Blush

by Lauren Jameson

  Maddy shifted uncomfortably in the bath. Alcohol removed the ability to keep her grief at bay, and she felt the sadness and pain creeping back in. This was why she didn’t drink often. She felt panic choking her as she remembered what she’d lost, and layered on top of that were thoughts of Alex Fraser, the man who could have made her forget but wouldn’t.

  For once Maddy didn’t cry. She just sat in the tub, exhausted and fighting back emotions that she didn’t want to feel. It felt as if she sat there forever, but in reality it was probably no more than twenty minutes. The water started to cool, and Maddy began to shiver but was loath to move.

  From down the hall, she heard the doorbell chime. Narrowing her eyes, she ignored it. She didn’t know who it was, and she didn’t much care. She didn’t want to see anyone.

  Seconds passed. Then there was a knock, a fist rapping repeatedly against the wood. The knocking continued as, finally curious, Maddy scrambled from the tub.

  “Madeline! Open the door.”

  Holy shit. Alex. Hastily, Maddy wrapped her worn cotton robe around her dripping body, not bothering to dry herself off, and hustled down the hall. The looseness of her muscles from wine and the heat of the bath made walking harder than it normally was, her legs having turned to jelly.

  She wrenched the door open, half in shock, and there stood Alex Fraser, ripped jeans hanging low on his hips, a black T-shirt hugging his muscles. The short sleeves revealed a tattoo that she hadn’t seen before, a ring of something black and tribal around his right biceps.

  She wanted to lick it.

  She wanted to lick him.

  “What do you want?” Maddy was too drunk to manage much more than the question and a frown in his direction. His eyes swept her over from head to toe and widened. The heated look came back into them, and he clenched his hands tightly at his sides.

  “Why are you opening the door for a stranger at night? Don’t you know better?” He looked angry and frustrated. Well, Maddy felt the same way and didn’t appreciate the lecture.

  “You’re not a stranger.” She eyed him as well, and though he looked taken aback, she rather thought that he liked it. “You don’t send strangers seventy-year-old bottles of wine.”

  He raised an eyebrow at her, but didn’t reply. Feeling like she’d won a minor battle, Maddy stepped back, giving him room to enter.

  He stayed in the doorway, his fists still clenched tightly.

  “Are you coming in?” At this point she no longer cared if he did or didn’t.

  A strangled noise issued from his throat.

  “What’s your problem?” Maddy would never have spoken to him like that if she were sober. She wasn’t.

  “It’s better if I don’t.” His eyes raked her over from top to bottom, and she realized that she was all but naked, clad only in her short robe, the cotton of which had become nearly transparent from years of wear. She was still damp in places from her bath, and the thin material clung to her skin.

  This was interesting. Despite the fact that he kept trying to push her away, it seemed that he still wanted her. How else could she explain him showing up at her door at night? If she’d been sober, she would never have believed it. In her inebriated state, though, she not only believed it, but wanted to do something about it.

  “Suit yourself.” Maddy shrugged nonchalantly, then let her fingers stray to the ties of her robe.

  “Maddy. Don’t.” His voice was tight, tense.

  Her fingers froze on the ties of her robe. “Why?” If she was going to put herself out there, then he had damn well better have the decency to respond the way that she wanted him to. “I want you; you want me. Why is this wrong?”

  His eyes bored into hers, and she thought that she’d never seen such a bright blue. “You’ve been drinking. And if you knew what I wanted from you, you’d never want to see me again.”

  “Try me.”

  • • •

  Heat washed over Alex’s entire body. He wasn’t entirely sure why he’d come to her apartment, other than the fact that she’d provoked him with her text message. It had warned him that she was irritated, but he’d never in a million years have anticipated that she’d channel her anger into desire.

  Holding himself rigid, he stepped into the foyer as Maddy sauntered toward him and closed the door. It brought her nearly flush with his body, a scant whisper of space between them.

  “Madeline.” His voice came out harsh, a last-ditch attempt to scare her away. If it had been any other woman, he was sure he would’ve had the strength to push her away for the good of both of them.

  But it wasn’t another woman; it was Maddy. Inexplicably, each time he saw her, she chipped away at his resistance a little more. And now a tipsy, scantily clad Maddy was pressing herself against him, arching up to stand on her toes. Alex steeled himself to resist her clumsy seduction attempts.

  But the truth was, he wanted her. More than he’d ever desired any woman. This woman touched something deep inside him. He craved her submission.

  She wasn’t helping him save her.

  “Alex, I want you.” She repeated the words and brushed her lips over his chin. If he dipped his head just a bit, he could taste her lips, devour them the way he had outside the casino.

  He found that he wanted her kiss more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. There wasn’t much that concerned Alex, but the depth of his desire for this woman counted.

  Instead of succumbing to the kiss that she was begging for with her wide blue eyes, Alex drew on the last reserves of his inner strength and scooped her up over his shoulder. She squawked, one of the cutest sounds he’d ever heard, as he tipped her upside down, placing her eyes at a level with his ass.

  His hand splayed over her inner thigh to brace her weight, and as he fought the need to slide his hand up higher, to the center of her heat, he felt her shudder at the touch.

  She was so responsive to him. It was the hottest thing.

  “What are you doing?” Maddy’s body went tense as Alex searched for and easily found her bedroom—there were only two doors in her apartment, and one was clearly the bathroom. The smell of her bath oil lingered in the air there, along with residual steam.

  The thought of her, naked and in the bath, did nothing to help his blood pressure. Squeezing his eyes tightly shut for a moment, he tried to remember that she was drunk and didn’t have a clue what she was doing.

  That was the only reason he’d come over, he reminded himself—tried to convince himself. She was drunk, alone in her apartment, and it wasn’t safe. He’d wanted to check on her.

  That was all.

  As he laid her gently on the bed, she squirmed and her robe fell open, treating his eyes to a slice of creamy white breast.

  Alex looked away and counted to ten, but he couldn’t tamp down his arousal. His cock had risen as soon as she’d answered the door in that see-through excuse for a robe.

  “Maddy, if you’re sure you want this . . . lie down.” His voice was commanding and confident, far more so than he felt in the moment, though he felt that surge of power when she obliged.

  Slowly, she moved backward on the bed, then lowered herself until her head was on her pillow. He watched the fabric of her robe hitching up with her movement, bunching around her hips.

  “Put your hands behind your head.”

  She shivered, and her eyes cleared a bit. She might have had a lot to drink, but she knew exactly what she was doing, knew who she was with.

  There was nothing better, in Alex’s mind at least, than a woman willingly giving him her submission.

  Especially this woman.

  Beneath him, Maddy closed her eyes and sighed, opening herself to him.

  Alex felt his heart stutter a bit, painfully. He bent over her, inhaling that seductive floral scent that was so uniquely hers. He contemplated kissing her, placing his lips on her mouth, her neck, and elsewhere.

  He couldn’t resist her anymore, not when she wanted it, too. The connection between
them was thick, full of heat, and wouldn’t be denied.

  She might have known what she was doing, but she was still not thinking clearly. So instead of sampling her lips, he lifted the cotton weave of her sheets, sliding them up over her legs. Her eyes flew open when the kiss she’d been asking him for with her body didn’t come.

  Alex cursed to himself, his cock throbbing with a near-painful arousal.

  He caught the narrowed, determined expression in her eyes moments before she tugged at his arms, which were gently tucking a sheet around her waist. She caught him by surprise and he fell, his full weight splaying on top of her.

  “Christ, Maddy.” He should have stood right back up, but Maddy wound her arms around his shoulders, nipped at his neck, and rotated her hips slowly.

  She’d been drinking. He needed to get up.

  “Fuck.” He was rock solid against the softness of her belly, and she purred with satisfaction.

  “Alex. Please.”

  Groaning, he buried his face into her hair, savoring the scent. “You smell so fucking good.”

  Maddy slid her hands over his back and down to cup his ass. She was bolder than he’d thought she would be, fueled by the wine in part, but he was beginning to see there was a core of solid steel beneath her sweet exterior. It was a wonderful combination for a submissive. And her touch did absolutely nothing to quell his desire.

  Rising onto his elbows, he studied her face intently for a long moment. He had no doubt that she was sexually submissive—the way that she responded to him told him that. But had he been wrong? Was she strong enough to handle what he was dying to ask her to do?

  He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, frowning as he had the day before, in the parking lot. He needed more time to think. This wasn’t a woman he could play with without consequences.

  She moaned when he slid off of her, the sound leaving him warm and aching.

  “Why?” She wasn’t whining—the question was matter-of-fact. He appreciated that about her, but he wasn’t in the mood to answer, not when his body was a tight tangle of need.

  He crossed the room. If he inhaled her intoxicating scent any longer, he wasn’t sure he could trust himself.

  “Sleep, Maddy. Go to sleep.”

  He’d stay until the next morning, to make sure that she was all right. But as Alex looked down at his rock-solid erection, he thought that he’d likely be seeing to his own pleasure that evening.

  Sleep wasn’t on the menu for him.

  • • •

  Maddy woke with the tantalizing aroma of bacon and coffee tickling the inside of her nose. Cautiously, she opened her eyes. She was in her bedroom, in her bed, and to judge by the brilliant white light streaming in stripes through her venetian blinds, it was morning.

  Those were all normal things. The pile of sand in her mouth and the tenderness in her head were not; nor was the fact that she was in bed in her bathrobe, which had bunched uncomfortably around her waist.

  As memories of the evening before started to filter into her waking mind, she wanted to pull the sheet over her head and hide.

  She wasn’t embarrassed at the amount that she’d had to drink, though she wasn’t proud of herself, either. What made her want to lock herself in her bathroom for about a year was the knowledge that she’d thrown herself at Alex Fraser . . . and that he’d said no.

  He said no. He said no. This caused panic to roil around in her gut. She had finally found someone around whom she felt safe, and she’d ruined it.

  Fuck. In throwing herself at him, she’d reduced herself to one of the harem that she knew must follow him around everywhere. Whatever had caused him to single her out, her actions must surely have squashed any desire that he had.

  Maddy felt a searing disappointment tighten her lungs. Well, what had she expected? Nothing good had ever come from overindulging in alcohol. The fact that Alex had sent her the alcohol just made her mad.

  Her throbbing temples and dry mouth wanted to shift the blame from herself squarely to him, and, judging by the scents emanating from her tiny kitchenette, he was still there.

  Maddy was halfway across the room with her mind set on yelling at the man who had turned her down yet was still in her house when she realized that she was half naked. Though she was fairly sure she’d given him quite a show the night before, there wasn’t any point in offering up what he clearly didn’t want. Quite out of sorts, Maddy exchanged the worn robe for an oversized T-shirt and cotton sleep shorts and made a quick detour to the bathroom. Her body was anxious to be rid of the previous night’s toxins, and her mouth felt infinitely better with a refreshing wash of spearmint.

  Her anger dissipated slightly when she finally, tentatively edged out of the bathroom, down the hallway and into the kitchen. She wasn’t used to having someone else in her living space, especially not someone who seemed to take up as much space as Alex did.

  Plus she’d behaved badly the night before, even if he had kind of deserved it. She owed him an apology.

  “Good morning, Miss Stone.” He was reading the Wall Street Journal. Of course he was. He lowered the paper, and Maddy felt a rush of heat when she saw that he was wearing glasses—wire-rimmed frames that sat halfway down his nose.

  She had such a thing for a man in glasses.

  Something niggled at her memory.

  “Those glasses are real. The ones you wore in the casino weren’t.”

  Alex tilted his head at her, curiosity on his face. “Very perceptive, Maddy.”

  He looked amused that she had remembered and questioned him on it. “I prefer to wear my contacts when I’m doing business. I prefer to not have a barrier between myself and others in those kinds of situations. But my eyes get tired sometimes, so I give them a rest with the glasses. I keep a spare pair in my car.”

  “Why didn’t you just wear your real glasses at the casino?” She couldn’t help but press him on it.

  Alex raised an eyebrow at her. “I could have, I suppose. A superstition maybe, since technically I was still doing business. The ones I wore that day were cheap fakes that I picked up at a pharmacy on the way.”

  He smiled at her, and the smile made butterflies riot around in her stomach. “And good morning to you, too.”

  Maddy ducked her head, somewhat abashed. “Sorry for the inquisition. I used to be an optician. I still find it interesting.” Her knees quivered a little bit as she looked at him, seeming at home in her shabby kitchen, watching her intently with those spectacles perched on his nose. Knowing that he actually needed them, that he wasn’t one hundred percent perfect as a physical specimen, made her mouth water.

  “Ah . . . and good morning to you, too.” This felt like the most awkward of morning afters, and they hadn’t even done anything. She was so out of her comfort zone, it was incredible. What was she supposed to do? What should she say?

  She was frozen in the doorway of her own kitchen, unable to move forward or back.

  Something in Alex’s stern expression softened a bit as he looked at her. “Come here.”

  Though she found it odd to be ordered around in her own home, she did as she was bid. The closer she came to the tiny card table that she’d covered with a cheerful, floral-printed oilcloth, the more tantalizing the smell of bacon and coffee became.

  “Sit and eat.” Leaning forward, Alex pulled out a chair for her and rested his hand comfortably on her shoulder as she complied. He was wearing his clothes from the night before, and there was a shadow dusting his cheeks. He looked delectable, and Maddy’s mouth watered for him more than it did for the food.

  Stop it. She had to stop; she knew it. He didn’t want her. He’d made that perfectly clear.

  “How do you feel?” Alex folded the paper neatly and laid it on the table, his eyes never leaving her. Maddy squirmed under his intense scrutiny.

  “I . . . I’ve felt better.” She was thirsty, so thirsty. She wanted to get up and get a glass of water, but for some absurd reason, she felt like she needed hi
s permission.

  “I would imagine so.” Leaning forward, he tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, a gesture he had performed before.

  Maddy laced her fingers together tightly. She wouldn’t press him for answers, not after last night, when she was afraid to make the situation even worse. He moved his gaze from her face and down over her body, and she became very aware of her traitorous body beneath the thin layers of cotton.

  He said nothing, simply rose and moved to her kitchen counter.

  “Here.” Two small brown pills and a glass of pink grapefruit juice appeared before her. She had no idea where they’d come from—there had certainly not been any juice in her fridge or pills in her cupboard last night.

  “What is it?” Maddy’s voice was suspicious. She heard a huff of exasperation from somewhere behind her.

  “It’s Advil. Now take it.”

  She did, but only because she desperately wanted the juice.

  “Good girl.” Alex once again sat down across from her. This time he had a plate in one hand and a steaming paper cup of coffee in the other.

  “Where did this come from?” Maddy was startled at the breakfast that had appeared before her—light, fluffy pancakes, crispy strips of bacon, and fresh, juicy wedges of melon. Again, she knew that none of it had been in her fridge—she rarely ate breakfast, and a good dinner for her involved throwing something into the microwave.

  Erin had been the cook. Though she’d only been twenty when their parents had died, she’d learned from a need to take care of her eighteen-year-old sister. Some of her creations had been more edible than others, but all of them had been better than anything Maddy would have been able to come up with.

  Alex didn’t respond. Maddy shrugged and picked up her fork—she was hungry. Before the utensil was even halfway to her plate, Alex leaned over and wrapped his long fingers around her wrist, halting the movement.

  Maddy look up at him in surprise.

  “I should lay my hand on your naked ass for the stunt that you pulled last night.” His voice was angry, furiously so, and she was reminded of the anger that Alex had shown toward Massimo in the casino. Her mouth dried up, and her muscles tensed. She didn’t feel like she was in danger—somehow she didn’t think that Alex would ever hurt her.