Read Online Eternal Brand by Sami Lee - Free Book Online

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    It was only then Emily felt safe enough to let the tears out.

Chapter Seven
    Remorse ate at Brand over the following days, digging a hollow in his chest that widened each time Emily failed to smile at him. He hadn’t realized how much he’d come to rely on that smile of hers until it was gone. Until it all but vanished because of something he’d done.
    On Wednesday Emily’s sister Hope came out for lunch. Brand left the two women alone to hash out plans for their youngest sister Penny’s birthday party, sensing as always Hope’s underlying hostility toward him. Or was it simply mistrust? Toned, tanned and tattooed, Hope gave off a tough aura that Emily assured him hid a sweet-natured person. If Hope Irving had a sweet nature, she’d certainly never revealed it to Brand.
    Not that he deserved sweet, after what he’d done.
    He’d let Jet kiss him, had responded to it, had taken control of it and taken it further than it ever should have gone. He hadn’t seen the man in four years, yet just as he’d told Emily, it was like no time had passed. The feelings had returned in a rush, and the taste of Jet’s lips had intoxicated him, as it always had.
    Seeking solitude, Brand took Daisy out for a ride. They followed the trail that led from the edge of the property, through the cane and eucalypts to the beach. It was a gray day, one where the wind blew the clouds around in the sky and sent a fine saltwater mist into the air to coat the skin. To most the sunshine was king, but Brand liked the beach this way, when clouds gathered and hovered over the crashing waves like a warning. There was something honest about the way nature revealed its latent power in the lead-up to a storm. It reminded a man how small and insignificant he was.
    After letting Daisy stretch her legs with a gallop, Brand slowed the horse to a canter as he looked out to the ocean and saw not the tumultuous waves, but Jet’s face.
    Why had Jet shown up here, when Brand had finally found a measure of peace with someone else? He wanted to curse the day Jet was born, but he’d never been able to do that, no matter how much emotional turmoil the man had caused him. And there’d been a lot.
    Jet’s existence had forced Brand to confront, at the tender age of seventeen, the shocking truth he wasn’t one hundred percent heterosexual. Having just lost his father—a poor excuse for a father but the only one he had—attraction to a man was the last thing Brand had been prepared to deal with. But the pull had been undeniable, like a force of nature that couldn’t be thwarted. After an initial resistance, Brand had given in to his feelings. They’d had one spring, one glorious season spent exploring each other while Brand had steadfastly ignored the overarching implications of their affair.
    Brand had thought he was gay. He’d been with girls and been thoroughly satisfied. But Jet… There was something about Jet that mesmerized him, that inspired a passion unlike any other. Jet understood him, accepted him for who and what he was. An orphan. A ghost of a person. Jet knew everything about him and, in accepting all of it, had made Brand feel whole for the first time in his life.
    He’d loved Jet for that. God, how he’d loved him. But the love—love for a man that he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge—had scared him so much he’d left in the most permanent way he knew how. He’d enlisted in the army. He’d gone to war. He’d left Jet behind, forever.
    But it wasn’t forever, was it? That night four years ago was etched clearly in Brand’s memory. The shock of running into Jet at a bar in the city, the intensity of the desire which hadn’t diminished one bit in the nine intervening years. He’d been due to ship out for Afghanistan the following day, so they’d both known one night was all they’d have. Brand had taken it, because