by Naima Simone
“It’s like a postcard,” she whispered, wonder coloring her voice. “A vintage, perfect postcard.” Tipping her head back, she squinted up at him. “How did you find this place?” She stripped out of her jacket and laid it over the seat of her bike, leaving her clothed in a thin white tank top that bared her toned arms and clung to her full breasts and rounded stomach.
Fuck.
Grinding his teeth, he forced his scrutiny back to the scenery. But he no longer saw the picturesque town. No, he could only see smooth, soft-looking flesh rising above a scoop neckline and the peek of black silk through white cotton.
“Purely by accident,” he said, slipping his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. His hands he could control. The lust roughening his voice? Not so much. “Eight years ago, I was on one of my random road trips, traveling from Vermont down to Massachusetts. I ended up on this stretch and the sight of that—” he hitched his chin toward the view “—stole my breath. I pulled over right here, sat down and stayed for hours. And it’s here I promised myself that if the town turned out to be anything like the view, I was making my home there. It was. Not just the place, but the people. After a week, I returned to my place, packed my stuff and came back. I’ve never left.”
She frowned. “All this time I thought you were born here. Where’s home, originally?”
He softly snorted, shaking his head. “Mostly, a tour bus.” Shock parted her lips and widened her eyes, and he chuckled. “I kid you not. My mom is an Irish woman with a voice like Aretha Franklin and was—still is—a backup singer for major music acts. My first memory is playing in a dressing room while she was on stage. I traveled with her when I was younger. As I grew older, she’d leave me with different relatives during the school year, but my summers were with her, back on the road. At times it could be exciting, visiting different cities and countries, but always leaving family, friends... That grew tiresome. Painful even. I’ve always just wanted a home to settle down in, to call my own. And Rose Bend is that for me. I found my real home.”
He glanced down at her, rueful. An apology for his long ramble was on his tongue when he caught a flash of hurt in her expression. It was there and gone in a flicker, but he’d seen it. Recognized it.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, turning fully toward her. Before he could question the wisdom of touching her, he shifted closer and cupped the back of her neck. She didn’t stiffen or step away, and a contentment that should’ve been another red flare of warning swelled within him. “Don’t try to tell me ‘nothing.’ For an entire school year, I lived with four teenage girl cousins. I know ‘nothing’ means everything.”
She didn’t laugh as he’d intended, and his concern deepened.
“Tell me, Cherrie.”
She hesitated, glancing away from him. But then, voice halting, she said, “You must resent your mother. Either always dragging you along with her or leaving you behind. No stability. She must’ve seemed selfish to you.”
He couldn’t help it—he laughed. And her eyes jerked back to his face, surprise darkening them. “Sorry,” he said, but still smiling. “My mother is one of the most selfless, loving and kind women I know. She raised me by herself, my father long gone before I could talk. Instead of pawning me off on others, she chose to keep me with her even if it meant living on tour buses. Only when the tutors weren’t cutting it and she believed I should be around kids my age did I stay with relatives. And even then, we talked every day. Everything she did was for me. Out of her love for me. Every penny she didn’t spend on my upkeep, she saved for my college education or for whatever I decided to do in life. She gifted me with the down payment on my bar and my house. So no, I can’t resent her. I love her. And I’ve never doubted that love. Not for a second. Especially when she visits and takes over my kitchen, just having to try a new recipe from whatever country she visited last. Which, believe me, is not as awesome as it sounds.”
There was the smile he’d missed last time.
“I’m glad for you. For both of you.”
“Hold on a second.” He walked over to his bike, removed the blanket he always kept in his saddlebag, and strode over to a patch of grass. Snapping it open, he spread it out. Extending his hand to her, he patiently waited until she won whatever internal battle she waged and finally approached him. Sliding her palm across his, she allowed him to guide her down, and then he sank beside her. “Now tell me what that was about.” He held up a hand, palm out. “And yeah, you just met me last night, but I spilled about my childhood to you. From how I see it, you owe me.”
The corner of her mouth lifted, but her bottom lip trembled. Just as he couldn’t stop breathing, he couldn’t stop himself from touching his thumb to it, soothing it.
“Why do you keep doing that?” she whispered. “Touching me?”
He shrugged a shoulder, giving her mouth one last tender brush, then dropping his arm. “I don’t know. I just need to,” he confessed. “Should I stop?”
Her lashes lowered. “No,” she said, her admission as soft as the breeze rustling the leaves above.
“Good. Now don’t change the subject. Tell me.”
Inhaling a breath, she drew her knees up and propped her crossed arms on them. “I guess I’m like your mother. I travel a lot for my job. Which means there’s not a lot of time spent at home, which my boyfriend objected to. And I suppose he had a right to object, even though this was my life before we got together.”
“Boyfriend?” Anger speared him, dagger sharp. And fear. Fear that he’d just found her, and she belonged to someone else.
So what?
And in the blink of an eye, he was that man he despised. The man who would encroach on someone else’s woman. He hated what that said about him, what that made him. But then he stared at the delicate yet proud profile of the woman before him, and he didn’t give a damn.
She was his. He’d known her less than twenty-four hours, and everything in him roared this truth. She was his and he was hers.
“Ex-boyfriend,” she corrected, and calmed the possessive beast he hadn’t known resided within him. “Anyway, being on the road a lot, I didn’t make time for regular doctor visits. But at the beginning of the year, I did. And I was there for almost five hours because my doctor was about to admit me to the hospital. My blood pressure was so high, if I hadn’t come in, he believed I would’ve had a stroke within the next few days.”
“Jesus,” Maddox rasped.
“Yes.” She nodded, tipping her head back and chuckling, although it carried a hard edge to it. “I’m young, live a good life, turned my passion into a career and am damn successful at it. High blood pressure, stroke, possible kidney disease and liver failure—that happens to my grandmother, not me.” She shook her head. “For a long while, I was angry at my body for betraying me. But then I had to admit that the tiredness, headaches, dizziness and occasional shortness of breath hadn’t been due to stress and constant traveling. That it’d been me eating quick and easy foods at shows and exhibitions with little to no exercise. I had to stop beating myself up and instead forgive myself for neglecting me. With that came a determination to take control in all areas of my life.”
She bent her head and rubbed a finger over the ring finger of her left hand. The finger where an engagement ring would’ve sat. An unprecedented spurt of jealousy blasted through him because she’d worn another man’s ring first.
Shit. He was turning into a caveman.
“Kenneth and I were together for two years. It’s been four months since I removed his ring, and one month since I stopped feeling guilty about it. They call high blood pressure the silent killer, and it definitely made me intimately aware of my mortality. So I had to change my diet, exercise regimen, lifestyle...and my partner.”
“Was he—” he trapped the growl in his chest “—abusive?”
“No, well... God.” She huffed out a breath and thrust a hand th
rough her curls, bunching them in a fist. “A part of me hates saying yes. Because it makes me feel weak. Stupid for staying with him so long. When I’m neither.” She blew out another gust of air and turned her head to look at him, her gaze unwavering but...sad. “Yes. Never physically, but emotionally? Mentally? Yes. I was never good enough. I was selfish for traveling so much and not placing our relationship first. I was too big, and because I wouldn’t lose just fifteen pounds apparently his concerns, his needs didn’t matter to me.”
She shoved to her feet, and he followed, but maintained his distance. Let her pace. Let her get this out as if she were lancing a wound and releasing the poison.
Intuition told him she didn’t do this often.
“If I loved him—if I cared about us—I would put my business degree to use and work in a jewelry store instead of designing and selling my own. Make more money. Two years together and he didn’t get that creating my own work was like riding for me. Which, surprise, surprise, he hated, too.” She barked out a laugh. “Both are pure energy, a high. When I’m in my workshop or on a bike, I’m not caged in... I’m free. Whether I’m wrestling with getting the silver to mold just so or riding against the elements, the adrenaline is a rush. How could I give up either? But he didn’t understand. And what he didn’t understand, he resented.”
She halted mid-pace and curled her arms around herself, standing near the rise of the hill, inches from where it dropped off. Her eyes closed, her rich brown skin gleaming in the sun’s rays. His heart thudded against his rib cage, but he ordered himself to remain where he stood. This woman, who craved freedom, wouldn’t appreciate him trying to wrap her in wool.
“I started to realize that he didn’t...like me. Not the real me. He couldn’t if he wanted to change everything about me. But then, several months after my diagnosis, one morning I walked out of our closet into the bedroom, and he looked at me and said, ‘I’m glad you got sick. At least now you’re losing weight.’ That was it for me. I couldn’t do the toxicity, the tearing down of my soul anymore. That day, I refused to give him any more of me. And I promised myself that I wouldn’t change anything about me for a man—for anyone—ever again. So maybe Kenneth wasn’t too wrong. If not for me getting sick, if not for me going to the doctor’s that day, I wouldn’t have woken up and decided to take better care of my health. Decided to get rid of everything and everyone that was poison to me.”
“Cherrie.” Maddox flexed his fingers next to his thighs, desperate to touch her. “Can I hold you?” He would beg her if necessary.
She shifted, considering him over her shoulder. “Yes,” she finally said. Then added, “Please.”
It was that “please” that snapped his control. In three long strides, he was on her, dragging her into his arms. Holding her tight. Probably too tight, but easing his grip was beyond his ability at the moment, and she didn’t protest. No, she gripped him, her fists balled into his T-shirt. Every curve and dip aligned with his harder, larger planes and angles, and they fit. Goddammit, did they fit. A shiver worked through him, and he didn’t try to prevent it. Or hide it. He wanted, needed her to know how she affected him. How her strength humbled him. How her spirit and courage awed him.
Inhaling her scent of lavender, vanilla and the perspiration from their ride, he buried his face in the crook of her neck. And because he couldn’t help himself, he pressed his mouth to the base of her throat, feeling the rapid throb of her pulse against his lips. Rejoicing in it.
“Ask me again,” he demanded, lifting his head and staring down into her almond-brown gaze. “Ask me, Cherrie.”
She didn’t pretend to misunderstand him. But caution, and yes, the whisper of fear he’d glanced earlier in the day, passed through her eyes.
“Maddox,” she said, regret thick in her voice. “You were right to turn me down. Us, this... It isn’t a good idea.”
“I didn’t turn you down,” he argued. “And you think it’s not a good idea—which I disagree with—but it’s inevitable.”
She released his shirt, her hands falling to his waist. Not pushing him away, but not holding him close, either. “I...” She briefly closed her eyes, the long fan of her lashes hiding her eyes from him before she lifted them, and the resolve there set his heart pounding. “I’m not the woman you want, the woman you need. Starting something when I’m only going to leave... It’s not fair. To either one of us. We shouldn’t start what we can’t finish.”
“Then give us right now.” He tunneled his fingers through her hair and drove back a groan at finally, finally having her curls in his hand. Twisting them around his fist. Savoring the coarse silk crush of them between his fingers. “The thought of going through the rest of this life without knowing what it is to kiss you, to taste you, to be buried inside you... It fucking scares me. Right now, baby.” He tugged her head back, and her soft gasp ghosted across his mouth. “So, Cherrie, ask me.”
Indecision shadowed her gaze. But so did the desire making a mockery of his control. After a moment, she sighed. And whispered, “We’re going to have sex, aren’t we?”
“Fuck. Yes.”
Then he crushed his mouth to hers.
CHAPTER FOUR
MISTAKE. THIS WAS such a huge mistake.
And Cherrie didn’t give a damn.
Not with Maddox’s mouth molded to hers. Not with his tongue thrusting, tangling and, God yes, tasting. Not with his hungry moans pouring into her as he devoured her.
Not with his hard, thick and—she whimpered—big cock nudging her belly.
Yes, she might regret this decision to curl her fingers around his biceps, rise on her toes and open wider for him, but at this moment? Nothing else mattered.
One hand in her hair and the other clamped around her hip, he guided her backward, and she trusted him to keep her safe. Closing her eyes, she lost herself in the erotic mesh of their mouths. Every lick and suck catapulted the craving that had been taunting her since she’d first laid eyes on him the previous evening into the stratosphere. She wanted to soar there. Wanted him to send her there.
Sliding her palms up his arms, she wound hers around his neck and jumped, wrapping her legs around his lean waist. And placing her sex in direct alignment with his erection. She whimpered, a bolt of pure lust pile-driving through her and propelling the breath out of her lungs.
Wrenching her mouth away, she dropped her head back and muttered, “Oh God. You feel...”
She didn’t have a chance to complete the sentiment, because he yanked her head back up, took her lips again. He didn’t let up. Not even when her back met the ground and his big body settled between her legs, covering her. Ravenous. It was the only word to describe how he consumed her. No part of her mouth went undiscovered, untouched. And she surrendered to the hunger, let him have free rein because in his taking, he gave. Lord, did Maddox give.
He held nothing back from her. Not his eager moans, the intensity of his need for her, his hoarse words of praise in between the small, tender bites. Just a kiss and she’d never felt so...desired. So vital.
He peppered hot, damp kisses over her lips, cheeks, jaw and chin, then dragged his mouth down her neck, grazing his teeth along her skin. Pausing to gently bite the tendon that ran along the column. She clutched his shoulders, arching her neck and back, silently pleading for more of that tender caress that skated the thin edge of pain.
His big palms stroked the sides of her breasts, her torso, until he fisted the edge of her tank top. “Okay?” he asked, his narrowed gaze on hers. Studying her. Probably for any signs of indecision.
He wouldn’t find any.
She was in. So far in she couldn’t see her way out. That both exhilarated and terrified her.
“Okay,” she said, leveling off the blanket so he could yank the top over her head. She returned the favor by balling his T-shirt in her fingers and tugging the cotton up. Reaching behind his head, he finished the d
eed by whipping it off. Leaving that wide, muscled chest—spattered with auburn hair—bared to her eyes. “More than okay.” She trailed her fingers over his defined pectorals, glancing across the small, flat nipples.
His growl vibrated in the air, and she smiled. Repeated the teasing caress.
“That’s not nice, baby,” he warned.
“Return the favor.” She stretched her arms above her head, offering her silk-covered breasts to him.
Before she completed the sentence, he captured the beaded tip between his teeth and drew on it. She cried out, the crackling pleasure pulling her higher, tauter.
“Not enough,” he muttered against her, and in moments, her bra disappeared from between them and his tongue and teeth ravished her bare flesh. His hand cupped and squeezed the other heavy breast, readying it for the same sensuous torture its twin received.
“Maddox,” she whined, twisting, shaking beneath him, beneath his relentless and wicked mouth. Fingers cradling his head, she pressed him to her, demanding he give her everything.
He fed on her as if she were every alcoholic drink he’d ever downed, and his single goal was to get drunk on her. Switching breasts, he played with the damp peak, twisting and pinching while his lips and tongue licked, nibbled and sucked.
“God, you’re more gorgeous than I imagined. And believe me, baby,” he whispered, trailing kisses down the center of her torso, “I did a lot of imagining.”
His praise glowed within her like the golden rays that attempted to break through the thick awning of leaves. She accepted her body, even loved her body, in spite of her ex’s attempts to shame her. But God, to hear Maddox express how beautiful he found her...how desirable. Even the most confident woman needed to hear that. Especially from the person she gave her vulnerability and body to.
