Maddie and Wyn (33 page)

His frame straight as an arrow, Wyn nodded. “He’s here for a limited time, and I was there this time. I kept an eye on him.”

“Oh.” Jayden’s brow quirked up. “So he’s okay?”

“He’s allowed to be there.”

“But that’s not the same as saying he’s okay.”

“Very true.” A hint of new light sparked in Wyn’s dark eyes. “You are—” His cell phone chimed then, and he cursed and lifted a finger. “Excuse me.” He stepped a couple of feet away and put the phone to his ear. “Lieutenant Ashworth speaking.”

Maddie watched Wyn, and less than five seconds after he took the call, his entire body stiffened and color leached from his face. “Let me speak to him.” His free hand twisting into a tight fist, he swore, and then in a hissing whisper said, “Get out of there now or I will send someone over there to arrest you. I won’t come myself. You won’t see me. But I will have you arrested for trespassing. Do you understand me?” A tense silence hung in the air for an agonizing heartbeat, and then he bit off, “No. Get the hell out of town. Goodbye.”

The moment Wyn ended the call, Maddie rushed over to him, immediately sliding her arm around his waist. “What is it?” The strain in his face tugged terribly at her heart. “Are you all right?”

A battle clearly waged inside Wyn, Maddie could see all the shades of bright and dark warring in his eyes. He put his phone away. As he did, his hand slid over hers where she had it on his waist, and he suddenly put a crushing grip on her fingers. “My father’s in town again.” His tone was so stripped it was as if he’d lost his voice. “He showed up at my apartment, banging on my door, making a scene, wanting to see me.”

“Oh my God—wait.” The full statement sinking into her brain, Maddie spun Wyn to fully face her, grabbing his forearms. “Again?”

Wyn nodded. “I have to go.” He cleared his throat and added, “We’ll talk about it tonight.” In rapid succession he dipped down and pecked a kiss to her cheek, stepped away, and lifted his hand toward the young man hanging at the SUV. “Jayden, it was nice to finally meet you. We’ll talk again soon.” With that, Wyn strode out of the garage.

Every fiber of Maddie’s being shrieked at her to chase after him, but she held her stance at the garage. Just as loud as her internal screams, Wyn’s body language had shouted that he needed to be by himself right now. She understood. She often felt the same. He’d also said they would talk tonight, and he’d become very good at keeping his word lately. She had to trust that he would continue on this path and tell her what she needed to know after he had time to collect himself, his emotions, and his thoughts. So as much as she wanted to run out of the garage and force him into her arms, she stayed where she was, and instead wrapped her arms around herself, warding off a chill.

Jayden stepped to her side, shoulder against shoulder. “Is everything okay?”

Snapping out of her wandering thoughts, Maddie promised, “Yep,” and steered Jayden in the direction of work. “Let’s get back to this engine. Hook up the vacuum gauge.” She hopped in behind the wheel of the vehicle. “Let’s see if we can diagnose this Cherokee.”

Maddie dived into her job. Right now there was nothing else she could do.

* * * *

In town, still locked up tight, Wyn drove toward another motel, searching for a sign of his father, checking to be sure he’d gotten out of town. In between the motels, hotels and bed and breakfasts, Wyn had kept an eye out on the sidewalks and around restaurants too, mumbling about how he’d better not find his father still hanging around town.

In his most secret heart of hearts though, Wyn knew he didn’t speak the truth. A bone-deep yearning to connect to Graham Ashworth still poked and bled him inside, exposing the thinnest parts of his soul. Wyn hated it; hated knowing this needy side of him existed. This weakness was such a betrayal to his amazing mother and to his brother too. Four years ago, one conversation with his dad, the crushing love it had exposed in Wyn, had devastated Wyn and ruined his life.
No. No
. He growled at himself.
No excuses.
You have nobody to blame but yourself for what you did to Maddie.

For four years Wyn had told himself he was getting stronger and tougher and if given the chance would never let Maddie down again. But one word that his dad was back in town and here Wyn was, driving around town, a glimmer of need in his most private soul hoping to see the man again.

This was the weakness Wyn hated and feared. It was the character flaw he feared would make him lose Maddie again.

For at least the tenth time that afternoon, Maddie put a finger in her book to hold her place, hopped out of bed, and wandered to the window overlooking the garden. Down in the wrought iron enclosure Wyn wielded a chainsaw, cutting down dead branches on an overgrown tree. He wore protective goggles and gloves and even jeans and a long sleeve plaid shirt, but Maddie could still see him as he’d looked when he’d started the morning in the garden: shirtless, the glitter of the early sun bouncing off his tanned skin, his thick muscles somehow even more pronounced with the drips of sweat gliding down his flesh into the waistband of his jeans.

A soft, needy noise escaping her, Maddie pulsed between her thighs. She’d been wet for hours, and she knew this time she could not blame her aroused state on the racy romance novel she was reading. Wyn had told her to relax on her day off, do whatever she wanted to enjoy herself, and let him repair the garden for her on his own. Only rather than reading, all day long Maddie had been creating her own romance novel in her mind, envisioning countless scenarios where she joined Wyn outside, naked as the day she’d come into this world, and seduced him away from his work. She could put to use the patch of grass he’d cleared and ride him long and hard under the sun; or maybe strip him down, push him onto one of the benches, and straddle him for all he was worth.

So full of insatiable hunger for this man, Maddie slid her hand between her thighs and pushed the seam of her denim cutoffs against her clit and crease. Sweet pressure on her little pearl of need dragged out a whimper. As if he could hear that tiniest sound, Wyn looked up and caught Maddie’s gaze. Maddie pulled away from the window, but not before the heat in Wyn’s stare, from all that distance away, pierced straight through the air and into her body.

Whoa.
Maddie threw herself onto the bed, out of sight, but she was sure he’d seen her with her hand between her legs.
Caught for the second time today.
Using the book to fan herself, Maddie tried to tell herself that his seeing her touch her breasts and then her pussy wasn’t a big deal. After all, she’d done a lot more explicit things with him since he’d moved into her home nine days ago. But still, something about him seeing her voyeuristic sexual desire for him, while he’d been working and thus his mind wasn’t in the same place at all, made her vulnerabilities bubble to the surface and goose bumps pop up on her legs.

But if you’re honest
—Maddie sighed so heavily she blew a tuft of hair off the side of her face—
he did expose some vulnerability to you when he talked about his father a little bit last night.
Maybe this was some kind of karmic quid-pro-quo. Wyn hadn’t let go of much; he’d admitted that a few years ago his father had shown up in town, and that debating whether or not to speak with him had stirred complicated feelings. Because of those feelings, for a period of time Wyn had loathed himself for even considering talking to the man. Maddie had poked with a few more questions, but Wyn had kissed her with desperation and stripped her clothes off as if he couldn’t get inside her fast enough, and Maddie had lost herself to giving him what he’d needed, losing herself in him in the process.

So maybe him seeing me about to play with myself twice isn’t so bad.
As that thought moved through her head, so silly in its seriousness, Maddie laughed and rolled her eyes toward the heavens.

Footsteps suddenly thundered on the stairs, and a moment later Wyn stood at her door, his shirt already more than halfway unbuttoned. He stalked into the room, gloriously sweaty, his cock already visible against his jeans.

“I am trying to earn my keep, Ma’am,” Wyn put on a terrible southern drawl as he moved to the bed, “but a man can only take so much distraction.”

Giggling like she hadn’t in years, Maddie undid a button on her top and leaned on her side, letting the fabric fall open across her breast. “Perhaps you can earn your bed here another way.” She brushed the edges of her open book over her bared nipple, the pages softly fluttering over the tip, and she gasped as her areola beaded in response. Batting her eyes up at him, she purred, “I’m awfully lonely in this big, drafty house.”

One knee braced on the edge of the bed, Wyn dramatically ripped his shirt down his arms and threw it across the room. “I’m just a humble yard worker without much experience in pleasing a land-owning young lady such as yourself.” He undid his jeans and tore down the zipper, revealing a triangle of stark white underwear beneath. “Maybe your fancy reading book can give me inspiration.” He quickly plucked the book out of her hands.

Maddie’s heart rate spiked, but before she could say “wait” he opened the book to the page she had marked with her finger and began to read aloud.
“Unsure and a little frightened but also excited,”
Wyn read from the text,
“Willow folded herself over the side of the bed, offering North her ass.”

Wyn’s voice, so deep and gritty, so different from the voice narrating in her head when she read her books, made the words resonate in a different way for Maddie, darker and richer, touching an unexplored place in her soul.

Wyn continued reading from the story.
“Reaching back, Willow spread her cheeks for North and softly pleaded with him to breach her virgin entrance. The larger-than-life man uttered her name as if it were both a blessing and a curse and covered her from behind. His heat penetrated into her and coursed through her body, and the scent of outdoors, a smell always attached to him, filled her nose and invaded her blood. North spit on his hand and rubbed his cock against her rear entrance; just the slight pressure made Willow shiver and her muscles tense. North pushed harder against her bud, awakening her channel beyond. At the same time he brushed kisses across her shoulders, and his long tawny hair fell over her shoulder and grazed her face. He whispered, ‘I love you, lass.’ A tear full of forbidden love for this man rolled down Willow’s cheek just as North pushed his masterful length into her ass, claiming her as no man ever had, marking her far deeper than her rear tunnel, much deeper into her traitor’s soul.”

His Adam’s apple bobbing, Wyn looked up, slashes of red burned across his cheeks. “Does this excite you?”

Pulling away from eye contact, Maddie looked down at the comforter. “I don’t know.” She started to pick at the material, hated the tell of such a nervous gesture, and forced herself to look back up at him. This time, in a stronger voice, she admitted, “Yes, it does.”

Setting the book on the nightstand, Wyn folded his leg to sit on the side of the bed. “Have you fantasized about anal sex?”

This time Maddie couldn’t stop the way she rubbed her fingers against the comforter. With her heart pounding much too heavy in her chest, she nodded at him. “Yes.”

Wyn scooted a little closer and put his hand on her knee. “Maddie.” He played with her skin and sent shivers up her inner thigh. “Do you want me to do this to you?”

A bubble of laughter fizzed up out of Maddie. “Only if I can do it to you first.” She instantly covered her mouth with her hand. “Sorry.”

Without pause, Wyn tugged Maddie’s hand away from her face. “Okay, no kidding and no nervous answers here. No more tantalizing story or book characters. No teasing about roles of gardener and lady. Just me and you. Maddie to Wyn. I’m not silently judging you, as I believe you would not judge me in return.” Pausing, he squeezed the back of her hand just a bit too hard, and the moment he did Maddie started breathing easier. “So I will admit,” his tone was a little rusty, “I’ve had a wet dream about taking your ass. More than one. But what I want to know, nervousness aside, would you doing the same to me turn you on?”

“I don’t know.” Honesty compelled Maddie to add, “I think so. I’ve thought about it too. Both ways.” She suddenly sat up straighter, her chest seizing. “Have you ever had someone do that to you before?”

“No.” Wyn’s response was quick and precise. “I don’t think I would have let anybody else even ask.” He threaded his fingers in hers, tugging on her hand gently. “If you wanted it now though, I would let you.”

A tremble rushed through Maddie, elevating her pulse. Still, she played with Wyn’s fingers and held back a bit. “Only if you think you would enjoy it too.”

His answering smile pulled his mouth tightly at the edges. “Intellectually I know stimulation like this can be very pleasurable. I think I would be okay with it.” The front of his jeans twitched, pushing the head of his cock against his underwear. “Hell.” This time, it was his turn to chuckle and shake his head. “If we’re being real, I’m getting kind of excited thinking about you doing what you want with me.”

A burst of energy exploding in her, Maddie launched across the bed and yanked open her nightstand. Tossing some condoms, lube, and a small vibrator willy-nilly on the bed, she hooted when she found what she wanted. “I have this.” She held up the swirl patterned, multi-color glass dildo. “Do you remember it?”

“Well fuck.” Wyn stood up and shoved his jeans and underwear down to mid-thigh. “Now you just made me full-on hard.” He framed the full-mast tilt of his prick with his hands. Blushing like a schoolboy, he said, “It looks like you’re going to have to do me up proper to take care of this right.”

Too much love coursing through her that she didn’t yet know how to speak, Maddie threw herself across the bed again, this time straight into Wyn’s arms.

*

Wyn caught Maddie against his chest, his heart soaring with the boundless way she threw her arms around him. She pecked kisses all over his face, and each fast touch of her lips to his skin were like drops of pure sunlight from heaven.