The Road to Rose Bend, Naima Simone [jenna bush book club .TXT] 📗

use and work in a jewelry store instead of designing and selling my own. Make more money. Two years together and he didn’t get that creating my own work was like riding for me. Which, surprise, surprise, he hated, too.” She barked out a laugh. “Both are pure energy, a high. When I’m in my workshop or on a bike, I’m not caged in... I’m free. Whether I’m wrestling with getting the silver to mold just so or riding against the elements, the adrenaline is a rush. How could I give up either? But he didn’t understand. And what he didn’t understand, he resented.”

She halted mid-pace and curled her arms around herself, standing near the rise of the hill, inches from where it dropped off. Her eyes closed, her rich brown skin gleaming in the sun’s rays. His heart thudded against his rib cage, but he ordered himself to remain where he stood. This woman, who craved freedom, wouldn’t appreciate him trying to wrap her in wool.

“I started to realize that he didn’t...like me. Not the real me. He couldn’t if he wanted to change everything about me. But then, several months after my diagnosis, one morning I walked out of our closet into the bedroom, and he looked at me and said, ‘I’m glad you got sick. At least now you’re losing weight.’ That was it for me. I couldn’t do the toxicity, the tearing down of my soul anymore. That day, I refused to give him any more of me. And I promised myself that I wouldn’t change anything about me for a man—for anyone—ever again. So maybe Kenneth wasn’t too wrong. If not for me getting sick, if not for me going to the doctor’s that day, I wouldn’t have woken up and decided to take better care of my health. Decided to get rid of everything and everyone that was poison to me.”

“Cherrie.” Maddox flexed his fingers next to his thighs, desperate to touch her. “Can I hold you?” He would beg her if necessary.

She shifted, considering him over her shoulder. “Yes,” she finally said. Then added, “Please.”

It was that “please” that snapped his control. In three long strides, he was on her, dragging her into his arms. Holding her tight. Probably too tight, but easing his grip was beyond his ability at the moment, and she didn’t protest. No, she gripped him, her fists balled into his T-shirt. Every curve and dip aligned with his harder, larger planes and angles, and they fit. Goddammit, did they fit. A shiver worked through him, and he didn’t try to prevent it. Or hide it. He wanted, needed her to know how she affected him. How her strength humbled him. How her spirit and courage awed him.

Inhaling her scent of lavender, vanilla and the perspiration from their ride, he buried his face in the crook of her neck. And because he couldn’t help himself, he pressed his mouth to the base of her throat, feeling the rapid throb of her pulse against his lips. Rejoicing in it.

“Ask me again,” he demanded, lifting his head and staring down into her almond-brown gaze. “Ask me, Cherrie.”

She didn’t pretend to misunderstand him. But caution, and yes, the whisper of fear he’d glanced earlier in the day, passed through her eyes.

“Maddox,” she said, regret thick in her voice. “You were right to turn me down. Us, this... It isn’t a good idea.”

“I didn’t turn you down,” he argued. “And you think it’s not a good idea—which I disagree with—but it’s inevitable.”

She released his shirt, her hands falling to his waist. Not pushing him away, but not holding him close, either. “I...” She briefly closed her eyes, the long fan of her lashes hiding her eyes from him before she lifted them, and the resolve there set his heart pounding. “I’m not the woman you want, the woman you need. Starting something when I’m only going to leave... It’s not fair. To either one of us. We shouldn’t start what we can’t finish.”

“Then give us right now.” He tunneled his fingers through her hair and drove back a groan at finally, finally having her curls in his hand. Twisting them around his fist. Savoring the coarse silk crush of them between his fingers. “The thought of going through the rest of this life without knowing what it is to kiss you, to taste you, to be buried inside you... It fucking scares me. Right now, baby.” He tugged her head back, and her soft gasp ghosted across his mouth. “So, Cherrie, ask me.”

Indecision shadowed her gaze. But so did the desire making a mockery of his control. After a moment, she sighed. And whispered, “We’re going to have sex, aren’t we?”

“Fuck. Yes.”

Then he crushed his mouth to hers.

CHAPTER FOUR

MISTAKE. THIS WAS such a huge mistake.

And Cherrie didn’t give a damn.

Not with Maddox’s mouth molded to hers. Not with his tongue thrusting, tangling and, God yes, tasting. Not with his hungry moans pouring into her as he devoured her.

Not with his hard, thick and—she whimpered—big cock nudging her belly.

Yes, she might regret this decision to curl her fingers around his biceps, rise on her toes and open wider for him, but at this moment? Nothing else mattered.

One hand in her hair and the other clamped around her hip, he guided her backward, and she trusted him to keep her safe. Closing her eyes, she lost herself in the erotic mesh of their mouths. Every lick and suck catapulted the craving that had been taunting her since she’d first laid eyes on him the previous evening into the stratosphere. She wanted to soar there. Wanted him to send her there.

Sliding her palms up his arms, she wound hers around his neck and jumped, wrapping her legs around his lean waist. And placing her sex in direct alignment with his erection. She whimpered, a bolt of pure lust pile-driving through her and propelling the breath out of her lungs.

Wrenching her mouth away, she dropped her