No Reservations (Special Ops: Tribute Book 1) (17 page)

A grin slid up his face. “Oh, I think that would be illegal,
considering I only give full body massages.”

She returned his smile. “Just what exactly encompasses a
full
body massage?”

His eyes remained on her as he lowered his face to her
breast. “It’s best if I just show you,” he explained, taking a nipple in his
mouth while his finger slid into her moisture.

A gasp escaped her as he moved his finger in and out of her
while he nibbled and licked the delicate skin of each breast. In the rare
moments that his lips left her, he whispered words decadent and alluring, and
his hot breath against her skin tickled her in the most seductive way. Body bowing
upward, she reached for a climax as it came into view, until fireworks blasted
behind her eyes as she pulsated against him.

When she halfway recovered, her eyes rested on him. God, he
was a sight.

“It’s not my area of legal expertise, but I was hoping for a
little more illegal than that,” she teased.

His eyes flashed with challenge. “Oh, I’m not done yet.” Reaching
into his pocket, he pulled out a condom before he slid his pants off his hips
and let them fall to a heap on the floor. His other clothes followed, and then
he lowered his body over hers.

The muscles in his shoulders and arms tightened as he held
his torso above her, and she opened her legs, urgently needing much more than
what his fingers had provided. She needed all of him, that sensation of being
fully joined, their bodies experiencing passion in perfect unison.

Watching as he slid into her, tiny sparks fired throughout
her core, coaxing her up a spiral again, till her body drew tight, poised to
explode. Dragging her fingernails along his back, she pulled him closer, till
she could hear the slapping of their moist skin together as he drove into her.

“Faster,” she urged, not wanting to wait tonight. She needed
to feel the release of his body inside her, hear the pleasure of his moan as he
came. She wanted it so desperately that even the thought of it had her passion
raging, lifting her higher toward ecstasy.

“Harder,” she demanded, and he gave her what she wanted,
letting her feel him thrusting inside of her like his life depended on it.

Muscles coiled, her eyelids fluttered until they finally
slammed shut. Breath came to her in sharp gasps till her throat felt raw, and
her back arched. Then unable to hold on any longer, she gave in to the
sensation, crying out his name as she came. Her scream undid him, and he chased
her in the climax with one final thrust till his body collapsed on top of her.

Just the pressure of him atop her was enough to coax out a
wave of aftershocks, her body quaking beneath him. A moan caught in her chest
as she savored the last waves of passion, until she finally relaxed beneath
him.

“Definitely illegal,” she breathed out. “Though I for one
would be lining up at your massage parlor, money in hand.”

He lifted his head, a rascally smile spreading across his
face. “And I’m not even finished yet.”

She giggled as he rolled her to her side, his lips tracking
from her mouth to her neck, setting the hairs on her arms on end. And she
yielded to him, already looking forward to the irresistible array of sensations
to begin again.

Maddox woke up fully content as he stared at Bridget
sleeping beside him.

Barely a week had passed since her open house, and she
already had two guests in one of the rooms, the Donovans—a father and son
touring Annapolis and exploring the possibility of putting the Academy in the young
man’s future.

Maddox had moved his scant belongings to Bridget’s room—not
because she needed the room available for other guests yet, but simply because sneaking
down the halls to avoid other guests when he felt the need to sleep beside
Bridget didn’t sit well with him. And he thanked the stars above that she
seemed to feel the same way.

He glanced at the clock on the nightstand, but it was still
too early to get the coffee started. That had become part of his routine with
guests in the house, happy to have something he could actually do to help her
as she transitioned into being a full-fledged innkeeper. He’d get the coffee
brewing so that she could have five extra minutes in the shower before whipping
up breakfast for her guests.

But the reality of it was that she didn’t need his help at
all. She was a natural at this. With all the trepidation that she’d experienced
opening her doors, Maddox had half-expected she’d be a bundle of nerves when
she had her first guests in here… other than himself, that is. He remembered
that first day they met, how her hand had trembled as she handed him the keys.

There were no trembling hands or quiver in her voice when
the Donovans had arrived. Only confidence and a bright smile. What was the
difference, he wondered? He couldn’t resist hoping that maybe having him around
was helping her somehow.

As his eyes drifted from her peaceful profile to the
wallpaper, he felt his lip curl.
Again
. The reaction was growing
familiar to him. As a guy who’d never cared much what a place looked like, that
wallpaper was an exception because it irked him to know how hard she’d worked
on the rest of the inn, only to deny herself from having a room that looked as
nice as the others.

“That wallpaper has to come down,” he told her the moment
her eyes flitted open.

“I’ve gotten used to it.”

“That’s what’s scary. It’s like living in a war zone. People
get used to it, but it doesn’t make it right.”

Her lips turned downward as she glanced around the room. “It
is pretty bad,” she admitted.

“Hideous,” he amended. “And I’m a guy. I don’t normally
steer toward melodramatic adjectives. But there’s no other word for it. Even
your aunt hated it.”

“Why do you say that?”

“What you told me she wrote in her will. Something like,
‘Take down the wallpaper, and forgive me for it.’ If she’d have just thrown in
the phrase God-awful, then she’d be dead-on.”

Sighing, Bridget stretched out her lithe body making
Maddox’s cock twitch in reaction.

“I’m just tired of renovating things, Maddox. I burned out after
doing the rest of the house. Besides, no one has to see it.”

“Except you. And me. And if you seriously like the red and pink
velveteen on your walls, I’ll live with it. But I just keep thinking that since
I’m here, I may as well rip it off and throw some paint up there. You won’t
have to do a thing.” He liked the idea, guilt still gnawing at him because he
hadn’t been around to help her with the rest of the house.

“You’ve got a store to fix up.”

“Hey, everything I can do there is done. Now I’m leaving it
up to the pros. I don’t want the place to look like a hack job if we’re
charging a couple bucks a scoop.” He rolled to his side. “Look, I’m meeting
with the contractor this morning. And I was planning on taking the afternoon to
look at some places for me to live. But if you’re not in a rush to get rid of
me—”

“Definitely not in a rush.”

He flashed a smile. “I was hoping you’d say that. So how
about I pick you up at two and we can pick out paint together? The Donovans are
checking out today. And you don’t have anyone else in yet, so this is the time
for me to do it.”

“It’s a date.”

Maddox grinned at her reply, and was still grinning six
hours later when he lugged a couple cans of paint and a bag of supplies up the
front stoop. The afternoon heat and humidity was bearing down on Annapolis, and
the streets were barren, with most locals either out on their boats or holed up
in their homes with the A/C turned on high.

They’d picked out a creamy celery green for the room.
They’d
picked it out, he couldn’t help remembering. She’d actually wanted his opinion on
the matter, and he couldn’t resist hoping that meant she planned on keeping him
around for a good, long time. He liked the idea of playing house with Bridget,
even though he promised himself he’d start looking for a home for himself this
week—a promise he’d made to himself last week, as well.

Funny, how he kept letting that fall to the wayside.

The inn was feeling too much like home to him.
Bridget
was feeling too much like home—as though wherever she was, was where he
was meant to be.

Yet still, he needed to find a place of his own. Next week.

Really.

Standing in front of the largest wall in her bedroom, he
gloried in the sound of the first strip of wallpaper ripping off and falling to
the ground. The second and third strip followed, and already, the
migraine-inducing pattern was losing its stranglehold on the room.

By the time the first wall was bare, Bridget popped her head
in. “Wow. It’s looking better already. Ready for some help yet?”

“Nope. Just go put your feet up. Watch TV or something. You
work too hard.”

“That’s the pot calling the kettle black,” she replied,
settling herself onto the bed.

“Yeah, well, maybe. But I’ll get this done a lot quicker if
I don’t have you around as a distraction.” Letting out a pained breath, he
glanced at Bridget’s legs stretched out on the bed near him. She wore a pretty
basic t-shirt on top, that looked anything but basic as it hugged her curves.

“You don’t want company?” she asked, and he’d swear she was
batting her eyelashes at him as she said it.

He stopped a moment and just stared at her, wondering if she
had noticed the erection that was perking up beneath his shorts. “It’s what I
want to
do
with the company that’s the problem.”

She giggled and shimmied off the bed. “Okay. I’ll go make us
something to eat.”

Just don’t come back here in that apron
or I won’t get anything done
,
he thought, tugging at another piece of wallpaper. With a final yank, it came
free, revealing a large hole along the bottom of the wall.

“What the—?” He stared at the rectangular hole, his
exclamation stopping Bridget in the doorway.

“Oh no.” As she turned, her face revealed a pained
expression. “What is it now? Is there mold? Because that’s the only thing I’ve
managed to avoid so far in this renovation.”

Sitting on the hardwood to get closer to the hole, Maddox
furrowed his brow. “No. Not mold.”

“What’s that?” she asked, coming around the other side of
the bed so she could see.

“Just a hole. Guess she just papered right over it.” He picked
at its edges. It looked like it was put there intentionally, with ragged edges
that looked like they were sliced with either an extremely dull saw or, more
likely, a steak knife. “Do you have a flashlight?”

“Sure.” She left the room momentarily and brought one back
to him, placing it in his hand as she sat on the floor next to him.

He glared the bright light into the hole and his eyebrows rose.
“Looks like there’s something in here,” he observed, reaching in and retrieving
a dusty manila envelope. “Here’s a mystery for you, Nancy Drew.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” she responded taking the envelope from
him and tracing her finger along the seal at the top. After a moment, her index
finger poked its way through the top of it, poised to rip it open, when she suddenly
stopped cold.

“You don’t want to open it?” he asked.

She just sat there, staring at it as though a million voices
in her head were battling each other.

“What is it, Bridget?”

***

Blood flow rushed to her head as if a dam had burst, and
Bridget could hear the thundering of her heartbeat vibrating against her
eardrums.

She opened her mouth slightly to speak, but she hesitated,
still looking at the envelope and hearing her aunt’s voice amid the silence of
the room. Glancing at Maddox, she felt like a fool. The voice was nowhere but
in her imagination. But the words were clear, words Bridget had only seen typed
on an official-looking document.

“Take down the wallpaper and forgive me for it,” she said,
repeating the sentence from her aunt’s will in a hushed tone, so quiet Maddox probably
had to strain to hear her.

It had always seemed a peculiar statement to Bridget, the
tone of the words inappropriate for a last will and testament. And the sarcasm
of them wasn’t really Lydia’s style.

“What if she wasn’t talking about how ugly the wallpaper
was?” she suggested to Maddox.

“What do you mean?”

“What if she knew she was hiding something behind the
paper?” A chill shot up her spine at the sound of the words falling past her
lips.

“That would make sense.” Maddox’s words seemed to mirror
Bridget’s thoughts.

She gazed at the envelope in her hands. “And whatever is in
here—it’s what she needed forgiveness for.”

Maddox pressed his lips together for a moment. “Are you
going to open it?”

“I don’t know if I want to.”

“Maybe your parents might know what—”

“My parents?” Fury stung as she cut him off. “The same
parents who lied to me about the safety deposit box? The same ones who…” Her
voice trailed, remembering.

“What is it?”

“When Lydia left this place to me, they raced up here so
fast to empty it out of anything but the furniture. I was just in DC. So much
closer than they were. I’d wanted to help. But they’d told me they didn’t want me
to.”

“I remember. You told me that before.”

“Yeah, well, I kept trying to convince myself that it was
because they were helping me. But what if they were looking for something?”

Maddox leaned back. “You mean, looking for this?”

“Yes.”

“Do you really think they’d do that?”

Her shoulders sagged. “You don’t know what it’s like,
Maddox—what it’s always been like with them. I always felt like there
were so many unanswered questions in my family. Any time I dared to ask
something, if the topic wasn’t something they were comfortable with, I was
ignored or lied to. You remember that message from my mom,” she added, her eyes
tracking from the envelope to him.

“Yeah. That was pretty fucked up.” His mouth winced as
though he hadn’t meant to sound so judgmental.

But he was right. And there really wasn’t a better way to
describe it. She nodded ruefully. “I just assumed that it all came from my
dad’s past, you know? Well, maybe there’s more to it than I thought. Maybe…” She
paused, her mind concocting a dozen unsavory reasons her parents might have
been lying to her.

“What would your aunt have to do with anything your family
was going through? You said they were barely in contact.” As he said the words,
his eyes told her that he was making the same conclusion that she was.

Her parents might have ceased contact with her aunt because
of whatever was in the envelope.

“It can only be bad news, Maddox.”

“You don’t need to justify anything to me. If you don’t want
to open it, then that’s all I need to know.”

“Maybe I’m justifying it to myself.” She touched the
envelope again, battling the curiosity that wanted desperately to rip it open,
find out what it was that her family was hiding from her all these years. “I
mean, if my aunt left me some old stock certificates in here or a deed to
waterfront property or something I’d actually
want
, she wouldn’t exactly
be asking forgiveness for it, right?”

“That would be my guess.”

She dropped the envelope like a hot coal that had burned
her. And maybe, in some way, it had.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.” Leaning against the
side of the bed, she shook her head.

“You know what my mom used to always tell me when I couldn’t
decide what to do?”

“What’s that?”

“That sometimes you can just make the decision to not
decide.”

She pressed her lips together, and her gaze wandered to the
envelope again.

“Whatever is in there will still be there tomorrow or next
week or next year, Bridget. You don’t have to face it right now.”

Her shoulders relaxed at his words, feeling the logic of
them. Once she opened it, there would be no going back. She needed to make sure
it was what she really wanted.