Wanted her.
He moved up her body, his chest pressed to her back. She closed her eyes, picturing them together. His huge frame covering her, his golden skin contrasting and complementing her darker tone. His silken auburn hair tangling with her coarser darker curls as he bent his head over hers.
“Take me?” he rasped, his lips grazing the shell of her ear.
“Yes. I’m yours.” The words slipped from her, unbidden. But she couldn’t revoke them. Because she meant them. God, no matter how stupid of her, she meant them.
With a deep, almost tortured groan that vibrated from his chest and through her back, he thrust into her.
Her head flew back on her shoulders, a sharp wail erupting from her. Her spine arched from the clash of pleasure and pain. The combination ricocheted through her like a discordant yet harmonious duet, and she shook with it.
His arm wrapped around her waist like a steel band, holding her to him. His low words barely penetrated, but the soothing, rumbled tone did. Second by second, muscle by muscle, she relaxed. Her sex quivered around his huge, thick length and width, slowly acclimating itself to the intrusion.
“Easy, baby.” He scattered gentle but feverish kisses to her ear, her nape, the tops of her shoulders. “Relax and breathe for me. You can take me. There’s nothing you can’t do.”
He held still above her, but as time ticked by, it wasn’t enough. The threads of pain segued into a taut, greedy need that only he could assuage. But to do that, he had to move.
“Maddox.” She flexed her hips, moaned as pleasure undulated through her. “I need you to...”
“Yeah,” he finished for her.
He withdrew, his stiff flesh dragging through her ultrasensitive sheath, setting off tiny pulses and sparks. She whimpered, and when he buried himself back inside her, it turned into a cry. Hands gripping her hips, he rode her, stroking into her. Reshaping her, branding her so she was his and his alone. No one else would do for her after him. No one could fill her to capacity and beyond, chase away the emptiness, make her...feel.
Not content to be passive, she bucked her hips, grinding against him, urging him to take her harder, faster, thrusting back on his cock. His dirty chuckle floated over her, as did his dark, low urging to “go on and get what you want,” that “it’s yours.” His words inflamed her, drove her to crash and burn with him.
Once more, he covered her, one hand folding around her breast, pinching the turgid nipple and the other slipping between her slick, trembling thighs.
“Give it to me, baby,” he growled, fingers circling her engorged button, rubbing it. “Give everything to me.”
With a choked, almost soundless scream, she broke. Cracked. Exploded into pieces, so many pieces. Her mind flew in one direction, her soul in the other. And her body... Her body belonged to him. Was grounded by him.
As she drifted back to some semblance of sanity, Maddox stiffened over her, his hips snapping and powering into her. He seized, his long groan echoing in her ear as he came, his heavy frame blanketing her as they both tumbled to the blanket.
He rolled, gathering her in his arms, his thick legs tangled with hers. Silence fell around them, broken only by their rough breath.
“Stay.” His low, ragged voice belied the tender stroking of his hand up and down her spine. “Stay with me.”
“Maddox.” Emotion—need, sadness, fear—clogged her throat, and she tried to pull away.
The two halves of her warred, battled. The half that yearned to give in, to remain here with him. To be what he wanted, deserved. And the half that couldn’t. That knew she would only make him resent her when she refused to give up always leaving and driving away from him. She silently wept because hurting him would be an inevitability.
But his arms banded around her, refusing to let her pull away.
“I’m not asking for forever, Cherrie.” He pinched her chin, tilted her head back so she had to meet his bright gaze. “You’re here for two weeks. I know you’ll be busy selling jewelry and enjoying the rally. And I have to work at the bar. But in between those times, I want to be with you. I want to wake up to you. Roll over and make love to you in the middle of the night. That’s all I’m asking, Cherrie. Give us those two weeks. Nothing more.”
Bad idea. It will not be as simple as he makes it sound.
If she were smart, if she possessed a self-protective bone in her body, she’d stand up, dress, get on her bike and drive into town. Not look back. This way only led to heartache, to longing for a future that didn’t belong to them.
She had to say no. As much as it would disappoint him and hurt her, she had to say no...
“Okay.”
CHAPTER FIVE
MADDOX HAD LIED.
After making love to Cherrie for the first time two weeks ago, he’d looked her in the face and lied.
When he’d told her he didn’t want forever, just the two weeks, it hadn’t been true. And now, as he watched her place her packed suitcases by his front door, he had to pay the price for that lie.
He stood in the foyer, composed and silent. But inside... Inside, he howled with panic, fear and grief. She was leaving him. Logically, he’d known the day after the rally would arrive, and he would have to watch her walk out his door. Yet somehow, he’d convinced himself that after the two weeks they’d shared—her hanging out at the bar with him, riding together, making the most passionate, soul-searing love, waking up together and sipping coffee out on the wraparound porch of his cabin... Somehow he’d convinced himself that she’d fallen in love with him just as he’d lost his heart to her, and Cherrie wouldn’t be able to leave Rose Bend. Leave him.
But he’d willingly, desperately fooled himself.
Cherrie had never spoken of a
