Branded Read online

  The man nods and immediately makes a run for it.

  Brandon grabs my hand, and we follow.

  Adrenaline rushes through my veins. Matteo’s right outside, strolling past the booths, checking each one of them. He’s looking for us, and we’re about to meet head on.

  Fuck.

  I hold my breath as Brandon marches toward the exit, trying to pretend we’re just a normal couple. I don’t even look that different, so I’m hoping Matteo won’t notice. Otherwise, we’re fucked.

  When we get past him, I briefly close my eyes and breathe out a sigh of relief.

  Then we pass our booth, and I quickly snag the piece of pie I had left. I take a sneaky bite to satiate my still hungry stomach.

  “Hey!”

  Matteo’s voice makes me stop halfway through my bite.

  “Shit,” I whisper. “He’s seen us, hasn’t he?”

  Brandon nods, refusing to turn his head to the man who’s clearly shouting at us. All the guests in the diner are looking at us now. Sweat drips down my back.

  “You! Wait!” Matteo yells.

  The sound of a gun clicking gets to me.

  In a flash, I spin on my heels and chuck the pie straight at him, and it hits him in the face.

  “Run!” I yell, and I grab Brandon’s arm and tug him along.

  With a confused look on his face, he follows me outside. Matteo wipes the pie off his face and quickly follows suit.

  “What the fuck was that?” Brandon asks as we run across the parking lot.

  “A distraction,” I reply as he locates Matteo’s car and shoots two tires.

  We run to the car, and Brandon shouts at me, “You call that a distraction?”

  “At least no one got shot!”

  We get inside and slam the doors shut. Right then, shots blast against the bumper, and we duck for cover.

  When Brandon frowns at me, I shrug. “At least I bought us some time.”

  Within seconds, he’s turned on the engine and revs the car, driving off without even looking where he’s going. I have to tug the wheel for us not to crash into a fucking pole. Bullets rain on the back of the car, and I turn my head, but Matteo stays behind and starts cursing the moment he spots his flat tires. Win.

  I grin. “We made it.”

  Brandon takes a deep breath as we skid across the road, escaping our attackers. “For now.”

  “But damn, that was a waste of good pie,” I say, settling in my seat.

  “Hmm … At least you got a few bites,” he replies, and for a second there, I think I spot a tiny smile before it disappears again.

  “So where are we off to now?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “Off the road.”

  “When?”

  He pulls on the wheel, making me sway in my seat and shriek as I try to hold on. “Now.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Brandon

  I don’t stop until we’re so far off the road that no one will be able to follow us. There aren’t any trackers underneath the car either. I checked. Now we’re out in the middle of fucking nowhere with just the moon to light the world around us.

  I’ve gathered a bunch of dry sticks and lit them with my Zippo to create a small fire. It’s not a lot, but it’ll keep us warm. We’re huddled together in front of the car, taking shelter under its bumper while also keeping warm by the fire.

  Dixie has her hands in front of her, warming them up, while I keep the lizard I caught above the crackling flame to smoke it. It’s not much, but it’ll do to ease an empty stomach. We’re lucky there was still a bottle of water inside the car, which we’re now sharing. Funny how that ended up.

  Me sharing food with Dixie Burrell? I probably would’ve laughed if I thought about that happening, but I just sort of rolled into it. I can’t let her perish out here in the fucking wilderness either, now can I? That would make the whole idea of me taking her pointless.

  And I hate doing things I’ll regret. So I’ll make sure she survives until I can figure out what to do with her.

  Because fuck me … things are getting complicated, for sure.

  That whole shitshow at the diner proved just how conflicted I am.

  First, the fact that I wanted to give her something to eat as if I somehow cared about her well-being and her hunger. Then the fucking looks she gave me when that waitress started flirting with me. I gotta admit, seeing her get riled definitely pushed all my buttons. I loved seeing Dixie squirm. It brought back memories of a time long ago when we weren’t two people entangled in a miserable fate.

  Now we’re stuck together in the middle of the desert, and I have no fucking clue what I’m going to do with her.

  Part of me wants to punish her even more for what she did, maybe give her a good spanking and a branding, just for the sake of it. That would teach her not to mess with my family … not to toy with me.

  But my family is gone now, and the only one I have left does not give a shit about me.

  He’d probably kill me if it meant he could get his hands on her.

  I’m pretty sure he’s called my phone fifty times already. I’m glad I blocked him, but what the fuck do I do now? Do I end it? Can I even kill her? And what if I’m done with her … what then? Do I let her go?

  I pick up some more twigs from the ground and chuck them into the fire.

  Maybe I should stop thinking about shit so much and do whatever the fuck I want. It’s too late to make the right decision anyway. My uncle will probably never accept me back into his hotel or even anywhere near the family.

  Sighing, I rotate the lizard until it’s crisp and take it out. I start cutting into it with a small army knife I brought and hold out a piece to Dixie.

  She winces. “No, thanks.”

  “You sure?” I ask, taking a bite out of the meatier part. “Beats being hungry.”

  “Yup, I’m sure,” she says, making a face as if she’s about to puke.

  I shrug and rub my lips together. “Suit yourself.” Then I take a bite.

  She cringes again, practically turning green at the sight, making me laugh.

  “It tastes delicious.”

  “Ew, don’t tell me. I don’t wanna know,” she says.

  I love how I can make her hate me just by eating food. I don’t know why I’m so obsessed with seeing the rage in her eyes. Or why it makes me wanna laugh.

  There’s just something about this girl that makes it hard not to care.

  I sigh as I stare at the fire and take another bite of my dinner.

  “You sure do love the fire, don’t you?” she suddenly asks.

  “Mmhmm,” I mumble. I love it … the smoke … the red glow. I love it a little too much. Like an unhealthy obsession. Like her.

  I swallow down the piece of lizard.

  “My papa and I used to do this all the time,” I say.

  “Oh, yeah?” she mumbles, her eyes glistening with interest when she looks at me. “Camp outside?”

  “Yep. He loved the outdoors. The cold of the night. The smell of burning wood.” I take a whiff. “Same as me.”

  “So you’re a lot like your dad then,” she says. She still can’t take her eyes off me. I wonder if it’s the clothes or something else. Something we’re both ignoring.

  “Oh, yeah. I didn’t realize it when I was younger, but I do now,” I say, gazing wistfully into the fire. “Sometimes, I wish he was still here.”

  She nods, glancing away too. “I feel the same about my brothers. Even though they acted like assholes all the time, I still loved them.”

  Her chest rises with each breath she takes and her lips pout. The thought of kissing her crosses my mind. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the sooty air or lack of sleep messing with my head.

  “What do you want me to say? Sorry won’t bring them back,” I say.

  “No, but it’s a start,” she says, crawling away.

  “Hey.” I grab her hand. “Where are you going?”

  “To take a piss,” she says as she jerks free
and gets up. “What else?”

  “Don’t walk off,” I say while she swiftly turns on her heels.

  “Where the fuck am I supposed to walk off to, Brandon?” she asks, her hips swaying with sass as she walks. “We’re in the middle of fucking nowhere because of you.”

  “Hey, I’m protecting you, and you know that,” I reply with a fistful of dirt.

  “I never asked you to protect me,” she says, sticking her finger up at me before walking off to somewhere behind the car. “Don’t follow me. I don’t want you sneaking around, being a pervert and shit.”

  “That’s the last thing I wanna see from you, trust me,” I yell back.

  It’s a lie.

  I want to follow her.

  Desperately.

  But I don’t.

  I don’t want her to think that I’m obsessed with her because I’m not. I just don’t want her to run. That’s all.

  At least, that’s what I tell myself while I stare at the fire, still thinking about how beautifully her tits bounced up and down while she walked. Was she always this beautiful? Or has my mind just marred the image of her so I could deal with it better?

  Thankfully, she doesn’t say anything else. I don’t want to have another shouting match with her. Enough is enough. We’ll never see eye to eye. It doesn’t matter what I tell her, she’ll never forgive me for what I did, and I don’t want her to.

  We both did something we regret.

  I chuck the dirt into the fire and grumble along with it.

  Women.

  Why the hell are they so difficult?

  Suddenly, something attacks me from behind.

  I roar out loud when teeth sink into my neck. Believing it’s an animal, I drag it over my head and throw it on the ground in front of me.

  Only, it’s not animal, it’s Dixie.

  She immediately lunges for my throat again, trying to choke me. I grasp her wrists and push her off, but she bites my hand next. I yelp, and she attempts to steal my gun, so I shove her away.

  She growls and tries to hit me, but I’ve grabbed her hands just in time and pin her down to the ground, lying on top of her to keep her there.

  “What the fuck’s wrong with you?” I yell at her face.

  “You!” she yells back, struggling badly. “You’re what’s wrong with me. Why won’t you fucking let me kill you?”

  “Because I don’t wanna die,” I spit. “And I figure you want the same thing.”

  “You don’t know what I want,” she hisses. “Now get off me.”

  “No. Not until you listen to me,” I say.

  “Nothing you say will make this okay. Nothing!”

  “I don’t care.”

  She fights me again, trying to kick and scratch me, but it won’t work. I’m much stronger than she is. She’ll never win this fight, and she knows it. The longer she goes on, the more worn down she gets. The lack of food and sleep are getting to her now, and her eyes fill with tears.

  “Why won’t you just pay for your crimes?” she mumbles. “Why won’t you just die?”

  “Do you really want me to die so badly?” I respond, sighing.

  “Yes,” she says with such conviction that it feels like a stab wound. I don’t know why it gets to me the way it does. Why everything she says to me hurts like a fucking brick to the face.

  I look deep in her eyes, searching for something … anything … that can make me stop feeling this way. This haunted by the pain in her soul.

  Despite hating her so badly, I want to fix her too. I want to break her and then build her up again. I want to ruin her and then make her mine.

  Fuck.

  “Look into my eyes, Dixie,” I murmur, forcing her to stay still by sitting on top of her and pinning her firmly to the ground. “Look at me and tell me what you see.”

  A single tear rolls down her cheeks. “The eyes of a killer.”

  “The eyes of a man who regrets everything … everything he ever did,” I say in a single breath. “Except you.”

  Her lips part, but no sound comes out. Her chest stops moving, and for a moment, she stops fighting me.

  “What do you mean?” she mutters.

  “I need to hate you to stay sane, but fuck me, you make it difficult,” I growl.

  She licks her lips in such a delicious way that it captures my full attention. I wish I could have a taste. I wish I could kiss her without feeling the guilt flow through me.

  My father deserves better from me.

  But so did she.

  I close my eyes and sigh. “I’m sorry.”

  It’s the first time in ages that I’ve admitted I did something wrong.

  That I made a mistake.

  In my pain, I retaliated in the worst of ways, and it killed her love for me along with her soul. I never wanted to do that to her, despite the fact she burned whatever was left of my heart.

  Maybe that’s why I feel such a need to inflict the pain I feel onto her. Because it’s a catharsis to me.

  “Wha—” she mumbles.

  Instead of answering her, I press my lips onto hers.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Brandon

  I needed to kiss her. I couldn’t hold myself back any longer. I had to remember what she tasted like before … before all this.

  In light of what’s happened, this is the most horrible thing I’ve done to her. Not the tying up, not the threats, not almost shooting her … this.

  Because I can see it in her eyes. The passionate, bitter rage seething from them.

  I deserve it all.

  Yet she doesn’t push back. She lets me kiss her right here on the dirt in the middle of fucking nowhere. So I keep going, kissing her as hard as I can, savoring every single inch of her skin. However, the moment my lips move slightly off hers, she panics and bites me instead.

  “What the fuck?!”

  She frees herself from my grasp and a slap follows.

  Dazed, I stare at her and touch the burning sting on my face. “Fuck. Do you really wanna hurt me that badly?”

  “Like you hurt me? Fuck yes,” she says, trying to slap me again.

  I pin her down to the ground again, her hair filling with dust as she squirms underneath me. “I hurt you because you hurt me.”

  “Stop acting like you’re the one who lost everything,” she hisses.

  “You don’t know what I lost,” I spit back. I don’t want to tell her about my papa. It’s my only weakness, and I’m not about to hand it to her on a platter. Not when she’s still trying to get to me. “It doesn’t fucking matter. You and I are both in this together.”

  “Why? Why did you even save me, huh? You could’ve just left me there,” she says. “Stop pretending you’re some kind of hero.”

  “I’m no fucking hero, and I never pretended to be one,” I growl. “I’m only here for my own fucking interest.”

  “And what is that, huh?” she asks, gazing at her own wrists which I still have pinned down. “Me? My body? My tits? My pussy?” A filthy, dirty smile appears on her lips the moment she looks at me. Do I give it away that easily? Shit.

  “Take me then. Use me. I don’t give a damn. Just kill me after it’s over so it’s done.”

  My cock hardens from her words. That’s what she does to me. Her stubbornness is such a fucking turn-on to me, always has been. It’s the single thing that can turn me into a monster in the blink of an eye.

  And it’s happening again … I can feel it.

  “Do it,” she whispers, leaning up. “Kiss me. Fuck me. Ruin me.”

  Her shallow breath is enough to consume me, and I fall into her, claiming her mouth as if it always belonged to me. This woman, she’ll be my undoing. But first, I’ll have my way with her.

  I bury my tongue in her mouth, toying with hers, and I lick the roof of her mouth. She parts her lips and allows me in, despite her words saying otherwise. I ravage her completely, not allowing her one second to breathe. I don’t even give a damn whether she knows just how much
I want her body. I’m taking it, end of story.

  My hands move to her tits, and I rip off the shirt she was wearing. Buttons fly everywhere, and she shrieks in surprise, but I immediately cover her mouth with mine to silence her. I play with her nipples, which peak under my command.

  I know how to play her body to make her sing. Soon, she’s moaning, whether she wants to or not. I’ll find all the sensitive spots she wants to keep secret from me, and I’ll own them all.

  Every blush. Every moan. Every fucking breath.

  And she will scream my name.

  “Fuck,” she whispers as I slide my tongue along her neck and jawline.

  “Oh yeah, I’m gonna fuck you, all right,” I groan.

  My mouth reaches her tits, and I grab a fistful in one hand and suck on the other. She moans out loud, unable to hold back her excitement. I know she wants this even though she might say she doesn’t. She’s not fighting back anymore. Her body has turned to mush below me, and goose bumps scatter across her skin. I grin as she grasps my hair while my tongue twirls around her nipple. Tonight, here in the desert, I will take what should have been mine long ago.

  But as I move down her body, she leans up, reaches into my pocket, and takes out my gun.

  * * *

  Dixie

  I aim and attempt to shoot, but Brandon immediately leans away as I pull the trigger. The bullet ricochets off the car bumper, and I growl out loud in frustration. We fight over the gun, and he knocks it from my hand, shoving me to the ground again. The gun flies off a few feet ahead, landing on the dusty soil right next to a prickly, dead bush. Too far for me to reach.

  “You just had to go and do that again,” Brandon growls, holding me down. “Don’t you ever fucking learn? You can’t win this. You know I’m right.”

  I don’t care if he’s right. I won’t give up. I can’t. For my brothers’ sake. For my own sanity.

  Because the more time I spend with him, the more the line between what’s right and wrong begins to blur.

  “And just when I thought we were getting along better,” he says with a snort. “Maybe you’re a hard learner.” He grips my body and turns me over underneath him. I’m helpless to fight him as he pulls my wrists together onto my back and tears off his tie, wrapping it around my wrists.