Vengeance (The Protectors 5)

Because emotionless sex didn’t result in tears.

But all I could feel was a strange sense of pride and relief. Because while I’d started this whole thing in the hopes of getting Brennan out of my system, there was a twisted satisfaction to knowing that I’d been this first for him and that maybe, just maybe, he might not be able to easily get me out of his.

Chapter Six

Brennan

I cursed myself even as I reached for my cellphone which I’d put face down on the nightstand only a few minutes earlier so that I wouldn’t keep looking at it.

There was absolutely no reason to look at it and not just because I would have heard it ding if I had any kind of new message. No…it wasn’t worth checking because not only had Memphis and I not exchanged numbers, he’d made it pretty clear he wasn’t interested in seeing me with the way he’d left the motel ten days earlier.

I’d fallen asleep within minutes of the soul-scorching orgasm that had torn through me moments before I’d felt Memphis come deep inside me, the latex barrier the only thing preventing him from branding me in the way I had so badly wanted. I hadn’t woken when Memphis had pulled free of my sated body, nor had I felt him cleaning my own cum off my stomach. I hadn’t felt him draw the covers over me or noticed him turning off the lights. But I had woken up just in time to watch him walking out the motel room door. I’d called out to him as I’d tried to pull myself from the fog of sleep, but all he’d done was cast me a glance over his shoulder and then he’d pulled the door closed behind him. No note, no nothing.

I’d stayed in bed for a while, but all the amazing things we’d done – that he’d done – started to become a painful memory instead of a pleasant one and I’d forced myself to get dressed and go home. I’d had the long journey back to the mainland to think about everything that had happened, but all I’d kept coming back to was that I’d been wrong.

It hadn’t been anything more than just a simple fuck.

At least not for him.

For me…hell, he’d changed so many things without even knowing it. Somehow within a matter of hours I’d gone from wanting one man I could never have to wanting two. Losing Memphis was almost worse though. Because with Tristan, I at least had the excuse that he wasn’t gay to latch on to, and therefore there was absolutely no chance of being with him. With Memphis, there was no such excuse. He hadn’t wanted me…plain and simple. My body, yes. But for a one-off encounter. Nothing more. And from the looks of things, he hadn’t even wanted my body for more than a couple of hours.

I forced myself not to check the phone as I put it back on the nightstand and made myself look back at the television which was running a James Bond marathon. I’d seen all of the movies a million times so I should have been able to tell just by looking at the TV which one I was watching, but I couldn’t focus on anything long enough to even figure out which actor was playing the hero.

“Fuck,” I muttered and again snatched the phone up and glanced at it. There were no messages, no emails…nothing. But my desperate mind didn’t care and I ended up opening each of the apps just to make sure I hadn’t missed one. I even started scrolling through the spam emails in my junk folder just in case. That’s how far gone I was.

I didn’t even hear the door to my room being opened so I nearly jumped out of my skin when there was a rapping of knuckles on wood.

“Knock knock.”

“Come on in,” I murmured as I put the phone face down in my lap and looked up to watch the second object of my obsession walk into my room, pint of ice cream in hand, along with two spoons.

Tristan Barretti – fuck, there was just no way to describe his beauty. While Memphis was beautiful in a rugged, masculine way, Tristan was the complete opposite. Even at 19 years old, he held an innocence about him that I’d never seen in another living soul, man or woman. His dark, walnut-colored hair was threaded with rich strands of gold and was long enough that it perpetually hung over his forehead and caressed the tops of his ears. His gray eyes were anything but plain. No, they were flecked with tiny bits of gold and brown and the hue changed in intensity from blue to green based on his emotions. I’d never seen them go dark with passion, but I’d once been standing close to him when he’d been playing the piano, and I suspected that the same storm-colored shade I’d seen then would be what I’d see as he came. His pink lips were full and perfectly shaped and could have easily been mistaken for a woman’s, if not for the shadow of stubble he sometimes had on his face because he’d gotten too preoccupied with his music to shave.