Crazy Thing Called Love (15 page)

What are you
doing?
The clipped, judgmental voice of Madelyn Cornish, host of the top-rated Dallas morning show, screamed in her head.

But the jungle drums beating between her legs drowned out the sound of anything rational. No time for judgment. Not when Billy was looking at her like he wanted to eat her.

His white silk shirt hugged every muscle in Billy’s arms, every twitch and twist as he reached behind himself and turned the lock on the door.

Her mouth went dry, her core wet.

Click
.

“My rules,” she said.

Face like granite, he nodded.

Power erupted in her. Power she’d never had in their marriage.

Without a word from her, he continued taking off his clothes. Undressing for her pleasure.

That vest and shirt should look like a costume on him. They should make him ridiculous, but they didn’t.

Madelyn liked clothes, and she knew their effect, and Billy, whether he knew it or not, wouldn’t be able to hide in his rough, ill-fitting clothes anymore. People would look at him differently now. She couldn’t help but look at him differently.

It was as if the new clothes were highlighting aspects
of himself that he usually reserved: his intelligence, empathy, and generosity; his loyalty and fierce heart.

Stop
, she thought.
Don’t think of him like that
.

The whiteness of his skin gleamed in the lights of her dressing room as the shirt fell off of him, the pants, the boots. He stood, nearly naked in front of her, his erection straining against his black briefs.

His scars, the evidence of his brutality, all of it was starkly on display.

Better
, she thought. This was the man she knew. The man whose hold on her needed to be broken. She walked around her desk to that small space between the desk and the dressing table. Too late she realized her feet were bare.

His eyes on her toes felt more intimate than anything they’d done on Saturday.

Everything they’d done on Saturday, until that moment at the end when he’d made himself come rather than have her touch him, had been about as intimate as a car crash.

What do you want?
she asked herself.
What possible outcome are you looking for?

She didn’t have an answer. Didn’t want to waste time thinking about it. She felt slightly drunk with lust, out of her head with desire, and she liked it, wanted more of it. So she banished Saturday from the room, from her head.

Stopping inches from him she reached out and touched the strong, hard ridge of his erection. Tracing the edges with her fingertips, she relished the way he shook and trembled, but didn’t touch her. He stood there and he took it.

Control. It was hers.

Her fingers reached below his erection and cupped the heavy bulge of his sack. Her fingers tightened, just enough, just until he hissed.

Her eyes lifted to his and she was transfixed. Immobile.

“Why are you letting me do this?” she whispered.

He didn’t say anything, he didn’t have to. Everything he felt was right there in his face. His eyes. That lack of boundaries that she used to love about him was in full effect.

This, for him, was about being loved again.

Boundaries, Billy, or you’ll get hurt
.

Reflexively her fingers twitched around the tender flesh held in cotton and he winced.

Stupid Maddy
, she thought,
you are the one who wants to hurt him
.

Fast, she undid her jeans and pushed them down her legs, taking the scrap of blue lace that was her underwear with them. She kicked her legs free and wrapped her hands in the hem of her shirt to throw it over her head.

“Leave it,” he whispered, his fingers running up the muscles of her legs, making them twitch and dance. “Leave the shirt.”

My rules
, she thought, and pulled the shirt over her head.

He closed his eyes as if saddened. But then she took his hand and put it between her legs, where the heat and the wet were already gathering. Already pooling.

With one hand between her legs, the other on her shoulder, he shifted, easing them around until her back was to the wall and he was pressed against her. His warm flesh, his thick muscles a living blanket from shoulder to hip.

His fingers found every curve of her, every recess and hill. The small places where pleasure hid, electric and difficult. She gasped, arching her neck, trying to suck down enough air to keep her balance, to keep her grounded. But his fingers knew her secrets. His breath,
hot and damp, feathered her shoulder. His lips found that place behind her ear, and then his teeth, and she shook against him.

“Yes,” she sighed. She lifted a leg around his hip, giving him more room, more territory to conquer. Her hips beat against his and he leaned harder against her, keeping her still.

This was what she loved about him. About sex with Billy. He could fold her up in a ball with the pleasure he gave her. All that confidence with which he wore his own skin he applied to hers. To her body. She didn’t have to work for her orgasms, he delivered them to her. Served them to her. They came effortlessly.

One finger reached inside her and she arched against the wall, swallowing her cries. Suddenly, though, that warm strength of his body was gone and she couldn’t help but cry out. But he’d only dropped to his knees.

What a sight, Billy, in all of his muscled glory, on his knees in front of her. She’d missed this.

He lifted her leg, throwing it over his shoulder, his fingers opening her for his tongue. His teeth.

As good as this man was at hockey, he was better at
this
. He’d spent a summer between her legs, studying her response, figuring out all of her secrets, all the ways he could make her scream with his tongue and fingers. Small touches, bold licks, hard, soft, quick, and agonizingly slow.

No one went down on a woman with as much intent and pleasure as Billy Wilkins. And he’d ruined her for other men. The few that she’d let between her legs since him had been sad disappointments. Not worth the effort of the bikini wax.

But Billy …

Yes
, she thought, curling her fingers through his hair, feeling his jaw move against her.
Yes. This. There. Now
.

Seconds, less than seconds, between one heartbeat
and the next. She was herself and then she was shattered, a thousand glittering pieces on a jet-black horizon.

He kissed his way up her body until he was on his feet, his mouth hovering over hers. His lips damp with her. Her eyes met his and she wanted to kiss him so badly it hurt, but she turned her face away, denying herself because it denied him.

“Get the condom,” she whispered. He crossed the small room, the muscles of his back, his round tight skater’s ass flexing as he walked over to her desk. His back to her, she watched as he used his teeth to open the wrapper. Head bent, he put the condom on, and then, without turning around, he walked over to her desk chair, an armless wooden antique that she’d picked up from who knows where.

He sat, his erection vulgar and crude. Exciting.

“Come here,” he whispered.

My rules
, she thought, but she could feel him between her legs, could feel how she’d be able to control it all from that position. Her pleasure. His.

She stepped up to him, placing her legs on either side of him. Careful not to touch him, though her fingers burned to do so, she curled her hands around the top of the chair.

The sensation of his hand on her hip was searing and she almost told him not to touch her, but then he pushed her down and the head of his dick was stretching her, testing its welcome into her body.

She dropped her head forward and closed her eyes, taking him inch by delicious inch.

“Maddy,” he groaned. “Oh God, you’re so … ah …”

Tight. Hot. Wet. Yes, she was all of those things.

And in control.

She curled her hips and sat, taking all of him inside her so fast and so hard, they both cried out at the riot of sensations. His hands clenched at her hips, a small pain.

“Shh,” she whispered as he arched up higher into her. “We have to be quiet.”

“Move,” he groaned into her ear. Slowly, she rocked on him, pressing her groin against his, until she felt the heightening pressure on her clit. Back and forth again, a long, slow rock and curl.

He was whispering, groaning filthy things in her ear, and it drove her higher. Faster. His hands skated across her flesh, cupping her breasts, her hips, curling around her neck, pulling at her hair. All of it added to the pleasure building low in her belly.

“Maddy,” he groaned and she lifted her head to look at him.

And then, like an insect in a web, she couldn’t look away. Billy, tortured with pleasure, holding himself back for her, was mesmerizing.

“Baby,” he sighed, his face splitting with a luminous smile. He leaned forward to kiss her and she lurched back, turning her face away.

“No.”

“Look at me,” he growled and she closed her eyes, unable to look at him. Unable to see him so happy just because they were fucking.

“Look. At. Me.” She shook her head and he grabbed her waist, lifting her slightly away from him, holding her still. “Maddy.”

“My rules,” she gasped.

For one long moment she wasn’t sure what he was going to do and knew she wasn’t strong enough to make him do anything. She tried to break his hold, but he wouldn’t budge. Pleasure grew thorns and jagged edges and she groaned with the agony of it all.

In one easy, graceful surge he took them down to the floor behind her desk. He braced one hand against the wall so she wouldn’t hit her head and then slowly, inch by agonizing inch, thrust into her and then retreated.

“Look at me.”

Every breath she sucked in tasted of sweat and sex. She dug her nails into the muscles of his hips, his back.

But no way would she look at him. Scared of what she’d see, scared of how she’d feel, she kept her eyes closed, holding on to her pleasure with a fierce grip. He hissed and thrust back into her, setting a rhythm that wasn’t enough. Not even close.

“Look at me, Maddy. Please. God …”

Her rules. Honestly, who had she been kidding? It would always be his rules when it came to this. Furious with him, with herself, but helpless with lust, she opened her eyes.

“There you are,” he whispered.

There you are
. She curled her fingers into fists against his back so she wouldn’t touch his face, trace that scar, the curve of his smile.

Beloved, so beloved to her once.

What are you doing?
she thought, suddenly cold with panic. Her hips stilled, her arms fell to her sides.
This isn’t uninvolved! This isn’t arm’s length!

He paused, as if sensing her sudden change of heart and then, without looking at her, he shifted, leaned down to her breasts, breathing across the tips. He kissed her nipples, the curve of her breasts as his hands shaped her waist, cradled her hips.

Those places on her body, unobtrusive and quiet, she loved to be touched. The back of her knee, the crease of her elbow. He knew all of them, like a map he’d committed to memory.

He stroked and touched until the fires came back.

Until she forgot who she was and who he was and what a huge mistake they were making.

Dropping his head to her neck, he picked up the rhythm, drove them headlong as fast as he could, as if he
knew she was a reluctant passenger, as if at any moment she could come back to her senses, right into pleasure.

Awkwardly, Madelyn picked her clothes up from the floor, slipping on her underwear and pants, all too aware of her naked ass and his interest.

“So,” he asked and she looked over her shoulder at him just in time to see him working on the middle button of his shirt. With the scarred half of his face hidden, he looked like one of those men on the underwear ad billboards. “Are you just using me for sex or can I get a meal out of it, too?”

Smiling at her blank expression, he pulled the shirt from her limp hand and slipped it over her head. Dressing her tenderly, as if she were a child. “Can I take you out to dinner?” he asked, his heart in his eyes.

“What?” she snapped, slapping his hands away.

“Food. Some steaks. Frankly, I don’t think anyone is feeding you these days.”

“No. Billy—”

“Okay.” He shrugged, totally nonplussed. “Thought I’d give it a shot.”

“We’re not …” Awkward, she pointed to the office chair they’d just defiled. “Dating.”

“Trust me.” He also pointed to the chair. “I know what that’s called.”

He pulled the vest on over his untucked shirt, leaving the buttons undone. The jacket, slightly wrinkled, was picked up from her office floor.

“You have big plans this weekend?” he asked and then laughed when she just gaped at him. “We can’t even make small talk? Maddy, come on. Throw me a bone.”

“I … I have a charity thing tomorrow.” She put on her shoes.

She’d gotten picky the last few years about which charity events she attended because she wanted to enjoy the events and in her position she got asked to a lot. But this one had sounded interesting, a sports-based curriculum for inner-city kids.

“Charity? Sick kids or poor ones?”

“A new charter school for inner-city kids.” She dug through the drawers of her dressing table for a hair-band. It seemed like Gina kept taking all of hers and leaving them on the dressing tables backstage.

Billy was quiet, so she glanced at him to make sure he wasn’t staring at her butt. He wasn’t. He was grinning at her like he had a secret.

“What?”

“You need a date?”

Back in the far corner she felt something rubber band like.

“No. Billy, I just told you we’re not dating.”

“I bought a tux from Tam. I’ll be pretty slick. Maybe I’ll get you a corsage and we can make out in my truck after. Just like old times.”

“This isn’t going to happen again.”

“What?”

“Us.” She yanked her hair back in a ponytail, pulling it extra tight as if to punish herself for the pleasure she’d just had. “And what in the world do you need a tux for?”