Breaking Brent Read online

  He opened the door, flipped the lock and closed it quietly. His black extended-cab Chevrolet truck sat in one of the many parking spaces in front of the complex. He pressed the button on the key chain and heard the doors unlock and saw the interior light come on. Brent pulled the door open, hopped inside and slid the key into the ignition.

  The truck came to life and the pipes growled as he pressed the gas pedal. He slammed the door, looked up at Kelly’s apartment one last time—all the lights were off—and shifted the gear into reverse.

  The apartment complex wasn’t far from his family’s ranch, but it was far enough away that Brent was left alone with his thoughts. He drove through downtown Millbrook and wasn’t surprised to see the still, shadowed and stark buildings that marked his path home.

  Folks around here rolled up their sidewalks once dark set in. Every business shut down with the sun, except for two. The Early Bird Café stayed open late and opened early—like it always had. And of course, the doors at Big Jack’s bar stayed open until the wee hours of the morning. At least they did on the weekend.

  Brent started to pass the bar and noticed one of his brothers’ trucks still sat out front. Jason very rarely made it in before sunrise on Saturday mornings. Brent scanned the parking lot and noticed that Peyton’s car was no longer there. Where is she? The second the thought crossed his mind he banished it from his head. Off-limits. She’s off-limits. Let it go and move on.

  Making a quick U-turn, he swung the rig around and parked next to his brother’s truck and went back in. A few more shots and a whole lot of beer would be the only way for Brent to erase the way he felt—at least for a little while.

  Chapter Three

  After hours of tossing and turning and moving from her bed to the couch back to her bed, Peyton finally fell into a deep sleep. A sleep that would have been a lot less fitful if it hadn’t been plagued by thoughts of Brent and his lips, his tongue and everything else for that matter.

  As she tossed and turned, her sleeping mind revolved around their last night together.

  “Well, hello there, stranger,” were the only words Brent had allowed her to speak before he’d pulled her into his arms and fastened his mouth to hers. His taste filled her instantly. He ate at her lips like a starving man at a buffet. She returned his kiss with her own urgency and eagerness. He was delicious.

  He pulled his lips away from hers for only seconds, and she loved what she saw reflected in his gaze. Those glittering eyes glossed with desire. Her swollen lips and clit begged to be taken again and again.

  He lowered his head and her mind was immersed in his taste and his scent once more. The hands that held her arms at one point and time now ran the length of her body, coming to rest on the curve of her ass. Brent squeezed the firmness of her backside and lifted her to caress his swelling cock.

  He caught her gasp in his mouth and pushed the junction of his thighs against her stomach. The friction their clothes created between their bodies and against her clit caused a flood of pleasure.

  “I can’t wait much longer,” he managed to say in between kisses. She smiled against his mouth and seemed to spike his hunger even more. Her hands fell to his belt buckle and teased lower. That teasing nearly brought them both to their knees. He was so hard and thick beneath the denim. Within seconds the buckle was released, the button was undone and the zipper was moving agonizingly slow over the swell in his pants. Her fingers found him rigid and ready. It was torture standing there only being able to touch, squeeze and tease his cock.

  She found her back pressed against the door he’d walked through only a short time before.

  He anchored her hands above her head with one of his own and opened her body to his gaze and his need. With the one hand holding her the other was left free to roam and play. His strokes started at her knee and worked their way up. Flirting. His body was flirting with hers. He flirted with the bend of her knee, the outside of her thigh and then the inside.

  “Feel good?” he asked before he kissed her slack mouth. She moaned and nodded her head as he continued with his exploration. His hand took its time reaching her hips. Their movement brought her skirt to her waist. He licked his lips when the sweet softness of her pussy was uncovered. He took her mouth once more and let his tongue dip and glide to his heart’s content.

  “I want you wet.” His eyes caught hers. “I want you dripping when I get my dick in you.”

  “I am wet. I am dripping.” He released her hands and she placed them in his hair and pulled at the strands.

  He sank to his knees and looked into her eyes once more. “Not yet you aren’t. But you will be.” Before she could speak, he let his tongue reach and delve in between the slick folds of her pussy.

  Wicked. That one word described Brent’s tongue. Wicked. Peyton watched as he bathed and lapped at her lips over and over. It was too much. Too much pleasure. Holding on to the silky strands of his hair wasn’t enough. She wanted more. She wanted him. Deep inside of her. Thrusting, rocking and slamming into her.

  She almost forgot how his touch burned her skin and made her pussy soak with pleasure. His tongue flicked over the swollen bundle of nerves and nearly dropped her to her knees. She couldn’t take any more. She needed him. Needed him now.

  “I want it. I want it now.” When he didn’t come to her, she pulled the hair that rested in her hands. With ease, he removed her hands and held them at her sides and continued his assault on her clit. He might have restrained her arms, but not her hips. Moving her hips with the rhythm his tongue created brought Peyton closer and closer to coming. Is that what he wanted? It wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted to feel him fill her. She wanted to feel the sweet stretching he caused in her body.

  Her body needed to tense around his length and size. She could beg. She could plead. But she wouldn’t. She didn’t. He came to her.

  She couldn’t help but lick her lips at the sight of his cock. It was an involuntary reaction. His jeans still rested on his hips, covering more than they revealed. Reaching out, she took him in her hand and stroked the hard, warm, satin flesh of his erection.

  Her effort was rewarded when a pearl drop of liquid appeared from the engorged head. Swiping her finger across the tip caused his body to tense. It tensed again when Peyton placed her finger in her mouth and licked the salty sweetness of him from it.

  At that moment, Peyton realized that one of the sexiest sounds in the world was his moan. It was deep and low, making his chest vibrate. Sexy was not the word for it, but it was close, and the only one that would come to her swimming mind.

  She covered his cock with her hand again and moved and worked the flesh back and forth. Curling her fingers in an attempt to close around him reminded Peyton of something he had said the last time they were together. Harder. Smiling slightly at his earlier request, she gripped him tighter and pumped her hand up and down. Brent placed his hands on either side of her head and let his weight rest against her body. The moans coming from his chest made her body purr.

  Flattening one hand on the door, he pushed his weight back from her. With the other he placed a foil packet in her free hand.

  “Put it on.”

  She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, released his flesh from her hold and tore a side from the packet. While her hands were busy, his took their place. Peyton watched transfixed as Brent wrapped his large hand around his dick and stroked. Slowly and smoothly at first and then with more urgent and frantic movements. The sight of his dick in his own hand stopped her motions for a minute.

  “Peyton. Put. It. On.”

  She let her eyes roam the length of his body until she met his gaze. She couldn’t ignore the need and frenzy behind it. With more clumsy than cultured fingers, she placed the condom at the tip of his cock and then rolled it into place. She wanted the action to be sexy and sensual—she must have succeeded.

  With one impatient thrust, Brent impaled her. The scream that tore from her throat couldn’t be helped. They fit so well. T
he cream dripping from her slick lips bathed and washed over his cock. The slickness of her juice allowed him to pump and thrust at his leisure, sometimes shallow and soft, others hard and deep. Throwing her head back against the door, she let it move back and forth with Brent’s strokes.

  She wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck and took Brent’s mouth just as he was taking her body. Her mouth and tongue copied every thrust and plunge.

  “I want you. I want you.” The words broke from her mouth each time he descended and retreated from her body.

  “Look at me. Open your eyes and look at me.” When she did, he seized her mouth and took the kiss. He pulled away and locked his gaze on their grinding bodies. The sight of his cream-covered cock straining and throbbing between her wide-spread thighs brought Peyton’s orgasm crashing down. The release came in waves. Her body gripped his, milked it and sucked it deeper into her. There was no beginning to it nor was there an end.

  On the final waves of her ecstasy Brent’s body moved faster and his thrusts became deeper and more shattering.

  She tried to control her breathing and restore her erratic heartbeat—it took longer than she expected. Brent’s head rested in the curve of her neck and shoulder. She allowed herself a few more minutes of pleasure with him. She rubbed her cheek against the silky texture of his hair. He felt…he felt right. With lazy and hypnotic movements, he stroked her hip with a fingertip, causing her desire to mount again. But he pulled away.

  Brent let her legs return to the ground and he righted the skirt held prisoner at her hips. She watched him for a minute, not knowing whether to stay or go. She finally went. Stepping around him, she took her place behind the desk and hid her shaking legs beneath it.

  That was when she woke up. The dream stopped before the fall started. That night had been their last night together. The worst fight she had ever had with a person followed their last time together as a couple or as whatever they had been to each other.

  Peyton could remember each and every detail of the actions that followed her beautiful dream. Their words to each other had been hateful and hurtful. They had been their undoing.

  “I have other things goin’ on in my life, Peyton.” The words and his tone echoed in her still sleep-weary head.

  “If you want to play house so bad, find someone who wants to play house with you.”

  Play house? She still didn’t know exactly what that had meant.

  “Sex is great. It’s better than great, but I’m not ready to give you what you’re wantin’. If it’s a ring you’re looking for, you’re looking in the wrong place.”

  She hadn’t been looking for a ring. She had been looking for an explanation for his sudden absence in her life. Life with him without a ring on her finger was a life better than the one she had without him.

  “It’s like this. I want you. I want you in bed or wherever for that matter, but anything more is out of the question. Marriage ruins everything. Diamonds equal disaster and I don’t plan on ending up like my fool of a brother. Not now. Not ever.”

  He didn’t want to end up like Chase. He didn’t want a woman to be his fall. He didn’t want her—pure and simple.

  Those words had stung. Her pride and feelings had been bruised and battered, and worse, her heart had been broken. Carter had helped putting the pieces of that broken heart back together.

  Carter. After weeks of working herself to death, he had asked her to dinner—nothing more. A week later he had asked her to dinner and to come watch him ride in some little town she had never heard of.

  He had made her laugh.

  He had listened to her cry over Brent.

  He had cared—when Brent hadn’t.

  Looking back, she’d never intended for her and him to be any more than that. Their dating had been casual to say the least. But when he had asked her to marry him, she’d done what she thought she was supposed to do—she’d accepted.

  She’d been a fool to think that a ring could ever fill the void someone else had left behind when they walked away.

  She rolled to her side and took one of her pillows with her. For longer than she would like to admit that pillow had been the only thing she’d had to wrap her arms around. That thought coupled with the dream and what had happened after caused pain to well inside of her. It wasn’t the first time in her life that she had fallen asleep with tears over him in her eyes and she knew it wouldn’t be the last either.

  Chapter Four

  Saturday dawned bright and sunny with a touch of a breeze coming in from the west. It was the perfect day for a wedding. Brent groaned at the thought. Opening one eye slowly and the other one even slower, he came awake in stages. The light breaking through the large bay window in the dining room of the North Cabin made him curse beneath his breath and then out loud.

  Rolling to his side, he dropped to his knees beside the sofa he’d called a bed for the evening and steadied himself before rising. The minute he stood at his full height, he regretted being so tall. Damn, his head hurt. His entire body hurt. Parts of his body he didn’t know he had hurt.

  He stretched his arms above his head and tried to conjure blood to run to his muscles. After doing so, he wished he could take it back. He cracked his eyes open once more and saw that his brothers were not in much better shape.

  Jace lay sprawled face down across the other sofa in the living room. Nick was propped awkwardly in a chair with his mouth wide open and snoring loud enough to bring the roof down. The way his neck was contorted made Brent’s own hurt even worse.

  Brent scanned the room quickly, looking to see where Hayden had ended up for the night. There was no sign of him. Maybe he had been the lucky one and made it up the stairs to one of the beds. He was a lucky little bastard if he had.

  On steadier feet than he deserved, Brent made his way to the kitchen in search of coffee—hot, strong and black-as-night coffee. It had to help. Lord knew it couldn’t hurt. When he stepped across the threshold of the country-style kitchen he wasn’t surprised to see a visitor sitting at the table calmly eating a bowl of cereal and reading the newspaper.

  “Boy, you look like shit.” She smiled and offered him the box of cereal that sat at her arm.

  “Morning, Jocelyn. Nice to see you too.” He took the box she offered, opened it and grabbed a handful of cereal before returning it to the tabletop. Brent turned his back on his stepsister to make a quick pot of coffee and noticed that a full pot had already brewed. “You made the coffee?”

  “Nope. That was all Willa. She said she figured you guys would need it. Oh, and by the way, she also wanted me to tell you, Hayden is curled up on the front porch sleeping with the dog if you get to looking for him.” So the little bastard wasn’t as lucky as Brent thought.

  “How’d he get out there?” Bringing the rim of the cup to his lips, he breathed in the heady aroma that would hopefully ease the alcohol-induced headache he was developing.

  “I don’t think he ever made it in. Y’all must have had one wild night. Want to tell me some of the more graphic details?”

  “Not in this lifetime.” He smiled at her pouting face as he took a seat beside her at the table. “What’s with the curlers?” When he mentioned the bright pink spools that littered her auburn hair Jocelyn’s hands flew to them.

  “I forgot all about them. Shit,” she hissed and began untangling her tresses from the binds. “I tried to tell your mama that it was a wasted effort to even try to curl this mess. It’s straight as a board and that ain’t gonna change. She made me sleep in them all night.”

  One by one the pink sponges were pulled from her scalp and flung across the kitchen toward the trash can. She missed more than she made, but Brent realized Jocelyn honestly didn’t give a shit if she made the shot or not. True to her word, when all of the curlers were removed her auburn hair was as straight as it ever was.

  “See, told you.”

  He couldn’t help laughing at the face she made. Jocelyn, for all her hell-raising
ways, was a good kid. A kid who was rapidly becoming a women. Or already was one. Brent guessed her father realized that fact himself and that was the main cause of the crackdown that had been happening lately.

  “So you still grounded?” Grounded wasn’t the word for Jocelyn’s predicament. House arrest was more like it. Taking a sip of coffee warmed his insides and the caffeine helped keep the beating in his head at bay.

  “I’m not grounded. I’m just doing and going where Daddy says I can without causing you guys and him any more trouble. It’s not fair. I mean, I’m twenty-two years old and he is hell bent on still treating me like a child. Do I look like a child to you?” Jocelyn spread her arms out to the sides, making Brent understand why his stepfather had put his foot down. Jocelyn was gorgeous. She was a long-legged, willowy carbon copy of her father. She had the same auburn hair and green eyes, minus the beard Harrison sported and plus a set of breasts. A father’s walking nightmare was what she was. A daughter that every male for miles drooled over and wanted to drool on.

  “No, you don’t look like a kid. You’re not a kid, but you are your daddy’s little girl. That may have a lot to do with his decisions. That and the fact that you tend to wreak havoc wherever you go.”

  “If you’re referring to that incident at Peyton’s a little while back, that was not my fault. Those good ole boys should have minded their own business. And Jason should have just stayed out of it. I had it under control.” Huffing and running her fingers through her hair did not help calm her temper. Brent could tell. He could see her fire boiling under the surface. Jason didn’t help ease her temper either, by any means. Brent thought at times he actually helped it along.

  “What did you have under control?” On cue Jason, strolled through the kitchen door, scratching his bare chest and yawning along the way. Brent watched Jocelyn slant her eyes in his direction and return to her cereal, which was surely a soggy mess by now.