Once Upon A Half-Time: A Secret Baby Romance (63 page)

“Josie—”

The words made me sick just to speak them. “It’s why you were at the shop in time to save me. You didn’t know I’d be inside. And you got caught tampering with the breaker box.”

“What are you talking about—”

“It was your fault. You caused the fire.”

T
his was
what it felt to die without dying.

My heart ripped out, and my future torn apart.

I lost the only thread of hope and stability I had ever grasped within my blood-stained hands.

“
You did it
.” Josie’s words rattled with shock. “
It was you
.”

“No!”

“
I can’t—”

“Josie!” I nearly broke the phone. “Listen to me!”

“
Leave me alone!
”

“It wasn’t me!”

“
Don’t contact me again
.”

The call disconnected.

And my life was ruined.

I spent a year in jail for a crime I didn’t commit, but I would’ve stayed for life if she believed I was innocent. I threw the phone. It cracked, but it wasn’t the skull I wanted to fracture. Mine. Nolan’s. The chief’s. I had no idea where to direct my anger, but I couldn’t let it focus on her.

“God
damn
it!” The nightstand flipped. Then the ice bucket. The shitty coffee pot that hadn’t brewed a hot cup of coffee since I’d rented the room.

Chelsea hadn’t returned yet, but her bags got in my way. I pitched the duffle from my path. It unzipped, scattering bottles of pills and a used syringe.

Christ. Life turned to shit. I’d destroyed everything I had with Josie.

This wasn’t happening.

I couldn’t let her go. I spent too long separated from Josie already, too many hard days and nights imagining our future, our home, our promised
baby
. It wasn’t ending this way.

I hadn’t bought a car yet—sold my old one to get a lawyer who wasn’t a public defender. I bundled up in my jacket and sprinted from the motel. I didn’t have the room key. I hadn’t pocketed my phone. The skies opened in sheets of pouring rain.

But nothing would stop me from getting to Josie.

Nothing
.

My steps pounded against the puddles in the road, and lightning flashed overhead. The thunder was an unwelcomed crash. It muffled my fists banging on Josie’s door.

She didn’t open it for me. Not because she didn’t hear me, but because she didn’t want me.

I’d be sick. The rain drenched me, but I’d stay all night in the soaking downpour if it meant there was a chance she’d open the door. She
had
to listen to me.

“
Josie
!” I didn’t recognize my voice. “Please! Let me explain!”

She wouldn’t answer me. Hell, I probably only had a few minutes before the cops showed and Chief Craig finally had a reason to cuff me. He’d salivate over an arrest for a domestic dispute. If Josie pressed charges, it’d prove no one was left in the world who gave a damn about me.

And then what would happen?

Josie would be trapped with Nolan and his lust. Chelsea would be used and discarded by a man who got off on his own power and the woman he molested. And me? Fuck me; I didn’t care what happened to me. Josie could kick me out of her life. Forbid me from speaking to her. Hell, she could run me out of the damn town.

But first she was going to know why I did what I did, and then she could leave me forever.

“Josie!” I leaned against the door, shouting so she could hear me over the rain and thunder and her own grieving betrayal. “You wanted to know where I was the night your store burned down. Open the door and I’ll tell you!”

I listened. One second. Two.
Three
.

Ten agonizing seconds before she called through the door.

“It won’t matter.”

Like hell it wouldn’t. “The night of the fire, I was getting evidence to blackmail Chief Craig.”

Josie’s words were short, curt. Absolutely heartbroken. “Have you ever done anything honorable in your life, Maddox?”

I gritted my teeth. The rain kicked up, pelting me with shattering drops. I shivered, not from the cold. From the truth. From the shame.

I failed to protect those who deserved it a year ago. It wasn’t happening again.

“I wasn’t blackmailing him for
me
.” I hated to yell, but I couldn’t let her miss a single word. “I was paying him off.”

“Bribing the Chief of Police?”

“I had to. And I was doing odd jobs for Nolan to earn enough money to keep the chief satisfied. Nolan was a last resort, Josie, I swear it.”

“Why would you bribe the
police chief
?”

“Because he’s…” I had slammed the door so hard my fists scraped and bled. I let the rain wash it away. “He’s whoring out my sister. He’s got Chelsea, and he’s stuffing her full of drugs and pimping her to his friends. I paid him so he wouldn’t whore her out.”

I heaved a breath, waiting for the door to open. Another ten seconds passed. I gave her a minute.

Nothing.

Either she didn’t believe me or she didn’t care, and I wouldn’t blame her. Not like I was a shining example of a great boyfriend. I could vow my love, promise to be a devoted husband, and pick out baby names, but it wouldn’t make a damn difference. She saw me for who I really was.

Trash. Danger. A mistake rendered from human flesh.

“Please, Josie.” I couldn’t shout anymore. “
Please
.”

My heart stilled as the door opened. Josie was wrapped in a blanket, staring at me with wide eyes and parted lips. She trembled with either cold or sadness or just disbelief.

“He’s…prostituting her?”

I hadn’t admitted it to anyone and only now realized she was the only one who wouldn’t judge us for it. I should have trusted her from the beginning.

“He’s got her convinced she’s his mistress, but he needs money to leave his wife and kids. Chelsea so goddamned infatuated with him she doesn’t understand that he’s threatening us both. If I can’t get him enough money, he’s going to take her
swinging
again.” The thought burned me. Like Chelsea hadn’t suffered enough. “I have no idea if she’d even survive it, not with the amount of drugs he pushes on her to make her fuck those men.”

Josie closed her eyes. “And you knew about this?”

“Yeah.”

“For how long?”

“Two years. I paid him enough to keep her from whoring, but I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop him from touching her.”

“You thought he was responsible for the fire?” It wasn’t a question. Josie put two and two together, only she didn’t have to sit in a jail cell for a year and obsess over it.

“He knew I was close to getting evidence. One of his
friends
had pictures of her with him from a party. I paid for them. A shit ton. I was about to expose him for what he was, and I think he set fire to your shop to frame me. He couldn’t risk his reputation.”

“And the money was the only way you could protect Chelsea. You needed to take the jobs.”

“I never, ever wanted to hurt you,” I said. “I wanted to keep you away from the chief and Nolan and that part of my life.”

Her grip tightened on the blanket. I hated that the rain blew sideways, misting over her. We both ignored the cold. “You should have told me. I would have understood. I could have helped.”

“No one would believe me without proof. The chief is respected and important and my sister and I…” Weren’t. “We’re not even a family. I’m a wallet to her, a last resort before she whores herself out to someone less reputable than John Craig. I couldn’t let that happen. Our childhood was robbed. No reason her adult life should be miserable too.”

Josie pulled me inside, tugging the wet coat off my body. I dripped onto her floors and shivered from the rain, but anywhere she touched me was as comforting as a damn mug of hot cocoa—her gourmet recipe, the one that was more melted chocolate bar than milk.

She cast the blanket over my shoulders, and she sat me on the couch.

Comforted.

Loved.

Nothing I deserved. Not now.

“I will never keep any secret from you again,” I promised. “Never.”

“
Shh
.” Josie placed a delicate finger over my lips. I kissed it, instinctually, just a way to show deference to the woman who controlled more of my life than my pride, the law, or any of my bad decisions. “I’m sorry I ever doubted you.”

“I gave you reason to doubt.”

“Not a good one. I knew better. I told everyone else to look harder, to see the man you really were.”

She leaned close, gently shifting over my lap to straddle my legs. Her arms wove behind my neck, and I stared at her beautiful cinnamon lips.

Christ, what did I have to do to get this woman to drop the apologies and just kiss me?

“I doubted you at the first sign of trouble,” she said. “I let myself…think horrible things.”

“It’s my fault, Sweets. I’m not the man you should have fallen in love with.”

“There’s no one else for me.” Her lips pressed mine, gentle and soft. “No one else excites me as much as you. No one that challenges me as much. No one understands me as much as you do.”

“Believe me, Sweets. I haven’t figured you out yet.”

“I think you have. Long ago. When you saw me all innocent and naïve and sheltered.”

“Don’t kid yourself. I wanted to exploit that.”

Her eyebrow rose. “You didn’t.”

“Wow. You’re still naïve.”

“Is that a problem?”

I rested my hands on her hips, grasping her curves just to tease my restraint. “I like that you’re innocent. I need that, or I’d never believe this world wasn’t the first step to hell. You see things differently than me. You’ve had
good
things happen to you.”

“You’ve been the best.”

“That’s a lie, but it sounds sweet coming from you.”

“It’s no lie. I needed to know the world had that edge.” She brushed my cheek. “You taught me to be cautious. To recognize when men like Nolan wanted something more from me than I was willing to give. We balance each other, Maddox.”

“You balance me. I corrupt you.”

Josie leaned close, her kiss encouraging me to do more than just corrupt her. “Maybe I like it.”

“You’re the type of girl a guy like me preys on.”

“Maybe I like that too.” Josie smiled, timid and playful. “Or maybe I’m the one stalking you?”

Her hands moved low, unbuttoning my jeans and wiggling the zipper down. Her eyes flashed with mischief. A quick shimmy of her hips, and her pajama bottoms kicked away. Her smooth hips, just plump enough for a squeeze in my palm, settled over my lap.

Nothing got me harder than this woman. And no woman was harder to refuse than the one offering her body, her innocence, her life to me.

“You promised me everything before,” Josie whispered. “Love. Happiness.”

I strained to touch that heat between her legs. She did it for me, rubbing her slickness against my cock. She groaned as she lowered her body over mine and accepted me inside her trembling slit.

Bare
. The only way I wanted to feel her.

“You promised me a family.” Her words faded as she ground her hips, filling herself with all of me. “Is that…what you still want?”

My grip tightened on her, but I didn’t dare move her myself, didn’t slam her against me like every instinct in my body demanded of me.

“More than anything,” I said.

“Good.” She met my gaze. “Then this morning was the last time I take my pill.”

Holy Christ.

Josie shuddered, her words lost in the ripple of pleasure that tightened her core. She leaned over me, arms behind my neck, body pressed into mine. I was completely encased in sweet perfection.

I had this amazing woman for my own for years, and I never took her gently. Never
felt
how our bodies melded, how the heat passed between us, how consuming the innocent pressure of her lips against mine could be.

Gentle. Loving.

Mine
.

I longed for her tender touch. When I met her, I was hardened, jaded, and cracked. She didn’t put me together, she made me new. Not a man fragile and fierce, but someone confident and protected from my own instincts.

Had I followed them, had I let myself wallow in blood, I’d have lost her long ago.

Never again.

This was my second chance. My last opportunity to save her, keep her, make her mine forever.

She bumped against me, chasing shivers only to create more. My fingers tightened against her hips as she rocked, and every gentle swell of her body onto mine wrapped me in pleasure.

“I need more of you…” I whispered.

“You have me.”

“I want to touch you…”

Her voice wavered. “You’re touching me.”

“Taste you…”

Her lips found mine, and her tongue swirled wicked delight. “Taste me.”

“Come in you…”

“Please.”

“Make a baby?”

Josie’s body tensed, and she buried her head in my shoulder, squeezing my muscles, holding me, forcing her hips down to take more and more of everything I could give.

“
Maddox
…” She came, beautifully, quaking in my arms as she took her pleasure and asked for mine as well.

I grunted, grasping her waist until the tingling erupted through me. I held her body, her back, pinning her against my chest as my hips instinctively bucked.

Once.

Twice.

Enough times to earn her squeal and ensure every jet of my pleasure completely coated her core.

She heaved frantic breaths against me, letting me hold her as the aftershocks of passion ripped through my body and pumped more into her. She dizzied me with tiny kisses, gentle promises against my shoulder, my neck, and finally my lips.

I stared at this beautiful woman, this amazing creature who pledged her life to me. I’d make sure she always knew how much I loved her. She’d never have cause to doubt me again.

“I swear, Sweets…” I brushed her cheek with my hand. “I’ll never keep another secret from you. You’ll know everything.”

Her gaze lowered. Quickly. Almost embarrassed.

“Just know that I love you, okay?” She whispered. “And everything I did or will do is because I love you.”

“Nothing you do will ever change how I feel, Josie.”

Her lip trembled. I kissed it away and let her rest against my chest, held in my arms and safe.

Why did it feel like she didn’t believe me?