Priceless (Forbidden Men #8)(67)

Brandt seemed to understand my determination because he merely watched with glittering, hungry eyes as I finally managed to flick his jeans open and zip them down. When I reached inside his underwear, I was shocked by the feel of him.

“It’s so soft.” I wasn’t expecting the skin around the steel shaft to be soft. For something hailed as hard as a rock, I had no idea the surface would feel practically like velvet.

Brandt began to laugh at my surprise until I tightened my fingers around him and slid my grip all the way down. Then the sound choked off into a groan. “Damn,” he whimpered, fisting his hand down at his side after he started to reach for me only to stop himself. “I don’t know if I can—oh, God, that feels good.” His head fell back, smacking into the wall as he squeezed his eyes closed.

I grinned, deciding I was doing fine. Wanting to please him more, I leaned down, down...until my face was right there. I drew his length forward, and my eyes widened at how big he actually was. Oh, holy hell. Was all that really supposed to fit into my little ol’—

“No! Wait. Sarah...” Brandt gripped my hair as his voice went high.

Determined to make him feel good, I wrapped my lips around the weeping, mushroomed head and sucked him in deeper.

“Fuck!” He jerked in my mouth, the salty taste of precum coating my tongue. Then he started to drag me off by my hair, but I don’t know if it was the suction I had on him or the way I moved my tongue, but suddenly he pushed me back on, surging his hips forward so that I took more than I was anticipating. “God. Oh, God. That feels—”

I gagged. Totally didn’t mean to, but I took way more than I’d anticipated, and I had to grab hold of his leg to brace myself.

“Shit!” he yelled, pulling me off him as if I was biting him instead of gagging. Then he leaped off the bed away from me and clutched his head. “I’m sorry. Oh, f*ck, Sarah, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

I took a moment to calm myself before I brushed the hair out of my face and met his concerned, frantic gaze. “Yeah, I’m...” But the word fine stalled in my chest when his face drained of color, and his eyes turned an unnatural shade of stark fear. His shaking hands fumbled to jam his cock back into his pants and zip it up.

“Are you okay?” I ended up asking.

He bent at the waist to rest his hands on his knees as he tried to recover his scattered breaths. Finally he gasped, “Yeah, just...bad déjà vu.”

I frowned, sure I’d misheard him. “Bad what?”

He froze, stopped breathing entirely while all his muscles seemed to lock into place. Finally, he slowly, carefully lifted his face, where his expression was completely blank. And I knew...just felt it in my bones...he’d said something he hadn’t meant to and totally didn’t want me to know about.

“Bad what?” I repeated slowly and succinctly so he couldn’t pretend to misunderstand me.

“Nothing,” he murmured, glancing around the bed before he spotted his shirt. Snagging it, he shrugged it on, his fingers trembling the entire time, quivering more than my own were. “I have to go.”

“Brandt?” I said.

He refused to look at me as he blew out a breath and wiped his clothes free of wrinkles. “I shouldn’t have...we never should’ve...” Shaking his head, he turned toward the window. “This was a mistake. I have to go.”

As he jerked the window up, I pressed my fingers to my lips. This wasn’t like the way he’d fled after our first kiss. He was pale, shaken, unsettled. Scared. What I’d done has triggered something, something bad.

Needing to apologize, I whispered, “Brandt!”

But he held up a hand, stopping me. Not facing me, he snapped, “I asked you not to push me, and you f*cking pushed. Can you just give me a f*cking minute here to clear my head?”

Shying backward, I hugged myself and nodded. “Okay.”

He jumped out the window, abandoning me.

Worried, confused, even a little scared, I stared at the window he’d closed from the outside, shaking like a leaf. Something really, really wrong had just happened. I could feel it in my blood.

I’d messed up big time.

Sliding down onto the mattress, I curled my knees up and wept into them, praying I hadn’t just destroyed everything.





BRANDT




I didn’t sleep for the rest of the night. I went straight home from Sarah’s place, locked myself in my room and paced my floor.

At first, I panicked, worried as hell that I’d just ruined nine years of friendship. She’d been counting on me to make her feel special, and not like a freak. She’d needed someone to show her the best things that could happen between a man and woman. And I’d failed her majorly.

And then I went through a mad phase, angry with her for pressing the subject when I’d told her over and over again not to go there with me. Why the hell hadn’t she just f*cking listened and trusted it was the worst idea ever? God...dammit. If she’d only dropped the subject the first time I’d tried to give her an out.

But the anger lasted the shortest amount of time before I was freaking out again, wondering what she’d probably figured out about me. She’d heard what I’d blurted, clear as day, and then asked me if I was okay after she’d seen my face. She knew...she knew something was up, something that had absolutely nothing to do with how desirable I found her.