Two Bar Mitzvahs (4 page)

Gripping her hips, I pushed them forward and pulled them back, crashing her body into mine with every hard thrust. Then on a sharp inhale, I drove deep and paused, balls pressed against her. I dropped my mouth to her back, muffling the harsh growl that tore through my throat as I came hard inside her.

In slow motion, I collapsed onto her, bracing my weight with my arms and legs, trying to catch my breath. I pressed a kiss to her shoulder again, then gathered her in my arms as I rolled us to the side, still connected. I shifted slightly inside her, and she moaned low.

Our breaths were the only sounds left, slowing, deepening. My mind spun with the incredible experience it was to be with Hannah.

She blew out a slow breath. “Wow.”

I grinned, lips pressed into the crook of her neck, grateful she trusted me to take her there.

Wednesday morning, I went to my favorite coffeehouse. Madison knew the one. But it was my turf, a place I was comfortable. I spotted her in line.

She hadn’t changed a bit. Tall. Blonde. Fit. High-dollar clothes, not off the rack.

Not wanting to startle her, I swung wide and carefully stepped into her line of sight, as if she were an animal in the wild.

Her eyes brightened when she saw me.

I sighed, ready to get the damned meeting behind me. Nodding over to the empty tables by the window, I said, “Go grab us a seat. I’ll get this.”

She smiled. “Sure. I’ll have a skinny caramel macchiato.”

When she left and the line moved, I turned to the barista. “One skinny caramel macchiato. One quad espresso.” Fitting. Two drinks diametrically opposed.
What the hell did I ever see in her?

I brought our drinks to the table and slid hers in front of her before taking a seat.

She pulled the top off hers, then swiped her tongue through the whipped cream, never taking her gaze off me.

I leaned back and crossed my arms, unimpressed. “Thought you were in Europe. How long have you been back?”

She shrugged. “I got bored over there. I’ve been back a little while. Saw a picture of you at Dwight Cavanaugh’s party in the paper.”

Invitation Only publicity. It had brought out Hannah’s ex a few months ago. Guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that Madison resurfaced. I gave her a nod, waiting.

“Look, Cade, I know things ended horribly for us. I get why you’re tense right now.”

“Tense isn’t even close to what I’m feeling.”

She sighed. “I know. I screwed up. I didn’t appreciate you like I should have.”

Another understatement.
“No. Apparently you were too busy appreciating many others.”

“I’m here to apologize. I’m sorry.”

“For which part?”

“All of it. Not being faithful. Rejecting you. Hurting you.” Her gaze dropped down to the tabletop while she took a deep breath. “I know this is no excuse, and it’s coming very late, but I found out I have a problem. Well,
had
a problem.”

Unused to Madison being humble under any circumstances, I waited.

“I—” Her voice lowered, and she leaned forward as she met my gaze. “I am a recovering sex addict.”

Holy shit.
I blinked. Not what I’d expected her to say. Then again, our relationship had been highly sexual. Speechless, I stared at her.

An awkward silence stretched between us. She glanced down at her coffee, then up at me again. “It got pretty bad in Europe. Until one of the men I was with insisted I needed help.” An unreadable expression flickered across her face.

“And you got help?”

She nodded. “Believe it or not, they have rehab for sex addiction, just like any other addiction. And afterward, there are support meetings, similar to Alcoholics Anonymous.”

Wow.
I didn’t even know what to say to that. My mind spun. So she only cared about her next “fix” when she cheated on me? Couldn’t help herself?

I had to focus to get back on point. There was a reason I’d agreed to meet with her. Two of them, actually. “What do you want from me?”

“I just needed to apologize to you; it’s part of my recovery. You don’t have to accept it.” The corner of her mouth tugged up then fell, her expression sad. When she glanced up at me, she looked hopeful.

Fuck.
I sighed. I wasn’t cruel. “I’ll accept your apology, Madison.” Didn’t mean I had to like her. Or suddenly become friends with her.

Or forget.

“Thank you.” Her tone was genuinely vulnerable, a first from her.

I took a swallow of my warm espresso while I carefully considered my next words, struggling with how to broach the other reason I’d agree to meet her. I didn’t want to shut her down after she’d been so open. Like I’d approached her in line earlier, I swung wide first. “What have you been doing since you’ve returned? Are you working?”

Her expression lightened. “Yes. I’ve recently been hired at a country club. Not ours. One across town.”

I took the small opening and leaned forward, staring at her. “Madison, I have to ask this: You called me out of the blue the same day someone messed with our company. Did you have anything to do with that?”

Her brows drew together. “Cade, I want to be friends with you again. I want things between us to be better—maybe even great. Why would I do that?”

Good question. (I had no idea.) The woman sitting in front of me only physically resembled the Madison I remembered. Everything out of her mouth surprised me.

“I don’t know.” I didn’t have another ready suspect. Hell, I hadn’t even let Madison off the hook, but I didn’t have proof. Only gut instinct and suspicion.

She nodded. “So will you?”

“Will I what?”

“Will you be friends with me again? We grew up together. We know so much about each other. It seems such a waste to let all that go.”

Confused, my expression hardened. My mind warred with the memories of Madison in the past and the person sitting in front of me. Which one was she offering?

I blew out a breath, forcing myself to relax. I didn’t have to do shit. I did what I came here to do.

“I don’t know, Madison. I don’t know what you mean by ‘better’ or ‘great.’ To be honest, I’m having a hard time picturing us as friends. And just so you know, I have a girlfriend. If that’s where you’re going with this, it won’t work.”

She swallowed hard, unfazed. “I do understand. Please think about it. I wasn’t rotten to only you but to a lot of people. I don’t have many friends. I’m trying to make new ones. Having you as a friend would mean a lot. You’re one of my oldest.”

Dammit.
Her plea tugged at my heart and it pissed me the fuck off. “I’ll think about it. It’s all I can promise.” I stood from the table. “I need to go.” I would’ve told her it was great seeing her again, but it wasn’t.

She nodded. “Thank you for meeting me.”

“You’re welcome.” I left before she decided she needed a hug or some other crazy shit. She’d rattled me enough as it was.

***

We’d stopped at the grocery store for a few last-minute items, then hit the road in my Jeep, heading out to the campground. Hannah kept bouncing and fidgeting, full of nervous energy. Yet every time I took my eyes off the road and glanced at her, she beamed one of her megawatt smiles.

“Excited?” Yeah, I know. Master of the obvious.

She nodded. “Totally. Will we go for a hike? Will there be elk? Do they have different pine trees than in the city?”

I laughed. “We can do whatever you want to do. And I don’t know. Guess we’ll find out.”

A short time into our drive, Hannah finally settled into her seat and gazed out the side window at the passing rural scenery.

“So how did the meeting with Madison go?”

Good question.

I still hadn’t figured that shit out. “Weird.” My tone dropped, heavy.

She angled her upper body toward me, tilting her head. “Weird how?”

I let out a sigh. “She was humble, apologetic. I don’t ever remember her being so...vulnerable. I’m not sure what I’d expected, but it wasn’t that.”

“Apologetic? Did she admit to making the phone call to the vendor?” Hannah wrapped her hand around the chrome gearshift and looked down, running her thumbnail along the diagram grooves in the top.

I shook my head. “No. She wanted to make amends. She apologized for hurting me. Said she’d been to rehab and therapy. Asked if we could be friends.”

“Rehab and therapy for what?” Hannah’s tone was neutral, inquisitive.

Warning bells went off inside my head. I hadn’t played out how the discussion with Hannah might go—how much I needed to share to remain honest—but I suddenly wished I’d given more thought to it. This couldn’t possibly go well.

“Sexual addiction.” It’s always best to just rip off the Band-Aid, right?

Silence.

I glanced at her.

Her brows were deeply furrowed. “She had a sexual addiction?”

I shrugged. “Apparently. Although, it’s news to me.”

“Because you didn’t have a lot of sex?”

Fuck.
In what universe could this ever go well? My jaw clenched. “No, we had sex.”

“A lot?”

“A normal amount.” There. Safe, and true. But looking back, if I was honest, it was a little wild and desperate most of the time. “But remember, she was cheating on me. And I didn’t ask for the details. Didn’t want them. Still don’t.”

Hannah straightened back in her seat, facing forward. “Sooo…she couldn’t help it? That’s her reason why?”

“That’s what she said.”

“Do you believe her?”

I snorted. “Hell, I don’t know what to believe. That woman had me believing I was in love with her. That I wanted to marry her. And all the while she had a sexual addiction and was sleeping around to scratch her uncontrollable itch. I grew up with Madison. We were kids who all played on the same playground together. She’s always been strong, assertive, independent. She’s strived to be the best, to win. Never once, in all the years I’ve known her, has she admitted to having a fault. Or apologized.”

“Sounds a lot like you, the strong, assertive part.”

“Yeah. We were similar in our personalities. Determined, fearless, driven. Gunning to succeed. We were longtime friends, and our lives were compatible in so many ways. Only I had no clue hers came with a closet full of guys.”

“I’m nothing like that.” Her voice had dropped low.

I gave her a hard look until she glanced up at me. Reaching over, I grasped her hand. “You are driven to be successful in a creative way, which I love. Everything you are draws me toward you. You’re a gorgeous, petite ball of fire who brightens a room the moment you walk in.”

She gave me another one of those smiles, then leaned over the console, as far as the seatbelt would allow, and kissed my ear, lingering there for a moment with her lips. “Thank you. You want to know what makes me brighten when I walk into a room?”

“What?”

“You’re there.”

I let out a slow breath. “Ditto, Maestro.”

She settled back onto her seat. “What about the phone call and the order cancellation? You thought it was her, didn’t you? Did she admit to it?”

“No. Madison hadn’t outright denied it. She’d only questioned why she’d do it. But I’m still not convinced it isn’t her.” And the woman who’d been sitting at the coffeehouse wasn’t the Madison I remembered, so she was tough to gauge. “I was a terrible read of her before—sure as hell fooled me. It’s hard to tell if she’s doing it again.”

Hannah stretched her arms back, clutching her headrest with her hands. “Could it be anyone else? Does anyone else have it out for you? Or Kristen? Someone who would want to hurt your reputations?”

I hadn’t a clue. Kristen didn’t have any enemies that I was aware of. Then I remembered something. “There might be a woman or two who got upset with me over my casual-sex attitude before you.”

“What? I thought you said you were only with women who were on the same page as you—no strings attached.”

“Yeah, I did. But right before we became involved, one of those women, Carmen, had a change of heart. Turned out seeing her name on the list of nine didn’t go over very well.” Looking back, it wasn’t the smartest move keeping my fuck buddies’ names and numbers on a yellow sticky note, but after Madison had dumped me, my need for detachment had overruled logic.

“Ouch.”

“Yeah. Wasn’t pretty. But in the end, she knew the score. They all had.” And they’d all existed to help me deal with my unexpected breakup with Madison. No matter how cold she’d been when we’d ended it, I’d been invested. My heart had shattered.

But now I had Hannah. The woman who’d healed my heart.

She pulled her travel mug out of the cup holder and took a sip of her coffee. “So are you going to be friends with her?”

I gripped the steering wheel, then relaxed my hands, rolling my shoulders back. “I don’t know. She was reaching out to me, saying she didn’t have many friends because of how many people she had hurt—
that
I believe. But, if she’s being honest, and I was in her shoes, I’d want a second chance. Maybe she really is trying to be a better person. I’d feel like a total dick if I didn’t at least try to give her the benefit of the doubt.” I swallowed hard, then glanced at Hannah. “What do you think?”