So, Sheila took me to the room I shared with my brother and showed me the things she liked to do in bed. I lasted all of twenty seconds before blowing my load, but thankfully, Sheila gave me a few more rounds that I used to make it up to her.
That was just the beginning. For a while, I had fucked anything that I could.
But Addison had grown up completely different from me. She had been a virgin when she and I started dating. Everything she knew in the bedroom, she’d learned from me. Including how to give the best fucking blow jobs.
I tilted my head to the side. I wondered if she still gave good head.
My eighteen-year-old self demanded I find out. My thirty-year-old self didn’t need the complications of being inside Addison Graham again.
“Yeah, well, I’ve changed along with my driving habits. I was going the speed limit. He had no reason to pull me over.”
She wrote the information down and stood. I stared at her ass as she pounded on the door.
“Sheriff, come in here, please.”
The door opened thirty seconds later.
“What do you need, Counselor?”
“My client said he was doing fifty-eight in a fifty-five. Give him his speeding ticket, so he can leave.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. I don’t know if he’s been drinking.”
“Did you give him a Breathalyzer? A sobriety test? Did he smell like alcohol?”
Whitlock gritted his teeth. “No.”
“Is he under arrest?”
Whitlock looked pissed. “No.”
I shoved my chair back and stood as Addison said, “Then, he’s free to leave.”
Whitlock stepped around Addison and marched up to my face. “I am going to break you. You’re not going to get away with anything like you did twelve years ago.”
He was so close; I could smell the stale coffee on his breath despite our six-inch height difference.
I just crossed my arms over my chest and tried not to look bored. This man had no idea the things I’d gone through to be a SEAL. There was nothing he could do to hurt me. I’d already lost everything once, and that was the biggest blow I’d ever taken.
“I didn’t get away with anything,” I told him.
Movement out of the corner of my vision caught my eye, and I looked over at Addison. She clearly looked confused.
I looked back at Whitlock, who was staring at me, steam practically coming out of his ears. I smacked the top of his arm like we were old friends because I knew it would piss him off, and I walked around him. “Later, Whitlock. Call me when you’re ready to break me. You know where to find me.”
I walked past Addison and nodded my thanks. I found Foster waiting for me outside the sheriff’s office, pacing with panic all over his face.
His look turned to relief when he saw me. “Oh, thank God.”
“You can thank Addison.”
I heard the sound of her heels coming up behind me.
“I didn’t really do anything,” she said as she came to stand beside me. “He was just trying to intimidate Maddox, I think.”
Foster burst out laughing. “What a putz. My brother is a Navy SEAL and has been to countries like Afghanistan and Iraq. He is not scared of Sheriff Whitlock.”
Addison whipped her head and looked at me. “You’re a SEAL?”
“Yep.” There was no point in denying it.
She turned her whole body toward me. “What did Whitlock mean by, ‘You’re not going to get away with anything like you did twelve years ago’? Have you been in the Navy this whole time? Did you even go to prison?”
I just raised an eyebrow at her. She didn’t need me to confirm the answer she already knew.
She looked at Foster. “How long have you known this?”
Seven
Addison
The next morning, I was still pissed. Everything I’d come to believe over the last twelve years was a lie. My relationship with Maddox, our past, my career. I had decided to be a lawyer to help people like Maddox. Turned out, he hadn’t needed my help after all.
I frantically scrubbed a two-year-old stain on my kitchen counter as if today were going to be the day it came off. I was just so pissed.
It sure made sense why I hadn’t been able to find any record of Maddox in any prison anywhere in the United States. Or why his case was completely sealed. And I sure as hell had never thought to check military records.
What I didn’t understand was why he’d never contacted me, not once, in the last twelve years.
I had cried myself to sleep for months, and he had left without even a good-bye or the thought to contact me all these years. I was on social media. I wasn’t hard to find.
I threw the sponge in the sink, wishing it were directed at his face instead.
Plus, it seemed like Foster had known where his brother was the whole time. All those guilty looks weren’t for sending Maddox to prison. It was because he had known where Maddox was and didn’t tell me.
And, to think, there was a minute last night as I’d watched how cool and calm Maddox was with the sheriff that I actually wondered what it would be like for us to get back together. It was only a moment, but I’d remembered what it was like, being with him. Even though he’d been an eighteen-year-old high schooler, not one of the guys I’d dated since compared to Maddox in the bedroom.
That only pissed me off more.
I looked around for something to do, but I’d already cleaned everything. I needed to get out of there, or I was going to go crazy, cooped up in my apartment.
I changed my clothes, so I didn’t smell like cleaning supplies and chemicals. I put on workout gear and left my apartment. I only had to walk six buildings down before I reached my destination. I pounded on the back door, knowing I had to make some noise in order to wake the person on the other side.
Several pounds and minutes later, the door creaked open, and a dark mess of bedhead opened the door.
“Addison, what the hell? It’s barely seven on a Saturday morning.”
Pete was six years older than me, so we hadn’t been in high school together, but we were friends now. He owned the martial arts studio in town, and I had taken a self-defense class from him a few years back. He’d let me use his studio and listened to me vent my frustrations.
“I’m sorry. I just really need to kick someone’s ass right now. I was hoping you’d be willing?”
His blue eyes changed to understanding, and he opened the door and let me in. “What’s gotten you so riled up that you came here so early in the morning on the weekend?”
“Maddox is back in town.”
“Give me a minute. I just need to get changed.”
An hour later, after getting my ass handed to me, I said good-bye to Pete. I was feeling much better. I’d done a few rounds on the punching bag while picturing the Wolfe brothers’ faces and felt some satisfaction at the thought of hitting them in real life.
My stomach growled, and I remembered I’d been too mad to eat breakfast. The diner was across the street. I figured I deserved a nice breakfast that I didn’t have to make myself, so I headed over there.
I opened the door, the bell jingling, when I heard someone yell behind me. I looked over my shoulder to see it was Melanie Kowalski yelling at her youngest to slow down. I turned back to go inside the café and ran into a big, hard wall.