Eternal Brand (2 page)

And the idea of riding off again in the wet wasn't very appealing. Jet was sorely tempted, and it must have shown on his face. Emily tilted her head and regarded him with a twinkle in her green eyes. “I make a mean cup of coffee.”

In the end the rain, which started pounding harder on the tin roof covering the veranda, made the decision easy. Jet grinned at Emily. “Coffee sounds great.”

Chapter Two

“So you know Brand from his army days?”

Emily's gaze slid over Jet's muscular frame, on display now that he'd taken off his leather jacket. The long-sleeved white shirt he wore underneath molded to his chest and arms, the V neckline showing the glint of a metal chain resting against the smooth skin of his chest.

Seeing the direction of her gaze, Jet reached into his shirt and withdrew the medallion. “No, these aren't dog tags. It's a St. Christopher's Medallion.”

He leaned forward, inviting her to inspect the silver medallion closer. The action made his shirt fall open, improving Emily's view of his chest. She glimpsed the jut of his dark brown nipple before she caught herself and dragged her focus to the necklace instead.
You're ogling him, Emily! Brand's friend and a virtual stranger!
It was hard not to though. Jet Durante had the looks of a Hollywood movie star, and more than his fair share of easy charm.

“It was my grandfather's. My mother gave it to me the first time I went overseas. It's supposed to protect me.” At her expectant look, he elucidated. “I'm a photographer. Wildlife, mostly. I go where the animals are.”

“You mean like Africa?”

Jet nodded and took a sip of his coffee. “Among other places.”

“Where? Tell me.” At the surprised hike of his dark brows, Emily blushed. “I've never actually been out of Australia. Pretty sad for a thirty-year-old woman, huh?”

“Not everyone gets the chance to travel. I've been lucky.” He smiled, not making her feel parochial for her lack of worldly experience. “Let's see, besides Africa I've spent some time in Alaska photographing the brown bears during salmon season. I traveled down the Amazon and got shots of so many species I won't list them now. And I just got back from Borneo where I spent a month photographing the orangutans.”

“Gosh. That all sounds so exciting.”

“It can be. It can also be tedious. A lot of waiting around for that perfect shot.”

Emily nodded, easily able to imagine Jet huddled in the bushes, patiently waiting for a bear cub to emerge from its den and then springing into action the second it did. He had an aura of contained energy about him that gave the sense he could handle whatever life threw his way.

“So how do you know Brand?” Emily couldn't fathom how Brand had met a globe-trotting wildlife photographer.

“I've known him since we were both fifteen. My parents have an orchard down near Picton, a ways west of Sydney. They also keep some animals. Brand…he stayed with them a while.”

“He said he was from down that way.” But he hadn't told her much else. Brand had been very close-lipped when it came to talking about his past. Emily had no idea where his family was, or if he even had family. Now, here was Jet, someone who'd known him in the times that Brand wouldn't talk about. The temptation to ask questions was irresistible. “You say he stayed with your parents? Why?”

Jet looked at her steadily. Emily sensed him assessing her, working out how little she knew about the man she lived with. Her cheeks heated with discomfiture.

“You should ask Brand sometime,” Jet eventually said. “Right now, I'd rather talk about how you met him.”

Conversation was a welcome reprieve from the awkward silence that had settled over them. “He came knocking on my door one day, asking to see the horses. Not to ride them, just to see them.”

“Did you think that was odd?”

“A bit, I suppose. But he looked so…” Emily searched for a word that wouldn't make Brand sound unbalanced. Desperate? Needy? Vulnerable? She discarded them all and simply said, “Lost. I thought the horses might help him find his way, so I said he could visit with Daisy for a while. She's my favorite stock horse. The next day he came back, and I said if he wanted to ride Daisy, he had to clean my gutters.”

Jet grinned. “I see you're no pushover.”

“Nope. I had quite a few jobs I had trouble getting to myself, and by the end of the day, he'd done more than his fair share. I offered to pay him in money, not just horse visiting time. He refused the money.”

Emily recalled walking into the stables at the end of the day and finding Brand with his head buried in Daisy's neck, his hands gently stroking her flesh. When Daisy had whinnied softly and given her head a shake, Brand had smiled, and something inside Emily's chest had tugged so hard she could barely breathe.

“So what did you do?” Jet asked, bringing Emily back to the present.

“I insisted he stay for dinner.” Emily smiled ruefully. “He never left.”

“Ah. He stayed for the horses, I'm sure.”

Emily raised a brow. “Obviously.”

Jet laughed. “Brand always loved horses. Mum had an old gray mare named Mule, of all things. She was as moody as she was stubborn. That horse and Brand had a special relationship though. Brand was the only one who could ride Mule.”

“You couldn't ride her?”

“Me?” Jet scoffed. “I don't do horses.”

Emily stared at him in surprise. “You skulk around in the night with bears and lions and alligators, but you're afraid of horses?”

“I didn't say I was afraid.” He showed her an affronted expression. “But the four-hoofed beasts and I tend to stay out of each other's way.”

Emily couldn't help but laugh. “You should meet my sister. The two of you would get along great.”

Jet eyed her over the rim of his coffee mug, and something about the steadiness of his gaze made Emily's skin tingle. “Does she look anything like you?”

The subtle flirtatiousness of the question made Emily's face heat again. It had done far too much of that since Jet arrived. “She keeps her hair short and her body very decoratively tattooed. But it looks good on Hope. She's tanned and toned. Much thinner than I am.”

“She doesn't sound like my type. I prefer curves on a woman.”

He didn't look at her as he said it, didn't give her own curves a meaningful once-over. Yet Emily's body simmered as though he'd caressed her rounded hips with those long-fingered, artistic hands of his.
Enough, Emily,
she chastised herself, picking up her now-empty mug and taking it to the kitchen. She and Brand might not have actually discussed being exclusive, but she figured it was assumed. Brand wouldn't flirt with some strange woman while Emily was away.

Not that she was flirting. Ogling, maybe, but not flirting. Jet was the one making the vaguely complimentary remarks.

Or had she imagined the undercurrent entirely? Probably.
Stop making a big deal out of nothing.

Jet stood too and brought his own mug to the sink, where he very thoughtfully rinsed it out. Emily stepped back, careful not to bump into him. Emily sensed he was about to leave, and while she knew she ought to simply let him, she found herself asking, “Feel like desensitizing yourself? I have to go check on the horses, get them ready to bed down for the night. You're welcome to tag along.”

If Jet was as surprised as she by her impulsive invitation, it didn't show. He sent her a knowing look. “You're after a helper, right?”

Emily smiled. “It does go quicker if there's two people doing it.”

“Quicker is not always better, Emily,” Jet drawled, sending her a wink.

She was definitely not imagining the sexual undertones of
that
comment. But he said it with such humor that she couldn't take it as a serious come-on. It was simply Jet's manner, she realized. He was an innately sensual person, and he couldn't help but have an effect on women.

It didn't stop her body from responding with a rush of carnal heat. Just as Jet couldn't help flirting, she couldn't help reacting. It was nothing personal. Nothing to feel guilty about. There was no harm in him staying a little longer. Besides, he might let some more tidbits of information about Brand slip, and Emily was keen to get a clear picture in her mind of how Jet's and Brand's lives fit together.

She rested a hand on her hip in a challenging pose. “Are you going to help me or not, smart aleck?”

His hesitation was noticeable, but brief. He wiped his wet hands on a tea towel and said, “Lead the way, pretty lady.”

An hour later, they were stuck. While they'd been in the stables, the rain had started to come down with a vengeance, soaking the ground. The notion of taking a leisurely walk back to the house was off the table. They'd have to bolt for it.

No less than what he deserved, Jet figured. He needed a drenching with freezing-cold rainwater to douse his lusty reaction to Emily Irving. While she'd given him the rundown of what needed to be done and introduced each horse by name, he'd been surreptitiously checking out her assets. She had a luscious ass, round and full, and a rack that could easily fill both his hands—which he knew he shouldn't picture doing but did anyway. Even the way she caressed the animals, how they snickered into her palm as she spoke to them in soothing tones, had somehow been sexy.

He, who'd given horses a wide berth since Mule had kicked him when he was twelve, was turned on by watching a woman stroke her hand down a stallion's flank. He'd developed a healthy erection that Emily had been, luckily, too focused on the horses to notice.

“We could wait it out,” Emily suggested.

Wait here with you and a persistent hard-on? Too dangerous.
“It doesn't look like it's going to ease up. I think we should run.”

“Yeah, I know. After three?”

“Agreed.”

They counted to three in unison, then launched out of the protection of the stable. The rain lashed them in sheets, soaking Jet's shirt and obscuring his vision. He dodged puddles when he could, but avoiding them all was impossible. When Jet found a puddle that went deeper than he'd expected, he landed awkwardly and pain shot through his ankle. His balance was toast, and he tripped.

Landing face first in the mud.

“Jet! Are you okay?”

Jet wiped the mud from his face, spat some from inside his mouth. He didn't look up, afraid of what a ridiculous picture he would make. “I'm fine. You go.”

“Not without you. Come on.”

She put out her hand for him to take. As if he wasn't embarrassed enough. Jet waved her off and stood on his own. At least the rain that fell in torrents did a pretty good job of cleaning him off. He followed Emily's lead from then on, stepping where she stepped until they made it back to the porch without further incident.

“Wow, that's really coming down,” Emily remarked once they were under the overhang. “Are you sure you didn't hurt yourself?”

“Only my pride,” he said, ignoring the tenderness in his ankle. He must have twisted it when he fell. Not a big deal.

“If you're sure. You fell pretty hard.” She glanced at his muddied state and quickly looked away, biting her lip as though to keep it from curving.

“You're laughing at me, aren't you?”

“Of course not.” But her voice trembled with the effort of trying not to. “It's not funny at all, watching a grown man fall face first into the mud. Laughing would be a horrible thing to do.”

She was peering at him from beneath her lashes, looking so adorable Jet figured he'd have a hard time denying her anything. Even a laugh at his expense. He made a circular motion with his hand. “Go ahead. Let it all out.”

She covered her mouth but the act didn't stifle her giggles. It was such a melodic sound, so enchanting that Jet couldn't help the way his own lips curved. Pretty soon, he was laughing too, a laugh he felt deep in his gut.

“It's not funny,” he wheezed after a few moments when his guffaws and hers started to ebb. “I picked the wrong day to wear a white shirt.”

“I did offer you a rain jacket, but you refused because you're such a tough guy.”

“I refused because nobody looks good in yellow.”
Except you
, he silently added, noticing how even the shapeless waterproof coat she wore didn't dim her appeal.

“Oh, thanks!” Emily said, unzipping the coat and shrugging out of it. “Just what a woman in yellow wants to hear.”

“I didn't mean…” The explanation died on his tongue when Jet realized she was biting her lip again, and that amused twinkle continued to shine bright in her green eyes. “You're teasing me. Geez, woman, haven't I suffered enough?”

“I guess one humiliating face plant is sufficient to keep you humble for now.”

“Do I need humbling?”

“Men who look like you usually do.”

She turned quickly to focus on hanging her raincoat on a hook by the back door. Jet sensed it was a ploy to avoid his gaze. Was she embarrassed because she'd revealed she thought he was handsome?

Jet's blood heated, warding off the chill of the late-autumn air penetrating his wet clothes. He couldn't help feeling elated at the thought that Emily might have been checking him out as he had been her, but he tamped down the response immediately.
You came here for Brand, not a woman—certainly not Brand's woman. I thought you were on the gay side of the bisexual fence anyway?

“We should get you out of those wet clothes.”

Apparently there was a lot of hetero left in him because Jet's cock, which had shriveled after his fall in the ice-cold mud, tingled back to life at Emily's words.
Yep, definitely strong heterosexual tendencies there.
“I have stuff in the saddlebags on my bike.”

“Why not wait in the house until the rain eases up? It can't stay this torrential for long. In the meantime you can borrow something of Brand's.”

She offered Brand's clothes the way a wife would a husband's, but Jet had subtly checked out her left hand earlier. No ring. Not that he could picture Brand married to a woman. But it was obvious Brand and Emily were close.

One more reason to stop ogling her. And get out of here before Brand comes back and realizes you're lusting after his woman.