Broken (Brody Brothers Book 4) Read online

  Her sigh was a masterpiece of thinning patience. “Okay, you don’t seem to be grasping the concept of space.”

  “I’m grasping what’s important, and that means making sure neither one of us fucks this up. If there’s a problem, and it involves the both of us, we don’t hide from that problem. We air that shit out right away, and cope with it together.”

  “My grandmother doesn’t fall into that category. Just like I’m sure there are plenty of things going on in your life that you’ve decided I don’t need to know about.”

  The survey of Smiley Lake slammed to the forefront of his brain so hard it was a wonder it didn’t make a sound. “Everything that has to do with us, I want to know about.”

  “My Granny, my problem. It has nothing to do with you.”

  “I decide that shit, not you.” In two strides he closed the distance and pulled her hard up against him, just in case he wasn’t making himself clear. “You being where I can’t reach you… That has everything to do with me, understand? From now on, if you have something that gets you upset, you will share it with me. What you won’t do is hide that shit from me by holing up someplace where I can’t find you.”

  “I just didn’t want to upset you with all that ridiculous feud nonsense between the Brodys and the Smileys.”

  “Yeah, well, I did get upset, because I didn’t know where my woman was. But now that I do…” There was no better way to finish that sentence than with a kiss, so with his grinding anger evolving into hard-edged lust, that was exactly what he did.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Yes. Harder.”

  “My baby girl likes it rough.” The hands gripping Winnie’s hips from behind were almost bruising as Des repeatedly slammed her back toward him to meet the savage thrust of his cock, yet she barely felt that as her world dissolved in a haze of pleasure. No longer was she aware of lying facedown on the cutting table, or even thinking about anyone walking in on them. That had been her main concern when he’d started taking her clothes off; then he’d bent her over the cutting table and put his hands between her thighs, and that was all that was needed to turn off every coherent thought she had.

  All that mattered to her now was reveling in the powerful surge of his thick cock inside her, stretching her interior walls until she thought she’d die. Her breath shallowed out as the tingling began deep inside her to radiate to the base of her spine. Euphoria flooded her brain like a drug, and suddenly she was chasing wildly after more—more sensation, more agonized pleasure, more shuddering bliss that brought tears to her eyes.

  God, this was good.

  So good.

  God.

  “Yes,” she cried out while the marble-topped table squeaked across the floor in time with his increasingly brutal thrusts. His hips pounded her ass, the reverberations vibrating through to some hidden place inside her that made her see stars. Again and again he pounded into her, until little whimpering cries erupted from her as she flirted with that summit of pure sensation.

  Almost there.

  Almost.

  “Touch yourself.” Des’s command came through harsh breaths, his voice rough. Unrecognizable. Glorious. “Winsome, make yourself come.”

  “I…” She could barely make sense of his words, she was so lost in pleasure.

  “Do it, Winsome. Put your hand between your legs and make yourself come all over your fingers and my cock. Do it now.”

  Eyes closed and unable to do anything more than moan her response, she unglued one of her hands from the edge of the cutting table she was lying on and reached down. Everything that she was or ever would be was attuned to that perfect cock of his, sliding in and out of her slick depths like he’d been made to fit her, and each time he filled her a shooting star of ecstasy burst inside.

  But he was right.

  It wasn’t enough.

  Panting as if starved for air, she slid her fingers down, and cried out loud when she felt where he was connected to her. It was so beautiful, the most perfect thing that had ever existed in her world. That plunging, retreating, filling and flowing rhythm was her everything. It was that rhythm she used as she slid her fingers into the wet, intimate folds of her channel, and touched herself.

  Pure ecstasy shattered through her brain, her body, her soul. Mindless pleasure exploded in every cell with such force she all but screamed with it, with that explosion lasting in a way that she was sure would forever change her. Her feet lifted off the ground as she lay on the table, instinctively curling around the backs of his thighs to make sure that he, the source of her pleasure, never left her, even as he grunted out his own shattered climax. This was perfection. Beyond heaven. Her greatest addiction.

  This was her Des.

  Her heart broke a little when the last of the orgasmic heights slipped away, and she fought coming back down to earth with everything in her. Earth was where bad things happened, but sexing it up with Des? Rapture beyond all things. No way would she leave that sensation willingly.

  “My God, Winsome. My angel.” Breathless, sounding wrung out and utterly satisfied, he leaned over her back to growl into her ear, “You fucking amaze me. I think I just had the best damn sex of my life.”

  Considering all the buckle-bunnies he’d managed to score with, that had to be saying something. “So it’s not like… that… with just anyone?”

  “Like that?” His deep chuckle sounded like a purr as he pulled out and brought her up to a standing position. A tricky place for her to be when her legs were still shaking. “Explain what you mean by that.”

  “Like…” She struggled to find the right words, but that was impossible. There were no words adequate enough to describe what he gave her. “Like I become a completely different person every time you’re inside me. Like you have this amazing ability to make me into someone new. Better. More alive than I’ve ever been.” With a self-conscious laugh she gave up. “I just wondered if it was like that with everyone.”

  “It’s like that only with us. No other man can give that to you, just as no other woman could even come close to giving that to me. Now,” he added, giving her a squeeze while his words glowed deep in her chest, “we’d better get dressed and get the hell out of here before someone calls the cops. We made enough racket to wake the dead.”

  “I feel kind of bad for the rest of the world that they can’t see you naked,” she remarked as she searched around for her culottes. Honestly, the way the man had her running through changes of clothes was a remarkable thing. “I’ve always loved the grace and complexity of the human form—it’s part of what I do. But I swear, I just hate to see you covered up.”

  Another chuckle escaped him as he found his boxer-briefs. “Right back atcha, baby girl.”

  “I’m even fascinated by your scars. They’re beautiful to me, every last one of them, because they’re the proof that you were stronger than anything that tried to kill you. Like that bad old bull,” she added, moving close to give his right side a kiss. “And whatever got you under your chin.” She kissed that, too. “And that slice some terrible thing took out of you on your left chest.” She caressed the carved C-slice that went from the top knot of his collar bone down almost to his underarm. “And whatever it was that tried giving you a new part in your hair.” She had to go up on her toes and bring him down so she could kiss the scar at the ridge of his widow’s peak. “And that’s just for starters. I haven’t given you a complete examination yet, but that’s definitely on my agenda.”

  “Something to look forward to.” He touched where her lips had brushed his hairline, and a faint, distracted frown clouded his expression. “Almost forgot about all these marks on me. Wish I could say the same for how I got them.”

  That made her pause in her search for her shoes. “I assumed you won all those during your time on the rodeo circuit.”

  “I got into rodeo to cover all the injuries. I was ashamed, and I didn’t want to explain how I’d gotten them to my brothers, so I got into rodeo.”

&nb
sp; Winnie’s stomach slowly dropped to her feet as he spoke almost as if to himself, and for a moment she wondered if he even remembered that she was there. “What injuries are you talking about, Des? What injuries did you have to cover?”

  “Della. I told you about the time she broke my nose when she tried drowning me in a bowl of cereal, yeah?” When she nodded, staying silent so she wouldn’t stop him from talking, he ran a thoughtful finger over the scar near his widow’s peak. “I got this a couple years later when she swung a horse crop at me. She said it was an accident, but she smiled when she said it, so I knew it wasn’t. My father knew it, too, because that was when he started making Killian stand guard over me whenever he was out of town.”

  Anger at that long-dead woman bubbled to the surface. “So you got into rodeo way back then? At the age of… what? Eight or ten? I know there’s such a thing as Junior Rodeo, but that still seems young.”

  He touched his C-shaped scar. “With Della around, rodeo explained away all my injuries. I needed that, if only for my brothers’ sake, especially Fin. He kept flying into rages whenever Della would threaten me or hurt me. Rodeo gave me the perfect excuse to explain away all the bumps and bruises. My father even used it as a cover story for that one memorable time when Della attacked me in the stables with a fucking knife.”

  She gasped. “She attacked you?”

  He nodded, absently rolling his left shoulder. “I think she had the same idea that your old man had when he killed your mom,” he went on while her heart stuttered to a near stand-still. “Only she clearly wanted to see my blood flowing up close and personal, so instead of knocking me out and throwing me under the hooves of some poor horse, she tried to stab me in the heart. I saw her coming at the last second and ducked, and she nearly cut my left arm off instead.”

  “My God.” The genuine terror she had of horses, even the mere mention of them, paled in comparison to the picture his words painted. “Tell me you stopped that evil witch right in her tracks.”

  “If she’d been anyone else, it wouldn’t have been a problem. But she’d been scaring the shit out of me since I was just out of fucking toddlerhood, so for a second all I could do was freeze up. That’s when she got me a second time under the chin. I got a hold of a horse’s bridle and whipped that around one-handed while screaming my head off for help, and luckily people were within earshot and came running. My old man paid off a lot of people to keep it quiet and flew me into San Antonio himself to get me put back together.”

  “I can only imagine what that ride must’ve been like,” she thought, staring at the scar she’d assumed had been made by an animal. Then again, considering how he described his stepmother, she hadn’t been that far off.

  He made a dismissive gesture. “The only thing I remember about that ride was how much pain I was in and freaking out over how much blood I was losing. My old man seemed pretty shaken about the whole thing too, which I thought was a good thing. Other than posting Kill as my guard whenever he wasn’t around, my dad didn’t seem to understand the threat his batshit crazy wife was to me.”

  “Stupid,” she said, shaking her head. “He was so stupid, not taking care of you. You were his son. It was his responsibility to give you a safe environment to grow up in.”

  “After she nearly cut my arm off, I thought he’d finally get it through his head just how fucked up his woman was, and that nearly drowning me in a cereal bowl hadn’t been a one-off thing. He seemed to finally grasp that no matter where I was on the ranch or how often he made Kill stand guard over me, I was going to be in danger. So, after my old man pulled a few strings, I was given a Cattleman’s Association apprenticeship, shipped off to Colorado for a few months to heal, and while I was away he was supposed to do something about getting his woman squared away.”

  “Did he?”

  “Of course not.” His mouth curled in the angriest smile she’d ever seen. “Looking back, I realize I was stupid to believe life would be different once I got back home. Not one fucking thing had changed. That crazy bitch Della was still here at the ranch instead of in a padded cell somewhere. The moment she saw me, she told me how much she wanted to welcome me home with a lynching party, with me as the guest of honor.”

  Rage curled her hands into fists. “Damn her. Damn them both.”

  He offered a humorless chuckle. “My sentiments exactly. My spineless excuse of a shit father hadn’t even told my brothers what had happened, if you can believe it, and then he had the balls to beg me not to tell them. That’s when I knew I’d never be able to count on him. Some part of me had always known that, but that was the moment I actually felt the last flicker of hope in me die.”

  “Des,” she whispered, her heart breaking for him while at the same time wishing Keir Brody was still around so she could plant her usually pacifistic fist right in his weak face. “Oh, Des.”

  “I can’t tell you what a relief it was at the time, having that last little flame snuff out,” he went on, surprising her. “Hope is warm and good and beautiful, but when it died out in me, I froze over from in the inside out. That might sound bad, but at that time in my life numbness was what I needed to just… heal. I may have turned into a cold, cold sonofabitch, but I liked not feeling anything. Until I didn’t.”

  She understood all too well. “That’s reminds me of myself, telling people that I’m always okay, even when I’m not.”

  He took her hand and brought it to his lips. “I know, baby girl.”

  Of course he did. “What made you not want to be numb anymore?”

  He cocked his head thoughtfully. “It started with Ry, I think. Before he got married, I never gave long-term relationships or family a thought. I mean, I lived in that nightmare of a house with an insane woman and my biological father constantly screaming at each other. I saw up close and personal how fucked up marriage and family life can get. That kind of hell wasn’t for me, or my brothers. Or so I thought.”

  “Then along came Celia.”

  “Yep.” He grinned at her. “Out of the blue Ry announced he’d made up his mind on marrying a woman he barely knew, and told us all to keep the fuck away from her while he set about convincing her that he wasn’t a total asshole.”

  She snorted. What a way to put it. “Obviously it worked. Celia’s gaga for her husband.”

  “That feeling’s mutual.” With a shake of his head, he shouldered his way into his shirt. “It’s weird, but Ry’s plunge into marriage and family life changed everything in the Brody world. It’s like everyone was waiting for someone to take the leap first, but now everyone’s diving into the pool.”

  “So Ry was the brave one.” She ran her hands through her hair, trying to tame what had to look like a wild mess. “Or maybe just the least screwed-up one. People like us—people who took on damage from their demon parents—aren’t all that great when it comes to opening up to others. It’s like you said—you froze from the inside out when your father let you down that final time. You have no idea how familiar that sounds.”

  “Yeah, I do.” He came over to pull her against him, with his mouth brushing her brow in a breathlessly tender gesture. “But what you don’t know is that I started thawing out around the time Dallas popped back into my life. I felt… I don’t know. Hopeful, I guess. I hadn’t felt like that in years, and it was because she was willing to risk her life to save mine because she loved me. That was when I found out my hope hadn’t died out all those years ago. It had just gone to sleep.”

  He’d never know how thrilled she was to hear it. “Dallas did that for you?”

  “And Kill,” he added so grudgingly she couldn’t help but smile. “I’ll admit, it really hit me in the feels when I found out my oldest brother had been so scared of losing me that he actually kidnapped D to help me out. If I ever manage to get out of my own damn way, I’m going to have to find a way to show him how much that meant to me.”

  “From the sound of it, you’re already getting to that point. And,” she added when a memory struck
so hard she snapped her fingers, “I think I might know of a nice ice-breaker for you to use that Killian would do cartwheels over.”

  Des lifted a brow. “Ice-breaker?”

  She nodded. “He mentioned that you’ve never invited him out to your place for a beer, so you might want to open with that, and take it from there.”

  He scowled. “That fucking crybaby. He’s been over to my place for a beer.”

  “Did you invite him?”

  For a moment he looked uncomfortable “No. In fact, I almost didn’t let him in.”

  “Try inviting him. He might keel over in shock, but at least that meeting will be on your terms, and on your own turf. Show him the man I know you are now—the wonderful man you’ve grown to be.”

  “Maybe.” It wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement, but at least he looked thoughtful as they finished getting dressed. “You’re going to have lunch with me tomorrow, yeah?”

  Would he ever stop being adorable to her eyes? “You and your lunches.”

  “Is that a yes or a no? And by the way, it better not be a no.”

  “I wouldn’t dare.” Laughing, she went on tiptoe to kiss him before allowing him to lead her toward the front. “I’ll be putting together a couple two-piece sets here in the shop tomorrow while I’ve got the place to myself, so I can pick up something for us in town. How about a BLT from Mabel’s Diner?”

  “Make it a cheeseburger.” He slung an arm around her shoulders. “That takes care of lunch, but what about breakfast? Can you cook?”

  “I’m not completely awful.” She smiled up at him. “Does this mean you’re going to spend the night with me at the main house?”

  “Fuck no, I wish that shithole of a house had burned down all those years ago when Fin said he wanted to take a match to it. You’re coming home with me.”

  “Then I’m grabbing an outfit and some makeup from upstairs,” she announced, doing a quick U-turn. “No way in hell am I going to show up at the main house in clothes I wore the day before, just so your sister and the other Brody wives can tease me about it.”