Superb And Sexy

Chapter 14

“Did I hear you say you snooped on my cell phone?” Maddie demanded.

“Yes.” On the floor of the shower, fully dressed, drenched, Brody glared back at her. “And you neglected to tell me that if Leena doesn’t make it to the meeting you’re trying to stop her from making, you pay.”

Maddie had no intelligent response, so she kicked at the inch of water in the bottom of the tub, splashing an already drenched man. She wanted to hurt Rick for the nightmare. She really needed to hurt him. Instead, she splashed Brody again.

“Hey-” He spit out a mouthful of water and came up on his knees, his shirt plastered to his tough body like a second skin as he held up his hands. “I’m not the bad guy here!”

Another kick of water helped, but her breath was still hitching, her body coursing with fury, hatred, adrenaline. Never mind the cell phone threat, she was caught on the stupid nightmare she hadn’t had in years, but she’d had it now and she couldn’t erase it from her brain.

She’d been sixteen again, back on that last night on Stone Cay, sleeping until she’d heard Leena cry out. Running through the compound trying to find her, running, running…desperate to find her-

“Maddie-”

She kept splashing him, and with an oath, a string of oaths really, he managed to surge to his feet and grab her, holding her against him.

But that just really did her in. She was so furious she saw stars, and yeah, way back in a corner of her mind, waaaaay back, she knew it wasn’t Brody that was making her so crazy with fear and fury and guilt, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t care.

Her nightmare had reminded her of a time when she’d been young, alone, helpless, and in her head, she was there again. Memories, none good, had crashed down on her, pelting her, hurting her, killing her. “I can’t-” She shook her head wildly. “I can’t-”

“Sh-h.” He softened his hold. “Shh, it’s okay.” He pulled her in against him. “It’s okay, Maddie, you’re okay.”

But it wasn’t. In spite of the hot water, she was cold, iced to the bone, and even worse, she couldn’t control herself. Yet somehow, Brody’s voice came through, achingly soft and so gentle she couldn’t handle it.

“I’ve got you,” he was saying, holding her to his big, steaming hot body while the storm raged both outside the building and within her. “It’s me, Maddie, just me.”

Pride and ego kept her struggling, but he just held her tighter. “Come on now. Stop.”

“I can’t.” She fisted her hands in his drenched shirt, feeling that welcome heat of his body coming through, the comforting steady beat of his heart, and she gripped him for dear life. “I can’t stop.”

“I’ve got you now; you’re not alone.” He was holding her, his hands on her bare skin, his grip easy, soothing, firm.

He had her.

He really had her. And unlike any other time when she’d been falling apart, there was someone to catch her. It was then, reeling from that, still shaking from the dream, still bombarded by memories, still wanting to scream, wanting to fight, that she horrified herself by bursting into tears.

At Maddie’s first sob, Brody’s heart cracked right open. There was nothing more wrenching than a woman’s tears, and that it was Maddie, strong, tough Maddie, made it all the more so.

Scooping her up against him, he turned off the shower and stepped out of the tub. Grabbing a towel, he tossed it over her the best he could and moved out of the bathroom. The main room was dark, but lightning lit it up, followed by a crack of thunder that rattled the window.

He set Maddie on the bed, planning on doing anything to make her stop crying, anything at all. He’d promise her the moon if he had to. And once he got her to stop, he needed to get her dressed, preferably in a suit of armor, because they were not going to the bad place again-that being the place where his brain ceased to function properly. And then when she was no longer naked or breaking his heart, he was going to make her talk. “Maddie.”

He expected her to try to karate chop him again. Or maybe dive under the covers and pretend he didn’t exist.

She was good at both.

Instead, with the only sound in the room being the driving rain and wind coming from outside, she curled toward him, pulling him down over the top of her.

“Mad-”

Her fingers shut him up, brushing over his mouth. Then she replaced those with her lips, while her hands ran down his arms, over his back, trembling, needing…It sucked him right in.

She sucked him right in.

Her mouth was on his, warm and salty, and somehow sweet, so damn sweet.

“Maddie-”

Or at least that’s what he tried to say, but it was hard to talk with her tongue stroking his, not to mention the sheer, heart-stopping sensation of lying over the top of her while she was nothing more than a drenched, sleek, quivering form of mouthwatering curves. Naked curves. He couldn’t possibly think straight. In the back of his mind, he knew she was trying to distract him, just as he registered it was working all too well, and then her hands tugged at his wet shirt.

“It’s your turn to strip,” she murmured, her voice all husky from her tears and barely audible over the sound of the storm raging outside.

Strip. He knew it was such a bad idea, but was getting caught up on the why. He had a reputation for being big and bad, but mostly, that was all attitude, and despite what women always said, they really didn’t tend to fall for big and bad.

At least they hadn’t been falling for him.

He’d had several relationships that had lasted longer than a few dates, but nothing in a long time, especially not this past year when he’d done little but work night and day to get Sky High Air off the ground.

So it’d been a while since he’d been naked, but he remembered how to get there. What he didn’t remember, ever, was having a woman be so desperate for him that she was trying to climb into his skin, and it was just odd enough-especially for Maddie-to make him put his hands on her arms and pull back to look into her face. “You are Maddie, right?”

She went utterly still for one beat, then turned back into the wild woman with superhuman strength, but she was done catching him off guard, thank you very much. Pinning her to the bed, he stretched out over the top of her to hold her down. “Okay, it’s you. I’m sorry, I-”

But she wasn’t listening; she was busy trying to kill him again, so he threw a leg over hers, drawing her hands up over her head to get a better grip on her.

Which she absolutely did not appreciate. “Get off me or I’ll-”

“Kick my ass?”

“I mean it!”

“A minute ago, you were kissing me like your life depended on it, and now you want to kick my ass?”

“A minute ago, you hadn’t stopped to chat and then confused me with my twin sister!”

“I’ll never make that mistake again,” he promised and leaned in again so that their mouths were only a fraction of an inch apart. His initial shock at finding her in the shower had faded so that now he could go back to appreciating the situation.

That being him, fully dressed, drenched to the skin, plastered to her, also drenched and not dressed. He pressed his face to her neck, which was warm and soft, and inhaled, letting the scent of her fill his head.

“Kiss me again, damn it,” she demanded.

She’d kissed him before, but now probably wasn’t the time to point that out. Not with her wrapped around him, not with her voice still thick from the tears that had taken them both by surprise.

He wasn’t a complete idiot. He recognized that she was most definitely back to distracting him, and you know what? Mission accomplished. At least for the moment, with her mouth racing across his jaw, her fingers working the buttons on his wet material, getting only halfway before she gave up trying and tugged. Buttons flew, and she yanked the shirt off his shoulders.

“I need to get there,” she said. “To the kissing and then…”

He liked the sound of the “and then.” She was soft and wet, and he was primed and ready to go, and had been for too long to count. She couldn’t get his zipper down, so she ran her fingers over him, then tried to slip her hands into his pants, which he wanted her to be able to do, so he gave her a little room and then could still hardly breathe for what she did to him.

“Help me,” she whispered.

“Whatever you want.”

“Hurry.”

Except that. “Is there a fire?”

“I like it fast.”

Yes, and if she kept outlining him with her fingers, fast would be no problem. But he didn’t want fast. Nope, he wanted slow and deliberate, so he could remember every little detail for the fantasies he was going to have about this for the rest of his life. So he grabbed her hand in his, brought it to his mouth to slow her down a minute.

Or two.

Or for an hour.

“That’s not fast,” she pointed out.

Normally, impatient would work for him, really it would, but not now, not with her. He rocked against her, pressing her back against the mattress, again burying his face in her neck, pressing his mouth to her skin, taking a little lick because he wanted a taste. He made his way up her throat to her jaw, then headed toward her ear because he needed a bit of that, too-

“Brody, damn it.”

“Mmm-hmmm.” He loved her ear. Small and delicate with all those sexy silver hoops.

She slid her fingers into his hair and he nearly purred, but then she tightened her grip, painfully so, and tugged. “Kiss me!”

“I was.”

“Here! Like this!” And still holding his head by the ears, she tugged him up and locked her mouth on his. She used her tongue, which he also liked very much, and then, as if she needed to ensure he stayed with her, she arched up and wrapped her legs around his waist.

A move that pretty much guaran-ass-teed he wasn’t going anywhere.

Ever.

This, Maddie thought with a helpless pleasure-filled sigh, this was what she needed. She needed it to keep Brody from thinking, from asking questions, from taking matters out of her hands, but more than anything, she needed it for herself, to forget, at least for a few minutes. She needed his mouth on hers, his hands on her body, needed it to even breathe.

Because he was her air. She’d die before admitting it, but fact was fact. In a world gone a little mad, he was her axis.

If she was being honest, he’d always been.

He knew how to kiss. Oh, God, he really knew how to kiss. She’d wanted him so desperately for so long that she was almost surprised that she didn’t just burst into spontaneous flames from the feel of his mouth and hands on her, and when he stopped kissing her to murmur her name in a low, husky, sexy voice, she died a little.

More. She needed more.

He kissed her again, and she murmured in pleasure, feeling all her bones melt away. Oh, yeah, more of that, and she was willing to risk all to get it.

Her past.

Her present.

Her future.

Even her heart. Especially her heart. And she was risking her heart. Even knowing it didn’t stop her. Nothing could. She was on empty here, on a rare low, with only fear and anxiety filling her tank, and he could make it all go away, at least for a few minutes.

Again, he said her name in that voice she loved, the one that said that every wild, crazy thing she was feeling, he felt, too. God, it’d been so long since a man had touched even a part of her poor, damaged heart. Too long.

Now, now, now…she slid her hand down his still damp chest between their bodies, going for the point of no return. This time, she was able to get a hold of his zipper, and the rasp of metal on metal filled the storm-ravaged silence around them. In the dimly lit room, their gazes met, his dark and heated, and she knew.

Oh, God, she knew.

No matter what happened to her here, no matter the outcome, she was going to have this moment with him. She was going to let herself be loved, and even more terrifying, she was going to let herself love him. “Hurry, Brody.”

Instead, he latched on to her throat and sucked a little patch of her skin into his mouth, and as if her body was on a string, it arched up to him.

“I’ve been dreaming about this too long to hurry,” he said. “Even for you.”

“You’ve been dreaming of this?” Hands in his hair, she lifted his head to look into his eyes. “So why do you avoid me at work?”

“I don’t mix work and pleasure.” He slid his hand down her belly. “But we’re not working now…”

No. No, they weren’t, and she let him kiss his way along her throat, his magical hands and talented mouth doing their thing, and his body, oh, God, his hard, toned body…

“No, we’re not at work.” Her eyes were crossed with lust. “But unless you hurry up…” She broke off when his mouth skimmed down her throat, over her shoulder, and directly toward a breast. “Oh, God.”

And then he made his way to her other breast, taking a damn year to get there, igniting all sorts of fires along the way and he hadn’t even taken off his pants yet. With each passing second, her heart further engaged, and it scared her. “Okay, you know what? You’re taking too long. Oh, forget it. Forget all of it. Let me up.”

Smiling into her eyes, his own dark and searing, he slid down her body, doing the opposite of letting her up. Nudging her legs open with a broad shoulder, breaking eye contact to take his eyes on a tour over her exposed body.

And she was exposed, just about as exposed as she could get. “Hey. I-”

He kissed her inner thigh, and she promptly lost her train of thought. “Um…”

He kissed her other thigh.

“B-Brody.”

“Yes. That’s my name.”

She should have killed him when she had the chance. She’d get as many women on her jury as she could, no way would they convict her. With the last of her energy, she tightened her legs on his torso and tried to flip him.

He didn’t flip. Of course he didn’t. The big, bad Brody didn’t go anywhere he didn’t want to.

“Damn it!”

He looked into her eyes, grinned, and then flipped her, and then she was straddling him as she’d wanted, holding him down. “Or this way,” he said agreeably.

“My way.” She worked his wet pants off him. By the time she was done, she was sweating. “My way.” And she crawled back up his body and guided him home.

“Jesus,” he breathed. Smile gone, hands gripping her hips, he arched up, body tense and quivering. What happened next was as crazy as the storm beating up the inn.

The feel of him filling her was like nothing she’d ever felt. Before, in the shower, she’d felt barraged and battered with an emotional weight too heavy to bear. Nothing had felt right, but now, in this moment, all that was gone and everything felt right-amazingly, perfectly so.

Catching her hands in his, he tugged her down to his chest, kissing her. “Your way,” he whispered against her mouth. “This time.”

It wasn’t until she began to move, until she was halfway to bliss, that she realized the truth-this wasn’t her way at all. It was the way, the only way, and she had a feeling that no one else would ever be able to make her feel like this.

Knowing it, she faltered.

But not him.

Never him.

Lifting a hand to her face, he murmured her name in question, but she shook her head, then sped up the rhythm, needing him to take her to the edge, now, now, needing to take the plunge rather than savor this as she deeply, secretly wanted…

But her brain wouldn’t shut down, and she couldn’t…quite…“Damn it,” she panted, frustrated, setting her forehead to his. “I can’t-”

“You’re rushing yourself.” His hands went back to her hips to help guide her, his thumb stroking over her center, right above where they were joined, and just like that, he did exactly what she needed, he took her where she needed to go.

She had the feeling he always would, which was her last thought before she came, only peripherally aware of his low, rough groan as he followed her over.

He’d always get her there, always…