Always Mine (Love in Eden 1)

I'd been on edge ever since Brooks had threatened me with the things he’d said about my parole. It was one of the many reasons I'd been glad to get the job at Black Hills Ranch. In town, I'd always felt like all eyes were on me, waiting for me to make a mistake. Waiting for me to do something that would give the authorities the excuse they needed to put me back in that cell. Even now, I rarely went into town for fear that someone could easily make it look like I’d violated my parole. Hell, I was shocked that Sheriff Tiegs hadn't already come up to the ranch with some false accusations just so he could put me back behind bars. Sheriff Tiegs had never been a friend of my family. But he had been a friend of the Cunningham family.

And the fact was that by attacking Brooks, even if he had been the one to start it, I had violated my parole. The constant fear I was living with just in the past few days had been one of the reasons I’d steered clear of the ranch. The excuse to find the Godfreys' missing cattle had been just that… an excuse. I also hadn’t wanted to be around Brooks, because the temptation to confront him just so I’d have an excuse to touch him again, even in anger, had been too much. He was now more off-limits than he’d ever been.

As if he knew I was thinking about him, Brooks stirred against me. He ended up nuzzling my neck and I swore he whimpered just a little. But when his groin pressed against mine and I felt his morning wood brush up against the hard-on I'd been trying to fight off for the last several hours, I was done. I started to push him away when he all of a sudden whispered, "Xavier."

I wasn't sure if he was still asleep or awake, but my momentary surprise that it was my name he was saying allowed Brooks to shift even more and then it was his lips touching the base of my throat. I groaned at the feel of the silky softness skimming my skin. He had to be asleep. He just had to be. No way would a conscious Brooks be doing this.

That was what I told myself, but my body didn't seem to care what his motives were. My fingers closed around his back, pressing into the defined muscles of his shoulder blades. One of his hands was resting at my waist, but then it was drifting farther down until the fingers were toying with the waistband of my underwear. No fucking way was he still asleep. The move was just way too deliberate.

But I knew that didn't make any sense. Even if Brooks was gay, or bi, I was the last person he would want to be touching. Which meant I was the one who needed to stop this.

"Brooks," I managed to get out, but it came out on a guttural whisper and didn't sound like the demand I'd intended it to be.

He murmured something in response, something that sounded a lot like my name again, and then dear God, his fingers pushed beneath my waistband. My dick went from semi-hard to the head peeking out of the top of my shorts the second his hand settled on my ass. My own hand moved of its own accord and gripped his backside as I drew him closer to me.

Brooks let out the sexiest whimper I'd ever heard, and then his mouth opened on my throat, his teeth grazing my jugular. I was shocked that I didn't come then and there. I dropped my head back as those wicked lips trailed up my throat, biting and sucking as they went. I allowed myself a moment to enjoy the cleft of Brooks’s ass as he tasted my skin. But when his hand moved from the back of my shorts to the front, I finally woke up from the sensual haze.

I grabbed Brooks’s hand and pulled it away from my underwear and weeping dick and rolled him until he was flat on his back. "Enough," I gasped.

The surprise I saw in his eyes when he flipped them open was proof enough that he had, in fact, been asleep.

"What the—" Brooks began to say, but I already knew where this was going, so I quickly released him and shoved our bodies apart. I made sure to keep him covered with the blanket because if I saw his dick or any of his firm, soft skin, I'd be all over him. I’d find a way to convince him that what had been happening didn’t need to have anything to do with the fact that we were enemies. Hell, I'd fucked plenty of my enemies in prison. When it came to sex, there was no such thing as enemies.