She glanced up at me with a devilish gleam in her eyes, hollowing her cheeks once more and sucking me in deep, her tongue undulating, and that was it; game fucking over. I fisted her hair tighter and held her close as I shuddered against her, coming in a furious rush, her throat pulsing as she swallowed it all down.
Girl had the face of a damn Christmas angel, looking up at me with those baby blues as I finally slid out of her mouth, totally spent.
With a soft smile, Maddie rested her cheek against my thigh and sighed, and I stroked her hair, wondering—once again—what the fuck I was doing.
I couldn’t pretend to know her innermost secrets, but Ididknow this: as much as she’d loved a good hard spanking, as much as she’d let me eat her pussy on the dinner table and then sucked my dick like a dirty little vixen, Maddie Lockwood wasgood. She was good, she was pure, and she was whole.
And me? I was nothing but a shell, my heart as black as coal. Yeah, I was quick with a smart-ass remark and some dirty pillow talk, and Idamnsure knew how to put a blush on her cheeks and an ear-to-ear grin on her freckled face But all that stuff was on the outside—what she saw when she looked at me. It wasallshe saw, because that’s all I’d dared to show her.
Inside? That shit was a damn war zone, a wasteland I’d never letanyonetraverse, let alone Maddie. And my wolf? Hell, he was a dark secret I justcouldn’treveal—not without shattering her entire world. As honest and sincere as she was, everyone had their fucking limits. Seeing the truth of it—ofme...
No. It would break something inside her I wanted to keep whole, even if I couldn’t keep it for myself.
Girls like Maddie—they believed in the fairy tale. They wanted a good man to sweep them off their feet, to give them a whirlwind romance, to treat them like queens. To give them an amazing life.
And why the fuckshouldn’tthey want it? It’s exactly what they deserved.
Looking at Maddie now, my perfect little Christmas cupcake, I was pretty sure no one had ever told her the truth—that fairy tales didn’t exist. Not in the real world. Just wasn’t possible.
For Maddie,everythingwas possible. She probably jumped out of bed every day before the alarm even went off, her face already lit up with that megawatt grin, ready to go out and conquer the world.
Me? I got out of bed every day wondering if today would be the day I’d finally blow my fucking brains out.
Wolf or no wolf—how could I expose her to that shit? How could I risk it, even for one night?
Why had I have even let things gothisfar?
Because you’re a selfish prick who destroys everything he touches, and you’ll never fucking learn, asshole.
“Hawke? What’s wrong?” Maddie glanced up at me with concern in her eyes, scattering my dark thoughts. “Was that… was it okay?”
I forced a smile, rubbing the crease between her eyebrows with the heel of my hand. I didn’t want her to feel bad, but my guilt was already seeping in, burning up my insides like battery acid. I couldn’t handle this. The soft murmurs. The cuddling. The gazing longingly into each other’s eyes and talking about feelings or sharing secrets or whatever the fuck people did after doing what we’d just done.
Some things were better left unsaid. Untouched.
Fuck it.
The wolf inside me reared his head, clawing at my insides, still riled up by her scent. Her presence. He needed out, which meant I needed to shift. To run through the snow and get all this shit out of my system beforeIstarted wishing for the bullshit fairy tale, too.
“I… I gotta go,” I said abruptly, standing up and zipping my pants.
Maddie gaped at me, confusion chasing the concern from her eyes. She looked like she’d been slapped, and not in the sexy way.
Nice move, ace.
“But it’s your house,” she said. “Where are you going?”
“Dunno,” I snapped. “But since it’s my house, I can come and go without an interrogation, right?”
I shoved my feet into my boots, not bothering with the coat. Wouldn’t need it anyway—that shit would only get in the way.
At the sound of the door opening, Bella bolted down the stairs and charged right at me.
“Hawke?” Maddie asked again, and the hurt in her voice made me feel like an even bigger douche bag than I was. She was still kneeling half-naked on my kitchen floor, lips swollen and puffy, her hair a tangled mess. Behind me, the kitchen faucet dripped onto the pile of abandoned dishes.
Plunk. Plunk. Plunk.
I couldn’t look into her eyes now—it would wreck me. Maybe that’s what I deserved, but fuck it, I was taking the easy way out tonight.
