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“Yep. She packed a suitcase, took half the money in the bank, and one of the cars. She never looked back. One day she threw a football birthday party for me, even baked the cake herself. The next day, she was gone.” Matt would never forget the teary look in her eyes when she’d said she loved him, brushed her hand over his hair, kissed his cheek, said she was sorry…and disappeared. “I never heard from her again.”
She gasped. “And you have no idea why?”
“No, I do. My father… He’s a horrible, manipulative bastard. In fact, shitty fathers were something One-Mile and I bonded over as kids. Most everyone who came into our lives ended up leaving a teary, emotional wreck. I got the tattoo to remind myself that, despite all the crap with my parents and stuff, I won’t let it bring me down.”
Madison didn’t say anything for a long moment. “Thank you for sharing that with me. It sounds like your childhood wasn’t easy.”
“Try hard as fuck,” he admitted with a smile before sobering again. “I’ve never talked about it to anyone, except Pierce. He only knows because he visited his grandpa every summer and saw it all go down.”
She caressed him again, curling against his side in the dark, and planted a kiss on his mouth so soft it nearly felled him.
“Which makes you telling me even more special. I’m here for you. I hope you know that. Just like I hope you know you’re an amazing man.”
But he wasn’t. Didn’t she see? This weekend had proved that. And he was conflicted as fuck.
Tomorrow, he’d have to face that reality. But he still had tonight. He scooped Madison up in his arms, donned another condom, and utterly lost himself inside her one last time.
* * *
The following morning, Matt kissed Madison against the side of her sedan like he would starve to death without her, dazing her too much to ask for the promises he knew she wanted. Then he settled his cowboy hat on his head and watched her drive away, scrubbing a hand down his face. He felt as if his fucking world was ending.
After one last sweep of the suite where they’d spent the weekend lost in each other, he snapped a pic of the room so he could remember it exactly as it looked now—mussed bed with the robe’s terry cloth belt still tied to the headboard, towels strewn, and half-empty cups of coffee on the dresser. Then he shut the door behind him and headed to the parking lot.
What the fuck was he going to do about Madison? As he climbed into his truck and left the inn, he felt her absence keenly, as if she’d taken his insides when she’d gone, leaving him hollow and raw.
Though he’d sworn he would never be like his dad, she brought out every possessive, controlling, alpha-male tendency he’d never exhibited. She wasn’t merely shiny and new. That was a BS excuse. He didn’t know why, but with each passing hour, he’d only gotten more determined to keep her and more insistent on dominating her in bed.
How long before that overwhelmed her?
He’d love to believe he could moderate, make Madison his while keeping his freak flag in check. But Dad never had. That worried Matt like hell.
“Hey, man. How was your weekend?” Zy greeted when he walked through the door of EM Security Management’s offices. “You look like hell warmed over.”
Matt had never been jealous in his life. If some girl he took to bed had previously slept with a guy he knew, that was their business. If she crawled out of his bed and into someone else’s, that was on her. And by then, he was usually done with her, anyway.
Madison was the exception. Matt hated knowing that Zy had once kissed her, stripped her bare, and used her body for his pleasure. It shouldn’t matter. That had been months ago, and Zy was completely in love with his wife. In all the time Matt had known the man, he had never expressed an ounce of interest in anyone but Tessa. But the knowledge that he had ever touched Madison burned.
“Fine,” Matt managed not to growl. “You?”
“Good.”
“You hear from Trees?” he asked, more to distract himself than out of real curiosity. “Did he and Laila reach their destination?”
Zy shrugged. “If he called me on his honeymoon to check in like I’m his daddy, I’d only rib him for not having enough to do, and he knows it.”
Matt managed to smile. “Fair enough.”
“Listen, have you decided if you’re going to join EM Security full time?”
“Not yet.” Until this weekend, he’d been leaning toward yes. For Madison’s sake, he should probably rethink that.
Zy clapped him on the shoulder. “C’mon. It would be great, man. We could use some fresh blood around here.”
Matt cocked his head toward Kane Preston, the group’s loner, on the far side of the office. The former small-town Texas sheriff kept to himself and never caused problems. His ops were always squeaky clean and by the book. But Matt would bet money something more lurked under the guy’s controlled surface. “What’s with him?”
“Don’t know.” Zy dropped his voice. “He’s nice, just doesn’t have any interest in…blending. Coffee?”
Now that he wasn’t near Madison, he felt every calorie he’d burned this weekend and every quick carb he’d swapped for his usual protein to keep his body going. His stomach was like an empty hole, and if he poured the battery acid that passed for office brew down there, it would do damage. “Later. I’m going to order in some eggs from that diner on the corner. Want anything?”
