damn good between us.”
“Brea, that’s not what—”
“Spare me whatever practiced speech I’m sure you’ve used before, Gage.” She lifted tearful eyes to his. “I’m not going to fall apart and hide in my room. You’re not crushing me. You’ve already shown me I’m worth more than that. So you did a great job coaxing this butterfly out of her cocoon, and some other guy will be the lucky recipient of all your work.”
She popped open the door and slid out, slammed it shut and graced him with a smile that made him want to beg her forgiveness.
“I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for out there, Gage. But I have to tell you, I think what you’re looking for is right here. And I think what you really need is me.”
She turned and walked away, her head held high.
And he realized as he watched her open the door and head back into the bar that the dumbest thing he’d ever done in his life was let her go.
