Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Hendrix
I glanced at Maisie in the rearview mirror. She looked to be deep in thought after my confession.
Good.
Maybe she was finally seeing what I was so desperately trying to show her.
I was madly in love with her.
"Home sweet home."
Maisie shook her head and sighed loudly. "This isn't my home, Hendrix. It's yours."
When would she realize what was mine was hers?
With any luck, it would be sooner rather than later.
"How about we go inside and finish this discussion?"
"Your neighbors have to know something is up. Yesterday you brought me back kicking and screaming. If you do it a second night in a row, they're going to call the cops."
She thought she had me there, but she was sadly mistaken. "And we both know you don't want any more attention from the cops, so I guess walking in of your own accord would be the smart thing to do."
She threw herself back into the seat with a growl. I chuckled at the kid-like tantrum.
"Shall we proceed?" I waved in the direction of the front door.
"Child locks, remember?" Maisie sassed back.
Little did she know, I got off on her attitude.
As dramatic as possible, I lowered my finger to the button on the door handle that turned the child lock feature off.
Click.
"You're free to move about the cabin," I teased.
She rolled her beautiful green eyes at me and reached for the door handle without further incident. I followed behind as she stomped her way up the concrete path. The view was incredible. Maisie could stomp around in front of me any time she wanted. As long as she swayed her ass in that sexy fashion.
My eyes were glued to her backside when she swung around, waiting for me to let her inside.
"Seriously?" Her hands landed on her hips when she saw my face.
I shrugged and gave her my most charming smile. "What can I say? You have an amazing ass. It would be a shame not to admire it. Hell, I would go as far as saying I should worship it."
She was not finding my antics funny at the moment. "Can you please just open the door?"
I leaned around her and brushed my lips across her scowl in the process. The sexy little growl she gave me made me hard enough to pound nails.
I was starting to learn that everything she did made my cock stand at attention. My dick loved her as much as I did. "Are you trying to distract me, sweetheart? Because if so, it's working." I waggled my eyebrows and pushed the door open.
"Stop calling me sweetheart." Her heavy boots pounded against the tile floor when she moved straight to the kitchen and flopped down onto one of the tall stools.
"You don't seem to mind me calling you it right after I've had my tongue deep in your pussy."
"Gah!" Maisie screeched. "Must you be so crass all the time? What we do or say while we’re fucking is not meant for general conversation."
"And why's that?" I sat on the stool next to her and turned her so that her legs were pinned between mine.
"Because this"—she waved between us—"is just sex. Nothing more."
"That's where you're wrong. We're a hell of a lot more than just sex. We have been since the first time I slipped inside you."
She was shaking her head back and forth violently. "We can't be."
"And why's that?"
There was something holding her back and I couldn't break through it if she didn't talk to me.
"Why do you insist on pushing? Can't you just be happy with the sex?"
I reached for her hands and untangled them so I could intertwine her fingers with mine. "Don't get me wrong, the sex is incredible, but I want more than just a physical relationship with you."
"Why?" There was so much desperation in that one word that I almost felt bad for pushing her.
"Because you deserve the world and I want to be the one to give it to you."
Maisie yanked her hand from mine, pushed off the stool, and started to pace the kitchen floor with fear etched in her face. "Why must you say things like that? When I met you, I thought you were the goofball. The one who didn't know what it meant to be serious. You would come into the bakery and make me laugh or shake my head. Then Halloween happened and everything changed. Can't we just go back to the way things were when you first came to town?"
I matched her step for step. "I'm still that same guy. The only thing I've ever been serious about is my feelings for you. Now tell me what you're scared of."
I came up behind her and wrapped her in my arms. I knew I was breaking through her barriers when she didn't pull away. Instead she leaned back into me and whispered, "I'm scared of ending up like my mother."
Finally, we were getting somewhere. I turned her around in my arms and ran my hands up her body until I was cradling her face. "What happened to your mother?"
From the little she had told me, her parents were happily married living in their own little world.
"Before she met my father, she had hopes of becoming a lawyer. She was in her final year of undergraduate and had been accepted into the top law schools in the country and then poof! A month before graduation she dropped out to follow my father. She swore up and down she never regretted her decision, but from the few stories she would tell Matty and me about her life before my father, she was a completely different person.” Maisie’s eyes were tearing up and she wrung her hands together.
“Meeting my father and falling in love with him changed who she was. And then there were the women who followed Atlas. They were nothing more than incubators for the men. They had no say in their lives. I swore after seeing all that, that I would never let myself get tied up because of a man."
I pulled her in close and just held her to me. With her ear pressed firmly against my chest, I let her listen to how my heart beat. What she didn't know, but I was about to make very clear, was it beat solely for her.
"I never want you to change. I love you just the way you are. Tattoos, piercings, and your crazy style. There isn't a single thing about you I would want to change. I miss who we were at the beginning too. I want that plus the sex and everything else in between. I would hate for you to be anyone else. Your attitude alone is one of the first things that caught my eye. I can understand your fears, but, sweetheart, you need to realize I'm nothing like your father or the men who followed Atlas. I would rather tear off my arm than see you change a single thing about yourself."
We were so close that her deep exhale could be felt throughout my entire body. It gave me hope that I was finally making a breakthrough.
"Do you promise?"
I pushed her back at arm’s length and leaned down until her eyes were the only thing in my vision. "I swear to you. Everything about you is perfect, and if I start to notice you becoming someone other than yourself, I'll be the first one to tell you about it."
I knew, when her eyes went soft, that things were going to be okay.
"Thank you."
"Anything for you." I brushed my lips across her forehead. "Now let me feed you so that we can get to bed. You insist on waking up before the ass crack of dawn and I need my beauty rest."
She rolled her eyes. "You just want to get me naked."
"I'll never turn down getting you naked, but tonight is just about sleep. I want to fall asleep with you in my arms knowing this is the start of the rest of our lives."