That muscle in his jaw continued to jump in an agitated manner. “How do you know that?”
Now that she was floundering, she realized getting naked in body was a helluva lot easier than stripping herself emotionally bare in front of him.
“Jessie. Answer me.”
“I figured it out last summer when you warned me about Mike, but you didn’t pull that highhanded McKay attitude and drag me out of there. Even though that situation ended in my humiliation, the way you forced me to accept the consequences of my rash decision proved you weren’t the gentleman I thought you were. But you didn’t leave. I know you wanted to finish what Mike couldn’t. But I was too—”
“Shitfaced?” he supplied with a soft snarl.
“No, I was too mortified you’d witnessed yet another man who found me as sexually lacking as my husband had,” she said without flinching.
But Brandt flinched. “Jessie that’s not—”
“True? Yes, it is. Yet, I know you would’ve tossed me a pity f**k if I’d asked.”
That shocked him. But he recovered quickly. “You sure?”
“No. I’m not sure of anything. Except I can’t get you out of my head since you’ve moved in. All that mundane household shit that oughta be boring and I hated doing by myself? I look forward to doing it with you. Even when you’re driving me crazy with lust.”
“Crazy with lust?” His dark eyebrows winged up. “That’s a stretch, ain’t it?”
His skepticism might’ve sent old Jessie scurrying to her room to hide. But new Jessie soldiered on.
“Every night after you get out of the shower and the scent of your shaving cream drifts out of the bathroom I fantasize about you rubbing your face and that scent over every inch of my skin.”
Surprise and something else like…desire flashed in his eyes, which spurred her to keep going.
“Sometimes when you’re talking to me? I’m so busy staring at your mouth, imagining your kiss that I don’t hear a single word you say.”
With that, his surprise changed to recognition. So Brandt had noticed her attention to his lips whenever they were within kissing distance.
“But know what really twists me into knots? Seeing the way you look at me now.”
“And how’s that?”
“Like you no longer see me as sweet, innocent Jessie. That if you ever got those big hands of yours on me, the last thing you’d be with me…is sweet. You’d get a thrill pushing past my boundaries, the ones I had before Luke and the ones I’ve erected since Luke. You’d derive great pleasure in showing me facets of sexual intimacy that I’ve been denied—or denied myself.”
“Fancy talk.” Brandt cocked his head, as if he was trying to study her from a new angle. “I’ll admit, you’ve got me pegged better than I ever thought you would. With one exception.”
“Which is?”
“If we set this in motion, I’ll demand more than just physical intimacy from you. It ain’t only gonna be about scratching an itch, Jess, because I can get that any time I want.”
How had Brandt picked up on her plan to prove to herself that she could experience sex without the pesky emotional ties?
Because he knows you better than you’ve ever given him credit for.
“I’ll expect a different kind of intimacy than what we’ve had in the past. A connection between us that has nothin’ to do with Luke.”
She looked away.
“What?”
“It’s a nice thought, but this connection has everything to do with Luke and there’s no way we can ever get around that. Besides, you brought Landon into my life, Brandt, and he’s connected to Luke. We wouldn’t be in this situation if not for him. And maybe Landon’s presence has forced us to deal with this-”
she gestured to the space between them, “—so I’m done denying the pull is there.”
“Is this ‘pull’ something you recently realized? A proximity thing? I’m a man, I’m here, I’m good enough to f**k for a few months?”
Jessie twisted her fingers together. “It’s more than that and you know it. After you made that pass at me, I convinced myself you were exactly like Luke—biding your time until your charm earned an invitation into my bed. You’d get your fill of me, work me out of your system and move on. And no, you can’t fault me for that mindset, because of my limited experience with men, and my experience with Luke in particular. Plus, I wasn’t so sure you wouldn’t be using me to settle a score with Luke.”
“You really think that lowly of me?” he bit off.
“You really think I’m a clichéd horny widow desperate to screw the first man who smiles at me?” She didn’t bother to bank the anger in her eyes when she met his glare head on. “If that was true, I wouldn’t have waited two goddamn years, would I? I wouldn’t be asking you to touch me, would I? I could’ve found another man to scratch that itch in the four months since we last saw each other. But I didn’t. Something held me back.”
“Again, nice sentiment, but spell it out for me.”
“I want no-strings sex for these four months we’re together. At the end of those four months, we’ll walk away.”
“Just like that?”
Be strong, be confident. “Can’t we try it and see?”
“What do we tell people? Because you know my family, they’re gonna ask.”
“We are living together, even if it’s temporarily. People are already gonna assume we’re sleeping together, especially in the gossipy McKay family.”
“So if Skylar comes right out and asks you if you’re with me? Will you tell her that we’re just f**k buddies?”
She couldn’t confess that Skylar encouraged her to get naked with him. “What would you rather I told her? That we’re attracted to each other, but we’re keeping our hands off each other because it’d be like Luke was in bed with us?”
She’d struck a nerve with that. She hadn’t meant to but there was no sense in apologizing now.
“I’m not Luke.”
“Then stop acting like him,” she snapped. “Quit trying to tell me what I’m feeling is wrong. I’m being completely honest with you. I’m telling you this because I realized if we start this, I’d own my sexuality for the first time in my life. I want that. With you. Starting tonight.” Jessie took a breath, figuring she’d said enough. Too much probably.