Chapter Seventeen GRAHAM
Chapter Seventeen
GRAHAM
None of this was graceful. I plastered Madison against my truck, caging her between my palms. The cool metal of my truck did nothing to quench the fire of need blazing through my body.
Her mouth was warm and soft, her lips—sensual, plump, and cushiony—made for mine.
All the while, her kiss was hot, slick, and overwhelming.
Our tongues dueled. There was no finesse, it was all a fiery mess. Madison made these little sounds in her throat that drove me fucking crazy. We broke apart, each of us gulping in air. It was chilly out tonight, enough that our breath misted in the air around us.
The only thing that snapped through the madness was the sound of Wilbur’s sharp bark muffled by the door. She stared at me, her eyes hazed with passion. “I need to let Wilbur out.”
Fuck me. Even that comment sounded sexy in her throaty voice.
“Should I go?” I heard myself asking.
I didn’t want to go. I wanted to spend the night with her and steal every minute I could have with her for myself. I usually had to think about my daughter, but she wasn’t here. This felt like a stolen moment, something I could have.
I knew it wouldn’t be more. Maybe it was stupid, but we’d already done stupid. We’d already snapped the ties of sanity by kissing more than once. I waited as the moment spun out between us, my heartbeat thundering.
Madison blinked when Wilbur barked again. “Do you want to go?”
I loved that she challenged me with that question. She was not a woman who would be vague about anything. Everything about her got to me, even when she was annoying.
“No, I don’t,” I finally said. “I want to stay. I want to make you forget everything except my name.”
Her eyes widened slightly, and her nostrils flared as she took a deep breath.
“Okay. Well, come on in then,” she whispered.
I stepped back from the truck and curled my hand around hers as we walked up to the house. She opened the door. Wilbur was beside himself, dancing around our feet as we both greeted him.
“Give him a second. He needs to do his business,” she said.
I walked with her and Wilbur as we made our way down the driveway in the darkness. He stayed close and stopped to pee on a few trees. I chuckled when he paused to do his “other business” as Madison said.
“He looks like a canine comma,” I observed.
She threw her head back with a throaty laugh that tightened the coil of need inside me. “He does. He’s so short his body just curls a little.”
Wilbur glanced our way. “It’s okay, Wilbur,” she offered. “Humans aren’t dignified either when we go to the bathroom.”
Madison was a puzzle to me. I had tagged her as a prissy woman, more worried about her appearance than much else. I still wasn’t sure how to categorize her, but I knew there was much more to her than the surface. I also knew I’d underestimated her and wasn’t sure I liked what that said about me.
A few minutes later, we were in the house. Following her lead, I hung my jacket by the door and left my shoes next to hers. Wilbur had promptly curled up on his bed in the living room.
Madison lifted her eyes to mine. She took a breath, almost as if she were steeling herself. The sound of her swallow was loud in the kitchen. “You, um—” she began.
I reached for her hand, giving it a light tug, gratified when she closed the distance between us immediately. Then she was right there. Her presence was a force field vibrating near me. Need had its claws in me, and they were buried deep. I wasn’t going to shake it loose until I had her.
“Let’s make some ground rules,” I murmured.
“Ground rules?” Her voice lilted.
“Yes. We’re neighbors. As far as I can tell, you’re going to be here for a while. I really want you. I figure there’s no sense in denying that. But, as you know, I’m a single father. Dating, at all, is complicated. Let’s stay friends, but that’s it.”
Madison blinked up at me and nodded. “I think that’s smart. Do friends do what we’re about to do?”
“These friends do,” I murmured as I stepped closer.
Her body came flush against mine, and I could feel the tight points of her nipples pressing through my T-shirt.
“So, tell me, is Wilbur going to interrupt us?”
Her breath came out in a short, sharp pant, and her lips curled in a rueful smile. “Probably, but we can let him sleep out here.”
“Lead the way then.”
She turned away, her hand curling around mine more tightly.
She led me down the short hallway to a part of the house I’d never seen.
As we stepped through the doorway, my eyes took in the bedroom—a tall ceiling with beams above and a large bed against the wall with a dresser opposite.
There was a door off to the side, which I presumed was a bathroom.
Madison turned, and she suddenly looked bashful.
The uncertainty flickering in her eyes was like a silken thread tossed and spun around my heart, cinching tightly.
This girl—the one who had so boldly kissed me when she thought she would never see me again.
This girl whose eyes were heated with passion looked unsure.
It affected me in a way I was unprepared for. I wanted to wipe that uncertainty away.
I didn’t allow myself to contemplate my reaction. I didn’t want to. That would complicate things. I stepped closer, palming her cheek as I dipped my head to kiss her again. I knew I would lose all ability to think the moment her tongue glided against mine and was proven right instantly.
Kissing Madison was like standing in the midst of an electrical storm, the air itself sizzling from the power of the combined forces.
She felt so fucking good. The soft give of her lips was pure pleasure, and the sensual tangle of her tongue sent fiery jolts spinning through me.
And again, those little sounds she made—the hitch in her throat, the whimper as my palm slid around to cup her nape and then down her back in a smooth pass, smoothing over the lush curve of her bottom and pulling her against me.
My arousal was intense. I might as well have had a fucking bat in my pants.
She gasped, and her hips arched into the cradle of mine.
This was going to be fast and messy. But then, it seemed everything was with her.
Definitely messy and too fiery hot to slow down.
Contact with her was like a match at the end of the fuse with the flame racing toward its source.
Madison broke away abruptly, gulping in air. Seeing as I needed some myself, I took a ragged breath as we stared at each other.
“This is crazy,” she murmured.
“It is,” I agreed. “Crazy or not, we might as well burn this fire to ashes, then maybe we can be sane.”
Her eyes went wide as she let out a soft laugh. “I suppose so.” That uncertainty that I’d seen before flickered in her eyes. “I don’t really do this.”
“Do what?”
She gestured back and forth between us. “This. I’ve never had a fling. I had one boyfriend, and we got engaged.”
For some reason, this shocked me. My shock must’ve been written on my face because her lips curled in a self-deprecating smile. She shrugged lightly. “It’s true. I’m not really a casual kind of girl.”
Once again, everything I thought about Madison was shaken and realigned. I’d imagined her like Allie’s mom—shallow and flighty and stringing along guys in high school and college.
“Well, I’m your guy then because I’m not in the habit of flings.”
She rolled her eyes. “I was saying that to warn you.”
I stepped closer. “To warn me?”
She nodded and swallowed. “I don’t know if I’m that good in bed.”
“Huh?” I was flabbergasted.
Although the lighting was dim in her bedroom, I knew her cheeks flushed a deeper shade of pink. She shrugged. “I’m just saying I don’t know if I’m good in bed.”
“Sweetheart, I’ve kissed you. I’m not worried,” I said flatly.
Suddenly, I had something to prove—not about myself but about her. I caught the hem of my T-shirt in my hand, dragging it up and over my head before tossing it to the floor. Her eyes widened, and she stepped back a little, her thighs bumping into the end of the bed.
“Oh!”
“Oh, what?”
Madison gestured toward my chest, her hand swiping up and down in the air. “Just you. You’re in really good shape,” she murmured.
“Well, yeah, I have to be. My job isn’t exactly easy. Now, let’s get to work.”
“Work?”
“Oh, you’re not getting to work, I am. It’s the best kind of work,” I clarified.
Madison simply stared at me. I closed the distance between us once again, this time catching the hem of her T-shirt in my hand and dragging it up over her head. I was gratified by her startled gasp and the way her mouth fell open in a pretty little O.
Of course, I should’ve known my knees might almost give out. Madison in a bra. Fuck me. She was to die for. I could see the taut peaks of her nipples, a hint of pink peeking through the black lace.
I didn’t even wait a second before dipping my head and catching one nipple with my mouth.
I sucked through the lace and savored her sharp cry as her fingers speared in my hair.
I lifted my head and devoured her mouth.
Because I needed her. Everything about her was like another sharp spur in the flanks of my desire.
I was spun tight by the driving force. I didn’t even want to hold back.
Our kiss got messy fast, and she stumbled a little, but that worked for me. I lifted her, sliding her hips onto the bed before pausing and straightening. “Wait a sec. You need more clothes off,” I said matter-of-factly.
Madison’s eyes were dazed as she blinked up at me. “Okay,” she rasped.
She quickly got with the program. She slipped off the bed, unbuttoned her jeans, and shimmied out of them in a hot second. To torture me, she had silk panties to match her bra and her almost-black gorgeous hair. She hooked her thumbs over the edge of them, but I shook my head.
“Not now, sweetheart.” She reached for the buttons on my jeans, and I shook my head again.
She lifted her chin, her eyes narrowing. “No fair, I want to see more.”