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Well, that’d been my thinking up until two seconds ago.
I held my breath as Maddox stepped forward until our bodies were practically touching.
Go for the straight-guy-pat-me-on-the-back-during-a-half-hug thing.
I repeated the mantra a few times, but to my shock, Maddox’s arms slowly wrapped around me. I automatically put my hands up at his waist to steady myself and felt the coolness of his leather belt beneath my palms.
Why the hell wasn’t his coat buttoned? I needed as many layers between our bodies as possible, damn it.
I waited for the hug to end as I stood there stiffly, but Maddox didn’t seem to be in any kind of hurry and my traitorous body began to react to the contact. His mouth ghosted over the skin just in front of my ear so gently that it almost felt like he’d kissed me there. It was the side of my head that the others wouldn’t have been able to see.
His lips hovered there as he whispered, “I’m so sorry, Isaac. So fucking sorry.”
I was glad he kept his voice low because Newt definitely would have picked up on the swear word.
But the way Maddox had said it sounded so pained, it was like it wasn’t even a swear word. It was like it was the only word that he could have used to make me understand he meant what he’d said. His big body felt so warm and strong against mine, that I found myself sinking into the embrace, despite my intentions. And then my hands, God, my hands slid all the way along his sides to his back and then drifted up his spine–beneath his damn jacket. His muscles were hot and firm beneath my touch.
I needed to stop.
We’d already hugged for way longer than was necessary.
But when he whispered, “Please, forgive me, Isaac,” I barely stifled a cry as something inside of me burst.
Like some kind of ugly, festering wound that I’d been trying to ignore my whole life.
I pressed my mouth against the spot where his throat met his shoulder and used his hot skin as a way to muffle the sound. He was so big that I felt completely enveloped. Newt was gone. Dallas and Nolan too. There were no animals or trees. It was only warm, not freezing cold. And as excited as my dick was, my heart was the part of my body that finally felt like it was home for the first time in a really long while.
Maddox was the one to come to his senses first. Although he probably wasn’t coming to his senses so much as just ending the hug like a normal person. It was all I could do to force myself to let go of him. I couldn’t risk looking at him, so I glanced at Nolan as I reached down to take Newt’s hand. “Should we get going?”
The plan was for me to spend the day in the office going through some of the applications that had continued to trickle in while Newt continued to play with the kittens, as well as some of the older cats. Nolan had said it would help some of the older cats who got along with the kittens to start interacting with people more in the hopes they’d be adopted out as quickly as the babies. Neither Dallas nor Nolan had any issue with bringing the cats and kittens up to the office so I could keep an eye on Newt while he babysat the cats.
I didn’t wait for Nolan to answer as I pushed past Maddox and headed for the building that housed the cats. It took about twenty minutes to get Newt settled in his spot with the kittens. We let the older cats roam the entire office but put up a baby gate on the inside of the door frame to keep them from running out when someone opened the office door. Fortunately, most of the lookie-loo types had stopped showing up in masses in the three days since the truth about Dallas had come out. But there were still people showing up now and then. I’d had a chance to meet Sawyer briefly the day before, but he’d been called to a zoo in the south somewhere to consult on an injured bear, so he wasn’t expected back for a few days. It was with that thought in mind that Newt and I locked up the kittens in the large crate for their nap and then moved the few larger cats back down to the building they were housed in without waiting for Dallas and Nolan to do it at lunch time. Newt and I walked to the main house, and after giving him a simple lunch of soup and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, he went down for his nap without argument.
