His arms wrapped around my waist and squeezed tightly, to the point where I filled his mouth with the last of my breath, moaning. It felt like I was dying, and my skin came alive, buzzing and humming. He crushed my breasts against his rough, angular pecs. The pain fanned my need for him. I bit his lower lip, and he growled, biting me back. He pushed me until my back thumped against the tree.
All while feeding on my lips, he encircled my neck with one hand and tugged my hair with the other. The rough texture of his fingers drove me crazy, making me scratch his shirt-covered back as I locked my thighs around his waist. I pushed my core into his. It was wet, starving for him. Growling, he dug his torso into mine, making me feel his cock through his pants, big and hard.
I’d forgotten how good it could be with a man, how rough and unpolished. It’d been four years since I’d experienced something so dynamic and feral.
I never wanted it to end.
I didn’t know how long we latched on to each other’s lips, sucking, stroking, lapping, making sounds of pleasure or pain. Who the fuck cared? I didn’t.
Then his lips were gone, and I wheezed in a breath. I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to breathe. I wanted him.
I looked at him and found him staring at my lips, his eyes wild and drowsy at the same time.
A moment later his weight was gone, too. Why did he move away? I wanted him back.
He wiped the wetness from his lips—the wetness I gave him—with the back of his hands, and my arousal disappeared into the night. “This can’t happen again.”
He flexed his jaw and turned around, walking toward the lake. His shoulders moved up and down with his ragged breaths as he ran his hands through his hair. He stopped right at the edge, staring at the water. What was he doing, looking at the water?
His words felt like a blow, a very harsh one at that. How could he remember anything after what happened? How could my need be bigger than his? It wasn’t possible. Men were needy like that, greedy, always after more. It was their fucking nature. I could play them like puppets as long as I kept touching them, rubbing myself against them. They were weak when it came to me. Why wasn’t James?
His wife. It was because of his wife.
A burning sensation tumbled inside my chest, singeing my heart. Was I fucking jealous? I touched my numb-but-tingling lips with my fingers, shocked.
James hadn’t cared about my kiss because he was in love with his wife. Of course he was. His pain was testament to his love. How stupid could I be not to realize it sooner?
“What’s her name?” My voice pierced the silence. I wanted to ask more. I wanted to know how long they had been together. What did his wife look like? How did they meet? Was she beautiful…more than I was? Did he love her enough to see her everywhere? Like Scott. Crime of passion…
My shoulders jerked as if someone had whispered the words in my ears. The phantom of Scott rose up in my mind, drunken and disgusting. His lips moved, calling me by my mom’s name, Alice.
I pressed my trembling body against the tree. I had to ask James. I had to know if he saw her everywhere.
His tensed as if he’d forgotten I was even there. It hurt me more than it should’ve. He turned and looked at me, frowning, angry—angrier than I’d ever seen before. He stalked toward me, stopping just an inch away, causing me to tilt my neck to look at his furious eyes. Lust still lingered in them, and I couldn’t help but smell his musky scent.
He slapped his hand on the tree beside my head and leaned down. “She’s none of your business. She has nothing to do with this. Whatever this is, whatever game we’re playing. She is not a part of it. She can never be a part of it.”
I’d never felt so small, so insignificant. My chest balled, shrinking into itself, and I wanted to scream at him, pound at his chest, slap him, hurt him like he’d hurt me. But I stood, frozen, looking up at him. Like an idiot.
His eyes dropped to my lips, and his breathing turned wild once again. He leaned down farther like he wanted to kiss me. But then he stopped and moved away, walking backward, thrusting his hands into his pockets. With disgust clear on his face, he turned around and left me.
Without volition, my tears came like it was morning, the sun on the verge of rising, the grass beneath my feet green, and the bench under me warm and hard. I tried to stop the flow, thumped my head against the tree, scrunched my eyes closed. But nothing worked. Tears wouldn’t stop. I wanted my crying nook, damn it! I didn’t want to cry here.
Slowly, I slid down the tree and sat on the hard ground, bringing my arms around me, hugging myself, like Mom would’ve done a long time ago. I wanted her to tell me that she’d come back soon and that she’d bring my favorite bread pudding from the diner. I wanted her to tell me what Scott had done to her was wrong, that she’d loved me enough to understand my need to save her. I wanted her to tell me she was happy now, that what happened years ago with Scott wasn’t a waste. I wanted to run back and go see Lily before she, too, died. But I didn’t move.
I heard footsteps coming toward me. My heart leapt inside my chest. Was James coming back? I sprang up on my feet and wiped my tears. I couldn’t let him see me like this. But it was Julia. Disappointment drooped my shoulders.
“I’ve been looking all over for you,” she said, worried. “What’re you doing here?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. I just…I was kind of tired. I wanted to be alone.”
Julia frowned, studying my face. “Do you want something? Do you want to go home?” She squeezed my shoulders and ran her soft hands up and down my arms. “Are you feeling sick?”
Ask me, I wanted to say. Ask me why I was crying. But she didn’t.
“Madison, are you… Why aren’t you saying anything?”
Her non-question question irritated me. But I knew if I looked deep enough, I’d find love in her eyes—skewed love, but love nonetheless. I wanted to see it, scour it out and know that it was there. For me. I needed that tonight, more than anything.
I pulled her closer. “Just kiss me.”
She was about to say something, but I didn’t let her. I kissed her harshly, brutally, like James had kissed me. I poured all of my despair into that kiss and made it into something wild, something needy. Julia moaned inside my mouth. I rubbed my hips against hers, and my pussy quivered, making me want her right there.
I tugged on her clothes, but Julia broke free. “What’re you doing? We can’t. Not here.”
“Do you love me?” I asked, grabbing her face in my hands. “Tell me. Do you love me?”
She studied me with frank eyes, and I felt a moment of hesitation. I’d kissed a man. I’d kissed James here not even an hour ago, and now I was kissing her. Would Julia know? Would she be able to tell by looking at my face? Would she freak out and stop loving me?
I should tell her.
Whoa, where did that come from? That kiss didn’t mean anything. It can’t happen again. There, James had already made that clear. There wasn’t any need to tell.
I increased the pressure of my hands on her face, trying to distract myself. “Tell me. Do you love me enough to let me fuck you here, where anyone could see us? Do you?”
Julia’s face relaxed. She smiled softly, coming closer to me. “I love you more than anything. Nothing can ever come between us. Nothing can drive us apart. I’ll always love you no matter what.”
I soaked up her words. They drenched away the sadness from earlier. The rejection, the loneliness, everything. Fuck you, James.
I pushed her against the tree, jerked up her skirt, and shoved away her white thong. Without checking if she was wet, I shoved a finger inside and kissed her lips. Julia’s back arched as she moaned. I moved my finger inside her pussy that gushed over my wrist, all the while kissing her, biting her lips. She bit back, moving her hips in rhythm with my movements. I pushed another finger inside her, scissoring them.
“Tell me you love me.”
She opened her eyes and smiled at the neediness in my tone. I clenched my tee
th and hastened my movements, thumbing her clit. Her hips jerked in response.
“Tell me.” I’d explode if she didn’t.
She moved her hand from my shoulders to my face. “I love you.”
“Tell me again.”
I dug my body into hers and added another finger, moving them with a fierceness I hadn’t known before, getting restless. I needed to hear it. I had to. I told her again to tell me, gritting my teeth, panting, riding a wave of urgency. She moaned as I pinched her clit.
Only then did she caress my hair and my cheek. “Shh… It’s okay. It’s okay, Madison. I love you.” Then her breath hitched, and she came all over my hand.
I fell against her, my hand wet with her juices, and caught my breath. It felt like I’d just won something. She brought her arms around me and hugged me tight. I pushed my forehead onto the dry bark and closed my eyes. The earthy smell of it reminded me of James; the roughness of it reminded me of his touch.
I hugged Julia tighter. Julia, my Julia. The woman of my fucked-up dreams.
But no matter how much I tried, his words still echoed in my ears. He just wouldn’t go away.
He’d said this couldn’t happen again. Well, it could and it would. He’d said whatever we had was a game. It wasn’t.
It was a war, and I’d do anything to win.
Chapter Ten
James
Thump. Grunt. Choke. Thump. Grunt. Choke.
I had been following the same rhythm for the past hour, swinging punch after punch at the resort gym. The skin over my knuckles was in danger of scraping off, and my lungs were in danger of shutting down. But still I kept punching. I punched to erase the memory of her lips, her taste, her moans…her smell.
God! She was so fucking sexy.
My knees buckled, and I missed my aim, almost falling against the battered punching bag. I was not one to curse. Until now, I had found swear words redundant. There was nothing in the world that could not be described with plain words. Apparently, there was—Madison. Cursing was obligatory. She aroused me, made me crazed like no other woman on this planet. Even the cutting had not worked where she was concerned.
“Looks like you did it.” I heard Tim’s voice over my panted breaths and the buzz in my ears.
Straightening from the bag, I swiped the sweat off my forehead and asked, panting, “Did…what?”
Tim smirked with his arms crossed across his chest. “Your little experiment.”
I whipped the towel from around my neck and scrubbed my face. “No, I didn’t.”
“Liar.”
My entire body stiffened. Something about that word, though aptly used in my case, messed with my already-messed-up head.
Tim did not notice it, however. “You disappeared for ages last night and came back looking totally pissed off. So I gotta know the outcome. Did you like it or did you end up killing her?” He turned around and made a show of looking beyond the glass partition. “Well, there she is.” He gestured toward Madison, who was arranging drawing sheets and color tubes on the table. “So I’m assuming it worked.”
“There was nothing to work.” I couldn’t stop staring at Madison. There was something different about her, something that I couldn’t put my finger on. The cuts over my abdomen itched, and an insane thought struck me. Would Madison like them as much as she loved the ones on my knuckles? I wondered if I could tell her, tell anyone how deep my craziness ran. What if she’d be ashamed of it as Nat had been?
Nat. My wife. I needed to remember that I had a wife. Even if she was dead, I could not cheat on her. I could not desecrate her memory.
But she did the same.
“Oh, come on, don’t be like that.” Tim swatted my shoulder. “Just tell me, did you like it or not? Just yes or no?”
Settling my eyes on him, I replied, “It doesn’t matter. It won’t happen ever again.”
I left Tim alone and walked toward the restrooms to clean up. The only good thing to happen in the past twenty-four hours was the text from Mason saying they got the re-testing results. I was proud of them. They really worked hard on this. They deserved this success after all the late-nighters they had been pulling.
If I accepted the grant then I would get to mentor many such students, and I wanted that. But it meant more responsibility, and with Katie, I couldn’t afford to do it. Not to mention, this tiny, incessant voice in my head that said I did not deserve this, not after everything I had done wrong.
Why was I so messed up?
By the time I exited the restroom, the class was finished. The children had dispersed all over, and I searched for Katie, wading my way through the unruly crowd.
Spotting her with none other than Madison through the glass doors, I came to an abrupt stop. I knew why Madison was different. Her hair was loose, hanging down her back. It reached her waist. The edge of it undulated in a wave motion, teasing her lower back. I had never seen her hair loose and wild. The strands glinted under the sunlight, appearing almost wet. I pictured gathering those strands in my hands, the thickness fluxing through my fingers, chaining them around my wrist when I kissed her or bit her or when I was…inside her.
It’s not happening.
I walked toward them slowly, willing my cock to calm down. They turned as I opened the sliding doors, and Katie ran to me and tugged me forward by my arm. I followed her, still staring at Madison. Her face was blank, but her eyes were fraught with emotions. They looked even bigger with her hair down.
“Daddy, look. Doesn’t Madison look pretty?” Katie chirped, coming to a stop in front of Madison. She let go of my hand and reached out to flick the ends of Madison’s dark and wild hair. “It’s so long. Just like the princess who lives in the tower, Ranzal.”
Madison frowned, perplexed.
“It’s Rapunzel,” I told her softly. Katie had been mispronouncing it ever since she heard the name a couple of years ago. We had tried to correct her, but the name stuck.
“Oh, that’s…” Madison smiled at Katie, a surprised but genuine smile, unlike her sassy smirks. “That’s very sweet. But I wish I was as beautiful as you, you know. I bet Ranzal has nothing on you.” She tapped Katie’s nose, making her chuckle in delight.
My heart lurched hearing Madison use the distorted name Katie preferred. Something about that was disarming and dangerous at the same time.
“Daddy, can Madison go with us on the boat?”
The pleasure dissolved instantly. I did not want Madison to be so close to me on the water, where Nat lived. Madison arched her eyebrows as she waited for my answer. Did she know about the connection I felt with the lake? No, she couldn’t.
“I’m sure Madison has work to do.”
She shook her head. “Not really. I’m on a coffee break.”
Katie tugged on my hand again. “Please, Daddy. It’ll be so much fun. Please can she come with us? Please?”
Madison played with the loose strands of her hair as she stared at me with a daring look.
I felt trapped, like I always did when I was around her. Like I wanted to look the other way, run, but could not. She held me captive, and it was…wrong. Clenching my jaw, I bit out, “Fine.”
She smiled at my assent.
“Yay! Awesome! Let’s go!” Katie screamed, running ahead of us.
Madison and I followed. My hands slid into my pockets, searching for the sharp edge of the glass.
“Stop frowning already,” Madison said. “It’s just a little boat ride. What can I possibly do to you on a boat, in front of everyone?”
I remained silent. I was not worried about the world but a single person who was not in this world anymore.
“What, you’re giving me the silent treatment now?” Taking a step ahead, she blocked my path. Without taking her eyes off me, she dipped her chin and reached her arms back to bring her hair forward, draping it over her shoulder.
My cock twitched again. I focused on my breathing to calm myself down.
When I didn’t say anything, she blew out
a breath. “How about I let you punish me if I do something bad? Hmm? Think about it. If I’m bad you can do anything you want.” She crept closer and lowered her voice to a sultry whisper. “You can spank me, really hard. Or pull my hair. You can even bite me. I won’t stop you, I promise.” Hitching one side of her lip up in a seductive smile, she crossed her heart over her T-shirt. Beaded nipples poked through the fabric.
I imagined doing all of those things to her and more. I imagined her tightly shut eyes, wrinkled eyelids, and her plump lips open in a moaning O. A pained groan threatened to burst free, but somehow I stopped it, trapped it inside my chest, buried it under the rubble of guilt. Nat. I had to think about her. My dead wife. My daughter who needed me. I averted my eyes and settled them on Katie, who had reached the docks already.
“What, you don’t wanna? You might just love doing it,” she taunted.
“Let’s just get this over with.”
“Now? Here? In front of everyone? You’re wilder than I thought.”
Irritation and arousal warred inside my head. “I don’t mean the spanking.”
“Oh?” she asked with blinking, innocent eyes. “Well, then when would you like to do it?”
“Never. I’m not touching you. There’ll be no touching.”
“There doesn’t have to be. I mean, you can use a ruler or something. I can wear a checkered skirt and pigtails. Call you Professor.”
My cock throbbed, ached. An acute, incessant pain. “I’m a PhD. A doctor.”
“Okay, Doctor Maxwell,” she said, pouting her lips.
It went straight to my groin. I fisted my hands on my sides. “Can you not do that?”
“Do what?”
“This.” I ground my teeth. “Whatever this is. I’m not interested.”
“Aren’t you? Didn’t you have your tongue down my throat, like, fifteen hours ago?”
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