Bad Boy’s Bridesmaid(93)

Now he was home. Out of jail.

I couldn’t protect him here.

How was I supposed to send him away?

His dark hair obscured most of his face. He kept it just long enough to frighten people when he popped the collar of his leather jacket and waited in the shadows. His chin jutted, hard and chiseled, and his nose, never perfectly straight, matched the severe angle of his jaw.

“Josie.”

I dared to look up, even knowing how much I’d lose if I met his gaze. He used to hate when I compared his eyes to my favorite dark chocolate brownie recipe, but nothing else came close. Espresso maybe? Chocolate ganache? I used to get hungry with Maddox…but what I craved most wasn’t dessert.

“It’s been over a year.” He spoke as if I hadn’t counted every hour, minute, and second we’d been separated. “Too damn long, Sweets.”

I melted like a truffle every time he used the nickname. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here for you.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

Maybe to him. He always knew what he wanted. He always got what he wanted. I had no idea if he was right or wrong for me, only that I never considered the consequences when he took me in his arms. That danger made him all the more attractive. He was tall, dark, but he wasn’t classically handsome. Handsome implied trustworthiness, someone gentlemanly and tender.

Maddox was none of those.

Trusting him was a mistake. Welcoming him close was a disaster. His warmth consumed me. Entirely. Dangerously. Inescapably.

“We broke up.” I said it gently because I hated saying it at all.

Maddox nodded. “That was my mistake.”

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“This is the only place for me.”

“When did you…”

“I had a parole hearing…” He tensed in the doorway, his fingers crushing the wooden frame. “You didn’t get my letter?”

Uh-oh. “No.”

“You didn’t take any of my calls either.”

I stumbled backward, hating that it looked like an invitation. Maddox stepped inside my apartment, shutting the door.

Trouble came in many forms, the worst of which existed in my heart. My back pressed against the wall, and I looked up to meet the shadow of his stare. I was never once afraid of this man, not even now when he studied me, memorized me, towered over me. Not many people knew the real Maddox. No one gave him a chance. I did, and I was the fool who fell for him.

“How’d you get so beautiful?” His voice lowered to that honeyed growl. “Christ, I missed you.”

I didn’t speak if only because I didn’t trust what I’d say. How badly I missed him? How I was lost without him in my bed?

How angry I was that nothing I did had prevented what happened.

His hands flattened on the wall behind me, pinning me beneath the simmering, molten man. My heart thrashed, beating everything inside my chest well beyond soft peaks. The paleness of his skin clashed against my smooth, nutmeg brown complexion. I resisted the urge to touch him and entwine our hands. I used to love nothing more than to admire how beautiful we looked together, light and dark, tender and hard, gentle and…

Rough.

Dangerous.

Wild.

But surrendering to his touch was risky. Maddox stared at me, hungry and desperate and so unbelievably lonely.

And I knew why. It shamed me. It hurt me.

But I had no choice.

“I wanted to find you.” His words roughened, but they were as much a caress as Maddox could give. “I had to see you again. To hold you.”

He wanted more than that. His chest strained the thin T-shirt, hardly containing the twitching, testosterone-packed muscles. The leather jacket creaked as he leaned in, crackling the tight material. I hadn’t looked down yet, but I knew what waited in his jeans. Something hard. Something equally wicked.

I held my breath. It did nothing but invite his spicy, cedar and black pepper scent deeper into my lungs. It banished every lingering, nauseating nightmare rattling in my memory. Burnt sugar. Acrid smoke. Antiseptic.

Was it possible the man I lost, the one I couldn’t let myself love again, was the only one who could chase away the fear from the fire?

I spent a year fighting to forget him.

I tossed and turned every night denying my desire for him.

I refused to let my heart break for him.

And it was all for nothing.

Maddox descended on me. His lips crashed against mine in a blind fury, ravenous, unrivaled by the times in our past when he was so desperate to make me his. He was the first man to take me, the only one who’d ever had me. Maddox transformed me from an innocent virgin into wanton woman, transfixed by his strength and eager for his grip upon my hips.

He grabbed me. Time stilled. I counted.

One second, and my gasp blended into a gentle mew.

Two seconds, and he pressed me hard against the wall.

Three seconds, and I was his again.

His lips didn’t nibble, and his kiss wasn’t kind or slow. Maddox was ravenous.

When he wanted me, he took me, and nothing prevented us from exploring that pleasure. A man as fierce as him should have terrified me. Instead, I was only overwhelmed by his lust. A year of separation only made that need worse.

His tongue flicked against mine, quick and insistent. This wasn’t a tease. I clawed at him, pulled him closer, and waited for that moment when I might have caught my breath. I should have stopped him from leading us into a temptation beyond what we could handle.

But I’d missed him. I ached for him.

I wanted Maddox more than anything—more than my store, more than finding the real criminal who destroyed my life with this perfectly imperfect man.

“Did you…” Maddox broke the kiss. He stared, challenging me to deny him. “Did you think about me?”

“Yes.”

He smiled. A look of vindication didn’t belong in the bedroom. Good thing he pinned me to the hallway wall.

Maddox seized my mouth once more. He stole my breath and nipped my bottom lip. His hand dragged along my face, his fingers calloused. I didn’t expect him to be gentle. He never was.

“You didn’t come to see me.” His words were harsh. If he expected an answer, he didn’t give me time. His lips crushed mine, and he ripped the leather jacket from his shoulders.

My heart fluttered and broke.

Scars.

His arms and hands were covered in scars. Burns. He didn’t hide them. Every silvered strike against his flesh came from the night he saved me.

I didn’t have time to move away. My lips tingled from his kiss, but even they couldn’t move, couldn’t speak to tell him what a mistake we made. I pressed my hands to chest. Pushed.

He grasped my wrists. I murmured as he forced my hands over my head. Now I was in trouble, but my core clenched, hard. Wanting. Needing.

“You never visited me.” Maddox grunted between kisses, his lips heating a trail as he captured the soft hollow of my neck. “You never came to check on me. To make sure I was okay.”

No. I hadn’t visited him in prison. I couldn’t.

What was I supposed to say?

His kiss became a bite, pinching the sensitive skin of my neck. It’d leave a mark. Always did.

Maddox loomed over me, pinning me to the wall and savoring the view of my body exposed for his amusement. His pleasure. He forced me still. I once loved knowing that his strength controlled every part of me.

That desire had never faded.

“I was innocent, Josie.”

We both knew that. Difference was, I couldn’t say it.

“We’d broken up,” I whispered.

“You still loved me as much as I loved you.” He reached for me, brushing my cheek, pushing me too hard into the wall. “Don’t lie. You’re still in love with me.”

I shook my head. “We can’t do this.”

His touch cascaded shivers over my body. “Can’t do what? Love each other? Be together? Feel each other?”

Yes, yes, and yes.

I wasn’t ready to face him again. I couldn’t prepare for the heat of his breath on my neck or his rough fingers tugging on the hem of my shirt. He didn’t strip me to see what he had missed this past year. He was after something more…rewarding.

His fingers flicked the button of my jeans. My heart raced my flipping stomach, daring the other to punk out first. This was too much. Too fast.

I had no idea the prison released Maddox, but I should have known he’d find me the instant he gained his freedom. He got drunk on the words I offered, the kisses he took. It would only get worse and better and out of control.

Why was this so hard? I fought every instinct to surrender to my wild, emotionally crazed ex-boyfriend who had taken me so many times before. We couldn’t do this.

My lips refused to breathe the word no, but what would happen if I didn’t refuse him? If I let him back into my life? My bed?

My body.

He unfastened my jeans, and my breath squeezed too tight in my lungs. God, I was unraveling. I was always a few chocolate chips short of a functional cookie in his presence. Now, I melted at his feet. His stare was too much to handle while my memories danced through our every romantic moment and passionate embrace.

I couldn’t free myself from his grip. The zipper on my jeans lowered.

I quieted. He didn’t have to hold me. Maddox could’ve pinned me to the wall with just his raptor gaze.

“If you knew how much I missed you.” His voice boiled, a slow and dangerous rumble. He traced the exposed patch of my belly hiding under the zipper. “I spent every minute of my sentence thinking of you.”