Brand Me (Imagine Ink Book 2) (6 page)

First, he wasn’t even a man anymore; now, he’s just a broken man—a broken and bleeding man.
Fuck if that didn’t sting.
What a fucked up mess he really was and his fucking gashed open hand was a sad mark of reality—his playing hand at that.

Just thinking about losing his ability to play made him nauseous, well more nauseous anyhow. Music was the one thing that always seemed to bring him to center, that and running. They both gave him a high and a calm at the same time, but they were different. Running was for when he wanted to suppress whatever it was and music was when he needed to express it, get it the fuck out.

Again, he probably deserved to lose that outlet too.

“Yeah. It’s Michael, from the plane? I was waiting for the bathhouse and I’ve seemed to have a bit of an accident. Some assistance would be appreciated if you don’t mind, but sooner rather than later might be prudent.” After butt-sliding down the stairs to reach a snow pile on the ground, he plunged his hand into it in an attempt to stem the flow of blood.
Boy, this thing is really bleeding.

“Um, you’re not squeamish at the sight of blood are you?” He yelled back toward the open window, or at least he thought he did. “Because if you are, you’d best go out the back way and get your boy…”

That came out more of a mumble before trailing off as the single mound of blood-colored snow blurred into three.

F
rozen
.

Frozen in steaming hot water.
Yep, ironic.
It was him, the panty-melting hunk from the plane. The same man she was picturing and calling out to as she became close friends with a shower wand.

Wow, if he’d heard her, she would curl up and die of embarrassment right there. They’d find her wrinkled and bloated body when the water cooled and the volunteer fire squad broke down the door.

Somehow, she always knew she’d go out like that. She never did anything half assed, nope. If she was going to die of mortification, it would be an over-the-top spectacle, the likes of which this little community had never seen.

She would become local lore that got passed down from generation to generation, an urban or country legend used to scare kids from masturbating or making out in the woods.

Listen up kids, anyone who goes up to Black Oak Lake to seek carnal pleasure, whether alone or with their significant other, is doomed to die a humiliating death and haunt the Brande bathhouse for one hundred and one years. Cursed to ferry the souls of those who didn’t heed this warning to the afterlife. Naked.

God, I’m pat…wait, did he just say blood?

Tori didn’t stop to think, she slipped her feet into the flip flops she brought for the bathhouse, threw her long jacket on and rushed outside. The slick surface of her cheap plastic shoes lost traction on the porch made slippery by the combination of snow and blood, and she noticed she barely missed some broken glass. Visually tracking the trail, she saw Michael sitting on the bottom step, head resting against the rail support, hand in the snow, and quite a bit of blood. He was wearing nothing but the running shorts and shoes she saw him in earlier.

Shaking off her shock, she sprinted to his side. “Oh dang, what happened?”

He turned her way while leaving his head against the railing. A smile ghosted across his lips and those silver eyes opened and stared straight into hers. They drunkenly lowered to her lips and his smile widened. “You’re fucking beautiful, you know that? If I’m dreaming, I don’t plan on waking up this time, not before I’m the one who makes you scream like that, repeatedly.”

Before her humiliation overtook her at his confession, his hand, the one not in the snow, was behind her head forcing her lips closer to his. In a flash, his tongue was in her mouth and she was kissing him back.

Now, she was as dizzy as he appeared to be, but for a very different reason. She regained enough sense to know this was wrong, she and Richard were still together, at least until she made her way back to the cabin with the news. And Michael was hurt and needed help, not this. But God, it was splendid, or it was until she felt a sharp stab to her cheek and he wrenched his mouth away with a vicious curse.

It took her a second to realize what had happened, seeing him clutching his hand and feeling a trickle running down her cheek started making sense. She reached to wipe a minuscule amount of blood away and confirmed her suspicions. Michael had brought his injured hand to her face, hurting them both. Tori composed herself and turned her left side away as she helped him to his feet. The last thing he needed was to see he had injured her. It appeared he was in enough pain.

“Come on, up you go. Come back to where I’m staying, we have a first aid kit and I’ll get you fixed up.”

“No, I’m closer, and I have a kit with everything I need. Just help me get there and I can take care of it.”

“Okay, you win, cowboy, which way?”

“Please don’t call me that.”

“What, cowboy?” She shrugged, “I like it, but hey, if you don’t.” She trailed off. “Okay, then Wingman, which way?”

“There.” A sinking feeling landed in the pit of her stomach when she realized he indicated the cabin next to the bathhouse. Still a hike, but it was unmistakably one of Richard’s family’s cabins. The cabin Richard’s brother was supposed to be staying in.

No. No fucking way Michael was his brother. No.
Her brain refused to accept it. But as they made their way through the snow toward the cabin, there wasn’t another possibility. He had to be, yet, they looked nothing alike, even for half-brothers. Nothing. How could this be? This was next-level fucked-up shit.

If she thought Walker and Erika had some messed up relationship woes, hers just
Crocodile Dundee
’d that shit in a mugging.
“That’s not a knife…”

Oh, my effing God, really Torionna, you can’t stop playing movie savant for one freaking minute to sort this out?
Typical, she was starting to freak out. Funny how she could handle other people’s issues, but her own turned her into a basket case. She had to get him bandaged up and out of there, so she could think. Over with Richard or not, there was no way she was going to get tangled up with his brother, half or otherwise.

Accepting the fact she’d be alone forever, she muscled her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend’s brother the rest of the distance to his door. As soon as they entered, she deposited him on the couch and inquired about the location of the first aid kit—bathroom, to the right of the sink, top shelf. As she closed the cabinet door and turned to leave, she caught a glimpse of herself in the full-length mirror.

Great, she was in her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend’s family cabin, with his bleeding brother, and she was dressed like a saucy stripper gram. The coat barely covered her hoo-ha, and she was still dripping wet from her bath. That, combined with walking through the snow, had made her cheeks rosy and her nipples diamond grade.

What’s a girl to do at this point? Take a deep breath, get out there, steri-strip the hot pilot’s hand and get the fuck out of here before you throw your leg over his lap and ride him hard and put him away wet.

R
eality came
with the warmth of the cabin. His hand was throbbing. The bleeding finally slowed to a creeping ooze, but it was the other throb that was concerning him. Railroad spikes didn’t stand a chance against the wood he was fucking sporting. He had kissed her, that memory was coming back, alive and in living color. More importantly, she had kissed him back, until…he hurt his hand against her cheek.
Oh shit, is she cut now, too
?

Mind circling back to the kiss, he adjusted himself with his non-lethal hand. God, it felt borderline orgasmic to actually have an erection. That, and having the lady he wanted to share it with under the same roof. It’d been way too long since that had happened. His adjusting turned into more of a rubbing situation. Then, as he remembered her descending the bathhouse steps, he could see her lips—and not the ones on her face—and the rubbing took on a vigorous nature.

Holy Hell, that meant she was in the bathroom, in his fucking cabin, with no panties on. Now the rubbing had purpose. He didn’t give a flying fuck if it was a one-room cabin and she was merely feet away, he couldn’t fight this feeling, didn’t want to. Besides, he’d heard her, it was only fair to share and share alike. Maybe it was blood loss lending to his bold nature, or maybe it was just her and the first real and desired erection he’d had in months, either way, he didn’t care.

She needed to run for the hills anyway, as far away from him as possible, so he’d help push her along and maybe the degradation would do him good.
Yeah, how fucked up is that?

Cock out and pumping furiously, he starting chanting her name, fully aware that she could hear him and see him if she so desired. Loving every single sensation he was giving himself, he was lost to the self-induced bliss. When he heard her sharp intake of breath, he knew he was nearing the end. Cracking open one orb, he turned slightly toward the bathroom door and made eye contact with a shocked but obviously intrigued—and if he wasn’t reading too much into it, a very turned on—warm chocolate gaze through the hinge crack of the door.

That was all it took, he exploded all over his own lap. And oh, what an explosion it was. Even Tonya, with all her skills in the bedroom, had never elicited the intense response this woman did simply by existing. Scores of women, he’d been with scores of women and yet, this moment on the couch was the magical one, go figure.

Tori disappeared from the doorway, only to reappear in front of him with first aid kit in one hand, and two warm, damp towels in the other.
God bless her
, she didn’t seem embarrassed by the display at all and she’d thought of him. Taking one of the offerings, he cleaned up his impromptu solo love session and tossed the towel into the bathroom through the open door. “Thanks.”

She took a deep breath before speaking, so maybe she was put more off-kilter by their twisted shared masturbating sessions than she let on. She may not have voluntarily shared her private moment with him, but he wanted, no, needed, to share his with her.

“You’re welcome, now, let’s see about your other hand, since you seem pretty proficient with that one.” She blushed so fucking red, he thought she’d go nuclear before she went to the kitchen area behind the couch to retrieve a pitcher of warm water and an empty bowl.

Look at that, little miss put together is embarrassed and frazzled.
He liked it, a lot. She seemed so authentic when she wasn’t trying to be proper and distant. Tori pulled the coffee table corner between his legs and she extend her hand in request of his as she sat down. His eyes dropped immediately to the beautiful patch of dark hair between her thighs, which was waxed to perfection. She brought his hand close to her face for inspection. His attention was glued between her thighs. He almost missed what she said.

“It doesn’t look awful, I guess. I need to remove the glass. I can close it with the butterfly bandages in the kit, but you really need stitches. It’s deep and I can see a lot of tissue. Unless, of course, you don’t care about full range of motion in your fingers, in which case, well, you still need stitches.” She lowered his hand to her lap, within a hair’s breadth of her beautiful cunt and looked into his face.

When he felt her staring, he begrudgingly looked up, too. “What do you do for a living? If dexterity is important to you, we should borrow an ATV or something and get you to town A.S.A.P.”

The heat of her fucking perfect pussy was burning his hand; he snatched it away before he ripped the glass out with his teeth just to plunge a finger into her. God, what he wouldn’t give for that. “It’s fine, I’m fine. Thanks for the assist, but I’ve got it from here, you should get back and get some clothes on before your boyfriend comes looking for you. You’re out at the Simpkins’ place, yeah? I wouldn’t advise going back to the bathhouse or walking that far in just what you have on. If you check the dresser over there,” he indicated behind her with a nod of his head, “you’ll find a pair of sweats that will help and some snow boots by the door. Ten sizes too big, but they should do to prevent you from freezing to death.”