Chapter Ten #2
His hands skimmed over her curves, her breasts, her waist, her hips, all the way down to her thighs, where he squeezed her tight, held on to her as though she were his lifeline. As though he were trying to memorize every curve, every dip and swell.
She closed her eyes, gave herself over to it, to the sensation of being known by Sam. The thought filled her, made her chest feel like it was expanding. He knew her. He really knew her. And he was still here. Still with her. He didn’t judge her; he didn’t find her disgusting.
He didn’t treat her like she was breakable. He could still bend her over a horse statue in his studio, then be like this with her in front of the fire. Tender. Sweet.
Because she was a woman who wanted both things. And he seemed to know it.
He also seemed to be a man who might need both too.
Or maybe everybody did. But you didn’t see it until you were with the person you wanted to be both of those things with.
“Hang on just a second,” he said, suddenly, breaking into her sensual reverie. She had lost track of time. Lost track of everything except the feel of his hands on her skin.
He moved away from her, the loss of his body leaving her cold. But he returned a moment later, settling himself in between her thighs. “Condom,” he said by way of explanation.
At least one of them had been thinking. She certainly hadn’t been.
He joined their bodies together, entering her slowly, the sensation of fullness, of being joined to him, suddenly so profound that she wanted to weep with it. It always felt good. From the first time with him it had felt good. But this was different.
It was like whatever veil had been between them, whatever stack of issues had existed, had been driving them, was suddenly dropped. And there was nothing between them. When he looked at her, poised over her, deep inside her, she felt like he could see all the way down.
When he moved, she moved with him, meeting him thrust for thrust, pushing them both to the brink. And when she came, he came along with her, his rough gasp of pleasure in her ears ramping up her own release.
In the aftermath, skin to skin, she couldn’t deny anymore what all these feelings were. She couldn’t pretend that she didn’t know.
She’d signed herself up for a twelve-day fling with a man she didn’t even like, and only one week in she had gone and fallen in love with Sam McCormack.
“Sam.” Maddy’s voice broke into his sensual haze. He was lying on his back in front of the fireplace, feeling drained and like he had just had some kind of out-of-body experience. Except he had been firmly in his body and feeling everything, everything and then some.
“What?” he asked, his voice rusty.
“Why do you make farm animals?”
“What the hell kind of question is that?” he asked.
“A valid one,” she said, moving nearer to him, putting her hand on his chest, tracing shapes there. “I mean, not that they aren’t good.”
“The horse seemed good enough for you a couple hours ago.”
“It’s good,” she said, her tone irritated, because she obviously thought he was misunderstanding her on purpose.
Which she wasn’t wrong about.
“Okay, but you don’t think I should be making farm animals.”
“No, I think it’s fine that you make farm animals. I just think it’s not actually you.”
He shifted underneath her, trying to decide whether or not he should say anything.
Or if he should sidestep the question. If it were anyone else, he would laugh.
Play it off. Pretend like there was no answer.
That there was nothing deeper in him than simply re-creating what he literally saw out in the fields in front of him.
And a lot of people would have bought that. His own brother probably would have, or at the very least, he wouldn’t have pushed. But this was Maddy. Maddy, who had come apart in his arms in more than one way over the past week. Maddy, who perhaps saw deeper inside him than anyone else ever had.
Why not tell her? Why not? Because he could sense her getting closer to him. Could sense it like an invisible cord winding itself around the two of them, no matter that he was going to have to cut it in the end. Maybe it would be best to do it now.
“If I don’t make what I see, I’ll have to make what I feel,” he said. “Nobody wants that.”
“Why not?”
“Because the art has to sell,” he said, his voice flat.
Although, that was somewhat disingenuous.
It wasn’t that he didn’t think he could sell darker pieces.
In fact, he was sure that he could. “I don’t do it for myself.
I do it for Chase. I was perfectly content to keep it some kind of weird hobby that I messed around with after hours.
Chase was the one who thought that I needed to pursue it full-time.
Chase was the one who thought it was the way to save our business.
And it started out doing kind of custom artistry for big houses.
Gates and the detail work on stairs and decks and things.
But then I started making bigger pieces and we started selling them.
I say we because without Chase they would just sit in the shop. ”
“So you’re just making what sells. That’s the beginning and end of the story.” Her blue eyes were too sharp, too insightful and far too close to the firelight for him to try to play at any games.
“I make what I want to let people see.”
“What happened, Sam? And don’t tell me nothing.
You’re talking to somebody who clung to one event in the past for as long as humanly possible.
Who let it dictate her entire life. You’re talking to the queen of residual issues here.
Don’t try to pretend that you don’t have any.
I know what it looks like.” She took a deep breath.
“I know what it looks like when somebody uses anger, spite and a whole bunch of unfriendliness to keep the world at a safe distance. I know, because I’ve spent the past ten years doing it.
Nobody gets too close to the girl who says unpredictable things.
The one who might come out and tell you that your dress does make you look fat and then turn around and say something crude about male anatomy.
It’s how you give yourself power in social situations.
Act like you don’t care about the rules that everyone else is a slave to.
” She laughed. “And why not? I already broke the rules. That’s me.
It’s been me for a long time. And it isn’t because I didn’t know better.
It’s because I absolutely knew better. You’re smart, Sam.
The way that you walk around, the way you present yourself, even here, it’s calculated. ”
Sam didn’t think anyone had ever accused him of being calculated before. But it was true. Truer than most things that had been leveled at him. That he was grumpy, that he was antisocial. He was those things. But for a very specific reason.
And of course Madison would know. Of course she would see.
“I’ve never been comfortable sharing my life,” Sam said.
“I suppose that comes from having a father who was less than thrilled to have a son who was interested in art. In fact, I think my father considered it a moral failing of his. To have a son who wanted to use materials to create frivolous things. Things that had no use. To have a son who was more interested in that than honest labor. I learned to keep things to myself a long time ago. Which all sounds a whole lot like a sad, cliché story. Except it’s not.
It worked. I would have made a relationship with my dad work.
But he died. So then it didn’t matter anymore.
But still, I just never... I never wanted to keep people up on what was happening with my life. I was kind of trained that way.”
Hell, a lot of guys were that way, anyway. A lot of men didn’t want to talk about what was happening in their day-to-day existence. Though most of them wouldn’t have gone to the lengths that Sam did to keep everything separate.
“Most especially when Chase and I were neck-deep in trying to keep the business afloat, I didn’t like him seeing that I was working on anything else.
Anything at all.” Sam took a deep breath.
“That included any kind of relationships I might have. I didn’t have a lot.
But you know Chase never had a problem with people in town knowing that he was spreading it around.
He never had a problem sleeping with the women here. ”
“No, he did not,” Maddy said. “Never with me, to be clear.”
“Considering I’m your first in a decade, I wasn’t exactly that worried about it.”
“Just making sure.”
“I didn’t like that. I didn’t want my life to be part of this real-time small-town TV program. I preferred to find women out of town. When I was making deliveries, going to bigger ranches down the coast, that was when I would...”
“When you would find yourself a buckle bunny for the evening?”
“Yes,” he said. “Except I met a woman I liked a lot. She was the daughter of one of the big ranchers down near Coos County. And I tried to keep things business oriented. We were actually doing business with her family. But I...I saw her out at a bar one night, and even though I knew she was too young, too nice of a girl for a guy like me...I slept with her. And a few times after. I was pretty obsessed with her, actually.”
He was downplaying it. But what was the point of doing anything else? Of admitting that for just a little while he’d thought he’d found something. Someone who wanted him. All of him. Someone who knew him.
The possibility of a future. Like the first hint of spring in the air after a long winter.
Maddy moved closer to him, looking up at him, and he decided to take a moment to enjoy that for a second. Because after this, she would probably never want to touch him again.