“Exactly. I let this happen to her.”
“That’s like Cait thinking… I’ll never understand women.” He straightened, rolled his shoulders. “So the thing with you and me and Allison, that was payback, then, for what Allison did to Kelly.”
“Payback?” Madeline crossed one leg over the other and folded her arms over her midriff. Her stomach ached. “I wouldn’t call it that, not really. Allison was up to her old tricks again, and I was damned if she was going to get what she wanted, after what she’d done to Kelly.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She wanted
you
.”
The totally male confusion twisted his brow once more. “She had me. We were dating.”
How come the smart ones were always so dense?
“Dating wasn’t what she had in mind,” Madeline said, as though explaining some particularly difficult concept to a first-grader. “She wanted you the way Falconetti has you.”
“What?” The horrified look in his eyes would have been funny if she hadn’t been delving into her own private hell. “There was never any possibility that… I was a little infatuated, but it wouldn’t have gone any farther. My mother couldn’t stand her.”
Madeline bit off the perfect mama’s-boy joke and sighed. “Your brother had just gotten Barbara Blake pregnant, it was common knowledge they were going to get married because of that, and Allison thought she had the ideal way to snag you.”
He moved his head in a slow side-to-side movement, more trying to take it in than negate the idea. “We weren’t even… I mean, it’s not like we were having sex all that often—”
“It only takes once, Calvert, especially when you’re a dumbass nineteen-year-old and your girlfriend is lying about being on the pill.”
Appalled realization dawned on his face. “Holy hell.”
“I’m sure being trapped into a shotgun marriage with that bitch would have been hell, but not a holy one.”
“Funny.” He shot her a dark look. “So you figured if she caught us together, that would be it, huh?”
“I thought even if I had to go all the way through with it, screwing you once would be a small price to pay.” She pressed her arms tighter over her aching stomach. “In my experience, boys didn’t turn down a free piece, and it wasn’t like I had to worry about losing your friendship or respect.”
“Yeah.” He frowned. “So I get everything up to that point. What I don’t get is why you showed up at my mama’s insisting I’d gotten you pregnant. Why do that if Allison had already seen us?”
“She stormed off. You left with Del. I thought everything was good, you know? Then she came back to the party.” Madeline smoothed her hair behind her ear, remembering the virulence in Allison’s voice, the spiteful triumph in her eyes. “I hadn’t counted on her being able to put everything together, which she had. She was pretty smug about the whole thing. I wanted to smack that grin right off her face. I couldn’t let her win. It was all mixed up in my head. It wasn’t ever really about you, but what she’d done to Kelly, how she was going to get what she wanted…”
The words trailed off and she sighed, massaging her temple. “I’d had a few beers, which with my family history is
not
a good idea at all. I decided I’d talk to your mama, tell her everything, and she’d know what to do. She was always so calm and capable and everything my mother wasn’t. I took Trevor’s bottle of Southern Comfort, drank part of that on the way over to your house. Again, not a good idea.
“How I managed to get to your house without wrapping the truck around a tree, I have no idea. So I wake your mother up, and somewhere I got the bright idea that even better than telling her the truth, if I told her we had slept together and I was probably pregnant, that she’d make you do the right thing and then that would really fuck Allison over—”
“Oh shit, Madeline.” He rubbed a hand over his eyes.
“Hey, I didn’t say it was the smartest idea I ever had. Your mama, of course, didn’t believe a word of it. She called Daddy, and then you and Del showed up and that was all she wrote. I was the biggest disgrace to the Holton name, ever, and…I don’t know. Allison had won, she still had you, and Kelly was still gone. I’d torn it with Daddy in a way I never had before. I couldn’t stand being at Mercer, and I couldn’t stand being at home. Leaving just seemed the thing to do, so I did it.”
“And looked back every damn day of your life,” he murmured.
Shocked, she stared at him. She wouldn’t have expected him to get that. “Well, yeah. Basically. I always thought, somehow, I’d get the chance to make up with Daddy, you know? Except he was killed so suddenly, and then it was too late. My mama is…well, my mama. She’s never going to change. I don’t know my sister, I sure as hell don’t know my brother. I had being a cop, though, at least until I fucked that up by getting Jack killed and now…hell, now I don’t have anything.”
“Sweet Jesus, Maddie.” Those long fingers pinched his nose again. “What a freakin’ waste.”
“You’re telling me.” A completely inappropriate laugh broke free, bubbling into the room with a faint note of hysteria. “Know what makes it okay, though? Allison’s bitterly divorced and works at the damn chicken plant, and you’re married to a woman who’s everything she could never be. It’s fucking priceless.”
“It’s not okay.” His gaze turned fierce. “Nothing about this is okay. You shouldn’t have been carrying this around so long, letting it cripple your life, and you wouldn’t have if I’d…damn it.”
She bristled. “I do not need your pity, Calvert.”
“It’s not pity, Holton. It’s culpability. If I hadn’t let your daddy guilt me into keeping quiet, I assure you Mama would have gotten to the bottom of things. I kept telling her it was okay, that it was just you being crazy, because Virgil didn’t want me to say anything, didn’t want your mother to know.”
“No telling what he wanted.” Sadness shivered over her, for the father she’d never really understood, who’d never really understood her.
“You know what, though?” A muscle ticked in his jaw, as if he was biting the inside of his cheek.
She knew she was wiped out and wanted to sleep for a week, but she doubted that’s what he was getting at. “What?”
“Having all this out in the open is fine and dandy, Madeline, but it doesn’t explain why Kelly came back, if she came back. If those bones are hers, it also doesn’t explain how she got under that house.”
Shit, she wasn’t going to call him. Ash tossed the little rectangle on the table next to the rocking chair. He shouldn’t be surprised. It wasn’t like he hadn’t had to do all the pursuing so far. He’d just thought…
He shook his head and picked up his guitar, rested his feet on the porch railing. If she didn’t want to see him, he couldn’t make her want it. He played with the strings a moment, a chilly wind sweeping in across the yard and stinging his ears. Toying with the tuning, he settled more deeply into the rocker.
Maybe it was a good thing she hadn’t called. He was fast on his way to getting in over his head with her. Maybe Tick was right, and he did his thinking about women with the wrong head.
He strummed the opening riff to an old George Strait tune. An engine purred on the highway beyond the tree line, slowed, brakes whining a little. Somebody turning into his driveway. He frowned. Not Tick’s truck, and it didn’t sound like Stanton’s SUV, either.
Probably somebody else lost, looking for Long Lonely Road. He got a lot of those out here. Except the vehicle appearing around the bend in the drive didn’t belong to a lost stranger. His pulse kicked up a notch. The sensible little Honda was Madeline’s.
He set the guitar aside and went down the steps to meet her in the yard. She stepped from the car, her thick brown hair disheveled as though she’d tousled it often during the day. Her shoulders slumped, the entire line of her body crying dejection.
“Hey.” He caught a flash of glittering hazel eyes before she surprised the hell out of him by walking into his arms, burrowing against his chest. He wrapped her close, rubbing his hands down her spine. Nose buried in her hair, he inhaled. “Rough day?”
She shuddered. “Oh God, you have no idea.”
For several moments, he simply held on, absorbing whatever tension wracked her. She sighed and turned her face into his throat. “I should have called first. Just turning up like this…that was rude. You could have been—”
“No.” He rubbed his cheek against her hair. “This is good.”
She folded her arms about his waist, returning the embrace for the first time. Pleasure rumbled through him, shaking him to the core.
Shit, he was in over his head. Already. How fucking scary was that?
Almost as scary as knowing he didn’t care, that even realizing she was more dangerous to him than Suzanne had ever been wasn’t going to deter him from getting closer to her.
He slid a palm up to her shoulders, rubbed his thumb over her nape. “Hungry?”
Her hair brushed his chin as she shook her head. “Wiped out.”
“Come on.” He turned them toward the house, led her toward the steps. “You can lie down for a little bit while I finish up some paperwork.”
Holding on to him, she rested her head against his chest. “You’re a good guy, Hardison.”
“I’ve been told that a time or two, but I like hearing it from you, Mad.”
Twilight dimmed his bedroom, but enough light filtered in to let him see the emotion glimmering in her eyes as she turned into him. She tiptoed up to brush a kiss across his chin.
“Don’t leave me,” she murmured. “Stay and lie down with me.”
Lying down with her would involve more than her resting, and they both knew it. He sifted his fingers through her hair, the strands cool and smooth on his skin. “Are you sure?”
She framed his face with both hands. “Yes.”
He lowered his head, nuzzling the soft skin along her jaw. Her trembling sigh moved through him, and she lifted her hands to unbutton his shirt and push it from his shoulders. Sensation flowed out from the first touch of her fingertips on him, and his knees weakened at the impact. He laced his fingers through her hair, holding her head in place, and took her mouth, need and hunger flaring in him.
Her tongue tangling with his, she pressed nearer, palms sliding over his chest, across his rib cage, along his sides. A groan worked itself up through his throat, and he massaged the tense tendons in her neck.
The kiss morphed, from a devouring to a deluge of gentle nips and soothing sips. She slipped away long enough to yank her sweater over her head and toss it aside before curling into him once more.
“Ash,” she whispered into the depths of his mouth, “touch me. I need you to.”
The plea reached inside him and twisted everything together into a knot of wanting and desire and an emotion he wasn’t ready to name. He curved his hands over her shoulders, slid his palms along her arms. The warm smoothness of her skin tried to steal his ability to breathe and damn near succeeded.
Her fingers traced his features, her eyes fixed on his in the fading light. “Make me forget, for a little while.”
He wanted her to forget, wanted her to have only enough room to think of him. He eased his hands up to the curves of her breasts, encased in lavender silk, and chafed his thumbs across nipples already hardening under his caress.
Her appreciative moan speared through him. He wanted to have only enough room to think of her too and was fast getting there. With one arm wrapped around her waist, he bent and captured a swollen peak in his mouth, dampening the silk, closing his teeth around her, tugging, teasing.
“Oh.” She dug short nails into his scalp. “Yes.”
With his thumb and forefinger, he caught the other silk-covered nipple and rolled it, pinching a little. Her impassioned gasp tore through him, sending a flood of hot excitement straight to his groin.
Arching further in his embrace, she dipped a hand between them, finding the growing bulge between his thighs, cupping him through oft-washed denim. His turn to moan and he thrust forward, rubbing into her palm.
Hooking a finger into the tiny gap between her bra cups, he tugged the fabric up, baring her to his gaze and mouth. He dragged his tongue over the hardened tips. “Beautiful.”
She released her hold on him to reach behind her and undo the clasp, shrugging free of the thin garment. He took one step back, drinking her in, and went down on his knees before her, trailing his fingertips along her belly, dispatching the hook and zipper of her slacks, sliding them down her legs, lifting first one foot, then the other free, discarding her loafers as he did so.
Letting his hands roam up her legs, over calves and the hollows of her knees, to the back of her thighs, he pressed his cheek just below the slight jut of her hipbone. A hint of soap and woman blended with the subtle tang of arousal and infiltrated his senses. A scrap of silk separated them. He slid his hands higher, cupping the rounded cheeks of her ass, and nuzzled her intimately. She rewarded him with a hissed indrawn breath. With her fingers digging into his bare shoulders, she leaned into him as she spread her thighs.
Through the thin fabric, he tongued her, wringing another gasp from her lips, her knees bumping into his arms. Finding the tiny swollen bud of her clit, he ran his teeth over it, sucked her into his mouth.
“Oh God.” Her head fell back on the sultry moan, the picture she made—outthrust breasts, mouth open in abandon, eyes closed in pleasure—firing his craving to a deeper level. He drew her deeper between his lips and nails scored his skin. “I’ll fall.”
“I’ll catch you,” he muttered against her.
Tangling her hands in his hair, she slid down his chest, winding her thighs around his. Her eyes dilated with desire, she cradled his face. “I don’t deserve you.”
Remnants of his earlier anger flickered to life, licking at his chest. Damn, she deserved so much, deserved everything, and it pissed him off that she didn’t see that. He caught her chin, kissed her hard. “Don’t say that. Ever again.”
He lifted her to him and came to his feet in one smooth motion. She wrapped arms about his neck, legs about his waist as he carried her to the bed. He curled his fingers in the tiny panties and stripped them away. She watched him, eyes shimmering in the last vestiges of evening, while he fumbled with his belt and fly, shoved jeans and boxers down.
Fuck, he’d forgotten his boots. He stumbled to sit on the bed beside her, hauling one free and tossing it across the room. She rose to half-sit and reached between his thighs, curling a hand around his hard-as-freaking-nails erection, sliding her palm along the length, base to tip and back again.
An inhale strangled in his throat. “Mad…damn, baby.”
Her thumb swiped away the moisture at the head of his dick. “Hurry.”
He heaved the other boot halfway off, kicked it away with his jeans, and groped through the nightstand for a condom. Finally, he twisted sideways, pushing her across the bed. She wound her legs about his hips and pulled him down, her hold strong and desperate.
Resting on one arm, he positioned himself with the other hand. She tilted her hips up to his, taking the first couple inches of him. Heat exploded around him, and he ground his teeth, catching his breath before driving home.
“Yes.” She linked her hands behind his neck and tilted her head back, bowing into him, meeting his strokes with hungry pelvic thrusts of her own.
Giving herself to him. Taking him. Owning him.
The pleasure was too much, the emotional sensation too strong. On his elbows, he caught her face between his hands, forcing her to meet his eyes.
“Don’t you ever”—he gritted his teeth against a wave of desire so powerful it made him ache—“give me that bullshit about what you don’t deserve again. Do you hear me?”
She tried to shake her head, and he refused to allow it.
“You deserve everything, Mad.
Everything
. Do you hear me?”
“Ash…” Her face contorted with a wash of pleasure.
“You deserve this, deserve everything good. Say it, baby. I want to hear you own it.” The same way she was possessing him. He gasped, sweat breaking over his brow, his thrusts deeper, harder, more desperate now.
“I can’t.”
“You can.” He caught her mouth, desire and need coiling in him, higher and deeper, a spinning wheel of firecrackers waiting to go off. “Say it, baby. You deserve everything.”
She arched harder into him. “Everything…oh, Ash, please…”
The firework explosion went off in her first, a string of bursting fire and contractions, one after the other, singeing him, setting off his own surge of heat and light and gratification so white-hot it hurt.
Her arms slack around him, he collapsed, barely able to keep his weight shifted off her. His eyes blurred, a stinging blend of sweat and something he didn’t want to acknowledge, and he blinked, nuzzling her temple. “Hell, Mad.”
She laughed once and pressed her cheek to his throat. He concentrated on catching his breath, scattering tiny kisses over her face and neck. Beneath him, he felt her slow glide into deeper relaxation, tension seeping from her body. Gathering his strength, he rolled to his side and took her with him, wrapping her close. She murmured, grasping at his torso, and he lifted his head, a laugh building at the sight of her, naked and beautiful and well loved.
And absolutely, completely, totally fast asleep in his arms.
The incensed wail built to another crescendo, and Caitlin cringed. She tucked Lee closer against her chest, shifted his position and eased up from the rocker. This tactic hadn’t worked, so maybe walking would. Not that she held out much hope—they’d been blessed with two really good days and she’d known this was coming. She hated these periods, hated the helplessness that came with the interludes of crying that seemed to have no reason, other than Lamar Eugene Calvert III was furious with the whole damn world and wanted everyone to know it.
“Lee, please.” She rested her lips on his damp brow. “Come on, sweetheart. Don’t do this.”
He cried harder, scrunching himself into a tight ball against her. She rubbed his back, to no avail. Nothing was working today—not nursing or changing or bathing or swaddling or swinging or singing or talking. At least she knew it wasn’t about pain. Their pediatrician had assured her there was nothing amiss with the baby once the crying jags had started, and she’d learned early on that his “something hurts” cry sounded vastly different from his “I’m infuriated with everything” wail.
She couldn’t even blame this particular personality trait on the strong streak of stubbornness that ran through the entire Calvert clan.
No, this was a legendary Falconetti temper manifesting itself early. Dear Holy Mother of God, forget the terrible twos—they were doomed when this kid reached his teens.
“It’s all right, baby. Hush now.” Resting her cheek against his head, she wrapped him a little closer and rocked side to side. He paused mid-cry, snuffling as he caught his breath, and she held her own, eyes closed, knowing what was next. Tension coiled in her, the waiting only drawing things out, making it worse.
He stretched, kicking and flailing, and the sobs swelled once more. She sighed and puffed out a half-laugh, patting him. At least it couldn’t last forever. He usually wore himself out after a couple of hours, but slept fitfully on those nights, waking to grumble and fuss every hour or so.
“Lee, darling.” She kissed him again, feathering her fingers over his soft dark hair. Fat tears rolled down his cheeks. The vulnerability settled like a lump in her chest. Why couldn’t she figure out what made him so unhappy on these days? “This cannot be making you feel better.”
A truck engine rumbled to a stop outside, and she closed her eyes on a whispered prayer of thanks. Sometimes he responded to Tick’s deep voice and settled down. Maybe that would work this evening.