Dear Diary, he’s thorough!
Zach had just finished a punishing session in his home gym when a soft rustle alerted him he was no longer alone.
Out of breath, he grabbed a bottle of water and uncapped it. He turned as Maddie stepped through the doorway into his gym. On seeing her, he could have laughed with joy.
He missed her.
It was as if he hadn’t seen her in weeks. His chest tightened with a joy he didn’t want to analyse, and his pulse picked up speed. What he wouldn’t give to have her right now. He tamped down the impulse to swing her into his arms and carry her off to bed. Maddie didn’t need sex from him; she needed time to recover from her accident. An accident he was thinking hadn’t been so accidental.
So far, he hadn’t been able to locate Kimber. But then she knew how to make herself invisible if she needed to be. A couple of their mutual friends had confirmed what he suspected. Kimber was here in the UK. Zach drank down most of the water from the half litre bottle. If Kimber was responsible for Maddie’s injuries, he would lay bets that Kimber was lurking close by, and it wouldn’t be long before she tried to hurt Maddie again.
The thought landed in his stomach like a rock of fear as it had done since he’d taken Kimber’s call. He’d witnessed the level of spite his ex-wife was capable of, and there was no way he would allow Maddie to be on the receiving end.
He pushed thoughts of Kimber out of his mind. Maddie had managed to give her mum the slip and had snuck over to his place. Why would he waste time thinking about anyone else?
Just by showing up, Maddie dissolved his black mood and held his complete attention. She looked so intrinsically feminine in her PJs he couldn’t look away. Her curls fell around her shoulders just the way he liked. Her lilac check pyjama bottoms rode low on her slim hips. Purple stretchy vest top clung to her like a second skin, showing off her full breasts to their best advantage, hard nipples pressed against the material in a brazen call for attention.
Every male hormone sailing through his blood paid attention. It took all of his control not to grab her, land his mouth on hers, strip her, and show her how much he missed her.
She paused just inside the room, gave him a small smile that told him she was a woman on a mission. Her gaze skimmed over him, lingered here and there, setting his body on total male alert.
Her smile grew.
“Hi.” Her voice came out on a raspy whisper.
The way she checked him out, with that slow glide of her gaze over him, made his gut clench and his pulse pick up speed. He tossed his towel and water bottle onto a nearby leather couch and sauntered toward her, reminding himself she’d been in an accident not so long ago. Giving into his basic needs was not an option.
“Hi. How are you feeling?”
“Better.” Her gaze dropped to his mouth. “Mum’s gone.” When he only stared, she continued with a feigned grimace. “She was driving me barmy, so I sent her home, but she wouldn’t leave until I promised to let you look after me.” When he stopped inches from her, she cupped his cheek, her fingers cool, gentle on his jaw, and he felt the caress all the way to his groin. “Since you didn’t stay for dinner earlier, I wondered whether I could tempt you with dessert.”
“What’s for dessert?”
Her smile teased. “Guess.”
Everything in him yelled oh yes! But he pulled back when she leaned in to press her lips to his and kept his tone even, knowing that once she discovered his secret it’d wipe the sexy interest right out of her eyes.
“I’m sweaty.”
She traced a forefinger over the sheen that covered the taut bulge of his bicep, sending electric currents through him before she moved on to his abs, bringing her other forefinger to join the exploration over each of the eight wet ridges of his stomach. He stifled a groan as his entire nervous system signalled acute anticipation.
“I know.” Her low sultry voice almost brought him to his knees. “But we could take a shower.”
When her fingers got to his waistband and began to sneak inside his breath lodged somewhere in his throat. He captured her hands, brought them well out of mischief’s way. His gaze flicked over her bruises, now a prominent puce on her shoulder.
“You look far too beaten up for what you have in mind,” he persisted, despite his crumbling resistance. It was all he could do to keep himself in check when even the brush of her breath on his cheek was turning him on.
“I’m tougher than I look, Zach.” Her breathy statement pushed him a little closer to the edge. “But if you’re worried”—she traced the slight indent in his chin, her gaze intense, focused on the glide of her finger—“You can be extra gentle with me.”
He groaned. Sighting the need in her eyes fuelled his to insurmountable heights. He’d tell Maddie about CCP Development later, for now he ached for her so much it was physical anguish.
One minute he was holding her off, the next she was crushed against him. His hands were spanning her waist, he was lifting her, and her slender legs were automatically locking around him. Her plump breasts, naked beneath the thin top, pressed into his chest as their mouths connected in a long wet kiss he knew betrayed his desperate need for her. His hands moulded her bottom, pressed her tighter against his arousal even as he fought the raw urge to take her right there against the nearest wall.
Supporting her weight with one hand, he slid the other up her back, over her nape to bury his fingers in her soft hair. He released her mouth to latch onto the side of her neck, sucking on the delicious flesh with love bites that drew tiny, frantic gasps of pleasure from her.
She was a walking aphrodisiac and he couldn’t get enough of her. He captured her lips for another scorching kiss, sliding his tongue against hers in mimicry of the way he desperately wanted to slide inside her. She moved restlessly, the sensation of her core rocking against his erection was a sweet torture he couldn’t endure for much longer.
With her securely in his arms, he turned toward the door.
“Where are we going?”
“Shower in my room.”
“But you have a shower right there.” Maddie pointed toward the small shower room at the opposite end of the gym.
“The condoms are upstairs.”
“Oh. I forgot about that. Let me down. It’d be quicker if I walked.”
“Forget that idea. It’d be more fun if I carried you.”
She shivered in response to his whispered words in her ear, groaned. “You mean torturous.”
He paused to kiss her.
“Delicious torture. Believe me, having you move against me like that is tormenting me out of my mind. The only thing stopping me from taking you right this second is that I badly need a shower.”
She smiled against his jaw as she nuzzled him. “I kind of like you all hot and sweaty.”
“You’re not helping.”
“Sorry.” She sounded anything but.
How Zach made it to his wet room en suite without any mishaps was a mystery to him, considering Maddie distracted him every step of the way so their progress was slow, punctuated with kisses and laughter. He turned on the shower, grabbed a condom from the cabinet above the grey marble double sink vanity unit, then finally set her on her feet.
The front of her top was wet from his body, the material outlining her breasts to fantasy proportions. He grasped the hem of her top. “I think we need to get you out of these wet things, sweetheart.” His voice was a low husk, and he didn’t wait for her to agree.
Dark green eyes met his, held as he pulled off her top, and tossed it in the general direction of the wash basket.
Her hands slid up his chest, a tiny smile of anticipation lured him as he held her hips and drew her close so he could soothe her bruises with his mouth. He pressed gentle lips in a soft kiss to a small bruise on her shoulder, pulled back a fraction to do the same for another mark further back on her shoulder, and that’s when he saw it.
Zach turned her. His breath snagged. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“They don’t hurt that much. I’ve been covered in Arnica whether I liked it or not.”
As a treatment for contusions, the Arnica would heal the bruising but obviously hadn’t had chance to do the job yet because Maddie’s back was covered in brilliant purplish-red marks. Something strange happened to Zach as he took in the evidence of Maddie’s accident. In that moment an alien emotion ripped through his chest, gripped his heart, and squeezed tight.
He wrapped his arms around her from behind and held her close in the steamed up wet room.
“Damn, sweetheart.” But he wasn’t sure what he was damning—the fact Maddie had been hurt or the uncontrollable emotion trying to burst out of his chest.
She wriggled. “Did I turn you off?” The uncertain vulnerability in her voice had him twirling her back around to face him.
“You couldn’t achieve that if you tried.” He dipped his head and settled his lips on hers in a hot, moist kiss that told her what she wanted to know—in case she happened to miss the hard evidence of his need prodding her.
Getting them out of the rest of their clothes, Zach guided Maddie backward behind the glass partition and into the shower spray with his lips on hers. “You turn me on something chronic,” he said against her mouth.
“Does that mean you find me exciting?” She nipped his lips playfully while she spoke.
The sensation tugged low in his gut.
“Baby, you have no idea.” If his growl gave him away he didn’t care, he wanted her more than a man dying of thirst wanted water and, since he was responsible for her insecurities, she should know. “You’re hands down the most exciting woman I’ve ever met. Don’t you ever forget that.”
Her smile grew. Had he detected a hint of satisfaction?
“Now turn around,” he said, voice thick with desire and some other emotion he didn’t understand.
She eyed him suspiciously. “Why?” But the easy smile she gave him said she wasn’t worried—she trusted him.
“Do you expect me to do something ‘depraved’?” He winked, smoothed his hands down her arms until he linked his fingers with hers, brought her hands up between them and twirled her to face the shower’s marble wall.
Placing her palms flat against the steamy surface, he nipped her ear. “Keep them there.” He let his fingers trail lightly to her shoulders, down past the outer sides of her breasts and over her ribs to her hips, raising goose bumps on her skin.
Gathering her wet hair, he draped it over one of her shoulders, leaving her elegant back exposed to his ministrations. “I just want to kiss your hurts away.”
He started at her left scapula where the largest bruise resided, kept his lips a butterfly brush against her back as he concentrated on kissing every one of her bruises. He took his time, enjoying her low sighs and moans of relaxed pleasure.
~*~
MADDIE TOLD herself it was the shower water running into her eyes that stung and not tears from Zach’s incredible care. He made her feel cherished ... loved. And since she knew he didn’t feel anything even close to love for her, she grabbed the for men shower gel from the shelf nearby in an effort to distance herself from the longing to have things she couldn’t have with him.
She turned, placing a hand flat against Zach’s hard chest, backed him under the shower. Water plastered his hair to his head and ran in rivulets down his face and torso.
“Enough of that. The way I remember it, you needed the shower.”
He rewarded her with a feral smile that ended midway between a laugh and a groan as he opened his arms wide in shameless invitation. His eyes had turned a midnight blue but blazed with the intensity of a midday sun as he looked into her face.
“I’m all yours, Mad.”
Maddie lost her breath. If only that were true.
She concentrated on business and not on her emotions. Emotions that would no longer allow her to overlook her true feelings for this man. Love expanded in her chest, filled her throat, and pressed tears into her eyes. And still she focused on squeezing the clear green gel into her palm, rubbing her hands together to work up rich suds then spreading them over every inch of Zach’s taut, golden body.
She soaped him until his muscles quaked and he suddenly snagged her hands, pulling her against him for a sizzling kiss that pooled warmth low in her belly. She slid against him under the water as he took control, holding her for the spray to wash off the foam that had transferred from his body to hers. He ran his hands up along her ribcage, his thumbs stroking the outer curves of her breasts as he softened the kiss and released her mouth to trail his lips along her jaw. He nipped her shoulder, her throat, the delicious spot where her neck and shoulder met.
She whimpered and pressed closer, wanting him to do that to her entire body. “Oh, Zach.”
The pads of his thumbs inched forward to tease her nipples; the caress set her womb pulsing with appetition. He found her mouth again, deepened the kiss to such an intensity Maddie couldn’t hold back the throaty moan of pleasure. His hands fondled her breasts while hers smoothed over his chest, loving the sensation of the hard muscle flexing and light scattering of crisp hair against her palms.
He tightened his hold, pressing her pelvis into the heat of his, so his arousal slid between her legs to the liquid junction at her thighs making them both pant. She could feel the heated flush of desire radiating off her body—Zach must have felt it too.
Maddie raised a hand to clasp the back of his head, needing the anchor to keep her upright. All she wanted was for him to love her—all of her—mind, body, and soul. His hands travelled over her curves with increasing fervour, his mouth on her no longer gentle but hungry with need and a frenzy she felt too. Soon the caresses grew frantic, kisses ravenous as Maddie strained for more, compelled to quench the fire burning her.
Zach’s lips roved down her throat as he pressed his hands to the small of her back, urging her to arch for him. She clung to his strong shoulders as she complied, inviting his attention to her breasts. Water splashed down on them from the large showerhead. The heat in his eyes scorched as he took in every inch of her nakedness. When his hot greedy lips closed on her nipple, her breath caught. He suckled her hard, the stroke of his tongue setting off vibrations deep inside her, shot fiery arrows straight to her core.
Maddie gave a long, lusty moan of delight and arced in an instinctive effort to give him better access. She tilted her hips against his hardness, searching for satisfaction.
“Now, Zach. Please now.”
A strange delicious current ricocheted through her as Zach grabbed the condom he’d rested on the shelf next to the shower gel and let her slip it on him. When he lifted her, she wrapped her legs around him, welcoming him as he entered her, filled her with a thick sleek stroke.
Mindless with overwhelming love and exquisite pleasure, she held onto him as she tried to suppress her tears. Zach caught her mouth in urgent, open-mouthed kisses that singed, and she kissed him back, giving him everything of herself—her love.
“I guess it can be like this every time.” His voice, low rough silk, pushed her over the edge. And as she rocked her hips to match his in a rhythm that threw them both into a violent simultaneous climax, she let her tears mingle with the water.
She was in love with Zach and knew she’d never experience that kind of love from him.