by Harper Sloan
“Tell me,” he demands.
“I hate you,” I parrot weakly.
The smack of his palm against my ass takes me by surprise. Not because of the pain—it does hurt in an oddly pleasurable way—but because I never thought he would really spank me.
“Give me the words, Emersyn.”
I hardly recognize his voice at this point. I’m so turned on that my head is spinning. I can feel my wetness running down my thighs.
Apparently, I didn’t speak quickly enough, because his palm comes back down lower on my ass. The shot of pleasure that zips from that one heated mark goes straight to my core and I’m convinced that one more of those strong smacks and I’ll come on the spot.
“Give. Me. The. Words.” He drives each word home with another smaller smack, each time making sure he doesn’t hit the same spot twice.
“I want to hate you,” I whisper. At this point, I’m not sure why I’m egging him on.
“You fucking love me, woman!” he bellows.
Then he brings his hand down, this time harder than each of the previous times. He doesn’t even pause before rolling his hand over the offended skin and plunging two fingers deep within my waiting body.
“Oh, God!” I cry.
My walls clamp down instantly and my whole body shakes with the power behind my impending orgasm. My muscles are seizing, coiling tight, and preparing for the force that will flood my system soon. I’m right there, standing on the ledge and ready to jump . . . and then he pulls his fingers from my body.
“What the hell!” I screech.
“Shut up!” he thunders.
“Don’t tell me to shut up!” I shout back, working to free my arms from his unbreakable hold. “Let me go, asshole.” I want to cry at the loss of what promised to be such an all-consuming release.
When he shifts, I feel the blunt head of his cock at my entrance.
“Condom!” I yell through the hunger I feel towards this man.
“Shut up,” he pants.
“Don’t tell me—”
My words are cut off when he pushes himself roughly into my body. I yelp out when I feel him bottom out, and as he rolls his hips, I feel every single one of his delicious piercings.
Everything else around us falls to the wayside. He takes my body forcefully and I take everything he’s giving me just as hard, meeting him thrust for thrust. My hands itch to break free, to try to take the control he so clearly desires in this moment.
“Give me the words, Em.” His grunted command breaks through the silence that only our harsh breaths were filling just moments before.
“Fuck you!” I shout when he slams into my body.
“You are,” he laughs.
If I weren’t so close to flying into a million pieces, I might find it insulting that he’s laughing at me. At the moment, though, the only thing I can think about is every inch of his cock buried deep within my body.
“Now, Emersyn.”
I smile to myself, knowing that he can’t see my face, and refuse to give him the words he wants. I screech when his palm connects with my ass again, my wetness coating his cock and my orgasm just within reach.
And then he stops. His hips still and he just stands there with his cock twitching inside my body.
“What the hell are you doing?! Fuck me, Maddox!”
“Not until you give me the words I want, Em.”
He lets my wrists go and curls his fingers around my waist, lifting me up from the counter so that my feet can no longer touch the floor. Then he rolls his hips and I roll my eyes.
“Tell me,” he commands.
“I love you! I fucking love you. Are you happy now?” I lift up on the counter and turn my head to glare at him.
My mind instantly stills when I see the completely open expression of happiness on his face. His cheeks are still flushed, his eyes are boring into mine, and his mouth is tipped up in a smile so shocking that my breath catches.
“Yeah, angel, I am.”
He pulls out slowly, his eyes never leaving mine, before pushing back in. He holds my gaze—his smile more of a smirk now—and gradually builds me back up. It doesn’t take long before his thrusts are coming quicker and his veins are throbbing in his neck. I throw my head back and scream loud and long when he hits that perfect spot deep inside me that has me coming hard against his dick. He gives me a few good thrusts before he comes on a roar.
His fingers move from my hips and caress my back on a lazy trail up my spine. When he hits my shoulders, his hand curls in and pulls me up until my back is flush with his chest. The light spattering of hair there sends a violent shiver through my body. I feel his groan rumble against my back at my slight movement. His free hand comes up, cups my jaw, and turns my head so that our lips are just a breath away.
Holding my eyes hostage, he gives me a short kiss before pulling back. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. When he pulls out of my body, his fingers once again fall down my spine as he walks out of the kitchen.
Leaving me to wonder what in the hell just happened.
CHAPTER 14
Maddox
It’s been two days since we came together in anger.
I immediately gave her some weak-ass apology and kept my distance while I tried to figure out why I’d demanded her love. I don’t even know what had come over me. I know how she feels. She’s made no secret of it for the longest time. The words were on the tip of my tongue to return her love . . . but my fear kept me from speaking. So I took the space I needed to get my head together. That night—with some unspoken truce—I decided to give in and see what happens.
To let her in and the blessed promise that her love provides.
She asked me to teach her how to shoot, to help her learn how to handle firearms the night after our kitchen sex. She expressed the helplessness she felt when she didn’t have the means to protect herself and that, if she were ever in that position again, she wanted to be prepared.
“I’ll teach you, Em, but mark my words—you’ll never be in a position like that again.”
“You can’t promise me that. You aren’t going to be with me every second of my life,” she deadpanned.
I heard what she wasn’t saying. She was hesitant to believe that I’m trying. I don’t blame her. Hell, I wouldn’t trust me easily either.
“I damn sure can.”
“All right, big boy. Let’s not argue the semantics here. Will you teach me?”
“Yeah, babe. I’ll teach you.”
That afternoon was one of the best in my life. She was nervous at first, but she’s a natural, so it didn’t take long to get her on a roll. We joked with each other and enjoyed being in the moment. The heaviness that usually swallows us whole was absent, and even with knowing that we have no control over the unknown, there wasn’t a thing that could ruin the day.
The following week, we spend our days in the backfield shooting the targets Devon has lined up. His collection of firearms is vast and Emmy never tires.
And our nights are spent getting lost in each other.
* * *
I went back to my apartment a week ago and got Cat for Emmy. My thoughts were that she would help Emmy want to go home. We’ve been here for a little over a month now, and even though I would probably be content spending the rest of my life in this weird bubble we’ve created, I know it’s not fair to her. She deserves a life, and now that she’s starting to become stronger as a person, I know it’s time to talk about going home.
The one thing we’ve been avoiding is talking about my past. She’s told me more about the hell she grew up in. I had to fight myself in wanting to drive back down to Florida and make some heads roll. I can’t believe how strong she is, and she’s told me over and over that it wouldn’t change anything to go back.
One step forward. That’s what she keeps telling me. I want to smile, to accept it and let my past go, but I have to wonder if, with each step forward, we aren’t really taking ten back. And that is because I still haven’
t let her in completely.
Tell her about your family! My mind has been screaming the same thing over and over to me since that morning in the kitchen. And for the first time in years, I’m considering opening up the hell I grew up in and letting her see all of my broken soul. I’ve battled back and forth with whether just telling her could dampen some of the innocence she still has.
I let myself remember the night before and the nightmare that gave me the push I needed in the right direction. The direction that will take me away from her.
Once again, I was stuck back in the blast zone, pulling what should have been Morris—but it was Emmy. I was able to crawl back from that nightmare only to have a new one take its place. One that put Emmy in the reach of my family. In the dream, I saw her look at me with so much anger and pain because I had ruined her life. I can’t even remember the words she was screaming—all I knew was that I had done that to her. And before I was able to pull myself out of the dream, I saw Emmy, my angel, dying at her own hands because she couldn’t take the darkness in my soul.
“What’s on your mind?” Emmy asks as she plops down on the couch with Cat in her arms. She lazily strokes her fur and waits for me to answer.
Her stunning smile makes my chest hurt. I give her a glance before looking back down at my iPad. I’m trying desperately to forget the images that were just in my mind. Trying to harden my heart over what I know will be the final blow to her love.
“There’s some stuff going on back home that we need to get back for, Em.”
“What kind of stuff?” she inquires. She didn’t shoot it down, so that’s a plus.
“Asher. He’s been investigating the man who held the strings in Coop’s murder. Without letting any of us in. He’s in deep, babe. Deep enough that we need to decide how this plays out and quick.”
“Holy shit,” she whispers.
“Yeah, that about sums it up. They called a meeting and I need to be there. I would really like you to come back with me. You need to come home and let your friends love you.”
“Let my friends love me?” she questions sarcastically.
“Yeah, Em.”
“And what about you?”
“I can’t give you that, Em. I’m not even sure I know how.”
“You really, truly believe that, huh?” She laughs and lets Cat jump from her lap. Even the cat gives me a look of disgust.
“It isn’t that I believe it without proof. It’s all I’ve known, Em. The only thing that I know of love is that it isn’t real.”
She throws her head back and laughs. “It isn’t real?”
I nod, and she gives me a cold smile.
“So Axel and Izzy? Greg and Melissa? I suppose Beck doesn’t love Dee? You’re right. They must really hate each other.” When her eyes go cold, I feel my own narrow in return. “All of these people around you give you proof that love is real and you still sit there believing that bullshit you’ve convinced yourself of. You’re the one who helped each and every one of them get together you still sit there refusing to believe in it. Refusing to believe in me . . . in us.”
“Emer—”
“No. I don’t want to hear it, Maddox. You want to go home—fine. I don’t have a home there anymore, so if you’re going to make me come with you, then it looks like you have a roommate until I can see about renting my apartment back.” She stands and starts to storm from the room.
“Emersyn Rose, sit your fucking ass down now.”
Her back gets stiff, but shockingly, she turns and marches back to the couch. Throwing herself down with a huff, she folds her arms under her perfect tits and waits to see what my next move is.
“You want to know why I keep you locked out? You want me to give you a little bit of the depressing life of Maddox Locke?”
Her eyes flash, but I press on. If she’s determined to know it all, then I’ll give it to her.
“I was born into old money. My mother fucked the pool boy, and nine months later, the child she called her demon seed baby was born. The evil mistake of her sins born to do nothing but destroy everything. I have never, not once in thirty-six years, had a nice comment from my mother. My earliest memory is of her telling me not to play with my brother because my black soul will taint him. Yeah, my own mother said I would taint him. The one time Mason fell off his bike, on his own accord, I spend a week not able to sit because she beat me. She blamed me for his accident just because I was near him. I’ll spare you the rest of the details, but they aren’t pretty, and it’s been one big ‘fuck you’ after another until the last day I saw her.”
I take a breath and have to look away from her. The tears of pity are not something I care to see.
“The last time I saw her was right after I woke up from the bombing that took my leg. She took great care in reminding me how fucked up I was. That the two men who had lost their lives that day were just another thing my black soul had ruined. That I had killed them because they’d had the misfortune of being around me that day. She then dug the knife deeper, telling me that my fiancée had been working with them to trick me into signing over my part of the Locke fortune.”
I lay my head back and try not to let the memories of that day drag me under. “I think the final nail was when she told me the child I had thought my own was Mason’s, my brother. So yeah, Em, I don’t really think I know how to do love, and even if I let myself believe that what we have is strong enough to beat my demons, my black soul, I’m too scared that I’ll drag you under in the process and you’ll never recover.”
I don’t give her a second to respond. I climb slowly from the couch and toss my iPad down in the seat. “You can stay with me until you get on your feet again. We’ll leave in the morning.”
I walk out of the room and spend the rest of the evening in a nice rage-filled self-loathing pity party. When I’m finally able to drift off to sleep, I’m awoken what feels like minutes later covered in sweat, my throat raw from my screams.
I had the nightmare again that I was back in my past. Only this time when I sat in the hospital bed and listened to my mother lay into me, it was Emmy. My sweet Emmy was there, telling me how she will never forgive me for ruining her life.
CHAPTER 15
Emmy
We’ve been home for a few weeks now. At first, I wouldn’t leave the apartment. Even though I had come to terms with the memories of being home and not seeing one of my best friends, it didn’t mean that I was necessarily ready to move on. I missed him. However, it was getting easier to deal with each day.
One of the hardest parts of being back was my strained relationship with Maddox. We’ve hardly spoken to each other since that last day at the cabin. Chipped responses here and there and notes on the counter telling me that he wouldn’t be home filled up the first week. I heard from one of the girls that he had been sleeping at the office while they finished up their dealings with Dominic Murphy. Things haven’t been any easier since that.
Right when they let their guard down, Chelcie was put in harm’s way again. I don’t remember much from my standoff with Sarah Jane. It’s almost as if I had been having an out-of-body experience. I can see the events of that day playing out, but I can’t tell you how I knew what to do. Izzy told me that she thinks it was Coop who’d made sure they were safe. I hadn’t planned on going to see Chelcie that day. I had planned on apartment hunting, but it was almost as if I’d had to give her her gift right that second. The rest was either just damn good luck or maybe Izzy is onto something.
I like to think that maybe it was a little of Coop watching out for us and making sure that his son was okay.
The night after the showdown with Sarah Jane was the worst. When the adrenaline crashed and I realized that I had actually shot another human, things were not pretty. I went from jazzed beyond belief to a sobbing mess curled into a ball in the shower.
Maddox blamed himself for having taught me how to use a gun and then again for having made it readily available. We fought and it ended in another r
ough crashing together of our bodies. This time, though, I was the one to get up from the floor and leave him with an “I’m sorry.” It isn’t right. We keep coming together for a reason, but I’ve started to realize that I might never get to beat through his beliefs. I can’t think of a way to make him believe in us. His mind keeps telling him no, to stay away and keep me out. But his heart—God, his beautiful heart—keeps calling out to me, and like a glutton for punishment, I keep going back for more.
I can’t even explain where my mind is right now. I’m mad—that’s a given—but I’ve also started to lose my faith. I’ve lost the way to my happiness and I’m not really sure how to get it back. I’m stuck in a rut, and honestly, I’m thinking it would be better if I just throw in the towel and leave. Not run, but go somewhere else and get my head on right. Somewhere where he isn’t. I can’t keep fighting for someone who refuses to consider my love for him. It’s like beating a horse when he’s already down. Every time he rejects me and my heart shatters more, I just know I won’t recover from the pain if I stick around.
Tonight, we need to actually be social and not kill each other, so I told him that I am leaving. We fought all day today, and this time, it didn’t even end in a rough coupling. This time when I screamed in his face that I hated him, I almost believed it—and I could tell by the look that flashed across his face that he did too. And that terrified me.
It was the first time he didn’t demand I ‘give him the words.’
So now here we are, on the way to Asher and Chelcie’s house for ‘family dinner’ and my resentment towards everyone around me is getting out of control. Hell, I have no business being out in public with the thoughts I keep thinking. I want to take Maddox by the neck and shake some sense into his thick scull.
I put a brave face on for Chelcie. I smile and keep the act up like my world isn’t crashing down around me, but every time my eyes lock with Maddox’s, I’m reminded that he is the reason I’m feeling this pain. The fact that he keeps pushing me away is why I’ve turned into a head case.