Chapter 41

I tell her about the confrontation.

“Those bastards,” she breathes.

I tell her about the paper trail and the way Max crumpled it.

“That asshole!”

And then I tell her what happened next. It’s not easy to say. I guess it’s not going to come as a huge surprise to you that it is not easy for me to tell Maddie, or anyone, how I feel.

“You know how you said I should start my own business?”

She nods.

“I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve been doing some research and taking some steps. So when Max crumpled up those pieces of paper, I just—knew. I was going to do it.”

And here’s the hard part.

“I knew, because I wanted to be that guy. That guy you were describing. The one who was smart, who wouldn’t take shit from the super or the developer.”

Nope. Here’s the hard part.

“I wanted to be that guy for you.”

“Oh,” she says again, but this time her eyes shine with tears.

Okay, I think I’ve earned this. I slide my hand into the back of her hair and draw her close and kiss her hard. And oh, my God, it’s good. Her mouth is sweet and hungry, and how did just a few days without doing this become unbearable?

Then, just as I’m about to pick her up and deposit her on a soft horizontal surface and have my wicked way with her, she pulls back and gives me a suspicious look.

“But you dismissed the idea of starting your own business when I said it.”

“Yes. I dismissed the idea at the time.”

She grins. “So…?”

“Okay. You told me so.”

“I told you so!”

“Just don’t make that a habit,” I say gruffly, but I don’t fucking care. She can lord everything over me for the rest of our lives, and that will be okay. Because, let’s just repeat that. Rest of our lives!

And I realize—I’m here, telling her the story, just the way I wanted to when it happened. I’m home, she’s home, we’re home together, and—

“Where’s Gabe?”

“Sienna’s there.”

“How?”

“Don’t ask,” she says. “Your sister is a good person. I love her. Keep talking.”

She loves Sienna, huh?

Does she love me?

Maybe she’s feeling it too, because she says, “So, Jack. Just to clarify. We’re, like, together.”

“We’re actually fucking together,” I clarify. “Not just ‘like.’ ”

“Like, we’re going to live together in the same house with Gabe?”

“That. Exactly fucking that. No ‘like’ about it.”

“And we’re going to have sex.” Her voices drops a little, and she gets this super-sexy little secret smile on her face.

“Lots of sex,” I say.

“Could we, um, start now?”

I don’t bother to answer that question. Or, not in words, anyway. I cup her face in my hands and drop my mouth to hers, and kiss her as gently as I can manage. Which lasts about three seconds, because she grabs the back of my head and pulls on my hair and kisses me so fucking fiercely that I have trouble catching my breath.

No one kisses like Maddie. Like she’s all in, like all of her energy and spirit is focused into making me feel as good as humanly possible, like she’s trying to tell me with her lips and her tongue how much I matter to her. And I’m trying to tell her back. And we’re tangled up, getting in each other’s way; it’s like a wrestling match as we tumble onto the couch, and she’s trying to get my clothes off and I’m trying to get hers off and I think we end up tying the whole batch into a knot, but somehow we are actually naked, or at least naked enough, and I’ve got my face buried in her breasts, in the satin feel of her, the scent of her skin, loving the contrasts, the smooth cool and the hot tight nipples under my tongue, and—

“Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me,” she murmurs.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

She tips her hips up and rubs herself against me, reaching down to arrange us so I can slide through her wetness without actually penetrating, but that makes us both gasp and she’s squirming under me so much that I think my two choices are embarrass myself or just do it, so when her hips tilt so the head of my dick lines up perfectly with her sex, I thrust.

She starts coming, arching and panting and spasming around me, and—

“Oh, shit, Maddie, don’t do that—”

Because I’m losing it now, the orgasm surging up, and even though it feels so damn good, losing myself in her, pouring myself into her, I think I wanted it to last forever, this feeling that she is finally, finally, mine.

As I come down, teetering in that weird almost-disappointment, she whispers something against my ear.

“What?”

“I said, ‘I love you, Jack Parker.’ ”

Oh. Okay, then. Scratch the whole disappointed thing.

I brace myself on one arm and brush her hair back from her face, smiling down at her. “I love you, too.”

It doesn’t feel scary. It feels like I’ve told her a hundred times before in a hundred different ways, and if I haven’t?

I fucking should have, because it’s always been true.