Read Branded By Kesh for Free Online Page A

vegetables.
    A hot hand wrapped around the bare skin of my upper arm and turned me to face Kesh. I looked up at him, about to tell him to get his hand off me, but I didn’t get the chance. He swooped down and kissed me—a hard, angry kiss that had heat of a different kind flaring to life inside me.
    Moaning into his mouth, I pressed up against his heat. He drove me crazy, I was still angry with him, but I couldn’t deny the chemistry we had. Every time he looked at me or came near me, heat sizzled inside me, turning me liquid with desire. He didn’t even have to touch me and I was wet with need. His mere presence was enough to ignite the flames of passion inside me.
    “I knew you wouldn’t be able to stay away from him. Have you no shame, Magnolia?”
    Jaxxon’s angry voice cut through the haze of passion and made me pull back to stare at him. Heat flared in my cheeks as I stared back at him. His angry green eyes flashed in the bright lights of the dining room. A low growl of sound came from Kesh, vibrating through my chest where we were still pressed together.
    “What are you doing here, Jaxxon?” I demanded of the man who until the night before had been my best friend.
    “I came to see if you wanted some company. You always liked me sitting in the kitchen with you when you cooked,” he replied. “But I see you don’t need more company. You have all the company you can handle.”
    I heard bitterness in his voice and felt my chest tighten as sadness almost overwhelmed me. We had so much history together that was going to be lost because he couldn’t understand what I needed. I didn’t even know if I had anything with Kesh, and now it looked like I was losing Jaxxon as well. The fact that Kesh was a pirate was a huge stumbling block that I didn’t know how to get over.
    “I’ll always enjoy your company, Jaxxon. That hasn’t changed. It’s you that can’t handle what I need,” I told him.
    He looked back at me, stark anger on his face.
    “Have you told him what kind of relationship you want, Magnolia? What does your new man have to say about it?”
    My stomach twisted at what he was saying, at the conversation I still needed to have with Kesh. I didn’t think the conversation would go as well as it had when I’d had it with Jaxxon. Kesh and I had barely begun, and I wasn’t sure after learning that he was a pirate that we would even start. I’d told him that there was no future for us, had told him that we were too different to make it work, and I still believed that, no matter how he made me feel with his kisses.
    “What’s he talking about, Magnolia?”
    Kesh’s deep voice rumbled up from his chest, vibrating through me. I stepped back out of his arms. I wanted distance between us for this conversation. I wanted to be able to see his face and the emotion that he was bound to feel.
    “Kesh—”
    “So she hasn’t told you. Then, let me inform you of the kind of relationships Magnolia expects to have.”
    “Jaxxon—”
    “No, Magnolia. The man deserves to know what you expect at the outset. How can I deny him that knowledge?”
    Jaxxon looked from me to Kesh and before I had a chance to say anything, he continued.
    “Magnolia’s parents have an open relationship, where they allow each other to be with other people they meet. That’s the kind of relationship she wants. She wants the freedom to be able to start something with people she meets along the way if she finds them interesting, ”
    Jaxxon looked at me.
    “I believe that was the word you used wasn’t it, Magnolia?”
    I hadn’t looked at Kesh since Jaxxon had started talking. I was too afraid to see the rejection on his face, too afraid to see the anger I could feel radiating off him.
    “Basically, what she wants is the freedom to have a relationship with you while I hang around waiting for her to be done with you so she can come back to me.”
    “Jaxxon that’s not what—”
    “How can you deny it, Magnolia? That’s