The music is classically perfect, and I simply let myself go. I shake my hips in time to the beat and soon find myself dancing with Juanita and Dr. Wellman. We are slaves to the music as the electrifying beat is all we feel.
I don’t think about Nate and his troubles, my back and forth feelings toward him, or my own problems. I just sway back and forth as I follow their moves, shuffling and shaking around the stacked pile of furniture, becoming a disco freak. I love every minute of it, too.
“Nate! You get your butt out here, boy.” Juanita wanders over to Nate who is leaning against the door frame, grinning from ear to ear.
He has such a stunning smile and it has been forever since I have seen him smile this big. He is just plain happy.
I stare at Nate, finding my grin matching his, as I move up behind Juanita and motion for him to come out to the floor. She pulls on his arm, and then, before he can do anything more to stop himself, Nate is also taken over by the music. The next thing I know, the four of us are getting down and grooving around the room.
Juanita and the doc are locked in each other’s arms as they turn and spin in front of us. I yank my hair from its bun and shake it loose. My brown strands bounce as I dance with every ounce of my body.
“Ohhhhh … Madison, give it up!” Juanita sings with the music.
Nate is laughing as he does his best impression of John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. I explode with laughter when he mimics the classic move, making his left hip and right arm shoot out simultaneously. I’m slightly surprised he does it perfectly.
Nate is a really good dancer, but I already knew that. He was my date to all the traditional school dances in high school. It was only as friends, but we always had fun. I can see the boy right now in the version of Nate in front of me.
He reaches out for my hand, and we soon are dancing just like Juanita and the doctor. I put my arm on his shoulder and practically shudder when he wraps his arm around my waist. Shuffling our feet, Nate moves backward and me forward as we follow the circle around the dining furniture. He pushes me away from his body yet holds firmly to my hand then spins me around and pulls me back to him. I collide against his hard chest and laugh.
“Come on, Madison. I know you can keep up with me, so show me,” Nate says as he moves more quickly around the room.
I follow his lead, keeping my feet moving and bouncing, matching him move for move. We shuffle, spin, and cha-cha to the beat as we get our best groove on. Although Nate has a heated look in his gray-blue eyes, it is not the normal, angry heat. It is a look of something else, something more determined, married with a glint of lust. Dare I say this is Nate’s aroused face? He looks to be on the prowl, and I can feel the warmth from his gaze piercing its way down into my belly and residing in my core. I grip his shoulder tightly and feel his groin press against mine.
Suddenly, we break our traditional dance position and move to something more seductive. He guides my arms around his neck and secures his muscular arms around my waist. We stop moving around the room and grind in a deliberate, more sensual fashion. Our hips slowly move in unison as our legs interlock with each other’s. My face heats with every pass of his hips against mine. As Marvin Gaye wraps up the song, we keep the rhythm going until the music slowly fades out and leaves us in the quiet.
As Nate and I stop moving, I am reeling from the very intimate dance. It started as something fun and carefree then soon became filled with emotions we have been denying ourselves from the moment we reunited. We are passionate people. We both feel and exude every emotion when we get out of our heads long enough to recognize them, and right now, I am feeling utterly turned on, attracted to him, and confused.
I am getting attached to Nate, feeling more in my heart. I know, once I leave for California, I will feel the despair soon after.
Maddie may have been too scared to do anything with him, but Madison is seeing the possibility of exploring every inch of Nate: heart, soul, and body.
We break apart and clear our throats. When we look around, we note Juanita and Dr. Wellman are gone. I guess we got a little inappropriate for their taste, and they had to leave.
Suddenly, Nate backs away from me then turns to go upstairs, leaving me spinning from the dance and my emotions.
What the fuck was that? How could I even entertain the idea of getting close to Madison again? That dance went from a good time to a fucking train wreck in a matter of two minutes. I let my desires for her make the worst judgment possible. She is not someone I can be with nor do I want to. I decided a month ago that getting involved with her will only rip me to shreds again. My wounded soul cannot take that.
I break apart from Madison who is breathing heavily. Her eyes are glazed over with desire as the sapphire hues suck me into their depths. I want to yank her back to my body and feel her skin against with mine. I want to be encased by her. Minute by minute, she is sending me in a tailspin, breaking down the walls.
Moments like this make it impossible to step away, even though I have to. I have said it all along; I will never take up with her again, and I won’t.
I step around her and plod my way back up to one of the empty rooms. I need to get my hands to work and do something mindless to get her out of my thoughts.
I open the can of white paint and pour it into the tray then pick up the roller and start covering the gray, plaster wall with paint. The room slowly starts to come back to life as the white color awakens the walls.
I don’t get more than a wall covered before Madison joins me. She squats down on the floor and begins trimming around the baseboard. Nothing is said between us, but the sounds of the music have not gone away. She must have brought the CD player upstairs and is playing the seventies classic R&B music. It is a compilation CD that my mother purchased for her dance nights a long time ago. Until tonight, I thought the disc was lost.
Madison says nothing as we paint and paint. Nearing one in the morning, the room is almost done. The fumes from the paint are flooding the room, making me dizzy. At least, that’s what I blame it on instead of the fact that Madison is standing three feet away from me, humming to “Play That Funky Music.” It is an infectious song, and the beat makes me want to dance the way we did earlier, but I can’t do that.
I keep my roller moving as I spread the coat of paint over and over. If not for the guest house being under construction, I would have bolted hours ago and drunk myself into the oblivion I clearly need right now to kill the mess of emotions brewing within.
Madison is standing on the step ladder, running her brush along the edge of the ceiling where my roller missed. As she climbs down to move the ladder over, she slips on the second to last step, falling backward onto the ground. She curls up in a ball and winces, holding her side.
I immediately drop my roller and kneel down next to her.
“Are you okay?” I ask, helping her up from the floor.
She holds her side and nods her head, but I can tell she is hurting. “Damn, just when I thought I was really starting to feel good. I’m such a klutz.”
“Maybe you should stay off ladders for the rest of the night,” I suggest.
I have my arms wrapped around her waist as she clutches onto my shoulders. Then she leans on me slightly to help herself stand, taking a few moments for the pain to subside slightly. Just as she starts to break away, the worst possible song comes from the stereo, and I can feel my determination for distance slowly crumbling. We are in the perfect position to dance, and when Otis Redding comes on, all you can do is dance. All you want to do when you have a gorgeous woman in your arms is dance.
My feet have a mind of their own as they start to move. I slowly move my right arm up her spine and fan my fingers out between her shoulder blades, pulling her closer to me, all the while keeping my left arm wrapped around her waist. She moves her arms around my neck and tucks her head close to my neck. I can feel her breath on my skin and her pounding heart against my chest. Our hips slowly sway to “I’ve Been Loving You,�
� and the coincidence of this song playing at this precise moment has not escaped me.
I have loved this woman for so, so long. She was my high school crush that soon became my first love. By the time I asked her to marry me on the cliffs, I was connected to her in ways I never felt possible. She was the woman I knew I could spend the rest of my life with. I shared my dreams and fears with her. We knew how to be serious without taking life too seriously. We knew how to have fun, how to protect each other, and simply how to be with one another. In the decade that has passed, I have yet to have that same experience with someone else. Many women have tried, and I have let them, but they still cannot fill the void Madison left.
She lifts her head from my chest, and her wanton glance makes want to kiss her. I have never kissed her, and yet, those lips are yearning for it. Her breath hitches in the back of her throat, and I can feel her heart racing as I pull her in with one simple look.
I lean down, tucking my face in the delicate part where her neck and shoulder meet. As my nose grazes across her skin, I recognize the sweet smell of her jasmine lotion mixed with the smell that is just Madison. We sway our bodies very slowly as we savor the moment we never got to have.
I rock my hips around, losing a little bit more of my resolve with each movement. My wits are scattered to the winds as I press my lips into her neck and gently kiss her skin. She lets out a moan, a sound that is one of the best in the world. I have always wondered what it would be like to hear her sounds of pleasure, and it compares to nothing.
It is me who is pleasing her, and I can feel my body reacting to her pleasure as my hardness presses into my jeans. I kiss her again, a little harder this time, while the tip of my tongue grazes her hot flesh. I taste her as I gradually work my lips along the base of her neck. I am whirling out of control, uncertain where I am heading yet unsure if I want to turn around and go back.
I softly kiss my way up her neck as I nibble and taste the skin of the woman who has been the center of my world since I was fourteen. When I pull her earlobe between my teeth and bite down a little, Madison practically melts as her body wilts in my arms. I pull it in again, all the while keeping my hips and feet slowly moving with the music.
As I make my way across her jaw, I come so close to her lips, but I can’t get the strength to touch them with mine. If I kiss her like I have been dying to all this time, I will lose all my willpower over her, and she will own me. She will own everything I feel, and I will be falling head first into a passion that will surely break me in the end.
I press my forehead against hers and commit this moment to memory. I don’t want to stop, but I don’t want to be destroyed in the process. Pulling away carefully, I look deep into her eyes. Then it comes to me.
Madison is my black widow. It doesn’t matter what I do with her in this moment. There is nothing I can do to resist her. If I kiss her or not, either way, I know she will kill me when it is over.
My thoughts are forgotten as I keep my eyes locked on hers, allowing my desires to fully consume me. She is pleading with me to kiss her, and when my eyes trail over the bridge of her nose and down to the fleshy, soft lips, I know I will let my desire win. I will kiss Madison. No, I am going to kiss her.
Our noses graze each other as I tilt my head to the side and move in, her breath hot and sweet-smelling against my face. We are a mere inch from each other. The anticipation of our first kiss is on the brink until the vibration in my pocket goes off, snapping me away from a fatal mistake.
I step back from Madison, yanking the phone from my pocket and seeing it is Briggs, and there is only one reason he would call me. More than likely, I will be heading to the secluded and seedy parts of Providence to beat someone down. This is what I need—to break free of her intensity and get myself back to the Nate who is brooding yet indifferent.
I can’t be with her. She needs to move on to California and away from Crestbrook. I need her gone.
“Yeah,” I snap when I answer the phone, moving to the door.
“I got one lined up under the GW Bridge. How soon can you be here?” Briggs asks.
The moment I hear Briggs’s voice, I know my sense has been restored. “One hour,” I sternly reply.
“The pot is pretty high. The buzz is swarming, and if you win, you’ll be taking home ten-K, minus my twenty percent cut.”
I freeze for a moment, knowing how much I could use eight thousand dollars right now. It will replenish my savings by half in one solitary fight. However, if I don’t win, then I will be left with nothing except bruises or worse.
“One hour,” I snap back then shut the phone off.
I look back to Madison who is still swimming from our seductive dance. She is breathing heavily as she turns her body toward mine. The deep rise and fall of her breasts tells me she is still yearning and probably pissed nothing is going to happen.
I shake my head then head down the stairs and out the door. As I hop into my truck, I can only think of how big that mistake would have been if I allowed my body to do what it was dying to do a moment ago. It would have been the best mistake of my life, though. In fact, it would have been my favorite mistake.
chapter eight
WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED? One second, I am moments away from kissing Nate, and then I am being jerked away as he abandons me. My heart jumped into my throat when I was certain we were going to kiss. He was so close to my lips I could feel the heat from his mouth grazing mine.
Then his damn cell phone rang, and he was gone, just like the other night. He was here one minute and gone the next. The last time¸ when I saw him the following morning, Nate had cuts on his hands and was favoring his left side. I need to know what the hell he is doing.
I can hear the sound of his truck pull from the driveway as I make it to the bottom of the stairs. I yank my purse from the parlor room desk and run out the door, pulling my keys out in the process. I fall into my car, start it, and quickly whip the front end around, following him out. When I make it to the end of the driveway, I can faintly see his taillights about a mile down the road. I turn my car in that direction and slam on the gas to catch up.
When Nate answered the phone, I could hear a man’s voice. The only thing I made out was the GW Bridge, which I know as the George Washington Bridge before Nate replied with one hour. The only George Washington Bridge is an hour away, located in Providence, but at least I have an exact destination.
I slow down my speed and keep a safe distance so Nate doesn’t see me tailing him. The night is so black, but it is clear, and there are hardly any cars on the road.
As I pull onto the interstate and follow the route to Providence, my mind jumps back to the events of the night: dancing with Nate, seeing his big smile, and then feeling his body so very close to mine. I know why I have been holding myself back. Because I am too scared to allow the real feelings in, but tonight, the levee was broken.
A flood of passion, desire, bliss, and dare I think, love came crashing into my entire body. Like the waves at the cliffs, it all hit me hard and at once. I could no longer deny my heart or my opportunity to be with him, and as I drive to God knows where, I realize California will be my plan B. Nate is my new plan A. I don’t want to leave. I want to stay. I want to stay with him. I love him, and it took me ten damn years to allow those feelings to pour in.
I get closer to the city, and the lights of the Providence skyline come into view. Now, to find the bridge, but where I need to go is beyond me. In my hour drive, I was thinking about being with Nate and not paying attention to where he was going. What would he be doing on the George Washington Bridge? And how the hell am I going to find him?
I think of nothing but the fight my entire trip into Providence. I pull down an access road only used by the city maintenance workers then through the unlocked gate. Briggs has the key to it and can get us to the most secluded spots under the overpass because he works for the city. He is the man who approached me when I was wasted in Providence one night, and he tells me at
every bout how happy he is that he convinced to me fight. I have made him—and myself, for that matter—a lot of money.
As I exit my car and find my way to the underpass, I can see the other vehicles lined up along the concrete wall. Under the overpass, the crowd gathers and buzzes with excitement. There has got to be a hundred more people here than normal.
When I first started, I was lucky if ten people showed up, but as I performed better then finally got pretty good, it was nothing to see seventy to eighty people hovering around. However, tonight I am guessing there are at least two hundred spectators ready to see who will win the survival of the fittest, and among them, waiting for me is Briggs and the man who has challenged me.
I know exactly who he is, too. Everyone does. There is no mistaking the scars along his cheeks and the dragon tattoo winding around his neck. It is Craven Verone.
He is legendary to the underground fight scene after beating people all over New England for years. Once retired, he decided to reenter the world when I first started out. Fast forward eight months, and he has proven nothing has changed on his end. He is still a destructor, and I have to prove I will be the one to finally slay the dragon.
I move to Briggs who is stationed at the center of the ring and start warming myself up, bouncing from foot to foot and rocking my head back and forth as I loosen my muscles. Briggs moves away and starts collecting the cash, and soon, that wad will be in my pocket.
The night air is humid, and my body starts to sweat as I keep my focus only on kicking Craven’s ass.
When the bets have been placed, Briggs comes to my side, showing me what is at stake. I nod in acceptance then shrug off my shirt, tossing it to the ground. I see nothing but dollar signs and destruction in my future as I lay eyes on Craven. I find the fuel I always use when I fight, the hate toward the losses I have suffered.
From Madison to Lisa to my parents, I channel all of that into a furious power that heats up my muscles. I tap into the pain and hurt, making it my fuel for annihilation. Then I turn to Briggs and take my traditional shot of Bushmills. The whiskey burn is always the final drop of power I need to turn on the switch as I set my sights on this known destroyer.
Hold on You Page 9