Branded Page 12

  “Sometimes I like to let off steam,” he says with a smug face. “Just like you sometimes like to set off bombs in hotels.”

  “That has nothing to do with this,” I reply.

  Suddenly, he takes off his shirt.

  Just like that.

  Half-naked right in front of me, and I can’t avert my eyes. Can’t fucking look away from that godly male chest brimming with testosterone, and it’s right in front of me. I don’t remember him looking like that back when we were young. Nor do I remember him flaunting it in front of me. Ever.

  It’s as if he wants to make me feel whimsical, like a hormonal teenager, ready to be swept off her feet. But that’s just it. He isn’t the type to do that. He’s the type to make you wanna run and beg for mercy. The one who creeps up on you in an alley and bangs you right there against the grimy wall.

  Just the thought makes me clench my legs.

  “Go back to bed,” he says.

  “Or what?” I say, raising a brow, still wondering how far I can take this.

  If he’s not gonna kill me, what the fuck else is he planning on doing with me? Because from the looks of it, it’s not much.

  “Fine, then don’t,” he says, rolling his eyes as he takes off his pants too.

  My eyes can’t stop drifting down his chiseled abs toward the incredible bulge that just appeared. I can’t even will them to look away. And I don’t remember Brandon ever looking this yummy way back when …

  Am I losing it? Yep. Definitely.

  He tried to warn me, and I ignored it. Great.

  When my gaze meets his, he’s staring back at me. Is it suddenly hot in here, or is it just me?

  He’s wearing a smirk on his face, so I quickly look away as he turns on the shower.

  “What am I supposed to do then, huh?” I say, holding out my hands, which are still tied. “Just sit there and wait?”

  “I don’t care,” he says, taking the braid out of his long, black hair. “I’m taking a shower.”

  “But what about your uncle’s men?” I say.

  “I doubt they’ll burst in at any second. And if they do, they’ll find me butt naked and you tied up.”

  I make a face and frown. That can’t be his plan. He went through a lot of trouble to get me out of there. He could’ve killed me or taken me to his uncle himself, but he didn’t. Which means he’s up to something.

  Instead of telling me, he spins on his heels and takes off his underwear too.

  But my eyes don’t just glance at his butt. They’re fixated on his back.

  It’s covered in tattoos. Names. Some scorched off partially.

  And one of them is mine.

  My eyes widen. Holding my breath, I trip on my own feet walking backward, and I tumble down.

  When he turns to face me, fully naked, with that same grim look on his face, I feel overpowered. For the first time since we met again, he’s managed to subdue me with just one look.

  “Those tattoos …” I mumble, but my gaze can’t help but be drawn down to that giant thing dangling between his legs. Jesus Christ. I never knew he was this big.

  Saliva makes me roll my tongue in my mouth.

  Stop it, Dixie! Get a hold of yourself, goddammit.

  I shouldn’t get distracted. He has names tattooed on his back, and mine is on there too, while others are crossed out. Is it an elimination list?

  That’s the only answer that makes sense.

  My lungs suddenly feel constricted.

  He stands in the door opening, staring me down. For a second, I have no clue what I’m going to do or what he’s going to do. But then he abruptly closes the door and leaves me alone in the room.

  So much for an answer to the questions burning on my tongue.

  I quickly crawl to my feet and look around, wondering what the fuck I’m supposed to do next. I’m still locked in this motel room, being kept as a prisoner by a man who doesn’t know what he’s going to do with me. And to make matters worse, he’s a past boyfriend and one of the monster responsible for the death of my brothers. I’m stuck with my worst enemy. Just my fucking luck.

  I kick the empty trash can across the room, and yell, “Dammit!”

  There’s no phone in here either, so I have no way to contact my dad and let him know what’s going on. Meanwhile, Brandon’s uncle is still alive and looking for us.

  And what is he doing? Taking a fucking shower.

  Why? What did he do to make himself so dirty that he needed to shower right this very moment? What was so important and filthy at the same time?

  My feet carry me toward the bathroom door, and before I even realize it, I’ve already opened the door slightly and peeked through the crack.

  My jaw drops, and my heart almost comes to a full stop right there and then.

  I can’t look away. My eyes are practically glued to the scene in front of me.

  Water runs in rivulets down his buff body, his eyes closed, and his muscles thick as he clutches his own length.

  He’s jerking off. Fast. Like he’s about to come.

  And I can’t stop watching.

  Not even when his eyes pop open and stare straight back at me.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Brandon

  After burning that criminal, I had to cool down for a bit. A shower worked but only temporarily. It couldn’t temper the fire inside me. Couldn’t stop thinking about Dixie and her hot body and how I wanted to set it on fire in a different way.

  Every goddamn time I punish someone, I feel powerful, masculine, extremely potent, and full of unreleased energy. My only outlet has always been to think of her … and then come. Hard.

  I’ve never been able to release it any other way. Not after a killing.

  And now that she’s here, the urge has only become stronger.

  In fact, all I’ve wanted to do since I came back was jump her and ravage her, right there on that bed. I wanted to rip the clothes from her body and make her feel just what kind of a man I’ve become.

  But I can’t. I fucking can’t because I hate her guts too. She’s the sole reason I am who I am; the one who ruined my fucking life. I can’t fucking give in to these needs. Ever.

  So I settle for doing it myself. Jerking off in the shower doesn’t even feel good, but I just need to get it out of my system before I do something we’ll both regret.

  I can’t unleash the darkness in me. Not when she’s around.

  That already happened once, and I won’t let it happen twice.

  So I’ll rub one out and let the stress fall off my shoulders as I think of the way her pearly lips would smack around my cock. How she’d suck my balls and push her tits together. I imagine her eyes wide open as she looks at me from her knees, begging for my cum.

  A cock would surely silence her. Deep inside her throat where the gargling sounds are the only thing coming from her mouth. No talking, no shouting, no yelling. Just her tongue gleefully sucking my length until I come.

  And I do.

  So fucking hard, I groan out loud, while imagining my dick buried so far inside her she gags on my cum. Fuck me, I’d give the world to hear that sound. It would teach her a thing or two about not messing with men like me. A punishment fit for a bad girl like her.

  But as my orgasm subsides and my eyes slowly open, I realize I was never alone in the first place.

  Dixie is watching. Her eyes are fixated on my dick and what just squirted out against the walls.

  She immediately averts her eyes and walks off. Probably to the bed, since I locked the door behind me and the only key is right here in this bathroom. But fuck, I didn’t think she’d look.

  I quickly rinse the walls and myself before drying off. Without clothes on, I grab my phone and my gun, and I barge out the door, setting my eyes on her. She’s hovering over the small kitchenette and pours water into a glass even though her hands are still tied. But she manages to chug it down in one go. However, when she puts it down, her hands shake.

  As I place m
y hand on her shoulder, she jolts as if she didn’t know I was coming. As if she didn’t just commit a sin … and enjoy it thoroughly.

  I could see it in her eyes, that same lust I feel whenever I think of fucking her raw.

  It’s the forbidden fruit neither of us can have but both of us crave more than anything.

  “Jesus,” she mutters, spinning on her heels.

  “Nah, it’s just me,” I jest. I don’t know why I felt the need to make a stupid joke. Maybe to release some of the tension floating in the air.

  She chuckles but rolls her eyes too, then looks away. “Whatever.”

  I cock my head and chuck my phone onto the counter. “Do you always spy on guys taking showers?”

  “I, uh …” she mumbles, frowning. “No, of course not, but—”

  “I don’t mind.” I place my hand on the counter behind her. “Watch all you want. I’m not gonna stop.”

  She swallows, staring at my lips like I am at hers. It’s hard to hold back, but I must resist. We’re bad for each other in every way.

  She ruined my life, and I ruined hers. Always remember that, Brandon.

  I take a deep breath, and say, “You’d better not try anything stupid, Dixie.”

  “Look who’s talking.” She scoffs. “You’re the one keeping me here.”

  She always thinks she can beat me at my own game. “For good reasons, and you know it.”

  “Good? You call this good?” She holds up her tied hands.

  I cock my head. “I’d prefer you didn’t try to escape.”

  “Or kill you,” she adds. “Because I would.”

  I snort. That’s far from a surprise to me, but she seems to want to rub it in any chance she gets. “Of course, you would,” I reply.

  “I tried,” she says.

  “And failed,” I counter, raising a brow.

  She’s only trying to make herself feel better now, and it’s obviously not working, judging from the sourpuss look on her face.

  “At least I had enough balls to go through with it,” she says, narrowing her eyes.

  Touché.

  “Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t,” I reply. “Do you really wanna find out?”

  “Oh, please. If you did, you would’ve done it already,” she says, and she puts her fingers against my chest and pushes me back. “Now …Go. Away.”

  “We’re stuck here together. It doesn’t matter if you like it,” I reply. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Fine.” She rolls her eyes, but they linger on my waist for just a second too long. “Why are you keeping me here anyway if you don’t wanna talk and don’t wanna do anything but stare at me?”

  “Who says I don’t wanna talk? I have plenty of questions for you.” I tighten the towel around my waist. “For one, why the fuck did you try to bring down the hotel, and two, what the fuck do you have against my uncle?”

  She doesn’t know about him being there that night. She can’t. There’s no way she saw him.

  “Everything,” she replies, her cheeks reddening by the second. “And put some clothes on, for God’s sake.”

  I don’t give a damn whether she thinks this is appropriate or not. “No, I wanna know what he did,” I say, placing my fist on the kitchenette counter behind her. “You didn’t come there for me.”

  “It was a nice coincidence,” she retorts, lowering her still tied hands. “But no.”

  “Then why?”

  I need to know so I can justify the fact that I took her away from there. If not, and her reasoning fails the test, then it was all for nothing, and I risked my job and my life for diddly fucking squat.

  “What did he do? Tell me,” I say.

  She laughs. “You’re kidding, right?” Her head tilts back, and she laughs some more. “This has to be a joke.”

  I shove her against the counter and grasp her by the throat. “Tell. Me. What. He. Did.”

  I can feel her swallow under my hand. “All right. All right.” She carefully pries my fingers loose. “He double-crossed me and my dad and destroyed our business, so I’m gonna destroy his too.”

  Double-crossed her and her dad? What? How?

  My uncle would never do business with the Burrells. He knows what they did.

  “With what?” I ask, not trusting a word of what she says. “How did he ruin your family’s business?”

  “Only if you untie me,” she says.

  Well, fuck. She knows how to pressure me into giving her what she wants. Just like the good ole days.

  Grumbling, I reach for her hands and pull the belt loose, chucking it on the floor behind me.

  She rubs her wrists, and mumbles, “Thanks.”

  “Now talk,” I say.

  “Like you don’t know.” She presses her lips firmly together. “I saw you at the farmhouse, Brandon.”

  My brows draw together. Fuck. “You mean—”

  “Drugs. We sold him drugs. And not just a handful.”

  Drugs … the farmhouse … it’s all starting to click now.

  “Yeah, that’s right. You saw it with your own eyes,” she says, pushing a finger against my chest. “We both know you were there the night of the fire, so don’t fucking pretend you don’t know anything about it.”

  I know she knows. I always knew.

  She was the one who found my Zippo.

  It’s what started the chain of events that led to this moment. The whole reason we’re in this position in the first place. That fucking farm … I should’ve never gone there to see her.

  Chapter Twenty

  Brandon

  Past

  November 6th

  As I stroll off the Burrell property, I can’t stop thinking about Dixie and how she just broke up with me. Fuck. I thought she liked me but apparently not enough to come with me.

  I don’t get it. She doesn’t even like her family that much, so why stick around? We’re old enough to make our own choices. We don’t need anyone else to decide our fate for us.

  She’s too used to having a family to let them go.

  Instead, she pushed me away.

  Fucking hell.

  I kick a few rocks scattered on the ground. I could really go for a smoke right about now.

  Maybe I will. It’s a long walk to get back to the motel where I’m staying, and I can’t wait until then. Besides, it’s the middle of the night, and they’re all inside the house. No one will notice me here. Only Dixie knows I’ve been here, and she won’t tell a soul, right?

  I fish a cigarette from my pocket and try to light it with my Zippo, but the harsh breeze isn’t doing me any favors. Fucking wind messing with my only solace right now. I quickly hide behind the farmhouse near the edge of the property where I climbed over the fence. The wooden structure blocks the cold draft a bit, which is good enough for me. I won’t be here for long. And this might be my last time too, now that I think of it.

  Damn.

  Right as I hold up my Zippo to light the cig, a bright light shining through a narrow gap in the farmhouse blinds me. The lights are still on … odd. Who’d be working in a farmhouse in the middle of the night?

  I stop what I’m doing and peek inside.

  Plants everywhere, lit by a thousand lamps, row after row of them all lined up. Drugs.

  Two people are watering the plants and checking them to see if they’re growing properly. It’s Danny and his father, Mr. Burrell. But where’s Ben? I don’t see him anywhere.

  My face is glued to the gap in the wooden wall. With the Zippo clutched in my hand, my thoughts of lighting that damn cig have disappeared. I can’t stop gawking even though I know it’s wrong. But what they’re doing is even worse.

  Growing narcotics on your own damn property? Why would they be doing this? Is money that tight? Or do they just love the smell of dollar bills? And who do they sell it to? They must have a contact to be able to move that many drugs.

  Fuck. If I’d known this was behind these walls, I would’ve never even gotten close.

&
nbsp; I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t have seen this. I shouldn’t have, but it’s too late to erase this image from my mind.

  Suddenly, an eye stares straight back at me through the gap.

  I panic and tumble backward on my ass.

  “Dad! We’ve got a visitor!” Ben hollers.

  I hold my breath.

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know, but someone was looking. I’m going outside,” Ben yells.

  Think quick, Brandon. Think!

  If they find you here, they’ll kill you!

  I immediately crawl up from the ground and run as fast as I can toward the fence, not knowing whether I’ll make it in time. Ben didn’t recognize me. He could probably only see my eyes, not my face. That means I still have a shot, but I need to get out, right fucking now.

  I climb the fence as fast as I can. It takes all my strength to pull myself up, my adrenaline pushing me forward.

  However, with one glance over my shoulder, I’m frozen in place.

  The dry, old wooden walls of the farmhouse and the barren grass surrounding it … Fuck.

  My eyes widen, and my mouth drops.

  It’s on fire.

  How? When? Shit.

  My Zippo. I didn’t even realize I had dropped it until now.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

  “Dad! Fuck!” Ben screams as he opens the door and sees the flames.

  He quickly runs back inside and gets his dad and brother, who immediately go back in to grab a hose. The thing gets stuck on the shoddy walls, though, and it ruptures, leaving the water to pour out onto the soil.

  A few seconds later, Dixie runs out of the shed, screaming her lungs out at the fire. She immediately assists her dad and brothers in fighting the fire, but it’s already too late. The flames are licking the ceiling of the building, and the plants are wasting away.

  I’m nearly across the fence, but I can’t tear my eyes away. I stare in shock as the building slowly goes up in flames.

  No matter how hard they fight, the fire wins.