Page 83 of Psycho

“I guess so.” Liv shrugged, and we walked away towards the exit. “Nothing to it.”

Chapter 39 - Olivia

“What exactly is all of this stuff?” I flipped open the top of a box stuffed in the corner of Maddox’s old apartment closet as he carried some out to the elevator. He was cleaning out junk, but he was being—secretiveabout it.

So, I was beingnoseyabout it in return. My vibrators were in his bedside drawer, the man wasn’t allowed any secrets anymore.

“What?” He asked, coming back into the apartment where he found me lifting masks out of the box. A whole lot of masks. “Hey, why did you open that?”

He rushed over and shut the flaps of the box so I couldn’t see anything else, but the damage was done. I had one in my hand and there was no hiding it.

I held up the plastic mask, dangling it from my fingertips to examine it and dodging him as he tried to steal it back. “Nope,” I warned, turning away from him to see the front of it. “Is thisa purge mask?” I eyed the neon led light strips under the plastic that created an X over each eye and a gnarly sewn shut look to the mouth.

He sighed and put his hands on his hips, trying to use the fact that he was standing in just a pair of athletic shorts and nothing else to distract me from my current investigation. “You’re supposed to be putting Rory down for bed.” He said in turn, avoiding my question.

“She’s down.” I challenged, nodding my chin to the monitor sitting on the old kitchen table across the room, showing our sleeping daughter a few rooms away. The girl knew how to sleep, it was her favorite pastime. Day and night she stuck to a routine and life with a newborn was, dare I say, easy. “Why do you have a box full of masks?”

“Because.” He lunged, reaching out with his stupidly long arms and stealing it from my fingertips. “I’m a psycho.”

I squinted my eyes at him and looked away from his naked torso and back up to his face. I was four weeks postpartum, and the whole no sex for six weeks was feeling like a life sentence.

And highly unnecessary.

Fuck it, I was willing to risk the pain if it meant I could ride Maddox’s dick.

I was desperate, and he knew it.

“You’re not.” I countered, no longer using that term to define him, even jokingly like we used to, since learning about his teenage years inside of the institution that Dane’s father ran. “But you are a dumbass if you think I’m going to let this go.”

He tossed the mask on the top of the box and cocked his head to the side as I crossed my arms under my breasts, knowing it would lift them up and draw his attention to the fact that I was wearing just a spaghetti strap nightgown and nothing else.

Two could use weapons of war, even with their allies.

“They’re just masks, Storm. Sometimes jobs call for it.” He dismissed it, but my intrigue was too strong to ignore.

“Put it on.”

“What?” He looked surprised.

“Put the LED mask on.” I nodded to the box behind him, unwavering. “Now.”

The command crackled in the air between us, just like the sexual tension had been for weeks. He was holding out on actually fucking me, because he thought it was the right thing to do, simply because the doctor recommended it. But all he was doing was pissing me off.

He made me come a dozen times in other ways, but he just wouldn’t break the rules and actually give me what I wanted.

Dick.

He stared me down for a minute before finally reaching for the box and putting the mask on. Maddox knew what he was doing and what fantasies he was playing into of mine, so as he put the damn thing on, he clicked a button turning the neon teal and pink lights on and then slowly tilted his head to the side like a fucking—psychopath.

“Fuck me.” I replied. There was no need to mince words. No veiled threats to hide behind or smoke and mirrors to use to get what I wanted. I didn’t have the patience for it.

“No.” He replied authoritatively. “You know the rules.”

“Fine.” I shrugged and walked past him. “Then the first thing I take inside of me again will be that lovely vibrator you used to use on me. Shame though, I wanted it to be your dick instead.”

As I walked past, he spun me around and trapped me in his embrace, his powerful arms pinning mine to my sides. His body heat radiated against my back. Excitement grew in my core as my lower body clenched from just the feeling of his body on mine again.

The entire time I knew him before Rory was born, I was pregnant. And because of that, there was a level of restraint that he used with me. Even the few times we got caught up in the moment before she was born, I knew they weren’t him being truly free.

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