“Ah. Okay.” Andi smiles knowingly and glances back at me. “I just need to grab it, and I’ll meet you in the pool house.”
“Showing him a few images?” Tina asks.
“Have to make sure we have all his parts covered,” Andi replies.
Thank fuck, she has a level enough head for this.
I’m dying.
“Will you have dinner with us tonight?” Tina asks as we start to head around to the side fence.
“Maybe,” Andi says. “Just text me, and I’ll let you know. I have a lot of work.”
“What about you, Mads?” Tina asks.
I have enough sense to rub my stomach and grin at her. “Just had something, Mrs. Matthews,” I say. “Maybe later. Thanks, though.”
I’m on Andi’s fucking heels as she leads me around the corner and through the gate. I take inventory of our surroundings for the younger brothers, who might be lurking somewhere on the deck just to scare us.
She’s walking with her head slightly down, her hand opening and closing at her side, gait faster and longer than I’m used to her taking.
“I need to get my computer,” she says, glancing at me.
My breaths are too short to stay steady.
“I’ll meet you at the pool house,” she adds.
Her foot is on the step. However, before she can prance her perfect ass up those stairs, I take her wrist and yank her around. Her back hits the wall. My hand wraps against her neck.
And my lips crash upon hers before I can lose my nerve.
God fuckingdammit.
I’m dead.
I’ve died.
I’ve died, and my ghost is lingering behind just to savor one more second with her.
Because this can’t be reality.
She can’t be kissing me back with as much greed for me as I have for her.
It’s chaotic and licentious and every fucking thing I ever thought it might be. Her hands fist my shirt and somehow pull me closer. I’m gripping her hair, her throat, her waist, her hips. I’m falling deep under her spell and saying ‘fuck it’ to whatever shit ending this might have for us.
I ignore every alarm going off in my head telling me that I shouldn’t be here. That I shouldn’t be outside her room. And I sure as fuck shouldn’t be kissing her.
Yet, I can’t stop.
She groans into my mouth, and I nearly lose it. This need for her is almost uncontrollable. Every cut and burn on my tattered soul seems to mend with the press of her lips against mine. Her kiss makes me feel like I don’t have to scrape and itch and pick at the scabs on my heart—to keep bleeding the wounds that have festered over the last two decades.
An ache swells in my chest, and my dick responds to this carnality with the strain I held myself to the night before.
And finally, as her chilled hands move beneath my shirt and hit my stomach, I slow the rapacity between us, deliberately sucking on her tongue as our lips part.
Gasping breaths leave us both, and I rest my forehead against hers for a quiet moment that only lasts long enough for me to find my voice.
“Maddox…”
