The lust roaring through my veins switches out for hot, potent jealousy.
It dawns on me that we both have skeletons in our closet when Maddox mumbles, “Now I know why Flint made a mess in his pants. He didn’t just get an up-close and personal view of your lips, he got to taste them too.”
“Once,” I remind him, my voice surprisingly strong for how heavy the tension is between us. “You’ll get them for a lifetime.”
There’s nothing soft about our kiss this time around. It’s savage and unhinged. Claiming and full of need. An explosion of tongues, wandering hands, and unvoiced promises. We attack each other without burden, aware we’re both where we are meant to be even with us being in full view of the neighbors.
“Lean back against the cladding of the cabin. You’ll be out of sight there,” Maddox says a couple of minutes later, his voice breathless and husky from our kiss.
When I do as requested, his eyes study me. They rake up my body, soaking in every inch until the chemistry bristling between us hisses and cracks.
“I should carry you inside, cherish you on my bed like I did your first night here…” He pauses, draws his brows together, then corrects, “You’reonlynight here. But I can’t. The view is too fucking spectacular to alter… the sun’s hues bouncing off your skin, the sexy rise and fall of your chest as you contemplate us getting busted, and the fact you also believe we are where we’re meant to be. It’s untouchable. Faultless. Way too fucking perfect.” I nod. He doesn’t need my agreement, he can see it in my eyes, but it felt nice expressing it. “If only we had time.”
“There’s always time to put important things first. You’re important, Maddox…” I settle the nerves in my throat before adding, “And so am I.”
If you exclude the searing admiration beaming out of him, the expression on his face mimics the one it had when I took up his offer to play with his ‘gun’ at the range weeks ago. “You are, and I’m so fucking glad you’re starting to realize that.”
We get lost in one another for the next several minutes. Maddox strives to push his kissing skillset from a ten out of ten to an eleven while I do my best to show him how much I appreciate him teaching me that I deserve better. I’ve often said I’m a little naïve on aspects of my family’s businesses. In reality, Iactednaïve because I believed it was the only way I could keep those I cared about safe.
That stops now.
Letting the bullies win isn’t fighting for what you believe in.
It’s the coward’s way out.
“I love you, Maddox.” I breathe out with a moan when I come up for air. “So much, sometimes it’s hard to breathe when your lips aren’t on mine.”
He says he loves me back before he tells me he’d move mountains to ensure I’m never without his lips. “Nothing will come between us, Demi. Not a mountain, a river, or another continent. We will always be together.”
When he brushes the back of his hand against my panties to test how wet his promise made me, I peel them off my dripping sex and down my legs before I stuff them into the pocket of his trousers. We’re acting like two horny teenagers at a prom, but I adore every single moment of our step back in time.
Although I did attend prom, it came at a cost. Entering a packed room with the eyes of hundreds of students on you is daunting enough, let alone facing a second gauntlet only hours later with men more than double your age.
My uncle didn’t believe I was thankful for the dress he had purchased for me. Instead of accepting my offer to pay him back by working at Petretti’s free of charge, he devised his own punishment.
It was then that I realized how horrendous his crimes were. He had buyers at the ready in under an hour and bids from as far as Japan. I was all but sold, my stay of execution only granted when I fell to his knees and begged.
A night that should have ranked high when I looked back on my memories soon became a nightmare. It was the first time my uncle’s comments were inappropriate for someone who shares his blood. His constant references about my virginity made me extremely uncomfortable, so I won’t mention how sick I felt when he hinted that it would be a good gift to give someone to show my thanks for their ‘years of gallant support.’
When he left me alone to consider suitable candidates, I did the complete opposite. I made a beeline for the weakest man in his crew who also had the biggest mouth.
The sex was meaningless. There were no emotions attached to it whatsoever, but it was via my choice, and any guilt I felt for not saving myself for ‘the one’ was forgotten when news reached my uncle’s ears. That was the first time he slapped me in front of an audience, but the words he shouted while humiliating me in front of his associates were priceless. “Get out of my face! I never want to see you again.”
Those three short weeks he ‘abandoned’ me were precious. I moved in with Sloane, got a job at a family-run pizzeria, and slept most nights with the lights off.
It all came crumbling down when I arrived for my third Friday night shift. The seats in the pizzeria weren’t filled with hungry patrons. There wasn’t a slice of pizza or pitcher of beer to be seen in any of the black trench-coat donned customers’ hands. My uncle was back to his old tricks, but I was old enough not to fall for them.
Well, so I thought.
Family-minded people don’t like dining in the same establishments as mafia men. Within a week, regulars stopped coming to Donny’s. Within a month, the phone number associated with his delivery service stopped ringing. Donny was weeks away from bankruptcy.
I couldn’t let that happen, so just like my uncle, I fell back to my old tricks.
I begged.
On the condition I got to live in my own apartment, Donny got to keep his pizzeria, and I would repay my debt to my uncle by recruiting fighters for his underground fight syndicate.
Easy enough, right?
