What makes it worse?
Her brother—one of my closest friends in this world—sits not even three feet away across the kitchen table from us.
Sure, I’ve touched Maddey like this before—and no there is nothing inappropriate about what I’m doing—but the way the Admiral in my pants is letting out a hooyah at the goosebumps dotting Maddey’s skin and the way the tiny hairs on her arms are now standing on end—that is what is going to get me tossed off a skyscraper like Hans Gruber.
I need to pull myself up by my bootstraps and focus. The point I’m trying to get across is too important, and Maddey is too headstrong for this to work if she’s going to fight me every step of the way. I understand my fellow Lost Boys’ reasoning for enlisting my help, but I also see how their methods are setting me up to fail the same way John McClane killing the only terrorist with feet smaller than his sister’s did.
The silence around the table screams more and more the longer we wait out Maddey’s response to my declaration. The full circle of white showing around the extra-thick black border of her icy blue eyes is the only indication she was not expecting my particular stance on the situation.
Her throat works with a swallow, and I don’t think about all the times I’ve imagined how that particular action would look after she took every drop of my cum I had to give her.
No.
Nope.
Not at all.
You, sir, are a dirty rotten liar. You are also a dead man.
A chorus of barking commences and there’s a clatter of nails skittering across the hardwood as, once again, the door to the deck opens and a new flood of people enter Maddey’s home—this time the male counterparts, along with two more canines.
“Party’s here!” Tucker Hayes and Chris ‘Cali’ Callahan cheer, alla-Snookie style.
The celebrity clout in Tink’s tribe is staggering. The combined net worth now inside the walls of her home is enough to buy a small country, yet you would never know it when spending time with them.
“Just because we’re down the shore doesn’t mean you need to channel your inner Jersey Shore, M-Dubs,” Skye says from the kitchen.
I’m a sailor, so talking shit is pretty much a requirement among my brothers in arms, but nothing my fellow frogmen sling compares to the easy way the BTU Alumni do it. Case in point—Tucker’s nickname M-Dubs, aka shorthand for man-whore.
“Don’t be like that, Bubble.” Tucker slaps her ass as she walks past, earning an if looks could kill, no one would be able to find his body death glare in return.
“You mean it’s not T-shirt Time!” Cali cups his hands around his mouth for his Pauly D battle cry.
Tucker and Cali fist-pump together as they chant, “GTL! GTL! GTL!”
“The show has been over for years—why are we still quoting it?” Becky asks.
“I would think you would get all the mileage you could out of a show your fair state is known for.” Chance Jenson, another player from the NJ Blizzards, starts unloading a case of beer into the fridge.
“Shows what you know, Canada.” Gemma’s lips have twisted down into a frown I can’t recall the happy chef ever wearing with their friends. “Most of the cast wasn’t even from Jersey.”
“My humblest apologizes, Princess.” If Chance’s sarcasm wasn’t thick enough, the mocking bow he does certainly is.
“Can you even spell, let alone tell us the definition of humble, Rookie?”
The tips of Maddey’s hot pink fingernails jump on Logan’s back as we—now awake baby included—watch each of the sexual-tension-heavy exchanges play out. Without her saying a word, I know she’s itching for a pad and pen to take notes for one of her books.
If she were a cartoon, this would be the point where they would show an internal shot of the hamster running on a wheel to represent her mind spinning with the possibilities.
Realizing my hand is still on her neck, I drop it, missing her warmth immediately.
As knuckle bumps and cheek kisses are exchanged, Justin drums his fist on the wooden table, anxiously waiting for the opportunity to get back to the task at hand.
“Madz,” he calls out, trying to get her attention. Like I told her earlier, there is no getting out of having this discussion.
“Just,” she deadpans.
My friend’s nostrils flare, and if he doesn’t stop clenching his jaw so tight, he’s liable to crack a tooth.
“We need to talk about this.”
“How many times do I have to say I don’t want to talk about it?” she huffs. “Whoever this is will get bored eventually and move on.”
“The fuck they will. They are already escalating—that is the opposite of ‘getting bored’.” He puts air quotes around the words before folding his arms across his chest in what I’m sure is a move to prevent himself from reaching over and strangling her.
“Just—”
“When are you going to stop being so selfish?”
“Excuse me?” Color creeps from her neck to her cheeks, staining her skin with a color not far off from the one on her nails.
I sure as shit hope Justin knows what he’s doing, because we are approaching Maddey’s full-blown Tinker Bell mode.
“Did you ever once stop to think how this affects the rest of us?”
“Of course I hav—”
“Or what it could mean for some if this asshat continues to escalate?” Justin barrels on like Maddey didn’t even speak.
“Of cour—”
“Or how about how the mom to that baby in your arms looks a lot like you and could get caught in the crossfire if they mistook her for you?”
Maddey goes from Jersey tomato red to paper white in a second, all the color draining from her face as she whips her head around to where Jordan and Jake are canoodling against a wall like teenagers.
If this guy—my gut says it is a male, not a female—is as obsessed with Maddey as we think, he wouldn’t mistake Jordan for her. They look a lot alike, but there are enough differences to tell them apart.
Yes, they are both attractive short blondes, but that’s where the similarities end.
Maddey is a few inches shorter than Jordan, her hair is a few shades lighter from all the time she spends paddle-boarding, and it hangs longer in curls instead of straight.
If that isn’t enough, all the fucker would have to do is look at their eyes. Sure, Jordan’s eyes are a pretty golden color, but Maddey? Fuck her eyes are otherworldly in their intensity. There’s a thin layer of cerulean surrounding her pupil, but the bulk of her iris is such a light blue it’s almost white until it hits another thin circle of cerulean on the outside. And I would bet my life the black border around the entire thing is thicker than any other human’s on the planet.
“Tink.” I hook a hand over her hip, anchoring her to me to pull her from the worst of the panic overtaking her.
I wait for those eyes to meet mine, and then I wait another beat until she is seeing me and not the nightmare I’m sure she’s writing like one of her books.
I kind of want to reach across the table and punch my friend for scaring her like this, especially after having felt her fear while we went over everything earlier, but I restrain myself.
“I told you…this is why I’m here. Will I protect you? Abso-fucking-lutely, but catching this fucker before he gets the chance to hurt you—or anyone else—is my main mission.”