Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
Maggie led him into her bedroom, feeling completely confident that she was doing the right thing, regardless of their professional situation, which she had to believe would work out even if they didn’t. As she watched him untie the belt of her robe, work was the last thing on her mind.
“Are you sure about this, Maggie?”
She smiled up at him. “Yes, Brayden. I’m sure. Are you?”
“Oh hell yeah. I was sure about ten minutes after I met you, and when I caught you sleeping on the job…”
“I wasn’t sleeping!”
His low chuckle rumbled through him. “If you say so.”
“I say so.”
He cradled her face in his hands and stared down at her. “You are so, so pretty. I couldn’t stop thinking about you while I was away. I wished I’d had a photo of you because I missed you so much.”
“I missed you, too, and it felt silly to miss someone I’d only just met.”
“It’s not silly.”
There was nothing silly about the way she felt as she unsnapped his shirt and pushed it off his shoulders. “The day you built the platform in the yard…” She ran her hands over his muscled shoulders, arms and chest.
“What about it?”
“All the women on the staff were watching you through the kitchen window.”
“No way.”
“Way.” Maggie stepped forward to kiss well-defined pectoral muscles, his dark chest hair tickling her nose. “You put on quite a show that day.”
“Sorry,” he said, sounding embarrassed.
“Don’t be. I haven’t been able to get the picture of you, shirtless and sweaty, out of my mind ever since.”
“Is that so?”
“Mmm.” She continued to pepper his chest with kisses and little nibbles that had him gasping.
“How lucky am I to get to be able to do this?” She licked his nipple, and he startled, burying his hands in her hair to anchor her to him.
Maggie fiddled with his belt, trying to figure out how to release it.
Thankfully, he helped her, and when the two halves fell apart, she batted his hands away so she could release the button and zipper herself.
He groaned when her hand brushed against the head of his cock, which had breached the waistband of his boxer briefs. “Maggie…”
“Yes, Brayden?”
His grunt of laughter made her smile.
He pushed the robe off and found the hem of her T-shirt, whipping it up and over her head so quickly, she had no time to prepare herself to be completely bare except for bikini panties.
Brayden looked at her with sexy brown eyes that heated as he took her in. “So fucking beautiful.” With his arms around her, he backed up to the bed and brought her down on top of him and then quickly turned them so he was on top, looking down at her. His gaze shifted to Froggie.
“Who do we have here?”
Maggie glanced at her beloved stuffed animal. “My oldest and dearest friend. Froggie, meet Brayden.”
Brayden charmed her forever when he reached out to shake Froggie’s shabby hand or fin or whatever it was. “Pleased to meet you, Froggie.”
Maggie reached out to turn Froggie so he couldn’t see what was about to transpire. “Now, where were we?”
Smiling down at her, Brayden pushed his hard cock into the sensitive notch between her legs. “Right about here.”
“I remember now.”
“Tell me if anything is too much?”
She appreciated his respect for what she’d been through, but that was the last thing on her mind with sexy Brayden Thomas in her bed. “I’m okay, but thanks for checking.”
“Always.” He touched his lips to hers in a teasing caress that had her arching into him, looking for more. “Easy, sweetheart. We’ve got all night, and I’m in no rush. We’ll never again get to do this for the first time, and I plan to fully enjoy it.”
Maggie exhaled and tried to relax as he kissed her neck and chest while cupping her breasts and running his thumbs back and forth over tingling nipples.
“I’ve been thinking about these beauties constantly since the other day.” He dipped his head and took her left nipple into his mouth. “I wanted another taste so bad when we were in your office. So, so bad.”
She felt like she was floating outside herself, watching someone else be kissed and caressed and utterly transported by desire for the first time in her life.
Nothing had ever been like this, like him.
He covered her abdomen with kisses as he moved down until his face was pressed to her core, the heat of his mouth scorching her sensitive flesh.
He reached under her with both hands and lifted her closer as her legs fell open in welcome.
Dear God…
Then he was tugging at her panties, trying to get them off, and Maggie could barely move to help him.
Turns out he didn’t need the help, and when he returned to his place between her legs, he set out to absolutely destroy her with his lips, tongue and fingers.
She came twice in rapid succession, which had never happened.
Before she could begin to come down from the incredible high, he was pushing into her, stretching and filling her.
“Brayden…
He nuzzled her neck and kissed her lips. “What, honey?”
“Condom.”
“All set.”
Somehow she’d missed that in the orgasmic frenzy he’d worked her into, and now she needed all her wits about her to deal with the hot, full press of him inside her.
The man was big all over. She raised her knees snug against his hips and flattened her hands on his back, her fingers digging into the dense muscles that flexed as he moved in her.
Maggie couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t take him deep enough…
Propping himself on his elbows, he pressed inside her and held still as he gazed down at her. “Hey,” he whispered, his lips glancing over hers in a light caress.
Maggie opened her eyes and looked up to find him staring down at her intently.
“Hi.”
She smiled. “Hi yourself.”
“You okay?”
“Uh, yeah. You?”
“Never been better.” He flexed his hips, perhaps to remind her of what they’d been doing before he called a time-out—as if she needed the reminder.
Maggie reached down to cup his ass, to keep him buried deep inside her as she rubbed shamelessly against him.
He groaned and began to move, picking up the pace until they were both straining against each other in a race to the peak. Brayden went still above her, his fingers digging into her shoulders until he collapsed on top of her, breathing hard as tremors of sensation rocked them both.
He was quiet for a long time, so long that Maggie wondered if he’d dozed off. It didn’t matter if he had. She loved the weight of him on her as well as the scent of warm male skin, soap and spicy deodorant.
She found out he wasn’t asleep when his tongue nudged her nipple, which caused her to jolt as if he’d struck a match against her sensitive flesh.
Laughter rumbled through him and into her. “Is someone a little sensitive?”
“More than a little.”
He looked up at her, brows furrowed in concern. “You’re good, though?”
“Better than good. Way better than good.”
“That’s what I want to hear.” Propping his chin on her chest, he studied her face. “Am I crushing you?”
“No.” She tightened her arms around him to keep him right where he was for a little while longer. As he’d said, they’d never again do this for the first time, and she wasn’t ready to let him go yet.
He settled his head on her shoulder.
Maggie floated and dozed and luxuriated in a complete sense of relaxation that had been so rare lately.
Eventually, Brayden withdrew from her, got up to use the bathroom and then came back to stretch out next to her in bed.
Maggie looked over at him, propped up on an upturned hand, looking ridiculously sexy and confident while completely naked. Although, anyone who looked like him had every reason for ridiculous confidence. The thought made her giggle.
“What?” he asked, sounding indignant.
“I was just thinking you’re rather confident in your birthday suit, but with good reason.” She dragged a finger over the hills and valleys of his well-defined abdomen, her lips quivering with amusement as she watched his cock come back to life.
“My mom tells stories about how I ran around buck naked until I was five, and she made me put pants on before I went out to see the horses.”
Maggie’s heart ached when she realized he’d spoken of his mother in the present tense. “So you’ve always been a shameless exhibitionist, then.”
“Pretty much. My grandpa used to say I was feral.”
Maggie laughed. “Let me guess—you took that as a compliment, right?”
“Is there any other way to take it?”
“For you, probably not.”
“I’ve always been happiest outside with the horses.”
“It must’ve been torture for you to be locked up.”
“It was. I almost lost my mind the first year. My mom came every week and pleaded with me not to give up, that she was working on her end to get me out of there.”
“I was wondering…” Maggie thought better of what she was going to say. She’d already asked him to open an old wound. She didn’t want to make the recent loss of his mother even worse than it already was.
“What are you wondering? You can ask me anything you want.”
She turned on her side so she could see him better. “About your mom and how things were between you after what happened.”
“It took a while for us to get back on track. I was very angry with her for a long time, because she knew he was no good and didn’t do something about it sooner.”
“What did she say to that?”
“That I was a hundred percent right, and that she should’ve picked me over him, even when he was charming and romancing her.
She said my immediate and visceral dislike of him—and his dislike of me—should’ve been a warning, because I liked everyone and everyone liked me.
It helped that she completely owned her role in what happened.
No one was more heartbroken to see me locked up than she was, especially knowing she’d brought him into our lives and kept him there when she shouldn’t have.
She always owned that, and that’s how we were able to put things back together between us.
It also helped that she never stopped fighting for me the whole time I was in there. ”
Maggie ran her hand up and down his arm. “You worked hard to put things back together with her, which must’ve made losing her that much more excruciating.”
“It did,” he said on a long sigh. “The shit that happened years ago didn’t break me, but losing her was almost too much.” He brushed the hair back from her face and ran his fingertips lightly over her cheek. “I should get out of here before we get caught.”
With the night staff working upstairs where the residents were, the risk of having him in her apartment was minimal.
“Not yet. Mitch doesn’t get here until six.
But I do need to reset the alarm.” She got up, found her robe on the floor, put it on, used the bathroom and went out to tend to the alarm before getting back in bed with him.
“Um, you forgot something.”
“What did I forget?”
“To take the robe off.” He tugged at it impatiently, like a child trying to get at a coveted Christmas gift.
Maggie laughed at his impatience and helped to remove the robe.
He brought her into his warm embrace, with one big hand completely cupping her ass to arrange her where he wanted her. “There. Much better.”
“Been a long time since I had a sleepover.”
“How is that possible? You must’ve had all the boyfriends.”
“Not all. A couple. One in high school, two in college. Nothing much since then.”
“It’s my good luck that all those other guys missed out. What happened with them?”
“The high school one ended when I went to college in New York and he went to California. We made it to Christmas of freshman year before we both admitted we had no interest in a long-distance relationship.”
“Were you heartbroken?”
“For a few days.”
Brayden laughed. “Heartless.”
“I know it sounds that way, but I met someone else a couple of months later, and that lasted awhile. Until he cheated on me with one of my friends.”
“Ugh. That’s awful.”
“It was pretty bad. I didn’t date anyone for a long time after that. Senior year, I dated someone I really liked, but we were both so busy with school and work, it just kind of burned out after a while.”
“He was a fool to let you go.”
“I know! That’s what I said, too.” Maggie loved the rich, deep sound of his laugh. “What about you and all the girlfriends?”
“There’s only been one that really mattered, a hundred years ago before the trouble. That was another thing that got lost in the madness.”
“Did you ever try to find her after you got out?”
“I looked her up on Facebook and saw that she was seeing someone. She looked happy, so I left it alone.”
“I’m really sorry.”
“It’s okay. Wasn’t meant to be. Since I got out, I’ve been focused on school, my career and rebuilding my life. I’ve dated here and there, but it never amounted to anything lasting.”
“How are you still so amazing after everything you’ve been through? You should be bitter and resentful, and you’re just… You’re not like that at all.”
“That’s due to a lot of therapy that my mom made sure I got while I was inside and after. She was relentless in her effort to repair the damage in any way she could.”
“Thank God for that.”
His hand moved lazily over her back. “She also became a tireless advocate for other kids who got in trouble. In fact, while I was in Key West, I got an email from one of the groups she worked with. They’re planning to honor her as their volunteer of the year at their annual fundraiser, and they want me to come. ”
“Are you going to?”
“I haven’t responded yet. It’s not until next week.”
“You should go.”
“Would you go with me?”
“If you wanted me to.”
“I do. I want you to.”
“Okay.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “I’ll trade you—one fundraiser for another. Jill and I are representing Kate at Buddy’s annual Little Buddy fundraiser the week after next.”
“That’s sort of an unfair trade. I’ll get to hobnob with celebrities at your thing.”
“I get the better end of the deal. I’ll get to hobnob with you at yours.”