Chapter 15

April didn’t remember Brandon’s house being so close to the cornfields; on this visit she thought it a little shabby like most of the old sharecroppers’ houses, but not without its charm. April pulled her car over and tried to calm her pounding heart, but for such a small house, it loomed large in her peripheral vision.

The magnolia tree that shaded it was covered in cup-shaped ivory blossoms. So many petals had fallen in the yard, they looked like snow. The scraggly old rose vine seemed to have rallied. Now it spread over a trellis on the sunny side of the garage, creating velvety red splotches against the peeling paint.

The last time April was here, Roxanne had been standing in the doorway and another girl was dressing in the bedroom. There was a part of April that almost wondered what she’d find now when she knocked.

Brandon’s world was not her world. She had no footing there, no rights, except those she claimed for herself.

Dear God, help me. Am I doing the right thing or the wrong one?

Her car idled on the side of the road for ten minutes before she had the courage to drive up to his house.

She wondered if she would still feel this sense of nervous dread if she didn’t have to lie to be here. First to Jacey and then to Joanna, who took one look at the smorgasbord April brought her and said, “Are you sure there isn’t some nice family in town who might need this?” That was before she’d gestured toward her kitchen counter, every square inch of which was crowded with tinfoil-covered casserole dishes exactly like April’s.

And now the food sat in the backseat, making the whole car smell like potatoes and roast turkey.

A screen door slammed and Brandon came out of the house. When she saw him, time oozed like molasses from a jar, slow and sweet. With his broad shoulders and narrow waist, Brandon moved with a predator’s grace. Despite his horrible childhood, he’d somehow survived, the way steel was forged by fire. And she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

She got out and they met on the concrete pad in front of the garage. There was a dirt bike with its front wheel secured inside a bike stand next to a chest full of mechanics’ tools. A shiny new carburetor lay on a tarp.

Brandon’s green eyes gleamed with male approval when he saw her, but he didn’t say much. Maybe it was hard to talk when all you wanted to do was rip each other’s clothes off. With the sun slanting across his face, he looked even more spectacularly handsome than usual. It deepened his natural tan, created shadows under his cheekbones and carved an outline around his full, sensual mouth.

She tried not to stare, but he was staring, too, and neither one of them seemed able to speak.

He had his hands in his pockets. She had her hands in hers.

The world around them was a blurry watercolor, but Brandon looked almost too real. The fitted black T-shirt. The jeans. The motorcycle boots. She wondered if the reason they kept their hands in their pockets was to stop themselves from doing something crazy right here in the driveway.

Nobody had warned her that desire had a blade edge to it. Nobody had told her that wanting someone this badly felt a bit like dying. But when he didn’t step toward her right away, she knew why.

If he did, they would both go up in flames.

“The bike,” he said slowly, jerking his chin toward the motorcycle on the bike stand. “I’m going to teach you how to ride.”

She blinked up at him. “Really?”

“Dirt bikes are perfect for beginners. But I’ll get you up on a Harley in no time.”

“Isn’t that Matt’s bike? I don’t want to—”

“No, he rides the 450. Besides this one’s clapped out.” He saw her puzzled expression and explained, “A bike that’s seen better days.”

She went over to it and lightly traced the curve of the handlebars. It seemed impossible that she could command such a thing. Images slid through her mind of her and Brandon riding side-by-side past a field of bluebonnets, through a canyon pass, down an open highway.

No one in Cuervo expected to see April Roby on a motorcycle. She could feel the adrenaline rush already, along with the dark, subversive thrill of shocking people. She couldn’t wait.

And she knew suddenly what he was offering her: freedom.

“When do we get started?” she said.

Brandon chuckled. “That’s my girl.”

She let her gaze flit away before he saw how much she liked him saying that, particularly the my part. That one word, my, made her purr inside, like a cat that had been petted in all the right places.

“Oh, the food!” she remembered with a start. “I brought you dinner, but I might need help carrying it inside.”

“How much food are we talking about here?” he asked.

She explained the situation while they walked to her car. The last thing she wanted was for Brandon to think she was one of those desperate women who tried to ingratiate herself by doing too much, too soon.

He opened her car door and then stood staring into the backseat with a glazed, hungry expression. “Holy shit.”

“Do you think Matthew and Long Jon—”

“To hell with those guys,” he said. “I haven’t had a home-cooked meal in ages. Let’s eat and then we’ll get you up on the bike. Deal?”

Watching Brandon grab those dishes and run inside the house with them made her think he was telling the truth about no home-cooked meals. Did he even know how to cook?

Matthew and Long Jon, who must have been spying from the window, were both in the kitchen waiting for them. April may not have grown up with brothers, but it seemed to her that men always had radar when it came to food. She felt a little glow of happiness that came from being useful and needed.

“Is that for us?” Matthew asked hopefully.

Long Jon rubbed his hands together when he saw the roasting pan with the turkey in it. “Once I start puttin’ the hurt on that bird, you are advised to keep your fingers away from my mouth.”

April laughed. “I have to heat this stuff up first, you know.” She glanced around the kitchen. The place needed a good scrubbing, but she’d seen worse. At least there weren’t any motorcycle parts in the sink.

She cleared space on the counter and started unpacking the bags while Brandon peeked at what was underneath the tinfoil. When he saw the pies, he gave a low whistle. “Homemade?”

“Of course.” She preheated the oven. For all she knew, Brandon had a dozen women cooking for him. Naked. She shoved that thought aside.

“Is that scalloped potatoes?” Long Jon asked, sniffing the air appreciatively.

“My sister, Maggie, is a first-rate cook and pastry maker,” April told him. “She taught me how to make lots of things. Maggie owns that bakery on Main Street called Sweet Dreams. You’ve been there, right?”

They listened politely, even Brandon, but April sensed that they had no idea what she was talking about. She tried to picture them inside Maggie’s ultra-feminine bakery, all disreputable with their muddy boots and testosterone. Maybe it was better just talking about motorcycles.

“Well, ain’t this something?” Long Jon leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. “It’s as close to a biker Hallmark card as I’m gonna get.”

While April was at the counter getting the turkey ready to put in the oven, Matthew rehashed the motocross race, punctuating his story with lots of f-bombs and sound effects. If April had sworn like that as a teenager, her mother would have sent her to her room for a week. But this was a household of men. Everything about it was different from what she was used to. Brandon didn’t even look as though he belonged in a kitchen. Or anyplace with walls for that matter.

Yet as she gazed out the kitchen window, there was a sense of contentment she hadn’t expected to feel. A lot of their bike culture references were lost on her, but she liked their slangy way of talking. Men were…uncomplicated.

There were no placemats, but April hunted until she found a sufficient number of mismatched forks, spoons and knives to set the table. Brandon didn’t say anything, but she could tell he was watching her.

Being here with him gave her the same feeling of giddy excitement that riding on the back of his bike did. The idea of returning to her quiet single life with her fancy hand towels and her piano didn’t seem very appetizing all of a sudden.

As soon as the food was on the table, everybody tucked into it. For the first few minutes, all she heard were the sounds of munching. Long Jon sawed a leg off the turkey and said, “I’d drive fifty miles through a snow storm for a meal this good.”

Matthew had about half the cheesy potatoes, a pile of green beans, a mound of turkey and two slices of pie in front of him. “We usually have hot dogs for dinner,” he told her. “Or prison stew.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

Long Jon said, “When you’re in lock-up, it’s meat you chop up with the edge of your prison ID card and flavor with ground-up Cheetos. I like it better with Ramen though.”

“That sounds awful.” She glanced across the table at Brandon, who gave her a smile that made her toes curl.

“You like biker jokes?” Long Jon asked her. Without waiting for an answer, he said, “What’s the difference between a Hoover vacuum cleaner and a Harley?”

“What?” Matthew asked with his mouth full.

Long Jon scraped more green beans on to his plate and drawled, “The position of the dirt bag.”

* * * *

After dinner, which April had only picked at, Brandon took her outside to give her a bike lesson. Night had fallen. A full moon glowed like an all-seeing eye. Around it, long sweeps of stars glittered. She smelled corn ripening in the fields—green, if it had a smell, or honey. Crickets sawed away in the tall grass.

Brandon walked beside her. He’d been quiet for most of the evening. She was acutely aware of being alone with him. Always, she had this sense that time was running out, that Brandon would get tired of her and move on. April told herself that was the last thing she should be worrying about, but she kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. And hating that she waited.

Brandon flipped the power on in the garage and then came toward her, silhouetted by the lights behind him, his face in shadow. “That was a lot harder than it should have been.”

April hesitated, confused.

He stood in front of her, clenching and unclenching his hands. Maybe she should have been repelled by his dark intensity, but it fascinated her.

“I didn’t like sharing you tonight,” he confessed. “And I don’t know if I can stop myself from feeling that way.”

There was something fascinating about his voice, what it did to her. She heard hints of his southern-boy roots, the overlay of motorcycle patter, even prison. But it was the roughness and deepness of his voice that worked their way deep inside her and pulled tight. And now he was saying things that she wanted to hear—and feared hearing—because they might prompt her to make a confession of her own.

His eyes caught hers and then dropped lazily to her lips. Standing that close to him in the near dark gave her goose bumps. Her nipples bunched against the flimsy material of her bra. She felt as though she were floating, there and not there at the same time. Yet her bones and muscles had gone molten. Why was it that she—who usually had so much to say—could think of nothing to say right now?

She smelled the heat of his skin and the leather of his boots. The combination of masculine scents made her weak-kneed. Desire was a dark, hot torment, one she couldn’t trust at this moment not to make her do something really foolish.

Brandon was watching her steadily. Her heart pounded as she swayed toward him. The restraint he had shown vanished, and he pulled her toward him, slanting his mouth against hers. The movement brought the tips of her breasts into contact with his wide muscular chest. She was ready for what came next. Whatever came next.

She was on the verge of losing what was left of her mind and they hadn’t even done anything yet.

Lowering his head, he kissed her hungrily. His tongue danced with her tongue and his teeth scraped and nibbled at her lips. There was a roaring in her ears that must have been the blood singing in her veins. Every time he kissed her now the roaring grew louder as though her ears had turned inward and all they could hear was the sound of her heart pounding wildly against her chest.

She felt hot where the humid night air brushed her skin, hotter still where her body touched his. His hands curved over her bottom and brought her more forcefully against him. His erection didn’t frighten her now, but this was as far as her experience went. Something life-changing must lie beyond, maybe even terrifying.

For all she knew, Matthew and Long Jon could see them from the kitchen window, but she couldn’t let go of Brandon, not now, not with that wicked, knowing tongue. She filled her hands with his hard muscles, his soft hair. She let herself drown.

“Let’s go inside,” he said hoarsely, his eyes burning from the shadows.

April didn’t want to go inside. Not where he’d been with other women. Not where she would keenly feel a sense of her own inexperience. She couldn’t bear the thought of walking past everyone on her way to the bedroom.

Instead, she took Brandon to her car and fell into the backseat with him. He didn’t even protest. Instead, he shut the door, tore his shirt off, and then gazed down at her possessively. The muscles in his jaw tightened, giving him a savage look.

“Do you have a…” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word condom.

“Not here, April,” he said. “Not in a car. You deserve better.”

“But I want—”

“You’re not even ready yet. You might think you are, but you aren’t.”

He said it so firmly, she didn’t have the nerve to argue. She bit down hard on her bottom lip. Disappointment stirred, but so did awareness.

She’d offered herself to him but he wanted to wait. Brandon McBride, who had so many notches on his bedpost it might have been in danger of falling off, was doing something he’d probably never done before.

He’d unselfishly put her needs, a woman’s needs, ahead of his own.

A wave of profound desire crashed over her. If there had been anything holding her back, she realized, it was this. It was trusting him to think of her needs first.

With a moan, she pulled him against her. She couldn’t get him close enough. The hot, sweet burn of knowing he cared…a floodgate lifted and now the emotions came rushing out, everything she’d been too afraid to show, too afraid to feel.

What a fool she’d been to worry. Brandon wasn’t trying to use her and toss her aside. He wanted this to be special. Memorable. Not some undignified, hormone-driven scramble in the backseat of her car.

The fact that he would do that for her, say no to temptation, refuse what she so shamelessly offered, brought tears to her eyes.

Half naked in the moonlight that glinted through the rear window, Brandon was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. Her hands roamed over his smooth muscles, learning him. Loving him. On instinct, she wrapped her legs around his waist, pressing him closer.

“When I make love to you, you’re going to know it’s the right time,” he said, his voice rough against her throat. “There won’t be anything you can hold back from me.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “God, yes.”

“You won’t be afraid.” He kissed the line of her jaw, the side of her neck down to her collarbone. “You’ll want it so bad, nothing else will matter. Just this.”

He pulled back and the look he gave her stole her breath. His sweetness. She’d never expected it. He moved his hand across her ribcage, lighting a slow, hot fire before cupping her breast. He brushed his thumb across the tip, over her shirt, and pleasure rippled from nipple to womb.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he told her. “And to be honest, it scares the crap out of me.”

So this was what she’d been missing all these years when her friends were making out in parked cars and she was at home with her books and her unicorns. This was what crooners sang about in songs. No wonder people made such horrible mistakes and threw aside everything that had previously been important. It was because of this feeling, this passion, this sense of finally, finally being alive.

When your brain turned off and your body turned on, you were as close to heaven as you were ever going to get.

She cradled his face between her hands and kissed him, deep, drugging kisses that sent electric sparks cascading through her belly. He might have thought she wasn’t ready, but he was wrong. Her skin was on fire, her blood was on fire, and her heart burned the brightest of all. She wanted him with the kind of sweaty desperation that made it impossible to think of anything but feeling him inside her.

Yet with dawning awareness, she realized that she had the power to set fires, too. Brandon, who was always smooth, always in control, groaned against her mouth. Unconsciously, perhaps, he pushed against her, between her legs. She felt his determined hardness on her softest, most sensitive place, crazy to know what happened next, but scared to think what something that big might do. And he was big. Even through his jeans she could tell, although she’d never actually touched one before. Was this the reason women were so wild for him?

She let her fingers drift downward, toward his zipper, terrified in the way that public speaking terrified her, but too curious not to see. When she found him, he throbbed against her hand, big enough to feel menacing. April’s heart pounded so frantically, she could practically taste it in her throat. Everything she’d ever wanted was there, right there, in her hand. She knew that at once. It would hurt. But maybe that turned her on a little, too.

What is happening to me?

The tip of him had thrust over the waistband of his jeans. It was satiny in a way that made her breathlessly curious, yet it was hard as a rock. She had no idea how to please him or what to do with her hands, but touching him sent a fireball of heat scorching through her veins.

He made a strangled noise and buried his face in her neck. His beard stubble raked over the sensitive skin there and made her shiver. “You’re killing me,” he murmured.

“But I want it,” she whispered. “I want you.”

The muscles in his jaw pulsed wildly and his eyes glittered in the dim light. “Those are dangerous words,” he said.

April cupped her hand and slid it down his thick length over the denim. Now that she’d dared herself to touch him, she couldn’t stop. It obsessed her, this idea that the answer to all her yearning was throbbing in her fingers. So close, so close.

She felt him shudder and then in response, everything between her legs contracted, too, in one long erotic clench. What she had in her hand could give her more than what a shower massager gave her, and a thousand times more intense.

“I wish we weren’t in the back of my car,” she said.

“And I wish you were naked,” he admitted.

He breathed featherlight kisses along her collarbone and she arched against him, love-drunk on the tickling sensation, on the exotic male smell of him. Another blast of pure drugging heat exploded inside her when he lifted her skirt and touched her through her panties.

“You’re so wet,” he muttered thickly. “Christ…”

April was speechless. She was dying a little more with every circle of his finger. How did he do that? He knew exactly where to focus, just the right speed, just the right pressure.

Brandon brought her up higher than she had ever been before. She was helpless to stop it, helpless to do anything but submit. Little whimpering moans filled the car. And still he slid his finger expertly across her sweet spot, watching her face intently as though he was navigating by her expression alone.

He was every smoldering bad boy fantasy she’d ever had. Her eyes grew heavy-lidded as she looked up at him, heart fluttering in an uneven rhythm. His darkly handsome face was right above hers, so sexy that it drove her recklessly to the edge, and still he avidly held her gaze. Her heart swelled.

A long hot erotic wave started between her thighs and radiated out, taking her up, spinning her faster and faster. Ecstasy had teeth and it bit down hard as her body turned to liquid and the wave exploded.

He was barely moving his hand now, but let her ride it out, never taking his eyes off her face. “That’s it, baby. Oh, yeah. Hell, yeah.”

Her orgasm peaked, crested and then slowly ebbed.

Even though her eyes had been open the whole time, she felt like for the first time she could finally see. The windows were fogged and the leather car seat squeaked when Brandon shifted his weight.

“I can’t believe you just did that,” she whispered, stunned.

“That’s only the beginning,” he said. “You can’t imagine what I’ll do to you. When I’m finally inside you, I’ll get you so high, you won’t know your own name.”

“Promise?” Oh, how good that sounded. She felt so lazy now, so…spent. But he wasn’t. He’d been so selfless. And now she wanted to see if she could do for him what he’d done for her.

She reached for him but he blocked her hand. “It’s too cramped in here for me to show you what I like.”

Disappointed, he let her hand settle on his flat, hard abs instead. “But you will, won’t you? You’ll show me everything?”

He kissed her softly on the lips. “When you’re ready, I’ll give you everything I’ve got.”