I sighed and continued perusing his body, looking for signs of the man I used to know while attempting to understand the new him.
“I’m here to compliment the life you’ve created, and I’ll wait as long as it takes. No expectations.” He probably didn’t realize how hard those words had hit my soul. My old therapist used to drill into my head that true happiness comes from within, not from outside sources. When you love someone and want him or her in your life, you choose to let their happiness compliment yours. Love added to the joy existing within your soul, not its sole purpose.
He slept soundly and I watched his ab muscles flex with every breath. He really looked like a Viking—rough and massive. My gaze dipped down to his hardened dick peeking above the waistband of his shorts. I’d slept in the nude, since I usually did and he’d already seen me naked many times. I thought maybe he’d try to kiss me again or cop a feel or two but he simply crawled into bed and held me. We both fell asleep quickly.
I didn’t know why I had stepped into the shower with him. Was it the need to comfort him, my old friend, or something more? The confusion inside my head ate at my senses. I didn’t know which way was up, and what to do. He said he’d wait however long until I chose him, but what if I didn’t want that?
Caught up in my thoughts, I didn’t notice a pair of sea-blue eyes watching me.
“I wasn’t staring at you.”
My poor attempt to lie brought a smirk to his lips. Lips I wanted to kiss, and without the strength to resist him, I leaned in to taste what I wanted, trying not to hurt his injury as best as a I could.
“You know my will is only so strong when it comes to you, right?” he muttered against my mouth, and my answer came in the form of my fingers caressing his abs. Touching him chased the confusion away, and even though I wasn’t ready for sex with him, that didn’t mean we couldn’t play.
“Softening your armor for me?” His hand cupped my ass and pulled me closer, my leg lifting over his hips.
“Maybe a little. You said no expectations, right?” I had initiated this touch between us, but doubt lingered about it being the right decision.
“None.” He kissed me and kneaded my ass with his strong hands. I pushed away the uncertainty when it came to my emotions and gave in to the joy of living in this moment with him.
His lips were the sweetest ambrosia, and I reveled in the high of his touch. Over and over, we breathed in each other with every kiss and caress of our tongues. His hands were everywhere and yet teasing the exact spots I wanted them. I needed more of him and not gently.
“I’m not fragile, Maddox.” His hands had been soft and explorative but not fueled with desire like the type burning within me.
“I’ve been thinking about having you like this for so long. I want to savor this.” His mouth moved down my neck, leaving goosebumps in his wake.
“Savor harder and with more of you, please.” I wanted him to take me, use me, and make up for the past decade without him. He moaned against the swell of my small breasts, then wrapped his luscious lips around the tips. My back bowed, and my hands gripped him everywhere they could. His teeth nipped at me, and I moaned also, feeling sensations I’d never experienced before.
I pushed him back, taking lead for what I wanted and climbed over him. Instead of straddling his hips and rubbing against him, I turned my ass to his face, my eyes on his massive dick. With greedy hands, I pushed down his shorts and watched with a hungry gaze as he sprang free.
“Hazel, you sure?” he asked, as his hips lifted closer. He was trying to take things slow for my sake, which made me want him more. He cared and wouldn’t take advantage. He knew where I stood with him and accepted whatever I had to give him. I smiled and chose to press a kiss to the broad head of him as my answer.
His hands went to my ass, lifting me up and over him to straddle his face. The intimate position spurred me forward as he brought his tongue to my clit. I moaned against his dick and licked him like the sweetest lollipop before he took my concentration away.
Eagerly we licked and sucked each other between breathy moans and groans. His fingers joined his tongue’s assault on my pussy, and I screamed from the fullness. His hips pumped in sync with my mouth bobbing over him, my hand going to the base of him where my lips couldn’t reach.
“Fuck you’re gonna be the death of me. Your pussy tastes so fucking good.”
The scratching of his lightly trimmed beard rubbed me in all the right places. “I’m gonna come.” My body tensed, as the waves of pleasure built in my toes and worked their way up, up, up, and then crashed over me.
“Fuck, you’re squeezing the shit out of my fingers. Give me everything.” He sucked my clit as his fingers moved harder and faster, pumping in and out to ride out the world-consuming orgasm taking me under.
“I’m gonna come, and you’re gonna swallow it,” he growled and while I knew I didn’t have to do as he said, his command made me want it. When his hips surged up, and he roared into the room, I attached my lips to his throbbing sex and swallowed every drop he released.
I rolled off him and hummed from pure bliss. Neither one of us said anything for a few minutes. With the high of our orgasms ringing in my head, another line to the song I’d been working on weeks ago hit me.
“I’m feeling the muse right now. Care if I go write?” I didn’t know post sexual acts protocol with him.
A loud smack on my ass echoed around the hotel room.
“Get to work.” He smacked my ass again, then leaned over to kiss where he’d reddened the cheek.
I squealed from his kiss becoming a nibble and ran from the bed before I became tempted for more of his addicting body. I needed to get the words in my head down on paper and grab my guitar before I forgot them.
I wanna laugh and feel with him. In my heart I know it’s true. The only love I’ve ever wanted is you.
Chapter Twenty- One
Maddox
We’d tasted each other, and then she worked on her music like she’d die if she didn’t get it out of her head. Despite wanting to make her come again and again I slumped in relief against the bed. She wasn’t ready for all I had to say, and I didn’t know if she ever would be. She wanted me to take her hard and fast because of her heated need, but also because the intimacy of savoring the moment left her worrisome. She had too many issues in her head and didn’t want to deal with them right now. I got it, shit, I had my own demons to battle with. However the difference between us is I knew she was always meant to be mine, and we’d deal together. She’s been alone, and me being the person who hurt her the most, she lost that trust in me.
I’d earned some of it back though, and I’d keep fighting until I had it all. She’d given me a kiss on the cheek before settling in her chair and scribbling in a green notebook. She chewed on a pencil while the lyrical words came to her, then would write them down. I smiled seeing her so happy and flowing with her passion.
She loved her Hero Society duties, but being a musician fed her soul in a way nothing else could.
“I wanna laugh . . .” she murmured to a tune in her head, and tapped her fingers against the notebook.
We left for the airport after an hour of her writing, and she jumped right back into her lyrics once we took to the sky. I gazed out the window at the clouds to come up with a plan for the Collector at Hazel’s show. Hazel would be playing at the Bella Donna Club in two days. How the Collector knew that was a mystery since she was to be a surprise guest. And she wanted to stay in the city for a couple days before heading back to her oasis home to record what she’d been working on.
A sort of electric hum buzzed beneath my skin. My power was readying itself for a meeting with the Collector.
We hit minor turbulence and I hoped it wasn’t from my antsy emotions the closer we got to Seahill Airport. Hazel folded her notebook into a bag and looked out the window like she hadn’t realized we were almost home.
“Wow, I must have really been in the zone there.” She str
etched and I stared at her tits.
“See something you like?” She shimmied a little, shaking them for my pleasure.
“No.” I smirked, and little red flowers popped up in her hair. I laughed, unable to keep it in as she pretended to get upset about my obvious lie.
“Would it make you feel better if I put my mouth on them?” I asked as the captain declared we would be making our descent. She buckled herself up and lifted her shirt up to her neck, exposing her breasts for my view. Thank fuck for her private plane.
“Sure, come and get them,” she teased, thinking the seatbelt sign would stop me from latching onto her nipples. I unlatched my buckle and walked the short distance from my seat across from her.
“Maddox, you shouldn’t be moving about the cabin!” she half-shrieked, half-giggled while pulling her shirt down.
“You shouldn’t have teased me with your sexy tits.” I squatted before her and lightly bit her hardened nipples through her shirt.
“How is it I can go without a man for ages, but with you I can barely stay away?” She groaned, and manly pride heated within me. I didn’t want her craving anyone but me.
“Because you were always meant to be mine. We were made for each other.” I lifted her shirt and lavished attention on her perky breasts while my hands ran up her thighs toward her sex teasingly.
“You shouldn’t say things like that.”
I looked up and saw her eyes were closed, and her lips parted from the pleasure I inflicted on her body.
“Give me one good reason why?” I nipped at her flesh. Her abs tensed, and her hips flexed toward my touch. She didn’t answer me, and I chuckled against her skin. Slowly, I released her shirt and my assault on her breasts to walk back to my seat.
“What? Why’d you stop?” She looked fiery, like I committed a crime not worshipping her body more than I did. It very well could be but I liked her needy, and she’d already come on my face earlier. I’d let her marinate in her desire for me before hearing her scream again. She huffed sexual frustration, but by the time I buckled back up we were nearing the ground. I smiled at her, enjoying her case of blue pussy. I needed patience, and possibly to stop pushing her to face her feelings for me. That wouldn’t help either of us and she might not trust her own emotions right now. She needed space, and a distraction to sort through her issues.
“Brute.”
I stuck out my tongue in a playful manner I hadn’t felt in ages. She brought the kid out in me.
“Brat,” I said, and we landed.
The rest of the night flew by as we got our bags and her driver took us to her apartment in the city.
Shortly after we set our stuff down in the hotel, she walked toward me with a heated gaze and greedy fingers. Her communicator went off and then she walked into her room to put on her Black Lily attire.
“Want help?” I hadn’t been paged so this particular work didn’t need me, but I offered anyway.
“No, I’ve got this.” She walked into the room, and my dick jumped up for her immediately. With the Collector gunning for it, every male instinct in me said to go with her and keep her safe. However this was Hazel, and earning her trust again meant I couldn’t cage her or step in front of her passions. She needed this time, and I had to trust she’d be OK. If anything happened, I’d turn this world into a tornado war zone until I had her in my arms again.
“Don’t stay up too late, dear,” she called to me as she opened the balcony door and leaped off the side to land on a branch lifting her up.
“Go get ‘em, babe.” I grinned, knowing she didn’t hear me, but pride in the woman she’d become consumed me.
My body ached for some physical activity, so I changed into sweats and a shirt, then grabbed my jacket and running shoes. I didn’t want Hazel to worry if I wasn’t home when she got here so I sent her a message that I’d be back after a workout at the Hero Society headquarters.
Chapter Twenty- Two
Hazel
I used the trees to travel, which wasn’t as quick as a car or Maddox’s air power, but I got to the forest quickly. There were a group of men who butchered an acre of the national park four miles outside Seahill metropolitan area. Not only was their act illegal as fuck, but they were after priceless blue wood trees only found in our area of the continent in this particular park. They were a national treasure, and this group of asshats gunned for them.
Police, and probably the FBI, were on their way but our intel said they had guns and would hold off until they got what they needed. The wood of the trees sold for billions and these people deemed that money worth the potential jail visit.
I heard the brutal cracking of the trees echo around the forest before I saw the lights of the large equipment. The sounds ripped through my heart like a bullet. We needed trees to live, and the men were slowly suffocating us on purpose.
I stood on the edge of their battleground and kneeled to the ground. My fingers dug into the dirt, assimilating my power into the vast root systems of all the trees in the forest. I figured people only brutalized the forests because the trees didn’t fight back, but what would happen if they did?
My power rippled over the ground, and the large tractors trembled. One of the men operating the chainsaw stopped to look around for the cause. Even though my body was hidden in the shadows, I smiled at them mischievously. Time for some payback.
The half-cut tree swayed, its branches stretched up, then in a whooshing movement hit the man with the chainsaw. He flew back ten feet and stood with wide eyes at the tree, his hands clutching his stomach.
Every limb in reach of someone swung at them, fighting back for their lives. Roots lifted from the dirt, then grabbed the saws and weapons from their scared hands. The men shouted and ran away, their screams about evil trees were music to my ears as sirens neared.
I pushed more of my power into the ground, and roots shot into the sky, surrounding the men from their escape. I’d be damned if they ran away before being arrested for their horrid crimes. Many people tore down precious trees illegally and got away with it, but not these men.
I waited in the shadows until the police arrived, then released the assholes through a small opening in the root-holding cell. The park became a crime scene with lights and tape covering the now-empty acre of land. I wished I had the power to seal the broken trees back together. Some of them might have new growth from the stumps, but many wouldn’t.
On the way back to Seahill, I phoned headquarters to let them know the blue woods were saved. People were out enjoying their life as I passed by quietly through the trees to my apartment. A high from using my powers to stop those men and save the national forest hummed beneath my skin. The need to do something to expel the energy consumed my thoughts as I climbed onto my balcony.
“Maddox?” I called into the empty living room.
“Uh, Maddox?” A eerie sensation crawled up my spine. Fear rolled in my stomach at the familiar déjà vu occurring.
He left me again. He had a taste of me and made all those vows of never leaving yet he was gone. I frantically searched the apartment in case he had been bludgeoned and lay on the floor unconscious. I’d looked frantically for a note or something that said he just stepped out and would be back. My mind bled memories into the present and I collapsed to the ground. I’d wanted him to leave when he first showed up, but now his absence ripped at the scab of the wound he’d inflicted years before.
I fumbled through my phone, hoping to see a message with his name next to it, but nothing showed up. He’d left his bag and clothes unlike the last time. I wondered if having evidence of him hit me harder than having none at all.
My fingers trembled as I pulled off my mask while tears streamed down my cheeks. How could he leave me again?
My chest ached, and my breaths seemed short as his departure from my life soaked in. I hated this feeling. I’d tossed on my metaphorical armor when it happened the first time, but now my armor became rubber. I’d let him in, and the emotions he inspired i
n me were written in my song journal in the other room.
I’d survive this, that I knew. However, I doubted I’d give another a chance at my heart. He always held my love in his hands, and when he left, he took it with him.
“Honey, I’m home.” The door unlocked and Maddox walked through the door wearing sweats and a sweat-soaked shirt.
“Hazel.” He had a smile on his face when he entered the room until he saw me crumbled on the floor, covered in tears.
“Hazel? What happened? What’s wrong?” His knees hit the floor inches from me and his hands were at my cheeks, wiping my tears as his blue eyes probed for the cause of my sadness.
“You left me,” I whispered, completely unsure how to feel seeing him. Had he truly left me? Had I overreacted to coming here and not seeing him?
“You didn’t get my message?” I couldn’t look into his pleading eyes.
In my confused mental state, I stayed silent, liable to say so many wrong things if I talked too much. I shook my head, my gaze dropping to my phone for the supposed message he sent me.
“Fuck. Hazel, I did not leave you. I went to the gym at headquarters, worked out, then came back to you. I will always come back to you.”
I heard his words, I understood them, but the trauma from when I thought he left me battered my thoughts and soul. His strong arms pulled me into his lap and held me softly.
He murmured over and over that he was here with me, and he wasn’t leaving. I didn’t know what to think or believe, so I retreated inward, hoping to forget this whole night.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Maddox
I fucked up, and I didn’t know how to make it right.
The message I’d sent Hazel showed up two hours after I found her in a crying heap on the floor. I hated that she’d assumed I’d left her again, but I hadn’t earned another reaction from her yet.
After I held her on the floor for half an hour, I stood with her in my arms, then walked to the shower. I cleaned us both, and then dried us off before carrying her to bed. I continued to hold her, letting her feel my warm body holding her, and my breaths beneath her cheek as she slowly drifted to sleep. Over and over, the memory of her crying stabbed me in the heart. When I’d left her after the incident with my powers at sixteen, I didn’t see the fallout of my decision.
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