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  Tonight, he’d wanted her to come to his main store to pick up some paperwork. Angie hadn’t wanted to do it, but he was a client and she didn’t want to assume there was anything wrong with the request. So she went.

  “He pushed me against his desk and kissed me,” Angie said with a shudder. “Then he grabbed my breast and squeezed. I could feel his erection.” She shivered again and Maddy patted her leg.

  “I’m so sorry, Ang. I’ll send Jace to beat him up if you like.” She wouldn’t do any such thing, didn’t think she could do any such thing, but she said it to get a laugh.

  Jace had disappeared into the kitchen about fifteen minutes ago now. She was certain his phone call was over, but he was giving them privacy. She was overwhelmed with feelings she didn’t have time to examine right now.

  “He’s lovely, Maddy,” Angie said, her cheeks glowing with the effects of the alcohol. As a redhead, her skin showed everything.

  Maddy felt a blush creep into her own cheeks. “He’s a nice guy.”

  “Shit, girl, he’s a sexy guy. You need to jump on that. Immediately.” Angie tried to rise but Maddy pushed her firmly down again. “I need to go so you can do that, Mads. Don’t argue with me.”

  “You drank a glass of wine. You aren’t driving home.”

  “I’ll get an Uber.”

  “No, you won’t. Stay and visit with me. You can go when you sober up.”

  Angie flopped against the chair. “Fine.”

  Maddy stood as Angie lay her head back and closed her eyes. “I need to check on something. Be right back.”

  “Go. I won’t move.”

  “Better not.” Maddy went into the kitchen, keeping an eye on Angie as she did so. Jace was leaning against the counter by the sink, legs crossed at the ankles, scrolling through his phone. He looked up as she peeked in. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” he said. “She okay?”

  “She will be. A client tried to force himself on her.”

  Jace’s expression was stormy. “Got a name?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m in the kind of business where I can send someone to pay him a visit.”

  Her heart skipped. “This isn’t the mafia, Jace.”

  “No, it’s better. Name?”

  Maddy considered it for two seconds. Then she said, “Tom Walls. He owns Walls Auto Repair. Don’t do anything drastic.”

  “Not going to. But he won’t touch her again, promise you that.”

  Maddy could only stare. The thought she could love him flashed into her head.

  “She can’t stay here, Maddy,” he said, and the warm fuzzy feelings she’d been having evaporated.

  “She’s my best friend. I’m not sending her home to deal with this alone. Besides, she’s had wine. She can’t drive.”

  “You forget I have people. I’ll ask Colt or Ty to take her home.”

  “She doesn’t know them. And she just got attacked by a guy—do you really think she’ll want to leave with a stranger?”

  “You really think she’s safer here?”

  “Maybe. You don’t know that Calypso is after me. You really don’t. You just think she might be because I may have seen her. You don’t even know if the maid was really her.”

  “No, we don’t. But you’re my responsibility. And your friend not only doesn’t know what’s going on, we aren’t telling her.”

  Maddy frowned. “If she wants to leave, I won’t stop her. But you get Colt or Ty over here right now to meet her. So if she does want to go, she’ll at least know the guy she’s going with is your friend. But if she doesn’t want to go with him, I’m not making her. You hear me?”

  Fierceness flowed through her like a river. She thought he might blow a gasket but instead he laughed. “Yeah, I hear you, honey badger.”

  Colt was there ten minutes later, waltzing in like he’d been invited the entire time. Angie had woken from her catnap, declined another glass of wine, and sat sipping water instead. When Maddy let Colt in, Jace did the introductions. He left out the last name, but he called Colt by his name so at least Angie wasn’t getting a fake name. Maddy thought Angie might be interested in Colt—he was totally her type—but she didn’t flirt with him the way she normally would.

  And that worried Maddy more than she liked.

  They sat and talked for a while. Maddy asked Colt questions while Angie sat quietly. An hour later, Angie stood up. “I need to get home now. Thanks for the wine, Maddy. It was great meeting you, Jace. Colt.”

  Colt shot to his feet. “Need a ride home?”

  Angie aimed a look at Maddy. Then smiled politely at Colt. “Thank you, no. I’m fine.”

  “But you had wine,” Maddy said.

  Angie didn’t even pretend not to glare. “More than an hour ago, Mads. I can drive myself home.”

  Chastened, Maddy walked her to the door. “You sure you’re fine?” she asked quietly. “You can stay here if you don’t want to be alone.”

  Angie squeezed her hand. “I think alone is where I’d most like to be right now. But I’m good, babes. Thank you for being here for me when I needed it.”

  “I’m always here for you.”

  “I know. That’s why I love you.”

  “I’m worried about you, Angie. What that asshole did was wrong.”

  “I know. But he didn’t rape me. He forcibly groped me, kissed me, and ground his erection against me.”

  “That’s assault.”

  “I know, but I just want to forget it, okay? It won’t do me any good to pursue it. I’ll lose my job.”

  It angered Maddy to think that could happen, but she didn’t know that it wouldn’t. And it wasn’t her place to force Angie to report the incident, even if it hurt Maddy’s heart to see her vibrant friend so wrecked. “Of course. Be careful going home. Text me when you get there.”

  “I will.”

  Maddy watched Angie go down the sidewalk and get into her car. She felt Jace’s solid presence as he came up behind her. He put a hand on her shoulder. “Colt’s going to follow her home. He’ll make sure she gets inside.”

  Maddy hadn’t even heard Colt leave, but he’d apparently gone out the back door while she’d been talking to Angie. “If she sees him, she’ll kill me.”

  “She won’t see him.” Jace put his other hand on her, drew her back against his solid chest. She shivered at his warmth, his strength. One thing she knew for sure—he would never force himself on her the way Tom Walls had done to Angie.

  She turned into him, wrapped her arms around him, and held on tight. He didn’t hesitate to hold her close. He maneuvered them so he could shut the door, lock it, and tap commands on the keypad. Then he just held her, his hand rubbing up and down her back. Never touching her inappropriately. Never copping a feel or grinding against her. Just comforting.

  Maddy tipped her head back and studied him. He didn’t say a word as he looked down at her. His gaze was hooded, careful.

  Just like in the parking garage earlier today, Maddy stood on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his mouth. He groaned softly, his tongue dipping between her lips briefly before he pulled back again.

  “I don’t understand you, Jace Kaiser. I don’t understand why you make me feel the way you do, but I think more than anything I want you to hold me tonight. Please.”

  She was killing him. Flat out killing him. Jace held Maddy close, his cock swelling, desire a hard drumbeat in his veins. But going there meant crossing a line he’d decided he shouldn’t cross. As much as he wanted sweet Maddy Cole, he’d promised Ian he was walking away. Leaving her to the care of Colt and Ty and whoever else Ian sent, and going on the hunt for Calypso.

  He was doing it—planning to do it—for Maddy. To protect her. Keep her safe. Give her a life where she could meet a guy, get married, have a couple of kids, and stop being lonely. Have a normal fucking life, unlike anything he could give her.

  He was a man without a country, a man on the run, a man who could never be close to anyone. Because he
was nowhere near normal.

  Yet she touched her lips to his and all his willpower—all his formidable self-discipline—was in the toilet. He wanted her. Just one night. One night of aching sweetness before he walked away forever.

  He kissed her, letting himself taste her thoroughly while she clung to him. He didn’t grind his hips against hers, not after hearing her friend’s story—but he didn’t have to. She made the move. She arched into him, pushing her hips into the burgeoning hard-on currently pressing itself against his belly.

  Goddamn she was sweet.

  “Maddy,” he groaned, breaking the kiss, pushing her back just enough so he could see her face. Tangling his fingers in her hair and wanting to fan it out over the pillows before he fucked her into blissful rapture. He lifted it to his nose. Buried his face in the strands while she quivered. “So fucking sweet.”

  “I don’t want to be sweet, Jace. I want to be dirty. With you. Please.”

  “Honey. Baby. God, you’re killing me.” He kissed her again, told himself it was the last damn time. Just to feel her tongue against his. “Baby,” he said, pushing her away again. “Listen to me.”

  Her arms snaked around his neck. Her body arched into his. She blinked up at him, green eyes wide and trusting. He didn’t deserve her trust.

  “I’m listening, Jace.”

  “I want this. I want you. Badly. But I have to ask you something.”

  She looked so trusting. “Yes?”

  Fuck. “If tonight was all we’d ever have, would you still do it?”

  She scrunched her forehead adorably. “Why are you asking me that?”

  “Because I don’t know what tomorrow brings.” Liar.

  Maddy sighed, but her grip on him didn’t loosen. “I think, if tonight was all we’d ever have, that I’d be even more determined to do this. To be with you, Jace Kaiser. Because you make me feel things I’ve never felt before—and even if my heart breaks tomorrow, I want this. I want you. You’re exciting and interesting, and as much as I don’t want tomorrow to be the end, I’d regret if it was and I’d never been any closer to you than this.”

  Jesus, he didn’t deserve her. He shouldn’t kiss her, shouldn’t undress her and taste her, but the urge was strong. Because tomorrow was the end, and he’d never see her again. He’d promised Ian, the only person to whom he owed any loyalty whatsoever. The man who’d saved him.

  Yet he owed Maddy too. Because she trusted him. And he cared about her.

  “If tomorrow is the end, I need you to know it’s not because I didn’t want to stay—”

  She put her hand on his mouth, silencing him. “I don’t want to hear it, Jace. I don’t want to know, because I know anything is possible with you. I know you’re probably trying to set me up for disappointment, or maybe trying to talk me out of being with you because you know damn well you’re leaving tomorrow, but tonight is not tomorrow. Tonight is now.” She sucked in a breath. “I’ve lost my grandmother, my father. My mother, God bless her narcissistic soul, doesn’t speak to me more than once a year. You leaving won’t surprise me. Believe me. I’m used to it.”

  Damn if her words didn’t threaten to break his empty heart. He thought of her yesterday, standing by the water, looking so lost. Sobbing in her car. He didn’t want to do those things to her. Didn’t want to be the cause of more heartbreak.

  She took her hand off his mouth.

  “Maybe we need to go slow—”

  “No, Jace. No. I’m tired of doing things slowly. Tired of holding back. I want what you promised me earlier. And if you don’t want to do that, it’s fine—but you need to go back across the street and stop pretending like you want more from me.”

  “I’m not pretending.”

  She stepped back and took his hand, threaded her fingers in his. “Then do something about it,” she said before leading him over to the couch they’d been sitting on only a few minutes before.

  He fought with himself. He really did. But in the end, he swept his arm beneath her knees and swooped her up. Then he lowered her on the couch and came down on top of her.

  Game on.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Maddy’s heart threatened to beat right out of her chest. Jace tipped her back to the couch and dropped down on top of her. She opened her legs, cradling his hips between them. The ridge of his cock pressed against her in all the right places. She was wet, ready, but she also wanted the excruciating build up. Because once he was inside her, once they came, she knew it was over.

  Jace Kaiser wasn’t here to stay. She could feel it as surely as she felt the impressive length and width of him. He dropped his mouth to hers, kissed her sweetly and then hotly, his tongue thrusting into her mouth and stroking against her own. His big hands went to her waist, tugged her shirt up until he could put his fingers on her skin. She thought he might strip her quickly, thrust into her, and take them both to heaven.

  But he went slower than that. Slower than she expected. His fingers stroked up, glided along the lower edge of her bra, and then up to caress the mounds of flesh above the cups. He dragged one cup down and slid his tongue around her nipple. Maddy gasped at the flood of sensation where there’d so long been drought and deprivation.

  Jace drew her nipple into his mouth, tugged gently and then harder, and Maddy thought she might come from the pressure of his mouth alone. Her fingers curled into his shoulders, her legs wrapped around his waist, and she arched her body up to that glorious mouth, urging him to take all she had to give.

  He dragged the other cup down and repeated what he’d done while he softly pinched the nipple he’d been sucking previously. Maddy was on fire. Her body was strung so tight it hurt. She put her hands in his hair, cupped his head to her. He stopped and went to her mouth, kissing her deeply. Maddy moaned into his kiss, sucked his tongue, ground herself against him, seeking an orgasm that wasn’t self-inflicted for the first time in more than three years.

  “Patience,” he told her as he lifted himself up and tugged at her shirt.

  She sat up enough for him to whip it over her head, then she pulled at the hem of his. He obliged her by tugging it up and off with one hand. Maddy’s breath froze. Dear God that was a sexy maneuver, especially watching the way his muscles rippled and popped. He grinned at the look on her face, and Maddy felt herself blushing. Or maybe that was just the heat of her desire.

  Jace had muscles that went on for days. He also had tattoos, though not an excessive number. Tribal tattoos on his arms. A clock with a broken face on his ribs, stylized writing in both Russian and English, a bird with colorful feathers that perched on his shoulder and pectoral, the long tail wrapping down and around his ribs. Sexy. So sexy.

  She reached up to trace the bird, but then he slid a hand behind her to unsnap her bra and all her contemplation of his ink evaporated. His piercing blue eyes were hot and fierce as he freed her, and she melted in a warm puddle beneath that gaze.

  “You’re so fucking beautiful, Maddy,” he said reverently, cupping her breasts in his big hands and pushing them together.

  “So are you,” she replied, her blushes heating her skin. He had to know she was blushing, but he didn’t mention it. She was grateful.

  He bent to suck her nipples, one after the other, nibbling and tugging, until she thought she would come unglued at any second. Then he nibbled his way down her belly, his fingers finding the zipper for her jeans. He opened them up, ran his tongue along the top of her panties, and then dragged the fabric off her hips and down her legs, tossing them to the floor along with her underwear.

  She was completely naked—and suddenly very self-conscious. Maddy wrapped her arms over herself, but Jace quietly pulled them open again as he hovered above her.

  “Don’t hide from me, Maddy. I want to see all of you. Taste all of you. Do you have any idea how fucking crazy you’ve been making me?”

  She shook her head because the power of speech had deserted her.

  “Almost from the moment I tackled you in Sokolov�
��s house, I’ve wanted to uncover your secrets and taste your kiss on my lips.”

  She bit her lower lip, her heart pounding hard enough that he surely had to see it. “You don’t mean that.”

  “I do, Maddy. I honestly do. I’m drawn to you. I don’t know why. It’d be better for us both if I wasn’t, but I can’t seem to help myself.”

  “I’m scared,” she blurted.

  He rocked back to stare down at her. Searched her gaze. She saw the moment he reached a conclusion. “Baby—are you a virgin?”

  Maddy spread her palms over his warm skin, stroked his muscles because she could. Because she couldn’t help herself. “No, sorry, that’s not what I meant.” She drew in a breath. “I’m scared of how I feel with you. I feel reckless. High. And happy. I want to say to hell with everything and stay right here with you, just us, but I also feel like there’s not enough time. Like tonight is all there’s going to be, and I can’t stop it or control it. I just have to let it happen.”

  He dropped between her legs, pushed them open and cupped her ass in his hands. Then he gazed at her over the delta of her body. “A lot is going to happen tonight, Maddy. You’re mine for the next few hours, and I’m going to make you feel so good you won’t regret a single moment.”

  He touched his tongue to the wet seam of her body and she gasped with pleasure. She was so ready for him that her juices dripped down her thighs. She was embarrassed, but she quickly forgot her discomfort as he licked his way around her clit before sucking it between his lips and flicking his tongue over her sensitive flesh again and again.

  She tried to hold out—really tried—because it’d been so long and felt so damn good, but she couldn’t. Everything inside her tightened into a hard spiral before exploding in a shower of sparks that stole her breath and vision for long moments.

  “Damn,” he breathed. “You’re so pretty when you come.”

  “It’s been too long,” she offered. “I’m sorry.”

  He grinned. “You think I mind that you came so fast? Hell no.” He slid his thumbs along her pussy lips, opening her up. “Let’s see if you can do it again.”