Bad Boy's Revenge: A Small-Town Romantic Suspense (16 page)

He bit back. “Why the fuck wouldn’t I believe it?”

“You can’t talk about changing and bettering yourself and
loving
me when I know what you’ll do when you find the man who framed you. Don’t promise me the world and then bleed it dry for your revenge.”

Maddox pushed off the door. “That’s different, Sweets.”

“If you can’t see how
murder
is different—”

“It’s
revenge
.”

“Well, I’m not looking for revenge. I want
justice
. I want Nolan behind bars where he belongs.”

He laughed, but I didn’t get the joke. “That’s not how the world works. You know better than that.”

I was getting tired of people condescending to me, pretending they knew better because they had hurt more than me. I didn’t answer.

“Even a little town like Saint Christie is corrupt to the core,” Maddox said. “There’s no justice when everyone is a victim.”

“Only one of us is corrupted, Maddox.”

“You’ve seen the racism. The hatred. We have a police chief who would hurt innocent people. A damned mayor who lusts after you. Hell, your own grandfather was taken for a ride by his bookie—”

“Don’t you dare bring Granddad into this.”

“Why not?” Maddox didn’t let me look away. “He was hurt in that fire too. Josie, someone is lurking in this town who would destroy your store and hurt your family in cold blood. And if you don’t think the rest of the world is a mirror-fucking-image of this town, then you’re not naïve—you’re goddamned ignorant.”

One step too far.

My temper flared. “We haven’t lived the same life. I won’t pretend to know what you’ve done, what you’ve seen. But the world isn’t that dark alley you crawled around in. It’s not all violence and rage.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Only if you make it that way.” My words thickened, forced through the sticky, syrupy sludge that was my own heartbreak. “You want a reason we can’t be together? Right there. That’s why we’re incompatible. You’re looking for revenge to answer for our past. I want justice so we could have a future together.”

Uh-oh. I said too much.

Maddox loomed. I shrugged him away. I wasn’t letting him touch me, hold me.

His voice softened but it never lost that feral threat. “Do you still hope we can work it out?”

“Of course I do,” I said. “All I have is
hope
. But that dream of us together? It won’t come true if you’re obsessed with that vengeance. I can’t love a murderer.”

“But wouldn’t you feel safer knowing that arsonist was gone?” Maddox cupped my chin. “If it was Nolan Rhys, the law can’t touch him. We can’t trust the courts, and he could buy his way out of any sentence a judge passed. He’d get away with arson, and then he’d come back for you.”

No. He wouldn’t try to hurt me.

He’d aim for Maddox instead.

And for the first time, I almost wished I could let Maddox take that revenge, if only because it started to sound like his only form of self-defense. But everyone would know. They’d immediately suspect him. They’d take him away, and I’d lose him to prison forever.

My eyes prickled with tears.

“I won’t be a part of it,” I whispered. “I won’t let you do it.”

“
Why
?”

“Because I already lost you once for a year. I won’t lose the man I love to a
lifetime
in jail.”

I spoke too fast, without thinking, and revealed everything I’d hidden from him. I spun for the door. Maddox grabbed me, forcing me into his arms. My back pressed to his chest, and his thick arms coiled over my waist.

“You still love me?” His words rasped, a fracturing growl.

What was I supposed to say? “I never stopped.”

“Why did you break up with me?” he asked. I couldn’t answer, not when both our lives were endangered by the admission. “You said you didn’t want me anymore.”

I swallowed the truth. “I had to do what was best for me.”

“I’ve never been what’s best for you,” he said. “But, Sweets, you know I tried.”

“We can’t be together.”

“Why?” He moved closer, his scent enveloping me in every spiced danger I recognized from my mistakes in the past.

Were they mistakes?

“I have to go,” I said.

“Stop fucking running from me!” He took my hand, gripping as I tugged. “You love me.”

And because of that, I couldn’t save him. “I’m leaving.”

“You
love
me, Josie!” Maddox’s eyes flared with a dark, explosive threat. “I’ll prove that you can’t live without me.”

Maddox silenced my protests with the harsh bite of his lips. 

Every time I tried to run, he followed.

Anytime I fell, he caught me.

And whenever I denied my desire for him, he dominated my body until I had no choice but to obey.

My heart shredded itself. Every resistance in my mind faded until only delirious fantasies of him, for him, because of him remained.

“I’m gonna remind you what it means to be loved by me.” Maddox’s words rumbled, threatening and wild. “You’ll count every bite. Hide every bruise. Ignore every ache. By the time I’m done with you, you’re gonna remember how much you love to be taken by me.”

I’d never forgotten, but I lived for the lesson. Problem was it was
wrong
.

He led me to the bed and ignored me when I broke his kiss to warn him to think clearly, rationally. But nothing was
rational
with Maddox. He existed in moments of passion. His touch was rough. His kiss too intense. Nights with him were raw and demanding, and most mornings began with an embrace wilder than the night before.

He was wrong for me.

I fell onto the bed.

He wanted too much from me.

My shirt pulled off.

His strength should have frightened me. He was too powerful, straining with muscle, fierce from a life chiseled from the streets. He was rough. He was feral.

Dominating.

But he desired more than a submissive body tethered to a bed, begging for mercy. He wanted
me
. From the first time we touched to the last time we parted, I met every one of Maddox’s demands with the same intensity. My pleasure was his and his mine. Long ago, we spent night after night twisting in the sheets, just
loving
each other and damning the consequences. We were once lovers. Partners.

And we had
almost
become a family. I regretted never sharing that precious moment with him when we created a life.

“Say it again.” Maddox ripped my bra off. My breasts bounced as his weight shifted over me. “Tell me you love me.”

I couldn’t say it, not because it wasn’t true, but because it was more of a mistake to give him that false hope than it was to shed my clothing and inhibitions. I bit my lip and stayed silent

And Maddox took it as a challenge.

“You’ll scream it soon enough, Sweets.” He ripped down the zipper on my jeans. “There’s no reason to deny it.”

“We shouldn’t be doing this.”

“We never should have stopped.”

Maddox stared at my panties. The delicate pink highlighted the cinnamon brown of my skin. It was pretty.
Cute.
Easily cast off.

His jacket tangled with his shirt on the floor. His muscle strained, already sweating as he fought his urges. He always lost, and I never cared before. His hands brushed over my tummy, too preoccupied with a little crest between my legs to worry about his own zipper or the bulge straining his jeans.

I gripped the comforter as Maddox made his move. His eyes narrowed, watching as I trembled as his hand dragged low. The pale tip of his index finger dipped within the dark petals of my slit.

“Say you love me.” Maddox teased me with a flick of my swollen clit. “I’ll play this game with you, Sweets…because I know I’ll win.”

I wetted. Slickened. Silenced back a mew that would have revealed everything. But I stayed quiet and knew his brand of delicious torture was only beginning.

Maddox dug his hands into my hips and hauled me to the edge of the bed. My legs dropped off the mattress, but he took my ankles and pushed them up. The most secret parts of me exposed to him, but he already owned those places. That familiarity would be my undoing. I knew what he wanted, and I couldn’t surrender to his plan.

Nothing prepared me for the moment his lips pressed between my legs and centered on my clit.

One lick, one flick of his tongue, and I was lost. The heat of his mouth teased my trembling nub. His tongue flattened and licked. I groaned. Of course I was wetter than ever before. Maddox laughed and devoured me, sampling the sweet honey that slickened my folds.

This was too much. Too good. Too fast.

“Maddox…” I whispered. “We can’t do this.”

“Try and stop me.”

His lips circled my clit—a little warning for what was to come. One suckle would launch me from the bed directly into his arms, onto his cock. That part of me was always too sensitive, too easy for him to control with a nip, touch, fuck.

He kissed my slit and smirked. His curling finger teased inside my pussy. And that mischievous arch of his eyebrow was enough to push me over the edge. He wielded a cocky, expectant stare, as if he understood my body better than I did myself.

He was right.

He spoke with his mouth full—completely vulgar and one of the sexiest things I’d ever heard. His tongue lazily dragged over my clit to earn a shiver. My fingers twisted in the comforter. My hips arched to meet his touch.

“Tell me you love me,” he ordered.

I shook my head. It was the biggest mistake I made of the night.

His nibble on my clit turned to a bite. I stiffened and ached for his next punishment—a tongue, a cock, whatever he wanted to give me.

My body strained to come…

But Maddox pulled away. He shook his head.

“Not until you say it, Sweets.”

God, that wasn’t fair! I was in
agony
. I reached to soothe the ache between my legs. He batted my hand away, preventing me from cheating.

“I’ll let you come once you’re honest with me again.”

“Please, Maddox.” I didn’t know what I begged for. I hoped that it was just the orgasm and not an unspoken plea to deny what was in my heart.

“I might take pity on you.” He stood and hooked his fingers in his belt. The leather unfastened as he stared at me. “Think you can convince me that you deserve it?”

The belt looped behind my neck. I froze, but he coiled the ends around his hands. A little tug and I got the idea. I dropped off the bed and knelt at his feet, belt holding me in place by my neck.

I stared at a bulge so big and thick it must have hurt.

“What do you want?” I panted through swollen lips.

“Surprise me, Sweets.”

Was it possible for my pussy to overheat? I clenched, wet and unfulfilled and hot as an oven. I trembled and pulled his zipper down. The belt tightened around the back of my neck, holding me close to his hips.

He took complete control of my body.

And somehow I still trusted him.

His jeans kicked off. I gasped. His cock bobbed thick, angry, and already teased with a bead of cum on the tip. I had pleasured him before,
many
times before, but never as a bribe to get my own release.

He thought he had the upper hand, but I’d never once disappointed him with my tongue.

I held his thick shaft and teased him with a gentle lick on the underside, only the base. He groaned as I tickled him to the throbbing head. The belt tightened over my neck, but I still had control. 

I kissed the tip of his cock, and my tongue darted around the head. Maddox swore. I gazed up at him, at his beautiful body that strained, completely tensed. Every muscle bulged. Every tattoo darkened. His scars shone in the low light. His forearms flexed as he tightened his hold on the belt pulling me closer to him. I curled my hand around his leg for balance.

He shook. Maddox needed this as badly as I did.

And so I took him in my mouth.
Slowly
. Inch by agonizing inch. He heated my tongue with his soft, velvet skin, stretched taut over a cock with a worse reputation than the man who owned it. He was too big for me to swallow, but Maddox never complained when I worked hard to pleasure him with the few inches I could handle.

The belt suddenly tightened. The leather strained against my neck and pulled me in. His cock thrust between my lips, and the thickness nearly suffocated me. I squealed. Maddox looked down.

“Easy, Sweets. Let me feel you.”

The belt loosened, but his shaft hadn’t popped from my mouth. Slowly, I accepted more and more, taking too much of his length down my throat. The belt guided my head, but he didn’t force, only grunted with a feral complement as he used my lips and tongue to please himself.

How did I ever take so much of this man inside me? I savored the head, licked the sensitive underside, and let his belt completely overwhelm me. He trapped me between his body and the leather, helpless as his hips bucked and he took my mouth for his own.

“
Goddamn
, Josie.” The belt tightened. “You have no idea how much I missed this.”

Except I did. I had missed him too.

So much.

I groaned, distracting him with a curl of my tongue as his eyes closed. My body absolutely ached with a pained frustration, and my little clit painfully pulsed. He wasn’t watching.

I could get away with a touch, just a little relief.

I teased between my legs, but I hardly played before Maddox caught me.

“No, you don’t.” He pulled from my mouth. “Naughty thing.”

I squealed as he tossed me onto the bed. His hand smacked down on my behind, just loud enough to echo a punishing crack. Even that felt good. Was I that desperate? Maddox hauled me over his body, forcing my head to his cock. He pushed my legs open as I straddled over his waiting mouth.

“Need more attention?” He chuckled as my answer mumbled over his cock. “Just gotta ask.”

I tried to shake my head, to deny him, but my mouth stuffed full of his salty shaft. His lips curled again around my neglected clit. It was too much. The heat. The delicate swirl of his tongue and the deliberate attack of his lips against my folds and petals.