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.
Jet could do nothing to stop it. He bucked his hips and came, spilling his seed into the back of Brand’s throat. Ripple after ripple of intense pleasure purled through him, causing uncontrollable shudders to rack his frame. It wasn’t just an orgasm, it felt like a fucking religious experience. He was pretty sure he started speaking in tongues at one point.
Jet was panting by the time Brand released him and crawled up the bed until their faces were aligned. Brand’s grin was cocky. “Good, huh?”
Jet shook his head. Good didn’t cover it. “No…words.”
“That is so unlike you, Durante.”
“Shut up and kiss me.”
Brand did as instructed, but as good as it was Jet almost regretted asking. He was too out of breath to enjoy it. He turned his head to the side, breathing in much-needed air.
All his adult life he’d thought nothing could ever be better than having Brand loving him like this, but now that he finally had what he’d always fantasized about, he found there was more he wanted.
Emily. Her quirky humor and her sweet laughter and, yes, her body too. Jet loved how she softened Brand. He loved how she had made room for him in the life she’d shared with Brand. He loved her. There was no way he could give up on the idea of winning her back somehow. He and Brand together—surely she wouldn’t be able to say no?
You’re really doing this again? Are you a sucker for punishment?
“Shit,” he rasped. “I’m fucked.”
“We didn’t get that far. You came like a teenaged boy.”
“Prick.” Jet smoothed a hand over Brand’s forehead, noting the lack of frown lines. Not finding them there made him ludicrously joyous. Yeah you’re going for broke again, because you know it will make him happy.
“It was her, wasn’t it? Thinking about her made you come so hard.”
Denial would only be a lie, and Jet never wanted there to be lies between them again. “Yeah. She’s in my head no matter what I do.”
“And your heart. I know you’re in love with her.” Brand snagged his gaze. “She’s in love with you too.”
“Not the way she loves you.”
“It’s not a competition.” Brand scowled, and Jet instantly regretted his words and how petulant they’d made him sound. “At least you’d never hurt her the way I did.”
Brand rolled onto his back and linked his hands behind his head. He stared at the ceiling, lost in his regrets. Jet let him wallow a moment before he sidled closer to him once more and smoothed a hand over his broad chest. “She’ll forgive you.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“She’s a better person than you.”
It was blunt and insulting, but rather than making Brand angry, Jet’s statement brought his laugh back. “Smartass.” He grabbed a handful of Jet’s hair and pulled him in so their lips brushed. “Or I should say smart.”
Jet caressed Brand’s lips with his a moment, teasing him until he groaned. Instead of deepening the kiss, Jet pulled back and looked at Brand. “We’ll find a way.”
“It’s we, then?”
“Yeah, we have to try. I don’t want to die wondering.”
Jet remembered he and Emily saying that to each other one morning, holding hands emotionally as they took a flying leap of faith that they’d be able to heal Brand’s wounds. It seemed they’d had some success. If they could pull off that impossible feat, surely he and Brand could convince Emily to give a three-way relationship another try?
“If she doesn’t want me back,” Brand began, his voice catching. “I’d rather she wasn’t alone. A woman like her…she’s made to be loved. The only other man I could stand to imagine her with is you, so if she sends me away—”
“She won’t,” Jet cut him off. “And I promise never to tell Emily you even thought about handing her over to me like she was an old truck you were through driving.”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“I know, and in a man-to-man way I appreciate it. But Emily would probably punch you in the balls, so let’s never bring it up again.” Jet reached down and cupped him. “I like your balls the way they are.”
Brand’s faint smile was poignant. In it Jet saw how truly scared he was that Emily wouldn’t accept him, and it revealed how far Brand had to go before he had the kind of faith in himself he should have. He still thought he was a burden, damaged goods.
Jet’s chest ached, but he knew nothing he could say would convince Brand that he was more than enough man for both him and Emily. He wouldn’t truly start healing until Emily held him in her arms again.
Until they both did—he and Emily.
Jet put that on his mental to-do list, but for now he’d make Brand feel good in the best way he knew how. He wrapped his hand around his erect dick and slid it up and down until Brand’s eyes closed on the pleasure.
“Damn you’ve got good hands.”
“I have a great mouth, too. Didn’t you once tell me I could suck the shine off a doorknob?”
“Sounds like something I’d say,” Brand chuckled. He thrust his hips reflexively, moving in time with Jet’s hand. “Jet…fuck. Put me out of my misery. I’m hurting here.”
Jet knew it all too well. Brand had been hurting for a long time. As he kissed a trail down Brand’s body, Jet swore to himself the man he loved wouldn’t hurt for much longer. He and Emily, they were going to heal him. He’d find a way to convince her to try again if she was resistant. He had to believe she’d want to. Her heart was too damn big.
The trouble with having a big open heart was that when it broke it felt like your entire being splintered and the best parts of yourself fell away, leaving…leaving what? Half a person? A hollow shell? An entirely new species?
Emily still wasn’t sure what was left of her a week after Brand and Jet had exited her life. Every day seemed to bring a new element to her misery, so she knew she wasn’t through grieving yet. She’d gone all in, and she’d lost the entire pot. She wasn’t yet sure how she was going to move on.
Climb she told herself as she rammed a shovel into the dirt of her front garden bed with more vigor than necessary. Like climbing a ladder out of hell. You take it one rung at a time.
The rung she was currently stuck on was anger. That was one of the seven stages of grief, wasn’t it? She’d been through denial. The night Brand left she hadn’t wanted to believe he’d gone. She’d even called him, worried out of her mind and desperate to hear his voice. When she hadn’t heard back, she’d had to accept the truth—Brand didn’t want to be found. She’d spent the best part of the next three days in agony. She’d cried so much she ran out of tissues and had to start using a towel.
“Fat lot of good that did you,” she muttered to herself as she tilled more of the soil with sharp jabs.
“What did you say?”
It was Penny, who stood beside her wielding her own shovel. “Nothing,” Emily groused.
Penny sighed and went back to her shoveling. On the other side of Penny, Hope stood, loosening up the soil with a pitchfork because Emily only had two shovels. Hope sent her a dirty look, obviously irked that she’d been commandeered to do gardening.
Emily didn’t care. Her sisters had come out here armed with a box of DVDs, all sappy chick flicks, and a huge tub of boysenberry-ripple ice cream, convinced she needed a girls’ afternoon to help her over her funk. They’d been nonplussed to find Emily tearing up the front garden, determined to give it a new look. They’d been even more disturbed when she’d rejected the movies and told them if they wanted to help they’d better get a shovel.
The last thing she needed was to see Meg Ryan being all adorable and funny, or Julia Roberts smiling that huge smile. Fuck Meg and Julia. “Fuck Jet and Brand.”
She said that one loud and proud because it felt good. Apparently the anger stage meant she’d graduated to using the F-word outside the bedroom. Goodie for her.
“What did you say?” Penny asked.
“I said fuck Jet and Brand. They’re a couple of fucking assholes.”
Hope chortled. “You tell it, sis.”
“I mean, who does that? Who just up and leaves without word after two years? And Jet just follows him like some…some trained Labrador. He just gave up. Didn’t try to help me find him. Nothing. He’s a jerk. They’re both fucking jerks!”
Emily stuck the shovel into the ground with all her might. Unfortunately she hit a rock. The impact jolted her arm, sending a weird numbing pain through it. “Ouch! Shit.”
She dropped the shovel, unsuccessfully trying to kick it as it fell to the ground. She grabbed on to her throbbing upper arm and let out another string of swear words.
“Emily,” Penny said, surprised. “I’ve never seen you like this.”
“Yeah, well it bloody hurts.” She held on to her arm, but the sting in her eyes told her she was talking about more than that mild physical pain. “I mean I’ve never had my heart trampled by two men at once. Let me tell you, Pen, I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Her sisters had both stopped shoveling and stared at her. Penny gave Emily a quizzical look, then she turned that same look on Hope. “Two men? What am I missing?”
“Ah, Pen. So sweet and innocent.” Hope hooked an arm around Penny’s shoulders. “I figured it out at your party. Jet wasn’t just a friend. Your sensible big sister was having some three-way fun out here in the sticks.”
“Oooooh.” Penny looked at Emily, wide eyed. “Really?”
“I wouldn’t use the word ‘fun’ considering how things ended up, but yeah.”
It was funny, but after all the stress Emily had endured imagining her sisters’ reaction to her exploits, now that it was out she found she didn’t care what they thought. They might approve or disapprove. Either way they were her sisters and she knew they loved her.
From the frown that marred Penny’s features, Emily figured she was on the disapprove side. “That’s just not on.”
Hope removed her arm from Penny’s shoulders and glared at her. “Hey, Pen. There was a sexual revolution, you know. Women can sleep with whomever they want, whenever they want, wherever they—”
“Oh put a sock in your militant speech, Hope. I wasn’t judging. I’m just annoyed that Emily would take two perfectly good men off the market.” Penny planted her hands on her hips and showed Emily the full force of her frustration. “It’s greedy. There aren’t that many good ones out there. Believe me when I say it’s a minefield of jerks, losers and commitment-phobes.”
“Don’t be so jealous, Pen,” Emily said. “Mine turned out to be jerks too, remember?”
“Oh I don’t know. Jet didn’t seem like a jerk. He was perfect other than the fact he wasn’t interested in me. And I know Brand had problems, but anytime I saw you two together he was always very sweet to you. So protective and caring. I’d kill to have a man look at me the way he used to look at you.”
Hope slapped Penny on the arm. “Pen, stop.”
“Why? It’s all true.”
Her vision had blurred, but Emily could see the moment Penny turned and saw her face. She ran forward, her arms outstretched. “I’m sorry, Em. You’re right. They were both jerks. What do I know anyway?”
Emily sniffled into Penny’s shoulder. She was so pissed off that she was crying again. She thought she’d cleared this step. If she was crying and pissed off, at what stage did that put her? The up-shit-creek-because-you-could-no-longer-predict-your-emotions stage? That sounded like a lot of fucking fun.
Hope came to stand behind her, and suddenly she was being enveloped in sisterly support, front and back. She’d been so stupid not to tell Penny and Hope about her situation. They would have been her cheer squad, not her jury. She saw that now. Would it have made any difference to Jet’s decision to leave if she hadn’t hid what she felt for him at Penny’s party?
Would that have mattered if he’d stayed and Brand had left? They both would have been devastated. They could have helped each other. At least she would have had Jet.
You don’t need Jet, remember? He’s a big fat jerk and so is Brand. Emily pushed out of her sisters’ embrace and resolutely dried her tears. “No. I’m not crying over them anymore. I have to move on, keep busy.”
“By tearing up your azaleas?”
She gave Penny a tremulous smile. “Yeah. It’s very therapeutic.”
“Well okay. Let’s have at it then,” Hope said, picking up her pitchfork with exaggerated enthusiasm. “Let’s picture stabbing the men with pitchforks while we work. I’ll picture Dylan, Pen you can focus on Bryan and Em…you’ll have to work twice as hard, you filthy girl.”
Emily laughed and, oh God, it felt good. It felt good to have her sisters beside her as she worked out her misery on the soil, working up a sweat and getting dirty in the warm afternoon sun. Before long she had to take off the shirt she’d put on over her tank top. Winter was in full swing, but the sun and her heartbreak-slash-rage kept her warm.
It was about a quarter to five when the sound of a car engine approaching made all three of them stop work and turn toward the driveway. A four-wheel drive was coming, a black and battered one with mud on the wheel rims and a smudged windscreen. Emily froze as she recognized the vehicle. No, it couldn’t be.
But it was. She’d know that old clunker anywhere. It was Brand’s truck.