Page 9 of Masked Darling
“Kade, just give me the shirt. You have to take it off anyway,” she pushed, coming around the table to stand in front of him. Her knees bumped his as he turned in her direction, and for a second, she worried she was standing too close. Despite the blue jeans and black hoodie that sported their school paper’s logo of an R and B scrawled across an image of open book pages, she felt a nervous rush go through her body at their proximity.
Kade stood and draped his jacket over Madison’s outstretched hand. He caught her eyes as he quickly removed the ruined shirt, careful not to mess his hair up too much. The black hair still teased his forehead before he threw his head back and combed a hand through it. He grabbed the jacket back then and replaced it with the stained white tee in one smooth motion, while Madison did her best not to stare openly at his chest.
She failedspectacularly.
Because even though she knew this man, she realized she didn’t know him at all.
Well, ahe didn’t know much about his body–which was covered in tattoos.
She didn’t even know he had any until now. There wasn’t even so much as a hint of one on his arms or hands. But they were there, hiding under his clothes this whole time—skulls and roses were intertwined with barbed wire that wrapped around where his heart lay just beyond the inked flesh. His torso was covered in more barbed wire with what looked like poetry? Or, maybe it was just words. She had to resist the urge to bend over and look more closely.
There was a deep exhale of breath that brought Madison back to her senses. She must have been staring pretty hard because Kade put the jacket on and started zipping it up slowly, staring at her and waiting for her attention to break from his chest. Her face flushed as she watched how his fingers worked the zipper into place at his neck, and she turned around to head to the kitchen sink, where she ran the spot under the cold water.
“Maddie, seriously. Just throw it out,” Kade said suddenly behind her while gathering their things in his bag. He was breathing heavily when she looked over her shoulder at him and wondered if he was feeling the tension like she was. After another minute, Madison finally admitted defeat and left the shirt in the sink to rush with Kade out the door.
She groaned as the memory faded and drew her knees to her chest, resting her chin lightly on the tops, and looked out the large window beside the couch into the night.
He never asked what happened to his shirt; he’d always assumed she threw it out like he told her to. But she cleaned it and wore it to bed almost every night, to the point that it was starting to come apart at the one shoulder seam. Her mind pulled her back to the present, achingly aware that he’d be there any minute.
I can’t believe I asked him over,her mind whined.I should have just told him goodnight and thank you.
Madison rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands, not caring if it smudged her makeup, and let out a frustrated groan.
“Thank him for what?” She whispered out loud in a mocking tone before she continued to make fun of herself in a louder manner. “Hey, thanks for the orgasm and making me squirt and then cleaning up my mess. Golly, what a swell time! My parents will be thrilled my education extends to that of a sexual nature.” She pulled a nearby throw pillow to her face and let out a small scream before dropping it to her lap.
“You don’t have to thank me for tonight.”
The steady voice came from the doorway, and she stopped breathing.
Madison’s head snapped towards Kade, who was casually leaning against the doorframe. He was wearing pajama pants tucked into his unlaced motorcycle boots, his bare chest peeking through the opening of his leather jacket. Thosetattooson display. Oh, lordie.
“God, Kade!” She hissed as her cheeks burned. “Can you stop walking in on me like that?”
He stayed where he was and raised an eyebrow at her.
“Why would I do that? It keeps leading me to the most interesting scenarios.”
Madison blushed even harder if that were possible. Her whole face was starting to hurt from her embarrassment and she resisted the urge to turn away from him. Kade had always been confident, even though he was certainly more of an asshole to others, but this wasdifferent. The way his voice was dropping every time he spoke to her with that husky tone–
He sounded so in control the whole night; and honestly, she loved it.
Madison cleared her throat a little, “How’d you get in anyway?”
Kade raised his left hand to show a set of keys with various rhinestones and fur keychains attached. In response, he said, “I stole them from Ali Cat.”
Madison sighed. “Of course.”
Kade straightened as he put the keys in his jacket pocket before shutting the door behind him and turning the lock with a softclick.Madison swallowed hard as she looked at him. He’d been in this apartment dozens of times, but she felt his presence ten-fold right now.
“Nice shirt,” Kade said with a cocky smile as he started to walk towards her, pointing at it and eyeing the faded pink blotch where a stain never made its exit. “I told you to throw that thing out.”
Madison sat up a little straighter and tugged the hem away from her body as she looked down, giving Kade a flash of skin above her hips.
“I love this shirt; It’s my sleep shirt,” she argued and then froze, realizing what she had admitted and then trying to cover it up with, “I could have gotten it out—the stain, I mean—I could have if you’d given it to me sooner, or let me finish.”
“Well,” Kade said, sitting next to her on the couch and toying with her black wig lying beside him. “We would have been locked out of the exam room if we were late to that final, Maddie.” He looked up at her, and his smile was sinful when he spoke next.
“Besides, I let you finish tonight.”
