Page 62 of The Last One You Loved
Instead, I picked up my office line and grunted, “Hatley, here.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE
MCKENNA
EVEN IF I WANTED TO
“And baby, you’re the touch I can’t resist
The gravity that makes me powerless”
Performed by Rachael Fahim and Brad Cox
Written by Smith / Harrington
Holy hell,I was shivering with need. It was rolling through me in waves I was having a hard time controlling even with Maddox on the other side of his desk and a phone in his hand. My body was begging me to straddle him in his chair and finish what we’d started.
It had never been this way with us before. In the past, we’d had a slow, sweet build that we’d lost ourselves to. This…this had been a tear-your-clothes-off, throw-you-on-the-bed kind of passion. The kind I’d doubted existed. With Kerry, I’d been lucky to climax before he was through. If I didn’t, he told me I was too wound up that night. Moments ago, with Maddox, I’d been ready to come without him ever having gotten me completely naked.
I squirmed on the wooden chair across from him, forcing myself to take in my surroundings, to focus on anything but how his thick bottom lip moved when he spoke and how it had felt on mine. I concentrated on the plain tan walls and more black-and-white photographs I suspected were his, and when that didn’t work, I started working my way through every bone in the human body.
When he finally hung up, we stared at each other for a long moment, and I wondered why he’d been talking with Trap’s parole officer.
“Why?”
“Are you?” We both spoke at the same time and stopped with an uneasy laugh.
He waved a hand at me. “Please.”
“Why are you looking for Trap?”
His jaw flexed as he debated telling me the truth. He got up, went back to the closet, and finished getting dressed. I could feel his eyes on me, but I refused to watch, knowing if I did, I’d only want to help him right back out of the clothes. Once he had his uniform on, he came and sat on the edge of the desk, legs inches from mine.
“Sybil is in town.” He waited for my reaction, but I’d already heard the news from Rianne, so I just nodded, and he continued. “She screwed up the terms of her probation, and now I’m charged with arresting her and putting her in jail. I chased her up to the West Gears’ Nest today, and…” He hesitated, rubbing his beard. “Let’s just say, after the showdown, I have reason to believe Trap’s life might be in danger.”
I sat there stunned for a moment. Unsure what I was supposed to feel. Unsure what I actually did feel. I didn’t love the man. Not in the way you were supposed to love your parents. Sometimes, I wondered if I could even love at all. If the capability had been ripped out of me with every hit and mark and bruise.You loved Maddox, my conscious screamed. And I had…or at least as much as a screwed-up teenager could love another human being.
“Did you arrest her?” I finally asked.
He shook his head. “No. She took off on an ATV with a member of the Gears. We’re still looking. Now, it’s your turn. Why are you here?”
I rested my hands on my knees, forcing my toes to be still. “Rianne…she told me about Mama and the threats she held over you regarding Mila’s dad.” I looked up, and his eyes narrowed in on me. I didn’t know if he was upset with Rianne for telling me or just the fact I knew more than he’d wanted me to. I couldn’t read him this way, so I just pushed forward with my logic. “I wanted to help. So, I called Trap to confirm he isn’t Mila’s dad and ask if he knew who Mama might have been with.”
His eyebrows lifted, and he inhaled sharply. The idea of finding out who Mila’s biological father was would be a sucker punch because Maddox was actually Mila’s dad no matter whose DNA she had running through her. The love the two of them shared was undeniable and definitely more than I’d ever felt for either of my parents.
“Did you reach him?” he finally asked, voice deep and tortured.
I shook my head. “Some woman answered, but she said she could get him a message and would have him call me back.”
“Give me the number,” he said. The coincidence of us both looking for Trap on the same day was a weird twist of the universe, as if fate really was playing with us.
I still hesitated.
“McKenna.”
“If I give you the number, you’ll run it and have someone confront her, and then there’s no way Trap will return my call.”
“Trap’s not Mila’s dad, McK,” he said.
