by J. S. Scott
“I’m not worth that much money. I’m just a family practice doctor. I don’t earn that kind of salary.” Seriously, was she really considering his offer? Shit! He was dangling a carrot that she almost couldn’t refuse to take.
It’s Sam Hudson, Maddie. Be careful.
Thing was, she didn’t really want to be careful. She wanted to grab this opportunity. “What’s the catch?” she asked cautiously. “There’s nothing in it for you except a bigger tax deduction if you take it on as a charitable organization. Why put yourself to this much trouble for my clinic?”
“I get to know you’re safe every day and out of the clinic before dark. I’ll know you’re sleeping, eating.” He shrugged. “The conditions are firm. No working after dark and no more than five days a week.”
He was manipulating her, and she didn’t like it. However, it was hard not to accept when it was something she had always wanted. “Lower my salary. I’d rather use it to pay some full-time staff. I just need enough to pay my student loans and mortgage plus some other minor expenses.”
“No. The salary gets paid and I’ll pay your student loans off. I’ll make sure your donations are enough to pay staff and buy state of the art equipment.” He crossed his arms in front of him, his face like granite.
They were negotiating, but Maddie felt like every time she opened her mouth he wanted to do more. “Why are you doing this? Really?”
“I’m doing it for you,” he replied, his eyes boring into her. “And partly for myself,” he admitted reluctantly.
“Are we signing contracts?” she asked, wanting to know she’d be legally protected. She wanted to believe that Sam was sincere, but she’d never be taken in by him again. One massive heartache was more than enough. He’d taken her trust once and smashed it to bits, making her suspicious of anything he offered.
“No. Not if you accept my entire offer,” he rumbled, his voice husky.
“What else is there?” What more could he possibly offer?
“I want to get you pregnant,” he said harshly. “You’ll be in a position to have a baby and I want to be the one to do it. I don’t want another man’s seed inside your body.”
Maddie gasped, her heart racing. Was the guy crazy? “You want to be my sperm donor?”
“Hell, no. Or yes…I do…but we do it the old-fashioned way. I’m willing to try for as long as it takes. Every day. Five times a day. Or until you beg for mercy, and even then I’m still not sure I’ll stop.” He pulled her into his body and unbound her hair, spearing his hands into the mass of curls possessively.
Maddie’s mind whirled in confusion, her heart thudding against the wall of her chest so hard she swore it was going to burst through her sternum. “That takes having sex. A lot of sex. Unprotected sex.” Oh, hell no. “I don’t like sex and you’re a man-whore, Sam. You couldn’t go a week without another woman. I won’t be enough for you. And I definitely don’t want to share diseases with your lady friends.”
Not happening. Having Sam Hudson as a father for the child I want so desperately has ‘complicated’ written all over it.
“I’m clean. I’ll give you my health records.” Pulling back, he drilled her with those emerald eyes. They were tumultuous and stormy, as though he were holding himself in check.
“I can’t. I trusted you once. I can’t do it again. Especially not with a possible child involved,” she answered sadly, her eyes starting to fill with tears. Incredibly, she almost wanted to agree. What would it be like to hold Sam’s baby, their baby, in her arms? Need slammed into her so hard that she swayed. Not only did she want a baby, but she wanted Sam. Her problems with sex had nothing to do with her physiology. It all boiled down to him, to Sam. No other man had been Sam, so she hadn’t wanted anyone else. When it came to sharing something that intimate, it only felt right with one person, a man who had broken her heart so many years ago.
I must be crazy, a freaking masochist, to feel this way.
“I haven’t been with a woman in months. I fucking couldn’t. Before that I only slept with women who had red hair, curvy bodies and who didn’t mind that I called out your name when I came,” he snarled. “Women who only wanted money or material things, because I had nothing else to give them.”
“Sam, you’re with a different woman every week-”
“Friends who go with me to various functions. I don’t sleep with them. I have no desire to sleep with a tall, skinny blonde. I’m too fucking obsessed with a petite redhead who hates me.” He laughed, a humorless, self-deprecating laugh.
Oh Lord, was it really true? Still, he had cheated on her when they were dating. Like the proverbial leopard that couldn’t change its spots, Sam couldn’t have changed that much, could he? “I can’t. It will never work. I can’t sleep with you, get pregnant and walk away.” It would kill me!
“If you fucking walked away, I’d come after you.” His nostrils flared as he looked down at her with so much intensity that she could hardly hold his gaze.
“Then why did you even suggest it?” she asked curiously.
“I don’t think you understand, Madeline. I’m not asking to just knock you up or fuck you, although God knows I want that too.”
“What do you want?”
He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, his whole body tense. “I want you to fucking marry me. I’m not asking for a few months of wild sex. I’m asking for forever. You, me, a family. Everything. Everything we should have had but didn’t. I don’t deserve you, but I fucking want you. So much it’s killing me.”
Sam took another deep breath…and waited.
Chapter 5
Sam held his breath, watching Maddie’s expression change to one of incredibility, as her mind tried to absorb what he’d just said. Shock. Disbelief. Horror. All of those emotions reflected back at him from her hazel eyes. Christ! He hadn’t meant to say that. He hadn’t meant to say any of it, except for the proposition to help her make her clinic a full-time paid venture to make her life easier. But then he’d seen those damn papers, and he’d completely lost it.
No man is planting his seed inside my woman, artificially done or not. If she wants a baby, I’ll give her one or happily die trying.
Rampant, possessive emotions rose inside him until his vision blurred, his fists clenched with need to own the woman in front of him, a woman he’d wanted for what seemed like forever. The last time he had walked away from her, he had done it because he thought she’d be better off without him. Fuck it. He wasn’t doing that again. She obviously wasn’t happy, some guy had treated her like shit, and she didn’t have the family she had always wanted. She was alone. Or, she had been alone. Now, Sam was determined that she would have him. Forever. Even if she hated him, he would treat her better than another man could, take better care of her; meet all of her needs until she begged for mercy.
Bullshit…she doesn’t like sex! She had just never had a man who wanted to please her. Maddie was a firecracker that he wanted to set off. Hell…he wanted to do an entire fireworks display with her, one orgasm after another, until she begged him to stop, her body limp and sated.
Sam never saw the palm coming toward his face, his fantasies and desires so potent that he was lost in them. The smack landed hard enough to jerk his head to the right, and it was loud enough to be heard echoing through the kitchen.
“How could you? How could you play with me like this? You bastard, what did I ever do to you to deserve this?” Maddie hissed, her eyes furious and filled with tears. “I don’t want to play your stupid games, Hudson.”
Sam caught her wrist just as she was about to let her hand fly a second time. “No.” He held her wrist tightly enough to immobilize it, but not enough to hurt. “I probably deserved what I just got for hurting you in the past. But I’m not taking another bitch-slap for offering to marry you and give you everything you want.”
“You’re a damn liar. You don’t want to marry me or even fund my clinic. This is some kind of sick, twisted joke. And I don’t un
derstand why.” Tears spilled from her eyes, eyes that were full of hurt and confusion.
“Goddamn it, Maddie.” He swung her up into his arms. She kicked and twisted until he wrapped his arms around her, holding her immobile. “It’s not a fucking joke. I’m not twisted. Much.” Okay…maybe he was a little, but not about this, not about her.
Angry, he carried her to the living room, fuming. Dumping her on a roomy leather couch, he came down on top of her, restraining her flailing hands by holding her wrists above her head.
His chest heaving, Sam looked at her face, keeping most of his weight from her smaller frame with his legs. Tears were streaming from her eyes, an endless river that didn’t seem to be stopping. Fuck! “Please don’t cry, Maddie.” I can’t handle it when she cries. She’s had too much disappointment and pain in her life already. Knowing he was the source of her tears, no matter how unintentional, nearly killed him.
She turned her face away from him. “Let go. I want to leave.”
“The offer was sincere, Maddie. I’m not sure why you think I’d play that kind of game with you, but I have no reason to do that. Think about it. It makes no sense.” He sighed, frustrated.
She turned her head and nailed him with a searching look. “About as much sense as you asking me to marry you. We hate each other-”
“You hate me. I don’t hate you. I never have,” he rasped, trying to squelch the barrage of emotions pounding at him.
“You didn’t want to fuck me, either. And you didn’t even respect me enough to break up with me before you fucked her. I cared about you, Sam. And seeing you with that woman made a mockery of everything we ever shared. Our friendship. Our relationship. Everything was just one big joke on me.” She yanked at her hands, and Sam released her, sitting up to give her space since she appeared calmer.
“Maddie, I-”
“So excuse me if I think this is just another twisted lie, but I don’t trust you. With good reason,” she finished, running a shaky hand through her hair to thrust back her wayward curls from her face, her face still damp from spent tears. “I need to leave. Can you take me to the clinic to pick up my car?”
“No. You’re staying. The rehearsal is starting in a few hours,” he insisted, his jaw clenched. “You didn’t give me an answer on my proposal.”
“Because I don’t think it’s really necessary, but if you want one…then the answer is no. Hell no. Absolutely not,” she gasped. “You broke my heart once. How stupid do you think I am? Unless you can give me a damn good reason why you were sucking tongue with that tall, skinny, beautiful woman all those years ago-”
“Because I didn’t have a goddamn choice,” he shouted hoarsely, the explosion coming from deep inside his body. “I had to get you away from me so you didn’t get hurt. That woman, who was at least fifteen years older than me, was a fucking FBI agent. Did you even look at her?” He shuddered, his emotions close to the surface, unable to remember that nightmare day without nearly flying into a frustrated rage.
“All I remember is that she was pretty and she had her tongue down your throat. And your hands were all over her,” Maddie answered, her voice uncertain, sad with remembered pain.
“She was good at her job. We were meeting to try to find a way to protect you. That’s why I asked you to come and meet me for coffee. Kate said the best way to protect you was to alienate you, but I couldn’t do it. I cared too damn much. She told me if I really cared about you, I’d worry about your safety first. She was right, but I didn’t know how to walk away from you, even though I knew somehow I had to so I would know you were safe. So when she saw you coming, she did it herself by shoving her tongue down my throat. She convinced me that making you hate me was the way to save you, so yeah, I played into it. I didn’t know whether to thank her or hate her fucking guts afterward. I hated having my hands on a woman who wasn’t you, Maddie. I hated it while it was happening, knowing you were watching and feeling betrayed. And if you think I haven’t lived with the regret of having to do that every fucking day since it happened…you’d be wrong.” Sam sat next to Maddie and buried his face in his hands, still hating himself for what had happened, but knowing that it had been the only way. Back then, he had been young and selfish, unable to push Maddie away because he wanted her too badly, needed her too much. And she was so loyal that she never would have left him unless she thought herself betrayed. “I didn’t want to hurt you, but the thought of something happening to you made me so crazy that I did what I had to do.”
“Why the FBI? Were you in some kind of trouble?” Maddie questioned, her voice still full of doubt and confusion.
He sat back on the couch, resting his head against the leather. “Not me. Not really. You know my history, Maddie. You know my father died of an overdose and that he had connections to organized crime.”
“Yes,” she nodded. “You told me. He died soon after we met.”
“I knew things. Things that could help take the whole organization down. My father was not a nice man. I ran interference between the old man and Simon, doing whatever I had to do to keep the old bastard from hurting my little brother. I was underage when I ran errands and did other things under duress, so I wasn’t really in trouble. But I also knew enough to help take down a worldwide organization that was pure evil.” He took a deep breath and blew it out before he continued. “I came here to Tampa just hoping to get my family away, to start a new life and just leave that life behind. But once I met you, I knew I couldn’t bury all of my past and just run, pretend I didn’t know things. I wanted to be a good man, and a decent person wouldn’t be selfish enough not to try to prevent the pain and death caused by this organization. I had to do what I could take the bastards down. I went to the Feds around December and fed them information, worked with them to help the investigation. It took months, but they finally got agents on the inside and enough information to bring the whole thing tumbling down. Unfortunately, information got leaked that I was a snitch, and that made me and anyone I cared about a target. Kate helped me realize I couldn’t afford to be close to anyone. I was a dangerous person to know.”
“I would have stayed with you, done whatever-”
“And you could have wound up dead. I couldn’t take that chance.” He sat up, grasping Maddie by the shoulders, shaking her lightly. “I didn’t even get my mother and Simon out in time. Simon was stabbed by someone in the organization, a payback for my father being disloyal. Those were people who killed without a thought. They didn’t give a shit about any human life. Do you understand?” he growled, his emotions ready to explode from his body. Perspiration poured down his face, a reaction he had every time he thought about what had happened to Simon and what could have happened to Maddie.
“What happened to Simon wasn’t your fault, Sam,” Maddie answered quietly, her voice soothing.
“Bullshit! I was his big brother. I should have gotten him out sooner. I should have known they’d take revenge on whoever was available.” Releasing Maddie, he slumped back on the couch.
“You were barely an adult yourself. How could you have known?”
“I should have known. I’d seen these people in action since I could walk,” he answered softly, dangerously.
“Why didn’t you find me later? After the whole thing ended?” Maddie queried, her voice tremulous.
“It took over a year until every branch of the organization was closed down. My mother, Simon and I were under FBI protection here in Tampa until every boss was behind bars or dead,” he answered, his voice low and thoughtful.
“But after that, why didn’t you find me?”
“I did.” Sam clenched his fists, hating to think about the day he had gone to find her. He’d already known he had lost her, but that particular day was the time that it really sunk in, that he had to admit to himself that his Maddie was gone forever.
“I never saw you again,” she answered, confused.
“I saw you. This time it was me who had to see you with another man with his tongu
e down your throat.” He frowned, his face fierce. “I tracked you down on campus, but some dark-haired guy who looked like a jock was all over you. I thought you looked happy. He looked like he came from money and could make you happy. You’d moved on with your life and I couldn’t blame you for finding someone better.” Fuck. That hurt.
“Lance,” she whispered. “We started dating a little over a year after what happened. You should have talked to me.”
“Why? All it would have done is screwed up your life. I didn’t have a fucking thing to offer, Maddie. I was barely out of danger from a lengthy FBI involvement. Broker than shit from trying to support my family. Simon was going to school. I stopped so he could study. Once he was old enough to work part-time I went back to finish my own degree. You had a guy who looked like a much better option than me back then.” Maddie would never know how hard it had been to walk away, to leave her in the arms of another man. But Kate had been right when she said if you really care about someone you do what’s best for them. “Had I known that he was a bastard who wasn’t going to marry you and who treated you poorly, I would have taken you away from him in a fucking heartbeat. I assume that he was the one sexual relationship you mentioned? That guy was the son of a bitch who told you that you weren’t sexy?” God, what he wouldn’t do to have his hands around the asshole’s neck right now. He hated himself for leaving his precious Maddie in the care of someone who didn’t deserve her.
“Yeah. We didn’t really date that long. Six months.” She shuddered as she looked up at Sam, the pain in her eyes almost tangible. “I was so lonely and I wanted to forget you.”
“And you haven’t tried again since then?” he asked, his voice gentler, curious.
Maddie shook her head. “No. I’ve dated casually, but there was…nothing.”