Page 81 of Hard to Handle

Is that what’s bugging me? The difference between us this time?

I already knew having sex wasn’t going to sate the hunger I had for her. I already knew one taste of her, one thrust into her pussy, and I’d only want more.

That’s how it has always been with her. That’s how it always will be.

What I didn’t expect was for the same damn heartache I had when we broke things off last time to return with a goddamn vengeance. The heartache I didn’t have to admit to last time because she walked out before I could.

But there was something different than that tonight. Something new.

I let the coffee scald my tongue when I drink it. I let it hurt and burn, as I force myself to acknowledge the one thing I pretend I don’t notice. Experience daily.

I have women at my fingertips, fans are everywhere I go, and I have teammates around me almost every waking minute of each day, but fuck if Dekker walking out of here tonight without a glance back didn’t make me realize how fucking lonely I am.

How alone I feel.

Daily.

“You’re crazy. Fucking crazy, Mad,” I say to the empty room as I acknowledge that tonight was most men’s dream. Hell, it used to be mine too.

Great sex with a gorgeous woman who walks away after it’s over and doesn’t ask for anything more—not even a kiss goodnight.

Sex without strings.

But fuck if I don’t feel invisible strings tying me up in the biggest fucking knot I’ve ever seen or felt before.

One that has her at the goddamn center of it.

Get over it, Maddox. Get the fuck over it.

I don’t get attached.

I don’t get the privilege to have feelings for someone.

I don’t ever allow myself to want more.

But hell if what she did for me tonight—made me laugh, made me feel carefree, and then fucking owned every urge and need and want and inch of my body—doesn’t make me wonder what it would be like to have that on the ready. If it’s something I could get used to.

Drawing in a deep breath, I swear this room still smells like her—her shampoo, our sex—and that makes it hard to stop thinking about her. To stop wishing she were still here. To stop replaying her bullshit ghosting act and the way it felt watching her walk away.

“Let it go,” I murmur and lean my head against the back of my chair, willing sleep in any form to come.

I close my eyes and try to quiet everything. All thoughts. All hopes. All dreams.

And in that limbo state between being awake and falling asleep, I have a moment of clarity I’m sure I won’t remember once I wake in the morning.

She slept with me tonight and bailed.

Why?

To get back at me like I did her that first night in the elevator? To show why I should have chased after her three years ago? That’s not like her, though.

Then what could it be?

Because Callum saw us? Because what had just happened between us was more than obvious?

Why the fuck does that matter?

He’s her client, I’m not.