Wanting It All: A Naked Men Novel

by Christi Barth

  “Listen to me, Madison. You can’t get all into your head about this. You can’t worry and wonder and wish. You’ve got to set it aside. Clearly Logan’s got something to work through. Something that has nothing to do with who you are as a person. Because you are wonderful.” He kissed her cheek. “You are lovely.” He lifted her shirt over her head, dropped it on the floor, and kissed her collarbone. “You are sweeter than those delicious cookies you bake.” Finally, Knox unzipped her shorts to let them puddle at her feet. “You’re a gift to anyone and everyone who has you in their life.”

  Madison tossed her hair again. This time it was more sultry, less defiant. “I’m tough. Alaska tough. I’ll be fine. You don’t have to sweet-talk me.”

  Shit. He’d really screwed up this whole dating thing for her to say that. He’d been glib and charming…but had he been affectionate enough? Made her feel cherished? Obviously not. “I think I do. In fact, I don’t think I’ve done nearly enough of that.”

  “It’s not your style. I understand.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t my style with other women. Maybe it needs to be with you.” Knox framed her face in his hands and kissed her. Slowly. Sweetly. Softly. Not pushing. Not trying to instantly ignite her desire. Just taking his time, showing her everything he hadn’t bothered to say to her yet.

  Instead of grappling with their usual passionate ferocity, Madison, too, sank into the kiss. She wrapped her hands around his biceps and hung on, leaning into him. After all she’d done for him the past week, Madison was finally leaning on him. It felt great. It felt right.

  Knox put one knee on the bed and slowly tipped her backward. Kissed down the side of her ribs. Across her stomach. Up and around her breast. Soft, teasing butterfly kisses that barely connected with her smooth skin.

  Madison’s fingers grappled for purchase. Scrabbled at the neck of his hoodie and pulled it over his head. “I need to touch you.”

  “Just let me take care of you. Please. I want to. I don’t want you to think about anything. Just feel.” He grabbed her hand. Placed the heel of it right over his heart. “Feel what it is that I feel for you.”

  She opened her mouth as if about to ask what that meant. Which wouldn’t be good, because Knox didn’t know how to say everything pent up in him right now. So he didn’t give her the chance to say anything. He caught the sides of her panties with his thumbs and swept them down. And then he planted his face right between her legs.

  One long swipe of his tongue had Madison bucking against him. That wasn’t good enough. Knox needed to make her totally insensate, mindless, wordless. He worked faster, right at the top of her slit, flicking and fluttering. That made her gasp. Quake. Still not enough.

  So he sunk his middle finger deep inside her. Groaned himself, at the slick tightness. Worked in his index finger and crooked them both to the side, just a little. Just enough to make her juices run wetter and her cries run louder.

  Knox lapped up her sweetness. Sweeter and better for him than any of the painkillers he’d popped all week. Madison herself was the best drug ever. The one that made him feel like a stronger, smarter, better version of himself. Which was weird, because Knox had always believed that if he worked hard enough, he could do anything. The difference with Madison was that he could finally stop trying so hard and just be.

  The faster he tongued her, the more she moaned and writhed. Knox discovered that if he backed off and barely touched her, Madison absolutely screamed. So he kept his tongue featherlight but fingered her with the same driving rhythm she liked with his dick. Sure enough, the screams alternated with gasps and shudders and finally a long cry that was music to his ears.

  It meant she’d been consumed with pleasure. That he’d given her that gift. Knox didn’t care that the taste of her had hardened his dick to titanium. This wasn’t about him getting his rocks off. It was about transporting Madison for a few moments, away from her sadness and confusion and hurt. She needed to stay in that place as long as possible. So he swung her legs onto the bed, tucked the comforter around her, and rubbed his knuckles down her cheek.

  “I’ll be right back,” he whispered.

  —

  Knox took all four flights at a dead run. There was no time to waste. He needed the police to go after Logan, drag him back to their phone—the only phone he’d been able to connect to in what was left of the mostly destroyed village. Whatever additional bribe it took, he’d pay. Logan was not just walking away from Madison. No fucking way. No way he’d let Madison hear him tear into the guy either. When Logan pulled his head out of his ass, she needed to believe he’d done it of his own free will. Not because Knox had ripped him a new one.

  As he raced through the kitchen to the basement door, his phone rang. “Hello?”

  “What the fuck kind of blindside was that?”

  Logan. The surprise of being called back halted Knox mid-stair. “Stop. Do not, for a second, think that you get to be pissed at me.”

  “I don’t have to think about it. Of course I’m pissed at you, Davies. How could you sic a stranger on me like that?”

  He curled his hand tight around the wooden bannister. “She’s not a stranger. Madison’s your half sister.”

  “If that’s true—and right now, that’s still a big if in my mind—it’s in name only. And since this is the first I’m hearing of her in twenty-eight years, then yeah, I’m filing her under stranger.”

  “Not her fault. You can’t shoot the messenger.”

  “Fuck, yes, I can when she’s in the strike zone. And you put her there.”

  Why was Logan being so unreasonable? So harsh? Such a self-centered prick? Why couldn’t he think for two seconds about the person who had been on the other end of the line? “I set up the phone call because Madison was miserable.”

  “Why do you give two shits about some random girl? Did she knock on the door one day and give you some sad eyes and an even sadder story?”

  “I met her by accident. Didn’t even discover until just over a week ago that you two were related.”

  “So you’re screwing her,” Logan said flatly.

  Sure, given his history, it wasn’t that big a leap to make. But Knox hadn’t planned to complicate this clusterfuck of a conversation by sharing that information. “None of your beeswax,” he said coolly, resorting to the level of discourse they’d used at the start of their friendship.

  “That’s a yes, then. I still don’t see why you’re involving yourself. You screwed her. Which means you left her, just as fast. For fuck’s sake, Davies, you had me collected by the police. That’s a balls-out move, even for you.”

  “Stop whining. They didn’t arrest you.” Although right now that didn’t sound so bad. A little rough handling might make him appreciate Madison’s special TLC all the more. “Did they?”

  “No,” Logan grudgingly admitted. “I actually know them. We spent a couple of shifts together setting up a well and runoff system. To keep this flooding from happening again. Or at least from getting so serious it wipes out the whole village.”

  Damn. Hard to argue with a man who’d put everything in his life on hold to help put back together those of the underprivileged and devastated. “If there was a working phone in the bar—hell, if there was a bar still standing there—I’d have sent the bartender to wake you up and drag you to it. Sorry about the police.”

  “Whatever.” It was all the apology they ever used with each other. All they ever needed.

  Except today, Knox needed more.

  He needed Logan to give Madison a real apology.

  Frustrated beyond belief, Knox banged the side of his fist into the wall. “Pull your head out of your ass, Marsh. Your dad withheld the information from you. We don’t know why. Take that up with him.”

  “Believe me, I will. But not on a phone that could go dead at any second and not work again for another week. The easier option was to be a dick to Madison and end the conversation. Ultimately, no big deal.”

  If he weren’t
still recovering from his concussion, Knox would’ve bashed his head against the wall. “Look, all Madison is trying to do is make things right. She already loves you, dickhead. Don’t be ungracious.”

  “Hey, if somebody gives you a rabid, untrained cheetah for a pet, are you going to say thank you? No. Because that beast will still tear your living room to shit and, oh, slash you to ribbons and feast on you. You don’t have to thank someone for a shitty present you never wanted.”

  His voice as sharp as an assassin’s stiletto, Knox said, “Don’t you dare compare her to a rabid animal. She’s a wonderful, warm, and loving woman. All the ACSs like her. So you don’t ever, ever talk about her like she’s something you need to scrape off your shoe.”

  “She’s met everyone else? Why? What’s going on? This doesn’t add up. Why are Griff, Ry, and Josh suddenly weighing in on your sheet-warmers?”

  Logan was pushing Knox way past his breaking point. Madison wasn’t a bimbo. She was special. “I told you not to talk about her like that. She’s your sister. Treat her with respect. Or I will catch the next three planes, bus, and ride the back of a goddamned yak to beat some respect for her into you.”

  Hell, his every workday was consumed with tinkering with drone software. If Logan kept pissing him off, Knox just might send a drone to Kazakhstan with Logan’s ass-crack as the target.

  “You’re threatening to beat me up for the sake of someone you screwed a couple of times? A total stranger?”

  Knox needed to move. To pace off the anger burning in his gut. But he didn’t want to risk changing the angle of reception. Logan didn’t get to hang up again until Knox drove home to him the error of his ways. He white-knuckled the phone, grateful for the almost armor-plating of the protective case.

  “This ‘total stranger’ is brimming over with unconditional love for you. When you hung up on her, Madison asked me what she’d done to upset you. She doesn’t care what you do for a living, how much money you make, where you went to school—or, hell, if you’re over there extorting money from nuns. Madison loves you because you’re her brother, and that will never change. Do you even realize how lucky you are to be loved like that?”

  “She doesn’t mean anything to me.”

  Ungrateful jerk-off. “Well, she means something to me,” Knox yelled. “So fucking apologize to her.”

  “Or what?”

  Good question. What was a serious enough threat to a guy living without running water and pizza? How could Knox make him understand that Madison mattered? “Or I’ll kick your ass out of the rectory.”

  “Fat chance.”

  “I’m serious. Serious as a bean burrito shit with hemorrhoids. Do right by her. Be her brother…or you won’t be mine anymore.”

  Confident he’d finally gotten his message across, Knox thumbed off the phone. Still worked up, as he cleared the bottom step he winged the phone down the hallway.

  It didn’t make a satisfying crack against the wall. More of a soft smack as it hit Josh’s palm, extended above his head.

  “Jesus H. Christ in a tutu, Knox!”

  Great. The whole reason he’d come down to the basement was so he wouldn’t be overheard. “Sorry. Thought everyone was out.”

  Underhand, Josh tossed him back the phone. “Cable went out at McGonigle’s Pub. I came home to watch the end of the soccer game.” With slow deliberation, Josh used the remote to turn off the TV. Stood. Hiked up his plaid pajama bottoms. “Did I hear right?”

  “Dunno. How about we say you didn’t hear anything and watch the rest of the game?”

  One arm outstretched, Josh held him off from flopping on the couch. “Did you just threaten to kick Logan out of the house?”

  “Yeah. I did.” The guy hadn’t left him much choice. Pushed to the limit, what else was Knox supposed to do?

  “Have you lost your freaking mind?”

  “I don’t know. I do know that I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Tough. You need to start at the beginning and explain what just went down. This is some serious shit.”

  “I said I don’t want to talk about it.” Madison was upset. Logan had sounded furious. Josh looked pissed. Knox knew he was smart. Usually the smartest person in the room. So how was everything in his carefully crafted life suddenly so messed up?

  The ceiling suddenly felt low. The walls pressed in. Josh was staring at him with those condemning eyes. It was too much. He’d dealt with too damn much tonight. Knox spotted what had to be Josh’s T-shirt on the couch. He lunged for it, then headed to the stairs. “I have to go.”

  Josh grabbed at his arm. “No, you need to sit your ass down and talk to me.”

  “I can’t.” He shook off Josh. Pulled the shirt over his head and stuck his phone in his pocket. “Madison’s upstairs. When she comes down, tell her…tell her I’m sorry.”

  And he ran up the stairs and out of the house. Away from all the complications. Away from the people he didn’t know how to handle. Knox could admit it to himself.

  He just fucking fled.

  Chapter 20

  Madison burst into Summer’s shop. Yes, burst through the door. Because apparently everything she did now was dramatic. Trying to tamp down the fact she was an emotional wreck seemed to only be making things worse. In the shower this morning she’d shaken her conditioner so emphatically that half the bottle squirted onto the wall. At work, she’d dropped a coffee mug, which of course shattered on the more than century-old marble floor. Madison felt out of control. Like she wasn’t herself. And she absolutely hated it.

  She stopped short at the sight of Annabeth leaning over the counter, her black uniform skirt pulled high on her thighs. “Oh, good. You’re both here.”

  “I’m just here on a pop-in. Summer texted me a 911 fashion emergency when her new shipment of earrings came in. Look at how hot these are.” Annabeth shoved her hair behind her ears to show off silver hoops with protruding studs that usually decorated leather cuffs. They were edgy and sexy and totally Annabeth.

  Madison blinked. Hot earrings wouldn’t fix anything. She didn’t even bother looking at the jumble of jewelry on the counter. As jumbled as her thoughts. Geez, she’d been doing that all day. Going off on tangents. Not paying attention. Probably driving everyone around her crazy. “I wanted to talk to you, too. But I didn’t know how to find you.” Although now she remembered that Annabeth’s schedule was up on the refrigerator at their apartment. Nobody had ever mentioned that falling head over heels for a man totally and utterly scrambled the brain cells. Or maybe it was just her.

  “Well, for the next eight hours or so you’ll be able to find me schlepping drinks at the POV. I’m leaving for work.” Annabeth straightened up and gave a windshield-wiper half wave to Summer.

  “No. Not yet.”

  “Yes, now. Talk to Summer. Then talk to me tomorrow.”

  “I need to talk to both of you. Now. Right now. My Grand Plan just took a U-turn, and I don’t know what to do. This isn’t how I work. I make a plan, I stick to the plan, I achieve my goals. That always works. But now…I don’t…I can’t…” Madison circled her hands in the air, unable to keep going. God, she was pathetic.

  Summer raised her voice. “Elisa, you’ve got the store. I’ll be back in a bit.” She hurried around the counter and took Madison’s arm. “Do you need a brown paper bag to breathe into?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t panic like this. Ever. I plan. I move forward. It always works.” Madison knew she was repeating herself. Repeating herself continually, not making sense, which was undoubtedly a special kind of conversational hell for her friends to witness.

  “Let’s go.”

  As they left the store and walked down the crowded Georgetown main drag, Annabeth raised an eyebrow. “Is this worth my being late to work? Is it truly that world-shakingly big?”

  Madison had waited out her own workday. Of course, she’d only had to wait an hour. And she was still in her first-sixty-days probationary period…which was the only thing
that had kept her at her desk. But…Annabeth was sort of offering. Which meant she had earned the leeway to be a little late, so darn it, Madison would totally abuse her friend’s goodwill and paycheck and say, “Yes.”

  The tall brunette took her other arm. “Okay, then.”

  They ran down a steep set of stone steps to the grassy edge of the canal. People hung over the bridge, staring at the slow-moving water, but few hung out on their narrow ledge. It was that post-work-but-not-yet-dinner-hour strolling slump. Summer gave Madison a gentle shove to the ground, then sat herself, seemingly uncaring of what the grass would do to her pale mint skinny jeans.

  “What happened?” Summer twirled the top of her hair into a twist and tucked it under. “Did Knox finally come around with his tail between his legs and apologize for ghosting on you?”

  “No. I haven’t seen Knox since he left his bedroom on Tuesday night. That was almost forty-eight hours ago. Not a word since.”

  Madison had plenty of words for him, though. Words about how she’d lain there, waiting for him, for more than an hour. Already upset after the conversation with Logan, she’d tacked on a sticky layer of humiliation, going through the rectory floor by floor looking for him. When she’d found Josh in the basement, the confusion in his eyes matched her own. The pity, however, was all from him.

  Why had Knox walked out on her? He’d made this amazingly sweet gesture by going above and beyond to connect her with Logan. Of his own free will. Then he’d made love to her. Not sex. Not a fast and furious hookup. But with tender, full-of-feeling intimacy. Of his own accord. There was simply no other way to interpret what he did.

  But then he left.

  No calls. No texts. No emails.

  Madison was an up-to-date woman. She knew that ghosting was the trendy, pansy-ass way out of a relationship. She’d just never expected it from someone as classy and together and smart and freaking grown-up as Knox.

  “He’s an idiot,” Annabeth declared hotly.

  “Agreed.”

  “He’s a coward,” Summer added, with just as much heat in her tone.