“You were right. He’s still out there.” I drop my jeans, forcing myself to ignore all that supple milky skin begging me to taste it, and instead focus on the terror that takes over her features at my words.
I crawl over Maddie and cradle her jaw, her cheek soft against my palm, and gaze down at her with a soft smile, tenderly stroking my thumb over her skin, sprinkling kisses over her face and neck until she’s visibly calmed.
“The second I take off your shirt, you kill the light, okay?”
“Okay,” she whispers as her hands smooth up my flanks, over my ribs, flattening on my chest before resting at my nape. The feel of her skin against mine is too good, but not something I can allow myself to get lost in. Not now.
Maybe when this is all over, and I know she’s safe, we’ll give it a go. In the meantime, while Harlow is on our tail, I need to keep my focus and see Maddie out the other side in one piece.
So, I take what I can inside this one moment I get to have for now—kissing her slow, drawing out the inevitable end, wanting just a little bit more of those sweet moans, needing just a couple more seconds of her hips tilting up to meet mine with only two thin layers of fabric between us, coveting just one more minute of the world being perfect because, for these few precious moments, Madeline Jenkins is mine.
Those swift typing fingers seem to have lost their inherent urgency as they skim over my back and slide into my hair, pressing me closer and deeper as her heels start urging me to give her more. Harder, faster.
This craving is everything I’ve ever wanted and everything I can’t have outside of our make-believe game. One we’re playing to earn a few more days of grace so I can make Maddie disappear, continue to keep her safe and alive, and maybe, just maybe, have a chance at this that isn’t just pretend.
With that thought, I accept that, like all unavoidable things in life, this too must end.
My heart is thudding painfully in my chest, and I allow myself one act that crosses the line from protection to indulgence. I drag my hands down her body, slow and soft, so I don’t miss any dip or valley until I’m at the hem of her shirt. Sitting back on my knees, I give myself three seconds to look at her with all the want burning inside me before pressing my lips against Maddie’s soft stomach, bunching her shirt in my fists, tongue dipping into her navel as I drag it up, slowly peeling the fabric off the curves of her body.
My lips press between her breasts, the tremors of her body under me lodging deep in my chest, imprinting in the beating of my heart. A deep inhale fills my lungs with the smell of orchids, my lips marking a trail back to her mouth, where I steal another deep kiss before relieving Maddie of my weight so she can roll to the light switch.
Once the lights are out, I start to steel myself against the loss, which is why her warmth against me again takes me by surprise.
“Maddie?”
She’s pressing into me with all that softness that fits so perfectly into the jagged edges of my life, the urgency back in her hands as they seem to try to touch me everywhere at once.
“What if he has night vision goggles?” she whispers, and under the shroud of darkness, the temptation to give in to her logic is too great.
“I… we can’t do this, Maddie,” I force myself to respond, praying for a miracle that will force me to push her away.
It comes in the form of an incoming message from Fjord updating me that our voyeur left and that he’s on the lookout until we’re safely in hiding.
Maddie turns the lights back on, and we dress in silence, avoiding eye contact the entire time. I keep my back to her, my head low as I work on locking away every second since that first kiss downstairs in an airtight safe, deep in the recesses of my brain.
“You really are good at the fake kissing thing,” Maddie whispers behind my back, and I smile with a short huff of breath. We’re both fully aware no one can fake that level of all-consuming fire. But phony or not, it doesn’t make a difference.
I turn to look at her, in her black tights and chunky dark red sweater, cool and calm except for the way she’s pulling at her sleeves and bunching them in her fists, worrying the wool between her fingers.
“I just want to keep you safe.” I give her the only truth I can allow myself to disclose, forcing a level and controlled voice though everything inside me is chaos. Maddie’s posture stiffens, eyes becoming hard. She doesn’t like it when I get her all riled up and then revert to cold detachment.
The way she looks at me sometimes when I let down my guard makes it clear she thinks the part of me that’s wrapped up in her completely is an act. In a sense, it’s better that way, but every bone in my body aches at the thought that she can’t tell, can’t see that every smile and every moment of laughter with her has always been real.
Sawyer
“Home sweet home,” I try to joke when we reach the safe house, a meek attempt at getting a reaction from an otherwise clammed up Maddie.
The apartment is inside an old building near Lincoln Park that’s been renovated and labeled vintage. Peak Securities owns the place in a backward, roundabout manner that can’t be traced back to them.
This place isn’t for hiding a celebrity trying to keep safe from a stalker. Rather, this entire complex is designed for laying low and off the grid in high-risk operations, exactly what we need until Harlow is off Maddie’s scent and I can get her to Ohio.
Maddie just pushes past me, storming down the corridor and into one of the bedrooms, then the other, then back to the first, where she starts moving around loudly.
“I’ll make us something to eat and some coffee while you shower,” I call into her room as I make my way to the other.
“Yeah, okay, thanks,” she calls back, still moving around but with less urgency.
She’s caving under the stress. Her lashing out seems to worsen the more extreme the danger is, and when I put up my walls, she seems to crumble under the pressure. This is a lot to handle without this tension between us, and part of me wishes I could do better, make the unnecessary weight I keep piling up on her disappear.