Page 13 of Barn Burner (Love The Game #2)

Jesse

Something awakens inside me at the sight of Brayden wearing my hat. A flickering ember that I didn’t realize had been lying dormant is now a blazing inferno, a possessive need spreading like a wildfire through my veins. Through my heart.

I don’t know how the hell I’m supposed to let him go when I know without a doubt he’s meant to be here with me. But it’s not something I want to think too hard about right now. Not when I’m buried so deep inside Brayden I don’t know where he ends and I begin.

“Fucking hell,” he curses on a whimper. His cheeks are flushed a deep scarlet. Sweat beads at his temples as he grinds down on my cock in a hypnotic rhythm. “I’m already yours, Jesse.” He pants. “I tried not to be, but how can I… Ah ! How could I deny it?” He moans again. “Deny you.”

A growl rumbles from deep in my chest.

Mine.

If only it were true.

Pushing the thought aside, I glide my hands up his torso, revelling in the feel of his smooth skin beneath my palms. Brayden is a work of art.

I could spend hours admiring him. Exploring every inch of him.

Tracing every freckle dotted across his skin with my fingers and tongue.

I want to find out where he’s sensitive and whereabouts my hands fit perfectly, like his body was made just for me.

When my fingers reach his nipples, I give them a pinch, and his answering moan has my balls drawing up tighter.

Nothing, or nobody, has ever made me feel this good.

With my feet planted on the wooden floor, I tilt my hips, and the change in angle has me sinking even deeper.

And I can’t help but grin when his head drops back and he lets out a loud, throaty moan.

“Fuck, Jesse! Like that. God, yes. Yes!”

My hands return to their rightful home on his hips, holding him steady as he picks up the pace. Loving how he’s taking exactly what he wants. Plus, I’m pretty sure his bare skin must be pink from where his ass is meeting the leather of my chaps in loud claps.

His breathy noises let me know he’s close. When his rhythm begins to falter, I take his leaking cock in hand. Twisting my palm around the sensitive tip, I stroke his cock, matching the times of his thrusts. Running my thumb over his wet slit, he lets out a strangled moan.

“Bloody hell, you’re killing me,” he pants. “I don’t know if I want to come or starve it so I feel you inside me all night.”

“Brayden,” I growl in a way that demands his attention. He looks down at me, eyes heavy with arousal. “I’m not going anywhere,” I tell him, twisting my fist around his swollen head again, then giving his cock a squeeze. “Come for me.”

His lips part on a gasp, and like the good boy he is, he comes.

His muscles constrict around my cock as his release lands on my stomach and chest. Heat rushes down my spine to the tips of my toes, and they curl inside my boots.

I continue to stroke him through his orgasm, thrusting my hips up as my own release builds.

Seconds later, my body stiffens. I dig my fingers into the soft flesh of his hip and spill my load into the condom.

“Fuckkkk, Brayden,” I hiss. White sparks flash behind my eyes as euphoria courses through my veins.

I manage to catch him as he falls forward, landing on me in a sweaty heap.

The erratic thump of his heart is like a drum against my chest. I wrap my arms around his back and hold him tight to me.

Like if I hold him tight enough, he won’t have to leave.

I’m aware that my cock is still nestled inside him, and we should probably clean up before his come dries where it’s squeezed between us, but minutes tick by, and neither of us moves.

He shifts in my arms, and I loosen my hold. With his hands flat on my chest, he pushes himself upright and lets out a small hiss as my softening cock slips free.

“You okay?” I ask, stroking my hands up his thighs in a comforting caress.

“Yeah, I think my muscles have turned into jelly, though.” He laughs softly.

I scoot over on the blanket, ignoring the uncomfortable scratches from the hay poking through the several blankets I set down.

Brayden lies down beside me, and I open my arm to him.

He settles in against my side, resting his head on my chest and hooking a leg over mine.

I lazily run the tips of my fingers across the warm skin of his shoulder and tilt my head to look up at the night sky through the roof hatch.

A contented silence washes over us as we lie there, tangled up in each other. Not just physically, but emotionally, too.

This started out as sex, a scratch to the lust itching away between us, but it’s so much more than that now.

There’s this gravitational pull between us, and part of me wants to ask him if there’s any way we can make this work.

I’d settle for long distance as long as it meant I could still call him mine.

But then the other part of me is afraid he’ll say no.

Afraid that he’ll say this was only physical, and everything that I’ve been feeling was all in my head.

I know we need to talk, but past experience has me hesitant.

The issue with the life I live is that people always leave. This life isn’t pretty or easy. It’s long days, and sometimes long nights. It’s working through every day, whether it’s under the blazing sun or treading through four feet of snow.

This life doesn’t stop, and every person who has tried to come into it has ended up leaving because they don’t understand that this life is me .

And I don’t know if I’m brave enough to go through that with Brayden.

Licking over my dry lips, I ask the question I’ve been afraid to ask since I saw him lying on the side of the road.

“What are you running from, Brayden?”

He angles his head to look at me. There’s a multitude of emotions swirling in those beautiful eyes. A war that I wish I could fight for him. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows roughly.

“Reality,” he confesses. He chews on the inside of his cheek, contemplating his words before speaking again. “My life was becoming suffocating, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe.”

Something inside me cracks at the admission. It’s frightening how strongly I feel for him after such a short period of time. I want to destroy whoever it is who made him feel like the only answer was to run. Rip them apart with my bare hands.

But then he ran to me. Sure, that wasn’t his plan, but when does life ever go according to plan?

Smoothing my hand up his spine, I thread my fingers into the hair on the back of his head.

“Can you breathe now?” I ask, hoping he’ll say yes.

A soft smile spreads across his face. He lifts his hand to hold the side of my face. His thumb traces my bottom lip before he stretches to press a gentle kiss to my mouth.

“Yeah, Jesse. I can breathe now.”

I’ve just returned from a trail ride to find Cooper fixing up Brayden’s car. I shouldn’t be so surprised by the sight, considering the part arrived two days ago, but it’s the dose of reality I’ve been hiding from.

Our time is running out.

The energy between us has changed since that night we spent in the barn last week.

It’s like we’ve buried our heads in the sand, waltzed through our days in delusion.

He’s told me about his family and how he grew up on the outskirts of North London.

We shared stories from our childhood. The broken bones, my first horse.

I told him about when I brought Prince home and the time I considered going into bull riding until my mom pleaded with me with tear-filled eyes not to.

We’ve gotten closer. Intertwined our souls on a level that feels so natural, it terrifies me. So seeing Cooper working on Brayden’s Mercedes is like having a bucket of ice-cold water being thrown over me.

“Hey, son,” my dad says as he leads his horse, Mabel, into the barn.

Raising my head from where I’m brushing Dakota down, I furrow my brows. “Somethin’ wrong?”

My dad is usually working out in the fields with Rhett. It’s very rare he comes in, aside from when it’s time for lunch, so seeing him here has the hair bristling on the back of my neck.

“Yeah, all good,” he replies, looping Mabel’s reins around one of the stable posts. “Just been chattin’ to Brayden. That boy asks a lot of questions.”

I snort under my breath, and the noise has my dad’s eyes widening a fraction.

“Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“He’s curious ’bout everything. How things work. He has a lot of interest in this place.”

He lets the words linger in the air between us, and I know he can tell from the look in my eyes that I don’t need to say anything to let him know that he’s right. Brayden has shown a keen interest in Huxley Creek Ranch since he arrived here.

“Hey, son, did I ever tell you the story about how me and your mom met?” he asks, turning his back to me to adjust something on Mabel’s saddle before giving her neck a stroke.

“No, I don’t think you have.”

“It was the summer your mom turned eighteen. She came out here with some friends to celebrate. They wanted the full country experience, you know how it goes. She lived in the city and was about to head off to Vancouver for university, but it didn’t stop me from fallin’ head over heels in love with her.

I told my old man that she was the one I was gonna marry. ”

I smile at the mention of my late grandpa. “What did he say about that?”

“He just looked at me and said that if she was the one, then she’d find her way back when the time is right.

That I couldn’t clip her wings and ask her to change her course for me, so I needed to let her go.

And to remember that magnetic forces will always return to one another, no matter how far apart. ”

I swallow roughly and lower my head, avoiding my father’s gaze. I haven’t openly spoken about my feelings for Brayden, but my family isn’t oblivious. It’s clear as day Brayden and I are drawn together, and he’s never shied away from the fact that his presence here is only temporary.

The sound of my dad’s boots clipping against the floor grows louder as he comes closer. He steps up beside me, and his hand lands on my shoulder, warm and reassuring.

“What I’m tryna say, son, is that if Brayden is that for you, you gotta let him go and hope he’ll come back.

I get the impression he’s got some unfinished business, but I can see him here with you.

He’s got that somethin’ about him that I didn’t see in the others, but I’m guessin’ he’s gotta sort some things out. ”

I hate the vulnerability in my voice when I ask, “But what if he doesn’t?”

My dad’s mouth lifts up in a half smile.

“Then it wasn’t right,” he says, then sighs.

“You gotta remember that he didn’t come out here expecting to fall in love, so you can’t expect him to leave his life just like that.

” He snaps his fingers. “Patience isn’t always easy, but it’s one of those powerful things that if you allow it to lead you, you can only be rewarded. ”

Digging my teeth into my bottom lip, I nod in understanding. This was completely unexpected, and in a matter of weeks, my life has shifted on its axis. I can only imagine that Brayden is feeling something similar.

“Do you think you can do that?” he asks when I haven’t spoken.

I look at him again. “Do what?”

“Be patient with him. Keep that hope in what you have alive while he’s gone.”

My answer comes out quickly, because there’s nothing to think about. In my mind, in my heart, there’s only one answer.

“Yeah. I’d do it for him, for however long it takes.”