CHAPTER FOURTEEN #2
It never made sense. I’d shown up within minutes of her call.
I took care of her. I handled everything.
She was so strong that night but also so fragile.
And for the few minutes that she looked at me like I was her hero, something tightened in my chest. All I wanted was to hold her, which felt so out of place for me and so right at the same time.
But then she shut down, turning as cold as the Arctic, and I was too busy cleaning up the mess to dissect what had changed.
I get it now though. Nothing I did mattered because by protecting her, I ripped her away from him.
What if this is like a Mercy and Ryker thing? No one ever stood a chance with either of them. Decades of friendship meant to be more.
That would be my luck. I’ve never been interested in anything outside a one-night stand with a woman. And now I’m desperate to grasp something that’s destined to crash and burn, and I haven’t even fucking touched her. It’s like watching my house go up in flames all over again.
Melted vinyl and a singing knife.
Jesus, I’m spiraling.
No. Fuck that. I didn’t imagine this.
I step into her, and she steps back. We continue that dance until she’s flattened against the side of the garage, my arms bracketing her head.
“He broke up with you because I’d made you come back to work.”
Her brows knit together. “Yeah, but … Maddox, this isn’t the time or pla—”
“Did you love him?” The question singes my throat with a fear that tastes like acid. “Do you love him now?”
Those turquoise beauties ping-pong between mine as she worries her lip. “Why does it matter?”
How can she not see how fucked up I am over her?
“You already know why, Tess. Answer the goddamn question.”
She hesitates, glancing back toward the racket of the party to see if anyone has wandered over this way, and while I’m not sure what the answer about Hunter will be, it’s damn clear that she doesn’t want me anywhere near her family.
A harpoon of pain slices into my sternum.
Fuck knows why that spears me. I’ve never cared about belonging anywhere other than La Lune Noire.
I’ve certainly never needed anyone’s approval.
I should get the hell out of here before she decimates me.
There are so many reasons this doesn’t make sense.
She’s an employee. She’s hated me for years.
We’re knee deep in a scandal that might get us both killed.
I should keep my distance. Protect her from afar.
But I can’t convince myself to walk away.
She’ll have to say it.
I weave my fingers into her hair, my thumb sweeping over the apple of her cheek, drawing her attention back to me. “You’ll never be able to admit you want this … me, right?” Tilting my face so my lips are hovering less than an inch from hers, I rasp my demand. “Tell me to go.”
Maybe it’s less of a demand and more of a plea. One that might kill me if she fulfills it. Or obliterate me if she doesn’t.
Her lips part as she gathers her words. “That’s not why I …”
Whatever she was trying to say dies on her tongue. Her gaze drops to my mouth, her chest heaves against mine, and she works through an arduous swallow.
Time stills.
Our hearts drum in tandem. Our breaths mingle to one, so I can already taste the toxic sweetness that will surge through me like a drug. One sampling, and she’ll wreck me. I’m already a hopeless addict.
The humidity grows downright oppressive, the clammy air crackling with intensity and static.
With things we’ve ignored for far too long.
It thickens with every beat. Until all I can inhale is pina colada, Caribbean blues, and forbidden longings.
Maybe I should give her a second to figure things out, but I’m an impatient man.
Closing that fraction of an inch, I bite her pouty lip. “Tell me to fucking go, Tess.” I follow that with a soothing lick. Warning and enticement. “Last chance. Tell me you want him.”
She finally looks me in the eye again, that spellbinding mix of her fierceness and her vulnerability peering up at me as she shakes her head. Breath hitched, cheeks flushed, lashes fluttering. “I never loved him.”
Fuck it.
My mouth captures hers, and she opens for me, but it’s anything but a submissive tethering. She’s pissed that she can’t fight this, which only makes me crave her more. She’s arrogance and lust, vexation and cravings. Terror and beauty.
My irresistible Nightmare.
Our tongues entwine. Part battle. Part tango.
Rough and punishing and relentless.
The hard edges of my body mold to her soft curves as I hike her up to my hips and growl into her mouth, “You’re so goddamn infuriating.”
She scoffs against my lips, widening her thighs to accommodate me between them. “You’ve got some fucking nerve.”
I curl my hand around her throat, pinning her in place.
She fists my hair, yanking out my bun until my scalp stings, and my strands fall into a mussed curtain around us.
Her untamed spirit meets my unhinged hunger, stroke for ravenous stroke. It’s reckoning and retribution. An exhilarating penance.
Christ, she makes kissing feel like fucking. She’s everywhere.
Unable to control myself, I grind my hard dick against her pussy so she has no doubt what she’s doing to me. “I knew you’d fucking taste like this.”
“Like what?” she pants between breathless kisses, the flavor of chocolate and strawberries bursting inside my mouth.
She’s an aphrodisiac in the flesh.
Her hips rock in an unapologetic pursuit of friction that has both of us gasping and moaning.
“Like sex and sin and an all-consuming melody. Everything I crave.” I grab her wrists from behind my neck, clasp them in my hand, and hold them above her head, nipping at her lip so she can’t block out my words. “Like mine.”
She whimpers in return, such a sweet sound escaping from my brutal girl.
“Maddox,” she whispers, crashing her mouth to mine again.
Her gravelly, lust-drunk voice chanting my name has an electric current zipping through my balls and up my spine. I want to sink inside her and hear her say it, scream it, pant it, and purr it in every fucking position imaginable.
But not against the side of her parents’ garage at her sister’s engagement brunch.
Slowing us down, I pepper kisses along her neck and jaw and dainty earlobe, transfixed by the way she gravitates toward every brush of my lips, searching for more.
She’s so responsive. Her skin is flushed and pebbled with goose bumps, and I already know if I slipped my fingers beneath her dress, I’d find her wet and ready for me.
It takes every morsel of willpower inside me, but I finally release her hands, cradle her face, and rest my forehead against hers. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that, but … one damn taste, baby girl.”
Never enough.
Those stunning eyes of hers that are often so jaded have an innocence to them as she melts into my touch, and, fuck, it unravels things inside me.
Until the screeching bark of her name severs everything between us.
“Tessa!”
“Shit,” she wheezes, dropping her legs and waving her hand in front of me. “Fix yourself.”
“Take a breath, Tess. We’re not kids who got caught making out in the back seat of a car. We’re grown-ass adults who were—”
“Maddox, save it.” She throws her hand up. “This was a mistake. You can’t be here.”
This girl knows how to wound me like no one else.
“You’re serious right now?”
“Tessa!” the voice screams again, more irate this time.
“Yes.” Tessa huffs, smoothing her dress out and scouring the grass for something. “You have to go.”
“You had your chance to tell me to leave.” I take my rubber band from her hand after she plucks it off the ground, where it must have fallen, and tie my hair back.
“You chose to grind your sopping cunt against me instead. You’re mine now.
And don’t for a goddamn second try to fool yourself or me into believing you didn’t feel every bit of electricity that I felt.
Just like in my office, we’re in this together. ”
She stands before me, more frantic than I’ve ever seen her, hurling her arm toward the incoming fury. “That is my sister Eden screaming, which means my mother is close behind. My relationship with them is rocky at best. A feather could have it buried under an avalanche. Please don’t—”
“Okay, c’mon.” I grip her hand and escort her toward the front of the house because I would do just about anything to keep that panic out of her eyes.
“I don’t understand the full scope of what you’re upset about, but I won’t pretend in front of anyone, for any reason, that you aren’t the most fascinating, addictive, and infuriating woman I’ve ever known. ”
She stops cold and stares at me, mouth agape and hand still in mine. “I’m telling you, this is a disaster. Are you doing this because you have some need to dictate how I handle things or to assert control over me?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I glance around, noticing there are a few people gathered on the porch and our privacy is nearly diminished, so I quickly pull her toward me and cup her cheek.
“This is me telling you that the kiss back there was only the beginning. I want more. I’ll fight for more. ”
A choppy breath spills from her, her forehead pinching in doubt.
She’s not going to make any of this easy on me, not that I expected her to.
I’m about to expand on my explanation because it’s clear she’s having trouble believing anything I’m saying, but Eden’s shrill rage comes from one side, and her father closes in on the other.
“You’ve gone too far this time, Tessa. You had him near the kids!”
“Here we go,” Tessa hisses, closing her eyes.
“I’m really starting to feel unwelcome,” I quip in a poor attempt to lighten things, but it falls terribly flat.
When those blues snap back open, she isn’t frantic. She’s resolved, cold, shut off.
And in a simple move that speaks volumes, she drops my hand and steps away.