Braydon (Alluring Indulgence #6)(118)
Author: Nicole Edwards

Braydon held firm; he kept his hands cupped on her face, unwilling to let this get out of hand. Jessie always seemed to turn to anger, as though getting defensive was her automatic response, and the last thing either of them needed was for this to fall apart. He feared that there were only so many cracks that a relationship could take before it ended up with a mile-wide fissure right down the middle.

“You’re as normal as the rest of us, Jess.”

“I’m the girl who’s been sleeping with two guys. Well, not recently, but you know what I mean. I’m the girl who decided that because I fall in love too much I’m not gonna fall in love again, period. I mean, that even sounds crazy to me, and I’m the one who came up with it.”

Braydon raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to continue.

“And look where that got me.”

“Where’s that?” he asked.

“It got me in the same place, Braydon,” she said, her tone firm, the sadness all but gone from her eyes as she stared back at him.

He knew she had more to say, so he held his tongue.

“I love you. Don’t you get that? I fell in love with you a long time ago. Even after I promised myself that I wouldn’t. I wanted to be friends. I really did.” Jessie took a deep breath, continued, “After I found myself immersed in an untraditional relationship that was supposed to be a friendship with a few added benefits, I knew I’d probably gone a little too far. And look what I did with that. I lost both you and Brendon. I shattered a friendship that had come to mean so much to me.”

“You didn’t shatter anything,” he said.

“That wasn’t quite the part I was hoping you would pay attention to,” Jessie countered hotly.

“Oh, was there something else?” he asked, grinning, pretending to think about what she’d said. He didn’t last long, because he was pressing his lips to hers again, this time cradling her head and moving in closer to her. “I love you too, Jessie. I’ve loved you from the moment I met you.”

“Really?” she questioned when she pulled back. “Why the hell didn’t you just say so?”

Braydon laughed at that. “In case you don’t remember, I did tell you. You opted not to listen.”

“Oh, I heard you,” she rattled off. “I just wanted to hear you say it again.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked curiously.

“Because I wasn’t supposed to love you. I think I’m broken. I realized that what I feel for you is so much more than any of that fantasy crap I’ve felt in the past, so maybe I don’t really habitually fall in love. I don’t know, maybe I do . . .”

Braydon covered her mouth with his own to get her to be quiet. He loved that she was opening up, but she was going so fast, he was having a hard time keeping up. The truth of it was, ever since she told him that she loved him, he hadn’t paid much attention to the rest. The rest wasn’t all that important. What was important was figuring out where they went from there.

Jessie was the one to pull back, and Braydon let her. He didn’t let her go, but he pulled back far enough to look down into her face.

“What do we do about this?” she asked. “I don’t know where to go from here. If you want to know the truth, every time I’ve gotten to this point, I’ve ended up with a broken heart, and Braydon,” Jessie whispered, her voice hoarse from what he assumed was emotion, “I don’t want you to break my heart.”

“I love you, Jess. I don’t know exactly how we proceed from here, but I know that what we’ve been doing isn’t working. You don’t seem to trust me, and until that happens, I don’t know how to make things right between us.”

Jessie pulled away completely and she paced the floor in the opposite direction. He kept his eyes on her until she looked up at him.

“See, the thing is, I do trust you. I’m just prone to worst-case scenarios. I knew, after I’d stopped and actually thought about it,” she said in a rush, “that you weren’t with Cheyenne. I’ve never believed that you wanted to be, either. I think it was just easier to hang on to that. It wasn’t fair to you, but it fed my insecurities, something I’m constantly doing.”

“Jess, I really don’t understand where you’re going with this,” he told her honestly.

“Yeah, well, I don’t, either,” Jessie stopped directly in front of him again. “I want to be with you, Braydon. I want to be with you today, tomorrow, the day after that, the year after that, and so on and so forth. I don’t want to be broken.