A Question of Trust (13 page)

“I figured it out. You ended things with us after making love to Connor. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that you fell just as hard as he did.”

She nodded. It was impossible to lie to him. With Gabe she always ended up telling the truth. “I did.” She felt awful. “I’m sorry, Gabe. I wish it could have been you. Especially under the circumstances.”

“I’m not. I don’t love you either, Maddie.”

“You still love Tina.”

He nodded.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“The same thing you are. I’m going to find the person I love and tell her how I feel.”

***

Connor heard the key in the door and his spine stiffened. He eyed his bags warily. Maybe he shouldn’t have waited. Maybe he should just have gotten his ass to the airport before Gabe arrived home.

No, damn it. He was bigger than that. He’d screwed up, but he wouldn’t flee with his tail between his legs. He’d face his friend like a man, shake his hand and wish him luck for his future with Maddie.

Lucky bastard.

“So,” he called out as the door opened and then closed. “Did you do it? Did you set her straight?” He didn’t get up from his position on the couch immediately. First he had to steel himself, prepare himself mentally for Gabe’s imminent news that he’d won Maddie back over.

Keys clunked on the table behind him. “Yeah, Connor. Gabe set me straight.”

Jesus, fuck
. Connor leapt off the sofa and spun around.

“Maddie?” Christ, she was beautiful. Her very presence sucked the air from his lungs.

“Hello, Connor.” Her face was a blank mask, controlled. It gave away nothing of her thoughts.

Gabe’s girl, he told himself, and nodded a greeting. Daggers of pain knifed through his gut. Gabe’s girl.

Damn it. He hadn’t counted on this, hadn’t expected to see her before he left. Why was she here anyway? Had Gabe brought her back to brag, to add insult to injury?

No way. He couldn’t believe that of his friend.

He glanced over her shoulder—a difficult task since all he wanted to do was feast his eyes on her face. “Where’s Gabe?”

“He’s not here.” Her voice trembled, telling him perhaps she wasn’t as controlled as she pretended to be. “But he asked me to give you a message.”

Connor rubbed a hand over his eyes. Maddie was here, in Gabe’s apartment—without Gabe. Shite. Was this a test? Had Gabe sent her here to test his will power? His loyalty? Uh uh. Not Gabe. “What message?”

“He said, and I quote…” she raised two shaky hands and used her fingers to punctuate the quote, “…
fuck the rules
.”

Connor’s jaw went slack. “He did?” Gabe was setting the rules aside? Rules that they’d both adhered to for twelve years?

Maddie took a hesitant step towards him and his heart thumped beneath his ribs. “He did. Right before he went to see an old friend of yours.”

Connor raised an eyebrow. Oxygen couldn’t reach his chest. Gabe had just rendered their rules defunct and Maddie had stepped closer.

“Tina,” Maddie answered his unspoken question.

“Tina?”

Another tentative step forward. “Apparently there’s some unfinished business between the two of them.”

And just like that, the shackles of guilt were broken.
Gabe was going after Connor’s ex-girlfriend
. Relief almost brought him to his knees. “There is,” he agreed, and prayed for his friend’s sake that Tina was not involved with anyone at the moment.

“There’s…” Her voice caught, and she cleared it and tried again. “There’s unfinished business between you and me too.”

He gave up trying to breathe. It was too frigging difficult. Maddie stood a couple of meters away, an unexpected visitor wreaking havoc on his equilibrium, his thought processes. “There is,” he said again. Christ, he wanted to touch her, wanted to take her in his arms, tilt her chin and kiss away the distance between them. “Although I’m not sure business is the term I’d use to describe what is unfinished between us.” Visions of a wife and babies danced before his eyes. Vision of Maddie and babies.

“You’re right.” She smiled tentatively. “It’s not business. But it is unfinished. Unresolved, you might say. Like…a lateral thinking puzzle.”

Maddie was doing this his way, the lateral thinking way. His chest burned. He had to answer, but he needed oxygen to talk and at this precise moment in time, with Maddie smiling at him, he did not have a drop to spare. Her presence had scrambled his brain.

Connor forced air into his tortured lungs. He didn’t have a choice. It was either breathe or pass out. “Just so happens I’m an expert at lateral thinking,” he managed at last. “Hit me. Maybe we can work out the puzzle together.”

Indecision flashed across her face. Her gaze dropped to his chest. A minute passed. Or maybe it was two. Or ten. Then she looked him in the eye. “A woman meets a man, her boyfriend’s best friend. And the unthinkable happens. Without meaning to—” Maddie hesitated, bit her lip. “Without meaning to sh…she slips and falls in love with him.”

Her words hit him with the force of a canon ball, tearing his defenses apart.
She loved him.

She dipped her head again, trying to hide something.

Too late. Connor had already seen it—the vulnerability in her gaze. His stomach clenched and he fell a little harder for her. “You want to know what happens next?”

She nodded, but did not look up.

“That’s an easy one.” It was? Well if so, why was the simple task of speaking so damn impossible? Why could he hardly string a sentence together? Why did he suddenly feel as though the rest of his life hinged on this answer? “The best friend tells her he’s slipped and fallen too. He’s in love with the woman.”

Maddie dropped her head in her hands. Tremors shook her shoulders. “Is it that easy? There are other issues at play. Issues as yet unresolved.”

Gabe.

“The boyfriend’s moving on, Maddie,” Connor said, silently giving thanks to Gabe. “He’s no longer an issue.”

She looked up at him. Apprehension clouded her eyes. “The best friend’s moving on too. He’s going back to Melbourne.”

Connor let out a growl borne of relief and frustration. In two steps he crossed the room, closing the space between them, and hauled Madeline into his arms. “He was only going back to Melbourne so he wouldn’t have to see the woman he loved with her boyfriend.”

Maddie melted into him, molded her frame to his. He held her tighter, wouldn’t let her go.

“Turns out the best friend is a jealous man,” Connor said. “He can’t tolerate the idea of anyone, even his closest mate touching the woman. He wants to be the only man who ever gets to touch her again. Ever gets to make love to her.” She felt so good there, as though his body had been designed to fit against hers. Inside hers.

“So…so the best friend doesn’t have to go back to Melbourne?”

“All he needs is for the woman to ask him to stay.”

Maddie pulled her head back, looked up into his eyes. Hope and fear shone in her face. “Will you stay in Sydney, Connor? Will you give us a chance?”

“Nothing on earth would make me happier,” Connor said. Then he groaned. “Christ, Maddie, I thought you’d never ask.”

“I love you,” she told him. “I swear I never meant for it to happen, never meant to hurt Gabe, but you…you just bewitched me. I couldn’t help it.”

“I love you too. The minute I saw you I knew you weren’t just another woman I could share with Gabe. I knew I would ultimately have to have you for myself.”

“Keep me to yourself. Promise you’ll never share me again.”

“Never, Maddie. From now on you are all mine. Period.”

“Then kiss me, Connor. Kiss me now and never let me go again.”

He did. He caught her mouth in a kiss so sweet and so hot the very air around them seemed to shimmer. As her lips parted, allowing his seeking tongue access to the velvety depths of her mouth, Connor felt his restlessness and his agitation flicker, fade and finally evaporate.

Right there, in Maddie’s arms, he had finally found home.

About the Author

To learn more about Jess Dee please visit
www.jessdee.com
. Send an email to
[email protected]
or hop on over to her blog at
http://jessdee.wordpress.com
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Look for these titles by Jess Dee

Now Available:

Ask Adam

Photo Opportunity

Coming Soon:

Circle of Friends Series:

Only Tyler

Steve’s Story

Ménage and More:

Wicked Garden by Lorelei James

A Question of Trust by Jess Dee

Nice and Naughty by Jayne Rylon

Look for these three novellas together in print in
Three’s Company

Coming Summer 2009

Her past and present collide in the ultimate temptation.

Wicked Garden

© 2008 Lorelei James

Eden LaCroix loved Billy Buchanan ten years ago, but he ran out on her the night of prom. Now he’s back, and Eden thinks a fling will help her move on from their tangled past. She wasn’t counting on Billy’s wicked side—or the return of her sometime lover Jon White Feather—to appeal so strongly to her own dark, hidden desires.

College took Billy away from Eden, but it’s a mistake he can rectify now that he’s in town to make the final decision on the fate of the community center Eden manages. Except reignited sparks keep getting in the way of his objectivity. The flames only leap higher when Eden’s rock star lover comes home from the road.

Eden considers herself a one-woman man, but in the arms of Billy and Jon she feels truly beautiful for the first time in her life. But does the healing go far enough to prevent her from letting love slip through her hands a second time?

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Wicked Garden:

Billy unknotted the tie and threw it behind him. He made short work of his dress shirt, shoes and socks. He only unbuttoned the top button of his slacks. Again he slipped his hands up her body, savoring every sexy inch. “What’s really going through that sharp mind, gorgeous?”

Her eyes turned liquid, a soft hue that bespoke of raw passion. “I’ve thought of this since I was seventeen.”

“Tell me what you want.”

“I want you to put your mouth on me.”

Smiling, he bent and kissed her knee.

“Smart-ass,” she hissed.

“You weren’t very explicit.”

She propped herself up on her elbows, eyes gleaming. “I want your mouth sucking between my legs until I come.”

He stared at her and grinned. “That’s the hottest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“And I want it right now.”

He hooked his fingers inside her red lace panties, dragging them down her long legs and carelessly tossed them over his shoulder. “You asked for it. Remember that when you’re begging me to let you come.”

“I can take it,” Eden said boldly, even when the sparkle in his eye sent shivers to her core.

Billy gently nudged her and she lowered her back flat, staring at the ivory ceiling. Perched on the end of the weight bench, he placed his hands on her knees. “Wider. Show me what I’ve won. Show me what’s mine tonight.”

A wave of desire washed over her. She stretched her legs, letting her heels rest on the metal rungs of the bench. Her eyes closed when his hot flesh moved into the space she’d created between her thighs.

His finger slid through the wetness of her pussy, stopping to trace the triangle of curls. “So pretty. So pink.” One hand stroked her thigh. His mouth came into play, kissing her hipbones, the sensitive line of skin below her navel. A warm tongue skated across each rib as he made a thorough journey up her body.

His thumb flicked across that pouting bundle of nerves at her center, gliding down to rest in her slick opening. He repeated the path up and down her wet slit, gradually increasing the rhythm so it was a constant stroking.

Eden began to thrash. Even the fake leather bench seat was too much stimulus on her skin. She wanted his mouth everywhere—on her lips, on her breasts, on her aching sex. Finally that wayward mouth reached her nipples, using the tiniest amount of tongue on tips. “Please, Billy.”

As he latched onto her nipple with his teeth, he slid two fingers deep inside her pussy.

The sensation of his hungry mouth suckling her breast, his long fingers pumping in and out, his thumb rubbing her clit, sent her careening into space. She pressed up to meet his demanding fingers, clutching his strong shoulders, shudders racking her from scalp to toes as he milked even the tiniest spasm.

After her sex quit pulsing, Eden opened her eyes, mortified by being so quick on the trigger.

But Billy’s intense gaze indicated he hadn’t minded her speedy trip to climax. His hand slid from between her thighs, smoothed a wet line up her belly, which he followed with this tongue. “Beautiful,” he growled against her flushed skin.