by J. E. Parker
Looking down at me, he growled. "There isn't anything to tell. I’ve never dated or fucked Sadie.”
Bull-friggin-crap. I patted his shoulder again. "Sure, you haven't, Stud. It's okay though." Pain dripped from my voice, and it took everything in me not to fall apart at the images that flashed in my head.
Hendrix kissing someone else.
Hendrix making love to someone else.
Hendrix telling another girl—not me—that he loved her.
A lump formed in my throat, and the sharp sting of misery took root in my chest as the truth repeated on a loop in my head: He isn’t mine anymore. Taking a breath, I mustered all the strength I could and kept going. “It’s not like I thought you’d stay celibate all these years. Just because I never—” I snapped my mouth shut and closed my eyes. I hadn’t meant to go there. I really hadn’t.
“Eyes open.” My gaze collided with his. “We'll come back to that later.” Not a chance in hell. “But first I need to make something clear to you” he dropped to his elbows bringing his chest closer to mine, “the only woman I’ve ever been inside of, is you, Maddie.”
No friggin’ way…
One look at his face and I knew he was telling the truth.
All the air left my lungs in one quick swoosh.
“Hendrix…”
“Baby listen to me,” he cupped both sides of my face with his hands, “I know you might not believe me but I’m going to say it regardless.” Dropping his right hand, he wrapped his long fingers around my wrist and brought my hand to his chest. Pressing it against his left pec, he took a breath. His heart pounded beneath my palm and tears welled in my eyes. Dipping his face down, he pressed his lips to the shell of my right ear. “I’ve loved you since I was eight years old, Maddie. Loved you since the moment I first saw you in that glittery pink dress with little white ribbons braided through your hair.” His lips touched my skin and my insides heated. “One look at those emerald eyes and cotton candy stained lips and I knew—I fucking knew—that you were the reason for my entire existence." He moved, placing his forehead on mine. "You're all I see, Maddie. You're all I’ve ever seen.”
My control snapped, and a gut-wrenching cry tore from my throat before I could stop it. Feeling my entire body shake beneath his, I screamed, “Then why did you leave me?” Clenching my hands into fists, I slammed them against his rock-hard chest. Over and over I hit him. “Why did you leave me?" My ears rang, and my head pounded. "If you really loved me," I fought for breath, "and if I'm all you've ever seen, then why the hell did you walk away from me?"
“Baby, calm down,” he wrenched my fists from his chest and slammed my arms onto the bed. My hands landed near my head as his calloused palms secured my wrists against the mattress.
Arching my back, I fought against his hold. I wanted away from him, away from this place. Coming here, being near him, begging for an explanation—it had all been a mistake. “Let me go, Hendrix!”
"No," he growled, dropping his body to cover mine. Letting go of my wrists, he cupped my jaw with both hands. "Stop moving your goddamn head, Maddie. You'll hurt yourself, and then I'll spank your ass so hard you won't be able to sit down for a week!”
I kept moving. Kept yelling. Kept fighting.
“Let me go!” I screamed for the second time in under a minute.
Hendrix rested more of his weight on me, and through gritted teeth, growled, “I’ll never let you go, Maddie. Not again!”
I inhaled so harshly my nostrils flared. “Tell me why you left me!”
“Because I didn’t have a goddamn choice!”
His tear-filled eyes met mine, and I froze. For the first time since he’d come bursting back into my life, I saw the truth in his eyes.
That truth: I wasn’t the only one with a broken heart.
At that moment, it was clear as day to me that when he left, Hendrix hadn’t just destroyed me. He’d destroyed himself too. Leaving had broken him the same way that it’d broken me. Even when we were apart, we were together in our misery.
“Hendrix…” My hands twitched with the need to touch him, to comfort him. Just one small touch. I didn’t like seeing him hurt. The man had been hurt enough throughout his lifetime. He didn’t need to suffer anymore.
Lord, please let this be the right thing to do.
Lifting my shaking hands, I pressed them against both sides of his rib cage. He hissed at the contact. "Maddie, baby…" I didn't reply as my fingertips skated across the fabric stretched taught against his strong back. "… what are you doing?”
His voice had changed. It was deeper, rougher than before.
Reaching the hem of his shirt, I slid my hands underneath the fabric and started my ascent. The fabric caught on my wrist and moved with me, baring Hendrix’s back an inch at a time. Feeling my skin heat, I whispered, “Take it off.”
I didn’t know what I was doing, didn’t know why I felt the way I did. All I knew was that I needed his skin on mine, needed the warmth of him surrounding me, needed his weight pressing into me before he explained.
Being skin on skin would comfort us both.
Without questioning me, Hendrix sat up, fisted his shirt behind his neck and ripped it over his head.
I stopped breathing.
Perfection.
Dropping his shirt to the floor, he looked at me before trailing his eyes down my neck and over my chest. “Maddie,” he said, clenching his hands at his sides, “take yours off. I’m not…” he shook his head, “I swear I won’t do anything. I just want to feel your skin on mine.”
I didn’t hesitate.
Lifting my back off the bed, I ripped my shirt over my head and tossed it to the end of the bed. Hendrix exhaled and moved towards me, but I wasn't done yet. Reaching behind me, I unlatched my bra with a quick flick of my wrist and let it fall into my lap.
I laid back down, pressing my back into the mattress. “Come here.”
He did. Pressing his hard chest into my soft one, he ran his calloused thumbs over my cheeks, down the side of my jaw, and along the soft curve of my neck. “You don't understand how much I’ve missed you, Maddie. I love you so goddamn much.”
I love you too, I mentally whispered.
Wrapping my arms around his big body, I held him as tight as I could. My chin trembled as I worked to speak around the knot in my throat. “I need you to tell me, handsome.” Lifting my legs, I hooked them around his knees and rested my ankles on his calves. “I need to know,” the tears returned, “why you left me.”
Hendrix took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Walking away, hurting you… breaking your heart,” he shook his head and clenched his jaw, “was the only way I could protect you.”
My nails dug into his back, and my legs tightened around his. “I don’t understand. Protect me from what?”
He blew out a long breath before beginning. “It all started with Pop…”
Maddie
Five Minutes Later
My head spun.
Was this a joke? I mean, I knew it wasn’t, but the Russian mob? Really?
It was like something straight out of Hollywood.
Heart racing, I pushed against Hendrix’s shoulders. “Move.” He didn’t budge. Shaking my head, I closed my eyes. “You’ve gotta move, Hendrix,” my stomach churned, “I’m gonna be sick!”
He sat up, giving me enough room to slide out from under him.
The moment my feet touched the carpeted floor, I took off running for the hall bathroom. Slamming the door against the wall as I crossed over the threshold, I dropped to my knees in a bone-jarring thud in front of the toilet. My stomach convulsed and the small amount of food I’d eaten spewed out of my mouth in a rush of acidic vomit.
Hendrix cursed as he moved into the small room. I heard him turn on the sink faucet, but I had no idea what he was doing. Didn’t care either. I was too busy focusing on not losing my dang mind to worry about anything else.
Gambling… Russians… Mafia… Fighting… Prostitution�
�
I felt like I was stuck in a perpetual nightmare that I couldn't wake up from. I'd—we'd—been ripped apart, endured hell and lost so much time and it was all because of other people's actions. I know life isn't fair, but this was ridiculous.
Finally, after what felt like forever, the heaves stopped, and my gut calmed.
Hendrix flushed the toilet as I sat back on my butt and stared at the far wall. I was angry. Angry at Pop. Angry at Petrov. Angry at Hendrix. I didn’t understand how this could happen to us—why us of all people? —but most of all I didn’t understand why Hendrix thought dumping me was the answer.
Because it wasn’t.
Wrapping my arms around my belly, I looked up at him. “How stupid could you have been?” Given Hendrix’s past with Pop, I shouldn’t have called him stupid. I know that. But I was so worn out and on the verge of losing my mind that I didn’t stop to think before opening my mouth.
He flinched before looking down at me in confusion. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
My legs shook, and I wobbled in place as I pushed myself to stand. “What you did, the solution you came up with, it was complete bullshit, Hendrix.” He furrowed his brow and looked at me like I was crazy. Irritated beyond belief, I glared at him. “I understand why you needed to leave, I do. I even understand why you couldn’t go to the cops. And, why you couldn’t ask anyone for help,” I pressed my finger into his left pec hard enough to leave a bruise, “but you could have told someone.”
His eyes hardened, and he sneered down at me. “Yeah? And who the fuck would I have told? Since you seem to have all the answers, tell me.”
This asshole! Straightening my spine, I stood tall and hollered, well, more like croaked, “You could have told me!" His entire body stilled, but I kept going. "You could have told me what was going on! I could have helped you stage a break-up between us. I would have known what was going on and it wouldn't have hurt so bad. Then I wouldn't have lost—” Crap. Don't think about that now! My bottom lip quivered, and my stomach churned once again. Push the memories back. Deal with them later. “But no, you did what you thought was best without once considering my goddamn feelings!”
Pushing past him, I stormed out of the bathroom.
I was done.
So friggin’ done.
Stomping back into his bedroom, I grabbed my shirt from the bottom of the bed and slipped it over my head. I didn't even bother with a bra. It didn't matter if I wore one or not, Shelby—who I was seconds away from calling to come pick me up—had seen me without one before.
Living in a tiny apartment above the shelter hadn’t afforded me a lot of privacy over the last couple of years. I can’t tell you how many times Shelby, Hope or one of the other girls had barged in without knocking. Swear to God, everyone—including Evan—had seen my naked boobs at one point or another.
Hendrix stomped up behind me. Reaching his arm around me, he clutched the front of my shorts with his right hand, and in one quick move, spun me around to face him.
Pain sliced through my head as my skull whipped to the side.
Dropping my phone—that I’d only just pulled out of my back pocket—I clutched both sides of my head with my hands. “Oh, my God,” I cried, as I waited for the pain to recede.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
“Fucking Christ!” Hendrix scooped me up into his arms and laid me back down on the bed for the second time in the last twenty minutes. “Didn’t I tell you you'd hurt yourself? And look at what you’ve done,” he hissed.
You were the one who spun me around, asshole, I mentally retorted.
When the blinding pain had transformed into a dull throb, I let him have it. “Look at what I’ve done?” I laughed—loud and maniacal. “Look at what you’ve done!” Climbing over me, he pinned my arms to the bed. I gritted my teeth in frustration. Here we go again. “You’re the jackass who went about things the wrong way! You’re the one who didn’t stop to think about what he was doing! You’re the clueless bastard who broke my heart, setting off a chain of events that I still haven’t recovered from! That I’ll never recover from!”
Dipping his face towards mine, he snarled through gritted teeth, “I was only trying to protect you.”
Deep down I knew that, but the crushing pain and red-hot anger running through me overshadowed any rational thoughts I may have had. "Well congratulations, Hendrix! I wasn't kidnapped by the Russian mob and sold into prostitution, so your plan worked." Pulling my legs up, I kneed his thighs to make him release me. He did, and I moved. Once off the bed, I whirled around to face him.
“Maddie—”
I threw my hand up, cutting him off. “Don’t you friggin’ Maddie me!” I pointed at him. “You did this. You caused this.” Placing my hands on the side of the bed, I leaned towards him. “You may have protected my body, Hendrix, but you destroyed my goddamn heart.”
With that, I turned around and walked away.
I’d made it all the way down the hall before I realized I was crying.
How long the tears had been falling, I didn’t know.
Hendrix
Want to know what real pain is? It’s looking into the wounded eyes of a girl who used to be so full of life and knowing you’re the reason her light is gone.
And that's precisely what'd just happened.
Long as I live, I'll never forget the look on Maddie's face when she told me I'd destroyed her heart. Me, the person who had sworn never to hurt her, ended up being the person who hurt her the most.
Despite my reasons, I’d never forgiven myself.
Feeling like my chest was cracking wide open, I stood from my bed, walked into the living room. Maddie was sitting on the middle sofa cushion, crying her eyes out.
I slid my hands into my pockets and leaned against the wall.
Minutes ticked by as I silently stood there and watched her cry.
She didn’t look up as she whispered, “Just leave me alone, Hendrix.”
My chest cracked open some more. Give her some space, stupid.
“I need to go pick up your prescription.” She didn’t respond. “I need to get you something to eat too. I'm never here, so I don't keep much in the fridge." Except for liquor. I took a breath. “What do you want for supper, baby?”
Silence.
Grabbing my keys off the coffee table, I squeezed the brim of my ball cap in my hand before pulling it down tighter on my head. I walked over to the door and pulled it open. “Don’t even think about leaving.” Every cell in my body screamed at me not to leave, not to give her the chance to run. “If you do I’ll just chase your ass down and drag you back here.” Still nothing. “I can’t lose you again, Maddie.”
I stepped through the threshold and looked back at her one more time. I couldn’t leave it like this. “I know you think I should have told you but I couldn’t.” Maddie’s entire body stilled, and I wanted nothing more than to walk over and pull her into my arms, but I didn’t. If I did, she’d just get upset again, and she didn’t need to do that. Not only because my heart couldn’t handle it, but because it wasn’t good for her head, either. “They were watching me, Maddie. They would’ve known we were faking it, and then they would’ve hurt you to punish me." Just the thought made me sick. "I didn't want to hurt you, but I did the only thing I could." My hands shook as I stared at her. "I hope you understand that, and I hope you find a way to forgive me for walking away." Grabbing the doorknob, I finished with, "Love you, pretty girl. More than all the gold in the world."
As I shut the door, I could have sworn I heard her whisper, “Love you too.”
Maddie
It was a little after three in the morning.
Laying on the stiff mattress in Hendrix’s spare bedroom, I stared up at the popcorn ceiling. My mind was a mess. I couldn’t sleep, could barely eat, and I’d thrown up three times since leaving the hospital. My nerves were fried, and my anxiety was through the roof.
; I was an emotional wreck.
One minute I was angry, the next I was calm. I went from being ready to rip Hendrix’s head off to wanting to curl up in his lap and cry my eyes out. I hated him, I loved him. I wanted him close, but then I wanted him to get the heck away from me. Not to mention I’d gotten halfway naked and made him press himself against me.
I think it’s safe to say I was losing my mind.
Seriously, someone needed to call the looney bin and reserve me a room.
My cell phone rang from the nightstand beside the bed. Who would be calling me at this time of night? Furrowing my brow, I grabbed it and looked down at the Caller ID.
The screen flashed: Grandmama calling.
Crap.
Blowing out a breath, I accepted the call and lifted the phone to my ear. “Hey, Grandmama.” I could hear running water in the background followed by the sound of metal tapping against metal. I smiled, knowing exactly what she was doing. “It’s three in the morning. Why on earth are you making coffee?”
“I’m not making coffee. I’m making a cup of Earl Grey.”
“Since when did you start drinking hot tea?” I sat up in bed. “We live in the south. Isn’t that like a sin or something?”
She chuckled. “Thought I’d try my hand at something new,” more tapping, more clinking, “what are you doing awake? I was just calling to leave a voicemail. Thought for sure you’d be dead to the world.”
Burning up, I flicked the blanket off my legs. “Can’t sleep. Got too much on my mind I guess.”
“Guess it’s a good thing that I called then, huh?”
“Yeah.” I picked at a piece of non-existent lint on the bedsheet, and with a voice barely above a whisper, said, “Hendrix told me everything. Why he dumped me. Why he left.” Pick, pick, pick. “And I don’t know what to think.”
She hummed. “So, you know all about what James and that Russian mafia man did?”