Mad Love (Hearts Are Wild): Hearts Are Wild (14 page)

She met his gaze, hers swimming with so many
emotions he couldn’t decipher them. “W-we should go. Let them
rest.”

“Okay.” He took Bennett and walked him over
to the new mom and dad. “We’re going to go and let everyone else
come in for a peek.”

“Thanks for coming, Toby.” Luc held out his
hand.

Toby shook with his brother-in-law. “No.
Thank
you
for wrangling this one.” He tilted his chin
towards Cassie.

“Ha ha.”

“Call if you need anything.” He placed a kiss
on his sister’s forehead. “I love you.”

“Love you too.” Cassie pushed him away. “Now
get out of here. Bennett has the rest of his loyal subjects to
greet yet.”

Toby grinned. “You know Mom and Granny have
everyone lined up in order of appearance, right?”

Cassie’s mouth dropped open. “They do
not?”

“Oh, yes they do. Coop and Shaye are next in
line.”

Luc chuckled. “In more ways than one.”

“I still can’t believe out of all of you,
Cooper was the one to get a girl knocked up. I swear, we always
thought it would be you.”

“Me?”
What the fuck?

“Yeah, well, in your playing days, there was
always a bevy of women hanging around. We were sure either you’d
fuck up or one would trap you.”

His sister’s comment immediately brought to
mind last night and the one time in his life he’d forgotten to use
protection. He’d never lost control that completely before.

And while Mad assured him they were probably
safe, after holding his nephew…Toby wasn’t so sure he wanted to
be.

***

“Ever walked on the beach at sunset?”

Madison turned to look at Toby. “No.”

“Okay. New experience coming up.” He changed
lanes then moved into the right-hand turn lane at the next set of
lights.

They’d been quiet since leaving the hospital.
Both of them lost in their own thoughts after being witness to the
miracle of life. Madison couldn’t get over the way she’d felt while
holding little Bennett. She’d never thought about babies—in terms
of her own or anyone else’s. But holding that little man in her
arms had triggered something.

She’d felt a yearning to hold him forever,
and when Toby had taken him back, her arms felt empty and sadness
over his loss filled her. She finally understood the concept of a
woman’s biological clock.

“You okay over there?”

“Just thinking about Bennett.” It wasn’t a
complete lie.

“He’s a cutie, that’s for sure. And I can
tell he’s going to be trouble already.”

“How?”

“Well, he’s got the Moreland brothers for
uncles, which on its own is trouble, but add in Cassie and oh boy,
that little guy is going to be into everything and spoiled
rotten.”

Madison smiled. “I’m sure your parents and
grandparents will have a lot to do with the spoiling. How long
before Shaye’s baby is born?”

“Um… August, I think. Bennett gets to have
center stage all to himself for a few months yet.”

The Moreland family was expanding
rapidly.

Would her and Toby be adding to it?

She couldn’t believe how blasé she’d been
with regard to them forgetting protection. Now, after seeing
firsthand what the result could be, she couldn’t stop thinking
about it.

“Here we are. Looks like we’ve got the place
pretty much to ourselves.” Toby parked his car and switched it off.
“Leave your shoes.”

She’d worn flip-flops so it wasn’t any
trouble to slip them off and leave them behind.

“C’mon.” Toby opened his door and climbed
out.

Doing the same, Madison joined him on the
path that led to the beach and slid her hand in his. “It’s a
beautiful night,” she murmured.

“Yeah, there’s a storm coming though.” He
pointed to the right. “Probably another couple of hours away but
it’ll definitely hit tonight.”

They walked in silence for several minutes,
the quiet and Toby’s hand wrapped around hers comforting. The cool
sand shifted beneath her feet, wiggled between her toes, and she
glanced back a couple of times to see the tracks they left
behind.

“Ever thought about having kids before?”

Madison’s hand jerked in Toby’s, her gaze
swinging to his face. He remained facing forward but his fingers
tightened around hers in a gentle squeeze. “No.”

“But you’re thinking about it now.” He gave
her another reassuring squeeze. “Me too.”

“Do you want kids?” She asked one of the
questions weighing on her mind since leaving his sister.

“Definitely. And I want them to have what I
had growing up.”

“A big family.” She understood why. Knew if
she’d been able to choose, she would have chosen a family like
Toby’s. “What you had, still have, is such an alien concept to what
I know.”

“You didn’t grow up with friends from large
families?”

“I didn’t grow up with friends. Unless you
count librarians and library staff or my parents’ peers.”

“And that’s a completely alien concept to
me
. I can’t even begin to imagine what your life was like.
It sounds lonely.”

“I guess it was in a way.” She shrugged. “But
it was all I knew for years I didn’t really notice the loneliness
so much as the differences between myself and others I’d come in
contact with.”

“I don’t mean to sound rude or mean but your
parents sound very cold.”

“They are, and you’re not. Being rude.” She
took a deep breath. Let it out through her mouth slowly. “I wasn’t
planned, and I’m pretty sure they never wanted a child. They
certainly didn’t know what to do with one. To them, I was just
another student, one they had to teach twenty-four-seven.”

“There’s more to life than textbook
learning.” Toby stopped walking and spun her into his arms. “I want
to teach you all the things you missed out on. I want to show you
everything you’ve missed.”

“Why?” Did he feel sorry for her? He
shouldn’t. While she’d missed a lot, she hadn’t gone without, and,
even if she sometimes felt like she was on the outside of life
looking in, she was content. Most of the time.

“Because watching your face light up with
pleasure, watching the wonder in your eyes when something feels
good or makes you happy, is the greatest thing I’ve ever witnessed,
and I want to see it every day.”

“Oh.”

“So here’s the plan. Every day, I’ll have a
new experience for you. It could be an activity or a food or a
drink or…I don’t know. Whatever I can come up with.”

“Something new every day?” He wanted to give
her what she tried to give her students, except on a grander
scale.

“Yep. And if I can fit in more than one each
day, I will.”

Madison smiled. “I’d like that.”

“Good. Ready for your next new
experience?”

“Sure.”

“Considering you’ve never walked along the
beach at sunset, I’m going to assume you haven’t been kissed
senseless on the beach at sunset either.” He grinned as he lowered
his head to hers.

The kiss started off sweet. Light brushes of
his lips on hers. Then he pressed a little harder, swept his tongue
along her bottom lip before urging her to open by probing at the
seam between. As he took them deeper, he held her close, his arms a
warm band around her waist.

Just as Madison’s need for more edged towards
urgency, Toby took them deeper still. One hand moved to her hip,
the other slid up her back to tangle in her hair at the back of her
neck. With a sharp tug on her hair, he tilted her head the way he
wanted and drove his tongue hard and faster into her mouth. Their
tongues stroked in a wet slide of heat and she dug her fingers into
his shoulders as desire rushed to her sex.

Gasping for breath, he pulled back, separated
their mouths and placed his brow on hers. “Jesus. You drive me
mad.”

“That’s a two-way street.”

“The plan was to walk on the beach, kiss for
a bit before getting some dinner and then taking you home, with a
kiss goodnight on your doorstep. That
was
the plan.”

“And that’s changed?”

“I can’t touch you without wanting to get
inside you.”

“I don’t see the problem.” And she didn’t.
After that kiss, he could strip her naked now and take her on the
beach for anyone to see and she wouldn’t care. Okay, she’d care,
but not until they were both lying in a sweaty heap of satisfied
flesh. But if they couldn’t do that here… “Take me home now.”

His eyes searched hers.

“Toby, take me home and touch me.”

He made a strangled sound in the back of his
throat, and in a move too quick to see, he let her go and dropped
his shoulder to her middle, lifting her into the air.

“Next new experience. Being carried in a
classic fireman’s hold by your boyfriend.”

Boyfriend?
Madison laughed. “I don’t
have a boyfriend.”

Toby slapped her ass.

“Hey!”

“Lies.” He rubbed his hand over the stinging
area of her backside. “You most definitely
do
have a
boyfriend.”

I have a boyfriend.
Laughter bubbled
up her throat as she sung those four words over and over in head.
I have a boyfriend.

Tobias Moreland was her boyfriend.

Toby smiled as he spotted Mad walking towards
him. “Hey.”

She startled, her stride jerking abruptly,
before she moved past him with a frosty, “Mr. Moreland.”

What the fuck?
He glanced over his
shoulder at her. That was the fifth time this week she’d given him
the freeze-you-to-the-floor brushoff. Turning back to Jim Landry,
Toby said, “At training this afternoon, let me know if you need
extra work.”

“Okay. Thanks, Sir.”

Spinning around, Toby headed along the hall
after Mad, accelerating his pace to catch up with her before she
disappeared on him. They were going to have a little chat. He
understood she wasn’t the best at adult interactions and certain
social situations, but he’d promised to give her a new experience
every day—and today he was adding acceptable behavior towards your
secret
boyfriend in the school hallways.

He caught up just as she shut her staffroom
door. Palming the door, he pushed it open before the lock clicked
into place.

“What—?” Mad turned around. “Oh. It’s
you.”

Stepping into the room, Toby closed the door
behind him and leaned against it. With a quick scan, he saw they
were the only ones in the English/History staffroom. Bringing his
gaze back to Mad, he took her in. From the fugly black grandma
shoes on her feet, the shapeless calf-length dark gray skirt and
the equally formless cream blouse buttoned to her chin, to the
scraped-back blonde curls ruthlessly pulled flat to her skull and
confined in a bun on the back of her head.

His cock stirred.

God, she got him hot no matter what she wore.
It probably didn’t help that he knew what lay beneath that dowdy
outfit. Or that he knew what she was willing to let him do to it.
His cock was no longer stirred. It was well and truly shaken and
standing at attention.

“You drive me absolutely mad, woman.”

He lunged for her. Grabbed her wrist and
dragged her against him. Ducking his head, he slanted his mouth
over hers and thrust his tongue inside. He swallowed her squeak of
protest whole.

Sweetness burst in his mouth. Her breath
smelled sweet too. He couldn’t place the flavor or scent and dove
deeper for a better taste to try to figure it out. Slipping a hand
to her nape, Toby tilted her head to the left, moved his to the
right and fused their mouths completely.

Her fingers curled against his chest, her
nails grazing one nipple and sending a shudder through him. Fuck.
If he didn’t slow down he’d have her on the floor, out of her
clothes, with his cock rammed inside her in less than two
minutes.

Easing back, he slowed the kiss and brought
them down gently. Their lips clung as he withdrew completely and
panted for breath. “Mad.”

“I…” Her eyelids fluttered up and her
unfocused gaze searched his. “Toby.” She sighed his name.

He loved that he scrambled her brain enough
to stop it. “Hey.”

She smiled, her lips wet and trembling.
“Hi.”

“Now
that’s
the tone I want to hear
when I say ‘hey’ in the hall. Not that cold ‘Mr. Moreland’ shit
you’ve been giving me.”

“I…we can’t let anyone find out…” She licked
her lips and lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to talk
to you without it being obvious that we’re seeing each other. We’ve
already established I’m out of my element here.”

“We have. And because I know you’re
struggling a little with this, I’m going to give you a hand.
Tonight, we’re going to practice you saying hi to me without
sounding like you want to jump my bones.” He grinned.

“Practice?”

“Yeah, I’m going to do all sorts of naughty
things to you and you’re going to practice talking in a normal
voice while I do it.”

Mad’s mouth opened and closed. She shook her
head. “That will never work.”

“You’re right. But it’ll be fun trying.” He
waggled his eyebrows and scored a surprised laugh out of her.
“We’ll save the naughty things for after you perfect a
neutral-toned ‘Hi, Mr. Moreland’ then.”

The doorknob rattled at his back. Mad gasped
and jumped back a good four feet. Toby simply turned around and
opened the door as though he were on his way out.

“Oh.” Melanie Hobbs put a hand to her chest.
“You scared me.”

“Hey. Sorry.” He smiled and turned to look at
Mad over his shoulder. “Thanks for your help.”

Toby hustled out of there before Melanie
could ask him any probing questions but he didn’t miss the
speculative look she swung between him and Madison. He kind of felt
sorry for leaving Mad to deal with their nosey colleague, but it
would be easier for her to deny their involvement if they weren’t
both in the same room.