She buried her face against my chest without a single word. She’d only done that when she was sick and half-high on meds. This was not her, and that had me worried. Other than a tutorial on how to handle her own oil change, Maggie had never come to me for anything other than the physical.
But just then, she curled her arms around my waist, her nails making light indentations against the fabric of my shirt. Her entire body shook, and she held onto me like she needed whatever it was she thought she’d find in my arms.
“Bella…” I tried, touching one hand to the back of her head, unsure how to read her. She wasn’t a vulnerable woman.
“Can you just please…hold me? That’s…all I want right now.”
This was…new.
Foreign to me.
Normally, that wasn’t something I did.
Not ever.
I could console.
I’d done that plenty of times with family and friends. With my ma when she lost friends, with the wives and daughters of men I knew.
But never with women I fucked. Never with women who I thought might want more from me. Though, Maggie wasn’t just some woman I fucked. Not anymore and I was starting to realize the truth of that.
“Your son is so beautiful.”
The woman’s voice moved around in my head as Maggie clung to me. Then, I answered the compliment with the same words that came to me anytime I heard someone talk about what a looker the kid was.
He’s got nothing on his mama.
My…
Hell. She wasn’t my anything. He wasn’t either, but having her here, holding her, giving her what she needed, exactly when she needed it, that shit didn’t scare me the same as being the kid’s father didn’t scare me.
What the hell was happening?
Maggie started to lift her head. My hand still hung at my side and I guessed she thought I was giving her a silent no. She started to push away, moving her palm down my back, and her face off my chest, but I wrapped my free hand around her back and threaded my fingers into her hair with my other hand.
“Be still,” I told her, standing there with her, feeling something shifting inside me. Something I didn’t know how to define.
It felt light and heavy.
Sweet and burning and everything I felt settled inside me like it had always been there.
“Did…someone hurt you…or the kid?” I couldn’t help asking. Some primal part of me only knew how to protect. That’s what my fists were for.
“No,” she said, rubbing her face against my chest, turning her head until only her forehead rested against my shirt. I felt her cheek, thinking she might be relapsing, but Maggie pulled on my wrist, grinning up at me. “It’s not that either. I’m not sick anymore. It…it’s just been a very bad day.” She glanced around the office, her gaze on my desk and the papers scattered across it. “Damn, sweetie, did I interrupt…”
My fingers over her mouth silenced her and Maggie brought those black eyes up right to mine, giving me a look that could reawaken even the deadest, coldest heart.
Fuck me, she was beautiful. And sweet. And I was in so much trouble.
“You’re never an interruption.”
She nodded, the worry moving from her eyes, shifting into something that seemed more familiar when I took her face in both of my hands.
“You are always welcome wherever I am, with whatever you want from me.”
“Smoke.” She looked away, already starting to argue. “I know how busy you are.”
“I’m never too busy for you, bellissima.”
That unrecognizable weight in my chest got heavier when Maggie reached a hand up to grab my wrist, smoothing her small fingers up over my knuckles. Her touch was like silk, her skin the softest I’d ever felt.
Fuck, I wanted her. More than ever, right then, I wanted her. And not for a quick fuck. I wanted her deep. I wanted her in a way that lasted and settled so that I didn’t know whose pleasure was whose and I didn’t want it to stop.
Shit. Where did that come from? What the hell was this woman doing to me?
I couldn’t help it. Christ, I couldn’t.
I wanted more than to get her off. More than her in my bed for one night. I wanted it to last. I wanted her skin all flushed and pink from how hard I loved her and I wanted her panting and sweaty against me all night and in the morning when I woke up, when I took her again and again.
“Maggie,” I said, the name coming out like a growl, something I didn’t mean but was glad she seemed to like.
“Smoke…” She brushed against me, wrapping her arms around my neck. “Kiss me.”
My nose rubbing along hers, I inhaled, squeezing my eyes closed when the sweet scent of her hair hit me. “I thought you only wanted me to hold you.”
“I did, but now, I want you to hold me…everywhere.”
The sound that left my throat was something I hadn’t heard before. A desperate groan so deep, fucking old and ancient and it had an effect on the beautiful woman standing in front of me. So did my mouth dipping over hers and the grip I made against the back of her neck as I pulled her close enough to take her lips.
“I can do that,” I told her, claiming her mouth, tasting every inch. My breath coming in panting bursts when Maggie curled around me, giving back every lunge I made with her hands and mouth over me.
She didn’t seem surprised when I picked her up and twisted her around to carry her to my desk. Laying her back, I tugged off her shirt, pulled down her skirt, and kissed her neck, smoothing my hands over those sweet, perfect breasts.
“Smoke, ah… hurry…”
She went still, resting on her hands when I pushed back, head shaking as I unbuttoned my shirt, loving how she watched me and the soft noises she made with each inch of skin I revealed. When the shirt was on the floor, I grabbed Maggie’s hands, pulling her to me, moving her palms down my chest to my stomach.
“Don’t take your hands off me.” I grabbed her face again, taking those lips because I wanted them. “Tonight, I want you everywhere too.”
We moved down and Maggie obliged—her nails scraping over my shoulders, her small feet rubbing over the back of my thighs. She touched me as I hovered over her, loving the open, half-dazed with lust look on her pretty face.
Then, her eyes rolled up and the small noises she made became sweet whines that had my dick hard.
I slipped my hand underneath the front of her black panties. “Ah… baby. Fuck.”
She was slick and so damn hot, soaking my skin just with the brush of my fingertips against the slick folds.
“You’re going to milk me dry tonight, aren’t you?”
“Yes…” she started, her nails digging deeper into my arms when I fingered her. “Ah…”
“Good. That’s what I want to hear.”
She watched me, that dazed, eager look sharpening.
I took my hand from her, wanting her too badly, seeing she wanted me too, and stuck my finger in my mouth, tasting how sweet she was. Then, I leaned down, resting on one hand, smiling as she unzipped me, wincing and twisting my head against the sensation of her cupping me between her fingers. I bunched her panties in one hand and ripped them from that beautiful body.
“Smoke…now,” she said, the grip on my cock almost aching.