Kissing Madeline (Dearest #3) (20 page)

He’s quiet for a moment, and when I look up, his honey-colored eyes are wide with recognition. “You asked if I was scared when I walked onto the field to play.”

I still, shocked he remembers that detail. “Yes.”

He motions toward me. “You had glasses and a purple streak through your hair.”

I smile. “That would be me.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Maddie, but you were like this hot, athletic nerd.” I laugh, and when I glance up again, he’s rubbing his jaw. “I asked you out.”

“Maybe,” I whisper.

“But you didn’t call me back.”

I lick my lips, my mouth dry. “So you called?”

He looks incredulous. “Yeah, I called. Twice.”

My lips tilt up in a smile. “I didn’t mean to blow you off. Trust me, I was pretty excited you asked for my number even though it was a total conflict of interest.”
Much like this is now.

I force myself to stop thinking about work. Yes, I could get fired for whatever I have going on with Daren, but I’m in too deep now to walk away.

A smile lifts his lips. “I made myself wait a few days before I called.” He chuckles, and those dimples do me in.

Taking a deep breath, I brace myself for what I need to say. I haven’t talked about what happened that week to anyone in years.

I never even told my ex what happened.

My stomach hurts, but I force myself to go on. “I didn’t realize you called because I lost my phone that weekend. And when I found it, I had about forty messages, none of which I listened to.” Daren looks confused, and I shake my head, needing to start at the beginning. “We had a record-setting cold front blow in the night of your game. Pipes froze all over the city, flooding whole blocks. My dad was a fireman. We had just gotten back from your game when he got called to work, and I was on this crazy high. Your game was exhilarating, and then I interviewed you, and you asked me out.”

I motion to my face. “You were so cute with that black grease on your cheeks and your hair hanging in your eyes. My dad was watching me talk to you from the car. When we drove home, he joked there was no way you and I were going on a date unless he chaperoned.”

My eyes water, threatening to overflow.

Daren’s fingers thread through mine. “What happened, babe?” he asks softly.

Breathe. Inhale. This is the past. Don’t let it control you.
“Dad walked into a two-story on Grove Street that night and never walked out. He helped rescue a family of four and their yappy dog. The official report says it was an electrical fire. It started as a two-alarm but quickly escalated. The temperatures dropped so fast that night. One of the hydrants failed.”

A wave of emotion that I’ve worked years to dam up cracks fissures in my heart. I shake my head, trying to keep the tears at bay. “A crew was scheduled to check the hydrants in that neighborhood, but budget cuts scaled back the frequency. Maybe if they had done the safety check… If the city council hadn’t been so concerned with elections that year… If they thought about the men who risked their lives every day to do their jobs instead of the bottom line…”

Daren’s thumbs brush back the tears tumbling down my cheeks. “C'mere.” Wrapping me in his arms, he scoops me into his lap where I nuzzle into his neck and cry.

* * *

When I open my eyes, I realize Daren is carrying me into his bedroom. He places me on his bed and then pulls out a BU t-shirt and yoga pants from his dresser and hands them to me.

“Do you really have Boston University paraphernalia in your house?” My throat is hoarse from crying like a crazy person.

“Gotcha some jammies.” He smiles, making my heart flip in my chest, and I momentarily forget my embarrassment.

But then reality sets in, and I drop my face into my hands. “Daren, I shouldn’t have unloaded all of that on you. I got carried away. I just haven’t talked about that night in years.”

He wraps his hand around the back of my neck tenderly, and I stare up at him. He’s still shirtless, only wearing sweatpants and a few bruises, but he’s still somehow larger than life. “Thank you for sharing that with me. I’m so sorry you lost your dad.” His eyebrows pull tight. “And I’m so sorry I made you cover football this summer.”

God, that is not what I want him to take away from this.

“I’m not.”

Because right now, something in me feels lighter. I haven’t spoken about my father in so long. Too long. If Dad knew what I’ve accomplished, I’m sure he’d be proud of me. Tears well in my eyes again, and I blink them back.

Daren looks like he wants to say something, but he shakes his head. “I’ll be back in a minute. After icing my shoulder all night, I need to warm up.” He kisses my forehead and heads into the bathroom where I hear the shower turn on.

It takes me a minute to find my bearings, and when I do, I realize I don’t want to be alone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

- Daren -

Tilting my head back, I let the water pelt my skin. Before I moved in, I had the shower redone with four ceiling shower heads, so it’s like a rainforest in here. But I need it. After practice when I can barely move, I crawl in here and my muscles can find a little reprieve.

But tonight my body isn’t what needs help.

Breathing in the steam, I close my eyes and try to figure out what just happened. I know I’ve been telling myself this is casual, that we’re just friends—really good friends—but my relationship with Maddie feels anything but casual right now.

Christ, the way she looked at me with tears trailing down her pale cheeks, I thought my heart was going to rip out of my chest. Usually, Maddie is fierce, tough. It’s one of the things I love about her.

Not that I love her.

Well, I obviously care about her. A lot. Probably more than I should at this point, but I admire the hell out of her. The way she gave herself over to covering stories that make a difference instead of inconsequential football games. She’s more than just a beautiful girl with an awesome laugh. More than a sexy woman with a great personality. She’s just… more.

It’s a little bittersweet to think about how things could have been different.

She was one of the only girls to ever turn me down in high school. At least that was how I thought about it then. I figured she had blown me off, and now I feel like a giant douchebag.

Fuck, I was full of myself. The girl lost her dad that weekend. Of course she wouldn’t have thought twice about some idiot jock.

And having so much unresolved shit with my own father makes me feel like a bigger dickwad. I know I need to call Mason and sort through our shit, but the very thought sends a wave of exhaustion through my bones.

I rest my palm on the tile and breathe in the steam and try to clear my head. The click of the door handle startles me, and I turn to see Maddie standing in front of my open shower.

“I’m cold too.” Her wide blue eyes are red, and her cheeks are flushed, but she’s still a fucking vision. She bites her lower lip, something I’ve come to understand is a sign of her nerves. Which is funny because she never does it when she’s on air. She tilts her head, an uncertain look in her eye. “Can I join you?”

The expression on her face does me in, and even though the smart part of me says we should get some space from each other, that this has gotten too intense too fast, a bigger part of me wants that closeness, and I want it with her.

We haven’t slept together all week, and my fist is getting old fast. But when she came over last weekend and made me dinner, I knew our rules had changed. Because I wanted to get to know her better, and now that I do, I don’t think I could stop our trajectory even if I wanted to.

I nod, and a beat passes before she shakes out her dark mane and loose waves fall around her face. It’s like she’s moving in slow motion, my anticipation growing as she reaches down for the hem of her t-shirt and pulls it over her head. A minute later, she’s bare before me, shivering in the cold.

Her vulnerable expression tugs at something in my chest, and it’s almost overwhelming.

“C'mere here, babe.”

She steps in, and water sluices over her pale skin, down her shoulders and across those lush breasts. She closes her eyes and tilts her head back, and I catch my breath as her lips part, everything losing focus but that beautiful face.

When I am old and gray, I want to remember this moment and the girl before me. I’m not a religious man, but if I believed in angels and signs, I’d be tempted to think the vision before me is beatific.

Her sky-blue eyes open and search my face, and it’s this moment that makes me fear she’ll find me wanting. But she smiles, and it’s unguarded, and it digs into the part of me that I swore I’d never open to another woman again.

She seeks my embrace, and my arms wrap around her and fit her soft body to mine. My lips rest on her hair, her cheek pressed to my chest.

I’m fighting this hard-on, but I can’t help it. She’s curvy in all the right places and wet. Her plump breasts are pushing against me, and she’s pressing her lips to my neck, which only sends the blood rushing to my dick. And before I know it, everything aches, and my fingers itch to yank on her hair while I sink into her.

I expect her to push me away for being an insensitive asshole, so when she presses her hips harder into me, I’m unreasonably elated. So I let my hands roam her back, drifting against her wet skin, and when I tug her closer, my thumbs drag against the sides of her breasts and her nipples pebble against me.

Maddie’s head tilts back, her lips seeking mine, and my hand grips her hair. She moans into my kiss, opening herself, stroking her tongue against mine.

Her taste is so sweet, it makes the ache worse. And then she tilts my dick between her legs and squeezes her thighs as she slides across me, back and forth, slick and hot, her bare skin like satin.

“Fuck, Maddie. You feel good.” I grab her ass to control her movements and revel in the little panting sounds she makes. “I’ve missed you this week.”

She looks up, blue eyes dark, her pupils wide, and with a shy smile says, “You’ve seen me.”

I shake my head before I nibble on her plump bottom lip. “That’s not what I mean.”

She swallows as I kiss down her neck and palm her full breasts that are slick with water. Her back arches into me while she continues her dirty slide on my cock, the one that makes me want to throw her down on the tile and fuck her hard.

But then she grabs my face to kiss me, and she stares into my eyes while she sucks my tongue in a way that makes me a little insane with lust. I’m about to hoist her into my arms when she falls to her knees and takes me into her mouth.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I want to say it’s her hot, wet tongue that unravels something inside me, but it’s the expression in her eyes as she watches me that has my chest expanding in new and uncertain ways.

Her lips drag over the length of me before her tongue takes long, slow licks at my head. I tangle my fingers through her long hair, and she leans sideways into my palm.  Closing her eyes, she takes me deep, and I could come right here, but this isn’t what I want. What I need. What I think she needs.

“Maddie.” Her name rushes from my lips. “Need to fuck you, babe. Hard.”

She nods, and I haul her up and spin her around, placing her hands against the tile.

Condoms. I need condoms. The asshole in me wants her bare, something I’ve never considered before, but the bigger head in me prevails, and I step away before I do something stupid. I remind myself that wearing condoms was one of her conditions when we first started hooking up, and right now when she's vulnerable is not the time I want to ask her to reconsider.

I kiss her neck and delight when she shivers. “Be right back. Don’t move.”

My feet trail water across the bathroom floor, but thankfully I find what I need quickly. When I turn back, I find Maddie peering at me over her shoulder, a sultry smile tugging on her lips as she watches me grip myself to roll on the condom. The appraisal in her eyes makes me harder, so I let her watch as I stroke myself. But I’m selfish, standing here, jerking off so I can see her reaction.

Her mouth parts and her eyes widen as my hand moves down my cock, and she’s standing there with her hands up, ass out, like she’s about to get frisked. Fuck, yes.

Steam rises all around her while her breasts heave, and wet tendrils trail down her porcelain skin. Breathtaking. She’s just breathtaking.

Some Neanderthal urge to toss her over my shoulder and lock her in my room forever takes residence in my chest. This girl. God, she just does it for me in a way no one has before.

Suddenly, the idea of this being casual is painful. Because there’s no way in hell I’m letting go of Maddie.

I make quick work of the condom and stalk back toward her. Gripping her hips, I tug her ass toward me, and she arches. Christ. I want her.

My hands grip her breasts while she drags herself against my dick. She’s tall for a girl, but she’s the perfect size for me.

“Don’t drop your hands, Wildcat,” I whisper in her ear. A shuddering breath leaves her, and I pinch her taut nipple between my fingers. She arches more, and I thrust along the cleft of her ass, which only makes her pant. Damn, I love that sound.