Remember Me (Defiant MC) (21 page)

Maddox abruptly rose, leaving her sitting alone on the floor staring at her memories.  He pulled a beer out of the fridge as the lights flickered.   Gaby remained in the same pose, her head bent.  He suddenly wanted her out of his house.  It hurt having her close.  He would take her to Jensen’s.  She should be with her kid anyway. 

When Maddox’s phone rang, Gaby looked up. 

“Yeah, Jensen.  I got her.  We just swung by to check on Dad.”

It sounded as if Jensen was outside.  The sound of the pouring rain nearly drowned out his voice. “No use trying to come this way if you don’t have to.  There’s lines down, trees down.  If you’re at the house you ought to stay there.”  The sound of the rain receded and Jensen’s voice was stern.  “I mean it, Mad.” 

Maddox scowled.  Jensen was playing the older brother and Mad wasn’t in the mood for it. He was about to say as much when he heard Miguel’s voice in the background, asking about his mother. 

“Here,” he tossed the phone to Gaby.  “Your son wants to talk to you.”

Mad drank his beer and listened to the soft affection in Gabriela’s voice as she spoke to Miguel.  “I love you, baby,” she said at the end.  She placed the phone on the counter and looked at Maddox expectantly. 

“I didn’t thank you,” she said, “for coming to get me.” 

Mad shut his eyes for a few seconds as the lights flickered again.  He felt restless, ornery.  He wanted to ride, storm or no fucking storm.  But no, his bike was at Jensen’s.   And he was stuck in a darkening house with a woman he wanted more than he wanted to take his next breath. 

“What do
you
want, Gabriela?” he asked, opening his eyes. 

She looked down, the waves of her black hair falling in her face.  She frowned.  “I want to get out of these wet clothes.” 

His voice was sharp.  “Then get out of them, Gaby.”  She looked up and he met her eyes, raising the challenge.  “Now!” 

She took a step backward at his shout.   Maddox didn’t back down.  He pulled his cut off and his shirt with it.  He saw the way her eyes traveled over the muscled contours of his chest.   Then Gaby defiantly met his gaze and pulled her wet t-shirt over her head, tossing it on the floor.  She faced him in a simple white bra, her sweet breasts spilling out of the cups.  Earlier he had wondered if her skin would taste as good as he remembere
d.  He realized he intended to find out.

Maddox reached around her back and ripped the strap open.  She stood for it with no objection and watched as her bra fell.  She began to raise her arms as if to cross them over her chest but Mad wouldn’t allow that.  He grabbed her hand and watched her eyes widen as he roughly pushed her palm against his dick.  Holy hell, he had never been harder.   

With her hand still on him, Maddox held her face in his hands and stared into her eyes. 

“Now Gabs,” he said, hearing the strangled passion in his own voice, “I’m gonna ask you again. 
What do you want?”

Her breathy whisper was scarcely audible.  “You.”

“What?”

She grabbed him harder and he felt like he might bust through his pants.  “You!  I want you, Maddox.” 

He released her and pointed down the hall.  “Prove it.” 

There was confusion in her dark eyes as she looked down the narrow corri
dor to where there were two doorways.  To the left was Maddox’s old bedroom.  To the right was Jensen’s. 

Gabriela turned and slowly walked away from him.  Mad watched her, noting the smooth curve of her naked back and the tight bounce of her ass.  The lights flickered once again and then went out completely.  There was only the soft gray light of the fading day as the storm raged outside. 

If Gaby was thinking of the night long ago when she made a choice and entered one of those rooms, she gave no hint of it.  She did not pause as she turned left. 

Maddox found her facing his bed, her arms at her sides.  He closed the door to the room he had slept in for the first eighteen years of his life. 

Gaby shivered when he ran his fingers down her back.  When his hands found her breasts the nipples were hard and eager.  She pushed against him when he reached between her legs.  She was so hot down there. He had no doubt that she was wet and open.  He could strip her down in seconds and plunge right in.  But first he wanted to hear a few things. 

“Tell me again, Gabriela,” he insisted. 

She turned on him then, pressing her breasts against his chest and curling her arms around his neck. 

“You,” she whimpered, kissing his jaw as he grabbed a handful of her long hair, still wet from the rain.  “I only want you, Maddox,” she said and found his mouth. 

He lost himself for a moment in the heady exchange of tongues before pulling away.  He wasn’t quite done hearing from her. 

Her jeans were tight.   He was rough as he pushed them over her hips.  “
What
do you want from me?”  She was breathing hard but her eyes didn’t leave his face.  She watched him silently, trembling.

Maddox pulled her underwear away, ripping the fabric.  He wasn’t going to be gentle.  He sensed she didn’t want him to be gentle anyway.  Thrusting one finger inside of her told him how ready she was.  He unle
ashed his dick and pressed it against her honeyed center. 

“Is that what you want?”

“Yes,” she whispered, her hands on his shoulders, her eyes half closed. 

“What?”

“Yes,” she said more clearly.  Her full lips were set firmly as she faced him with certainty. “Dammit Maddox McLeod, I want
you
.”  She kicked her jeans the rest of the way off and slid back onto the bed.

Maddox lowered himself over her, spreading her legs wide.  “You know how many women I’ve fucked?”

She winced.  “I don’t care.” 

He was right at her entrance.  She arched against him, moaning, trying to pull him inside more quickly. 

“Yes you do,” he told her.  “Because underneath all the empty fucking there’s only ever been you, Gabriela.  And now I’m going to have you.”

He entered her hard and she gasped, her knees pressing into his ribs, her nails digging into his back.  Mad had to fight to keep himself from going over the brink.  She felt a thousand goddamn times better than his most fervent fantasy.  She was slick and writhing, clenching her climax within a minute.  Maddox figured she hadn’t had many lovers.  In fact, she might have only ever had one. 

When she was till moaning her pleasure he asked her.  “How many?”

He thrust deeper and she gasped
, sinking her teeth into his shoulder.  Mad gritted his teeth, fighting himself.  He didn’t want to come yet. 

“What?” she moaned, wrapping herself more tightly around him.

He pumped harder, deeper. “Never mind, baby.”  He was too close.  It was inevitable. “Gaby, fuck, I’m gonna come.” 

“Maddox,” she cried.  “Oh God, I can’t help it.  I love you.”

He couldn’t hold back anymore.  He released himself deep in an overwhelming moment which seemed endless.  He pounded the wall with his fist, bruising his knuckles and denting the surface, as wave after pulsing wave consumed him.  Gabriela held him tight all the while and he was aware of her in a way he had never been aware of any other woman he’d been with.  As he gasped to a finish he held her tight against his chest.  She said them again, the words he’d said the first time.  He did not say them back.  He only stroked her hair and listened to the rain as she sighed and fell asleep in his arms.

Later, he wasn’t sure how much time had passed.  He only knew that the hour was late and the rain was slowing.  Maddox sat by his father and listened to the silence of time.  He heard Gaby enter the room quietly and then felt her hands on his shoulders. 

“Has he been awake at all?”

“Once,” Maddox said.  “He was actually here for a minute.  He knew what year it was and that it was the end.  And you know what he said, Gaby?  He said he didn’t mind.  I’ve been sitting here trying to picture it.  Looking down the tunnel to the end of life and not especially caring that it’s over.”

Gaby’s soft arms curled around him. “Is that all he said?”

Maddox leaned back, settling into her warmth.  “He said Tildy was waiting for him. But it wasn’t like he was confused.  He just said my mother was waiting and that it was getting late.  He drank some water and then sank back into sleep.” 

Gabriela hugged him more tightly and he drew her around, pulling her into his lap.  She nestled against him in a way that made him think of Gray and Promise.  Maddox wished Gray was around to talk to.  In the moments after he’d finally had Gaby de Campo, Mad was angry at himself.  He’d always wondered what it would be like with a woman who meant everything and now he knew.  Somehow he didn’t like knowing it.  It made the world seemed different. 

“Maddie?” Gabriela asked warily, as if she could hear his thoughts.  His mother used to use that nickname when he was very small.  And then no one else did until Gaby.  No one else had since.  When he didn’t answer her, she sighed and rested her head on his shoulder.  She was wrapped in a musty old blanket which had lain on his bed, likely untouched, for the last decade. 

Gaby didn’t try to push him into talking anymore which was good because Mad didn’t know what to say.  He knew that what he felt for her was unlike anything he’d ever felt for anyone else.  He knew that soon he would take her into his old bedroom again, strip that blanket away from her skin and demand even more than she’d already given.  He knew that she would fucking love it almost as much as he did.  He just didn’t know what the hell was supposed to come after that. 

“I think the storm is over,” she said, lightly running her fingers over his bare shoulder. 

“Maybe,” he said, listening. “Maybe not.”

Contention City, Arizona Territory

1890

Lizzie Post had been dead
for a week when the rains came.  Annika looked out the uncovered window of the humble shack which served as a schoolhouse.  Behind her the children crouched on the barrels they used as chairs and added sums on their small slates. 

As she watched the water pool in the unforgiving desert ground she couldn’t help but wonder about the fresh grave up on Lizzie Post’s ranch.  It seemed like a cruel thing for the sky to open up and soak the earth which encased the body it had only been awarded days earlier. 

Annika could not remember the funeral without recalling the fight with James.  Throughout the brief service she’d kept her eyes carefully trained away from Mercer.  He had not troubled to dress in mourning clothes, but his anguish was etched into the rugged lines of his face.  James knew anyway where her thoughts were. 

They had only just returned to the bleak quiet of their home when James had turned to her with
questioning sorrow. 

“It’s still about him, isn’t it?”

Even as James said it, Annika saw how the fact was an open wound.  She opened her mouth to deny it, to deny it all.  The sudden fury James grabbed her with was unlike him. 

“Dammit, you are my wife,” he growled, shaking her.  And when he’d kissed her she’d felt something.  It had been a long time since he had kissed her and the unwitting response of
her body was inevitable.  If he’d kept only kept kissing her like that she might have eagerly opened her legs and guided him inside.  She could feel how he wanted it.  His large hands crudely grappled with the buttons on her dress and suddenly he broke away in a furious cough. 

Then Annika realized it wasn’t James at all she was imagining inside of her.  It was Mercer.  As James faced away and continued to cough painfully, she also remembered the rumors of her husband’s visits to The Rose Room.  She needed to know. 

“Do you have other women, James?”

He stopped coughing, struggling to take deep breaths.  “What of it, Annika?”  His voice was so weary.  “It hurts to breathe and my wife wishes I was my brother.” 

Annika shook her head.  She should cry.  She should beat on his chest with raging fists.  This wasn’t right.  This wasn’t the self-assured lawman who had met her at the stage stop the day she arrived in Contention City.  “What’s happened to you James Dolan?” 

He did not answer.  She didn’t know if she had a right to one anyway.  James tiredly replaced his hat on his head and shuffled toward the door.  “I will not be back tonight,” he said.  He did not return the following night either.  As for Mercer, Annika had not been alone with him again since the
day of Lizzie Post’s funeral. 

Annika forced her thoughts to return to the children.  The rain was falling at enough of a slant to make its way into the room.  She stretched a square of burlap over the protruding nails in the window frame to keep most of the water out.  It was the best she could do. 

When she noticed Desi de Campo staring at her curiously, she managed a small smile.  She should not allow the heaviness in her heart show in front of her students.  Desi smiled back and raised his hand. 

“Yes, Desi?”

“I have finished my sums, Mrs. Dolan.  May I use the outhouse?”

“Of course.”  Annika handed him a spare piece of burlap.  “Use this to keep the rain from your head.”