Rival (Fall Away #2)(26)
Author: Penelope Douglas

“What do you mean?”

What the hell?

“Open your eyes!” he barked, and all of the hairs on my body shot up.

Shit. Yeah, you could never tell when Madoc was going to go from easy to scary, but it was always sudden.

Reaching around, he twisted my chin toward the mirror, and I sucked in a breath. “What do you see?!” he shouted.

“You and me!” I blurted out. “Madoc and Fallon!”

My heart was racing.

I looked at him through the mirror. I sat on one side of his lap, so he could see from the other side, and we stared at each other, my chest rising and falling more urgently.

“That’s not what I see,” he said in a low voice. “Those names mean nothing to me. They’re simple and empty. When I’m with you, I don’t see the daughter of a gold-digging bitch and an Irish drug lord or the son of a crooked lawyer and a vegan Barbie.”

I almost wanted to laugh. Madoc had an ironic way of looking at the world.

But he wasn’t smiling. He was scowling. He was dead serious, and I knew from experience that his genuine moments were few and far between.

He reached up, threading one hand into my hair while the other hand rested on the chair.

“I see everything I want for as long as I can have it,” he continued. “I see a woman that wears the cutest little scowl like she’s two years old and was just told she couldn’t have candy. I see a guy that went and got an apadravya piercing, because he wanted to live in her world for even a little while.”

I closed my eyes. Don’t do this to me, Madoc.

“I see a beautiful woman with a knockout body and the guy she drives insane with wanting her.”

His hand moved to my neck, stroking up and down.

“I see a thousand nights of kitchen counters, showers, pools, and couches where he’s going to f**k her until she screams.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I see her eyes and how they look when she comes.”

My ni**les hardened, and I had to start sucking in air. Opening my eyes, I could see his blue ones, shining like crystals, watching me.

“I see the guy that went so crazy when she left that he tore all of the shit off his walls, thinking she hated him.”

My face cracked, and my eyes watered; the lump in my throat had grown too big for me to swallow around.

“Madoc—”

“I see,” he cut me off, trailing his hand over my stomach and into my lacy top, “the body he sucked rain off of last night and he wants in his mouth right now, because, baby, you are torturing him.”

He leaned in, kissing my upper arm in soft, sensual kisses, trailing over to my back. He flipped my hair over my shoulder, digging his lips into my spine and going up as I dropped my head back onto his shoulder.

“Madoc . . .” I gasped, tingles spreading down my back.

His lips . . . oh, my God, his lips.

His hands were both under my slip-bra, kneading and squeezing as I started rolling my h*ps into him.

“Goddamn, look at you.” His breathless voice made my sex clench.

I opened my eyes, seeing what he saw.

A young woman in lingerie, sitting on a man’s lap backward with his hands up her shirt. Our eyes met, and the heat made me want to tear him apart with my teeth. I wanted him.

Fuck, I wanted him.

Snuggling my head into his, I kept my eyes on him in the mirror as I reached down and slipped my hand inside my panties. His eyes became as sharp as needles as he watched me. I spread my legs and gently ran my fingers up and down my heat, watching him watching me.

He leaned back, continuing to stroke my back with one hand while he just took me in.

Having his eyes on me, having him so interested, was doing things to my body I didn’t expect. Madoc always used to be in a hurry, and then last night was pedal to the metal.

But now he looked like he owned the room. He looked like I was his and he wasn’t rushing to have me before the sun came up.

Standing up, I slid my hands down the sides of my panties and slipped them off, letting them slide down my legs. His hands fisted where they hung off the armrests, and I saw him harden through his pants. His body needed me, and the pulse on my cl*t throbbed. One time. Two times. Three.

Damn. Everything about Madoc was intense and made me feel good.

“I . . .” I wanted to tell him that I didn’t hate him. That I thought about him. That I was sorry. But the words won’t come. “Madoc, I . . .” I let out a breath. “I want you here.”

And I sat down in his lap backward, facing the mirror. “I want you like this.”

A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, and then I gasped as he put a hand on the front of my neck and pulled me back to him.

Our lips came together, moving over each other. Then I reached around and slid my fingers into his soft, short hair, kissing him as if it was the only thing I ever needed to survive. His hand slid down my stomach, and I spread both of my legs to rest on the outside of his thighs.

“Madoc,” I whispered, pleading. “I’m burning already.”

I took his hand and led it between my thighs, sucking in a breath when his fingers slid inside of me.

Oh, God, yes.

His fingers moved, my wetness easing him in and out, but the fire in my belly had me so hungry I started rubbing into his hand.

“Madoc.”

“I love it when you say my name.” His head fell back, and his chest rose more quickly. He looked like he was enjoying this although I wasn’t touching him. He just liked touching me that much?

My h*ps rocked into his hand, and for the first time in two years, I wanted things. I wanted this. I wanted him. I wanted it all again.

But I knew I couldn’t have it. I knew this was it for us.

This was the last time he’d make love to me. The last time I’d kiss him.

The last time he’d want me.

And I wanted to bury my face in my hands and scream that I didn’t have to do this. I didn’t have to walk away, but there was just too much between us to get past.

Instead I stood up and turned around, straddling his lap and facing him.

Running my fingers down the side of his face, I kept my voice quiet for fear I wouldn’t be able to hold back the tears. “I want to see you.” My throat ached so hard I could barely whisper. “I want to kiss you when you come.”

I leaned up on my knees, giving him room to push his pants down. Before he kicked them off, I reached into his pocket for the condom.

He smiled. “How’d you know that was in there?”

“Because you’re a confident son of a bitch,” I whispered huskily, not sounding sarcastic in the least.