Six
Standing a few yards behind MJ, Maddie kept silent. She’d been sitting outside getting some sun while browsing the job boards on her laptop when he and Rachael exited from the big house. Something serious was going down, and call her nosey, but where MJ was concerned, she wanted to have details.
“Hey, Maddie!” Rachael said, spotting her and taking a few steps toward her.
She saw MJ’s back stiffen before he turned to her with a half-cocked smirk.
“Hey,” she said, sensing a shifting in the air between her and MJ that made her uneasy.
“Why don’t you guys come to lunch with me?” Rachael said. “My treat.” She placed a hand on MJ’s forearm. “I could use some company to get my mind off things.”
MJ kept his eyes glued to Maddie’s. This was some kind of test, and they both knew it, but only he knew the rules and she had the distinct impression she was about to fail.
Her nerves thrummed under her skin as he stared at her with those practically black eyes that never faltered. Who would look away first? Was he doing this on purpose? Searching to find an answer inside of her somewhere?
He licked his lips and blinked, turning his gaze to Rachael. “I’ll drive,” he said.
He headed toward the driveway. Maddie and Rachael followed. “What was that about?” Rachael whispered in her ear.
“I’m not sure,” Maddie whispered back.
“Intense,” Rachael murmured.
Exactly. MJ was the definition of intensity. There was never a moment when he was at peace and calm in his own skin. Something was always brewing inside him, like a storm ready to drench the world.
It was that drive and focus that made Maddie believe in him. MJ could do anything he put his mind to. And that’s what scared her to death.
If he set his mind on having her back, she could never resist him. She didn’t think that was a possibility until now.
Opening the passenger door, she touched the ring under her shirt. Talan was so different. He was a shelter, a safe harbor, not a destructive storm that would crash down on top of her.
The three of them sat outside Café Gelato at a round wrought-iron table on the sidewalk. Lunch had been deli sandwiches and chips. Now they indulged in dessert. When Maddie ordered tiramisu flavored gelato, she caught MJ smiling before he realized and became stoic once more. What game was he playing bringing them here for lunch?
Maddie stood in front of the freezer case at Café Gelato trying to decide which flavor to order.
“Just try it,” MJ said, holding out a little plastic spoon.
“I don’t like coffee flavored ice cream,” she said, wrinkling her nose.
“You’ll love it.” He ran the spoonful of tiramisu flavored gelato across her lips, leaving a cold, sticky-sweet trail. “Trust me.”
Maddie licked her lips. It was delicious. She smiled and grabbed his spoon, licking the rest off.
MJ laughed. “I told you.” He leaned in and kissed her. She’d never get used to the feel of his kisses—like they were meant just for her. Like the reason her mom left and she ended up at the Rocha Estate with her dad was so the universe could bring the two of them together.
When he pulled away and gazed into her eyes, it was perfectly understood. He was hers and she was his. It had been that way every summer and winter break since they were little, and this summer she’d seen him with different eyes. It had been hard to tell him she wanted to be more than friends, but she couldn’t resist her feelings.
She rose on tip-toe and kissed him a second time. The girl behind the counter drummed her fingers on top of the freezer case. “I’ll have the same,” Maddie told her.
She and MJ took their gelato out to the little patio tables and sat down. They’d been here almost every night since he got home for the summer a week ago. Now that he was headed to college, they’d have all the time in the world to be together. Not just during his boarding school breaks.
When they were finished, they hopped in her dad’s vintage Torino convertible. Her dad’s love of muscle cars had spread to MJ long ago. She let MJ drive while she stuck an old Eagles cassette tape in the tape deck and turned the volume up. It was her dad’s favorite, so they both knew all the words and sang along, loudly to Hotel California the whole ride home.
“Make it to go,” MJ said to the waiter.
“In a hurry?” Rachael asked. “Got a hot date?”
Maddie’s insides jolted. Please no, don’t let him have a date. She instantly felt guilty for wanting him to be alone. How selfish could she be? She had Talan’s ring around her neck after all.
But, she and Talan were on a break, and maybe…
No. She couldn’t start anything with MJ that she’d have to call quits again. It wasn’t fair to either of them.
He tapped the table and shot Maddie a look like he wanted to eat her alive. “Just ready to get back.”
Maddie felt her entire body flush, from her toes to her hairline. MJ had given her heated looks before, but nothing like the one she was getting from him now.
He wet his bottom lip with his tongue. The pulse points in her neck hammered with her rapid heart rate.
The server brought their plastic dishes of gelato, breaking the tension, and the three of them piled back into MJ’s car. He turned the radio up loud on the way back so none of them could hear each other to talk.
There was something about him so inherently dominant, but at times, he fell vulnerable and needy. MJ’s moods had always shifted from hot to cold faster than Maddie could catch her breath.
MJ parked his car in the driveway and turned to her. “I need to talk to you. Alone.”
She froze with her hand on the door handle and his eyes on hers, searching again like she had all the answers.
She did have the answers, she just never allowed herself to give them to him.
Maddie pushed her door open and hopped out so Rachael could climb out of the backseat. “Thanks for lunch. It was fun.”
“You’re welcome. Thanks for coming with me.”
Maddie smiled and watched her stride toward the house.
MJ got out and stood beside his door while Maddie rounded the car. “What do you need?” she asked, almost afraid of the answer. He’d been so cocky this afternoon, God only knew what would come out of his mouth.
“Follow me.”
She hated the emotionless, monotone, monosyllabic way he spoke to her. Skeptical, she narrowed her eyes, but followed behind as he led her around the garage and through the door to the stairway up to her dad’s apartment.
“If there’s a problem,” she said, halting at the bottom.
MJ grasped her wrists and pinned them above her head, pushing her against the wall before she could finish her thought. His lips claimed hers in a hard, possessive kiss.
At first, she fought against the flame igniting in her belly and stayed unresponsive and tense. She had to push MJ away. She should want to push him away. But she couldn’t stop her lips from moving against his, and finally her entire body gave in to his demands. Fighting her feelings for MJ was as futile as attempting to make time run backward.
He teased her bottom lip with his tongue and cupped her breast with one hand, the other wove through her hair, pulling her even closer. Her mouth opened in response. She quickly grabbed her ring and ran it along the chain behind her neck and let it dangle between her shoulder blades.
He couldn’t see it. Not like this.
His tongue met hers, and she sighed relief into his mouth, running her hand up over his shoulder to the back of his neck.
She’d wanted him for so long. It was wrong, but at the same time, he was the only thing that had ever felt completely right in her life.
The little plastic cup of gelato in her hand fell between them. Breathless and dizzy, she barely registered the icy-cold wetness dripping down the neck of her shirt. The cup clattered to the floor, and his went with it as his hand clenched her hip.
His mouth left hers, and when their eyes met, she saw a spark of regret in his. But, instead of backing away from her, he dipped his head and ran his tongue down the sticky-sweet path of melted gelato. He nibbled and kissed her before setting her down, letting her go and leaving her breathless as he walked back out the door.