Jamie's Revenge (20 page)

“I ain’t having sex with you either, Brodie.”

The door slamming into the frame put the exclamation point on that bold statement. Stubborn chin out, Jamie waited for him to come back at her. Brodie normally would have, but he didn’t see the spark lighting those beautiful eyes that usually flared when they started up.

Instead of passion, her gaze had clouded over with worry and fear. That rained the fight right out of him with a sigh. She must have interpreted the sound to be annoyance because she answered it with another outrageous proclamation.

“I’m serious, Brodie. I got fake dick, and that’s all the dick I need.”

She had to be out of her God-loving mind to make such a statement to him, but his anger didn’t leap at the insult, though his feet did start forward.

“Don’t you even think about forcing the issue, Brodie. You ain’t putting no more of your seed in me because I’m not ever,
ever
, going to go through that.”
 

She meant it, too. Brodie could see that clearly as he came to a stop right beside where she sat on the bed’s edge. Grim resolve stared defiantly up at him, but the little darlin’ had forgotten something in all that fear.

“It won’t work, Brodie.” Jamie issued that warning as her only resistance to the hand he used to pull her to her feet. “I’m not going to change my mind on this.”

Brodie tried to rub the stiffness out of her determination with a kiss. Smoothing his lips over hers, he pressed little, nibbling kisses all along their curved length until he managed to work their fullness back out of the thin pout she’d pressed her lips into.

“I won’t let you do this to me, Brodie. I won’t be overwhelmed with lust.”

That would have been more believable if she hadn’t gasped it out as his lips dipped and worked their way over her chin and down into the sensitive curve her neck. Brodie loved the way Jamie melted over him with just the slightest bit of seduction.

All soft and rounded, just the way a woman should be, right along with being wet, willing, wild and wanton. These were all the things Jamie had proven herself to be and many of the reasons he loved her. She just needed a gentle hand, but Caelen had left and gentle wasn’t Brodie’s expertise.

He tried none the less. Lifting his head, he cupped her cheeks. Adding the soft circle of his thumbs over her smooth skin to the whisper he pressed in along with his kiss, Brodie tried to soothe his little woman.
 

“It’s all right to be afraid of birthing babies, Jamie. It’s quite natural I assume, but you can’t let fear rule your life.”

“I ain’t doing it.” The mule in her bloodline showed in the iron of those words as she pulled back from his kiss to glare at him.
 

“Be reasonable, Jamie,” Brodie groaned, his understanding already wearing thin. “It’s a few hours of pain, no lie about that, but compared to a lifetime of the pleasure you going to find in my bed, not to mention the joys of having our kids running around…seems like more than an even trade to me.”

“That’s because you ain’t going to
die
givin’ birth to
your
children.”

Brodie’s sigh stirred the very hairs framing her heart-shaped face. Caelen had told him and Linc just what craziness had entered Jamie’s head to make her scream like that earlier. Despite the fact that Caelen had already told it to her once, Jamie appeared to need to hear it again.

“Bridgette ain’t dead, Jamie. She’s just tired.”

“It was too near a thing.”

“It wasn’t anywhere close,” Brodie snapped back, releasing her with in his annoyance. “Jesus above, Jamie, you’d think I let your sister come anywhere close to death?”

Not the least bit contrite in the face of indignation, Jamie came back at him just as quickly. “I think you could have let her die given you ain’t never birth no babies before.”

“Hey, I’ve been there for almost every birth we had on this ranch for the last fifteen years. I know about birthing babies.”

“Bridgette isn’t a heifer, Brodie, and neither am I.”

 
“It ain’t like it’s
that
much different. The baby still comes out the same hole with all the same crap. You still got to keep things clean, help the mama push down, stick your hand up there and make sure the babe’s coming out right, cut—”

“You stuck your hand up my sister’s… up Bridgette’s…up
there
.” From horrified fear to outraged anger, the accusation had her stumbling back as she fumbled for the words.

“It ain’t like
that
.”

“And Linc let you do that to her?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Jamie.” Brodie felt like shouting but bit back on the urge and diligently tried for reasonable. “Look, Jamie, when you push out my kids, there might be a point when one of my brothers, Linc himself, has to put his hand up your—”

“Don’t you even say it,” Jamie snarled.

“Cunt and I think after the way you shoved that pussy in my face last night for me to feast on, you can say the damn word.
Cunt
.”

Brodie caught her wrist half way to his face and brought the slap she’d intended to deliver to a sudden stop. Snarling out growls, he tried to vent his frustration physically out of his body as he reminded himself that Jamie was tired and overwrought with the excitement of the day. It didn’t really help to temper the urge to put her back over his knee and give her the punishment she deserved right before he delivered the fucking she obviously needed.

“Look, Jamie. I know you’re having a hard night, but in the morning, when you talk to Bridgette, you’ll see. She’ll explain it to you.”

Jerking her wrist back, Jamie stood her ground. “I don’t care what Bridgette has to say. I ain’t doing that.”

“
Jamie
…”

“Even if that means no sex, then so be it.” She made that declaration as if she honestly didn’t see anything wrong with it. Well, Brodie did. He saw a whole bunch wrong with it.

“Be reasonable, Jamie. You have needs. I have needs. We’re—”

“You can take your needs into town to have your precious Rebecca service them,” Jamie cut across sharply. “You ain’t never needed me for that before, and you don’t need me for it now.”

“You listen here, and you listen good, Jamie Traynor.” Brodie advanced on her, done with being reasonable. It was a wasted effort on Jamie. “Rebecca is a good woman and great fuck, but that’s all she’s ever been to me. All she did was borrow my dick, Jamie, through the years you weren’t woman enough for me to claim what was yours.”

“How very noble of you.” He might have backed her right up against the wall, but he hadn’t intimidated her in the least. “But I don’t want—”

“If you say you, I’m going to lie out on that bed and prove just how big a liar you are.”

That had her lips snapping closed, even if her eyes narrowed on him. When she finally responded, her words came out just as tight as her gaze. “I know about men, Brodie.”

That threw him for the moment. “What does that mean?”

“It means I don’t buy any of your flowery compliments about owning your dick. Dick isn’t owned. It isn’t loyal. It doesn’t really care who the hell is sucking it. It just wants to get sucked.”

Brodie’s mouth opened only to close as he tried to figure out just how to respond to that one. Linc had told him the only fragments he’d gotten. It had been little enough, but there had been no mistaking the insinuation that Jamie had run some kind of parlor house.

He certainly had a lot of questions about that, but he didn’t feel like standing there having the argument.
 

 
“You can’t argue with that one because it’s the truth.”

“You know what?” Brodie had had enough of this. Caelen wasn’t there and so she had to deal with him. “You’re right. Dick ain’t loyal. Not even mine. Can I stand here and tell you there won’t be a day when another woman makes mine hard? No. Can I even stand here and tell you that there isn’t a woman I’ve known that hasn’t made it hard at some point or another, including your sister? No.”

That had her gaze snapping away from his in a flash a pain, making him have to lift it back up with a palm to her chin. “That don’t count for much, Jamie, because that’s just the way men are made. What counts is that just the thought of you makes me hard. Just the sight of you about weakens my knees with need, and last night…”

Brodie leaned in to nuzzle the soft curls tucked in behind her ear, “last night you enslaved me, sugar. You make me ache like no other woman, Jamie, and it doesn’t matter if for a minute here or a minute there some other perks up my cock because I would as soon as cut it off before I let it cause you any harm.”
 

“Well then sharpen your knife, Brodie. It’s hurt for the last five year knowing you’d rather screw that widow whore than waste a moment thinking about me.”

“
You ran off
.”

“
You told me to go
.”

“And when did you ever listen to me?” Brodie asked with full indignation. “You know, maybe if you had listened to me we wouldn’t have ended up in this damn predicament in the first place. You ever think about that? Maybe if you’d let yourself finish growing before you took off all your clothes, I wouldn’t have been honor bound to say no.”

That had Jamie’s mouth unhinging as she came off the wall. “You’re blaming everything on
me
.”

“Are you mad at me for actually being a gentleman and doing the honorable thing?” Brodie shot back.

“Honorable thing? You threatened my father with wrecking my virtue if he didn’t ship me off east.”

He really couldn’t argue that one, not that he thought it counted for much. “I was pissed at the time. Besides, he didn’t send you east because I told him to. He sent you away because you wanted to go.”

“
Because you were supposed to follow me, you big dumb ass!
”

“Ah!” Brodie turned with a snarl. The need to pound something into little pieces had him shuddering to hold back the violent urge. Forcing his hands to uncurl from the tight fists they’d clenched into, he tried for even breaths and a reasonable response as he turned around.

“And why would I have done that?”

Oh, she tempted him with that eye roll. His hand about itched to give her another spanking.

“Because you love me. Because you couldn’t live your life without me. Because you were supposed to be so sad after I left that you realized what a colossal mistake you made, but instead you just headed in to town to screw off with your little widow.”

Her lower lip slipped into a full pout while her top one pressed down hard with her refusal to get in. “Do you know how much that hurt? Knowing you’d rather roll around with some other woman.”

She neutered him with that last bit, and he couldn’t even say he didn’t understand. For the last five years, he’d ignored the fact that Jamie had married somebody else, but these last few days…seeing her and knowing…it had been a bur in his heart. At least it hadn’t been real. He couldn’t really tell her the same.

Moving in close to cup her cheeks, Brodie gave her all that he could to try and make it better. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, girl. I was trying to do right…You got to see it from my side. I know it might hurt your vanity, but all those years, I didn’t ever think of you as a girl.”

“You used to call me kiddo,” Jamie muttered, echoing the resentment she’d shown for that nickname even as a kid.

“Because that’s what you were to me, a kid, one of many we had running around between your kin and mine. It wasn’t like I didn’t care about you…I just…hell, if somebody had hurt you I would have defended you like a sister because that’s the way I looked at you.

“You can imagine then just how unnerving it was to turn around one day and have this sexy vixen tempting you with all her nakedness, and I’m thinking….that’s my sister.” Even saying it made him shiver with disgust.

“But I ain’t your sister,” Jamie shot back, clearly annoyed at the very insinuation.

“Oh, darlin’, I know that, but it was a shock in that moment, and I responded…like a good brother would. I thought of you first. Hell, if I hadn’t cared about you, darlin’, I’d have thrown you down on the ground and ravished you like any easy cunt that comes along. I couldn’t do that to you, Jamie, and you should have known that would never happen.”

Maybe he’d actually made a dent in that thick skull of hers because she retreated slightly even as she grumbled out another complaint. “Well, you could have come after me.”

“And why would I do that? You kept sending letters home about how great your life was and how much you were enjoying everything and then how you’d fallen in love with some ass. What was I going to do? Drag you back here to be miserable? That ain’t love, darlin’.”

Jamie didn’t have an answer for that, but that didn’t mean the sulk eased from her body. Brodie could still feel all the anger and hurt holding her tight against him. It brought him back to the same point he’d bumped into earlier.

“I guess I don’t need to ask why you lied, but I got a whole bunch more questions you’re going to be answering…in the morning.” Brodie stepped back, leaving a hand outstretched. “Right now it’s time for sleep, so you’re going to walk home with me like my woman, or am I going to carry you like a shrieking, little brat?”