Braden’s mouth covered hers. Kissing her proved effective. It kept her quiet, and since Kane used the same tactic on her before, she imagined it must have been a man thing, either that or it was a Cartwell-thing.
This time his kiss was ravenous. He devoured her lips with a devastating kiss, one meant to change things, one meant to destroy the rules he put in place to save them from this. Her hands fisted in his shirt, bunched the material and clawed at the skin underneath. And just as soon as it started, he stopped it.
“I can’t do this to you, Peyton. I’m sorry I…”
“No need to apologize. I wanted it. I still want it.” She wanted it bad. She’d heard stories about Kane and Evan but evidently Braden didn’t fuck around a lot. She’d never heard anything about him or his skills in the bedroom. Kane and Evan, as much as they might hate it, were open encyclopedia volumes.
Kane and Evan held quite the reputation. After one night with Kane, she realized why. The man’s cock was on steroids or something. Braden must’ve kept his on valium because even now, with a hard cock, and she saw the imprint of it, he wasn’t aggressive. Kane and Evan pursued a woman, and when they did, they stalked her. Braden took his time and worked his way into an intimate situation.
He kept a tight upper lip but she saw the lust there in his eyes. He wanted her, needed her all the more since she’d revealed her dirty little secret.
“Let me love you too, Braden.” She brushed his hair away from his face and framed his cheeks. “Please let me love you.”
He picked her up and cradled her in his arms, and before she knew what she’d truly started, she held onto him with her kisses matching his. He carried her up the hill, and she was so lost in his mouth, his tongue, and his lips, she never paid attention. Her left hand ran over his chest while her right gripped the nape of his neck.
And he kissed her all the way up to the barn. Then, he released her.
“Braden, don’t walk away.” She was dying for more now.
“I have to walk away, at least for tonight, Peyton.”
“Why?” she whined.
He ran his hand through his hair again. “Because if I don’t, God help me, if I don’t, there may be hell to pay here. I have a lot of things to sort out, and if you’re smart, you’ll take some time to decide what it is you want.”
Her eyes widened in acknowledgement as the memory of their mother’s story, the way Braden once told it, replayed over and over again in her mind. She saw the fear in his eyes too. The harrowing anxiety existed there.
“Kane knows, Braden. He’s not stupid. Just because something happened between us first doesn’t mean-”
“Nothing will happen between you and me or you and Evan until I talk to him.”
She wanted to argue. She needed to convince him to change his mind but when she made the first move, one step in his direction, he quickly stopped her with the words intended for someone behind her.
“Vicky, how long have you been standing there?” He painted on a crooked smile.
“Long enough to know I interrupted something you both need to reconsider.”
It was after midnight, and the girls ruled the Cartwell house. Vicky sat down beside Peyton and flipped through a magazine. “You’re going to have to think about what you’re doing here, Peyton.”
”It’s all I think about.”
“You don’t understand. You don’t know what they’ve been through or the impact their mother had on the men around here. Now, you’re doing the same thing.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Do you even know what happened to their fathers?”
“Of course, I know.”
“Do you realize they all have Cartwell blood running through their veins because they’re not only half-brothers but cousins too?”
She swallowed tightly. “No, I didn’t know about…I never thought to ask. How did you know?”
Vicky tossed the magazine on the bed. “Wanna know why my father is an alcoholic?” The question, while it appeared randomly selected, had a purpose.
Peyton studied her friend. Vicky seldom talked about her father or his drinking problem. She also never mentioned that on occasion he beat her and her mother. She just didn’t talk about it or him, at all.
“Sometimes, I think Braden is kinder to me because of what he knows his mother did to wreck my father’s life,” Vicky continued.
“What are you saying, Vicky?”
“My father and their mother had some kind of fling too. Peyton, just like you, she could have any man she wanted. Many of them were married, my father, for instance. She didn’t care. She taunted them with short skirts, low tops, promises of passion. From what I understand, she dressed up the part and played it out well. Women around here hated her.”
“She destroyed lives, though. I don’t plan on-”
“Peyton, stop it. You are doing the exact same thing she did. You aren’t making a choice so what you’re doing is giving three men hope. Three men are staying bound to you, hoping you’ll choose one over the other.”
“It’s not like that,” she said. “All of the Cartwell men were married to other women and sneaking around. It was a mess from the very beginning. I’m not anything like their mother.”
Vicky’s voice dropped when she heard five or six girls chatting it up before they ran into the room. “You’re asking for a lot of trouble here, Peyton. You have to make a choice.”
One of the girls dropped to the floor with her hand over her chest. “So help me God, if I can sneak out of your room tonight, I’m going to crawl into Kane Cartwell’s bed and do him dirty.”
Peyton glared at her friend. Everyone else giggled, and someone else popped up with more promises.
“You can have Kane. Mr. Personality doesn’t do a lot for me. I’m taking on Evan, and so help me, I’m going to find out if what they say is true!”
Peyton stared at the petite brunette. “What have you heard?” She cleared her throat. She only dared imagine.
The giggling stopped abruptly. Peyton twisted around on the bed so she was sprawled across the comforter with her stomach flat against the mattress. She bent her knees and crossed her ankles high above her bottom.
“What do you care?” Sarcasm oozed with her friend’s saucy rebuttal, and Vicky raised her eyebrows.
Peyton shrugged, “I don’t. I just like to know anything and everything I can on them. A girl never knows when she might have some use for great ammunition to fire their way. Sometimes, I’m telling you, I need an arsenal of come-backs and a whole lot of private knowledge.”
The girl lowered her voice and scooted across the carpet. Using her palms she pushed herself up from the floor. “I’ve heard he does the threesome thing.”
Peyton damn near choked on the soda she barely swallowed before her friend revealed what she knew. “Threesome?”
Vicky’s eyes were wide too, and wild with understanding. “I’m sure it’s nothing but a tall tale.”
Peyton probed for more. “As in a threesome with one girl and two guys or as in three guys or two girls and…?”
“Shoot, Peyton, I don’t know. What difference does it make?”
As if he’d been standing there the whole time, Evan stuck his head inside her door and grinned from ear to ear. “Yeah, Peyton, if it’s true-what difference does it make?”
All heads turned toward Peyton, and she refused to answer him in front of her friends. They all knew she had a silly school-girl crush on him when he was in high school. Now, it was more, far more. She slid off the bed and glanced down at her friends. “Come on. Let’s get into to some trouble.”
As she passed by Evan, she smiled, patted his cheek and then leaned in with a few words to keep him up late at night. “It makes a big difference, Evan. Ask Kane.”
She wiggled her butt, laughed out loud and chased her friends downstairs. She never looked back but she wouldn’t forget the look in his eyes, the twinkle she saw in them when he leaned in her room. Evan Cartwell wanted
