Branded: You Own Me & The Virgin's Night Out (2 page)

Special. No, it wasn’t special. It was awful.

Her stomach twisted as she stared at the glass of wine she’d ordered with her dinner. A measly, miserable salad, because she’d spent the past few years trying to
slim down a little
.
Slim down
, from a size eighteen to something more…
healthy
, as Noel had called it. And

appealing.

You’re beautiful, but you’d be so much more appealing if you lost some weight.

She’d never really
loved
her size-eighteen body but she’d been comfortable with herself. Comfortable, and even healthy. She walked four times a week, and in the winter she liked to ski and go ice skating. She’d been satisfied with who she was.

Until…well, until Noel. So she’d dropped to a size fourteen, had started doing cardio at the gym, although she hated it, and lived on so much green food, she thought she’d turn into a rabbit.

To please Noel.

“Liz?”

She looked up and met Noel’s gaze. He was watching her with gentle eyes, that patient smile on his face. “You haven’t said anything,” he said.

No. I haven’t, have I? That’s because I feel like crying. Or screaming
.

“I’m just a little thrown,” she said, her voice steady enough.
Yay, me
. “You want to keep seeing each other, but you also want to…to what? Date other people?”

“That’s pretty much it. Look, Liz…open relationships are really common these days. It just requires understanding and commitment on both sides.” Noel continued to watch her, sharp green eyes all but pinning her in place.

Funny. I always thought serious relationships took commitment…to each other.
There was a knot in her throat that was going to choke her, but she managed to speak around it as she asked, “And what if I don’t
want
an open relationship?”

“Well.” Noel spread his hands out on the table. When they’d first started dating, she’d loved those hands—smooth and elegant, the nails manicured. He so clearly took care of himself. It wasn’t a wonder that he’d wanted her to take better care of herself, too, was it?

And now he wanted to…

She slammed the door on those thoughts as he reached out and took her hand. “I care about you, Liz. You know that. But I need something…more. If you aren’t willing to try this, I guess we’ll have to

put the relationship on hold.”

“You’ll break up with me,” she said, pushing the words out.

“No. Just take a break—maybe we both need it.” He sighed and looked away. “You look so hurt and this isn’t about hurting you. It’s about my needs.”

What about mine
? She almost shouted it, but instead, she tugged her hands free. “I need to think about this.”

“Of course. Take a day or two.” He leaned over and kissed her, but the heat she almost always felt with him was gone.

She just felt cold.

• • •

That lingering cold remained when he rolled off her that night. He didn’t even seem to notice—he’d come with a grunt and then pulled out, not saying anything.

And now…

Now…now he was snoring while she curled up on her side and tried to understand what she’d done wrong.

The silence of the room pressed in on her. The sound of his snores seemed to grate on her as she huddled in on herself, trying to disappear. With a groan, she clambered out of bed, letting her nightshirt fall down to cover her.

She’d go play around online.

Download a book.

Something.

But when she opened up the browser on the computer in Noel’s living room, she found the weight that had lingered in her chest expanding, threatening to crush her, choke her.

The browser had opened to the last website he’d been on and it was a punch, right to her gut.

Wanna Play
. That was the header.

Below that, the site’s subtitle:

For those with tastes outside the ordinary

And the pictures…beautiful women. Slender. A message bubble popped up.

Noel…I thought you wouldn’t be around tonight.

The avatar was of a beautiful woman in black—black leather that cupped and lifted her breasts. Bare, perky little tits the likes of which Elizabeth hadn’t ever had. The woman was all willowy and slim.

Elizabeth didn’t think
willowy
or
slim
had ever been words used to describe her.
Solid. Busty. Chubby
. If somebody wanted to be kind, they could say
curvaceous
or
ripe
, although she didn’t know how accurate that had been.

The message box stayed empty.

After a minute, another question came up.

Noel, you there? I’m feeling kind of lonely
…

“Yeah?” Elizabeth tried not to laugh. “Me, too.”

She exited the window and shut down the computer, moving over to the window and staring out over a rainy, wet Williamsburg. Noel lived in a beautiful old house not far from the colonial area and she usually loved staring outside, looking at the old places, thinking about how it must have been here a few hundred years ago.

Now, though…

She just felt isolated.

And trapped.

A desperate, sudden urge came over her and she crept back into Noel’s room, dressing in silence. Gathering her shoes, her bag, checking to make sure she had her phone.

And all the while, Noel just lay on the bed, snoring. As she slid out of his room, she felt a half-hysterical giggle rising in her throat.

She dressed in the hall, near the front door, her fingers clumsy, while some part of her worried he’d wake up. Once she was outside his house, she leaned against the rough brick and closed her eyes.

Then she pulled out her phone and dialed a number.

It was nearly midnight, but it didn’t matter.

Decker would answer.

He always did.

• • •

Back arched, Decker thrust his cock into the grip of his own

hand, sweat gleaming on his body, jaw locked as he worked himself closer and closer to orgasm.

A single, clear drop of fluid leaked out and he used his thumb, smearing it across the swollen head. In his mind, it wasn’t his hand working him closer to climax.

It was Lizzie, always Lizzie. It had been her for years. For always.

Her eyes, that wide, warm dark brown, lingered on his face, before running down his body, stopping…

Come on, sweet Lizzie…

The phone rang. He snarled, swore—grabbed the phone to throw it, but then he saw the image on the display. That face…it had Decker fighting conflicting, simultaneous urges.

Of course, Lizzie filled him with all sorts of conflicting, simultaneous urges and she had ever since…oh, hey, eleventh grade.

They were the most incongruous of friends, a fact he knew all too well. But the woman on the other end of the phone was his best friend, and the one thing he couldn’t do was ignore her call.

Even if it did come at an inconvenient time.

With his free hand, he grabbed the phone. The sound of her soft, almost too sweet voice was a mental caress, but all thoughts of heat and sex fled as the words tripped out of her. He gave his cock one more rough stroke and then let go.

“Deck…hey. I…um. Can you come get me? I need a ride home.”

He shoved himself off the bed, staring at the clock. “I thought you had your big anniversary thing tonight. What’s up?”

A watery laugh drifted over the line. “I don’t want to talk about it right now. Just…can you come?”

“Where are you?”

She told him and his hand tightened on the phone. Right outside the house of the asshole she was dating. And said asshole was behind the misery Decker heard in her voice, too. He knew that without asking.

Decker was a selfish bastard because he wanted, more than anything, to hear that she’d broken up with Noel.

He’d been a year too late…and he’d lost his chance.

He’d been counting down the time, looking forward to every letter she sent, looking forward to every visit, every phone call, but he hadn’t told her. It hadn’t seemed the time.

And then it was too late.

Just like always.

“Gimme fifteen minutes,” he said. “Call me if you have even a bit of trouble.”

“I will. Deck? Thank you.”

He grunted and hung up, the muscles in his big body going rock hard at the thought of seeing her. His semi-hard cock came to full attention and he shot it a dark look.

“You’re just going to have to wait.”

He’d been thinking about her—as always—which led to the typical reaction and now he was going to be in rough shape when he picked her up.

• • •

Of course, she was in even rougher shape, it looked like.

When he pulled up in front of the house, she darted toward the car, face ducked against the light rain coming down, but it didn’t take Decker any time to figure out fast that the moisture he saw gleaming in her eyes had nothing to do with rain.

“What happened?” he asked, keeping his voice flat. Yelling just made her shut down, and besides, he wasn’t mad at her anyway.

“Nothing.” She sniffed and shoved messy wet curls back from her face. “Just take me home, Deck. Okay? I can’t talk about it right now.”

Throwing his truck into drive, he nodded. “Okay, Lizzie.” Then

he reached over and caught her hand in his. “But we are going to talk about it. Something made you cry and you know I hate that.”

“Deck…Kleenex commercials make me cry,” she said, a weak laugh escaping her.

“Yep. And if it wouldn’t be a violation of my parole, I would have done some serious harm over some of those commercials, too.”

She undid her seatbelt and slid across the seat, using the one in

the middle so she could settle against him. It was both heaven and hell for him when she did that, but he’d always been into self-torture. Wrapping one arm around her, he hugged her in close.

“You’re crazy,” she murmured, sighing and relaxing against him. “Sometimes I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Instead of answering, he brushed his lips across the top of her head.

And for the twenty minutes it took to drive her home, he let himself just enjoy the feel of her in his arms.

These brief moments never lasted anyway.

• • •

An open relationship
.

Even now, in the cold, clear, hard light of morning, the words were still ugly. Maybe not to others, but Elizabeth just couldn’t do it. Or she didn’t want to.

But she couldn’t lie in bed anymore either.

Her alarm had gone off and she had to get up and get moving. Saturdays weren’t her morning to open—she only had two mornings where she wasn’t at her coffee shop at the crack of dawn, but she did have to be there by nine and it was creeping up on eight now. Tomorrow, she could sleep in or have all day to brood, but for now, she’d have to brood on the go.

She slid out of bed, moving quietly. Decker might have collapsed on her couch. He did that sometimes, and she bit her lip as she darted a look into the living room.

Yep.

She gave herself one moment to stare.

Just that one.

He was her best friend and for the years he’d been practically out of reach, she’d missed him every day. Missed him and hated herself. Because no matter what he said, it was her fault.

Somebody made you cry…you know I hate that…

He’d said them mostly in jest, but she knew how serious he was under those light, easy words.

It was her fault, and that was why she only let herself have this one moment. It was a greedy thing and she was mostly over it—mostly, because how could anybody get over the beauty that was Decker Calhoun.

He’d been beautiful in high school, the poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks—he’d made his name when it was discovered he could throw a ball and girls had flocked to him. She hadn’t—exactly. He wouldn’t have noticed she existed if he hadn’t been failing math.

That was when their odd friendship started.

And here they were now, still friends, years later, and while he slept on her couch, she was drooling over him, and the long, wide muscled back left bare to her, inked with dark swirls.

Letters rode down his spine—far more elegantly scripted than she’d have expected prison tattoos to be.

No Regrets