Page 76 of Wretched Heart
With a huff, she does as she’s told, and for a while, the silence between us is broken only by the soft wisp of paper as she turns the pages of her book. When I hear her sigh one too many times, my gaze drifts away from my laptop. I blinkhard as I focus on what she’s reading. Now I’m the one fidgeting as my cock strains against my shorts.
“Have you been reading over my shoulder, Hunter?”
I grind my teeth, willing my erection to go down. “Maybe a paragraph or two,” I admit. “Do you think I could make you come without touching you?”
“They were in an art gallery surrounded by cameras. They weren’t allowed to touch. We are,” she points out. “And before you get any ideas about setting a challenge, I’ve spent years having to rely on my imagination. While I have you, I want your touch. Ineedyour touch.”
I’m grateful she hasn’t tried to slip her hand beneath the sheets. I have to retain some strength for what I need to do tomorrow. I kiss the top of her head. “I’m guessing you read a lot of books before I came along.”
“Books were my only escape. They took me to places where people were allowed to feel,” she admits, tracing the edges of her book with gentle reverence.
“You weren’t allowed to feel?”
She shrugs in answer, but I wait it out. I need her to explain. I want to understand how I’ve changed her life, and how I might change her niece’s life too. I need the reassurance that I can make a difference even if I only get to spend a short while with this woman.
When I give Maddie enough space, she finally speaks. “I learned early on never to show Hugo any reaction. If I liked something, or god forbid, cared for someone, he’d see my feelings as a weakness he could exploit. It was like handing him a weapon to beat me with. It was the same with the things I disliked, or feared. He’d taunt and torture me just for the fun of it. So I stopped showing fear, or love.”
I roll my lips. No wonder Maddie had kept surprising me. I read her wrong from the start. “When I firstmet you in the chapel, I thought you were cold. I thought your whole family were. It was odd how your sister-in-law didn’t come over to comfort you. No one did.”
“We’d both been conditioned like that,” she says. “And running away was like stepping out of a black and white movie into a world of technicolor. But it was when you picked me up in the shower that I knew I could never go back to my old life. I remember seeing your reaction to the bruise on my back. You showed me in that moment who you were. And I wanted you to see me too.”
“Oh, I see you,” I promise, closing my laptop. I slide down the bed, taking Maddie with me so we’re lying next to each other. I cup her face in my hands. “In some ways, I’ve been conditioned not to feel too. The first woman I was meant to love betrayed me so deeply that my heart didn’t recover. I never wanted someone to have that kind of power over me again. It was the same with Ash and Mace. She fucked us all up.”
Maddie looks shocked at first, but then she figures it out. “Oh, right. You’re talking about your mom, aren’t you?”
A smile tugs at the corners of my mouth. Melissa had given me a rundown of all the main romance tropes, whether I wanted her to or not. Maddie thought I was talking about a ‘why choose’ situation. “I see where your mind went, little bird. And in case you were wondering, my brothers and I don’t share.”
“Good to know,” she says, biting her lip. “Tell me what happened with your mom? I’d assumed she’d died.”
“My birth mother didn’t die. She walked away when Mace was still a baby. There was brief contact when we were in our teens, but we were the guilty secret she didn’t want to be reminded about. Reid’s mom, Lisa was the only maternal figure in our lives, but we nevercalled her mom. In hindsight, I wish we had. She treated us as sons just as much as she did Reid. I made my peace with her before she died, but still…”
“It sounds like you were lucky to have her.”
“In so many ways we were, but there’s always a price to pay, even for the good kind of love,” I warn. “When Lisa died, Dad didn’t have the strength to carry on, and we lost him a year later. Both his marriages had ended with heartbreak and the last one was fatal. Not exactly great selling points.”
“Aren’t some risks worth it?” Maddie asks. There’s pleading in her eyes that I’d be well advised to ignore.
“Try telling that to Ash.”
She cocks her head, waiting for me to say more. I lean in and kiss her gently before she can ask the question.
“It’s not my story to tell,” I say. I stroke the side of her face. “You’re my story. You’re the one who made me feel again. You’re not the only one who changed when I picked you up in the shower. I think I knew then it would only be a matter of time before you broke me.”
“And did I break you?”
“Broke me. Ruined me. Eroded my self-control,” I say with a lazy smile. “And I’d let you do it all again.”
Her eyes glisten. “I would too. I’d invade and conquer you, just like you’ve conquered me. I’d take every piece of you, Hunter and I’d never let you go.”
We hold each other’s gaze. There are things we’re not saying, but they float between us like specters. This story of ours is almost at an end, but we’re allowing ourselves to dream of more chapters, even if our divorce papers have already been prepared and are just waiting for some lawyer to press print.
Chapter 24
Hunter
The hotel suite is filled with a mixture of Killian’s men and a group of women they appear to be very familiar with. The deal is done and Hugo has signed his life away.
He’s currently enjoying his good fortune with a scantily-clad female on his lap. Ash and I have escaped to the balcony.
