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CHAPTERELEVEN
Madison
There’s a monster of panic crushing me, invisible hands pressing fiercer and with more force. It’s a strange combination, the lust still spreading through my body, the panic flurrying after it like it’s hunting my desire. I wasn’t thinking about where the pleasure would lead.
When I was lying on the kitchen island, his finger pumping hotly, all I could think about was how perfect it felt. All I could think about was the orgasm, first a whisper, then a scream so loud nothing else existed but in the bedroom. The reality of it crashed into me. Sex with a man I hardly know. Sex with the man I want so badly it hurts.
“Men will take what they want…”
Mom’s voice in my mind always warns me of the dangers.
Now I’ve said something silly. I’ve told him Mom is in love with him. Is that my defense mechanism, so I don’t have to tell the truth?
Jacob walks slowly across the room, standing on the other side of the island. His shirt is messy from our lust, his lips curved into an unreadable line. His body seems somehow more muscular than usual, as if getting close to sex has caused instincts to swell inside of him, his chest bulging in his shirt, threatening to pop the buttons.
“Explain,” he says bluntly.
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
It’s difficult to maintain eye contact with him. I remember when he told me to reveal my breasts.Look at me. That’s what he said, with a commanding tone in his voice, leaving me no choice, and Ilikedthat. Not having to decide, doing what he told me. My sex throbs, willing me to extend that logic to the bedroom. Let him lead the way.
“Maddie?” he goes on, resting his fists against the obsidian surface. “You can’t tell me your mother is in love with me and clam up.”
“I exaggerated,” I murmur. “She’s not in love with you. As far as I know, anyway, but when she talks about you…”
He waits, staring with that fierceness barely contained behind his eyes. I’ve got no doubt he could unleash his desire again. He looks ready to leap over the island, grab me, claim me. Why don’t I just let him?
“Sometimes, I don’t know, it’s like she has a crush on you,” I go on. “Then there’s the fact of… well, to be blunt, she’s always warned me about men using women and then dropping them. That’s what Dad did to her. I can’t let it happen to me.”
Jacob nods slowly, then walks around the island. He takes my hand softly, though I sense more power in there as if he’s fighting the instinct to hold me tighter, to pull me so our bodies are flush against each other.
“You’re telling the truth,” he says.
“IknowI am.”
“But it’s not the whole truth.”
I say nothing. He must be able to read my expression better than he has any right to considering how long we’ve known each other. Time doesn’t seem to matter to us. We’re closer than our time together would imply. In a different life, I’d stop fighting it. I’d tell him what I want, the visions of the future that are frankly insane.
“I’ve spent my entire life searching for the truth,” he says. “In my early days, I interviewed hundreds, if not thousands of people.”
“So what?”
I lay my hands on his chest. Big mistake. The feeling of his unyielding muscles only compels me to return to the bedroom and forget about the doubts. Even so, I dig my nails in.
“Are you saying you think I’m holding something back?”
“No.” Since I’ve let his hands go, he guides them to my hips, holding them as if he owns them, ownsme. “I’m saying Iknowyou are.”
“I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“But you did,” he says, his head dipping closer and closer.
I don’t expect a kiss, but it’s not like I’m going to turn it down. It’s better than the revelation we’re veering toward, and it feels so right, kissing this man,myman. Our lips hint at the pleasure we could share if only I would let go of my nerves.
“Where did that come from?” I ask breathlessly.
Our noses are touching, a smile forming on my lips at the sensation. There’s something so intimate about it.
