Mad Dog

by Ophelia Bell

  I position my feet and relax my knees, closing my eyes and letting the subdued music from Maddox’s shop wash over me. I’m acutely aware of him a few feet behind me, watching, yet somehow that makes it easier to remember the rhythm we had when we were younger. He was always there during classes, one of the few boys who ever attended. Often the only boy, so when a routine called for a partner, one lucky girl always got to pair up with him. I felt blessed every time it was me.

  Gripping the bar, I crouch and sweep my other arm and leg out wide, then arch back. A big arm catches me around my waist, and I startle.

  “I didn’t forget,” he says, low and husky. “Did you?”

  I shake my head, falling into the moves as he spins us across the dance floor. One big hand grips my knee, and I become airborne, giddy when my feet lose contact with the ground and he spins us faster. He’s a little less graceful than I remember, but he holds me with ease, his hard body pressed tight against my back. Everything about this feels right. It has always felt right in his arms. Ever since that day when I was eight years old and he comforted me while my world crumbled to pieces.

  The song ends abruptly, and a radio DJ’s voice comes on, shattering the moment. Maddox eases me back to the floor, and I turn in his arms, looking up at him. His throat works with a swallow and he backs up, darting his gaze to the mirror to look at me there, as if being too close to the real thing is too difficult and he needs to absorb me through a filter. I put a little distance between us, walking to the back wall and taking in the reflection of the entire space behind me.

  He wanders toward the edge of the doorway to the dressing rooms and stops, hands in his pockets, his ass propped against the bar. A shaft of sunlight illuminates his tattooed arm, casting the heavy scars in dark relief. I want to ask about them, but now isn’t the right time. I’m not sure if there is a right time to quiz someone about how they were injured in a war.

  Finally, he nods toward my wrist when I reach out for the bar again.

  “You guys still close?” he asks, looking at the tattoo, then meeting my eyes again.

  Laughing, I say, “Closer than ever. We were always like sisters. Her mom has been our housekeeper for as long as I can remember. You actually met her brothers the other night. The twins, Ben and Baz.”

  He snorts. “No shit, those two are her brothers? Do they always follow Gustavo around like a pair of lap dogs?”

  “They’re not dogs. They were there for me more than him. They’re protective of me by proxy, I guess. Leo too. His brother Manny is Toni’s boyfriend.”

  “Ah,” he says. “That explains the way they stuck to Leo’s side afterward. I was afraid to ask Leo. He has a mean left hook.” He hangs his thumbs on his pockets and regards me more thoughtfully. “We never really talked much, did we? I guess this is all shit I’d know about you if we’d bothered having a few simple conversations back then.”

  My pulse speeds up at the mere mention of what we did back then. “I thought we knew each other well enough.”

  He tilts his head back and stares at the ceiling. “Maybe conversations aren’t really our thing.” Then he spears me with a sharp look that makes my insides go molten.

  “Maybe not.” My heart pounds so hard it’s difficult to breathe. My feet have a mind of their own when I start to walk again. I pass by him, feeling his gaze on me all the way as I head around the corner and through the door to the locker rooms. The space smells musty and old, a mix of stale sweat and lemon cleaner. There are no showers—just two rows of lockers with benches in front and a restroom with a trio of toilet stalls and a row of sinks beyond another door. The boys’ side is a mirror to the girls’ side, though less used due to the majority of students being female. The gleaming chrome of brand-new locks on the lockers catches the sparse light from a high window.

  I pause in front of the locker at the far end. This was where it happened. My eyebrows twitch at the etched lines engraved into the metal in the center of the locker: M + C. Reaching out, I trace the letters. They weren’t there before. Did he come back? Or did these initials belong to some other lovesick teenage girl?

  His intense gray eyes are fixed on my fingertips. He closes the distance, takes my hand, and raises my fingers to his lips.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper, finally able to say to him what I never had the chance to until now. Taking a deep breath, I brace myself for a more detailed apology, but all thought disappears when he hauls me close and slams his mouth onto mine.

  7

  Maddox

  I’m a fucking reckless fool. Kissing Celeste might be the worst decision I’ve ever made, if I don’t count making love to her in this very spot twelve years ago. But something about the way she touched our initials made me snap, and there’s no going back.

  A hungry growl rises up inside me when her lips part and she slips her arms around my neck. I didn’t lie to Leo—she really was my first kiss, but she was more than that. She was my first everything, and I want so much to revisit that sweet moment. Ever since that night, I’ve wondered if we really fit together as well as I remember or if it was just a fabrication of my teenage hormones and the fact that I was fucking a girl for the first time.

  She molds her body to me, her tongue decisive as it plunges into my mouth. I back her up against the locker hard and she gasps, dropping her hands to steady herself. Curling my fingers into her hair, I pull back to look at her. I want to fix this moment in my mind because there can never be another. She was off-limits then, and after Saturday night’s events, I’m positive that hasn’t changed.

  “Christ, you’re beautiful,” I breathe. Her hair is lighter than it was, a cascade of burnished bronze that fades to gold at the ends, so silky I want to bury my face in it. Her eyes blaze with need, and her chest heaves.

  I dip my head, kissing her more slowly. I glide my tongue along her lower lip, tasting her and savoring the moment, then slide my lips along her jaw and inhale her scent. She smells like honey and ginger, and her skin is sweet when I graze my teeth at the base of her neck and lick.

  She arches into me, her hands coming up to rest against my chest, and her nails dig in as I make my way lower. I slide one hand down her side, resting it at her hip. With the other, I cup her breast, heft and squeeze. Her pupils dilate when I drift my thumb across her nipple through the fabric of her dress.

  The dress is wrapped across her torso, tied at the waist. I tug at the end of the belt and it falls open, baring one breast covered in deep-blue lace. I sink down onto the bench and pull her between my legs, press my lips to her sternum, and nuzzle the edge of the lace, nipping with my teeth. Her nails graze through the short hair covering my scalp, sending zings of awareness down my spine. Our first time was like this, just as desperate, but back then I had no idea we’d be ripped apart so fast and for so long. This time I want to remember every second because it’s unlikely I’ll get another chance.

  I tug her bra down and her breast emerges, pushed up and toward me by the underwire. Her nipple is hard and dusky pink against her golden skin. I capture it between my lips, my dick pulsing with the dig of her nails into my scalp and the desperate moan that reaches my ears. Tearing at the other side of her dress, I pull it aside and free her other breast, nip the tip with my teeth, then suck while I pinch the other between my fingers.

  Her body arches toward me, head banging back against the metal bank of lockers behind her. I keep teasing her breasts with tongue and teeth while I slide my hands beneath her dress. The belt slips free and the sides fall open as if in answer to my unconscious prayer.

  She isn’t the teenage girl I remember, the one who was so self-conscious of her budding curves she didn’t see how beautiful she was. She’s confident and unapologetic now, not the least bit modest about how much I’ve revealed. When I lean back to take her in, my heart pounding, she straightens up and grabs a handful of my shirt as if to tug it off.

  I snag her hand and claim her fingers, shaking my head. “Let me take care of you, sweetne
ss. I want to do something we never had time to before.”

  Gripping her by the hips, I push her back a step until her ass hits the lockers, then lean over and press a kiss to her soft belly. Her panties are the same deep blue lace as her bra, hugging her hips as if painted on. I hook my index fingers into the top just below her navel, and slide them around to her hips, tugging down. My hands shake, which is crazy, but I haven’t touched a woman I had any feelings for since the last time I touched her. Of course, it could also be raw fear because of how fucking dangerous I’m sure it is to touch this woman.

  Pausing with her panties just past the swell of her hips, I have to close my eyes and regroup. Her pussy is completely bare, her swollen lips shining with wetness.

  “I’m so fucking dead,” I murmur even as I lean in, my mouth already watering for a taste. Her hips tilt toward me, and she inhales sharply when the tip of my tongue touches the peak of her cleft.

  A low, keening moan builds inside her chest as I slide my tongue deeper, tasting her velvety wetness, the salty tang that clings to her skin. Her clit pulses under my tongue, and I sink lower, teasing the tip beneath the hood of her clit. She jerks and cries out and my body comes alive just from the sound of her pleasure. I tear her panties the rest of the way down and grab the back of her knee, hoisting her leg over my shoulder so I can bury my face against her hot flesh.

  “Ay Dios!” she cries. Before, she lapsed into Spanish just like this, and it only made me hotter for her. My dick strains painfully in my jeans, but I’m too consumed by the taste of her to care. She rocks her hips toward my mouth and I lap at her wetness, sucking her clit then burying my tongue deeper. Her juices coat my lips and my chin, and she clutches at my head, panting out incoherent words that only make me hungrier.

  I have to hear her come, have to feel her fall apart against my tongue. Capturing her clit again, I push two fingers into her and finger fuck her slowly, testing her body for its sweet spot. She lets out a gasp, and I know I’ve found it. I fuck her in earnest with both fingers, rubbing that spot and reveling in the way her arousal coats my hand with every thrust while I suck her clit.

  I feel her coming a split second before she loses it completely. She yells my name in a husky, sex-laden voice that’s music to my ears. At the same time, her core grips my fingers so tight my knuckles grind together. I growl around her clit, flicking my tongue faster as she bucks into me. Her hands clasp her tits, thumbs and forefingers squeezing her nipples so hard it has to hurt.

  I’m two seconds from pulling out my dick and hauling her on top of me when I remember I’m not the least bit prepared. Instead, I stand and hook my free arm around her, devouring her mouth while I draw her orgasm out even longer with my fingers. She shivers against me, a whimper escaping from her mouth into mine as I stroke her through the end.

  I graze her clit one last time. She pulls her hips back and emits a languid laugh into my mouth, then drops her forehead to my shoulder. Her hand slides down my belly and lands on my dick. She takes a long, shaky breath, then looks up into my eyes. “Will you let me fuck you like before?”

  Let her fuck me. I blink, surprised that’s how she remembers it, but then I guess it stands to reason. She was the one to instigate the first time, though in my head I was on board long before she said the words. She pushed me down onto the bench and straddled me, taking complete control over the whole event. We didn’t use a condom then, which was supremely idiotic and a mistake I never made again even though we were lucky nothing came of it. If it had, I wouldn’t be standing here today.

  “I don’t have a condom.” The thought crosses my mind to take her upstairs to my apartment, where I have more than enough condoms, but I’m in deep enough shit as it is just touching her. No need to be more reckless than I already have been.

  She bites her lip and looks down, hand sliding between my legs and cupping me, the caress exquisite torture. “Then let me take care of you the way you just took care of me.” She tugs at my button, and my dick twitches like it’s ready to leap out of my jeans the second it has an opening.

  I’m about to tell her fuck yes when the bell over the door to my shop jingles. A familiar, deep voice calls out.

  “Yo, Mad Dog!”

  I go hot and cold at the sound of Leo’s voice. The fucker is early for our photo session.

  Celeste’s eyes widen and she pales, scrambling back and reorienting her bra. “He can’t see me,” she whispers. “If it gets back to my dad . . . I don’t want you to get hurt again.” Her expression turns fearful and she shakes her head. She tugs her panties up, then disappears into the bathroom.

  The metallic clank of the old plumbing rattles when she turns on the faucet, and the weight of what I’ve just done settles over me. Regret? Not a chance. But that doesn’t keep me from understanding what’s at stake if her dad finds out.

  Except right now, I’m more worried about what Leo would do if he knew.

  I readjust my dick in my jeans. It’s lost all interest in sex now, but my balls ache like a motherfucker. The second I step through the doorway, I curse. Celeste’s purse is resting on the floor of the dance studio just inside the door, not three feet from where Leo stands on the other side of the wall. He pokes his head through, eyebrows lifted.

  “What the hell are you doing in there? Decided to take up dance to go with that pretty singing voice you’ve got?”

  I’m working on feeding him some line about my toilet having issues when his gaze drops to the floor. My heart freezes up and a sick feeling churns in my gut.

  But Leo just grins and laughs. He claps his hands together once. “You dog, you! Was she a client? I can come back later if you need a little more time.” He points back out the door.

  “Nah, we can get started. Just give me a few minutes to say goodbye.” I fish into my pocket for my keys and toss them to him. “Head upstairs and chill for a few. There’s beer in my fridge.”

  “Good on you, man. Never leave a girl feeling like she’s not appreciated.”

  He disappears down the back hallway, but it isn’t until I hear the clank and hum of the service elevator motor that I’m able to relax.

  I retrieve Celeste’s purse and the shoes she left by the mirror, then head back into the bathroom, where I find her standing in front of a sink with a wad of wet paper towels clutched in her fist. She’s staring at herself in the mirror, and her eyes cut to me when I appear behind her reflection.

  “I think you’re clear. He’s upstairs. I grabbed your stuff.”

  She offers me a shaky smile when she reaches for her purse, then fishes into it and pulls out a hairbrush and proceeds to attack her hair as if it’s offended her. After a torturous moment of watching her internal struggle to hold her shit together, I can’t take it anymore. I step close and grab her hand, forcing her to drop the brush, then spin her around and pull her close.

  “It’s going to be all right. Nobody saw us. Nobody will know. I’m not going to tell a fucking soul. Besides, I’m a big boy now. I think I can stand up to your father’s matóns, Gustavo included.”

  She shakes her head and pulls away, putting distance between us that feels like more than just the few feet it is. Her gaze is hard, her jaw set. “It isn’t just Papá. I can’t afford to be that weak. To let my emotions get the better of me. It was a stupid risk for me to take.”

  Her assumption of the blame pisses me off and I grit my teeth. “It wasn’t just you, Celeste. In case you missed it, I’m the one who just had my tongue buried in your cunt. I made that decision knowing what the consequences could be.”

  She doesn’t even flinch at my choice of words. She just narrows her eyes, and for a split second I see her resemblance to the man who ordered my beatdown all those years ago. An icy chill slices down my spine at the change in her.

  “You don’t understand. I’m a grown woman. I’m not that little eight-year-old girl who cried on your shoulder when her mama died, or the fifteen-year-old who was too stupid to realize what her father wou
ld do to any boy who touched her. I’m a Flores, Maddox. Do you know what that means in this city? I have a responsibility to my father’s legacy. To my future if I ever want to take his place. I didn’t work this hard to throw that away for kicks.”

  “And I didn’t endure a fucking war to come back and listen to this. It’s bullshit, Celeste. Your father brainwashed you to think love doesn’t matter. It’s everything.” I regret the words as soon as they leave my lips. They sound like a confession, and they sure as fuck reveal more than I ever intended her to know. But touching her again for the first time in so long has dredged up all those old feelings I never shared with her before we were ripped apart.

  The burden hasn’t eased though. If anything, I feel more weighed down for having effectively told her I still love her.

  “Don’t,” she says, her voice laced with warning. “Getting close to me is bad for your health. I need to go.”

  She hoists her purse onto her shoulder and pushes past me, eyes clenched tight as if she’s afraid to even look at me. But I see her clearly. I see the rigid control she has and the armor she’s wrapped herself in since I’ve been gone. It’s impossible not to recognize, and I can’t help but wonder if breaking through that barrier today is a blessing or a curse.

  8

  Maddox

  When I get to my apartment upstairs, I head straight to the fridge and grab a beer. I pop the cap and take a long swallow to cleanse my mouth of Celeste, then wash my hands and face in the kitchen sink. She’s still stuck in my head. I will never forget the taste of her, the softness of her slick flesh against my tongue, and the way she came apart beneath my mouth. But I need to clear my head. Otherwise, it would feel like a betrayal to spend the afternoon with Leo while still covered in remnants of a woman he’s just as wrecked over as I am. I have half a mind to hop in the shower, but it’d be hard to play that off casually.