by Cameron Dane
Scooting closer to him, sitting perpendicular, Maddie put her leg across Wyn’s thighs and her arm across his back, surrounding him. “I wonder, do you even know why you took that woman the way you did, on that particular night? Or is the truth buried so deep inside that you can’t even see it?”
Facing forward, Wyn turned statue rigid, and his profile looked hewn out of granite.
Not this time. Turning his head for him, Maddie forced Wyn to face her. The bleak, stark black in his eyes tore her up, but at the same time stiffened her resolve. “I think it has to do with your dad,” she said, nodding when he shook his head. “From what I know about you, which I think is more than maybe anyone but Ethan, you mostly shut down and become very stoic when having to talk about your father. To me that means in truth you have a tornado of emotions inside about him that are beating you up and leaving you badly bruised. That kind of pain has to bleed into other parts of your life, whether you mean for them to or not. It would be impossible to keep them separated all the time.”
Wyn’s face suddenly fell, and his voice broke as he whispered, “I’m just like him. I’m a failure, and I’m weak. As much as I’ve tried, I can’t get those characteristics of his out of my system. I want you,” he held onto her leg like a lifeline, “but I will fail you over and over again. I already have. More than once. I don’t deserve you.”
With every word Wyn spoke, Maddie shook her head. “Not even a little bit true.”
“When you got thrown from the snowmobile on that weekend we took together, I froze. I couldn’t think; I couldn’t function to help you. If those two women hadn’t found us, you would have died, and I would have sat there with your head in my lap, powerless to help you.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true!” Wyn’s raw shout ripped through the air, sending a cluster of birds up from the garden and across the sunny sky. Lowering his head and voice, he repeated, “It’s true.”
Maddie pulled his face right back out of hiding. “I believe that the women came; I already know they did. But you will never convince me that had they not, you would not have snapped out of your funk and saved my life. I know you would have. There’s no doubt in my mind about it.”
With a savage swipe, Wyn pushed wetness from his eyes. “I was useless with you, just like my dad was when my mom got sick. He’s always said he loved her too much and he couldn’t handle watching her die. Seeing you bleeding on the snow like that, I understood how he felt, and I even understood why he ran. I knew because I felt the same with you.”
Grabbing his face, Maddie reminded him, “But you didn’t run.” She locked her legs around his waist from the side and shook him. “Not with me, and not with your mom. It was just as hard for you and Ethan when Jayne got sick. Maybe even hardest for you the first time she fell ill, seeing how young you were. But you never shirked. Not once. That should prove to you how strong a person you are.”
A rough exhale escaped Wyn, and his hands still shook as he curled them around her leg. “I recently told you my father once came to Redemption, but not when.” Blinking hard, his mouth twisted down. “He came to town three days before your twenty-first birthday.”
Crap. Maddie rubbed his back, across his wide shoulders, which sloped so much he looked to her like a scolded little boy. “I didn’t know.”
“I was already struggling with failing to keep you safe on the mountain, and it was like with each day that went by, the guilt ate at me more, not less.”
A light bulb went on in Maddie’s head, allowing so many answers to tumble into place. “You started getting busier at work, and picking up extra shifts. I never stopped to examine why. But it was because of this guilt you were dealing with, that you were keeping all to yourself, and you were avoiding me.”
“Why would you question anything?” Wyn’s voice rose, the hoarseness making it thick. “For all your salty language and sassiness, your innocence is off the charts. If you’re devoted to a person, you don’t question what they tell you. You accept that they’re always being truthful with you, as you know you are with them.”
Wyn fell silent then, but his Adam’s apple continued to bob erratically, and his focus dropped to his hands, where he picked at a strand of fabric on the left leg of her coveralls.
The silent internal struggle in Wyn actually screamed through every pore of his being. Whether he realized it or not, he needed to purge this from his soul. Forget that burying everything again would destroy them as a couple, it would slowly eat away at him until there was nothing left but an empty black hole.
Not on my watch. Tempering her passion, Maddie gently reached between them and closed his hand in hers. “So while you were struggling,” she prompted, “your dad showed up.”
Wyn started and stopped a handful of times, before he finally got out, “I didn’t talk to him. I refused, just like any time he tried to get in touch with me on the phone in the past. But while he was here, I saw him on the street. He didn’t see me, but I saw him.” Visibly struggling, Wyn’s jaw ticked hard and fast, like it had its own heartbeat. “I watched him, and as I did, this wave of longing overtook me. I just wanted my dad so fucking bad. It took everything in me not to run over to him and hug him and never let him go and beg him never to leave again. This man who’d left my mom while she was in the middle of treatment and sick as a dog and unable to eat and losing her hair, this man who’d left his two children to help their mother deal with her illness, this man who for years and years never once got in touch with us to see if we needed his help or even if we were still alive and doing okay. This man,” Wyn uttered the word like a savage curse, “this man is the same man I wanted to wrap my arms around on that street corner and tell him I still loved him, and I wanted him to tell me the same.” His entire face a snarl, Wyn looked at Maddie, shoving the heels of his hands across his wet eyes. “What the hell kind of cowardly traitor does that make me? What the hell kind of man does that make me?”
Wiping streaks of tears from her cheeks too, Maddie promised him, “A human one.”
“Not one good enough for you,” he vowed, all the raw edges cutting up his voice. “I didn’t consciously cheat on you that night; I swear I didn’t. I didn’t think ‘I’m going to take this woman to my house and fuck her at precisely the time Maddie is coming over so that she’ll see us’. It wasn’t like that. I was just…It was just…I just felt like this enormous pile of shit, sitting in a corner so long flies are starting to buzz around me, and every day it went by where I couldn’t clean myself up, I began attracting other kinds of bugs and nastiness. I stunk to high heaven, and I felt dirty, so full of diseases, but I couldn’t clean myself up. I didn’t know how. But I knew if we were together you would still hug me and love me, and the stench and ugliness would end up all over you too.” His chest rising and falling fast, as if in the middle of a marathon, Wyn wiped snot from his nose. “I think subconsciously I didn’t want you anywhere near the pile of shit, so I made sure you would see it for what it was, see me, see the pile of shit, without rose-colored glasses on.”
“Wyn…” Maddie broke, love and empathy winding tightly around her vocal chords. “You’ve punished yourself for long enough. It’s time to stop now.” Lifting his hand to her lips, she pressed kisses to the back and palm, hating that his skin wasn’t hot the way it normally was. “I swear you’re going to be okay.”
Wyn sucked in a big gulp of air and exhaled slow and steady; maybe for the first time in years the breath was a cleansing one. Maddie prayed it was so.
“The second I saw your face that night,” he shared, “I knew I’d made a horrific mistake. But all it takes is one. What I did was so big, and I hurt you so deeply that you couldn’t forgive it. And I understood why. The damage was done. The impotence came immediately.” He sort of half smiled then, and Maddie knew he was starting to come out of the dark tunnel. “I tried to deny it, but a piece of my brain and heart knew I was only supposed to be with you, and my body punished me for ruining u
s that night with one stupid act.”
For Maddie, finally, what Wyn had done four years ago no longer mattered. Why he’d done it though, Maddie needed just one more answer in order to feel one hundred percent safe. “Have you made peace with the conflict inside you about your father?”
“I don’t know about total peace yet,” Wyn admitted, but he kept his focus steady and true, and most of the strain had left his voice, “but I’m conscious now of the conflict inside me about him, enough so that I believe I can recognize it and stop myself from hurting myself or you over this love I do still have for who he was supposed to be. I know now too he isn’t ever going to be that person I need and want him to be. He’s never going to be my father. With his dismissal of Ethan today—” Wyn shook his head, and the first flash of fire returned to his eyes, “—the piece of my heart that still pined for him died. If you can’t love my brother as he is, you can’t have me. And more, then I don’t want you in return.”
Maddie grinned, unable to keep her lips down. “I love Ethan. I always have.”
Smiling back, a real one that reached his gaze, Wyn switched the tangle of their fingers, lifted her hand to his lips, and kissed each of her fingertips. “Only one of the many reasons you own my heart.”
“And you own mine.” Spilling even more, her heart too full to contain, Maddie told him, “I want you to stay here with me.” Aching all over with love for him, she told him, “For always.”
Releasing a ragged, animalistic noise, Wyn cried out for Maddie and dragged her onto his lap, her legs around his waist. “I love you so much.” He stole a fast, rough kiss, another hoarse noise breaking through his system. “Without your forgiveness, I can’t go on.”
Running her fingers through his short hair, Maddie looked into his eyes, held him in place with her soul, and promised, “I understand you, and I forgive what you did.”
Wyn choked, “Maddie…Fuck…” His muscles rippling with python strength, he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead, cheeks, and nose, and his shaft reared to life between her thighs. “Maddie…” He moved to her lips, and a groan filled the air as he kissed her and licked into her mouth. “Maddie, Maddie, Maddie.” Running his hands up her back, into her hair, he brushed his lips to hers so softly, yet Maddie felt the caress all the way into her being. “I love you.”
Her sex flooding for him in a shot, Maddie wound her arms around his back and started yanking at his shirt. “Take me inside now.” Needy so fast, she ground herself against the ridge of his cock. “Too many people at the garage during the day to risk stripping you naked outside.”
“Christ, honey.” Grabbing her under her ass, Wyn surged to his feet, keeping hold of her, and strode to the door. “You always know how to wind me up fast.” He shoved the door open hard, letting it slam all the way against the wall as he moved inside, and then kicked it closed with just as much force.
Maddie tore his shirt off over his head, loving the inferno once again burning under his flesh. She reached between them to get at his jeans. “Right here on the rug.” She slid down his body while undoing his zipper, desperate to make them one again. “It’ll take too long to get upstairs.”
His features dark with desire, Wyn shuddered and kissed her with a rough bite. “Jesus, Maddie.” Licking past her lips, he caressed her ass through her coveralls and shorts. “You’re gonna make me come.” He dipped his hand between her thighs from behind and caressed her pussy, and Maddie throbbed for him inside even harder.
Yanking his jeans and underwear down to his thighs, Maddie rubbed against him and moaned, “Just hold on long enough to get inside me first.”
Instantly Wyn went still and locked in on her stare. A question lived in the depth of his eyes, as Maddie had known it would. He wanted the confirmation that she, they both, accepted and welcomed the possible consequences of continuing to have unprotected sex. Pregnancy. A baby. A connection between them that would bond them forever.
Maddie’s pulse skipped a beat, but she knew excitement generated the reaction, not fear. Exposing herself to him again, she nodded, giving that confirmation he needed, and he uttered, “Damn it, Maddie; I love you.” His cock lifted to his stomach and leaked a river of early cum.
“I love you too.” Unzipping her coveralls, Maddie let the loose fabric fall to her ankles, revealing the skimpy tank top and shorts she often wore underneath. Her nipples pebbled against the white ribbed fabric of the tank, and her excitement had already soaked through her panties and dampened her shorts. “Now f—” Catching herself, she bit her lip. Not fucking. Not anymore. Looking up at him, she ran the tip of her finger up the underside of his cock and teased the slick slit across the head, loving when he hissed and his balls pulled in his sac. “Make me yours right now.”
Growling, the darkness in his eyes brightening with chips of obsidian in that passionate way she loved, Wyn grabbed her in his arms and tumbled them to the rug. “You were always mine.”
Smiling up at him, love pouring through her system, Maddie wound her arms around his shoulders and pulled him into a kiss. “I know.”
Wyn slashed his mouth across hers and dominated with his kiss, holding her jaw parted and sinking his tongue past her lips for a raw lick. Holding onto him with everything in her, Maddie arched up against him, eager to feel him everywhere, and cried out when her clothing still separated her skin from his.
With a whimper to help, Maddie wiggled up from the floor and pulled at her top, awkwardly getting it off over her head. Wyn reared up, his jeans at his knees, his prick thick and long and dark crimson in color, stunning and heavy with his need.
Trained on her gaze, he shimmied her shorts and underwear down her legs for her, pulling her work boots and socks off in a seamless smooth motion along the way. After quickly removing the rest of his clothes, he parted her thighs for her too, bending her legs high and wide, and she moaned as the cool air caressed the heated line of her pussy, her lips already rosy and swollen and wet for him.
On his knees at the apex of her thighs, Wyn looked her up and down, and his chest rose and fell in a deep wave. “Hand to God, baby. Your beauty astounds me daily.” He cupped her breasts and rubbed his thumbs across her nipples. The coarse texture of his hands abraded the tips of her tits, stiffening her nipples into tight berry colored peaks and sent the delicious sensation winding through her body, all the way down into her core. “I’ve never known anyone like you.”
With his words, Maddie somehow blossomed even deeper inside, feeling truly whole for the first time in her life. Adoration pumping up from the depths of her soul, she rubbed her hands up and down his forearms, needing another way to assure herself he was real. “You’re so amazing and handsome and sexy and wonderful in every way.” Years and years of pent-up love flowed out of her in droves, tightening her throat. “I feel so lucky you saw me, and I’m the one who gets to be with you every day for the rest of my life.”
Stripping her name bare, he uttered, “Maddie,” and came down on top of her, bracing his hands on the floor on either side of her head. Whispering her name again, he crushed his lips to hers and surged into her with one sure thrust, claiming her all the way to the root.
Maddie bucked—oh God, oh God yeeeesssss. A series of deep spasms instantly rocked through her body, shooting intense throbbing pleasure into her cunt. Clutching Wyn’s arms, Maddie bit his jaw and rode the sharp orgasm he’d so quickly torn out of her. He tightened like a steel rod above her, within her, and became an unbreakable anchor she could cling to without fear during such an intense storm.
Finally, after sliding herself up on his rigid cock for endlessly glorious minutes, she loosened her grip on his biceps and sank into the rug beneath her back. She freed his jaw from her teeth too, thankful she’d only bruised him and not drawn blood.
Wyn’s features were pulled taut, but a twinkle filled his eyes. “Again?” he asked, and circled his arms around her head.
So fresh off a release, Maddie still shivered inside around h
is embedded cock, and her blood still raced hotter than lava. She whispered, “Yes please,” and scraped her short fingernails up his arms and across his thick shoulders. “Right away.”
“Fucking hell, honey.” Twitching his nose against hers, Wyn rumbled a noise between a chuckle and a groan. “If you get any cuter, you’re going to kill me.”
“And if you get any sexier,” unable to stop touching him, she ran her hands down his sculpted back and over the tight globes of his ass, “I’m going to perish in your arms right along with you.” Shifting just the slightest bit beneath him, Maddie gasped as Wyn rocked and his scorching length branded her inner walls. “Oh God. You feel so good inside me.” She held onto his tight ass cheeks and pumped herself on his shaft. “It won’t be long before I’m coming again.”
Uttering, “Fuck,” Wyn shuddered and drove himself hard and fast into her pussy.
Maddie scratched her way across the small of his back and lifted herself up into the piercing of his cock. “Not fucking,” she reminded him, the words coming from the deepest part of her core. “Not between us.” She scraped her fingers up his spine and took hold of his head, keeping his face close to hers. “Every time we’re together, we’re becoming one.”
The glitter of dew misted Wyn’s eyes, and he whispered, “You just made my life.”
Dipping down, he brushed his lips across hers again and again, putting his mark on her in another way, and began to move. No hard, rough slams of his hips, Wyn grazed soft kisses against her lips, braced her head in the strong circle of his arms, and rocked between her thighs with steady, sure thrusts. And as he did, he pressed his stomach and chest into her belly and breasts, making her feel him everywhere, and wound her back up, her body on the razor’s edge of coming for him a second time in minutes.