“I am.” She’s still leaning her head on my shoulder. “It finally felt like goodbye.”
Relief flickers like hot embers across my skin. Pressing my lips to her cheek, I whisper, “Take a bite.” I pull back just enough so I can aim the banana for her mouth, and fuck me, my cock twitches in my pants.
She stills in front of me, not even chewing, then pushes back on her stool an inch. I have to stifle a groan when her ass nestles into my thickening length.
I’m breathing through my nose, attempting to control my reactions as she finishes the banana, but the second sheswallows the last bite, I pounce, spinning her again and claiming her lips as though they belong to me.
Our teeth clash, and our tongues swirl with untamed desire. I nip at her bottom lip, and she moans so loudly pre-cum leaks into my boxers.
Noise from above is the only thing that holds me back. As much as I want this woman, she’s exhausted, and I won’t risk someone walking in on us, so after a few more moments, I pull away, pressing my forehead to hers.
“You’re dangerous, Madison Ryan. So fucking dangerous.”
“Me? Why?”
“Because you might be the only person on the planet who can make me lose control.”
Her eyes light up as though it’s a compliment, and my chuckle is dark as it escapes my chest. “Come on, you’re tired. Let’s get you to bed before Pops waltzes in here looking for a party.”
The mention of her grandfather has her eyes popping wide. Her chest is still heaving, and it takes all my willpower not to tear her shirt wide open.
“Bedtime, sunshine,” I say, standing from my stool and offering her a hand.
She rises silently, and when she places her palm in mine, entwining our fingers on the way up the stairs, I finally admit to myself that everything is about to change.
22
MADISON
Sage is alreadyin the kitchen when I come downstairs at the crack of dawn. I haven’t seen much of him over the past week. He’s mostly kept to himself, but I can tell he’s bored out of his mind.
“Hey, Sage. Oh my Lord. What’s that smell?”
He looks up from whatever he’s watching in the oven and waggles his fingers at me. “I heard about Uncle Braxton’s disastrous attempt at a soufflé. You’ve been so…” He turns back to the oven. “You’ve just been really good to us, and you’re working so much, so I thought I’d do something I know neither of my uncles can do. I cooked you breakfast.”
“You made a soufflé? Sage, it’s five in the morning. What time did you get up?”
He shrugs, and it’s so strange to see. He’s the size of a man but with the fragility of a child.
“I’ve been having trouble sleeping.”
“Is it the room? What can I change? How can I help?”
He angles his face toward me with a soft but sad expression. “You’ve done everything perfectly, Miss take-care-of-everyone-else-and-forget-about-yourself.”
I don’t appreciate being called out by a teenager, even if he is right.
“Then what’s keeping you up?”
He turns the oven off and cracks the door a quarter of an inch, then joins me at the island.
“Honestly?”
I flash my best “duh” face, and he laughs.
“Okay, I’m bored, like so bored my eyeballs hurt. And that’s not your fault, so shut down all the things running through your mind about how you’ll entertain me. It’s just that, I graduated high school at fourteen. I’ve been taking classes at community college because I wasn’t ready for anything else, and my uncles and Ace supported that.
“But coming here means I don’t get to go to campus, and I don’t really know what to do with myself because I finished all the coursework weeks ago. Now Pops and Grey have come to some sort of truce, so I don’t even have their trolling each other to keep me entertained.”
