Taken by Storm (10 page)

MJ sucked her earlobe and groaned. “I know a better way to get this aggression out of my system.” His hand snuck up her shirt and teased her breast. The other blazed a trail down over her stomach and between her legs.

Suddenly, her jeans seemed too hot, too tight and too in the way. “MJ,” she whispered.

“Behind the concession stand or in the car?” His fingers teased and rubbed.

“Concession stand is closer.” She ran her hand up his arm and squeezed.

MJ spun her around, picked her up over his shoulder and ran to the little wooden shack standing with its back to an open field of wildflowers. Setting her on her feet behind it, he pressed her against the wall and kissed her.

His lips opened hers and their tongues tangled, his fierce and urgent. She shut her eyes against the blinding yellow-red of the setting sun streaking the sky behind him, cloaking him in dark shadow.

With deft, fast fingers, he unbuttoned her jeans, lowered the zipper and pushed them down her legs. “Turn around.” He didn’t wait for her to move. He spun her around, placed her hands above her head, palms flat against the sun-warmed wood of the concession shed.

His fingers shoved inside her and she gasped, arching her back and pushing her bottom against his hand.

“How do I make you feel?” he asked, balling her hair up and pulling her back against him harder. His fingers never stopped caressing and rubbing her inside and she felt herself coming unglued.

“So good,” she whispered. “I love it.”

He nipped the back of her neck, then licked it, soothing her. “Nobody else gets to do this. Only me.”

“Only you.” He moved in and out of her faster, rocked her harder against his hand. Her body swelled, tingled, throbbed. She moaned and writhed her hips in pleasure.

“Stay still,” he said, and his hands were off of her, his body taken away.

She heard his zipper and reached behind her to take him, hard and ready, in her hand.

“Jesus, Mads, you kill me. You make me crazy.”

Maddie leaned her chest against the wall, arching her back and guiding him to her opening. “Please,” she whispered, so close she could go mad with waiting for him to give her release.

MJ gripped her hips and drove inside her. She cried out and slammed her hands against the wall.

A knock on the door made Maddie jump and pulled her out of her fantasy. She was flustered, her body heated from the memory.

She threw the paper towels away and stalked to the door. Tugging it open, she looked into the face of the shadowed man from her daydream, complete with ball cap and stubbled jaw.

Her body responded instantly, nipples puckering, slick heat between her legs.

He studied her for a moment. “What’s wrong? Are you sick?” he asked, shoving his way inside. He put a hand to her forehead. “Your face is all red.”

Her skin burst into flames with his touch. “No. I’m fine.”
She turned from him and slammed the door. “Why are you here? It’s not 2:45 yet.”

MJ drummed his fingers on the table, gazing around the apartment. “You wanted to talk.” His ebony eyes met hers, making her put a hand out to steady herself against the counter. “So talk,” he said.

Maddie fought the lust zinging through her body, her sensible side telling her to get rid of him. Her sensible side rarely won in situations like this. “Talk?”

“Yeah, you know. The thing you’re doing with your mouth.”

Her mind flashed to him kissing her. “I like what you do with your mouth.”

She held his gaze, willing him to come out of the shell of sarcasm and bad attitude he crawled into whenever she was near.

“Don’t,” he said, slamming his hand against the table. “Don’t fuck with my head.”

Her chest heaved. He was so close. She knew how he could be when he was mad. Knew how he’d take her. Nobody could make her feel what MJ made her feel when he was cloaked in darkness trying to break free.

“It’s not your head I have in mind,” she said, easing forward.

His lips tightened, eyes narrowed. He grabbed her and pushed her down onto her back on top of the table. His hands fisted in the hem of her shirt. She wrapped her legs around his waist and pressed her hips into him.

He groaned. “You just don’t know.”

When she dug her heels into the back of his thighs and thrust against him a second time, he tore her thin T-shirt up the front. Still in her pajamas, her chest was bare and she was all too aware of the diamond flashing on the long chain between her breasts.

MJ braced his hands on either side of her, peering down at the ring, eyes wide with disbelief. “What the fuck is
that
?”

She reached for it, but he was quicker. He snatched the ring off of her chest and squeezed it in his hand, his eyes burning into hers. “You’re fucking
engaged
?
”

How could she have forgotten it was there? “No. I—”

“No?” He held the ring in front of her face.

Maddie gazed through the sparkling stone between them. MJ’s tilted eyes and parted lips spoke louder than anything he could say. How could she let this happen? How could she hurt him again?

“I haven’t decided,” she said, her voice hoarse and thick.

“You haven’t decided?” He let his head drop, laughing, mocking her.

It was painful to hear. Not because she didn’t deserve it, because his pain was so raw in the hollow sound.

He looked back up at her and squeezed the ring in his fist above her chest. “You
decided
to let me fuck you on your dad’s kitchen table with this around your neck. That’s how much I mean to you.”

“No!” She grasped his face between her hands. “I—”

MJ shook her off. “Fuck this, Maddie.” He yanked the
ring. With a sharp, painful, burn of metal digging into her neck, the chain broke. “You’re not getting married.”

She shoved him back and sat up, rubbing the back of her neck. “I haven’t decided, or I wouldn’t be here.”

He took a few steps back and folded his arms. The chain dangled from his fist. “Why
are
you here?”

She ran her hands down her face. Her legs dangled off the edge of the table. Her shirt hung open, but she didn’t try to cover herself. She was as bare now as she could be with him holding her ring in his hand. “I told him I needed time to get away and think, so we agreed to a break.”

MJ threw his head back and paced into the living room and back again. He stopped in front of her and stepped between her legs. “I’ll make this easy for you.” He let the ring slip between his fingers, holding tight to the end of the chain. The diamond swung back and forth in front of her face, flashing in the overhead light.

He took her chin and held her still, his dark eyes fixed on hers. “When you can look me in the eye and tell me you want to marry him, I’ll give it back.”

He wasn’t playing fair. He knew she could never do that. She would never say those words to him.

Maddie reached for the ring, but he pulled it away. “This isn’t about you,” she said.

He smirked and shook his head, knowing as well as she did what an enormous lie she’d just uttered.

It was always about him.

W
hen the hell would he get a goddamn break? It wasn’t bad enough that he had the shitty end of every fucking stick when it came to family, now the universe had to take a dump on him in the form of a big shiny diamond around Maddie’s neck.

And here he was being the good guy and helping out Coach with his team. Was there no such thing as a good deed being rewarded in this world?

“Thought you said Peach was coming too,” Coach said, standing beside MJ on the third baseline watching the boys practice batting.

“Something came up.”

Yeah it did. Something came up hard and fast, and he’d almost shoved it home. Then he saw the ring, and it went right back down and hid deep inside his boxer briefs. Nothing like another guy’s engagement ring to make the mood wither and die.

The bat cracked into the ball, sending it out in left field. “Good hit!” Coach yelled.

“Get under it!” MJ shouted to the left fielder who caught it. “Nice!”

Coach spit tobacco juice on the ground. “Everything good between you two?”

“What do you think?” MJ eyed the small kid in the batter’s box. He remembered him from last year. He couldn’t hit far, but the boy could run. “Move in!” he yelled to the infield. “He’s going to bunt.”

“He’s actually been hitting some decent grounders,” Coach said. “Boy’s fast.”

MJ tugged on the bill of his cap. Maddie’s ring sat like a lead rock in his pocket. Knowing her, she’d sneak in the big house and snoop through his bedroom while he was gone, which was why he’d keep it in his pocket until she asked for it back.

Which she wouldn’t.

Maddie was always trying to make up rules as she went along, but she never realized they just delayed the real outcome. You win a game, or you lose. There’s no almost. You get engaged, or you don’t. There was no taking a break to think about it.

If she didn’t say yes, then the answer was no.

What kind of loser agrees to a break? Why would anyone want to marry someone who has to run away and tear you apart in her mind, weighing each piece to see if it’s worth enough to be tied down to you for the rest of her life?

MJ hooked his thumbs in his pockets and scuffed his foot along the base line.

She’d run away from him, too. Guess that made him a pathetic loser who hoped she’d come back for over a year.

What had he done wrong? Yeah, he lost his head
sometimes and his temper all the time. But it wasn’t like that was a surprise to her. She’d known him forever.

Maybe it was like she’d said, only kids play to her.

“All right!” Coach yelled. “Give me five laps around the diamond and you’re free to go. I want you all here fifteen minutes before the game starts on Saturday. Don’t be late!”

MJ realized he’d spent the whole practice lost inside his head over Maddie. “I wasn’t much help,” he said. “Team looks good this season.”

“We’re not winning many games, but they’re fighters. You and Peach whipped them into shape their first year. You two make a good team. Always have though.”

He could feel Coach eyeing him, but kept his gaze on the team running laps. “She was wearing an engagement ring around her neck.”

Coach shuffled from foot to foot and tucked his hands in his pockets. “Not on her finger?”

MJ let out a sharp chuckle. “She and the guy are taking a break until she figures out if she’s going to tell him yes or no.” He turned his head to Coach. “I took it from her. The ring.”

Coach’s face went blank, then he slowly smiled, shaking his head. “What am I going to do with you two? You’re like fire and gasoline.”

“Yeah.” MJ thought about earlier, with her under him on the table, how easily she could get him worked up—like tossing gas on a fire. “We are.”

“Take it easy on her. I don’t know why, but it seems like
she hasn’t had her head on straight since you two broke up. She’s got something stuck in her brain she’s being stubborn about.”

MJ had sensed it too, but he figured it was just him. Maddie not wanting to be around him.

He reached into his pocket and squeezed the damn ring. How long had she been with this guy? Long enough for him to be proposing?

“Good to see you helping out again,” a man said beside MJ, jerking him out of his thoughts.

Mr. Singleton stood beside him. MJ’s back stiffened. “Thanks.”

Coach chuckled. “If you call hanging around on the baseline with his thumbs in his pockets helping out.”

“No Maddie again this year?” Mr. Singleton asked. MJ wasn’t sure if it was the guy’s tone or his own imagination that implied more than what was on the surface of the question.

“She stayed home today,” he said, smugly.

“Hope she can make it to the game this weekend. We missed her last season.” He motioned for his son. “Let’s go, Charlie!”

MJ squeezed the ring in his pocket again. If it wasn’t Ring Man, it would be Mr. Singleton after her. He couldn’t take it anymore. Being around her was torture. He couldn’t get away fast enough.