“Even a little town like Saint Christie is corrupt to the core,” Maddox said. “There’s no justice when everyone is a victim.”
“Only one of us is corrupted, Maddox.”
“You’ve seen the racism. The hatred. We have a police chief who would hurt innocent people. A damned mayor who lusts after you. Hell, your own grandfather was taken for a ride by his bookie—”
“Don’t you dare bring Granddad into this.”
“Why not?” Maddox didn’t let me look away. “He was hurt in that fire too. Josie, someone is lurking in this town who would destroy your store and hurt your family in cold blood. And if you don’t think the rest of the world is a mirror-fucking-image of this town, then you’re not naïve—you’re goddamned ignorant.”
One step too far.
My temper flared. “We haven’t lived the same life. I won’t pretend to know what you’ve done, what you’ve seen. But the world isn’t that dark alley you crawled around in. It’s not all violence and rage.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Only if you make it that way.” My words thickened, forced through the sticky, syrupy sludge that was my own heartbreak. “You want a reason we can’t be together? Right there. That’s why we’re incompatible. You’re looking for revenge to answer for our past. I want justice so we could have a future together.”
Uh-oh. I said too much.
Maddox loomed. I shrugged him away. I wasn’t letting him touch me, hold me.
His voice softened but it never lost that feral threat. “Do you still hope we can work it out?”
“Of course I do,” I said. “All I have is hope. But that dream of us together? It won’t come true if you’re obsessed with that vengeance. I can’t love a murderer.”
“But wouldn’t you feel safer knowing that arsonist was gone?” Maddox cupped my chin. “If it was Nolan Rhys, the law can’t touch him. We can’t trust the courts, and he could buy his way out of any sentence a judge passed. He’d get away with arson, and then he’d come back for you.”
No. He wouldn’t try to hurt me.
He’d aim for Maddox instead.
And for the first time, I almost wished I could let Maddox take that revenge, if only because it started to sound like his only form of self-defense. But everyone would know. They’d immediately suspect him. They’d take him away, and I’d lose him to prison forever.
My eyes prickled with tears.
“I won’t be a part of it,” I whispered. “I won’t let you do it.”
“Why?”
“Because I already lost you once for a year. I won’t lose the man I love to a lifetime in jail.”
I spoke too fast, without thinking, and revealed everything I’d hidden from him. I spun for the door. Maddox grabbed me, forcing me into his arms. My back pressed to his chest, and his thick arms coiled over my waist.
“You still love me?” His words rasped, a fracturing growl.
What was I supposed to say? “I never stopped.”
“Why did you break up with me?” he asked. I couldn’t answer, not when both our lives were endangered by the admission. “You said you didn’t want me anymore.”
I swallowed the truth. “I had to do what was best for me.”
“I’ve never been what’s best for you,” he said. “But, Sweets, you know I tried.”
“We can’t be together.”
“Why?” He moved closer, his scent enveloping me in every spiced danger I recognized from my mistakes in the past.
Were they mistakes?
“I have to go,” I said.
“Stop fucking running from me!” He took my hand, gripping as I tugged. “You love me.”
And because of that, I couldn’t save him. “I’m leaving.”
“You love me, Josie!” Maddox’s eyes flared with a dark, explosive threat. “I’ll prove that you can’t live without me.”
Maddox silenced my protests with the harsh bite of his lips.
Every time I tried to run, he followed.
Anytime I fell, he caught me.
And whenever I denied my desire for him, he dominated my body until I had no choice but to obey.
My heart shredded itself. Every resistance in my mind faded until only delirious fantasies of him, for him, because of him remained.
“I’m gonna remind you what it means to be loved by me.” Maddox’s words rumbled, threatening and wild. “You’ll count every bite. Hide every bruise. Ignore every ache. By the time I’m done with you, you’re gonna remember how much you love to be taken by me.”
I’d never forgotten, but I lived for the lesson. Problem was it was wrong.
He led me to the bed and ignored me when I broke his kiss to warn him to think clearly, rationally. But nothing was rational with Maddox. He existed in moments of passion. His touch was rough. His kiss too intense. Nights with him were raw and demanding, and most mornings began with an embrace wilder than the night before.
He was wrong for me.
I fell onto the bed.
He wanted too much from me.
My shirt pulled off.
His strength should have frightened me. He was too powerful, straining with muscle, fierce from a life chiseled from the streets. He was rough. He was feral.
Dominating.
But he desired more than a submissive body tethered to a bed, begging for mercy. He wanted me. From the first time we touched to the last time we parted, I met every one of Maddox’s demands with the same intensity. My pleasure was his and his mine. Long ago, we spent night after night twisting in the sheets, just loving each other and damning the consequences. We were once lovers. Partners.
And we had almost become a family. I regretted never sharing that precious moment with him when we created a life.
“Say it again.” Maddox ripped my bra off. My breasts bounced as his weight shifted over me. “Tell me you love me.”
I couldn’t say it, not because it wasn’t true, but because it was more of a mistake to give him that false hope than it was to shed my clothing and inhibitions. I bit my lip and stayed silent
And Maddox took it as a challenge.
“You’ll scream it soon enough, Sweets.” He ripped down the zipper on my jeans. “There’s no reason to deny it.”
“We shouldn’t be doing this.”
“We never should have stopped.”
Maddox stared at my panties. The delicate pink highlighted the cinnamon brown of my skin. It was pretty. Cute. Easily cast off.
His jacket tangled with his shirt on the floor. His muscle strained, already sweating as he fought his urges. He always lost, and I never cared before. His hands brushed over my tummy, too preoccupied with a little crest between my legs to worry about his own zipper or the bulge straining his jeans.
I gripped the comforter as Maddox made his move. His eyes narrowed, watching as I trembled as his hand dragged low. The pale tip of his index finger dipped within the dark petals of my slit.
“Say you love me.” Maddox teased me with a flick of my swollen clit. “I’ll play this game with you, Sweets…because I know I’ll win.”
I wetted. Slickened. Silenced back a mew that would have revealed everything. But I stayed quiet and knew his brand of delicious torture was only beginning.
Maddox dug his hands into my hips and hauled me to the edge of the bed. My legs dropped off the mattress, but he took my ankles and pushed them up. The most secret parts of me exposed to him, but he already owned those places. That familiarity would be my undoing. I knew what he wanted, and I couldn’t surrender to his plan.
Nothing prepared me for the moment his lips pressed between my legs and centered on my clit.
One lick, one flick of his tongue, and I was lost. The heat of his mouth teased my trembling nub. His tongue flattened and licked. I groaned. Of course I was wetter than ever before. Maddox laughed and devoured me, sampling the sweet honey that slickened my folds.
This was too much. Too good. Too fast.
“Maddox…” I whispered. “We can’t do this.”
“Try and stop me.”
His lips circled my clit—a little warning for what was to come. One suckle would launch me from the bed directly into his arms, onto his cock. That part of me was always too sensitive, too easy for him to control with a nip, touch, fuck.
He kissed my slit and smirked. His curling finger teased inside my pussy. And that mischievous arch of his eyebrow was enough to push me over the edge. He wielded a cocky, expectant stare, as if he understood my body better than I did myself.
He was right.
He spoke with his mouth full—completely vulgar and one of the sexiest things I’d ever heard. His tongue lazily dragged over my clit to earn a shiver. My fingers twisted in the comforter. My hips arched to meet his touch.
“Tell me you love me,” he ordered.
I shook my head. It was the biggest mistake I made of the night.
His nibble on my clit turned to a bite. I stiffened and ached for his next punishment—a tongue, a cock, whatever he wanted to give me.
My body strained to come…
But Maddox pulled away. He shook his head.
“Not until you say it, Sweets.”
God, that wasn’t fair! I was in agony. I reached to soothe the ache between my legs. He batted my hand away, preventing me from cheating.
“I’ll let you come once you’re honest with me again.”