“Hi, Addie!” we both yelled, not even stopping as we charged up the stairs, two at a time.
I picked up a whimpered “Oh, dear” as we reached the second floor and had to laugh. Poor Addie.
Fallon reached my bedroom before me and swung the door open so hard it shook the wall when it hit. I slowed to a walk, crossing the threshold with my eyes glued to hers as she spun around to watch me. She backed up into the room, one timid, light step at a time as if in slow motion, kicking off her shoes and tossing her bag to the floor.
Without taking my gaze off her, I closed and locked the door behind me.
“I want to make a deal,” I challenged, stalking slowly toward her.
Her fiery gaze heated me. “And what’s that?” she asked, whipping her shirt over her head and letting it fall to the ground.
My eye caught the Valknut tattoo on the side of her torso. It wasn’t big, but I’d never gotten the opportunity to study it. I’d have to remember to ask her what it meant.
“If you,” I threatened, “so much as leave my bed without my permission in the next twelve hours, you have to get my name tattooed . . .” I smiled.
She arched a defiant eyebrow.
“On your ass,” I finished.
A smirk played at the corners of her mouth, and I continued to advance on her slowly, drinking in her smooth skin and white lace bra.
“Deal?” I reached at the back of my neck and pulled my T-shirt over my head.
Skimming her fingers inside her shorts, she slid them down over her ass and let them fall to the ground. “I won’t leave without a good-bye. I won’t leave at all, Madoc,” she promised.
“Do we have a deal?” I pressed, my voice more demanding.
“Yes.”
Coming up to stand in front of her, I tensed when her fingers grazed my stomach. She undid my belt, whipping it out of the loops. I toed off my shoes and then reached behind her to unclasp her bra. Peeling it from her body, I let my mouth fall open a little at the sight of her full br**sts and ni**les, dark and hard.
But when she started to unbutton my pants, I grabbed her hand. “Not yet,” I whispered, snatching her bottom lip between my teeth. She tasted like vanilla and warmth and home. I couldn’t imagine ever being hungry for anything else but her.
She whimpered as I dragged my teeth over her lip, but I let go and slipped my hands inside her panties, pushing them down her legs.
I felt like a kid on the Fourth of July. Fireworks were popping everywhere.
With her na**d and me still in my jeans, I left her standing there and went to sit down in the cushioned chair in the corner.
Her eyes went wide, shifting left to right. “Um, what are you doing?”
“Sit on the bed.”
She stood there staring at me for about ten seconds before finally dropping to the navy blue comforter and scooting backward to the middle. Pulling her knees up, she hugged them and teased me with playful eyes. Trying so hard to look innocent.
The hair on the back of my neck spiked. Her hair spilling around her, the curves of her waist, the muscle tone in her thighs . . . Fallon hid a lot under her boyish clothes, and I was the luckiest guy in the world to have been the only one to see her like this.
She lifted the corner of her mouth, challenging me. “What now?”
I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees. “When was the last time you were on a board?” I asked.
She blinked and asked with a shaky laugh, “You’re asking me that now?”
She was right. I was killing the mood like a bucket of ice.
But I waited anyway.
“Well,” she said, looking unsure. “I guess it’s been two years. The last time I lived here.”
“Why?”
She shrugged, more like she didn’t want to tell me than she couldn’t. “I don’t know.”
I stood up, taking a few steps toward her. “Did you lose interest in it?”
“No.”
“Then why?” I stopped and crossed my arms over my chest.
Fallon loved skateboarding. She’d put in her earbuds and go off to Iroquois Mendoza Park for hours, alone or with friends, and just get lost.
Licking her lips, she said with a small voice, “I guess at first, I didn’t want to enjoy anything. I didn’t want to smile.”
That sounded like guilt. But why would she feel guilty?
“Were you angry with me?” I asked. “For not coming after you?”
She nodded, her voice still small. “I was.”
“But not now?”
At the time, I’d thought she’d wanted to leave. I never thought about going after her, because I thought I was the one she ran from.
Her eyes met mine. “No, I don’t blame you for anything. We were so young.” She looked away and added as an afterthought. “Too young.”
I guess she was right. At times, I knew what we were doing was dangerous, but I was consumed with her. I didn’t care. And whereas she slowed down and took her time growing up, I charged ahead. I didn’t sleep with as many girls as I bragged about even though the opportunity was there, but I definitely couldn’t say I’d saved myself for her, either.
I moved closer, stepping up to the end of the bed. “Why did you never try to come home?”
“I did.”
CHAPTER 23
FALLON
So Madoc wanted to talk.
This was new.
I couldn’t get off the bed without his permission, and I was totally na**d and vulnerable while he conducted his Q&A.
I sighed, knowing I owed him this much. And more. “A few months after I left I snuck back,” I added. “You were having a party, and you had someone with you.”
As much as I’d gotten past hating him for that, the feeling of betrayal could never be forgotten. He had been sitting on the edge of the hot tub with his legs in the water while some girl blew him. He had been leaning back on one hand with his other in her hair, and his head had fallen back. He didn’t see me looking through the patio doors.
His dad and Addie were home but undoubtedly asleep. I thought I’d worked it well, arriving in so late. He’d be in bed. I’d sneak in. We’d talk.
My timing couldn’t have been more wrong. Or more right.
I ran out of the house, away from someone I was too young to love.
Madoc averted his pained eyes. “You shouldn’t have saved yourself for me. I don’t deserve it.”
“I didn’t,” I whispered. “I saved myself for me. Part of it was that I didn’t want anyone else but you, but the truth was I just didn’t want anyone. Even you. I was in over my head. I needed to grow up.”