7. Maddox
7
MADDOX
The goal was to keep her guessing and keep her off-kilter. Seeing the look on her face after I dropped that line about her in a white dress? Talk about a score.
I’m resisting the urge to pump my fist and break out into my on-ice celebration dance when I stroll out of the care home and onto the street.
But soon I hear the slam of the glass door behind me and the clicking of heeled boots against the pavement.
“You’re not serious.”
I spin around at the sharp tone in Jocelyn’s voice. She storms my way and I’m surprised to see that the expression on her gorgeous face is one of pure fury. Brows knitted together, eyes ablaze and cheeks flushed.
“What, about the dress?”
“Admit it, Maddox. This is just another fun game to you, right? Part of your whole schtick?”
“My... schtick? I don’t have a schtick. Well, I mean, apart from the obvious.” I fake like I’m hitting a slapshot, but she’s not amused. Her mouth remains in a flat line and unease worms its way under my skin. I straighten up. “Okay, I’ve clearly mis-stepped here. Mind explaining to me where I’ve gone wrong?”
“You don’t need to say things you don’t mean to get me interested. In fact, I’d really prefer it if you didn’t lie to me. I’ve had about enough of them to last me a lifetime.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” My eyebrows shoot up. “I never lied to you, sweet cheeks.”
She scoffs, crossing her arms to ward off the chill from the winter air. Apparently, she pissed off enough to come barreling out of the care home without a scarf or woolen jacket, so I immediately shrug out of my coat and throw it over her shoulders. She bats at my hands, and I step back.
“Right. So I’m supposed to believe that a guy who’s known me three days is actually interested in marrying me? That what happened in there wasn’t some kind of cruel joke you’re playing on me because you know I’d proposed to my last dance partner and got turned down flat?”
“Whoa. What?” I take a step toward her, but she backs away, holding a hand up to ward me off. “What are you talking about?”
“You said you were a subscriber back when I was making dance videos with Luke.”
I snap my fingers. “Luke. Dude’s name was Luke. I remember now, but yes, I subscribed.”
“So, surely you know I nuked the channel after I got down on one knee and asked him to marry me.”
“No,” I shake my head and keep my voice level despite the swift, fresh wave of jealousy that hits my gut.
She proposed? She loved him enough to have done that?
Absently, I rub at my chest, trying to soothe the ache in my chest. “Look, I had no idea you’d asked that idiot to marry you, but I’m glad he turned you down.”
She rears back as if I’ve hit her and I wince.
Open mouth, insert foot.
“What I mean is, I’m glad you’re not with him anymore. If you were, you wouldn’t be here. With me. We wouldn’t have met, and I’d —in all likelihood— still be in some deep, deep shit with the team and not comfortably seeing all the noise about that bachelorette party subside.”
I risk reaching for her again. This time, she doesn’t dodge my touch, but her eyes still flash with pain and anger and mistrust.
“My proposal went viral. It was at the end of one of our live sessions, and I had no clue he was going to humiliate me like that.” Her voice breaks and every instinct in my body wants to find that guy and pummel him. Not for having turned her down, but for having hurt her.
“What did he do?”
Her eyes drift shut and her shoulders sag. “He didn’t do it in front of the cameras. He was always too aware of how things would look and he didn’t want to get canceled.”
“Jocelyn,” I say, my tone low and cold. “Tell me what he did.”
“He turned me down in the video, as you know. But when the cameras were off, he told me why. He said we weren’t a match. Like, physically. He was slim and I’m… well, I’m not.” She laughs, the sound harsh as she sweeps a hand over her hidden curves. “He said that’s why he’d started asking me to dance back-up, why our subscribers had stalled. He showed me some of the comments people made about my appearance, and it all kind of crystallized then. Why he’d been trying to feed me salads, why he was keeping tabs on my carb count.” Her gaze meets mine. “Why things in the bedroom had become sporadic. So, I dumped him.”
My hands curl into a fist. “Good. He didn’t deserve you, sweets.”
“He used me, Maddox. We were together for years, and he used me to amplify his own brand, to launch his own channel. I thought he loved me for me, but really, all he wanted to do was use me as a steppingstone for advancing his own career. I only dreamed of inspiring people. He dreamed of fame and celebrity.”
“Sonofa…”
“And that’s not even the worst of it,” she looks up at me, her brown eyes brimming with vulnerability. “He cleaned out our shared accounts, left me with a debt hole I’ve had to work all this time to fix. After that, I couldn’t bear to be in the spotlight anymore. To have people talk about me, publicly question and nitpick everything about me. It’s why I quit.”
I grip her arms and bring my face level with hers. “Listen to me. You’re fucking perfect, Jocelyn. You’re the whole goddamn package. Beauty, brains, heart. You didn’t deserve what that asshole did to you, and certainly not what he, or any of those other people, said to you. There isn’t any part of your sexy, curvy body that I wouldn’t get on my knees and beg to taste.”
She opens her mouth but I hold up a hand to cut her off.
“I’m not finished. I didn’t need three days to know that you’re my dream girl, because you’ve been my dream girl for years. I just didn’t think I’d ever cross paths with you. All I needed was one look at you to know— you’re mine.”
“But you don’t know me.”
“I have a lifetime to learn everything about you. But I know you. I know your heart and that’s what counts.” I tap the space where her heart lies and feel my throat constrict. “Maybe I didn’t know you in-person, but I saw you. I saw you so clearly when you led the dance-a-thon to raise money for families negatively affected by the pandemic. I saw you when you sat on a livestream, tears in your eyes as you poured your heart out about all the lonely, hurting hearts being kept from their loved ones. I was one of them, sweet cheeks. You were my angel. My shining, guiding light.”
I catch the tear falling silently down her cheek and brush it aside. “And then you danced an achingly slow, heartbreaking dance and I cried like a goddamn baby watching you translate your pain into movement. So, no, I didn’t need three days to know I love you. I needed one, single look.”
“You love me?” she asks, eyes round and shining.
“Yes.” I nod. “I lov?—”
The rest of my sentence is lost in her lips as she yanks me down to her and presses her lips to mine. Groaning, I taste traces of her sweetness mingled with sweetened coffee.
I encircle her in my arms and haul her body against mine, wanting her warmth and her plush curves and her. Just her.
My cock twitches in my jeans, rock-hard and ready.
But we’re in the middle of the street, so I tear myself away and drag a stuttering breath through my lungs. Praying the cold air and icy conditions can penetrate the heat smoldering between us so I can get blood back into my brain.
“I’m sorry. I know you’ve got rules for this week, but they’re really fucking hard to follow.”
She laughs and pulls away.
“Well, then,” she says, dropping her lust-filled gaze to mouth and lifting a hand to her lips. “Take me somewhere.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Someplace where the rules don’t apply and you can show me that mad dong of yours.”
We get to my duplex in record time and crash through the front door while tearing away all our winter clothes.
Coats, boots, sweaters, scarves… I don’t care where any of it lands as I yank layer after layer off her.
“You wear too many clothes,” I growl. My mouth finds hers, hot and hungry, as I search her body for clasps, buttons, and zips that act as an obstacle course preventing me from touching every inch of her supple skin.
“It’s the dead of winter,” she gasps as she pushes my shirt up my torso and drops kisses along my chest. “I don’t understand how you can stand it just in a shirt and coat.”
“I grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota.”
Snap. Her black bra springs off and I fling it aside.
“Denver born and bred.”
I strip the thick winter leggings off her and fall to my knees when I see she’s wearing black lace underwear.
“Are you trying to kill me?”
“What? No.” She squeaks when I lean forward and take a deep, deliberate whiff of her natural musk.
“You smell so fucking good.” I grab hold of her and spin her around to the kitchen. Then I plant her on the large island in the middle of my expansive kitchen, framing her against the wide window with a view of the Rockies. “What I wouldn’t give to have this view every damn day of my life.”
Sinking to my knees, I slide my hands up her calves and along her inner thighs before settling them over my shoulders.
“Sweet cheeks,” My voice is low, laced with need. “I need to taste this pussy now.”
“Here?” She looks around my pristine kitchen. “But you eat here.”
I grin up at her. “You’re damn right I do.”
Then I dive in, licking her through the thin fabric. Sucking on that stiff, sensitive nub through the lace. Her feet press against my shoulder blades and her moans echo down the hall when I trace the shape of her through her panties.
“Ohmygod.”
Shit. My cock strains painfully against my jeans as I slide her panty to one side and get my first glimpse of her slick, glistening pussy. It’s swollen and pink and topped with dark, neatly trimmed curls.
And it is mine.
“Oh, there she is. My pretty, pink pet.” I slide a finger along her slit and roll over her clit the way she’d shown me she liked it. Above me, Jocelyn moans and her legs part further in invitation. “I’m going to take such good care of this pussy, angel. Watch me.”
I drag my tongue through her folds, collecting her honey and laving that bud. She’s like heaven on my tongue and I moan into her. Slipping my fingers into her tight channel, relishing her heat and feeling her muscles clamp around my digits. Her hands thread through my hair, tugging at the strands and guiding my head where she needs it to be.
And when her thighs shake, I wrap my lips around her clit and suck hard, my fingers continuing to coax those sweet gasping cries from her throat.
Then she breaks on a silent scream, grinding her mound further into my mouth while I lap at every single drop of juice she gives me.