Chapter 18
Atlas
The house is settled in a way it never is during daylight hours. Grayce is down, Maddie went upstairs right after, and I’ve been parked on the man-cave couch for over an hour, pretending to watch some action flick I’ve already seen a dozen times.
Truth is, I couldn’t sleep if I tried. My brain keeps coming back to the kiss. To her taste, the shock in her laugh when I spun her, to the disappointment I felt when she said this couldn’t be done.
I’ve kissed a lot of women. More than I care to admit.
But that?
That was different. It wasn’t just heat—it was magnetic. Like a thing that had locked into place, and walking away from it feels impossible.
Is it because of Gray? Because we share him in memory, share Grayce in flesh and blood? Does that bind us in a way no one else could?
Maybe.
Probably.
But even as I turn the questions over, the answer that keeps popping back up is simpler.
It’s Maddie.
The room glows faint blue from the TV screen when movement catches my eye, causing me to jolt upright.
Maddie’s in the doorway, looking like a dream, all curves and shadows and those eyes that undo me.
Instantly, I’m alert. “Everything okay?” I push forward on the couch, ready to move if necessary.
She steps a little closer, caught in the TV glow. Her face is tight, lips pressed like she’s holding back. She shakes her head once.
I stand, closing half the distance without even thinking. Concern scrapes at my chest. “Talk to me. What is it? How can I help?”
Her eyes lift to mine, wide and shining, and what comes out of her mouth slams every thought right out of me.
“I can’t stop thinking about the kiss,” she says, voice low but steady. “About all the ways it could blow up in our faces if we let this happen. And I’ve decided—” Her chin lifts, her throat working. “I don’t care.”
I stare, stunned silent.
Her voice trembles, but the words are carved in stone.
“The last few months, I’ve given everything to everyone else.
To my clients in Chicago. To Gray. To Grayce.
I left my life behind to move in with a stranger and try to be the best mother I can for a little girl who deserves everything.
But I want something for myself.” She takes another step, close enough that I catch the faintest trace of her shampoo. “And that’s you.”
For a heartbeat, I can’t breathe. I don’t even know what the hell to do with the rush of heat coupled with disbelief.
Before I can respond, Maddie closes the last inch between us. Her hands slip around my neck, tugging me down, and then her mouth is on mine.
There’s nothing hesitant this time. No testing, no caution. It’s a spark catching fire instantly. Her kiss is all want, all need, and it rips through me like gasoline thrown onto a flame.
I groan, grip her waist, and drag her closer until we’re flush, chest to chest.
Sweet’s not even in the vocabulary. This is hungry, reckless, desperate—and I’m already gone.
The second my tongue touches hers, the rest of the world drops out.
No sound from the tv, no clock, no game plans—just the soft give of her lips and the unsteady way she breathes when I deepen the kiss.
I slide my palms down her arms, feel the shiver that ripples through her, and it hits me in the gut that she wants this as badly as I do.
I taste her, slow at first, then not slow at all. She opens for me and a hot and reckless need surges like a breakaway on the ice. I tip her head and trace the line of her jaw with my mouth, then lower to that spot beneath her ear that draws forth a deep gasp of pleasure.
I don’t remember deciding to undress her, only the blur of cotton over her head and the soft whisper of it landing somewhere on the floor.
She’s left in a simple bra that celebrates how perfect she is.
I drag a fingertip down the center of her chest, pause at the small clasp nestled there, and murmur, “What happens if I open this?”
Her eyes—wide, bright, refusing to flinch—lift to mine. She doesn’t say yes but then again, she doesn’t have to. The answer is in the way she stands her ground and lets me look.
I flick, and the clasp gives. The fabric loosens, and her breasts spill free. I can do nothing but pause to take a breath, then I’m cupping her with both hands, relishing the warmth and testing the weight. Maddie gasps when my thumbs brush lightly across sensitive skin, puckered nipples.
“Perfect,” I rasp, not even trying to swallow the hunger in my voice. “I’ve been wanting to do this since the first smart thing you ever said to me.”
She huffs a laugh that turns into a sigh when I bend and put my mouth on her.
It’s not delicate, more reverent, but also greedy all at once.
She fists her hands in my shirt and bows backward to give me better access.
The TV’s blue wash flickers over her skin and I smile from the sound she makes when I take more.
“Atlas,” she breathes, half warning, half plea. My name has never sounded like that.
I kiss her again, hungrier, rougher, and the world tilts. She reaches under my T-shirt, slides her hands up my stomach to my chest, and I almost lose it. The way she touches—curious, claiming, like she’s memorizing me—lights me up in places I’ve never felt.
“Let’s get this off,” she whispers, and I hurriedly drag the offending material from my body.
She leans forward, pressing a kiss to my collarbone, but I need to take back a little control.
I fist a hand in her hair, tilt her head, and trail my mouth down her throat.
I let my teeth scrape her shoulder, causing a shudder to rack her body, so I do it again.
Maddie makes a quiet, helpless sound that I want to hear on repeat for the rest of my life.
Her shorts sit low on her hips, a taunt I can’t ignore. I slip my fingers under the waistband, pause for a beat to make sure she’s with me, then tease the soft folds with my fingers. She bucks at my touch, makes a strangled sound against my mouth, and I test the depths to find her soaking wet.
My ego is stoked and my dick is hard as a rock, which she finds out with a tentative brush of her fingers against me.
Yeah… we both want this, but I still want to make sure we’re seeing past the lust. It’s when Maddie’s hand palms me roughly through the fabric of my jeans I grab her wrist and pull my lips from hers. She stares up at me, features stark.
“We’re hitting the point of no return,” I warn.
“I’m not scared,” she says.
“I am,” I say with brutal honesty. “But I don’t want to stop either.”
She smiles at me, and it’s heart stealing. “I’ll be brave enough for both of us.”
That’s all I need and my starving hands get to work. Clothes are shed and it’s not coordinated at all. There’s stumbling, laughing and long kisses in between.
Somehow, we end up on the couch, bodies pressed together, hands roaming. I don’t rush but I don’t drag it out either.
I do merely what her body asks for, learning her response to my touch and following through with more. My hands map the curve of her waist, the flex of her thighs, the trembling tension that says she’s strung tight when my fingers slip between her legs.
When I press a finger inside, she groans and rocks her hips against me, tiny words of need spilling out of her.
It’s sexy as fuck and I shift my touch from gentle to probing, watching the way her breath stutters when I circle her clit, how her fingers clamp around my shoulders when I give her more.
Every sound she makes, every move she tries to hide and can’t, drives my need to pleasure her.
She presses her forehead to mine, eyes squeezed shut, whispering my name like a secret. I skim my nose along hers. “Open your eyes,” I murmur. “Let me see you.”
She does.
And God, the blue in them—bright and stormy—wrecks me.
She holds my gaze while I keep her riding that thin line between too much and not enough.
My fingers work mercilessly to coax her higher.
And when Maddie’s breath breaks and her nails bite into my shoulders like she’s hanging on for dear life, I whisper to her, “That’s it. I’ve got you.”
She makes a sound I’ll hear in my sleep, bowing against me as everything in her breaks apart, a keening sound of release like music to my ears.
She shudders hard, begs for me to stop, for more, and I just hold her, talking her through it softly.
I swear I’ve never seen anything more beautiful in my life than Maddie coming apart and trusting me to catch her.
Her breath evens out by degrees. She blinks, dazed, and then laughs with embarrassment. “That was intense.”
“Yeah,” I say hoarsely, brushing a thumb across her cheekbone. “For me too.”
“But you didn’t…”
I stop her with a kiss. “It was intense for me too,” I repeat.
“Let’s make it more intense,” she murmurs and then her hand is on me. Tight, rough and stroking me so finely that I see stars.
She stares at me with flushed cheeks, hand working my aching cock. When she lifts her hips in invitation, it obliterates my last strand of sense.
I pull her to me, and we come together in one deep, sure slide. I plant deep and hold still, the shock of pleasure so exquisite, I’m afraid to move.
But not moving isn’t an option because I know what’s waiting on the other end is better than anything I’ve ever felt before.
The leather squeaks under us, the couch gives a protesting groan, and I couldn’t care less.
I set a rhythm that isn’t polite and isn’t slow, one that matches the way she’s clinging to me.
Maddie utters whispered pleas… Go faster, don’t stop, more, more, more.
I’ve had sex and I’ve had fun. I’ve had every version of distraction there is. This is none of those things. This is a fuse burning down my spine, ready to blow me apart in a way that ensures I won’t ever be put back together in the same way. It reveals one singular truth… Maddie is different.
I can feel it in my bones that I found my match and it’s a certainty I didn’t even know I was looking for.
She gasps my name, fingers locking behind my neck, pulling me closer, like she wants to tell me a truth she can’t get words around. I press my lips to her temple, to the corner of her mouth, to the line of her jaw, and I give her what she’s asking for without her having to say it.
Deeper, harder when she begs.
I listen.
I answer.
I learn.
“Look at me,” I say rough, because I want this branded into both of us.
When her eyes snap to mine, the heat in my chest goes blinding.
There’s nothing guarded in her face anymore, just want and wonder and fear warring with hope.
All those emotions from a woman who has locked them tight away is more of a turn-on than I could have ever imagined.
I kiss her hard enough to turn that hope into reality, and it’s at that moment her body tightens.
She makes a startled sound, stiffens and then cries out as pleasure crests within her for a second time.
I hadn’t seen it coming, but the fierceness of it and the way she clutches at me as if she’s afraid to fall splinters my control.
She gasps and I grunt, and I’m falling right over the edge with her.
I hold Maddie tight, bury my face at her throat, and let it take me.
It’s not quiet and it’s not pretty. It’s a relief that I’ve never experienced and for a long moment afterward, we don’t move.
Her chest rises against mine, my heart slams against hers, and the only sound in the room is two people trying to figure out what to do with the pieces after they just detonated.
She peels back enough to see my face. There’s a question in her eyes… Who are we now?
When she offers me the tiniest smile, the knot of uncertainty loosens, knowing that no matter what, she has no regrets.
I swipe my thumb along her lower lip. “Hey,” I murmur, because words are hard and also because it feels important to say something simple and true.
“Hey,” she echoes, voice ragged, softening into a laugh that turns my chest inside out.
I lean in and kiss that laugh, slow this time, grateful. When we separate, I press our foreheads together and whisper, “You okay?”
“Never better,” she drawls dreamily.
“So, this was the worst idea ever,” I tease.
“The absolute worst,” she agrees.
“Like, it would be an awful idea to go to my room and do this again, right?”
“Even worse than the absolute worst.” She giggles.
“That’s what I thought,” I exclaim, pushing up from the couch and sweeping her into my arms. “I’m in for another round.”
Maddie shrieks from the sudden movement but wraps her arms around my neck. “I’m in too.”
I adjust my grip because although she’s not heavy, she’s precious, and I’m not risking a single misstep.
The house is dark and quiet as I carry her through it.
I feel the way she relaxes against me, arms looped around my neck, fingers idly tracing the back of it like she’s memorizing a pattern.
Everything in me settles at that touch, which I find bizarre given our circumstances.
Everything should be more complicated but truly, it just makes sense.
In my room, I set Maddie on the bed, her body glowing under the warm bulb of the bedside lamp. My eyes take a slow, greedy pass over everything I’ve been trying not to want for weeks. She returns my gaze with the same declaration of desire.
I join her, covering her body with mine. Her palms span my chest, and I feel like I might actually come apart from tenderness alone.
Is this because of what we share outside of sex? Did Gray’s death and Grayce alone bond us more deeply than we had imagined possible?
All questions I’m not keen to answer right now, because all I can think about is making love to her in a much different way.
I’m not in a hurry now. There’s less fire, more crackling embers.
I take my time relearning the mouth I just devoured, mapping the places that make her tremble, figuring out what gentle feels like when I want to destroy.
We move together again, slower this time, unhurried, and it’s just as fucking fantastic.
Maddie holds me and I hold her and there’s no couch to complain under us, no rush, no fear, just a joining that feels like it might carry us over the walls we’ve both lived behind. When she breaks again—quieter, deeper—I follow with a groan I couldn’t swallow if I tried.
After, we lie tangled in the hush and Maddie’s breath evens out against my chest. I fit my hand to the curve of her back to hold her close as she sleeps.
I stay awake a little longer, listening to the quiet house and thinking about how everything I’ve ever wanted seemed dangerous until the second we had the guts to reach for it.
I don’t know what we are in the morning. I don’t know what rules we need or how hard the world will try to shake this. I only know I’m convinced that this is the path we’re supposed to be on.