She finally nods as if she knows what I’m thinking, as if she can feel the way I’m drowning inside. Before she steps out of our embrace, she leans up, and her lips land on my cheek.
Breath escapes me.
Cold air sweeps between us when she steps back, though she’s still hanging onto my fingertips.
“Thank you,” she says.
I have to swallow, have to stuff my hands into my pockets because if I leave them out, I’ll have her back into my arms again, and there won’t be any stopping me from tasting her right here on this couch.
“Wanting to make you smile is purely for my own selfishness,” I say, and her lips curl like she knows I’m lying. I run my hand over my beard and huff in amusement. “Seriously, it’s never something you ever have to thank me for,” I add in a more serious tone.
“Even so.” She inhales a deep breath, almost making me think she’s been holding it as long as I have. “Goodnight, Maddox.”
I watch her grab her drink from the bar, and she exits the room with one more glance over her shoulder.
Oh, mother fucking, god dammit, it all to hell.
Debate rolls through me as I pace behind the couch, my hands braced behind my neck.
I should have kissed her.
Fuck who we are. Fuck everything that says I shouldn’t touch her.
I should have kissed her.
God dammit.
I’m on the verge of pulling my hair out. Every step is in absolute agony. I don’t think I’ve breathed in the thirty minutes since she walked out of that door.
Fuck it.
I pull the hood of my black hoodie up over my head and quietly leave the room toward the big house. I don’t even have to go inside to go to the room she’s staying in. She claimed the one over the garage because it has a private bathroom, and while Koen tried to argue with her when he and Kamden arrived, Andi insisted she needed the space.
I climb the steps to the room from the outside, and when I reach the stoop, I stare at the door.
What the hell am I doing?
I don’t have a plan.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.
I resist banging my head on the wall for not rehearsing something on my way up here.
However, all that goes awry when I hear a soft noise from the room.
It’s brief, almost like a whimper. I step closer and lean my ear against the door, a thread of fear coursing through me. Her room is so easily accessible from the outside it’s possible that—
“Right there,” I hear her whimper. “Fuck, right there.”
My brows narrow. It’s only been a half-hour. There’s no way she already has someone else inside her room, which means—
She moans again, and I close my eyes to listen more intently, which is when I hear the distinct noise of a vibrator.
Shit…
She whimpers hard and fast, the noise sounding muffled behind a pillow, and I wonder what toy she has getting her off. I rest my forehead against the door, the shadow of the peaked roof swallowing me out of sight from the back lights.
God, this is wrong. I shouldn’t be listening to her like this.
