My body thrums at his words, my womb doing a backflip of celebration and sending surging tendrils of confusing warmth through me.
And then it morphs, and it’s not confusing anymore, just fire hot and eager.
“Are you serious?” I whisper.
“Deadly,” Maddox growls. “That’s another reason I came here. I want to tell your father what we have, the children we’re going to have. I don’t want to sneak in the shadows and—”
“No,” I gasp, another thunderous stampede claiming my heart. “I get it, Maddox. I really do. I know you don’t want to sneak around. I don’t, either, but we can’t tell him, not yet …”
“When, then?” Maddox whispers, his eyes searching mine, making me tingly and hot and full of burning want.
Until I know this isn’t a trick. Until I know I’m not going to be humiliated again.
“Please?” I whisper, the space between us feeling like a stabbing pain. I want to close it and sink with sizzling pleasure into his arms, to feel the certain touch of his hands on me. “Let’s just wait a little while.”
“I don’t like going behind his back,” Maddox says. “My plan was to tell him right away, right after I told you I’m still claiming you, that nothing – nothing – could change that fact.”
“I know,” I whisper urgently. “But it’s a lot for me, you know? Just do this one thing for me. Please?”
My mind surges back to Aaron and the so-called certainty I felt then, the way he reeled me in, a helpless, stupid fish on a hook, and the way I floundered on deck as the realization that I’d been duped slapped into me.
I don’t think this is the same.
I feel something for Maddox I’ve never felt for anyone, a singing in my womb, a rioting contentment moving through my body, but how can I be sure?
Maddox heaves a sigh, but then a smirk touches his lips and he leans ever-so-slightly forward.
“You have to do something for me, then,” he growls.
“What?” I whisper.
“Come to dinner with me tonight,” he says. “Let me treat you like the queen you are. But just know this, Myla. I don’t know if I’ll be able to hold myself back. I can still taste you. It’s driving me insane. I love that you’re a virgin and I need to take it further.”
“I want that,” I whisper, my lips tingling, both sets of lips like frenetic wildfire. “I’ll come to dinner. Of course I will, Maddox. This changes everything. Just …”
My hand snakes to my throat, where the necklace once was, my most prized possession. My skin writhes uncomfortably when I remember how I shamed myself, the embarrassing way I contorted my body, the stupid, pathetic hope in my mind that I was one of the cool girls, the chosen girls, one of those special few who gets the lavishing attention of jock assholes.
And now, in hindsight, I don’t even want that attention.
Compared to the manly dominance of Maddox Copper, it’s like the yapping of a newborn pup.
“Just what?” Maddox growls.
Just don’t break my heart.
But my words are cut off when Mom strides from the back door, waving over to us.
“Breakfast is ready,” she calls. “Maddox, you have to stay. I’ve cooked enough for ten.”
I stare at Mom in her flowing summer dress, her hair tied up, her eyes narrowed as she stares across the garden at us. I explore her face as I approach the house, looking for any sign that she detects this is anything other than innocent friend-of-the-family talk.
But if she suspects, I can’t read it, and minutes later the four of us are crowded around the table tucking into a breakfast that tastes like it’s sent from heaven.
“Nothing like a full english, eh, Maddox?” Dad grins, forking half a sausage. “Really brings me back to when we were kids.”
And that just brings it all crashing down, how complicated this is, how tangled and messy.
And yet I know one thing.
Secret or not, there’s nothing in the world that would stop me from going on a date with Maddox tonight.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Maddox
I sit in the upper rear booth in the restaurant, the candle flickering on the table even as the large windows let in swathes of late evening Californian sunlight. I think about Tyson, briefly, back at the house with Kenneth and his wife, and then my mind skirts back to earlier today, the garden with Myla.
The idea of keeping our blooming desire a secret from Lenard doesn’t cause a fireworks display of satisfaction to explode in my chest. It doesn’t make me want to jump up and down in excitement and punch the air, and yet I can read Myla, read her better than I’ve ever been able to read anyone – even myself – and I saw the panic thrumming through her touch-me-now body.
So, for now, I’ll seal my lips and focus instead on my queen, the lady who right this second is being led across the restaurant by the host, skirting the glittering tables and sconce lights.
I feel something primal rushing throughout my body, as though all my ancestors are trying to break through the film of time and tell me to claim this woman, this fertile queen, right this second.
Dinner be damned.
Society be damned.
Pretense be damned.
But the truth is I want to revel in the closeness of the dinner, too, before exploring every delicious inch of her body.
I stand up and give a short bow, not usually the sort of thing I’d do, but in this moment, with this woman, it seems right.
A smile touches Myla’s lips as I walk around the table to pull her chair out, her body doing mind-bending things to my manhood as my gaze takes her in with greedy eyes.
She’s wearing a glittery golden shirt with a teasing hint of cleavage on display, and her bottom is covered with a yellow skirt, cut just above the knee, driving me almost to animal wildness as I imagine fisting the fabric and yanking it upward, revealing those panties, fuck, those panties that were already spotted with her wet juices last time.
“You look incredible,” I tell her as I inch her chair forward and then walk around the table to my seat, glad that the waiter has had the tact to retreat into the background until we’re ready to order.
“Thanks,” she mutters, biting her bottom lip, her eyes flitting around the restaurant. “I was so freaking nervous walking in here. I thought I was going to get absolutely mobbed by paparazzi. I mean, I remember them hitting Dad over the years, but it always got crazier when you visited, Maddox.”
A blush touches her cheeks, her words flying as though a spell has been cast on her.
My chest gets tight in longing as her cuteness almost overwhelms me, as the phrase the whole package bounces around my mind.
She’s everything I could ever ask for.
“You look beautiful,” I tell her firmly. “And if a paparazzi vulture stepped foot in here, I’d shove his camera down his throat. No, tonight is just for us.”
“I’m glad. And I guess…” she hesitates, but then pushes forward. “I guess you never knew that the dorky girl reading her wildlife books upstairs had a major crush on you, huh?”
I smirk, leaning forward.
“Are you saying things to flatter me, Myla? Because I’m not that sort of bloke.”
She giggles. “One, you are that sort of bloke if yesterday is anything to go by. And two, I’d never flatter you, Maddox. Because I think the about a gazillion groupies who must’ve thrown themselves at you over the years have done that enough.”
“I don’t want them,” I tell her with metal conviction. “I want you. Always. Just you. You could line up all the supermodels in the world and trot them in here, one by one or all together for all I cared, and I’d pick you every time. That’s what we have, Myla. That’s how beautiful you are.”
Her mouth falls open and her eyebrows twitch upwards as though she’s struggling to work out a difficult sum.
“Jeez, Maddox,” she whispers. “I sort of don’t know what to say to that.”
“Say you’re ready to o
rder,” I say, with a deep chuckle. “Because I’m starving.”
She laughs again, a high pitched, welcome sound.
And then we order starters, mains, and desserts, even when Myla gives me a look as we scan the dessert menu.
I read the tics of her face, scanning the quirk of her lips, a silent communication I’d always assumed only long married couples shared.
But it passes between us seamlessly.
It’s like she’s saying, I shouldn’t get dessert. I don’t deserve it. I’m curvy enough as it is.
So I give her a stern-as-hell look right back that says, You better get dessert, Myla. You’ll never be too curvy for me.
Her lip twitches and we both order, and then the waiter brings our drinks and disappears.
“Was I going crazy just now or did we just totally have a telepathic conversation?” she whispers.
“Maybe you’re crazy,” I tease. “But not about that.”
“How’s Tyson?” she asks.
“Good,” I tell her. “I took him for a run in the park just before coming here. He’s full of energy, ready to take on the world.”
Myla tilts her head at me as a pause lengthens between us, classical music playing in the background, and I just smirk at her.
It’s strange, the way we gaze at each other, as though devouring each other silently. And then she laughs and I chuckle in a husky deep voiced tenor.
“What’s gotten into you, eh?” I ask.
“I’m just happy,” she smiles. “And confused, I guess. Because I’m having dinner with Maddox Copper, but you don’t feel like you did when I was a kid, like this crazy, big celebrity, or even like Dad’s friend. You feel like …”
“Say it,” I urge, sensing her words, almost finishing the sentence for her.
“Mine,” she murmurs breathily.
“That’s because I am,” I growl, reaching across the table and taking her hand in mine. “It’s funny, Myla. I haven’t watched a lot of rom-coms in my forty-two years—”
“Really?” she gushes sarcastically. “You surprise me, Maddox.”
I give her hand a squeeze. “But I always thought the idea of feeling that, whatever that was, so quickly was absurd. But with you, goddamn, with you it just makes sense.”
“But didn’t you say you’d always know your woman the second you saw her?”
“Yes,” I say. “But I just thought I’d know the mother of my children, the woman who’d carry my offspring. I didn’t necessarily think there’d be this, shit, I don’t know …”
I shake my head, growling out a sigh.
“All those years writing lyrics, and now I can’t find the words.”
“Spark?” she offers, licking her lips as though tasting the words.
“Yes,” I growl. “Spark.”
“I didn’t think it was possible, either,” she says. “But it’s like this thing inside of me, Maddox. I don’t know how to explain it.”
“It’s your womb,” I tell her. “It’s your body getting ready for all the children I’m going to put inside of you.”
“So wait a second,” she says, her sassiness shining through her nerves, her smile as wide as her eyes, alert and so full of life I could flip the table and grab her right now. “I’m totally on board for the bear your children thing. One hundred percent. I want it just as badly as you. But exactly how many children are we talking about here?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I say, smirking up a storm. “I was thinking two or three-”
“That’s all?”
“A dozen,” I say.
She rolls her eyes, letting off a peal of laughter that’s so much sweeter than the music and the restaurant sounds.
Our conversation is interrupted when our starters are brought, the waiter laying down the silver platters and lifting them in a thick-aired waft of hot steam, the vapor shifting and then disappearing to reveal our selection of skewered meats, which we’d both ordered without even discussing it.
“I bet you’re going to be completely turned off when you see me slam these back,” Myla mutters.
“Are you joking?” I scowl. “I love how curvy you are, and I love the fact that you enjoy food. I really don’t like being around people who sit there nibbling a salad, making me feel like a jackass when I tuck into my steak or crisps or whatever else I happen to be chowing down on.”
“Crisps?” Myla says, narrowing her eyes as though in supreme confusion. “I’m afraid I’ve never heard of these crisps before.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I mutter. “I guess I meant chips of potato or whatever you guys call them.”
We tuck into the food and our conversation goes on, both of us laughing, and laughing, and bloody laughing, and the more we eat and the more we talk the harder it gets for me to believe that I ever didn’t know this woman. Of course, I knew her in a cursory way when she was a kid, but that’s not what I’m talking about.
I mean this all-grown-up woman, this intoxicating song of desire and wit and shyness and just-mine attraction that causes a feral strand of yearning to run beneath every breath of our conversation.
“Myla,” I tell her once the mains are being brought over. “After dinner, I’m taking you to a hotel. I can’t hold myself back anymore. Can you?”
“No,” she whimpers, gripping the edge of the table, her eyes biting into me with vivacious want. “I want you, Maddox, just as badly as you want me.”
I smirk.
And then I get serious.
“That’s impossible, Myla. Nobody’s ever wanted anything as badly as I need you.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Myla
An overwhelming sense of lust grips me as we enter the plush hotel suite, the faux-fur rugs spread out like a warlord’s palace, the tall cabinets holding glittering ornaments, the floor to ceiling windows looking down upon the glittering city as a thousand lights shine.
I want to spin on Maddox and leap at him, let his hands roam over me and just sink into the moment, let the past drift away and become vapor and just vanish into nothing.
Memories of the dinner are already becoming sweet in my mind, the way Maddox smirked and laughed deeply, his voice carrying the same way it does on stage, the way we bantered about our children and the thrum it sent through my body, my womb.
And yet as I walk to the window and look down at the city, I can’t help but let my hand stray to my bare throat, my mind catapulting into the past and projecting painfully into the future.
Vicious questions rise in my mind.
Is this a trick?
Is he secretly making fun of me?
I even create this whole paranoid story in my mind about how this is a reality show, and any second cameras are going to emerge from the corridors on the shoulders of burly, bored TV workers.
“Why do you keep doing that?” Maddox asks, a surprising strong softness to his voice, like a lion who could roar loud enough to shatter eardrums if he wanted, but is choosing to keep his ferocious growl quiet for now.
He moves up behind me and wraps his arms around me, pressing his body against mine.
I feel him, all of him, tensed and ready.
Yet instead of mauling me, he leans down and whispers close to my ear, sultry and intimate.
“Why do you keep touching a necklace that isn’t there, Myla?”
“Um, what?” I say, feigning a look of confusion.
He looks up and catches my eye in the dark reflection of the window. My eyes refocus from the lights of the city and meet his gaze, and then I turn my face away, because I know he can see that I’m lying.
“It’s nothing,” I murmur.
“It’s something,” he tells me.
He steps back and takes my shoulders, turning me firmly so that we’re staring at each other.
“Tell me, Myla. You never have to be afraid with me. You never have to be ashamed. I know you want this as badly as I do. I can see that just by looking at you. But something’s holding you back, and I’ve got a hunch
it has something to do with the way you keep touching your neck. So, either I’m completely insane or I’m right. Which is it?”
“Both,” I tease, giving him a shove on the arm. “You’re insane and you’re right, okay?”
He guides me to the leather couches, sitting me down and then placing his hand on my knee. His suit hugs his arms tightly, and his sleeves come up to reveal slices of the inked patterns on his forearms.
I want to slide my hand up his arm and squeeze, feel the muscle beneath, and just keep squeezing until I can’t take it anymore and my sex floods with warm juices. I remember the way he drank them yesterday, gulping greedily, and my clit gets tight and warm at the thought, begging for more.
But there’s this annoying thing between us, and I sense we can’t go on until I tell him the truth.
With a smirk, he growls, “Do you have any idea how fucking difficult it is for me not to ravish you right this second, Myla? Tell me what’s wrong. You don’t have to be afraid. Not anymore.”
“What if I’ve done something wrong?” I whisper.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “All that matters is us.”
I swallow as I feel something forming inside me, a conviction to tell the truth, all of it, all that messy stuff I didn’t even share with Mom and Dad.
And, unbelievably, I do.
Slowly at first, but then quicker, I tell Maddox about what happened with Aaron.
“He was this cool older boy. I was seventeen and he was like twenty, I think. Anyway, he was in college and I remember how flattered I was when he started talking to me after class. He just swaggered onto the school grounds and nobody even said anything. I guess maybe he had an excuse for being there, like his little brother went there or whatever. All I knew was I was the invisible girl and he was this cool jock everybody wanted to be with.”
I pause, wringing my hands, and risk a look at Maddox.
He watches, his face composed, patiently waiting for me to continue.
“The thing is, I didn’t want to be with him, not like that. I guess I was just flattered by the attention. I was such a nobody in high school. Anyway, he basically twisted my mind. I’m not saying I don’t have any blame. But what I can say for sure is I felt very uncomfortable when he took me into a supply closet and told me to take all my clothes of except my underwear…and he even tried to get me to take that off, but I didn’t, yay for me and then took my picture, and then laughed at me.”
Claimed By The British Rockstar Page 4
