by Lux,Vivian
"You like it rough, don't you, Maddie?"
"I… don't know…" She was still trying to fight against the feelings. I sank my teeth into that same sensitive spot. She let out a little whoop, going up on her toes and arching instinctually against me.
"Yes, you do. I know exactly what you need. You need what I need, to feel it tomorrow. Something to remember tonight by." My fingers delved below her waistband, unfastening the little button on those skintight jeans. "You're gonna be smiling tomorrow. Sore but smiling. And every little ache, every little twinge of pain, every little tender sore spot on that perfect skin is going to remind you of what we did in this dark hallway, Maddie. You want that, don't you?"
My finger had found what I had been looking for. "Oh fuck, you don't even need to answer that. God, feel how wet you are, Maddie. You're completely soaked. Did you get this way watching me play guitar for you?"
I brushed my thumb lightly over her clit, and she buried her face into my shoulder, muffling a tense scream. "Tell me," I ordered her, moving my thumb in tight, controlled circles. "Tell me watching me play made you so wet."
"Rane, shut up."
She sought blindly for my lips, her eyes squeezed tightly against the onslaught of my fingers, but I pulled away. "Uh no, not yet, Princess. I've been thinking about fucking you since the moment I first saw you, and I am not rushing this."
"The door, there's people…"
"And I don't give a fuck." I had said those words probably a million times over the course of my life, but never did I mean them more than I did right now as I held Madeline Cole against my body, squeezing her ass cheek with one hand while with the other I slipped past the delicate lips of her pussy and slid home. Her protests died in a ragged gasp, and she slung her arms around my shoulder, wrapping her leg more tightly around me as I plunged one, then two fingers inside of her. She was so tight, so soft, and she fit around my fingers so perfectly that I could only imagine how tight she'd be against the hard thrust of my cock. The thought of it had me groaning right along with her, and suddenly, all the time I wanted to take—to torture her, to tease her, all of that time I promised I would spend marveling over every inch of her perfect skin—that promise was broken the second she started to shudder and shake. Feeling her tighten around my fingers made me lose my own fragile control, and when she inhaled sharply and then threw her head back, exposing the milky white softness of her throat as she came over and over again, I had to sink my teeth into that same spot to hold back myself from coming right along with her.
The second her cries subsided, I was a man possessed. I tore at her shirt, snapping one of the delicate straps, then yanked her jeans down her thighs. "Wait," she said, breathless, and stooped to fish in her purse for a second. "Condom," she hissed, her eyes wide and begging and her breath almost panting with need.
My cock was already in my hand. She caught my eye, never breaking eye contact as she pulled her shirt over her shoulders completely and stepped out of her jeans, naked and glowing in the low light of the hallway.
"Fuck me," I growled.
"Okay," she smiled, dropping to her knees.
Maybe I am an asshole, because the second I knew Madeline's lips existed, I was imagining how they'd feel sliding down the length of my cock. I had imagined it so often, but this? This was like nothing my filthy mind could have dreamt up on its own. The reality of feeling Madeline Cole's tongue swirl around me before she slid her lips down, taking the entire length of me in one gulp before pulling backwards with a gasp, that was more erotic than all the groupies, all the porn, all filthy fantasies I had trained up since puberty. This was the real deal, and if she didn't stop right now, I was going to explode.
I tore the foil wrapper open, unrolling it in one practiced motion before yanking Maddie upwards. My lips found hers again, but this time, there was no sweetness in the kiss. This was all urgency and breathless anticipation. Savage, primal, the kind of kiss that turned you inside out. I bent down and grasped her by the ass cheeks. She obliged, leaping into my arms as we kept kissing, trying to devour each other. She wrapped her legs around my waist right at the moment that I sank into her, all the way to the hilt.
We hung there for a moment, suspended in the shock of what we were about to do. I froze, even though every inch of me wanted nothing more than to plunge into her with savage abandon, because even now, even as I was about to lose my mind with needing this girl, I still knew that what we were doing was wrong.
It was Maddie that began to move. She squeezed her thighs together, pulling herself tightly against me. "God," she moaned.
And that was all I needed.
"Jesus fuck." I could barely recognize my own voice. I pressed my lips against her neck, hoping that I could hold myself back from the ecstasy of being inside of her long enough to make this moment last. "Jesus fuck, Maddie." I seemed to have lost any semblance of eloquence. "Maddie, my God." Her whole body shuddered, impossibly strong thighs squeezing tightly against my waist, her perfect breasts smashed against my chest, her body slick with the sweat of exertion in the warm hallway, the smell of her arousal and of her own soft scent swirling around me I was losing myself in this girl and I was certain that I was never going to be the same again. "Oh shit," she screamed, shuddering like she was about to fall. I clenched her close and felt her whole body quiver from the inside out, and then she was gasping, a high, keening cry, and my own orgasm came barreling down on me, white-hot and savage.
A sharp inhale—hers, my own, I couldn't be sure. I wasn't even sure where she ended and I began. She was panting and wide-eyed and saying...something.
"Yeah," I answered. I was drunk off the undone sight of her. The aftershock of feeling her shatter all around me. I could still taste her on my tongue, smell her skin on mine, and in that moment I would have agreed to fucking anything she asked of me. The moon? I'll bring you the fucking moon, Madeline. Have my guys call your guys and I'll get you the whole night sky.
Wait. What was she saying?
"...can't do this anymore..."
Chapter Twenty-Two
Madeline
My mother happily prattled on, with no idea that I was dying inside.
To look at me, you'd have no idea I was dying. But that was the problem. I was too damn happy. I felt my lips stretch into a smile again and again and again. Every little aftershock, every memory of last night, was written all over my face. Everything was right at the surface, uncontained and unchecked.
Rane Wilder fucked the composure right out of me.
What the hell had I done?
"...certainly won't be wearing white. That ship sailed a while ago," my mother said, holding what looked like an embroidered table cloth up to her chest.
I tried to focus. "Twenty-three years ago?" I teased her.
She raised an eyebrow. "Your dad and I had a few...practice rounds...beforehand, Maddie."
I rolled my eyes dramatically. "Gross."
"But look at you. I'd say practice made perfect, wouldn't you agree?"
My mother beamed at me from over the rack of dresses, and I tried my best not to squirm like a guilty schoolgirl and confess my crimes right then and there. It was a strange emotion to feel when it came to my mother. Her love had always been so constant and unconditional that I never had reason for guilt. It was all I could do to keep a smile on my face and not fall to her feet and blurt out everything that Rane and I had done.
What we had done. It felt like it was running on a loop on the back of my eyeballs. I was wide-eyed and staring, afraid to blink in case I saw his face again.
His face in the dark, the way his eyes closed in bliss every time his lips met mine. The delicious little noises he made, the fucking enthusiasm he showed. I'd been a celebrity my entire life, but last night was the first time I had ever felt worshiped.
I had fallen apart, and he had scattered the pieces in front of us and declared them beautiful.
How was I going to give that up?
I have to give that
up.
We have to stop.
Dammit. Mom was waiting for me to reply.
I summoned a smile from deep inside. Focus. On her. This is not about you. "There are quite a few people who'd disagree with you, Mom. Ainsley Fitch for one of them." My old agent had earned the nickname "Fitch the Bitch" after my mother found out about Ainsley's pharmaceutical methods of "loosening" fourteen-year-old me up, and once had to drag me bodily from a party I was way too young to be attending.
"Bitchy Fitchy is out of your life now, Madeline. Look at us. You're recovered. I'm getting married. I'd say the Cole girls have done pretty well for themselves."
"Yeah." My guilt still nipped at the edges of my brain, but there were few things that made me feel better than my mother's steadfast cheerleading.
"Now, what do you think of this one?"
There was a time that I could have afforded to dress my mother in designer duds for her wedding, but time and circumstances had brought us to an off-the-rack department store. I tried to tell myself it didn't matter, that she was happy as anything just to be finding a wedding dress, but part of me wanted to silently make up for last night's mistake with my sole remaining Black card.
The pale lilac gown was dripping with beads, far too heavy for my mother's thin frame. I wrinkled my nose. "Too busy. We want to look at you, not your gown."
"Mike likes me in pastels," she mused. "I don't know why. I think they make me look washed out."
"Try something warmer. How about this pink one?"
My mother cocked her head. "I used to not be able to wear pink, back when my hair was as bright as yours. But gray hair is a wonderful neutral." She laughed brightly and took the simple blush A-line from me. "Should I try it on?"
I clapped my hands. "Yes! Need help?"
"I can dress myself, Madeline. Heavens." She shook her head. "You don't need to wait on me."
But I do, I didn't say. I just nodded and watched her slip into a dressing room, the excitement radiating from her face making her even more impossibly beautiful than usual.
I wanted to hold her tightly, even as I wanted so badly to be able to let her go. Could I let her go? For years, she had been known only as Maddie Cole's mom. She was Sylvia Cole, soon to be Sylvia Wilder, a name she was choosing for herself. I should be happy for that. Why did I feel like I was losing something integral, like a limb?
"You good in there?" I asked anxiously, knocking on the door.
The door swung open slowly, and my mother stood in front of me, twisting her hands. "It's too much, right?"
I closed my mouth with an audible pop. "Oh, Mom…" I breathed.
"Too much, right?"
I shook my head. "You look… You look beautiful."
Her eyes shone with joy. "I've just… It's so fancy."
"It's a wedding," I clarified. "Weddings are fancy. Even courtroom weddings are worthy of a pretty dress. Do you like it?"
"I think I do. I'm just trying to get used to that woman in the mirror." She fluffed out the draping skirt and swiveled side to side, watching it swirl around her calves.
She looked like a little girl. A happy little girl playing dress-up and feeling beautiful. Something caught in my voice as I told her, "That woman in the mirror is you. You're beautiful, Mom. You should wear something that makes you feel as beautiful as you are."
She squeezed my upper arm, her eyes shining. "My little girl."
"If you start crying, I'm going to start crying, and then we'll both be wrecks," I warned her. "That's what always happens."
She laughed a little. "Fair enough." She turned back to the mirror and smoothed the blush pink over her hips. "I can't believe I'm actually doing this. Getting married, at my age? I never thought the day would come. When your dad d—" She always stumbled over the word, had to psych herself up to say it. "When your dad died," she continued, clearing her throat, "I thought the part of me that could love a man died with him." She looked in the mirror, blinking. Then she exhaled, lifting her chin, a mannerism I recognized from seeing myself do it in the mirror several thousand times. "And I was so busy raising you, being a mother to you. Now that you're older, now that you're better…" She turned to me and gave me a look of such pure love that it pierced me. "I have to say that a part of me wanted to keep you young forever, needing me forever. But seeing you, how well you're doing, how you’re taking charge of your own life...." She brushed my cheek with her fingertips. "I finally trust that you don't need me anymore. That's the only reason I told Mike 'yes.'"
Hold yourself together, Maddie. Don't show her how badly you fall apart when you lose control. Let her think she isn't needed; it's the only way she'll do this. "I'm so grateful for that, Maddie," she went on, oblivious to my torment. "I'm so proud of you."
I stuttered and stammered for a moment. First last night's breakdown, and now this. Emotion was threatening me at every turn, too big to be stuffed back down inside. Everything felt too close to the surface. I needed to walk away before it overwhelmed me. I needed her to stop looking at me like the sun rose and set on my say so.
I needed to never see Rane again.
"Get out of the dress," I squeaked. "I'm paying."
"Oh, Maddie, no, no. You don't have to do that...." She fluttered about, protesting, but in the end squeezed my hand and went back into the dressing room to carefully rehang her wedding dress on its hanger and smilingly hand it to me.
As I took it to the counter to pay, I could feel my phone vibrating away in my bag. I set it down, fished out my wallet and glanced at the barrage of text messages that were still incoming.
"So, I feel terrible about bailing on girls’ night," the text from Harlow read.
"Come over tonight.
Meet my wayward man and his idiot friends.
I'll make gimlets.
This is me tempting you with vodka right now.
Is it working?"
"Everything okay?" My mother squeezed my upper arm, dressed once more in her light cowl-necked sweater and no-nonsense jeans.
I tucked the phone back into my purse. "Just a friend inviting me over tonight."
There was no way of missing how my mother's eyes lit up at the mention of the word friend. She never said anything, but I knew she hated how isolated I had been ever since I got out of therapy. "Are you going?"
I took the phone back out, watching Harlow's increasingly belligerent invitations scroll across my screen. "Yeah, I think I will," I told my mom. "Sounds like fun."
A party. That would be the perfect antidote to the storm that was raging inside of me. I texted Harlow back before she blew up my phone
"Thanks. I need it."
Chapter Twenty-Three
Rane
My brother bounded up the stairs to Harlow's front door and jammed his finger in the doorbell.
I hung back and shoved my hands in my pockets. Harlow had a nice little place here, a tidy little red bungalow with a few hanging plants on the porch. It was a chick place, through and through.
The door opened, and instead of a chick, we were greeted by a wildly grinning ghost of a guy.
"The prodigal son has returned," Keir crowed, yanking Casper in for a bro hug and clapping him on the back.
Casper let out a small 'oof' as Keir socked him in the gut. My brother's version of affection always left bruises.
I knew enough to stay clear until Keir was done. "I'm surprised you're even still alive," I called from the stoop. "Harlow must really like you, for some reason."
I heard Harlow cackle from inside, and Casper looked down at his shoes and shuffled a little. "I was trying to keep the surprise," he protested weakly. He was still as pale as ever, in spite of having spent some quality time on the beaches of Spain while on tour, but I could see a telltale blush at the tips of his ears. "Maybe my execution wasn't all that great," he confessed, rubbing the back of his neck. "She kissed me and then she almost did kill me. Come on in, guys."
"If Jax pulled what you pulled, I would've taken off his
balls," came a voice from the couch.
I turned to see a tiny chick, just about the size of a child, rising from the couch. "Casper, if you're grabbing drinks, I'll have a Jack and Coke." She turned to us. "Lily," she said, extending her hand. "Since no one around here likes to do actual introductions."
I grinned at her. A little spitfire, I liked her already. "Rane Wilder. Don't be frightened of the hideous troll over there. That's just my brother, Keir."
I was saved from getting tackled by a voice calling out, "The Wilder brothers? In the flesh?"
Something was definitely familiar about that voice, but I didn't place it until he came out of the kitchen carrying a beer and Solo cup. Then I recognized his face and the blue hair and even bluer eyes that graced every music rag that didn't have Keir and me already on the cover.
I held out my hand. "Jaxson Blue, it's great to finally meet you," I told him, and I meant it. He might have been a teeny-bopper, but there was no denying the kid had chops.
He pulled Lily in to his side, handed her the cup, then shook my hand. "You too, Rane. Big fan of yours."
He was taller than I expected, younger than I expected, and he tucked his arm around Lily with more love and protectiveness than I expected. "Appreciate that, man. So, tour's on break for you guys? Is life going to slow down for you anytime soon?"
"I don't really do slow," he said, affecting a rather arrogant posture.
His girl socked him in the arm. "Don't be a cocky asshole," she told him. "Rane's in the same business as you. He doesn't find you impressive."
I hid my laugh behind a cough, but Jax just looked down at her fondly. "What would I do without you?" he said.
"Be insufferable?" Harlow piped up from the kitchen.
"So, how do you two know Ghostie here?" Jax asked.
"Casper was our secret weapon in the studio," I started explaining.
"Until you snagged him away from us," Keir interrupted with a fake glower.
