“I got plenty of footage of Nate,” I said, and it was true. Footageof his boots, his elbows, the back of his head. Too much footage of Nate, if you asked me.
“Ahh, getting off on a technicality. I see.” Adrian shifted to face me fully, those blue eyes sparkling with something that looked dangerously like affection. “You hardly got any shots of his face, Maddie.”
My jaw clenched, but my insides melted at the soft shortening of my name. He’d done the same thing during sex, when his control had slipped.
“Maybe Nate’s not as photogenic as he thinks,” I argued, trying desperately to keep from admitting the truth.
Adrian’s laugh was warm and delighted. “Holy shit! You were jealous.”
“I was not?—”
“You were!” He pointed an accusatory finger at me. “Grumpy, possessive Maddox Sullivan couldn’t stand watching another man charm me, so you sabotaged his screen time.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said, standing up to put distance between us. But Adrian followed, crowding into my space with that infuriating grin.
“Is it? Because looking at this footage, someone might think you don’t want to share me with anyone else.”
“You’re not mine to share,” I snapped, then immediately regretted the words when hurt flickered across his face.
But the hurt disappeared as quickly as it had come, replaced by something calculating. “No? Then you won’t mind if I call Nate about that barn dance. Maybe see if he wants to grab dinner one night before then.”
My hands clenched into fists at my sides. “Do whatever you want.”
“I will.” Adrian pulled out his phone, thumb hovering over thescreen. “He did say I had a natural touch with horses. Maybe he could teach me toride.”
A growl escaped my throat before I could stop it.
Adrian’s grin turned positively wicked. “Was that a no, Sullivan?”
“Fuck off, Hayes.”
“Make me,” he challenged, stepping close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from his body.
Needless to say, we burned the pasta. When we finally fell asleep after midnight, I was jelly-legged and dehydrated from all the rounds of sex we managed to have before our bodies simply couldn’t do it anymore. Thankfully, we’d managed to find a pair of clean sheets, but that was about it. We’d pulled the duvet over us and passed out.
Stress dreams haunted me after a while, the way they did more and more lately. A myriad of images that didn’t make sense but carried a sense of foreboding, or fear, or that horrible, overwhelming terror of missing something important.
“Maddox.” The voice sounded like my father’s but also like Michael’s. Or maybe it was Nate warning me off Adrian.
“Maddox!”
I wanted to respond, but my mouth was glued shut. Or maybe my lips were duct-taped. Maybe I’d been kidnapped. No, maybe Maya had been kidnapped. Was I trying to get to her? What if I couldn’t get to her?
“Baby, wake up.”
A crushing sense of longing filled me, making my eyes smart with regret. For whatever reason, I wouldn’t get to have that… that good, bright thing that was just on the horizon. Just out of reach.
“Dammit wake the fuck up you asshole!”
I blinked awake to the feel of Adrian’s hands gripping myshoulders. He loomed over me in the dark, hair wild and eyes glinting in the sliver of light from the hallway.
“Adrian? What’s wrong?” My voice was sleep-graveled, and my brain was like a bucket of scattered LEGOs—more potential than structure. The parts were all there, but they didn’t go together in any way that made sense.
“You tell me,” he said, voice softening. He moved his fingers absently through my hair as his body relaxed. “You were having a nightmare.”
He moved to lie next to me on his side, propping his head up on an arm.
I blew out a breath. “Sorry. Maybe I should have left after all so you could have gotten a decent night’s sleep.”
