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My heart softens a bit. Sheisdoing a lot for Maddie. Maddie wouldn’t have this experience if not for Brianna.
A sliver of emotion coils in my belly.
I nip it in the bud, though. I don’t have time to get involved. Especially not with Brianna Steel.
“We’re friends,” I say. “But you have to understand, Brianna. When I look at you, I see—” I stop myself abruptly.
Because I was about to lie to her, to tell her I see that pretty little eight-year-old girl in cowboy boots following after her father.
But it’s a lie.
That’snotwhat I see when I look at her. If it were, I should probably go to jail. What I see is a beautiful, seductive, passionate woman.
A woman who—
I shake my head to clear it.
I willnotgo there. I will not develop feelings for her.
“You see what?”
I sigh and look to the floor. “I see…a woman whose virginity I just stole.”
“You didn’t steal it. I gave it to you.”
She’s right. “But I didn’t mean to take it,” I say. “So that makes me feel like I stole it. I know that doesn’t make any sense, but it’s how I feel.”
“I don’t want you to feel that way, Jesse. I’ve wanted to be with you for a long time.”
Oh God. Just cut my heart in two, why don’t you? I’ve seen how Brianna and the rest of the awesome foursome hang around the band. They’re all pretty, sweet young women. But the other band members and I have never thought of them in that way. Mostly because they’re all the same age as Maddie.
A ten-year age gap isn’t a bad thing. I might be fine with it if she weren’t so darned young. Even if she were twenty-five and I was thirty-five, things would be different.
But twenty-two…
“I’m flattered,” I tell her. “But you deserved something better.”
“Did I? You made it wonderful for me, Jesse. Even after you were angry because you felt I deceived you. You still gave me four orgasms and a night I’ll never forget.”
I did, but I wasn’t being altruistic. Sure, there was a part of me that felt guilty and wanted to give her a better loss of her virginity than a quickie. But another part of me? I did it because I wanted to. Pure and simple. Sure, my first instinct was for a hookup, to get the release I so craved. But makingloveto Brianna, giving her orgasms, was absolutely no hardship at all.
I grab my jeans and shirt, begin to dress. “I’m glad you enjoyed yourself. But I have a job to do on this trip. The future of the band hinges on our success on this tour. So this thing—whatever it is—between us? It’s over, Brianna. It’s over.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Brianna
I willnotcry.
I’ve been kicked in the shins hard by a balking steer, and I swallowed the pain. Never cried.
I never cried when I was learning to ride a horse as a kid and got thrown onto the hard Colorado clay dirt.
Never cried.
But the pain I feel now is nothing like the physical pain I subject myself to working daily on the ranch.
It’s like Jesse opened up my chest, took my heart in his hands, and squeezed the life out of it.
