Braydon (Alluring Indulgence #6)(52)
Author: Nicole Edwards

“You’re not coming in,” she argued when she flung her door open, although he hadn’t said anything.

When they met at the front of the truck, he put his hand on the small of her back and urged her toward the front door. She stiffened immediately.

“You’re not,” she said again, but Braydon ignored her.

Once they were on the porch, he waited for her to unlock the door. She didn’t. She just stood there staring at him.

“I’m not leaving until you’re inside, Jess.”

It was her turn to not speak and they stood there, staring at one another for a long time. The only light was that of the moon passing between the trees and the dim glow from a lamp inside, filtering through the big window overlooking the porch. Not enough for him to see Jessie’s expression clearly, but enough for him to know that she could feel the energy pulsing between them.

Three months or three years, Braydon wasn’t sure that the staggering attraction they harbored for one another would ever go away.

Maybe neither of them were capable of making rational decisions when it came to relationships, but he knew right then and there that he wasn’t giving up on this woman. No matter how much she wanted him to.

He couldn’t.

He loved her.

And Braydon took that seriously. He had never loved another woman in all his life. He’d been in plenty of relationships, mostly sexual, occasionally not, but never had he felt like this. Even after all those days of being away from her, the moment he laid eyes on her again it had been as though he had never left. His heart had her image imprinted on it, and another hundred years could pass but Braydon knew he would never be able to forget her.

“Braydon,” Jessie whispered.

Braydon realized he had taken a step closer. His hand was caressing her cheek and he was staring down at her. Her eyes were wide, her mouth slightly open, and Braydon wanted to kiss her more than he wanted to take another breath.

“Jess,” he said, losing the tenuous grip he had on his control. “Oh, God, Jess.” Braydon slid his hand behind her head, cupped her nape, and leaned down, pressing his lips to hers.

Fire erupted in his bloodstream; emotions he had just come to accept ripped through him, and he felt the physical remnants of the hold she had on his heart. And when she kissed him back, her hands sliding around his waist and then up his back, he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to pull away from her.

She was sweet, warm, and so fucking soft.

He tried to keep the kiss slow, gentle. He wanted to savor the way she went liquid in his arms. It registered that they were completely alone. No one waiting on the other side of a door, or in another room . . . They were alone. And he didn’t have to rush. This was a moment that would forever be emblazoned in his memory. There were no expectations of what was going to happen. No premeditated sexual exploits to be carried out.

This was a kiss. Pure and simple.

Braydon didn’t care what happened next, but he didn’t want to stop kissing her.

Jessie’s body pressed against his, her breasts crushed against his chest, her fingernails digging into his back while she tried to pull him to her. Braydon kept his hand at the back of her head, refusing to yank her closer because he didn’t want to ruin the moment. He tried to tell himself that he didn’t need more than this. Kissing her was better than breathing, better than sunshine after a weeklong rainstorm.

Yes. Yes, he had gone there. This woman made him wax poetic about fucking rainstorms and he didn’t even care.

Air was in short supply and he pulled back slightly, refusing to let her go. As he pressed his forehead to hers, he opened his eyes and looked at her. “Jess,” he said again. Her name was the only word he could come up with.

“What are we doing, Bray?”

He didn’t know, so he didn’t even try to answer.

“We can’t do this,” she finally said.

“We can,” he disputed, forcing his voice to work. “It doesn’t have to be tonight, Jess. But we can do this. We can make this work. If you want it bad enough.”

“Me?” she asked, and the warmth of her body was stolen from him as she let him go. “I’m not the one who made the rules. And I don’t want to play by them anymore.”

“There aren’t any rules,” Braydon informed her.

“Sure there are. Remember Brendon?”

Braydon sighed. Why did Brendon have to be brought into this? Braydon was tired of the incomplete relationships, the ones that were simply based on sex. That’s all he had ever known, and he didn’t want to go back to where they were when Brendon had been involved. He wanted to start over. Shit. If it came down to it, Braydon would rather be celibate than be in another meaningless sexual relationship like that.