Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Madison
I stared at the pitched ceiling in Teller’s guest bedroom. I would be making Teller cookies every week, but I could’ve had a bourbon named after me. After that irritating nickname I could no longer hate.
Would people have thought it was a joke? A way for Teller to make fun of me?
Yet why would a company put time and money into labeling a product with anything Mad Maddy if it wasn’t serious? Why would they waste marketing dollars to make fun of me? None of the Baileys had given me a hard time. All except for Teller, and now that I wasn’t so defensive around him, I could admit that had been more miscommunication between us thanks to someone who had hurt us both.
The edge I was on around him was no longer about defensiveness. The thrum in my chest that spread down to between my thighs, that was altogether different. Thankfully, I had tried to kick Teller’s ass so much that my left knee throbbed. An old horse-riding injury flared up if I ran. Made sense that jumping across a concrete pad would have the same effect.
I rolled to the edge of the bed. My shirt hung loose and I’d paired it with a pair of baby-blue shorts that were too short to wear outside of the house. I used to use them for gardening, but the garden and flowerbeds were no longer mine. Just a few of the things I had lost in the divorce.
I listened for Teller’s movements, but he’d gone to bed an hour ago. I needed an ice pack.
Mostly, I needed a massage, but it was hard to get the right pressure myself and I’d left the metal scraper I’d bought online for fascia work at the bar.
The house was dark. Could I get ice and a butter knife without waking him? Would he care that I used the butter knife to rub all over my leg?
He didn’t have to know. I could sneak downstairs, and in the morning, I could slip the knife into the dishwasher.
I slid out of bed, pausing only briefly by my suitcase. Should I throw a flannel over my pajamas or put a pair of sweats on? Deciding against it, I eased my door open. It swung open quietly and I tiptoed downstairs, marveling over how none of the floorboards creaked in the house.
At the base of the stairs, I pushed my hair back. A nearly full moon glowed through the window, bathing the main level in shadow. Paired with the yard light, I didn’t need to flip any other lights on. I entered the kitchen and yelped.
I was met with broad shoulders and a chiseled, bare chest. Teller stood next to the fridge, holding a glass of water.
“Oh my god!” I couldn’t look away. Even in the dark, his body was mouthwatering. The boxer briefs he wore rode low on his hips, and that was all that was covering him. “I’m sorry, but god, you are so quiet!”
“I didn’t want to wake you.” He took a long pull of water. If there had been more light, I could have watched his throat work over the swallow. There was nothing on this man I didn’t get tired of looking at.
“I didn’t want to bother you.” I hugged my arms around myself. I should’ve put on that flannel. I wasn’t wearing a bra or underwear. With the pajama top and bottoms, I might as well be naked around him.
“Can’t sleep?” His gaze trailed down my body, lingering on my toes and the polish I needed to refresh, then traveled back up.
It was too dark for him to see well, but I felt exposed. The dull ache on the outside of my knee reminded me to get the ice. “I fell off a horse when I was fifteen.”
“Happens to the best of us.”
“Your horse probably apologized and helped you up. Mine ran off and I had to limp two miles back home, only for Dad to lose his shit because Flight Risk was out.”
“You had a horse named Flight Risk, and your dad was surprised he was a flight risk?”
That pretty much summed up my childhood. “Anyway, my knee still aches sometimes. It’s why I’m not a runner.”
“I’m not a runner because it’d involve running.”
Unprepared for his frank response, I giggled. “Fair. I’m built for fight, not flight.”
His grin flashed in the shadows. “What usually helps it? Ice?”
“That and scraping or a massage.” Since I was busted and I didn’t need my knee keeping me awake on top of joking around with a shirtless Teller, I would admit to my real intentions. “I was going to use a butter knife for scraping. It helps loosen everything.”
He set his glass down and dug around in a drawer, withdrawing a plastic baggie. Then he sifted through another drawer and got out a butter knife. “Have a seat. I can help. We can try massage first.”
“Y-you don’t have to do that.” My heart rate kicked into a climb. He was not offering. He couldn’t be.
“Listen, if you’re going to be making me cookies every week, we cannot have your knee hurting.”
The humor amplified the heat building inside of me. What a weird turn-on, and still not appropriate. “You claim to not be a runner, but you dominated hopscotch.”
“When you’re the middle brother, you learn how to barter your way out of chores. Then when a ton of sisters show up, you realize you can dump a fuckton of work on them by betting on games.”
“Sibling warfare?” A tug of envy and nostalgia hit me. “Scott used to get me to feed the chickens and horses after school by telling me that he’d do it in the morning, but then he’d sleep in and go to a friend’s house and I was stuck with it anyway.”
“Tate tried that on me a few times. I kept falling for it.” He gestured behind me. “Have a seat somewhere and tell me what you need.” He stepped closer and my breath hitched, but he reached over to the fridge to fill the baggie with ice. His body heat fought through the AC to curl around me. I could lean into him.
My need was the problem. “You’re not massaging me.”
“I’ve been told I have talented hands.”
Arousal caressed my insides. The skin on my leg tingled, telling me just where he should put his skilled hands. “Teller, it’s fine.”
“I’m the one who made you jump all afternoon.”
“I would’ve anyway.” Today was the most fun I’d had in a long time. Teller’s family gathering was everything I had dreamed of. Everything I had known I was missing. I shouldn’t have experienced just how joyful and comforting it was. Now my early years seemed even more bleak.
“We had to jump for almost an hour. Sit.”
“Really, it’s fine.” I started for the stairs.
“I didn’t know you were such a chicken.” Taunting challenge filled his tone.
I stopped. This distance between me and the bottom stair could just as well be miles. “Are we twelve?”
“I bet if you were twelve, you wouldn’t run.” He pretended to polish the backs of his fingernails against his chest. “I do realize how irresistible I’ve gotten as an adult.”
He was joking, but he couldn’t be more spot on. He’d only grown more appealing with age. His trimmed beard, rugged good looks, body honed by the outdoors, and the way his eyes saw right through people all painted a broad, handsome picture.
It was why his outburst all those years ago had warped my attitude toward him. How dare he lump me in with the rest of my family when he’d been so good about accepting others where they were? That dynamic had shifted over the last couple of weeks.
He was also correct that I was a chicken. What if he touched my skin, rubbed me down, and then walked away like it didn’t affect him? I’d be crushed physically and emotionally. I was mature enough to understand that.
Then there was the flip side, and I couldn’t go there. That was some other lucky girl’s future. Not mine. “You don’t think I can resist you?”
“Oh, Mad Maddy. I think you’re doing very well at resisting me.”
That stupid rumble sent shivers skittering over my skin. My nipples were hard, and dammit, I was glad the light was off. “Fine. But I’m not sitting on the couch.”
“I’m that potent, I know.”
He was so solemn I chuckled and shook my head. I went to the dining room table and pulled a chair out.
“Sit on the top so I can use the chair.”
I gave him a look that asked him why the hell I’d plant my ass on his tabletop. He shrugged, the baggie of ice swinging from his fingers. “Give my back a break. I’m not twelve anymore.”
He pulled out a chair at the end of the table where he usually sat and plonked his butt down. He used the butter knife to gesture to the spot in front of him.
My skin got tight as I scooted myself up. I kept my knees closed and hunched my shoulders so he couldn’t make out how tightly peaked my nipples were.
He wiggled the butter knife. “What do I do with this?”
“Use the back of it and lightly scrape over my skin.” I made the motion over the edge of my right quad.
“That’s it?”
“I’m not a physical therapist. I’m sure there’s more, but that was what YouTube showed me.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Won’t that chafe?”
“I mean, usually lotion is used, but I didn’t want to get it all over your silverware.”
He set the baggie down and withdrew an ice cube. “We can use this.”
“Won’t that be cold?”
He held my gaze as he cupped the ice cube in his palm and flattened it over my thigh. An electric jolt went through me at the brush of his heated skin and the shocking cold of the ice. I exhaled a shaky breath as my insides went haywire.
“Too cold?” he murmured.
Too warm. His skin was hot, and he was sitting close, his head tilted toward me and his chest only inches away. “No,” I said, more than my voice unsteady.
I flinched again when he put the cool back of the knife against my quad and slowly slid it up and down. He worked like that, his concentration on the task. I raked my gaze over his hair and his broad shoulders. The way his abs crinkled when he sat and the man spread he had going on. Between his thighs was nothing but the dark shadow of his boxer briefs.
Each time he glided the ice cube over my skin, my flinch grew weaker. I began to anticipate it. His blistering fingertips danced over my skin. He wasn’t working with just one hand, but both. When he wasn’t holding the ice cube, he set it next to me. The wet spot shone in the darkness. Desire rippled under my skin, and I was only wearing pajama shorts. My body was primed, ready to have more than my knee worked on by those strong hands.
All he was doing was exactly what I would’ve done upstairs, but his method was utterly different. A slow, sensual float of the ice over my skin, and then his hands on me. The delicate slide of the knife, somehow knowing the right amount of pressure.
I tried to stay unaffected, to keep from trembling over the wanton need to scoot off the table and right into his lap. I pressed my palms into the smooth surface of the table behind me instead of gripping his shoulders or, worse, stuffing my hands into his hair.
What was he thinking? He was quiet, almost studious as he worked.
When he picked up the ice cube again, his fingers splashed into the small puddle left behind. The baggie was still sitting next to me, slowly melting, but he didn’t reach for it. Instead, he put his damp fingers back on my skin. His heat. The coolness of the ice melting. How could steam not be rising?
“How’s your knee feel?” he asked gruffly.
As achy and needy as the rest of my body. “Good.” The word came out breathy.
“Good,” he echoed softly as he brushed his fingers up and down my thigh. “Christ, Maddy. I’m dying to know if you’re wearing underwear.”
“No,” I said before thinking. My brain was scrambled, focused only on where his touch was on me, counting each one of his rough fingertips.
“Fuck, you’re not?” A long, low growl left him and he rose like a cobra, uncoiling to unleash all its power. His hips were kicked back and his forehead was close to mine. “My fingers were inches from that sweet pussy of yours and it’s bare ?”
His voice was strangled, matching the squeeze in my chest. He dragged those wicked fingers up my thigh.
“I said once that I wanted you to beg for me, but I can’t let you.” He swallowed hard. “I want to make you feel so damn good, Mads, and I don’t want you to have to beg for it. I’m ready to drop to my knees and plead like the world is going to end if I don’t feel how fucking wet you are.”
My lungs squeezed tighter with each sentence. How had this happened? How was I in the dark with very thin clothes between me and Teller? How could he be so strong but so gentle too?
I licked my dry lips. “We shouldn’t.”
He lowered his head even more. “Why?”
“We’re working together.”
“The only thing this will change is that every time I see you bend over in those jeans, I’m going to want to grab your hips, wrestle those pants down, and thrust inside.”
A quiver shook me. His mouth was close to mine. “You don’t want to get serious, and I’m tired of men not taking me seriously.”
That didn’t get him to back away. “I’m very serious about your pleasure.”
My body insisted that was good enough. My mind was not convinced I wouldn’t get hurt when I moved away and Teller didn’t ask me to stay. Yet, at this moment, I didn’t want long term. Short-term pleasure sounded fantastic. “What about you?” I was stalling, but I also wasn’t saying no.
He chuckled, the rumble pleasing and deep. “Getting you off would very much be my pleasure.” He placed a light kiss at the corner of my mouth. I was still leaning back, my weight on my hands behind me, afraid to grip his shoulders, or I’d cling to him like Saran Wrap. “Hearing those needy moans would very much stroke my ego. Discovering how wet you are for me? Very pleasing. Tasting you? An orgasm for my tongue.”
My disbelief rose. “Getting me off would be enough for you?” I scoffed. I definitely wasn’t asking to buy myself time, to reach the point where I was strong enough to push him away and say no. He was fooling himself.
Each second that had ticked by only brought the realization that I did not want to reject this man. In fact, that was the bulk of my issue. I had never wanted to push him away. I’d been wishing he’d close the distance the whole time.
He pulled back enough to narrow his eyes on me. For a moment, I wished a spotlight glared down on us so I could see the glittering of his dark eyes and determine whether he was lying to get into my pants. Men took what they wanted from others to feel good. Teller was no different.
This wasn’t the time to remember that Damien was my only gauge for what men wanted. Him, my cheating dad, and a line of men doing stupid things for my ex-sister-in-law.
“Hearing you cry out because I brought you to orgasm would be enough.” He placed a tender kiss on the other corner of my mouth. “Don’t get me wrong, I would love to take things further. I want to bury myself deep inside of you, but only to heighten your pleasure and to know what you feel like coming from the inside out. But I’d go to bed happy with nothing but your cries in my ears.”
A shudder racked my body. I couldn’t take this man. His words made me swoon. I feared the power of his tongue. “I don’t believe it.”
“Let me prove it,” he whispered and touched his lips to mine.
His kiss was light, but I surged up into him, hungry for more, starving to taste him.
He growled and wrapped an arm around me. My ass slid to the edge of the table and he deepened the kiss until I opened for him. A small whimper left me as his hot, velvet tongue stroked inside.
This time, I had to release the table and hook my arms around his broad shoulders. He invaded my mouth and I let him. He was strong but sensual, licking against my tongue with steady thrusts. My core ached in time with his movements. I wiggled to get closer to him.
“Let me,” he said in between twining his tongue with mine, “prove it. Over and over and over.” His hand was on my leg again, sliding up until his thumb crept under the hem of my shorts. He was millimeters away from my pussy, then he stopped.
Keep going . I needed more. Half drugged on the faint mint of his taste, my eyelids heavy, I got out a “yes.”
His growl ripped through the night, but he didn’t fall on me like a rutting stud. He kept it achingly, frustratingly slow. My shorts stayed on as he swept his thumb in half circles, creeping closer to my center. I spread my legs wider, nudging the cold bag of ice farther away.
He captured my mouth again, leaning me back with one of his arms anchoring me to him to keep me from tipping all the way. Just as I was going molten against him, he found my clit and stroked over it.
My knees drew up of their own accord. It’d been so long since I’d been pleasured, including by my own hand, but nothing had been like this. He was barely touching me and I was ready to come.
“You’re so fucking wet,” he said against my lips.
“Are you proud of yourself?” He’d done that just with his ministrations to my knee.
“Not yet.” He circled my clit and my entire body shook. He smiled against my lips, his beard tickling the sensitive skin. “Getting there though.”
Then he adjusted his arm, his big biceps flexing, and he slicked a finger through my seam, landing at my entrance. My mouth dropped open, the pleasure intense. Then he pushed inside.
“Ungh.” My head tipped back. I was not in a position to rock my hips up, but if he hadn’t been holding me, I’d have fallen backward and smacked my head.
“Does that feel good?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
He pushed all the way in, then pumped in and out while lazily rubbing my clit with his thumb. “How about that?”
I rocked with his movements as much as I could. “You know it does.”
His mischievous chuckle was only a turn-on. Teller knew what he was doing and I was grateful. No fumbling. No hesitancy. No regrets. “Teller,” I whined. I would beg, but I didn’t have to. He’d been the one to ask instead.
“You’re close, aren’t you? So damn needy that you’re ready to come. Dripping wet in my hand.”
I nodded, unashamed. If this had been years ago, I might’ve been approaching embarrassment, but not with Teller. This was about me and for me. He hadn’t just told me; he was showing me. A flush of heat grew between my legs as energy coiled inside my belly.
“Not yet, Mads.” He withdrew his hand, leaving me bereft. Until he kicked the chair farther back and dropped to his knees. He curled his fingers around the waistband of my shorts and tugged down. It wouldn’t have mattered if I had lifted my hips, he was strong enough to get them off me.
I tipped back and caught myself as he dragged them down my legs. My bare ass was pressed against the table.
“So fucking pretty,” he said roughly, his head between my legs. “I’m going to see this in the light of day, Madison.” The way he said it was a promise. “I’m going to get you off over and over and over until you realize that I was not fucking joking. Your pleasure is mine. This pussy is mine.”
I couldn’t form coherent words.
“You’d better hold on.” He wasn’t slow or gentle. He descended on me, sucking my clit into his mouth.
“Oh my god!” My shout echoed in the empty house and I didn’t have to worry about neighbors. The thought should alarm me, but I’d never felt safer. More supported. He was concentrating on me. He was consuming me.
I was at the very edge of the table, his arms wrapped under my thighs and holding me. That talented tongue of his licked and lapped, finding the right rhythm until I was grinding against him. My abs clenched and my legs spread, I dug my hands through the silky strands of his hair like I had wanted to for so long.
I hung on to him as the pleasure inside me grew and swirled, morphing into unadulterated ecstasy. My skin was shrink-wrapping around me again, holding in growing energy. It wouldn’t be enough. The explosion was coming.
As much as I wanted to reach orgasmic heights I’d never experienced before, I didn’t want this to end. He’d come to his senses soon enough. He couldn’t really mean what he had said about my pleasure being enough. I could wait to find out and stretch this moment to eternity.
But he was too good for that. I hit my peak and toppled over, and even that was different. A gradual, more powerful fall that grew stronger and stronger. “Oh my god—Teller!”
He lapped at me as everything inside me went tight. I jerked on his hair, not meaning to but unable to let go. All the trembling from earlier roared back, racking my limbs as I shook and convulsed due to nothing but his tongue on my clit.
“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” I panted, every muscle taut. Then languid heat spread through me, all the way to my toes. I released his head and my legs hung, only held up by his wide shoulders.
He kissed the inside of my thigh. “Fuck me, Mads. That was amazing.”
He prowled up my body as he rose and claimed my mouth. If he didn’t care about being covered in me, then I didn’t either. I was still trying to catch my breath. His kisses were sensual, slow, searching, like he was asking me if I was truly okay.
I hung my arms over his shoulders. His erection prodded me through his underwear, but he didn’t try to seek relief for himself. If he kept up with that mouth of his, I’d be seeking more real soon.
“Don’t you need something?” I asked, sliding my hands down his arms, eager to take this further.
He gripped my hands, turned each one over, and kissed the palm of my right hand, then my left. “Another time. Right now, I need to tuck you into bed.”
He released me and helped me to my feet. Then he grabbed my shorts off the floor and held them open for me to step in.
He seriously wasn’t going to ask for more?
Okay... I gingerly put one foot in, then the other. He slid the shorts up my legs.
Awkwardness was setting in. I glanced behind me at the table. “I can clean up before I go to bed.”
He rose and tipped my chin up, giving me another sweet kiss. “I’ll clean up. Go. Get some rest.”
Confusion swirled around my head. Uncertainty. There was more space between us right now than there’d been all night. Had I read everything wrong? “You sure?—”
Another firm kiss. “I said over and over and over. This was once. I’m not done showing you that your pleasure should be a priority. And if you don’t get upstairs, I’m going to bend you over the table and fuck you until neither of us can stand. I’m not a man who likes to go back on his word, Madison, but I’m still just a man. Save me and get that sweet ass of yours upstairs.”
Oh. Energy sparked inside me and a comforting warmth filled my chest. “Good night, Teller.”
“Good night, Mads.”