Chapter Forty
Caiden
We only stop for coffee on the way to the gym, my treat since Ryan already treated her, the lucky bastard.
I know coffee can’t compete with the shit I imagine Ryan did to our girl, but it’s a start until I finally go from where I am to where he was.
I’m a patient man. I waited two years to get this photo shoot, and I can wait however long it takes for Maddie’s and my relationship to develop naturally.
Thankfully, the coffee pit stop puts a little pep in Maddie’s step as we walk back to the car, her teeth biting into the straw as she hums under her breath with her first sip.
She makes the same sound once we’re seated, and again when we’re back on the road, and I have to clear my throat and my mind when my body starts reacting.
I can’t very well go into a photo shoot rocking a hard-on because Maddie likes to enjoy her coffee with sounds that could be mistaken for the soundtrack to a porno.
When we bounce over a pothole I didn’t quite spot in time, distracted enough that I’m not paying much attention to the road, I wince when she says, “If this coffee spills on me, I’m walking directly into the ocean.”
Seconds pass.
“Not to die or anything. Just to reflect.”
A grin wide enough to hurt splits my face, and I treat myself to a glance at her.
The morning light pours through the windshield, catching blue strands of her hair every time she turns toward me, and I have to keep reminding myself to watch the damn road instead of her.
I barely manage it, captivated for the millionth time by the sight of Madison Fowler.
She’s beautiful as always, her hair in a cute wavy bun with blue strands hanging neatly around her face.
She’s in casual clothes that still somehow manage to make her look sexy, the shorts tight enough to show off the rounded curve of her ass and her jersey short enough to reveal a thin strip of pale skin between where her shirt ends and her shorts begin.
And I have her all to myself for the next however many hours it’ll take to snap enough promotional photos for the gym. A solid win for a guy itching to spend some one-on-one time with the woman he’s been crushing on for two years.
“You’re smiling suspiciously,” Maddie drawls, and I glance over at her, finding her watching me with narrowed eyes and a quirk to her lips.
I shrug. “Can’t a man be happy to be spending time with his long-time crush?”
“No.” She points her coffee at me accusingly, then pauses before tilting her head. “Actually, when you put it like that, I suppose I’ll let you off with a warning.”
“Gee, thanks, Officer,” I snicker, and I catch a beaming smile from her that I capture with the camera in my mind, the memory joining several others I’ve accumulated over the months Maddie has been in our lives.
The remainder of the drive goes by with the level of chaos I would expect with Maddie.
She steals two sips of my coffee despite having her own.
She critiques several billboards like she’s personally offended by their design, and then she spends a full five minutes passionately ranting about why seagulls look like they wouldn’t pay child support.
After that, we listen to music, swapping playlists at stoplights and choosing which songs to queue before we reach the gym.
I’m pretty sure Maddie turns on every girly-pop song she can find for no other goal than to aggravate me, but joke’s on her.
I sing to every song like I wrote them myself, overdramatically putting on a free concert for her with every song she chooses.
I was raised with two mothers. I know my shit about girly songs and feelings and all that crap.
Mads is actually cackling by the time we reach our destination, and I consider it a job well done, my heart filling with the sound of her laughter.
“That was the best concert I’ve ever experienced,” she tells me the moment we’ve parked and the music stops.
I offer her a bow. “I’m an entertainer at heart.”
“Whatever you say, diva,” she quips, climbing out of the car with a little hop that jiggles her ass in ways that will embarrass me if I follow after her right now.
She peers back into the car when I don’t move, pale-blue eyes questioning before she verbalizes what her eyes are asking.
“Are you coming? I can’t take photos of you if the you isn’t there to take photos of. ”
Nodding while I try to fill my brain with anything gross that will stop my dick from hardening even more, I mutter, “Yep. Be right there.”
She nods even as she squints at me, shutting the door before heading to the trunk and gathering her camera and travel light. By the time she’s done, I’ve managed to wrangle my wayward appendage back under control, and I climb out of the car just as she reaches my door.
Flashing her a grin, I ask, “Ready, Blue?”
“I was born ready,” she quips, and then pauses. “Well, that’s not entirely true. I was born screaming and covered in someone else’s bodily fluids, but you catch my drift.”
And that’s how I almost die at nine in the morning, my laughter coming out so suddenly that I choke on it. Not that Maddie seems to care, flashing me a wink before jerking her head to the gym door I still haven’t unlocked. Something that’s kind of hard to do when I’m about to die.
Great, now I sound as dramatic as her.
When I no longer pose a risk to myself, I unlock the door and swing it open for her, grinning when she whistles on her first look around.
Her eyes move across the gym while the morning sunlight streams through the huge front windows, illuminating the front floor perfectly.
She looks over the black equipment and the steel accents, then nods like she’s impressed.
“This is nicer than any gym I’ve stepped in,” she finally declares, and I fight the urge to fist-bump the air in victory. Because that single sentence is definitely something to be victorious about. “Look at you, being an adult with adult money and building cool stuff like this.”
I nod. “I pay taxes and everything with that adult money, too.”
“You’re so brave,” she coos, right before she starts laughing. “No, seriously, this is amazing, Caid.”
“Thank you, Blue. All the hard work, effort, sweat, and manly tears finally paid off,” I tell her, bumping my shoulder against hers lightly.
“It shows,” she tells me, honesty bleeding from her words, and I smile over at her as I head to the reception desk and tuck the keys away for later.
When I turn back around, I lean against the reception desk and simply watch her.
Maddie grows quiet. It’s not an awkward kind of quiet, because I’m convinced Maddie doesn’t have an awkward bone in her body.
The way we met is proof enough of that. No, this is more of an observant quiet as her eyes slowly move across the gym while she takes in our studio for the day.
I can already see her mentally planning the shoot, framing shots and thinking of poses, and I’m already grinning as I watch her.
After she’s done a thorough three-sixty of the front room, she turns to face me. “Did you say you closed the whole place for the entire day?”
“Mhm,” I assure.
A soft smile blooms over her mouth, and like I do with every smile she lightens my life with, I fall that little bit harder for her.
It’s impossible not to, because what little I knew about Madison Fowler before we met was only the tip of the iceberg.
The deeper I dig, the more I want to uncover, and there isn’t a thing in the world that will stop me now that she’s ours.
God, I’m obsessed with her. Actually, full-blown obsessed.
Before I can get carried away with my thoughts, something that seems to be happening a lot lately when Maddie is around, I clap my hands together and flash the grin I know Maddie likes. “All right, boss. Where do you want me first?”
There’s no disguising the flirty message hidden in the words, and Maddie catches it instantly.
I’m rewarded with a cheeky smile right back that has my cheeks warming, baffling me all over again, because Maddie is literally the only girl who has ever made me fucking blush.
It only cements how perfectly matched this woman is for me.
“On the bench, muscles,” she declares, and I almost go up in flames when she gives me a filthy wink.
Fuck me, I’m a goner.
***
The hour flies by, and Maddie is nothing but professional.
Well, that’s a lie. Aside from a few flirty comments and a couple of lingering touches where she directs me into the position and pose she wants, she’s been on her best behavior.
It’s very obvious to me how she got to where she is today, her cute chaos and sweet personality making the process so much easier than I would have expected.
She directs me with effortless confidence, the camera hanging around her neck while she moves me around the gym like we’re doing the tango.
“Okay, lean against this for me,” she gently commands, and I do.
I’ve done every damned thing she wants without a single complaint, and I’ve loved every second of it. I’m not sure what that says about me, but I’m completely folded for this woman, so she could ask me to attempt the splits and I’d split my gooch trying.
Maddie lifts her camera and pauses, frowning before she lowers her hands. “I’m going to need you to stop looking at the camera like you’re trying to seduce it.”
“Is that what I’m doing? Because that’s news to me,” I volley, lips twitching.
“Caid,” she sighs, peering down her lens before shaking her head. “Your whole face is doing this flirty little thing that I’m finding incredibly distracting.”
I can’t fight my grin. “That’s just my face, Blue.”
“Your face is going to be the death of me,” she mutters under her breath, lowering her camera before she approaches me. Only, the klutz trips over a kettlebell, and I’m reacting before my brain can even catch up with my movements.