14. Chapter 14 #2
Maddox drops his pants down to his ankles, and I’m moving before he’s even steady.
I grip the backs of his lean, inked thighs, my fingers digging in with a bruising force born of pure desperation, and slam him down onto the desk—needing the solid weight of him to anchor me before I float away entirely—and capture his lips in a bruising kiss.
I devour him, my mouth searching for his like it’s the only source of oxygen left in the room .
A whispered “please” falls from his lips, and the sound nearly brings me to my knees.
My entire body is vibrating, a jagged hum of adrenaline and exhaustion that makes it hard to see straight.
He looks so vulnerable beneath me, his eyes clouded with the same frantic heat that’s burning me alive.
It tugs at something deep and buried in my chest—a feeling I haven't allowed myself to have in years.
I let it still me for a heartbeat, my forehead dropping against his as I struggle to draw a single, coherent breath.
I steel my expression, locking the feeling away behind a wall of grit, and reach forward.
My hand snakes around his throat, not to hurt, but to hold—to make him feel how close I am to the edge.
I pin him against my chest, our breathing tangling until I can't tell which lungs are burning.
“Tell me to stop,” I beg, my voice cracking, barely a whisper. My eyes fall closed on a silent prayer, my grip tightening just enough to feel the frantic beat of his pulse. "Please, give me an out. Be the strong one."
“I don’t want you to stop,” he admits through a wrecked moan, grinding his hips against my throbbing cock.
I roughly pull his mouth back to mine, kissing him with a terrifying intensity, like he’s a lifeline and I need his tongue, his heat, his skin—anything to drown out the screaming pressure behind my eyes.
I’m leaning over him, my weight supported by the desk, my head spinning so fast I’m half-convinced the floor has disappeared .
“Tell me to stop, Mads… please ,” I rasp, my breath coming in ragged, shallow hitches.
My hands are shaking, my conviction fraying at the seams. “I-I’m not strong enough to say no to you.
” My confession comes out as barely more than a whisper, as if everything will come crashing down now that it’s out in the open.
He could tell me to stop, and then… what?
We just pretend nothing ever happened? I mean…
what has happened? Is this actually real?
The smell of tobacco, the sting in my ear, the way his skin feels like silk under my calloused palms..
. or is this just another sick, stupid hallucination fueled delusion born from a week without sleep and too many pain meds?
I’m lost in the delirium, convinced I’ve finally snapped, until an ear piercing scream breaks the moment, followed by a shrill “ What the fuck?! ”
Okaaaay, not a delusion. Oh god. Oh fuck. Fuck, it's definitely real. We both scramble to pull our pants up as we turn to see Felicia standing in the doorway looking white as a ghost.I allow myself to take in the scene before me through someone else’s eyes and ' what the fuck' is right.
Nausea rolls through my body as a cold sweat breaks out. I need to get the fuck out of this room.
Felicia scrambles to get out of the way as I stalk out of the office. Maddox’s voice carries out into the hall, urging me to come back, but I can’t go back.I don’t even know where I’m going, I just know I need to get the fuck out of here.
My feet carry me up the stairs, taking two at a time until I’m shoving past the door of the rooftop terrace, which hits the wall with a hollow bang. The cold night air is a welcome pain, biting into the sweat on my skin and stinging the fresh, sensitive scar of my ear.
Nausea rises up in my throat, I try to swallow it down, but my stomach lurches and I vomit again and again until nothing but bile is left, my body shaking so hard I can barely keep my balance.
I stagger away, my legs feeling like they’re made of overcooked noodles, and slump down against the wood slat wall across from the door.
Its decorative ferns rustling against my shoulders like whispering voices.
My hands are trembling so violently I can barely spark my cigarette.
I take a drag, the nicotine hitting my system is an instant relief, though it's short-lived. The door opens and the last person I want to see steps through. Internally I’m screaming, ripping my hair out in chunks, clawing at my skin until it’s a mess of broken, bloodied marks.
I’m a wreck, a hollowed-out version of the man who walked into that office.
Yet externally, I force my thin, fraying mask to hold—though it's so fragile I’d be surprised if she couldn't immediately see through it.
Felicia stares me down, her eyes tracking the frantic jitter of my knee.
I hate it. I hate that she’s seeing me like this, with my armor lying in a heap on the dusty concrete floor.
She quietly sits down beside me, and for a while we sit in companionable silence.
My chest starts to rise and fall in time with hers and the fog in my mind begins to lift.
"I feel like shit,”I manage to say, my throat feels raw and uneasy as I force it to work.
Felicia leans into me, bumping her arm against mine.
My body sways with the force, too weak to resist the contact.
“Aw, it’s okay. You look like it, too,” she teases lightly.
That actually draws a genuine chuckle from my lips, and I lay a hand over my heart in mock anguish.
"Ah, so you are still in there after all. Thought you’d lost that famous Rylen Wilson charm.
” She chirps, cracking a small smile. “Easy there, it almost sounds like you have a heart.” I jeer, but the bite is gone.
I’m too exhausted to be mean. I bring the cigarette back to my lips, my fingers finally steadying.
“Yuck, you’re right. We wouldn’t want people to get the wrong idea.
” She smiles wider, bumping her arm against mine once more, this time her fingers brush against my hand.
I’m not sure why, but I don’t instantly pull them away.
Instead, I let my fingertips gently trace her knuckles.
She must notice because her whole body goes rigid and she side-eyes me the way one might a feral cat who's willingly come over for pats.
It’s kind of nice, having someone to just let my guard down with. I never thought in a million years that person would be Flea, but then again I never thought I’d ever be in this situation with Maddox either. Maybe we could be—not friends , exactly—just not sworn enemies anymore.
“You’re really cute together, you know," she comments, her voice dropping the teasing edge for something sincere. I blink in confusion at the change of tone, and it takes everything in me not to roll my eyes. “ You and Maddox… it’s okay . You don’t have to pretend you don’t love him,” she continues when I ignore her.
I stiffen, the warmth evaporating instantly.
I withdraw from her, pulling my knees up to my chest like a shield.
The cigarette trembles, dropping ash on my black jeans.
“I don’t want to talk about this with you,” I say, my voice tight in warning.
“Ry, it’s o-kay ,” she coos, resting a small hand against my forearm. It’s meant to be comforting, and yet I recoil like she's poured acid onto my skin. The vulnerability I just felt turns into a sharp, jagged panic. I can't have this. I can't have her seeing through me.
“This ISN'T hard to understand. I don’t fucking like you, Flea. We’re not gonna suddenly be BFFs and braid each other’s hair just because we’re fucking the same guy.
Now with very little respect, fuck off ,” I grind out the last words through clenched teeth, every nerve in my body vibrating with a renewed desperate energy to end this conversation.
“Fine. If you want to wallow like a sad sack, be my fucking guest. Playing the victim has always been your specialty anyway,” she snarls, pushing off the ground and storming back inside the club.
A single teardrop rolls down my cheek as I stare at the space Felicia was just occupying.
Why do I do that? Push everyone anyway. Why can’t I just be fucking normal?
I look down at the silver pendant around my neck, the one given to me by the first boy I ever kissed—Noah. It hasn’t left my body in fourteen years, an ever present symbol of everything I’ve been through and everything I’ve denied myself since that day.
I got so lonely in those first few months at the group home, I would often fall asleep holding my own hand, pretending it was someone else’s—sometimes it was Noah's from before that day, other times it was the comforting touch of a mother. Not the one that I actually had, instead I’d imagine the kind of mother you saw in movies, the ones who would tuck you back in bed if you had a bad dream and push the hair from your eyes.
No one is going to save you. Get up off the floor and pull your shit together; a voice inside me whispers.
I allow myself another few moments to wallow in self pity, before flicking away my cigarette butt and dragging myself back downstairs.
Inside, the club has a heartbeat I can feel in my teeth.
I move through the red-lit corridors, past the heavy velvet curtains and the scent of expensive scotch and sweat-soaked skin, heading for the briefing room in the basement.
The new recruits aren't like the usual local muscle we pull in from the street, these guys are ex-military—Special Ops by the look of the scars and the way they stand like they're carved from granite.
They make Colson and Philzy look like amateurs, and they make Nathyn look like the goddamn joke that he is.
Their eyes don't wander to the playrooms; they stay locked on the exits. They're professional and ice cold, which is exactly what we need, even if their presence makes the air feel even thinner.
"Colson will hand over the comms, and show you where to station," I state, my voice flat.
"This club is a sanctuary. You aren't here to judge; you're here to ensure the only thing breaking are the clients' wallets.
If a safe word is ignored, or if one of our staff feels threatened, you move in. Otherwise, you're ghosts."
Finishing up my speech, I head to the security hub, pushing through the heavy door. Nathyn is there, leaning against the far wall, looking like he’s been dragged through a gravel pit and then set on fire. He’s got that hungover pallor that turns the skin gray, and he’s nursing a bruised knuckle.
"Where the fuck have you been? You look like shit," I greet him, not missing a beat as I sit at the console. "Give me one reason I shouldn't let the new guys use you for target practice."
Nathyn groans, rubbing his eyes. "Tijuana, Ry.
It seemed like a good idea at the time. Everyone was high on the adrenaline after that shift with Morrow, so me and the boys headed south.
I got absolutely tanked, lost my fucking passport, and spent thirty-six hours in a cell waiting for the embassy to pull their heads out of their asses. "
I stare at the monitor, blinking heavily as my eyes fight to stay open and a slow, bitter heat rises in my chest. " Morrow breaks our security, nearly takes my ear off, and your first instinct is a fucking bender in Mexico?
" I snarl in disbelief. I can't believe I thought this idiot was capable of being the rat.
"I'm back, aren't I?" he mutters, though there's no fight in him, seemingly just a splitting migraine from the way he whinces at the lights.
"Just get on the perimeter feeds. If you so much as blink too long, I'm sending you back to the border in a body bag.
" I snap. The door opens and the scent hits me before anything else does—tobacco and that cologne—I don't look up, but I can feel Maddox behind me, his presence more demanding than any alarm.
"Thought I told you to go home," Maddox states, his voice low, ignoring Nathyn entirely. I keep my eyes on the gray-scale feed of the alley. "I'm not leaving the club tonight, Mads. We have assets to protect."
"The assets are protected by men who actually know how to hold a rifle," Maddox counters, glaring at Nathyn, then stepping closer until I can feel the heat of him. "We're going home. Now."
I finally turn the chair around. He looks wrecked—there’s a deep-seated heartbreak in his eyes that he isn't bothering to hide anymore, but beneath it is the stubborn, persistent streak that has kept him in power for all this time.
"No." I say defiantly.
"No?" Maddox scoffs, his head shuddering in a shallow, frantic rhythm; a twitchy little 'the fuck did you just say' that he can't hide.
"You're a target," I explain, my voice cracking with the delirium of days without real sleep.
"You’ve been sitting behind that mahogany desk for too long.
You're a suit, Maddox. You're rusty. If someone comes for you, you're going to be a second too slow, and then it's going to be me that has to stitch you up. "
Maddox’s gaze doesn't waver. He leans in, his face inches from mine, the intensity enough to make my head swim and I'm vaguely aware that we're not alone.
God, he wouldn't kiss me here would he? No, of course not, I'm being ridiculous.
My eyes flick down to his lips anyway, and I frown as they tug into a smirk.
"Then prove it. Tomorrow morning, we'll spar until you’re convinced I can still take you down. But tonight? Tonight we go home and rest."
I stare into the pools of his almond-shaped eyes, and the fight just drains out of me, leaving nothing but a hollow ache. "Fine. Tomorrow morning. But don't expect me to go easy on you," I grumble.
"I'd be disappointed if you did," he says, winking.