“Yeah.” She touched his face, just once on his cheek, and he turned his whole focus to her. Such was her magic. “You’re not alone, either.”
It was everything he’d ever wanted, all over again. But better somehow. As if the years had rubbed off the excess, leaving only exactly what they needed of each other. His strength and commitment, her brain and fierce heart.
Maddy, back by his side, on his side. He felt stronger with her there.
“Thank you,” he said.
The door opened and shut behind her and Becky tried not to flinch. She stared out at that view and tried to imagine she was a bird, or a fox or something. Something fast. Something no one could catch.
“Becky,” Uncle Billy said and she could see his reflection in the glass, beside her—shadowy and incomplete, but there he was. Maddy was on the other side of her. She’d pulled a yellow T-shirt and black yoga pants over her swimsuit, her hair was clumping and weird, but she was still the prettiest woman Becky had ever seen.
And, there in the middle, was her. Too young, too stupid, too slow. Her hair was a crazy mess from the wind outside.
With as little motion as possible, because it felt like every bone in her body was broken, like every muscle had been bruised, she pushed her hair away from her eyes.
Trust me, he’d said and she had and she hated it.
I think I’m going to be sick.
Maddy touched her back so gently Becky didn’t even feel it, wouldn’t even have noticed if she hadn’t seen it in the glass.
Because you’re a freak, she told herself.
“Becky,” Uncle Billy said, “I need you to look at me.”
She shook her head, there were some things she couldn’t do. Uncle Billy walked in front of her, and she could see his feet. His flip-flops were gross, dirty from running down the street.
And then he was crouching down in front of her.
She reeled back, only to trip and fall onto the couch. The white couch, which she was going to get dirty from the crap on her pants from the street.
She tried to stand but Maddy sat beside her, fencing her in, keeping her in place.
“I’m going to do everything I can,” he said, his brown eyes never leaving hers, “everything, to make sure you never go back to Pittsburgh or Janice.”
“Where will you send us?”
“Nowhere. You’ll stay here.”
There was a thunderclap of happiness in her chest. But Uncle Billy kept talking. “I decided this morning,” he said. “After you told me what it was like living with Janice. I thought it would be easy, I have money and I’ve never hit a kid in my life, but my lawyer said it might be difficult.”
“Why?” she whispered, that happiness draining right out of her. God, she was tired. She was so damn tired. Tired of hope and anger and disappointment. Why couldn’t good things just happen?
Uncle Billy glanced at Maddy. “I’ve got a temper,” he said. “And I’ve done some things publically over the last few weeks that don’t make me look so good.”
“You’re better than Aunt Janice,” she said.
“I’m glad you think so. And that’s what I’m banking on.” He smiled at her, but it didn’t make her feel any better. She knew an empty smile when she saw one. He had no clue if he’d be able to keep her and Charlie.
“You’re going to stay, Becky,” he said anyway, like just saying something could make it true. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“And I’m going to help,” Maddy said. “The two of us are on your side.”
On my side?
She should feel something, right? Besides small and black and poisonous.
“Becky?” Maddy asked. She and Uncle Billy were looking at each other like she was something they didn’t understand. “Do you want to stay?”
I want you to want me to stay. And I want you to promise it will be forever. And I want to know right now. I want to stop being scared.
She could say that, and watch Uncle Billy lie to make her feel better, and that would be awful, so instead she shrugged.
Uncle Billy sighed and she realized how stupid she was being. This was the new chance she’d wanted. What did she care why he was doing it. Didn’t she tell him about Aunt Janice and all that shit this morning so he’d feel bad enough to take them in?
He was trying and she had to give him some credit.
“You’ll send Charlie to day care?” she asked. “A good one? He needs to hang out with other kids.”
“Of course,” he said, watching her solemnly. “And you’ll go to school. The best one we can find. Whatever you want.”
She wiped at her nose with the sleeve of her hoodie.
“What’s wrong?” Maddy asked and Becky finally stood, feeling crowded, like she wanted to jump right out of her skin. She stepped past Uncle Billy, who sat down on his butt to look at her.
“Nothing.” She tried to smile, but it felt stupid. “It’s great.”
“You’re not really selling us on that,” Maddy said, but Becky didn’t know what that meant.
“Where’s Charlie?” she asked, needing to see him. Needing to hug him. Tell him she was sorry for even thinking about leaving him. Not that he’d known, but still.
“He’s asleep in the spare bedroom.”
Uncle Billy stood, curling up from the ground in one smooth move. He could have hit her, Becky realized. Aunt Janice would have. Mom would have too for this stunt. But Uncle Billy hadn’t.
That counted for something.
“I’ll get him,” Uncle Billy said, “And we’ll head home.”
“No.” Maddy caught his arm and Uncle Billy stopped. Just stopped. Like he was a machine and she’d pressed the off button. “It’s all right. Becky, if you want to lie down, go ahead. But stay. I have twenty-four juice boxes and a bunch of cupcakes I need you to eat.”
Becky looked at Uncle Billy, who looked right back at her. “You want to stay?” he asked. It was cool that he was letting her make the decision, when it was obvious he wanted to stay. It was obvious he wanted Maddy.
Sucker.
She shrugged like she didn’t care, but her mind was already on that bookshelf. Uncle Billy didn’t have a whole lot of books at his house.
“I’ll take that as a resounding yes.”
“Can I …?” She took a half step toward the bookshelf.
“Go ahead,” Maddy said and then came over to stand beside her, pulling down a whole bunch of books. “Have you read The Hunger Games?” she asked and Becky shook her head.
“Oh my God, you’re going to love it.” Maddy pulled down two more books, big expensive ones. “I have the first Twilight, but stopped after that—”
Twilight had that hot vampire dude. “Okay.”
Maddy’s eyes twinkled like they shared a secret and it made Becky’s skin burn. But not in a bad way. “That should keep you busy,” Maddy said, adding the vampire book to the pile in her arms. “And if Charlie wakes up and you want to keep reading, send him out. We can keep him busy.”
“Really?” she asked before she could swallow it back. It felt like she hadn’t had time to herself since Charlie was born.
Maddy had that look in her eye that Mrs. Jordal used to get sometimes, like she wanted to hug her. Becky stepped back out of reach, clutching the books to her chest.
“Thanks,” she whispered, because that’s all she knew how to say but it felt sort of small in the face of all these books.
Becky went into the dark room with the soft bed and softer sheets, where her brother was sleeping so hard he was sweating, and she picked the first book off the pile.
The vampire book. The cover was shiny and pretty. The book smelled good. Not like cigarettes.
It made her want to cry.
Don’t get used to this, she told herself, desperately. This kind of stuff never lasts. It’s never for you.
Then she was going to have to read fast.
The sun blazing through the windows cast Billy in golds and purples and reds
.
Beautiful, Maddy thought. He’s so beautiful.
I love you. The thought was a bell ringing. Clear and loud and undeniable.
He collapsed backward onto her white couch, his ivory skin looking almost dark against the stark white. His torn T-shirt was deliciously, outrageously masculine against the sleek femininity of her house.
I love you. She wouldn’t tell him, couldn’t. It would be like asking to be hurt. It would be like picking the knife up herself.
“Tell me you have a beer,” he whispered, staring at the ceiling.
She actually did. She’d bought a sixpack at the grocery store when she picked up the snacks for the kids.
So she could get him one. She could hand him a beer—hell, she could have one too, and they could talk about what had just happened. They could talk about Billy starting a family and filing for custody and taking on his sister.
But she didn’t want to talk.
Her body shook with her desire, with all the things she could say. I’m proud of you. Of the man you’ve become, of the way you’ve stood up. I’m proud of how gentle you are with Charlie and how careful you are with Becky and how when you’re with them I can see the man you were meant to be.
“Maddy?”
Hit by sunlight, his eyes glowed. His face was hard, the muscles in his arms stood out in relief, and she felt the moment he stopped caring about the beer.
Without words, because whatever she might say was inadequate and terrifying, she walked over to him until her knees touched his. Small electric shocks lit up the air between them, landing on the skin of her arms, her chest and neck, bringing her to tingling life.
He didn’t reach for her. This was on her, she understood that. But there was no hiding his desire for her, there never had been. It was in his eyes, the tightly wound nature of his body, the way he sat, waiting for her touch to relieve him.
She put her knee down on the couch beside his hip, her other hand bracing herself against his shoulder, the skin warm. She brought her other knee up to the other side of his body, her eyes never drifting from his.
I know you, she thought, but at the same time in a delicious, exciting paradox she also thought, This man you are right now is a stranger to me.
And it couldn’t be any hotter. The air she breathed was bathed in fire and her body smoldered with every breath.
Carefully, slowly, she sat down on him, against him, pressing herself to him until they both gasped. His hands, large and rough and familiar, slipped around her waist and over her back
Don’t say anything, she thought, and he must have understood, because he closed his mouth. His lovely chocolate eyes looked into hers, and she wondered what he saw.
The sunlight danced with dust motes and she leaned through the glitter and light from one shadow to the next to press her lips to his.
A kiss.
After all she’d denied.
He gasped as if surprised, as if touched by a cold hand, but then, like he always did, he melted into her.
It was tender, this kiss—careful, brand new. As if she was learning his taste all over again. Or perhaps learning his new taste.
It was bitter and sweet.
The tide that lived between them, hidden but dark and deep, began to surge, beating against both their bodies, leeching the innocence out of the kiss.
His hands found her face, his fingers cupping the back of her neck. She opened her lips, letting him in, and his tongue stroked hers, licked it. Close. Closer. The heat of his body beneath his shirt was transcendent. Burning. Warming her down to her soul.
Under her fingers the skin of his neck and shoulders felt like silk. Lust coiled and grew in her belly, snaking out to her limbs, and she shook, trembled with her desire for Billy.
Unable to stand it, his strength, her weakness, she gripped his hair in her fingers, pulling hard enough that he gasped and arched against her, curling over her. A beast, strong and violent and at her command.
One kiss turned into another, a thousand. Endless and consuming. Every kiss she’d denied him, every kiss they’d lost in the years they were apart.
I can do this, she thought, feeling brave and wanton. Whatever this was between them, she could do it. And as if he could taste the acquiescence on her lips, he surged to his feet, holding her so her feet dangled just over the floor and he walked, still kissing her, down the hallway, past the door of the kids’ room.
She felt him falter and she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him along that scar, to his ear. She pulled his earlobe between her teeth, bringing him back to her with just a little pain.
You’re doing the right thing, she told him with her lips. Her arms, her heart pounding against his. You are amazing. You are strong and smart and more than enough to raise those children.
I love you.
He leaned away from her. Opened his mouth: “I love—”
No. No. Words were dangerous, particularly those.
She kissed him again, to stop him from saying something he couldn’t take back. He seemed to understand and threw himself into it. In the shadows of her bedroom, their clothes fell off with barely a touch. Their skin—at their hips, their thighs, their arms—brushed and set off sparks that flew into the air and the room was lit with their own light.
Against the bed, they fell. He was over her. A living blanket, warm and smooth, comforting and exciting all at the same time. He was everything to her, as he’d always been.
Her fingertips skated over the ridges and hills of the muscles along his back, his ribs, and down over his ass. He twitched, arching against her, his breath catching hard in his chest.
He turned sideways, taking her with him, and his hand slipped into the dark shadows between them. He rubbed the aching tips of her breasts with his knuckles before bending to kiss his way across her chest to take a nipple in his mouth, the sensation rippling through her body. She gasped and clutched him closer, slipping a leg higher over his hips so that the hard edge of his erection teased the electrified center of her body.
He groaned, arching against her, his erection slipping through her curls and heat and wet to brush the pebble of her clit. She jerked away, too sensitive, but the next second went back for more. His lips still on her nipple, he ran his fingers on a long, slow meandering path down her body to where their bodies touched so intimately.
So knowing, so sure, his fingers played her favorite rhythm over and in her, and she felt herself lift away from the bed. Away from all the things in the world that weren’t him. That weren’t this pleasure.
That weren’t them.
The orgasm rolled through her and she shook, her nails digging into the muscles of his arms.
As it passed, she sighed, all her sharp edges lost, all her boundaries blurred.
She made the terrible mistake of looking at him. His eyes were so full of love for her that she flinched, too raw to accept it with grace.
Quickly, she slipped away from him, down the mattress. He rolled over on his back and she crouched over him, the hair on his legs tickling the sensitive skin of her inner thighs.
It was all so familiar: taking him in her mouth, the way he sighed and slipped his hand down her back, to cup her elbow for a moment and then slip down to hold her hand.
That familiarity was razor sharp, and she couldn’t bear it. The desperation came back a thousandfold and she pulled away from him.
“There are condoms in the bedside table,” she murmured, the words so loud in the silence they’d created.
He twisted sideways to dig through her bedside table, every muscle in his stomach and along his back rippling and contracting. She ran her hands over each one, fascinated all over again by his body.
After rolling on the condom he shifted back toward her, lifting her, arranging her like she weighed nothing, and it was exciting. So exciting to be positioned for someone’s pleasure.
His chest against her back, he curled up behind her.
Yes, she thought, like this. Just
like this.
They shifted and moved and then, with ease and power, he slid inside her. This position reminded her of sweet, sleepy morning sex. Her heart squeezed in her chest as her body welcomed him.
His hand slipped beneath her to cup her breast and she leaned forward, finding that spot of friction that made her crazy.
“Baby,” he groaned, his fingers clutching her hips as he sped up the rhythm. It was quiet in the room. No squeaking mattresses. No banging headboards. Just tortured, silent sex.
She gasped, ducking her head, feeling the pleasure start again. They curled and uncurled, slow and hard until they couldn’t stand it anymore. He tipped her forward so she lay on her stomach. He lifted her hips, coming to his knees behind her and she pushed up on her arms.
His hand ran up her spine, from the top of her ass to her neck, where he held her.
“Come on,” he groaned and eased all the way out of her and then pushed back in, hard. So hard she shook with it. Her toes and fingers curled and she pushed when he pulled and the dance between them was remembered and perfect.
Three strokes, four, and she splintered, exploded. He moved faster, quiet, always quiet, he slammed against her and then he was shaking, his fingers curled in her hair, his other hand gripping her hips so hard there would be bruises.
“Baby,” he moaned. “Oh God, Maddy …”
She collapsed on the bed and he fell beside her.
Don’t she said to the recriminations circling her. Stay away for just a few more minutes, she told the regrets that were looking for a way in.
He reached between them and held her hand, twining his fingers with hers. Still silent, as if he had his own ghosts to persuade away.
From the other bedroom came the sound of Charlie’s muffled cry, and Billy and Maddy burst into action, throwing their clothes on. But then it was silent again and they stood like deer in her dark room, half-dressed.
He chuckled and then she did too and then they were laughing.
“How come we’re always sneaking around?” she asked.
He stepped over to her, cupping her face in his hands, her hair pressed against her head. There were a thousand things he could say, none of which she knew how to deal with. As if he knew, as if he could read her mind—and he probably could—he was silent.
Crazy Thing Called Love Page 25
