by JJ Knight
She covers something and I pull her hands away. The light is low, but I can make out what she’s hiding, thin white lines like lightning strikes on her skin. I kiss them, refusing to let her diminish anything that has to do with Lily, the changes our baby brought to her body.
Her panties are small, lacy, and pale. I tug on the band and pull them down. She’s naked now, every inch of her, and I want to take it all in. I spread her thighs apart, thumbs balancing against the soft hair between them.
And I can’t help it, but delve there, my tongue lapping at her. She’s already wet and hot and pulsing with need. I remember what she loved the most and slip one finger inside while I suck gently on the nub. I’m rewarded with those exquisite sounds of hers.
She moves with me, and I know I’ve got her. I follow her rhythm and keep the pace and pressure steady. Her muscles begin to tighten, and I work faster, harder, taking over, letting her fall into it. Her voice changes pitch, and I increase the tempo, bringing her up, spiraling her into the next phase.
Then she’s over the top, crying out, everything contracting and releasing, pulsating. It’s everything I remember and more, tinted with nostalgia and loss, like we’ve reached across time.
I don’t move until she’s relaxed down against the bed, her breathing a little slower. Then I move, crossing her skin with nipping bites, thigh and belly and back to those luscious breasts.
Her head is back, chin thrust in the air, eyes closed. I don’t know her situation, birth control, if she’ll even want to do more. I’m raging with need of her, but hell, this sort of thing was what got us in trouble in the first place.
I wait, trailing fingers along her body. It’s up to her. I can man up on this one if I have to. I am patient.
Her eyes open, and she watches me a moment. There’s tears there, just a sparkle of them. I brush my hand across her forehead. I want her so desperately, but I’ll wait.
“Do you…have something?” she asks.
I’m crossing the room in an instant, tearing through the duffel bag for my wallet, snatching a condom from inside.
Maddie props up on her elbows, half-smiling, as I rip my jeans off so fast that I trip and fall into the bed. “You might want to work on your balance—” but she doesn’t get any further because my mouth is on hers. I press against her, flush on her body. I feel like I might explode.
She shifts over and reaches for me, cool fingers wrapping around the length. I squeeze my eyes shut, concentrating, working to feel her and not to lose control.
My fingers slip back into her body. Her back arches and her grip on me tightens. She’s so wet, so ready. I think back to that first time we discovered each other, in her bedroom at her mother’s house. No one was home, and the afternoon sun revealed every inch of her glorious body laid out on the flowery bedspread.
It’s like I’m discovering her all over again. When I move over her, my throat is tight. My feelings for her haven’t changed at all. I thought they had gone, taken off like she had. But when she opens for me, and I slide into her, it’s like coming home.
Her eyes drift closed and her knees brush my elbows. I take it easy at first, finding our pace and rhythm. But then her hands press into my back, driving me faster and harder, and I’m lost. I sit up, holding the backs of her knees, and drive into her.
She cries out, again and again, hanging on to the sheets now. She’s like a goddess, her hair splayed out, and as her body tightens around me again, I unleash into her, my voice joining hers.
We’re back where we belong.
* * *
I only realize we’ve drifted to sleep when Maddie’s hand smacks me on the cheek, knocking me awake.
I glance at the clock. Two in the morning. I wonder if Delores will worry, or if she’ll be angry, knowing Maddie is with me.
I don’t care.
Maddie tosses around, sleeping wild like she always did. I got very few chances to hold her all night four years ago, since she still lived at home and I had three roommates. She was only nineteen, and in community college, trying to make something of herself like so many from the East Side tried to do. I was living in a hole in the wall with other fighters, all of us trying to get by on crap winnings, mattresses all over the floor.
But we had some nights when one house or the other was empty, and we could steal some time. She slept like she was being chased, like she had to beat back the world.
The side lamp lights up her skin, and I savor every inch of her. Her hair crosses her face and I push it away. When she flops on her back, those beautiful breasts are too tempting and I kiss each one, tongue flicking around the plumped-out nipples.
She sighs in her sleep and settles down.
When I look into her relaxed face, those sweetheart lips and curling lashes, I see all the things she gave Lily. And I know that I am not going to let Maddie go.
I want them both.
I love them both.
Chapter 15
Maddie wakes up in a panic a few hours later.
“Oh my God, it’s five a.m.” She starts throwing on her clothes. “Delores is going to shit a brick.”
I have to smile. Just a few hours with me and she’s wild again, cussing and naked and her hair like black fire dancing across her bare shoulders.
“You need me to go defend your honor?” I ask.
She throws a shoe at me — mine, not hers. I duck and it hits the wall. Damn it, this is so much better than being without her.
“You’re flying out this morning, right?” she asks, bending over to stick on those killer heels. She fights with them a second, then gives up and shoves them in her purse.
“My flight’s at ten.”
She steps on something and has to hold her hair back to look down at it. Her face scrunches into a frown.
I sit up and lean over the edge of the bed to see what’s getting to her.
A pink boxing glove.
We both stare at it a minute. Finally, I say, “I won’t talk to Lily about fighting anymore.”
Maddie shakes her head. “How are you going to do that? It’s what you do. It’s who you are.”
She picks up the glove. “Lily’s going to ask for them the minute she wakes up anyway.” She spots the other by the television stand and bends down to get it. Just watching her move gets me going again.
Maddie turns around, holding the gloves to her chest. “I took them from her bed. She was sleeping with them.”
I’m kneeling on the mattress now and her eyes graze me, naked and hard as a rock again. She laughs a little as she shakes her head. “You always were up for anything.”
“Everyone’s probably asleep right now,” I say, holding out my hands. “You’ve got time.”
Maddie looks away. “I don’t want to think about the condom in your wallet. I’m sure it wasn’t there long.”
She bites her lip, but turns back to me anyway and takes one step forward, just close enough to reach out and touch me with her free hand. She runs her fingertips down the center of my chest, along my abs, grazing every bump.
I hold my breath, waiting, praying she’ll keep going. And she does, wrapping around the shaft, sliding to the end, back to the top, and down again.
I’m going crazy. I need her now.
But she lets go. “You’re even more fit than you were back then,” she says. “And more inked.” She traces one of the tattoos on my chest.
I swallow hard. Carrying on a conversation in this situation is near impossible. She always loved tempting me and leaving me desperate with need, especially in terrible situations. Once she dragged me into the bathroom on Christmas Day, her entire extended family in the next room, and worked me over until I thought I’d burst.
Then walked out with an evil laugh.
I take the fact that she is doing it now to be an excellent sign of where I stand with her.
I manage to make my voice work. “I was supposed to buy you a tattoo for your twentieth birthday,” I say. “I see you never got one.
”
“I got Lily instead,” she says.
“Maybe I can still get you that ink.” I imagine her, lights blasting her exposed body in some shop, a tattoo artist buzzing her skin, and I’m over the edge. I must have her.
I start planning how I will pin her to the bed, tie her to the posts with the bedsheets. She loved that stuff before. I will make her fucking scream.
Her lips twist into a smirk, like she knows what I’m thinking. She’s trying hard not to smile. “When did you say you were coming back?”
“Soon.” I move forward on my knees, just close enough to pounce.
But she knows my game. She takes a backward step toward the door. “I guess you’ll let me know,” she says.
I shift positions, ready to spring, when Maddie flings open the door to escape.
Right outside, a tiny elderly cleaning woman looks like she’s just arriving for her shift. The woman drops her keys when she sees me on the bed, naked, kneeling, erect as a porn star.
She looks at Maddie. “Is it my turn?”
Maddie bursts into laughter and drags the door closed.
I fall back on the bed.
I’m in absolute agony. Dying. I don’t see how I will make it another five minutes, much less a whole other trip. She’s got me right where she wants me.
And I don’t give one shit.
Everything is perfect.
* * *
A few hours later I’m about to head out of the motel to grab a bus to the airport when I get a call on my cell. The number is unfamiliar.
I answer it, hoping maybe it’s Maddie calling from work.
But it’s Panther.
“Yo, Power Play, you still in town?”
I sit back down on the bed. “About to catch my flight. Why?”
“I got a fight this week. Decent league match. And my guy just wrapped his car around a friggin’ tree.”
“Shit. Is he okay?”
“He’ll live. Broken kneecap, though. He’s out for months.”
My heart speeds up. I think I know where this is going. “You need someone to step in?”
“I do. I got some other fighters. But I liked what I saw yesterday. I thought I’d give you a go. You in?”
He gives me some details on the venue and the purse. “I’d like to train with you a couple days. You can bring your guy here, or I can spot you this match.”
Hell, I haven’t really talked to Brazen about moving here. He’s got a couple other fighters he works with. He can’t just ditch them.
“I doubt he can get here that fast,” I say. Plus, I think, I have to cut costs. Bringing him over would be expensive. “I’ll talk to him, though, get the contracts square. I’m happy to work with you on this one.”
“Good. Can you make it to the gym by eleven?”
“Not a problem.”
“See you then.”
I hang up the phone, staring with a little disbelief at the screen. Somebody is looking out for me. I’m on the verge of getting everything I have hoped for.
Chapter 16
When I fall back on my bed that evening, I’m not sure I can move.
Panther has an entirely different workout routine from my regular trainer, Brazen. He’s killed me.
But I have a new move. It’s an exploding knee strike. I’ve done basic ones before, but this is something else entirely. You start on your belly and erupt into this gut-busting blow. Panther had me do about a million of them with one leg in a sling.
I’m not sure that leg is going to be even moderately functional in the morning. And I have to go back and do it again.
But I love it — love that I’m finding something new to work on, a way to improve. This is going to be a great move. I can feel it.
Maddie’s invited me over for dinner with Lily. I have a half hour to clean up and walk down. Still, my muscles refuse to cooperate with my brain for a minute. So I let myself lie there a little longer and think about her, spread out on this bed. I made the motel let me keep the same room when I checked back in. The startled little housekeeping lady has come by twice asking me if I need anything, winking at me from behind her bifocals. She makes me laugh.
I force myself up and to the shower. Maybe Maddie and I can sneak away again after Lily is in bed. Just the thought of it sends me to half-mast.
Now I’m definitely revved up enough to shower and walk over there.
When I get to the house, Lily answers the door. She’s wearing her pink gloves. “Pow, pow!” she says, raining punches on my knees.
I reach down and pick her up. “Good form, Power Punch.”
She wraps her arms around my neck and I realize I know her smell, a mix of baby shampoo and crayons. Her cheek rubs against mine, and she pulls back. “You need to shave those whiskers!” she declares.
I run a hand across my face. “Maybe so. I didn’t bring my fancy razor, though. Didn’t know I’d be here so long.”
Lily stares at me thoughtfully. “I’m hard to leave,” she says.
This gets a full belly laugh from me. “You’re exactly right.”
Maddie comes out of the kitchen, sweeping a lock of hair away from her eye. She’s got most of it pulled back in a ponytail, and she’s back to simple clothes. Jeans and a gray sweater. My throat closes up just seeing her, now that we’ve had this reconnection. I can’t decide if I should kiss her or not. Delores might melt down if she sees.
“Delores is out,” she says, as if knowing what I was thinking. “I think she’s avoiding you.”
I lean down and press a light kiss on her mouth. Lily is right between us, and she pushes us apart with the gloves. “Yuck!” she says.
A flicker of doubt crosses Maddie’s face. “Gloves on your bed, little miss,” she says. “Wash your hands for dinner.”
“It smells great,” I tell her. “Your mom’s lasagna?”
“You have a good memory,” she says.
“I loved that stuff.”
She turns back to the kitchen. “Good. It’s almost ready.”
I follow her over to the stove. Maddie bends to check on the contents, and it’s all I can do not to grab her beautiful ass. She sees me looking and smirks. “You are insufferable,” she says.
“Suffering, at least. Thanks to you this morning.”
Lily runs into the room, crashing into my leg. “Daddy, Daddy, sit by me, sit by me!”
I pick her up again. “Of course I’ll sit by you.”
“You two go on,” Maddie says. “The plates are on the table. Set them out.”
I carry Lily to the dining room. It’s hard to imagine that the last time I was there, Maddie asked me to leave. Life sure can turn on a dime.
“So show me where things go,” I say to Lily.
She wiggles out of my grasp. “This is Mama’s chair,” she says. We put a plate there. “And this is mine.” She sets one by her spot. Then she frowns.
“What?” I ask.
“I guess you have to sit in Auntie D’s chair.”
“That’s okay.” I slide a plate to that side.
As Lily arranges the forks and Maddie moves inside the kitchen, this pang in my chest grows into an ache. This is what it could have been like all along. This is what I’ve missed.
Maddie brings the steaming lasagna into the room to rest in the center of the table. “Can you go fetch the bread?” she asks. “It’s on the stove.”
I head into the other room, jaw tight, determination set. I am not going to screw this up. No way, no how.
* * *
By the time Lily is tucked into bed, my need for Maddie is threatening to blow out of my body like a flash fire. I know she’s thinking of it too, the way she glances at me and touches me in small ways on the arm or the leg.
I know we’ve got a quandary. Delores will come back and interrupt. And we can’t exactly leave Lily. I guess we’ll have to wait until the aunt is back and then leave.
“Why do you still live with Delores?” I ask her as she closes Lily’s d
oor.
She motions me down the hall, back to the living room. When we’re out of hearing, she says, “I can’t manage without her.”
“But you can afford your own place now, right? You could just be somewhere close.”
Her eyebrows draw together. “It would be hard. This is much easier. I don’t have as many expenses. We’re safer here.”
“Don’t you have to commute into the city?”
She walks across the living room and sits in an armchair. That’s not a good sign. We could at least be tight on the sofa.
“I do, but it’s fine. I like my job, but I wouldn’t like living in Manhattan. Not that I could afford it.”
“She’s got to be all up in your business.” I sit down on the sofa, still hoping she’ll come closer.
Maddie tosses me a stern look. “You mean with other men?”
I know better, but I ask anyway. “Well, are there?”
“It’s none of your —”
I’m on her in a flash, grabbing her arm. “It’s my business now. You’re mine. I want you to be mine.”
Her anger blasts hot. “You’re three thousand miles away.”
“I’m not right now.” I can’t stop myself from saying it.
“Then stop acting like a jealous moron and do what you came here to do.”
I need no more invitation. I’m on her, lips crushing hers. Then the sweater comes off, over her head. Before she can think about the risk with Delores, her jeans are at her ankles, the bra flung across the room, and my hand is inside her panties.
She clutches my shoulders. “Parker,” she breathes.
My thumb circles her nub, and my fingers flutter inside her. When she moans, I lean down, capturing her breast with my mouth, sucking the nipple.
When her knees buckle, I step on the jeans to get them all the way off and tilt her sideways, lifting her up at the knees. She hangs on to my neck. I’m tempted to take her right there, on the sofa, daring Delores to come home and find us. But I don’t, instead carrying her down the hall to that messy bedroom.