Page 31 of Bray
I shook my head and ducked out of the stable. I heard his heavy footfall behind me so I knew he followed. I waited and worked on closing the building’s exterior door. “No, Bray. I’m sorry. I can’t risk this. The sex was amazing. God, I had no idea. But you’re going to change your mind and leave. I can’t have another person–”
He grabbed my arm and spun me around, pulled me into him so our bodies were pressed together. Cupping my chin, he forced me to look up at him. His face was shadowed beneath his cowboy hat, but I saw the intensity of his blue gaze.
“I’m not leaving you.”
I shook my head and a tear slipped down my cheek. “Everyone leaves me, Bray. I’m used to it. My parents. My grandparents, too.”
Dying in old age wasn’t the same thing as my parents’ abandonment, but the point was the same. I was alone. I was safer staying alone instead of falling for someone who might break my heart again.
He sighed and kissed my forehead. “Fuck, Kitten. I know you’ve been hurt. I wish I could take that from you. I’m not leaving.” He punctuated those three words with pauses. “You don’t have to believe my words, but I’ll prove it to you by sticking.”
I wanted to trust him. Desperately. To be lured intothis feeling of safety and that I was, for the first time in so long, not alone.
“How can I believe you?”
“Because if Ma found out I hurt you, she’d shoot me.”
I couldn’t help the way my lips twitched. He was right. I’d seen Mrs. Wilder angry before and you didn’t fuck with her when that happened. She was also an excellent markswoman. I wasn’t a half bad shot since Lainey and I learned from her.
“Then there are my brothers,” he continued. “Don’t forget Lainey. She already vowed to run me over with the combine if I hurt you.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at my friend’s vivid and gruesome method.
It was kind of all of them to want to protect me, even from Bray, but it only meant one thing. “You mean you’re stuck now.”
He sighed again, this time wearily, and stared at the darkening sky before meeting my gaze. “All right. That’s it.”
Before I could blink, he spun me around. I slapped my hands against the building to brace myself. Then he got my jeans undone and pushed down over my hips before I could do more than shout out his name.
Then… he spanked me.
18
BRAY
I willedmy dick down because the sight of my handprint on Katie’s bare ass made me ready to fuck.
I’d get in her again, but she had to learn a lesson first. That she wasn’t a burden.
“I want to be with you, kitten,” I said, slowly and clearly.
Smack.
“Bray!”
“The only person who you have to worry about thinking you’re attractive or interesting or funny or anything elseis me.”
Smack.
“Ow!”
I was definitely making contact with that perfect peach of hers, and it was getting a very pretty shade of dark pink, but I wasn’t hurting her. Oh, her ass might sting for a little bit, but I was going light.
“You’ve always been gorgeous. Always sweet. Kind. You’ve been a good friend to Lainey. You’re a good person.”
Smack.
“Bray!”
