Chapter Nineteen #2
“Of course not,” I mutter, bitterness rising like bile.
Shoving off the desk, I start to pace, heat flushing up my back in an automatic response that only Maddox manages to stir up–part fury, part something I don’t want to name–every damn time.
“Seriously? I thought we sorted all this shit out? You could at least pretend to act like a professional? For the tour, for the band?”
That breaks him. He shifts, a dark sneer, slow and cutting, forming at the corner of his mouth. “You think I’m the problem here?”
“Oh, I know you are.” Annoyance creeps into my voice, but I don’t care anymore.
I’m fed up with having the same conversation with him, trying to reason with someone who just stands there—blank and furious and so goddamn hard to read—and I’m done pretending he hasn’t turned this into a game I never agreed to play.
“Let’s look at your track record,” I snap, whirling around to face him and counting off on my fingers. “You struggle to write and refuse help. You change lyrics mid-show. You act like you can’t stand me…then almost kiss me.”
His mouth curls into a smirk, igniting something low in my stomach. “I’m not the one still thinking about it, though, am I?”
My heart pounds harder, and I’m not sure if it’s because I’m annoyed or because it’s Maddox, and the last time we started arguing, we…
He steps in and erases the space between us. His scent, sharp and clean, floods my lungs, and I can feel the heat pouring off his chest, can see the cold calculation behind his stare.
“Do you wish I’d done it, Paige?” he murmurs, almost cruel. “Do you lie in bed thinking about me? Wishing I’d taken you up against the wall? Made you scream my name—”
My hand flies up on instinct, fury driving the motion, but he catches my wrist, his grip firm, rough, unrelenting. My breath stutters out, heart thundering under my ribs as his eyes bore into mine.
“What’s wrong with you?” I whisper. “Why do you only see me when you want to hurt me? Do you really hate me that much?”
His grip softens, but he doesn’t release it.
“I don’t hate you,” he says, tone quiet and flat, but something flickers behind his brown eyes. Something he didn’t mean to show. “I nothing you, Paige.”
The breath catches in my lungs, the weight of his words packing a punch that’s quickly followed by a blaze of rage.
Nothing?
Bullshit.
People who nothing you don’t look at you like one wrong move might end in wreckage, like kissing you could start wars. Like they’ve already imagined exactly how you’d sound with them between your legs, giving into the greatest temptation they’ve ever faced.
Maddox Knox can try to turn every word into a weapon, armor himself in sharp-edged lies, but he doesn’t get to act like this means nothing. Not when every look is like a loaded gun desperate to go off.
“Liar,” I say, my voice shaking despite me. “Keep telling yourself you feel nothing. But this”—I gesture between us—“isn’t nothing.”
He turns away, heading for the door, and I see the tight coil of his muscles bunch under his shirt as he pauses. Every part of him vibrates with something barely restrained before he twists the lock, the resounding click, making my heart lurch.
But then, he spins around, slowly, like whatever was holding him back has finally snapped. And his eyes? They are anything but empty.
“Do you think I want this?” He sounds like his words are clawing their way out from a place he keeps locked shut. His voice, the way he’s looking at me, makes my core clench.
He steps in close until we’re a whisper apart, the air thinning in the small gap between us. I can feel every beat of my heart against my ribs, loud and demanding, as I stare up into his brown eyes, blazing with an intense hunger I’ve never seen in a man before.
“You think I enjoy this fucked-up, can’t-breathe, can’t-think, can’t-look-at-you-without-wanting-to-burn feeling you bring into every fucking room? I’m doing us both a favor before—”
“Don’t give me that,” I snap, wanting to scream, shake him, force him to stop pretending he’s doing this for me. “I was in the room too, remember? I wanted it just as much as you did, I–”
“And if we had, we wouldn’t have stopped,” he growls, stepping closer, daring me to call him on it, to test him, no remorse in his eyes, just truth, brutal and bone deep. “You think this is about one kiss? Paige, if I touch you the way I want to…I won’t be able to stop.”
“So what?” I shoot back, voice breaking with frustration. “It’s easier to treat me like a mistake than admit you feel something real?”
He flinches, shaking his head once, sharp, furious. “It’s easier than watching everything I built go up in flames because I couldn’t keep my fucking hands off you.”
“You don’t get to make that decision for both of us,” I yell, pressing into his space now until we’re chest to chest. “You’re not protecting the band, Maddox. You’re only protecting yourself. From me. From this.”
His nostrils flare, but he doesn’t deny it. Doesn’t say a thing.
I breathe out, words trembling now. “I know I didn’t read something that wasn’t there.”
Exhaling hard, he swallows. “I wanted you. I still do. But this could destroy everything. And you know it.”
My lungs pull tighter with every single word he says, somehow our argument turns from animosity to something charged, something heated, standing on the precipice of giving in.
And fuck do I want him to give in.
“And yet you’re still here,” I whisper, eyes searching his. “So what does that tell you?”
He moves silently, his thumb brushing down my cheek, then my jaw, soft enough to steal my breath and shatter me.
“You’d let me ruin you, wouldn’t you?” he murmurs, his thumb trailing lower, past my throat, grazing skin that lights up under his touch. “You’d let me crawl inside and wreck every part of you.”
Yes.
God, yes.
My breath catches. Not from what he says, but from how much I ache for it. How much I want to be wrecked by him, undone in a way I won’t recover from.
It’s not logical, it’s not smart, but it’s blisteringly true.
My fingers curl against the edge of the desk behind me, the only thing keeping me upright when everything else threatens to spiral.
His other hand slides to my waist, fingers grazing the strip of bare skin where my shirt’s risen.
I ignite, every nerve at full alert, screaming for more.
Goosebumps scatter across my arms, and I shiver as he keeps moving.
“This is stupid,” he mutters, almost to himself, his fingers stilling on my waist. “So fucking stupid.”
His grip tightens, his forehead brushing mine. I stop breathing, afraid even air will shatter the moment and make him realize what he’s doing.
“You don’t mess around with bandmates,” he says low, like he’s repeating a rule he’s already broken inside his head. “It ruins everything.”
“It won’t,” I whisper as my spine brushes the edge of the desk behind me. “Just once. Get it out of our systems.”
He lets out a breath, a laugh that’s empty, hollow. “Nothing about you feels like something I could ever get out of my system.”
His fingers tease the waistband of my jeans, back and forth, like he’s testing how hard he can push. I squeeze my thighs together, dizzy with want, heat pooling so fast I can barely breathe.
“The guys—”
“Are gone.”
He flicks the button open with maddening precision, like he’s done this a thousand times before, like he knows exactly how close he can get without falling over the edge.
I glance toward the window, wanting to check, but his hand snaps to my jaw, tilting my face back to his with firm, possessive fingers.
“Keep your eyes where they belong,” he says, voice like sin, the glow from the monitors painting his silhouette in pale blue, everything else hidden in a low, dense shadow. “You lose focus. I’ll stop.”
“Maddox,” I whisper as he slides my zipper down. “What—”
The word dies in my throat as his head dips, lips brushing just above mine.
“Relax,” he says, “I’m not going to fuck you.”
I sway forward anyway. Because I want him to, because I need something to fill the ache he’s carved into me. He doesn’t kiss me, just hovers there, and somehow not touching makes that ache worse.
“…yet.”
And then his hand moves lower, hot and slow and devastating.
And I don’t know how much it’ll cost me to survive it.
But I think I’m already paying.