In the four days it took for him to try to pull his shit together, attempting to come to terms with the fact that the best thing for her was never to see him again so he should stay the fuck away, and failing spectacularly in that endeavor, he’d also struggled with the fact that he liked her “honey,” her “handsome,” her “big boy” and everything else more than what he’d had with Tara.
That felt like a betrayal of Tara, her memory and the history of them.
But Tara had not been an experienced Mistress. They’d been learning the life together.
And the sweet feel of Evangeline in his lap, the brilliance of her smile, Branch knew it wasn’t about time passing so the intensity of what he and Tara had had faded.
Angie didn’t dig in about stupid shit. Angie didn’t bicker.
Angie listened.
Not only that, Angie didn’t fall apart when she hit the hard and then panic, that making her hackles rise and her mouth open to say shit she didn’t mean because she was scared. This meaning he’d be right there with her, and things would escalate to a place they couldn’t pull them back.
No, Angie got what was important—like him treating her with respect and not just as his Mistress, and her finding a way to break through because they both knew this was something different, something special. And when their shit hit the hard, she didn’t back down or panic. She listened and communicated.
What they had was good. What they had was worth developing. What they had, he knew, if he was a different man and these were different circumstances, he wouldn’t be the one to break it off when the going got tough. He wouldn’t find reasons to dig in. He wouldn’t feel down deep the frustration that, even with the good, something wasn’t clicking.
So the past four days he’d struggled with understanding that maybe it wasn’t youth, stupidity and stubbornness that led to his ending it with Tara.
It could be, if he and Tara both had given it more time and grown up, they would have found where they needed to be.
It could be, the man he was, he needed an Evangeline.
“Got something on your mind?” she asked softly, taking him out of his thoughts.
Standing behind her wearing just his jeans, Branch focused on her in the mirror to see her very focused on him.
He didn’t give her his thoughts. She had enough ammunition to wage her war already, a lot of it he’d given to her. He didn’t need to give her more.
Instead, he gave her other thoughts.
Turning at her side and leaning his hip against the basin, he looked down at her direct.
She tipped her head back and gave him her gaze the same way.
“You took me there and it was pretty much an impossibility for me not to go right where you took me instead of doing what I should have done. But that’s beside the point. It’s also a piss-poor excuse. The discussion should have been had when I asked for what I wanted, and I should have started it. It’s too late now but just so you know, as a requirement for Aryas to do his thing for me…” He let that lie, knowing she’d get what he was saying and she did. So when she nodded, he went on, “I gotta get tested and do it at the Honey just like a member. I’m clean. No worries with taking me ungloved.” He lifted a hand and tugged at one of her curls before he finished, “You let your membership lapse, but are you still—?”
She interrupted him. “I’m clean, Branch.” She then turned fully to him and put a hand on his stomach. “There’s been no one since Kevin and I’m on the Pill.”
He was glad to know she was clean and protected.
But although he’d already guessed it, the other wasn’t great, especially for her. She had a libido that equaled his.
“Bet that sucked for you,” he muttered.
She pressed into his stomach with her hand as she leaned her body into his, grinning up at him. “Yes, well, the drought is over.”
“Yeah,” he replied, and it fucking was.
Being inside her …
She could spank his ass, fuck it, suck his cock, jack it, all of that magnificent.
But the feel of her pussy was unparalleled—tight, hot and so wet. It had been heaven thrusting inside her last night.
Even so, that was something else that had been dragging on his mind that morning.
“Have you ever…?” he began.
Branch didn’t finish even as she tipped her head to the side and asked, “Have I ever what?”
“Nothin’,” he muttered, looking down at her coffee and then to her. “Gotta get on the road, Angie. You cool with me taking another travel mug?”
“I have five thousand two hundred and twelve of them, so yeah, I’m cool.”
He felt his brows rise as his lips hitched. “Five thousand two hundred and twelve?”
“Okay, maybe about five thousand one hundred and ninety-seven of them.”
“Right.”
“So take what you need,” she offered.
That was Evangeline, always giving him what he needed.
Damn, he thought.
“Cool,” he said.
She leaned closer. “I’ve got a late showing tonight. Probably won’t be home until seven thirty, eight. You should get yourself some dinner. I’ll grab something somewhere along the way. But, handsome, I’d like you to meet me here at—”
“I’ll have dinner ready when you get home, honey.”
She shut her mouth and her eyes warmed.
She thought she had him.
But Branch intended to give her as good as he had it in him to give for as long as he had it in him to give it to her so he could leave her with what he needed to leave her with when he was gone. Good memories with a sub who did it for her, ending her drought, and more, a man who gave a shit about her and she got to do that too in a safe place that would set her up to trust whoever came next.
It might make him even more of a motherfucker than he already was and he couldn’t even think on the idea of her moving on with another guy.
Branch had had a gun to his head on a variety of occasions and managed to hold his shit, but for the life of him, he knew, even with a gun to his head, for a shot to be with Angie, he couldn’t do anything else.
She rolled up on her toes, her hand not at his stomach catching him around the back of the neck and pulling him down.
He was going to have her mouth again, not because it was clear she was intent on taking his.
He was going to take hers.
He bent to her, wrapping his arms around her, pulling her soft, little body into the curve of his, and he kissed her, tasted her with his tongue, took his time and drank his fill.
When he broke away, she was gazing up at him, eyes soft and vague, not quite like when she’d come but not far off, and just like everything with Angie when he knew he shouldn’t, he couldn’t stop himself.
That look, he took her mouth again.
She’d melted in his arms and had a hand clenched in his hair when he broke away again and forced himself to say, “Really gotta go, baby.”
“’Kay,” she murmured.
“Text me when you’re on your way home.”
“All right.”
“Later, Angie.”
“Later, Branch.”
He let her go and moved away, doing it swiftly. If she called him back, ringed his cock with her lipstick, planted her jewel up his ass, he might not go at all.
He had a travel cup of coffee in his hand and was walking down her drive to his truck at the curb when he noticed her neighbor pulling out and he glanced that way.
Normally, Branch would avoid eye contact. To stay safe but also to do the jobs he took, he needed to be vapor. You couldn’t be vapor catching anyone’s attention. Eye contact was still contact and Branch didn’t make contact with hardly anybody.
But the way the woman was waving at him and the fact that she was Evangeline’s neighbor, he couldn’t be a dick and ignore her.
So he caught her eye, jerked up his chin, noting her big smile, and then he looked away and kept walking to his truck.
He got in, secured his coffee, belted up, started her up and turned around in Evangeline’s drive, knowing as he rode down her street he should drive on and keep driving until he hit Alaska, he was well away from her and the way he knew he’d fuck up her life.