Maddie and Wyn (23 page)

“I can’t ignore them, Maddie!” Wyn vaulted up from the desk with sudden life, putting them inches apart. “I told you that.”

Up on her toes, nearly chest to chest with him, she shouted, “So you deliberately came and questioned them when I wasn’t here, so I couldn’t stop you?”

“It wasn’t on purpose!”

Tearing away from him so she didn’t hit him, Maddie shot, “That’s crap,” from the other side of the cluttered office.

“It’s not.” Wyn turned as she moved, his focus scrutinizing in a way that made her feel naked. “But if you want the truth, I was glad to find that you weren’t here when I walked in this morning.”

“You knew I wouldn’t be here!” She sounded like a shrew, but Maddie couldn’t contain herself. The insult to her intelligence was too great. “I told you last night I wouldn’t be.”

“No,” Wyn countered. “You said you had an early meeting. You didn’t say what time. For all I knew you could have been back already by the time I came to talk to everyone.”

“More like came to interrogate them.” She glared.

He didn’t flinch. “If that’s how you want to look at it, I won’t argue it.”

“I want to look at it like the truth,” she told him in no uncertain terms. “And what I said was the truth.”

A low growl rumbled out of Wyn, and he paced away from the desk. “You have to consider these people as suspects, Maddie. They make the most sense.”

“Oh really?” She pounced, finger pointed in triumph. “Last night you said Nico made the most sense.”

“Him too!” Wyn screeched—at least as much as a man with a voice as deep and full of gravel as his could. “I’m speaking of people who know you, who are close to you, who you care about. It’s one of them, Maddie.” He pierced her with a pointed stare. “It’s not going to be a stranger.”

Circling the tight room and each other, Maddie shot back, “How do you know?”

Smacking his hand against the wall, Wyn stated passionately, “Because it’s not what logic and every statistic and percentage in law enforcement says.”

Stopping behind her desk, Maddie planted her palms on the cool metal surface and zeroed in on him at the door. “Well maybe I’m the exception.”

“Highly doubtful.” Paused at the door, Wyn ticked off with his fingers, “In Bill you have a rundown father who is overwhelmed trying to support his large family, and in Robbie a hothead of a young man whose girlfriend has already accosted you once. And I haven’t talked to this kid Jayden yet, but he’s being raised by a single mother who is ill. From what I can tell it doesn’t look like they’re doing great financially either, so I can’t ignore that he has motive and possibly need too.” Wyn’s voice gentled then, but the intensity in his stare didn’t lessen one bit. “Are you really, in your head and not your heart, unable to conceive of the idea that one of them is your culprit?”

Maddie took a seat at her desk, her heart as heavy now as it had been heated moments ago. “No, Wyn, because my heart goes with my head. Both of them together are what knows that none of these guys would regularly break into my home or steal from me.”

He sighed. “Honey, you’re living with blinders on.”

“Okay then, so what about Ernie?” Maddie implored, wanting Wyn on her side at least a little bit. “Do you really think he’s a suspect? You think that sweet old man, who has a hard time getting under cars these days to work, was comfortably hiding under a bed in my guest room?”

“I have to consider him. And just so you know,” Wyn shot her a belligerent look, “I wasn’t just asking questions to see if Ernie was guilty. He has grown sons and young adult grandsons. Any one of them could be pissed off on Ernie’s behalf and acting for him. Before you interrupted, I was hoping to get him to speak about them.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.” Still tired from getting up early after not having gotten much sleep last night, Maddie scrubbed her face with her hands and pushed her fingers through her hair, freeing the length from the clip holding it hostage. “Whoever is doing this isn’t taking enough to hurt me financially, personally, or in business. And even if they were, it’s not Ernie.”

“How can you be so sure?” Wyn pushed. “He’s Corsini’s longest employed mechanic, yet he’s never made manager and he wasn’t sold part of the business. He has plenty of motive.”

“He doesn’t,” Maddie stated, looking right at Wyn. “Ernie will have a stipend from Mr. Corsini for the rest of his life.”

Wyn fell back against the door and his features went flat. “What?”

“Yes.” Folding her hands very neatly on the desk, Maddie raised a brow in Wyn’s direction. “If you’d bothered to ask me my opinion of my employees, or what I know about them, I could have told you Mr. Corsini did offer Ernie a chance to buy a percentage of the business. He offered Ernie either a percentage of ownership at a great sale price or a stipend for the rest of his life. Ernie is allowed to work here for whatever hours he wants for as long as he wants, period, end of sentence. Once he does retire, he’ll continue to be paid a percentage of his wage by Mr. Corsini for the rest of Ernie’s life. Even if we as a group decide to sell the business, the lifelong stipend for Ernie remains in effect. Mr. Corsini, and then Nico, if Ernie outlives Mr. Corsini, will continue to pay Ernie until he dies.” Easier now, Maddie leaned back in her chair and kicked her ankles up on her desk, never breaking eye contact with Wyn. “Ernie has not been disrespected by Mr. Corsini, as you were so certain was the case. As a valued employee of so many years, he was given a choice, and Ernie chose the lifelong stipend.”

Still as granite, Wyn murmured, “I did not know that.”

“No, you didn’t, because you didn’t give me the courtesy or respect enough to ask. But you know what? That stipend is not why I know Ernie is innocent. I know Ernie is innocent because I’ve been working with him since I was sixteen, a kid. We’re more than coworkers, we’re friends. I know all about his children and grandchildren and all their troubles and accomplishments, of which there have been far more the latter than the former. And he knows about me and my life and my family and my troubles and accomplishments. We respect each other and care about each other, and that is how I know he would never break into my home or steal from me.”

“Okay,” Wyn pushed away from the door, his voice animated again, “but that’s not Bill and that’s not Robbie and that’s not Jayden, and that’s not even Nico.”

Maddie rolled her eyes. “Nico hightailed it out of this town after high school and he rarely comes back.”

Wyn scoffed right back, “That you know of.”

Leaping out of her seat, Maddie shouted, “You’re impossible!” Volatile emotion ripped out of her as pure, raw sound. “Of course it’s ‘that I know of’! The same could be said for anything. Everything is what I know of it, just like everything from your perspective is ‘what you know of it.’” Aggressively, she made air quotes with her fingers in his direction. “You’re so frustrating, Wyn. Damn it.” She reached her arms out and squeezed her hands into fists, shaking them at him as another crazed noise escaped her. “When you came to my room last night to ask about the shed and then actually listened to me about the ghost, I thought we’d made a bit of progress. I thought we were going to team up, at least for a while, and try to figure out this mystery together. But then here you are, less than twenty-four hours later, violating my place of work and grilling my people without my consent. We’re right back to where we started, with me wanting to strangle you.”

Wyn’s face went red, and his mouth pulled to a hard line. He suddenly shifted and cursed, bracing his hand against the door, faced away from her.

Maddie’s brow furrowed. “What?”

Wyn stiffened even more. A long stretch of tense silence permeated the air between them, and Maddie’s heart rate spiked.

“What’s the matter?” she asked again.

She touched his shoulder. Wyn jerked, and heat scorched her fingertips.

“What?” She pushed him again. “Tell me. I’m not going to stop asking. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Fine. I’ll tell you. I know it’s wrong,” Wyn finally said, his voice ragged, “and not even a little bit normal, and I’ll probably go to hell, and you’re going to want to kick me in the balls on top of strangling me, but just now, as I was looking and listening to you, you’re so beautiful and fiery and so full of this electricity…” he turned around, his stare intense, revealing a visible erection. “It doesn’t matter that we’re fighting and having this dispute between us right now, I can’t stop thinking about pinning you to that desk and taking you in every way imaginable until we both can’t move. Your passion and vitality excite me in a way I cannot control.” He exhaled finally, but maybe it was more like a wince. “I’m sorry. Punch me in the face. I know you want to.” Tilting his head, he offered his jaw. “I deserve it.”

Momentarily frozen, Maddie scrutinized Wyn, searching for signs of manipulation. After all, he’d been a part of that explosive act on her floor last night; he’d certainly noted her intense sexual passion for him, and that no matter what, her interest in him was real and not something she could always control either.

The longer she looked at Wyn though, rather than want to smack him, the tension holding him so rigid twisted her heart. He expected her to rant and scream and call him ten kinds of chauvinistic jerk. And truthfully, even twenty-four hours ago, she likely would have done that very thing. Heck, she’d just shouted at him—entirely justified, in her estimation—moments ago.

But maybe shouting and railing wasn’t the way to go forward successfully with Wyn. It certainly wasn’t the way to grab a little bit of the control and upper hand with him. Intentional or not, Wyn kept throwing her off her game, and she fell into behaving exactly as expected. And because he knew her so well, he could predict her moods very accurately. Except in reality she had changed in a lot of ways since their friendship had ended four years ago, in ways that didn’t necessarily reveal themselves around Wyn. She was a focused, controlled, successful businesswoman, and she had gained the respect of her employees and peers in the community by playing to the strengths she’d gained under the tutelage of Mr. Corsini for so many years. In addition, a big piece of her personality was still fun and easy and lighthearted, even if she’d stopped showing those parts of herself to Wyn long ago.

Maybe it was time to do something different with Wyn. Maybe it was time to stop leading with the emotional response he expected from her. Maybe it was time to see how Wyn reacted when he incorrectly guessed her next move.

No more predictable Maddie.

Let Wyn be unsteady for once.

Maybe if they changed things up it would give them a better result. Heaven certainly knew what they were doing right now wasn’t working.

Maddie studied Wyn once more, and his rough exterior and gruff manner and intensity and hardness twined their way around her body, sank into her system, and sent a buzz of warm awareness through to her core, as it always did when she was near him. Maybe, for as long as was possible, she should stop fighting against this truth.
Sink into him. Embrace him. Do what you want, even if you aren’t seeing eye to eye right now, even if it doesn’t end up in forever.

Her heart kicking in a new way, Maddie lifted her hand to Wyn’s face. Rather than the stinging contact of a slap—as he’d surely expected—she caressed his cheek and jaw, loving the stubble he hadn’t shaved away this morning. He reared his head back against the door and looked at her as if she’d grown wings and horns. She stayed with him though and rubbed her thumb across his lower lip. He inhaled sharply, and Maddie grinned, her body simmering anew as it remembered how much she’d enjoyed feeling him inside her last night, before they’d opened their mouths, dug in on their designated sides, and ruined everything with talking.

Lifting up on her toes, Maddie brushed her mouth against Wyn’s. Trained on his gaze, she ran her fingers in his hair and whispered, “So fuck me, if that’s what you really want to do.”

Before he could question her, she smashed her lips against his.

Wyn remained stiff for a prolonged moment. Then—
oh dear God, yes
—he melted, wrapping his arms around her waist. He moaned and slashed his lips across hers, kissing her back.

Yes.
Falling into Wyn too, Maddie’s last thought was,
even if this doesn’t work for more than a day, it’ll be a heck of a lot fun while it lasts
, before she rubbed herself against his heat and went up in flames.

*

Dear everything holy and good
, Wyn parted his lips and Maddie brushed her tongue against his,
what in the hell is happening right now?

At that exact moment Maddie licked deeper into his mouth and dug her fingers into the small of his back through his shirt, and Wyn no longer cared why. He wanted Maddie with every fiber of his being and he would willingly take whatever she offered, whenever, no matter the reason.

Crushing his arms around her waist, Wyn deepened the kiss, tangling his tongue with hers in a manner that was probably too rough but that he didn’t know how to control. He sparred with her, tasting deeply, and reveled in the honey sweetness that was so much in contrast to her biting, fiery personality.

Not backing off either, Maddie pushed against Wyn even harder, rubbing against him as if she needed to scratch an itch that went all the way down into her bones. With just this little bit of contact, somehow more blood flooded south to his cock, pushing his shaft like a rigid bar of steel against her lower belly. Without missing a beat, she shoved her hand between them and stroked him all the way from the base to the tip, fondling the head of his cock through his clothes as if she’d been teasing dicks forever. Wyn bucked against her palm, groaning as he wept early seed against his underwear and work pants.

Breathing heavily against his mouth, Maddie nipped his upper lip. “Let me help you with that.” She worked his belt buckle open and popped the button on his jeans free.

One blink of her molten silver stare later, she had his zipper down too. When she started to sink to her knees in front of him, Wyn buried his fingers in her hair. “Wait.” He tilted her head back, forcing her to look up at him, and the desire in her eyes made his gut clench. Still, he said, “You don’t have to do this.”