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“This all fits the Dexter I know,” Madelyn said. “No wonder you were able to crack the secret of my dad’s trinket box. You obviously have lots of experience.”
“Honestly, I find those relaxing,” I told her. “There’s always one solution, one that seems very simple once you figure it out. Not much else in life is like that.”
“After what we’ve tackled in the past few weeks, I can understand the appeal.” She straightened up, and her gaze veered to my desk. As usual, it was mostly bare, only my computer and a notebook sitting on it—and a single framed photo at the back. A picture of me with my parents and my brother and sister on a family camping trip several years back.
Madelyn paused over it with a pensive expression. “This is your family?”
I nodded. “They’re very into the outdoors.”
She glanced over at me. “You say ‘they’ rather than ‘we.’ Not so much your thing? You do look a little separate from them somehow. You’re kind of standing off to the side rather than right there with them.”
I hadn’t thought of it before, but when she pointed it out, I could see exactly what she meant. Mom and Dad were poised under the huge oak tree we’d found by the river, Mom’s hand resting on Jack’s shoulder and Ella gripping Dad’s arm as she grinned eagerly at the camera. I stood next to Dad and Ella, but with enough space between us that we weren’t anywhere near touching. Both my smile and my posture were a bit stiff to my eyes, but I wouldn’t have expected anyone else to notice that.
“I’ve never really felt like I totally connected with the rest of them in general,” I admitted with a twinge through my stomach. “They’re all athletic and social, and I’d rather be in my room reading or figuring out some new puzzle. I think my parents were kind of relieved when my younger siblings turned out to be more like them than I was.”
Madelyn’s mouth twisted. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’m used to it. Now that I’m not living at home, I don’t feel the same pressure to try to fit in with them. And it’s not like they were mean about it or anything. They just didn’t really get me.”
I paused and decided to share more than that. Madelyn wanted to know me, and I could let her see my weaknesses as well as my strengths. “They didn’t know how to handle the bullying I got when I was younger—it wasn’t something they’d ever had to deal with… I’m lucky that I met Logan and Slade and found people I could belong with instead of always being off to the side.”
“That is lucky,” Madelyn said softly. She turned toward me, and the affection in her eyes made my pulse stutter.
I kept talking, not letting myself chicken out of the confession. “Those two guys are the only people who really took the time to get to know me and understand what matters to me… until you. So now I’m even luckier.”
Madelyn beamed at me so warmly that her expression melted any nervousness I’d felt. Like a moth compelled by a flame, I couldn’t stop myself from stepping closer to her. Running my fingers over her hair and then letting my palm come to rest against her cheek.
Her lips parted, and I knew she wanted me with the same longing that was coursing through my own body. That one fact seemed perfectly clear—so clear that nothing at all seemed to stand in the way of my lowering my mouth to hers.
Madelyn kissed me back with obvious enthusiasm but also a sense of restraint, as if she were checking to make sure I was into it rather than diving right in. And maybe that was a good thing, because every nerve in my body seemed to be crackling like a sparkler, nearly overwhelming me with giddiness at the soft heat of her lips pressing against mine.
How could another human being make me feel so much? So alive? But she did. And even though it scared me a little, I reveled in the sensation.
One kiss merged into another and another, each one getting deeper and more intense. Madelyn dared to flick her tongue across my bottom lip, and I did the same in return. At the rough sound in her throat, I delved it farther into her mouth to tangle with her tongue. I was drowning in her and consuming her all at the same time.
I eased up on the kissing enough to focus on what the rest of me was doing. My hands trailed down the sides of her body, eager to touch every part of her. All the places I hadn’t gotten the chance to explore in our hasty interlude in the library bathroom.
Which parts of her would make her gasp or whimper? How could I provoke the same giddiness in her that she was in me? She was a puzzle herself, one I intended to find every special trick to that would leave her satisfied.
I slid my fingers up the curves of her hips and stopped at the hem of her shirt. Madelyn stroked her hands down my chest in turn, and I found the confidence to tug at her blouse. She raised her arms immediately, giving me free access to peel the shirt off her.
I tossed it aside and found myself staring down at her modest but gorgeous curves, boosted by her simple bra. Tracing my thumb over the peak of one, I watched her nipple pebble against the fabric and absorbed the hitch of her breath. That terrain deserved plenty of my attention.
But there were other areas I hadn’t tested yet. As I caressed her breasts through her bra, I brought my mouth to the edge of her jaw, then the side of her neck, peppering kisses all the way to her shoulder. Making note of the spots where she trembled or let out a sound to return to later.
One of her hands clutched my shirt. The other wound into my hair with a fierceness that heated me up even more. As she started fumbling with the buttons on my shirt to reveal my own chest, I reached behind her to unclasp her bra.
She was even more beautiful now that I could see all of her. The graceful arc of her natural curves, the pert nipples that called to be fondled, the taut line of her belly below, which I knew held as much strength as softness.
I must have held there, staring, for a few moments too long. Madelyn’s hands stilled with my shirt still on though completely unbuttoned. The fingers that’d twined with my curls glided down to touch my cheek.
“We don’t have to do more than this,” she murmured. “I won’t put any pressure on you. I want you to be enjoying this just as much as I am.”
A raw chuckle tumbled from my mouth. “If you think I’m not looking forward to enjoyingeverythingwe can do together, then I’m going to have to give a better demonstration.”
Any remaining tension left her body as she bobbed up to catch my lips with another kiss. I kissed her back harder than before, walking her backward at the same time. I knew my room well enough to mark the exact moment when the backs of her legs would hit the side of my bed.
I grasped her hips and eased her down on the covers, then tugged at her jeans. As Madelyn wriggled out of them and peeled off my shirt, I dipped my head to her breasts. When I lapped my tongue over one nipple experimentally, the twitch of her body and the moan that escaped her told me I’d done well.
