I wasn’t sure how long it took, but eventually, my chest stopped heaving, and my eyes grew heavy. Eric pulled his finger out of me slowly, and I whimpered as the sensation rippled through me. Suddenly, I wanted more. I wanted more before it was morning and we went back to our fucked-up version of us. I started to move, but he stopped me. “No more tonight; you need to sleep.”
I could barely form words. “Nuh-uh.”
His lips brushed my forehead in a sweet way, and a tiny piece of my damaged heart mended. “You’ve been through hell emotionally, Maddie. Go to sleep. I’ll stay with you until daylight, and then I’ll sneak out. Just sleep, okay? I’ll chase away the nightmares.”
Somehow, Eric had maneuvered my body without me even knowing it, and I was curled up on top of him with our legs intertwined. It was a small space, but I didn’t care because that meant I was closer to him. His arms were wrapped around me, and it felt so good.
I knew in the morning things would be ugly, but right now, they were beautiful. I felt beautiful and worshiped. Whole.
So I did exactly what he said. I went to sleep and pretended like everything was fine.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Eric
Kissing Madeline was like having one hand in hell and the other in heaven. Her lips were as sweet as an angel’s, but her tongue was as seductive as Eden’s. At some point through the night, I’d carried her over to her bed and laid her down. Her hair was a wild mess, the strands tangled from my hands. Her clothes were disheveled, her bra halfway off underneath her shirt, but fuck, she was still somehow tattooing her name in thick black ink on my heart.
I fucked up. I went against everything I’d told myself over the years. I let her in, and now there was no turning back.
I wanted to make her mine.
I wanted to protect her.
I wanted to wrap my hands around every last person’s throat who dared make her feel inferior.
My heart was strumming behind my chest, my ribs cracking as I thought about how scared she was when she heard her father and mother arguing. The strong-willed ex-queen of English Prep was replaced with a fragile, fearful girl who took my heart in her shaky hands and squeezed the life out of it.
My mom was right.
Madeline wasn’t the one to blame.
I glanced out the window just as the sun was beginning to rise. Oranges, reds, and yellows started to streak the darkened sky, letting me know it was time to untangle myself from her soft limbs and leave the room. I glanced down at her delicate cheek, wanting to kiss her one last time before leaving, but I refrained.
She’d been sleeping since around one in the morning, and I didn’t want to wake her up. Mostly because I didn’t know what to say or do, but also because she needed sleep.
Her lean body was snuggled up to me, making it hard to disappear. One of her legs was hooked over mine, her head resting just below the beating of my heart. When I’d inched over to the side, her leg clamped down, trying to trap me. Her arm moved just below the button on my jeans, and my dick got hard within one second.
Great.
I locked my jaw, slipping out from her quickly before I flipped her on her back and woke her up like I truly wanted to—with my head in between her legs.
She and I crossed over a line last night, throwing caution to the wind and letting our hormones do the talking for us. I’d tried telling myself that Madeline was fragile, whether she wanted to admit that or not, and that I needed to hold back on my impulses, but the way her body sung when I touched her caused my brain to misfire. It was much too dark in the closet to truly see her, but she was so fucking hot. I was pretty sure I could still taste her tongue on mine.
After glancing out her window and realizing I’d likely break the drainpipe she used to shimmy down when sneaking out of her room, I peeked my head out her bedroom door and listened.
It took a few seconds before I heard shuffling down the hall. Part of me wanted her dad to find me in here. Maybe he’d take a swing at me and then I’d have an even better excuse to rip his head off. Sure, her father may have been a little bit bigger than me, but I’d been picking fights for as long as I could remember. Even Christian and I had gone a few rounds.
Rage had a way of making you stronger than you really were. And I’d be raging a lot more than him if we ever came face to face.
Madeline wasn’t his little princess as he called her last night. She was mine.
My foot teetered back and forth over the threshold of her soft carpet and the hallway, waiting for him to come strolling out of the bedroom I’d been in just months prior, watching his wife get nailed by my father, but the shuffling from a few seconds ago turned into low moans.
The repeated thumping noise was all too familiar to me.
Madeline’s mother was moaning even louder now. Too loud. I’d say she was faking an orgasm.
I almost laughed as I walked toward the stairs, but the thought of leaving Madeline made me antsy, even if there was no other choice. I couldn’t kidnap her from her house just because her father was a misogynist abusive ass to her mother, but I wanted to.