Simply Irresistible (29 page)

“I don’t think I got hurt there.” But her fingers slid into his hair to hold him in place.

“You can never be too sure.” Slowly, he drew her nipple into his mouth and sucked.

Her head fell back, and she let out an aroused murmur that went straight through him. “But I fell on my butt.”

“You’re right. You need some serious TLC.” He slid his hands into her loosened sweatpants, tracing his fingers down the center
of her sweet bare ass. Lingering… “Here?”

She gasped and shifted away. “No!”

With a smile, he slid his fingers lower. Wet. God, so wet.

Her arms clenched around his neck, and her breath was nothing more than little pants of hot air against his
skin as he stroked her. “How about here?” he asked, slowly rubbing the pad of his callused finger over her, groaning when
she spread her legs a little farther apart for him, giving him room to work. “Are you injured here?”

“N—no.” She clutched at him, panting for breath in his ear. “Jax—Jax, please—”

He loved the sweet begging, but it wasn’t necessary. Because he was going to “please.” He was going to please the both of
them.

She rocked into him, her hands running over his chest, his abs, trying to get inside his clothes, trying to get inside him.
He felt the same. He couldn’t get close enough. She was warm and curvy and whispering his name, and that worked for him, big-time.
He reached down to tug off her shoes so he could get her out of the Santa sweats when red and blue lights flashed from outside,
slashing into the office window.

M
addie straightened and stared at Jax, before zipping herself back up. She got to the window just as Sawyer opened the back
door of his sheriff’s car.

Chloe huffed out and stormed toward the cottage.

“Oh, boy,” Maddie said, feeling Jax at her back.

“Sawyer’s pissed,” he said.

“How can you tell? He’s wearing a blank expression.”

“
That’s
how you tell. He gives nothing away when he’s in that kind of mood.”

Maddie’s gut tightened. “What do you think she did this time?”

“This time?”

Maddie hurried outside. “Chloe?” she called out.

Both Sawyer and Chloe turned around.

“It wasn’t my fault,” Chloe said.

Sawyer snorted.

Chloe tossed up her hands, whirled, and started walking again.

“You’re welcome for the ride,” Sawyer said to her back.

Chloe flipped him the bird and slammed the cottage door.

“What happened?” Maddie asked Sawyer.

“She talked Lance into taking her hang gliding by moonlight. The two of them climbed Horn Crest and flung themselves off the
cliff, landing on Beaut Point with about six inches to spare before they would have plunged to their deaths.”

At 6,700 feet, Horn Crest was the highest peak in the area. Beaut Point was the plateau overlooking Lucky Harbor, and it was
about the size of a football field, sitting three hundred feet above where the Pacific Ocean smashed into a valley of rocks
below. Picturing what Chloe had done, Maddie felt sick. “Is she all right?”

“Are you kidding me? She’s like a cat with nine lives. I don’t know how many she has left, though.” Sawyer shook his head
in disgust. “Lance was under the influence. I’m hauling his ass in until he sobers up. Chloe wasn’t drinking, so technically,
I can’t hold her. And they didn’t actually break any law since it’s actually not illegal to be stupid, but they were trespassing,
and I should have ticketed her.” He blew out a breath. “At this point, it’s a waste of paper.”

He rubbed his hands over his face and turned to Maddie. “She was lucky tonight, damn lucky. I’d ask you to try to talk some
sense into her, but I’m not sure that’s even possible.”

• • •

A few minutes later, after having said good night to Jax and Sawyer, Maddie walked through the cottage to the small bedroom,
where she found Chloe sprawled facedown and spread-eagle across the bed, already out cold.

The Wild One…

Maddie had always secretly yearned to be the Wild One. Anything would have been better than the Mouse. Except that no longer
really applied, did it? A mouse wouldn’t have given this place a shot. A mouse wouldn’t be having spectacular sex with a man
who had a singular ability to obliterate her heart. A mouse wouldn’t be fighting to get to know her sisters, and herself.

Maybe what was happening with the inn was inevitable, and maybe she couldn’t save it. And maybe what she had with Jax was
truly just a little snapshot in time and couldn’t be saved either.

But she
could
save her relationship with her sisters. And she could save herself from going back to the way she’d been before.

She could be whoever she wanted. Knowing it, she felt herself smiling and pulled out her phone. “Still close by?” she asked
when Jax picked up.

Jax watched Maddie peer out the Jeep’s windshield at the unlit, unmoving Ferris wheel. “It’s closed,” she said with disappointment.

“It’s Christmas Eve.” He had the Jeep running, the heater on full blast. The interior of the vehicle was dark except for the
glowing light from the instrument panel, but he had no trouble seeing the life in her eyes or the smile on her face.

He knew if asked, she’d say he put that smile there. She’d been coming to life a little more every day, but the truth was
that he’d had nothing to do with it. She’d taken on her world, and it was sexy as hell to watch.

“I guess I’ll have to find another adventure tonight,” she said and turned to him. Her hair fell around her face in soft curls,
just past her shoulders. He knew what it smelled like, knew how it felt brushing over his bare skin. He knew how she tasted
and how to make her moan his name. He knew she was slow to open her heart, but that once she did, she was fiercely loyal to
those she cared about. He knew what foods she craved, that she had a low tolerance for alcohol and a penchant for drinking
it anyway. He knew that she pretended to be annoyed by Tara’s steely resolve but really admired it, just as he knew she also
admired Chloe’s spirit. He knew that after a life in Los Angeles, she thought Lucky Harbor would be heaven. He knew she was
looking for more…

And that she hoped she’d found it.

She knew things about him, too, more than he’d revealed to a woman in a long time. Unable to help himself, he ran a finger
along her temple, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Name it,” he said. “Tell me what you want.”

“But we don’t have a condom.”

He couldn’t help it, he laughed.

She grinned. “I’m sorry. I think it’s the fresh air here. And the pounding surf. And maybe also, it’s you.”

“No,” he told her quietly. “It’s all you. Come on.” He turned off the Jeep, pulled two heavy coats from the back seat, and
handed her one. When she was bundled up, they walked the pier.

They passed Eat Me, and Maddie’s stomach growled. “I could use some of Tara’s Badass Brownies right about now.”

“Badass?” he asked.

“As in they’re so badass that you turn badass just by smelling them.”

He laughed and pulled her in close for the sheer pleasure of touching her. “Do you want to go in? I’ll buy you a Badass Brownie.”

“No, Tara’s in there. She’ll be annoying.”

They hadn’t gotten five steps past the café when they heard a loud voice.

“
Maddie Moore, I see you.
”

Maddie jerked around. “What—”

Jax pointed to the loudspeaker on the corner of the building, just above the large picture window on the café, where several
faces were pressed up against the glass, watching them.

“Step away from the good-looking man,” came the disembodied voice.

Tara.

Maddie groaned but surprised him by tightening her grip on his hand instead of dropping it. “What does she think she’s doing?”

“Amusing her customers.” Jax’s gaze locked in on their audience in the window, some shoving for better position, a few others
waving.

“Madeline Annie Traeger, this is your conscience speaking,” the loudspeaker said. “We’re watching you. And—Hey, are those
my Gucci boots?”

Maddie tipped her face up to the stars as if looking for divine intervention. “Some people have normal families,”
she said. “They get together once a month or so and have dinner. My family? We have pancake batter food fights, steal each
other’s footwear, dye our hair green, and yell at each other over loudspeakers in public.”

“Keep it moving, sugar. No loitering on the pier.”

“Everyone loiters on the pier!” Maddie yelled at the speaker.

“And especially no standing beneath the mistletoe for any reason at all.”

Both Maddie and Jax looked up at the mistletoe someone had hung on the building’s eaves. “What does it say about me that now
I want to stand beneath it?” Maddie asked him.

“That we think alike?” Jax stepped closer, bent his head, and—

“Hold it!” the voice of Maddie’s “conscience” called out.

Maddie sighed. “Jax?”

“Yeah?”

“I need a chocolate shake.”

He didn’t point out the fact that it was thirty degrees or that her breath was crystallizing in front of her face. They headed
toward the ice cream shop.

It wasn’t Lance serving tonight, mostly because he was still sitting in the single holding cell at the sheriff’s station.
Instead, it was Tucker, Lance’s twin brother.

“Sawyer’s keeping an eye on him,” Jax said to Tucker’s unasked question. “He’ll be out in time to celebrate Christmas. He’s
okay.”

“He’s an idiot. We’ll have the rent to you next week. We’re a little behind.”

“It’s okay,” Jax said. “It’s a slow time for everybody.”

Tucker nodded his thanks, handed over a chocolate shake, and Jax and Maddie walked on.

“You’re their landlord?” Maddie asked.

“Yes.”

She thought about that a minute. “Do you own the whole pier?”

“No. But I own some of the businesses on it.”

She walked to the end of the pier. Leaning over the railing, she stared at the churning sea beneath her, clearly thinking
and thinking hard.

She needed answers, deserved answers, but the truth was he wasn’t sure where to start. For a man who’d made a living spinning
words his way, it was pretty fucking pathetic. He came up beside her. “I own some businesses in town, too.”

“Interesting that you’ve never mentioned this, Mr. Mayor.”

He winced. “You really do know a lot about me.”
Lame.

“Hmm,” she said, distinctly unimpressed.

He drew a deep breath. “You once told me some of your faults.”

“I told you
all
my faults.”

He smiled and played with one of her curls. “Want to hear mine?”

“I know yours. You don’t like to share yourself. You think dog farts are funny.”

“Everyone thinks dog farts are funny.”

“You make me talk during sex.”

He grinned. “You like that.”

She blushed. “That’s not the point.”

When she didn’t come up with anything else, he
raised a brow. “Is that it? Because I have more faults, Maddie. Plenty of them. Like… I ate only cereal until I was five.”

“I like cereal.”

“I jumped off Mooner Cliff into the water when I was ten. I thought I could fly, but I broke both legs.”

“So you were all boy. Big deal.”

“I got laid in the USC law school library when I was nineteen and nearly got arrested for indecent exposure. I failed the
bar exam the first time because I had a hangover.” He paused and let the big pink elephant free. “Then I took a case where
an innocent woman got trapped between both sides. I tried to warn her, breaking my oath as a lawyer to do so, and instead
of using the info to get herself out of a bad situation, she took her own life.”

He paused when she inhaled sharply. He couldn’t read the sound and had no idea if it was horror or disgust. But he’d gone
this far—he had to finish. “I stopped practicing law after that. It’d sucked the soul right out of me.” He paused. “I haven’t
gotten it back yet.”

She stared at him then, and he held the eye contact. He figured she was going to walk away from him in three, two, one—

She moved, but not away. Instead she came close, her hand on his chest, gently stroking right over his heart. “You have a
soul,” she whispered, her voice shaking with emotion. “And a huge heart. Don’t ever doubt it. You have a
superhero
heart,” she said fiercely.

He shook his head. “I’m not a superhero, Maddie, not even close. I’m just a guy, with flaws. Lots of them. I do the restoration
and the furniture making because I love it, but neither is all that profitable.”

“But you have that big, beautiful house. How could you…” She paused. “Your father,” she breathed.

“No.
No,
” he said firmly. “Not my father. I’m good with investments.”

She searched his face. “This bothers you,” she said.

He shook his head, unable to put it into words. He’d tried to give back some of what he felt he’d taken by his years at the
firm, but instead he’d profited.