MAD DOG AND ANNIE (15 page)

"That's it," he whispered.
"A little more.
Yeah, that's it. You are so pretty, darlin'. You are so hot."

She was hot. She squirmed and opened her legs some more. She was practically riding his hand, and he went on touching her through her panties, firm and knowledgeable. Tears sprang to her eyes. She thought she would die from the pleasure of it, from the pleasure of his caring touch and fierce concentration.

"You could take off something now," he suggested huskily in her ear.
"If you wanted."

That sounded like a good idea. She scrambled on the broad, flat seat, struggling to rid herself of her clinging underwear. One of her high heels fell into the passenger well. Her hip bumped the steering wheel.

His big hands spanned her hips, steadying her.
"Easy, Annie."

She was embarrassed. But then his hand smoothed down her skirt to her knee and glided back up along her bare thigh to the place that waited and wept for him.

He sucked in his breath.
"Oh, darlin'."

The awe in his voice, the movement of his fingers, made her forget her awkwardness. They caressed her and she danced.

He drew them away slowly, slowly, and she moaned at the loss. He kissed her, his tongue warm and urgent, and then brought his hand to his mouth. She watched, her heart jerking in her chest, as he tasted her on his fingers. Even in the dark, she could see his eyes glitter.

"Your turn," he rumbled.

All her insecurities crashed in on her. She drew back shakily. "I don't think—I've sort of reached my limit here."

Under her hands, his muscles coiled, but he did not move. Only his broad chest rose and fell with his breath.

"Is this 'stop'?" he asked quietly.

"No," she said. She felt like such an idiot. "I just—I don't know what to do."

His hand reached up. She willed herself not to flinch. Tenderly, he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and then cupped her cheek.

"You want me to take over for a while?"

She closed her eyes in gratitude, nestling her face against his warm, square palm. "Yes. Please."

Please
. She winced. Such a Nice Girl thing to say, she thought.

But Maddox didn't mock her. He kissed the doubt from between her brows and the tears from the corners of her eyes. He reached up under her hair and urged her head down onto his shoulder. She could feel the pounding of his heart and the tension in his arms. His chest was sweaty. But he held her, simply held her, his hands undemanding on her back and hip. He was solid and warm and real, and her starved heart shuddered with wanting him. After a long time, she sighed.

"All right?" he asked again, low and deep.

She nodded against his shoulder. He kissed her cheek. Such a short distance from her mouth, she thought fuzzily.
Such a little thing to turn her head.
She turned to him.

Mouth to mouth, they kissed, long and sweet. And desire rose in her again, dark and dizzying deep inside, dancing on her skin. She trembled. He touched and coaxed and caressed her, and the heat rolled in through the open windows and built up between them.

She was close, Maddox thought, heat pouring through his veins in sheer male jubilation. He was holding on to the edge of oblivion by his fingernails, but she was close to going over. He wanted that. He wanted to push her, wanted to feel her fly.

He tried to keep her with him as he yanked at his belt buckle, as he fumbled with his zipper.
Sex in a car.
What a joke.

But it didn't feel like a joke, not with Annie warm and willing above him. It felt like heaven. It felt like everything he'd ever wanted, all wrapped up in a green-eyed girl who tasted like salt tears and wine and honey.

He dug in his back pocket for his wallet, lifting his hips. She made a choked sound in the back of her throat and wiggled closer. He dragged in air. He was going to lose it.

"Easy," he whispered. "Don't try so hard. I've got it. I've got you."

It would be simpler if he laid her along the seat, but he didn't want to come down on top of her, didn't want her to feel trapped or confined. He tried to deal with the condom one-handed. He couldn't see. And he was distracted with Annie rubbing against him, all soft silk and smooth skin and slender curves, so it took a long time.

She kissed his jaw, missing his mouth in the dark. Her small, capable hands fluttered over his, making the ache worse. "Should I—" She touched him, and his body strained toward her. "Can I help?"

"Yeah.
That would be good," he said through his teeth. So she helped, and that took a long time, too, because she was shaking damn near as much as he was and probably had less idea what she was doing. It was torture, but it was the kind of torture a man got down on his knees and prayed for.

Eventually he was covered, and she pulled her dress out of the way, and he was there, almost inside her.
Almost there.
Almost home.
Ann was breathing hard and trembling, but not with fear.
It wasn't fear, was it, when she gripped his shoulders so tight? He couldn't stand for it to be fear. But he couldn't see her face, couldn't see if there was welcome in her eyes.

"Annie…"

She shuddered.

Oh, damn. His heart died within him. He was a dead man. "Annie, it's okay. We don't have to—"

"Now!" she cried sharply.
"Maddox, please!"

She didn't have to tell him twice.

He thought,
She
wants this
.

And he thought,
She
wants me.

And the knowledge and the relief together were too much for him, and he went into her, and she was hot and tight and wet and there.
In his arms.
Annie
. He pushed into her, and she made a soft sound above him in the dark and kissed the side of his face and totally blew his control. He was just so damn glad to be with her, all the way with her, all the way inside her, at last. He started moving, rocking into her, and she tried to move with him, but he was too far gone. He was lost in her, so lost in the clasp of her body and the beat of his blood and the way her hands touched him that he couldn't stop, couldn't slow,
couldn't
breathe.

She tightened around him, and he emptied himself into her in hard, dark jets of abandon.

Ann wrapped her arms around Maddox, holding on for dear life. She absorbed the uncontrolled pounding of his heart, took in the force of his powerful body as he shook beneath her, and it made her glad that she was doing that to him, with him, that he felt this way because of her.

Everything inside her was warm and relaxed, and it hadn't hurt at all.

She smiled into the crease of his neck, not caring that her borrowed dress would have to go to the dry cleaners and she'd somehow lost a shoe. It didn't matter. She could do this, she thought, with relief and gratitude. She could please a man—this man—and enjoy it.

He exhaled into her hair. His hands relaxed their tight grip on her bottom. He stroked her there, and she sighed.

"Damn," Maddox said. "That didn't go the way I planned it at all."

She stiffened. A little of her pleasure leaked away. "Excuse me?"

"I was too quick." He raised his hand and tucked her hair behind her ear, his touch lingering on her neck and jaw. "I left you in the dust back there."

She was reassured. "Oh, that's all right. I had fun."

"I should have had more control."

She shook her head, forgetting he couldn't see her in the dark. "I liked it," she insisted shyly. "I liked knowing I could make you feel like that."

"But you didn't—"

"No," she said hastily. Embarrassed, now that she understood what he meant. What he wanted. "I don't. It's all right. It's not you. I just don't."

Seconds ticked by, measured in the beat of her pulse.

"Ever?"
Maddox asked at last, his voice neutral in the dark.

Heat crawled in her face. She levered away from him, one hand on his naked chest, her legs awkwardly placed to either side of his hips. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay. Take it easy. Hey." He gentled her, tempted her back to him with soothing strokes and murmurs. "It's okay. Come here. Just put your head… There we go. We won't talk."

He settled her against him, her head on his shoulder. His arms sheltered her. His warmth cocooned her. His breath stirred her hair.

"We could try doing something about it instead," he rumbled.

Oh, dear. She should have known Maddox would take her failure as his challenge. Ann thought of the inevitable embarrassing fumbles, the growing sense of shame and defeat, the having-to-pretend, and her heart sank.

"It's too much work," she blurted.

"I think I'm up for it," he said, real dry.

"I didn't mean—"

"You won't have to do a thing," he promised.

He kissed the hollow of her neck, and she shivered with new desire.

"Well, you don't have to do anything, either," she said, a little pettishly, and he laughed.

"Yeah, I do. This time I'm carrying the ball all the way to the end zone."

"I am not—" she said, but he kissed her open mouth, stopping her words, stealing her breath.

"Yeah, you are," he said, his voice rough and confident. Irritation licked along her nerves, a welcome heat that joined and danced with the warmth collecting lower down.

"You sound sure of yourself," she said.

She felt him smile against her cheek. His hands moved in the dark, sneaky, irresistible. "Sure of you," he whispered. "You're such a soft touch, Annie."

"Such a doormat, you mean."

"Nope.
Kind.
You always were nice to me." His warm lips cruised from her jaw to the point of her chin. "Soft." He rubbed her mouth gently with his until she sighed and opened for him.
"Sweet."
He stroked inside, and everything inside her tightened and then softened until she was melting on his lap.

"Maddox?"
Her voice shook.

"Shh. I had a thing for you back then, you know," he told her, while his large hands petted and soothed her.
"Big-eyed Annie with the pretty hair.
I used to watch you up on the bleachers watching me at practice, and I'd imagine touching you like this." He demonstrated, and she trembled, wanting him.
"And this."

She was shocked.
Pleased.
"You did not."

"Did, too," he said solemnly, and she smiled.

He kissed her, long and sweet and
slow
, until her heart turned over in her chest.

"Of course, I didn't really know what I was missing," he whispered. His breath was warm against her lips. "But I had a great imagination. You want to know what else I thought
about?
"

Her face flamed. She was hot all over, dying with embarrassment and delight.

"I'm not sure you should tell me," she said, trying for humor, but his big, patient hands were making it hard to joke.
Hard to think.

"How about I show you instead?" he suggested, and her blood flowed thick and hot.

He sounded so impossibly wicked. He felt so incredibly good, and, just as he'd promised, she didn't have to do a thing. He kept touching her, praising her, and everything in her strained toward him, toward … something.

"Maddox?" she said again, panicked as the tension inside her wound higher and tighter.

Control.
She wanted—needed—control, and he was stealing it from her, taking charge of her body with his large, square hands. They slid around her, possessing all her curves, claiming all her secret places. He was hot, pressing inside her. She opened her mouth to breathe. And he kept on, kept at her, stroking, sliding, pressing, until the spiraling tension broke in a great gasping shock, and her mind let go, and her body pulsed with deep, drenching pleasure, coil after coil of it, and she cried out.

He held her, cradled her against his broad, damp chest, kissed her forehead and her eyelids as she shook and gulped against him.

"Now, that was worth waiting for," he drawled.

Chapter 11

«
^
»

A
nn felt a chill in the pit of her stomach that a moment ago had been flooded with warmth. She tried for dignity and for distance, but both were beyond her while she sprawled on Maddox's chest with his hand still up her skirt.

"I'm sorry if I took too long. I haven't had a lot of practice."

"I wasn't complaining, darlin'. It's nice to know I can give you something Rob can't."

The chill spread. She struggled to sit up. "Is that what this is about?
You proving you're better than Rob?"

His words came back to her with distressing clarity:
This time I'm carrying the ball all the way to the end zone.
She looked around for her underwear.

"What are you talking about?" Maddox asked, no longer sounding lazily amused.

She found her panties dangling from the radio knob and snatched them up. "I don't like being used."

"Neither do
I
," he said.

She stopped with one ankle through the leg hole in her underwear. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

He reached a long arm over her head to flick on the cabin light. "You weren't this fussy an hour ago when you were hell-bent on proving you were over your ex."

She flinched from his scrutiny. There was enough truth in his accusation to make her uncomfortable. "You think that I accepted a ride with you because I wanted sex?"

"I don't know what to think," he replied evenly. "You're the one who offered to take her clothes off."

Her hands were shaking. She abandoned her underwear at her knees to raise her head and glare at him. She wasn't any better at standing up for herself than she was at sex. She had no experience with either one. But even the horrible fear that she was making a big mistake didn't stop her from saying, "I didn't hear you object to parking with the quarterback's girlfriend."

"Because I wanted you."

"Because you wanted what Rob
had.
"

"Back in high school.
I for damn sure wanted what he had then.
The respect.
You.
That doesn't reduce what happened between us tonight to some old locker-room rivalry."

She folded her hands and raised her eyebrows.
"'Carrying
the ball to the end zone'?"

"Well, I did, didn't I?"

"Yes." She bit her lip. "Thank you."

"Hell, Annie, I don't want you to thank me. I just want you to let me—"

He broke off. Possibilities trembled between them. Inside Ann, some soft and unprotected part of her she thought had died quivered to painful life. Her hungry heart quaked with frustration, with hope, with…

"Let you—what?" she whispered.

He shrugged. "Help you."

Disappointment tumbled her dreams before she'd even started to build. "No. Thank you. I've had enough of being 'helped.'"

"Take care of you, then."

Worse and worse.
"I don't need someone to take care of me. Rob did that, and I let him go on doing it, until I couldn't take care of anything. I need to handle things myself."

He narrowed his eyes. "I can't let you do that."

"That's your problem."

"No. It's my job."

Realization settled coldly in her chest. He was a police officer, trained and sworn to protect. Obviously, he'd decided she needed his protection. It was her own stupid fault if she longed to be something more than an obligation he met and left behind.

"For how long?" she asked steadily. "The next two weeks?"

"Two and a half."

She bent for her shoe, intent on hiding her red face, her trembling hands. "Well, thank you very much, but I'm not interested in being your pet police project this month."

"You know, in court you can't jump from collecting the evidence to sentencing the defendant without going through a trial. But I guess you decided to skip that part." His voice was rich with disgust. He patted his empty breast pocket for a cigarette and then swore.

"I'm s—"

"So help me God, Annie, if you apologize, I'll—" His jaw clamped shut.

She cringed, but not from fear. Under the anger, she could hear the hurt in his tone. She had hurt him, and he'd never intended anything but kindness toward her.

She swallowed regret, thick and hot as tears in her throat. She had to protect herself. Rob had broken her spirit. Maddox could break her heart.

"I think you should take me home now," she said.

He exhaled.
"Fine.
Whatever you want."

He started the car. She stared out the window. The ride home passed in silence, stony on his part, miserable on hers. Her skin was delicately abraded, her emotions raw.

He pulled up at her curb. The block was quiet. The outside security light shone. Through the living room window, she could see the glow of a lamp and the flicker of the TV.

Maddox turned to her, propping one arm on the steering wheel. "I already figured you're not inviting me in for coffee. Can I walk you to your door, or is that considered over-protective now?"

She didn't want him to come to her house. She would be too tempted to beg him to stay. She moistened her lips. "It's not necessary. Julie, my baby-sitter, is here, and I have my key."

His eyes were flat.
"Right."

Obeying an impulse she refused to examine—risking his anger, risking rejection, risking her whole small store of courage—she leaned across the wide bench seat and pressed her lips to his cheek. His skim was rough. He jerked under her touch.

"Good-night kiss," she explained to his surprised face, and scrambled out of the car.

If he called her name, it was lost in the slamming of the car door. And maybe he thought better of it, because she didn't hear anything as she hurried up the walk

She did not look back. She fumbled with the lock and the dead bolt and flicked the porch light once to let Maddox know she was safely inside. Locked away from temptation, in a prison of
her own
choosing. She felt the weariness of her self-imposed punishment in her shoulders. She felt its loneliness in her soul. She closed her eyes a moment, as if that would bring her rest or peace.

At least this time, she chose the bars that kept the world at bay.

With her palms pressed flat to the metal door, she listened to the sound of Maddox's car as he drove away.

Then, summoning a smile to greet her baby-sitter, she walked into the living room, dropping her little black bag on the back of the couch. "Hi, Julie, I'm home."

Rob looked up from the brown recliner, where he
slumped
watching TV. "It's about time," he said.

* * *

Driving down the darkened street, Maddox smacked the steering wheel with the heel of his palm. Damned if he knew what had
happened.

He'd just fulfilled his high school fantasies with the girl of his dreams. Okay, so he'd rushed to the party, but she'd been satisfied. He ought to be on top of the world.

He felt lousy.

He felt… Never one for self-examination, he searched for the word.
Frustrated.

Not sexually frustrated. His body still had the revved-up hum of a well-oiled engine allowed to race. He hadn't felt so relaxed since … before the shooting, in the early days of Sandra.
A long time.
But he was frustrated all the same. Something had been missing from their little car encounter, and it wasn't just that he hadn't had a chance to see Annie, really see her, without her clothes on.

Thank you very much, but I'm not interested in being your pet police project this month.

Hell.

He'd suspected things were moving too fast. He'd tried to talk her out of it, hadn't he? But when she offered to take off her dress… His body tightened in memory. Well, he'd seized the chance to replay their high school fiasco on the river road, to get it right this time for both of them.

It should have worked. He'd taken care to
make
it work, to give Annie the experience she deserved, even after he scored early in the game. He'd certainly been satisfied. Maddox frowned, driving on autopilot down streets he hadn't cruised in a dozen years.
Maybe not quite satisfied.
He wanted to do it all over again, slower, in a bed, in the light. But still, it was great car sex.

And Annie had been satisfied, too, damn it, sweet and soft, wet and eager.
His
, shuddering in
his
arms, moaning at
his
touch, crying out at the last.
Desire pulsed through him, and he almost turned the car around.

Bad idea.
She wouldn't want him with the baby-sitter there. She wouldn't want him with her son sleeping upstairs.

Hell, who was be kidding? She didn't want him anyway. She didn't want to be helped, didn't want anyone taking care of her.

And it was a good thing, too, he was glad about that—wasn't he?—because he was the last guy she needed taking care of her. He remembered enough of the academy course in domestic violence intervention to know that Ann needed to trust her own decisions. And he needed to get back to
Atlanta
.
Back to the pimps, the pushers, the teenage shooters, the jokes and jargon and chaos of the squad room.
Back where he belonged. He had what it took to make it there.

He pulled into his father's driveway—God, he felt like a teenager again—and sat for a minute with the engine running. Two and a half weeks. The sooner he
left,
the better.
Because he'd never made it in Cutler.
He didn't have what it took to make it for good with a woman like Annie.

But she'd kissed him good-night.

He shook his head.
See, that
was the kind of thinking that could get him into trouble. Annie was vulnerable. She might claim she wanted less from him, but he knew she dreamed of more. Only she deserved to find it with some nice guy with clean hands and a good heart.
Somebody with a big, loving family and a low-risk, high-paying job.
Somebody safe.

Deep down, Maddox figured she knew that.

He'd be a lot better off once he accepted it, too.

* * *

Everything inside Ann screamed.
Get out, get out, get out,
get
away
. She did her best to ignore the howling warnings, keeping her face a mask, her voice quiet.

"Where's Julie?"

"Afraid I murdered your baby-sitter?" Rob stood, enormous and out of place in her small, neat, shabby living room. She took one step backward and he looked at her in disgust. "Oh, what do you think, Ann? I paid her and sent her home. She thanked me for her tip."

"I'll pay you back."

He made an impatient gesture. "Don't be stupid."

She would send him a check, although he'd probably tear it up. But she would not fight with him. She would not give him the opportunity to fight with her. She had to protect Mitchell.

"And Mitchell?" she asked.

 
"In bed."

Safe, then.
She drew a shallow breath of relief. Once in bed, their son knew not to come down. Because no nightmare could be as bad as what happened after bedtime in the house on
Stonewall Drive
.

"Is that where you've been?
Bed?"
Rob asked.

"No, I—"
Don't apologize, don't explain
. "No."

"I saw you get out of his car."

"I didn't see yours."

"That's because I'm smarter than you. I parked down the block. What were you doing with him, Ann?"

Ann swallowed. No point in pretending she didn't know who Rob was talking about. "He gave me a ride home from the club."

"Are you putting out for him? Is that why he's switched teams all of a sudden?"

"I think you should go now," she said.

Rob strolled forward, his hands in his pockets, his head thrust forward. Ann stood her ground, her heart hammering. How could she run, with her son hostage upstairs? She was guilty of so much. But she would never leave Mitchell to face Rob's wrath alone.

"You look like a whore," he said in a pleasant, conversational tone. "And you smell like sex. I wouldn't have thought you were enticement enough to make MD forget where his loyalties lie."

"Don't touch me," Ann said.

Rob lifted his brows. "Touch you? I could do a lot more than touch you, dear wife."

He was close enough for her to smell the remembered scent of his after-shave, the bourbon on his breath. Her skin crawled. She opened her mouth to breathe.

"Ex-wife," she said stiffly. "And I'll call the police if I have to, Rob."

"And tell them what? That I was here baby-sitting our son while you screwed Maddox Palmer out on the river road? That will impress his daddy."