Page 44 of Every Single Wildflower
“Is it Brady?” I ask, knowing damn well it’s not.
Her scoff is soft, and she blinks up at the ceiling. “No. God, not everything has to do with Brady!" Her voice is raised and her chest heaving. “Did you sleep with her?”
I palm the back of my neck, knowing I shouldn’t let her think we did. My instinct is to push her away. To create distance. But the look on her face has me telling the truth. “No. I didn’t sleep with her.”
She rolls her lips together, her arms wrapping around her waist like she doesn’t believe me.
“Were they just lies?” She asks, her voice cracking. “All those things you said?” Her eyes are not the ones I see in my dreams. They look haunted right now.
They’re hurting and I hate it.
“What things?” My heart pounds.
“I won’t let anyone ever hurt you again. I’ve wanted to hold you like this for so long. I can’t breathe when you walk into the room. Am I a bad guy for wanting you? When you didn’t belong to me?”
My entire body stiffens as she repeats my words. My confessions I thought were just whispered into a dark room. Fuck, I thought she was asleep. I would have never said those things out loud. For her to know them makes it real. And real means complicated. It means hurting him.
“You were drunk, Ivy.”
She shakes her head. “I know what you said…...”
“Why would I say those things? Especially to you?” I grind out.
I can see the physical flinch on her face at my words and it pisses me off. The fact I have to be the one to hurt her.
But she steels her expression. “You’re lying.”
I can feel the dirt beneath my bare feet. Feel the light breeze from the fan blowing above one of the stalls. Everything feels intensified.
“Look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t mean it. Tell me you don’t feel this, Maddox.”
My chest pounds as she steps toward me. “Ivy,” I warn.
Please don’t come any closer.
“You can’t say it, can you?” Her voice grows louder as she steps right up to me, her hands landing on my chest.
“Ivy…this is reckless.” I wrap my fingers around her dainty wrists.
“I know,” she whispers.
Her big green eyes peer up at me, and the thin cord that’s kept me at bay for all these years, finally snaps.
Ivy
“Maddox.” His name is on my lips, begging him to do something.
Anything. Tell me there’s nothing between us. Tell me to leave. Take me to bed. Make me forget all the turmoil that this place holds.
Two strides. That’s all it takes before his hands are in my hair, his lips on mine. It’s not gentle. It’s not sweet. It’s frantic, it’s sharp, it’s full of need. Want. And raw hunger for each other. My hands dive into his dark strands, tugging as he lifts me from the ground with ease. My legs wrap around his narrow waist just as he moves, taking us through the open door of the tack room. My back slams into the wall and he groans when I nip at his bottom lip before sucking, before I run my tongue over it to ease the sting.
“Fuck,” he rasps as he rips is mouth away, inching his lips across my jaw.
I shift my hips, causing his hard cock to settle right between my legs. The delicious friction solicitates a moan, and I circle my hips against him.
“Goldie,” he growls, sucking hard on my neck before he slides one hand down to grip my ass. “Please tell me to stop. Tell me we can’t do this.”
I ignore his plea, my mind spinning as I feel his fingers slip inside the hem of my panties beneath my sundress. His callused fingertips travel over my drenched center.
