by Sosie Frost
“You’re out of jail?” Why did I ask the question? Part of me feared it was true…the rest trembled, imagining some sort of reckless escape from the law.
Maddox’s lips teased a smirk. “Does that surprise you?”
“Yes.”
“I was innocent.”
That wasn’t what the judge said, and it certainly wasn’t what the town thought. Enough rumors and whispers and frightening stories passed through the three streetlight town about Maddox before the fire. I believed some of them. I ignored the rest. Then I caused more when I fell in love with him.
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.”
What might have been romantic only made this so much harder. “Maddox—”
“I worried about you.” His hand tightened on my wrists. I heard the bite in his words, but it hung as a fearful question rather than a lunge for my throat. “Were you safe?”
I nodded.
“Don’t lie to me.”
My voice wavered. “I’m not lying. I was fine.”
“Someone burned down your store, Sweets. You almost died. I had nightmares that they’d try again and I wouldn’t be there to protect you.”
My heart pounded. “I’m not yours to worry about anymore.”
“Like hell.”
He released my hands if only so he could hold me with both of his. His lips crushed me, and he pressed me into the wall. I shivered, trapped between heat, muscle, and an undeniable desire that layered me in the goose bumps only he could create. Every shift of his body churned a deeper, desperate urge for his touch, his kiss, his…
Everything.
I groaned against him. Maddox tugged my jeans down. My panties tucked inside the denim. I had only a moment to prevent this mistake.
I was too slow.
Maddox remembered everything about my body, including how to tease where I was the most vulnerable. He stroked between my legs, finding shamefully slick folds. I learned how to pleasure myself once he was gone, but nothing rocked me harder than the flick of his fingers against my clit.
Fireworks and sprinkles and a crash of desire.
It had been so long since anything felt as good as his invasive, dominating, and skillful fingers. I’d humiliate myself by coming before my jeans were even kicked off or I could reprimand him for his behavior.
Before I could tell him no.
“You’ve always been mine,” Maddox whispered, as if he could read the unspoken words falling from my parted lips. “You promised me, Josie.”
“So much has changed…”
“We’ll change it back.”
Like it was that easy. My voice trembled. He pinched and rolled and flicked my clit, doing everything he could to weaken me before I could push him away. I wasn’t strong enough to oppose him, but a single whisper would bring him to his knees.
“We can’t.” I shuddered as his finger dipped into my wetness. “We broke up. You went to jail…”
“I was innocent.”
What was more torturous—his adamant denial or his harsh strikes against my sensitive, overwhelmed clit?
“It’s complicated, Maddox.”
His voice dropped. “Is there someone else?”
Just the thought destroyed me. “No. Never.”
And that truth declared my complete submission to him. Maddox always loved that he was the first and only man who’d ever touched me. He’d taken my innocence, trained my body to accept his fierce desires, and celebrated as my arousal turned to addiction. I wasn’t myself when I shared his bed. I became someone passionate, raw, wild. Whipped with lust.
I only escaped once the world crashed around us in violence and frightening flames. Without him in my life…my head cleared, but my heart broke. It wasn’t a trade I would have ever made. Now I suffocated once more and betrayed my newfound independence with the slick promise inviting him between my legs.
Maddox lifted me, breaking my protests with a harsh kiss. He slammed me against the wall and forced my legs over his waist. I clung to him as his lips nibbled mine. My mind swirled. Everything tempted shivers, even when his teeth bit hard into my neck.
His cock swelled within his jeans, pressed against the part of me that craved it the most. We used to fuck like this—so wild and overwhelmed by each other we had no choice but to surrender to our instincts wherever we were. Everything in his arms felt so natural then.
So why was I punishing myself now? What did I protect—my heart from breaking or Maddox from…everything?
He freed himself from the jeans as he silenced me with an invading tongue. His inescapable grip on my hips would bruise. I’d heal. It didn’t matter. I panted against him.
I was appallingly wet.
He loved it.
“We planned a life together…” Maddox broke the kiss. His words lost the edge as he ground against me. His touch wasn’t soft, but his arms were always so safe. They’d protect me from everything but my own lust. “I’ve never wanted anyone but you, Sweets.”
“I know.”
“Say it.”
I whimpered over his kiss. “There’s never been anyone else.”
My admission strengthened him. He growled, low and deep. “We’re gonna start again, Josie. You and me. Right now.” His breath tickled my ear. Was I supposed to fight him or surrender to a fantasy I thought was all but lost? “I’ve already planned our life together. Imagined it every day.”
“We have to talk.”
He shifted me, and my slit struck against bare cock—hard and thick and throbbing for me.
“No talking,” he said. “We don’t need words now.”
“It’s too complicated. Everything’s changed.”
“Only because we let it change.”
“That’s not how life works.”
“Bullshit. Of course it is. If you want something, you take it.” His eyes burned, hot and feral. The corners of his lips twisted into a dangerous smile. “If I want you, I take you. If I want a life with you, I make it.”
“Wait—”
“We planned for it before. Don’t pretend like it meant nothing to you.”
“It meant everything to me, but…”
“Then I’ll give it to you. I’ll get you the life yo
u wanted.” His kiss was a bluff. I knew he shifted my hips. I held my breath as he whispered his promises. “We’ll be together, Sweets. Share a life. A house. Your store.”
“Maddox—”
His grip tightened. “And we’re finally going to have a baby.”
My eyes widened as his cock thrust into me.
Completely.
And nothing had ever compared to him.
That thick, impossibly large cock was made to punish me in a dangerous game of pleasure, dominance, and lust. Maddox always overwhelmed me. Tonight was no different.
He pounded me, burying deep, deep, deep until I could only cling to him and beg to wait, to stop, and to give me everything he had promised.
He filled me completely, bottoming out until we were skin to skin. It had been a year since I last felt him, and I had no idea how I survived the separation.
He didn’t fuck me. He claimed me. He sheathed in me to prove my body was made for him. He embedded himself to remind me that he was the only man who I ever let take me. He thrust to ensure I heeded his every word.
He wanted me to be his again.
Except…he’d never lost me. What I did, I did because I’d loved him.
And he could never know.
“I missed you…” His words rasped as he withdrew his cock. He teased me, watching as I whined, wiggled, and begged for him once more. He slammed inside me, and I rocked against the wall. My core clenched, surrendering to a pleasure only he could give. “I needed you.”
“I’m here,” I whispered.
“You’re mine.”
His cock stretched me too much, too deep, too hard, too fast. So why did my body shudder in wicked delight with another aggressive grind?
“I want all of you.” Maddox grunted. “Everything, Sweets. I have to be a part of your life again.”
“We can’t.”
“I don’t believe you.”
My fingers tightened on his arms. His strokes stole my breath, hitched with each crazed slam against the wall. I couldn’t think, but I could feel. My heart told me I was doing the right thing. My body ordered me to obey him.
“We have to stop.”
He only moved faster, harder. “I already have you, Josie.”
I bit my lip.
“I’m fucking you,” he said.
I whimpered.
“I’m in your head. Your heart. You and me are made for each other.”
