Desire (Montana Dreams Book 3) by Cait Jarrod Read Free Book Online

did what he asked her not to; she gasped.
    “Don’t.” He held up a hand and pinched his lips together. “I comforted her. One thing led to another.” They’d connected that night on a different level than they had during their childhood and teenage years. They’d opened up to one another, told secrets, and shared their bodies. The openness continued but they’d kept their experience private and didn’t have a repeat. Neither of them was ready to move forward in a relationship, yet neither of them gave each other up. Not until Cadence ordered him to get out of her life.
    Trina remained quiet, a hand to her mouth, the other on her heart. Her eyes watered and turned bloodshot.
    “What else could I do?”
    “You pity fucked me!” Cadence screeched in an eerie octave.
    Bradley’s heart sunk. At the barn entrance, her lips an upside down smile, and her hands perched on her hips. Damn it! Couldn’t he do anything right?
     
    ****
     
    “Sweet, reserved Bradley thought I needed a sympathy screw?” Bile rose to Cadence’s stomach. “That’s just rich! You gave me a freebie…a handout.”
    “Cadence that’s not what happened.”
    “That’s what you said!” How dare he assume he was “it” for her? That he was the only one who righted her world. True or not, it didn’t matter. For him to think it…to discard their connection… Her thoughts scrambled as her heart broke. “I can get any guy I want,” she blurted out in defense, erecting a shield over her heart to stop the bee stings covering her skin and diving into her soul. Ah, geez! Their lovemaking had been out of this world, something she craved to relive.
    Hearing the night she experienced love had meant nothing to him but pity… The sensation compared to someone reaching into her chest and tearing out her heart. It hurt, almost as bad as the day she lost her baby. Words didn’t describe the thoughts racing through her mind. It was just as well. Bad blood lay between them now. For Trina’s sake and that of her friend’s unborn baby, she’d harness in her emotions toward him and continue on the path of getting herself together. She breathed in deeply. The only way to do that was to confess to Bradley. Criminey!
    With arms folded over his chest and legs shoulder-width apart, he stared at her with his heart-stopping greenish-blue eyes as if he didn’t know what to do with her. Welcome to her world .
    His sister didn’t have the same problem. Nope, Trina went to the place that controlled her mouth from spouting off. She touched the tip of her tongue to her upper lip, an act she did when disappointed. Cadence witnessed that look a lot when Trina dealt with her parents, and now her best friend used the expression on her. If that didn’t knock the wind out of her. “Trina,” she said, pleading in her voice.
    “Don’t.” Her sweet friend shook her head and stood. “I’m not the one you need to talk to.” With that, she stepped backwards out of the barn, as if by showing her back she’d get an imaginary knife in it.
    Numb and dazed, Cadence reflected on the friendship she’d acquired as a young girl. Trina and she loved each other like sisters, but Bradley was Trina’s blood. He came first, always had. She admired the bond the siblings shared, though it made her a touch jealous. Her focused returned to the man she’d rudely snubbed.
    Bradley’s tanned skin etched with a tinge of pain; his arched eyebrows slanted, pupils darkened, and his jaw tightened. He opened his mouth and she cringed, waiting to receive his rebuttal to her outburst.
    “You’ve more than proved you can get any guy. From where I stand, you go through men like you went through a bag of candy as a kid. One at a time, chewing them up until the flavor disappears.” His face turned to disgust. He was on a roll. “Then spitting the used portion on the ground and tossing them aside like trash, ready to search for the next victim.”
    She covered her mouth and tears sprung