Braydon(104)

“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.

“I’ve had shitty luck with men and I take complete responsibility. I ended up in abusive relationships and I made plenty of excuses both during and after them. Which was why I actually came here, to Coyote Ridge. I was trying to change myself, to figure out why I am the way that I am and then to fix what was damaged. And then I met you and Brendon and y’all provided me with a distraction.”

Braydon thought she was going to stop, give him a chance to speak. Before he could get a word in edgewise, she kept going.

“I still don’t know if I’m ready for something permanent. No, I take that back. I am ready for something permanent. I’m ready for something permanent with you.”

Braydon wasn’t sure what to say. She was all over the map and it made him want to laugh. Not at her, but at her obvious confusion. He knew how she felt. He’d never been in a single relationship where he had to worry about things moving to the next level, unless of course the next level was a different sexual position. But with Jessie, this wasn’t about sex.

This was about love.

She loved him.

“I love you, Jess,” he told her again.

“Even after all that?” she asked, exasperated.

Braydon chuckled. “Because of all that.”

Finally, Jessie didn’t have anything to say, and Braydon took the opportunity to tell her how he felt.

“I’m not perfect, Jess. I don’t pretend to be. Hell, I don’t want to be. As far as relationships go, the most I’ve ever done is friends with benefits. I’ve stayed in Brendon’s shadow all of my life because it was just easier to be there. And then when I wanted to break loose after I met you, I realized it was too late. It was you . . .” Braydon forced his eyes to remain on hers. “I fell in love with you. When the three of us were together, I pretended it was just you and me. It was a fantasy I couldn’t let go of. When I was gone for those three months, I thought about you all the time. I thought about you and Brendon off making a life together without me and it damn near killed me, Jess.”

“I would’ve told you that we weren’t together if you would’ve answered my calls,” she snarked with a glimmer of amusement in her eyes.

“I know. We don’t seem to do well with communication. Not the verbal kind anyway.”

“So maybe we start there,” she suggested.

“It’s not a bad idea,” he told her, closing the gap between them. “But I’m also hoping we can do a little nonverbal communication.”

“You’re bad, Braydon Walker.”

Yes, he was. And he’d be the first to admit it.

But he’d do that later. Because right now, he didn’t want to talk anymore.



WHEN BRAYDON’S LIPS came down on hers, Jessie didn’t let him get away with a mere peck that time. She looped her arms around his neck and pulled him down toward her, their tongues meeting, dueling. There was so much promise in his kiss, and Jessie latched onto it.