IMPACT: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (41 page)

Chapter Nine

Rane

Hot and cold.
That was a phrase my mother liked to use to describe the people who crossed her. It took me long enough to realize this was literally everyone she met, but the phrase still stuck with me.
That woman runs hot and cold,
she'd sigh after yet another parent-teacher conference.

I'd always picture a person shaped faucet, with a red H and a blue C.

Then she'd kiss me on the forehead. "Don't worry about it, Rane. You'll drive yourself crazy trying to please everyone." And with that motherly moment out of the way, she'd walk outside to sit in the garage, that funky, skunky smell soon wafting out of it.

I wanted to be like her, not caring what the world thought. She eventually even stopped caring what
we
thought and left in the middle of the afternoon, never to return.

The best lesson my mother ever taught me was how to let go.

It was pretty fucking clear that Maddie wasn't interested. Not that I blamed her. The situation with our parents made things awkward enough. But she kept thawing— shooting me a little smile, staring at my lips, giggling at my stupid jokes—and then freezing over again. Over and over again.

If at first you don't succeed, fuck it.
That's been my personal code since Mom left. Shit doesn't go your way, just move the fuck on to the next thing. The world is a big fucking place and I had limited time to enjoy it. I wasn't about to waste a precious moment on an uptight tabloid train wreck with the world's most kissable lips. That would be stupid as fuck.

But my heart still nearly hammered out of my chest as I watched her cross the room.

"Saved a spot for you," I told her, patting the bed next to me.

Maddie pulled back the covers and slid under the sheets. Then she laced her fingers over her chest like a vampire and stared at the ceiling. Her whole body was so stiff she practically levitated.

The set dresser arranged the covers around us, tucking up and around so that nothing X-rated was exposed to the camera. Maddie stayed stock-still, staring at the ceiling, her breath coming in shallow, rapid gulps.

"You can calm down, I'm not going to bite you," I told her.

"No?"

"Not unless you ask nicely."

She shot me a look that would have killed a lesser man.

"No biting. I get it."

She exhaled heavily as Dee called out for quiet on the set. "Right. I'm just going to let the camera roll here, kiddies," Warlox said. "Do what comes naturally."

Maddie laughed a little too loudly. I could feel the heat coming off her body in waves. "Okay," she exhaled. "Let's do this."

She turned and faced me.

Looking down at her, that body below me. Fuck, I am a man after all. Seeing the way her eyes went soft, her lips parting, soft and sweet...all of a sudden, I didn't need to act anymore. I wasn't sure if I ever really was.

She pressed her hand against my cheek, sliding it down to rest against my chest, over my heart. I let her. I let her touch me, explore me. As hard as it was to hold myself back, I wanted this girl to trust me. I really wanted to know what she was thinking.

"You good?"

Her eyes had fallen down to watch her hand tracing across my chest. She flicked them back up to me, and that's when I saw it. The
hunger
behind the icy calm.

It was exactly what I had been waiting to see.

I bent to kiss her.

As I did, I was acutely aware of the artificial. This wasn't real, no matter how amazing her body felt under my fingers. She didn't really adore me, no matter how she gazed out at me from under the curtain of her lashes. This wasn't the real thing and I should really stop feeling the slow slide of falling for her. The lights, the cameras, the people gathered around watching us—we were doing a fucking job. That was all.

But I was enjoying the hell out of this job.

Her lips parted when mine touched hers. Was she as eager as I was to feel the slip of her tongue against mine? She tasted like fucking strawberries and cream or some other delicious sweetness. The blood was rushing in my ears, but I could still hear the small gasping noise she made, quiet and contained, but just a tiny bit frantic. I wanted to hear her make that noise again. I wanted to be the person who made her make that noise, louder and with more need. I kissed her harder, devouring her, losing it, losing myself....

She gasped and pushed back. "Cut!" she panted.

I fell back. I was relieved...and angry. I wanted to feel that again, keep going, follow it to its natural and inevitable fucking conclusion. But...it wasn't fucking real.

Her eyes were closed, so I couldn't see them shining, but her cheeks were flushed. The heavy rise and fall of her chest, her breasts, the most mesmerizing thing I had ever seen.

"Everything okay, Maddie?" Warlox sounded concerned.

She opened her eyes. Some of the icy calm settled back onto her features. I watched her visibly pull herself back together. Which made me want to pull her apart again.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she answered breathily, breezily.

"Me too," I piped up. Since we were lying and all. "Totally cool."

Her eyes flicked over to me. The little flash of something—hurt?—gave way to contempt.

Okay, so this really wasn't real.

Warlox flipped through the playback. "Okay, everyone, that's a wrap for today. I got what I needed."

That makes one of us, dude.

Chapter Ten

Madeline

When I finally fell asleep, the memory of Rane's lips on mine slid into my dreams, so that when I woke the next morning, I was blushing and squirming.

I kept smiling, then catching myself, then staring off into space and smiling again.

I had lived my life in front of the camera, but never like that. Rane had...pulled something from me. A feeling that I had never been able to access before. One I didn't want to know existed because I was afraid I would never stop chasing that high. It was adrenaline, euphoria, nerve-tingling excitement. It felt like falling, but in the safest possible way.

When he was kissing me, I hadn't wanted to stop. I didn't ever want to stop. That was the worst thing. When you're someone like me, you learn to fear the things you feel you can't live without because they'll destroy you.

But that feeling had never come from a person before. It felt just like the first time I tried coke, that wild, uninhibited freedom to just be myself but...in human form. Rock solid, gray-eyed human form.

I wanted it again. I wanted him again. I hoped that today's schedule meant I got to kiss him again. Kiss him without consequence because it was my job, then maybe kiss him again after the job was over.

Pull yourself together,
the little voice of reason warned, and I ignored her entirely.

Grabbing my keys, I checked my purse for my phone and saw that it was already ringing. I had forgotten to take it off silent from yesterday. My head was that high up in the fucking clouds.

"Hey, Mom!" I answered breathlessly.

"Madeline!" She sounded shrill and relieved at the same time. "I've been calling and calling!"

"I'm sorry! My phone was on silent."

"I have something really important to tell you!"

I leaned against the wall. "I'm sorry, Mom," I repeated, guilt washing over me. While I was getting all giddy about my co-star, what if something had happened to her? This was why these feelings were dangerous—they took me over until there was nothing left for the really important things. Like my mother. "Is everything okay?"

"Everything is fine," she sighed. It was a sigh I knew. The full-body letting go my mother did so well. She never held a grudge, not against me, not against anyone. That sigh was how I knew I was off the hook, and I breathed my own sigh of relief. "Actually, it's more than fine, it's great!" she continued.

"Yeah?" I smiled at the happiness in her voice. "What's great, Mom?"

"Last night, Mike took me out."

"Aw, where?"

"The place we had our first date."

I had been in rehab when she had her first date, but I didn't want to remind her that I had missed out on the new part of her relationship.  "Oh, you love that place," I hedged.

"Well, it has a doubly special meaning now because," she paused, "he proposed."

A tunnel opened up under my feet and I was falling. I sagged against the doorframe. "He...."

"Mike proposed, Maddie. He asked me to marry him." Happy tears flooded her voice. "I never thought...I mean, when your dad died, I thought I would never love another man the way I loved him. And I don't, Maddie, I promise you, I'm not trying to replace your father. There's no way I ever could." She was pleading with me to understand, a note of begging in her voice. "But Mike is...he's Mike. Himself. He's not a replacement, he's...an addition. A bonus round or something." She bubbled into a happy sigh. “Oh god, listen to me, I'm babbling..."

A hot, acidy wash of guilt flooded my stomach. This wasn't about me. "Mom. Stop trying to explain. He proposed! That's....great!"

"Yeah?" She sounded shy all of a sudden. "We're not going to do some big thing...that ship has sailed, you know? Just a quick courtroom service and then a barbecue at his place. My place. Or it
will
be my place, when I move in with him." She gulped a crazed little hiccup. "Oh Maddie, what am I doing? This is crazy!" She made a little noise that was a cross between a giggle and a sob. I recognized it as one I had made myself more than once.

For once it was
me
talking sense into
her.
"It is crazy, Mom.  But you deserve to do something wild for yourself."

"Yeah?" She kept wanted me to reassure her. It was a weird reversal of roles.

"He makes you happy, right?"

"He does," she said eagerly. "He's quiet and withdrawn, but he listens. He listens so well, Maddie. I've never met a better listener. And he was a single dad to those boys, and look at how well they've done...."

The mention of "those boys" made a different kind of guilt flood my already tumultuous stomach. Rane. I was...he was going to be....

Oh god...ew....

"So, that would mean...one big happy family, right?" I could hear the deranged smile I knew was plastered over my face.

"I hope you're getting along with them, Maddie." My mother sighed, pleading again. "I really do. I want us all to be happy."

Just like she always had, my mother was putting me first. Worrying about my happiness in the face of this life change
. No. I am a different woman now. She doesn't need to worry about me
. I was fine.

I was
fine.

I kissed an infuriatingly gorgeous man yesterday, one who made me laugh and then made my skin ignite, and I want to do it again, but he's going to be my stepbrother now.

Completely fine.

This is actually good, Maddie. This is exactly what you need to pull yourself back from that abyss.

Everything was fine
.

"We will be totally happy, Mom. I am so happy for you. For both of you. For us." It was my turn to babble. I took a breath.
Pull yourself together.
"Congratulations." I smiled, proud of how steady my voice sounded in my ear. "Have you picked a date?"

"May 14th."

My vision went all blurry for a second. "Mom? Today is April 30th."

"I know. It's crazy, I told you. But, why wait? We just need the two weeks to get our marriage license and we're good to go. We're old fogeys, right? This isn't our first time at the rodeo. We want to get married and get on with life."

It took me several seconds to pick my jaw up off the floor. "Wow. Okay then. Two weeks from now?"

"You'll be there, right?"

"Of course I will, Mom!" I huffed.

"Can you help me find a dress? I'm no good with fashion and you know all of the nice places..."

"I did. They're not really interested in doing me favors anymore."

"Well, no matter. I still want you there. For moral support."

What about my moral support?
I asked myself plaintively, and then promptly squashed the idea.
Pull yourself together.
"Mom, I'm here for you however you need me. I always will be." Gray eyes flashed in my mind's eye, but I pushed them roughly aside and kept the smile in my voice. "Whatever you need, I'll do it."

Chapter Eleven

Rane

Skipping out on riding in with the rest of the band made me look suspicious as all hell, but I didn't give a shit. I couldn't deal with my brother this early in the morning. Not after my Dad's phone call last night. Two weeks from now I was acquiring a flame-haired siren of a stepsister and everything was fucked beyond measure.

I paced around the ballroom as the crew drifted in around me. A few of them shot startled looks in my direction. I was used to people staring at me, but today it rubbed me the wrong way. I made for the front door and the blinding California sunshine.

When my eyes adjusted, I looked around, too restless to focus on any one single thing. I heard a noise off the side of the deep, wide porch.

Harlow's black-clad back nearly blended in with the dark shrubbery that obscured the entrance to the mansion. I couldn't see what she was doing, but I could smell it.

"Mornin' 'Lo," I called over the rail. "Can I bum a cig?"

Harlow whirled around in the dirt like she had been caught with her pants down. She waved the air and blew the offending smoke out of the corner of her mouth, then narrowed her eyes to look up at me. "Drizzle. You quit with Casper. I'm telling."

"So he can kick my ass? All I'd need to do is go out in daylight for protection. Pretty sure Casper would burn to a cinder."

"Lay off my boyfriend. He's a proud Vampire-American."

"Do you two ever get kinky with that?"

She wrinkled her nose. "Aren't you trying to get a cigarette off me? Stop being gross. And besides, I really thought you quit."

I tried and failed to grin at her and slumped against the warm stone of the building. It felt good against my back. I hadn't slept much last night. "You caught me. But there are certain situations that demand it."

She walked around the side of the porch and came up the stairs. She was a great girl. Casper was lucky. I'd been with a few chicks like Harlow. Tough. Uncomplicated. Usually freaks in the sack. I wondered why I felt absolutely nothing close to attraction for her as she came over and extended her pack. "Wanna talk about the 'situation'?" she asked.

I nodded in thanks as she handed me her lighter and inhaled deeply, grateful for the moment to collect my thoughts. I considered opening up, but then did what I always did. Erred on the side of 'easy.' "Not particularly."

"Is the 'situation' walking towards us right now?" she asked pointedly.

I turned to see Maddie crossing the parking lot. My expression must have betrayed me because Harlow made a little humphing noise.

Madeline looked even more beautiful in the morning. Like she hadn't finished putting on her mask yet.  The wind lifted the soft waves that were just long enough to curl around her face, and the morning sun set it ablaze in an orange-red fire. She held her head high and rigid atop that long, soft neck of hers, and the little spaghetti strap top she was wearing was a perfect picture frame for the glorious expanse of freckled shoulders that melted into those creamy, pillowy breasts.

She lifted her chin when she saw me. No smile. No softness. "Good morning," she said tightly. Formally.

The kind of voice you'd use for an embarrassing family member.

Fuck.

It was like a gong sounded in my brain.
The ice queen is back.

It didn't make any fucking sense. I had only known this girl for a day, kissed her once while the cameras rolled. But I could see the exact moment that her mask slid back into place. And I fucking hated it.

"Morning, Princess," I called back. "Harlow's giving out cigarettes. You want one?"

Harlow socked me in the arm.

"No, thank you," Maddie answered primly. "I don't smoke anymore."

"Neither do I." I smiled, taking a deep drag.

She smiled back, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Harlow, are you ready for me?"

Harlow stubbed out her cigarette butt and brushed her hands on her jeans. "Yeah, totally. Today we do the "psycho" scenes. Ready to look crazy?"

Maddie flinched a little before smiling widely. "Can't wait." She made to follow Harlow into the mansion.

"Mads, hang on a second."
Why was I even bringing this up? What's done is done.
"Did your...did your mom talk to you?" Harlow shot us a look and let the door close between her and us. 

Maddie turned slowly, warily on her heel. "Yeah. So, did your dad call you?"

"He...did."

"I'm happy for them."

I nodded. "Yeah, totally."

"Your dad seems like a good guy."

"He totally is."

"That's good to know." The wind played with her hair again, dropping a strand in front of her eyes. She looked down at one of her feet. They were long and slim with very high arches, almost like a ballerina's. Her toes were painted an electric violet color and wiggled as I stared at them. I imagined sucking on one of them as I slid inside of her...

Fuck. Abort. Abort.

I tore my gaze away from her feet. I'd never had a foot fetish before, but I was beginning to see the appeal. "Your mom is a nice lady," I said out loud. Thinking about Sylvia did wonders to reverse the flow of blood away from my cock.

"She's the best person on this planet," Maddie said fiercely. The love that burned in her eyes was enough to burn away the mask for a second, and in that second, I saw affection, duty and unwavering loyalty. The kind of shit that made you want to bring home a girl to meet the family.

Except this girl was already family.

"So, our parents are getting married." I had never felt awkward before. It sucked.

She nodded. "So that would make us...." She didn't want to say it.

Neither did I. "Stepbrother and stepsister."

That kiss. I can't stop thinking about that kiss.

She wrinkled her nose. "Gross," she moaned, pinching the bridge of her nose.

I leaned back against the stone again. "Yeah, well, thanks. Kissing me is a lot of things, but I've never heard it called gross."

She at least had the decency to blush about it. "It...wasn't. At the time. But now?" She shivered. "We're going to be
related
..."

"Not by blood." I felt the need to clarify. I wanted her to talk about how much she'd liked it some more.

She looked away and back again. "Look, yesterday got...intense."

"I've definitely heard my kisses described that way."

"Shut up, this isn't a joke."

"It is kind of hilarious if you think about it. Yesterday you were all googly over me..."

"I was not! It was… You were…" She dropped her voice and looked around. "You were
hard
under the sheets. I
felt
you."

"You should take it as a compliment."

"Be serious. What happened...that needs to be the last time. We can..." She straightened up regally. "We
need
to just be friends."

For some reason, that pissed me off. I reached out and tucked that wayward piece of hair behind her ear. She immediately stiffened. "You're touching me."

"Friendly gesture. Your hair is a mess."

She jutted out her chin. "Is it?"

I tucked another strand back. Why was I doing this? "Yes. This wind. You're a disaster."

"Am I?" Fuck. What was she doing to me? I was too close to her. I could smell her shampoo, the lotion she put on that freckled skin. Her mother, my father, this wasn't supposed to happen and yet....

"Complete fucking disaster," I hissed, dangerously close to her mouth. If one of us moved a fraction of an inch....

Her lip curled. Whether it was from amusement or a snarl, I couldn’t tell. I also didn't care.  I traced the curve of her jaw down to her neck. All places I could mark, claim as mine, kissing redness into her skin. She closed her eyes, and when her lips curved into a smile and not a snarl, I moved that fraction of an inch forward and fucking kissed them again.

She made a little sound—it might have been protest, but her body sure wasn't protesting. She pressed herself against me and I felt
everything,
and the memory of how she had looked yesterday in that beige slip of nothing burned through my brain. My hips moved without meaning to and I knew she felt how hard she was making me because she stiffened and pulled away.

I took a deep breath. "Well, fuck. That's not going to go over well at Thanksgiving dinner."

She reddened. "Goddamnit, Rane, we can't..." Her lips were bright pink and raw from my stubble. I liked that I had made that mark on her. She trailed off, looking at me wide-eyed.

Then I realized she was staring in horror over my shoulder.

"Goooooood morning!" the unmistakably annoying voice of my little brother sang out behind me. "Are we shooting outside today?"

"Rehearsal," I growled without turning, stepping back from Maddie.

Keir plopped himself right in my field of vision and looked between the two of us. Now, I might have been able to pass that kiss off as nothing...if Maddie's entire body weren't flushed bright red. "Uh huh." He nodded, his tongue shoved into his cheek.  "So, I'm assuming you haven't talked to Dad yet, Rane?"

"Fuck off, Keir."

"Gladly. This is just weird." He stared at me for one beat too long, then headed into the mansion. I took a deep breath, imagining the world of shit I was in for.

Maddie poked me hard in the chest. "That can't happen again," she hissed. "That was the last time. Promise me, Rane."

I wanted to give her shit. Make a joke. Rattle her like I was rattled right now. But all I could think to say, to beg, was, "Tell me you liked it, Mads." I hated how much I needed to know.  "Tell me you'd do it again if...if things were different."

She blinked slowly. Her lips parted and I would have kissed them again. Until she exhaled. "What good would that do?"

I shoved my hands in my jeans. "I don't know. I just need to know."

She darted a look over her shoulder. I bent close to her, just close enough to hear her mumble, "I would." She looked up at me, frantic. "But we can't. That's it. We're just friends. From now on." She poked me again. "Promise!"

I licked my lips. I could still taste the hint of her lip balm. It tasted like strawberries.

"I promise."

I felt like crossing my fingers behind my back the way we did back when we were kids. Give myself an out. But I couldn't find one. This—whatever it was—was over before it even started and there was no use dwelling on it.

Maddie lifted her chin and nodded at me, then headed into the mansion without a word.

Me? I went to find Harlow. I needed to bum another cigarette.