Taken by Storm (Give & Take) - By Kelli Maine Page 0,19
different eyes. It had been hard to tell him she wanted to be more than friends, but she couldn’t resist her feelings.
She rose on tip-toe and kissed him a second time. The girl behind the counter drummed her fingers on top of the freezer case. “I’ll have the same,” Maddie told her.
She and MJ took their gelato out to the little patio tables and sat down. They’d been here almost every night since he got home for the summer a week ago. Now that he was headed to college, they’d have all the time in the world to be together. Not just during his boarding school breaks.
When they were finished, they hopped in her dad’s vintage Torino convertible. Her dad’s love of muscle cars had spread to MJ long ago. She let MJ drive while she stuck an old Eagles cassette tape in the tape deck and turned the volume up. It was her dad’s favorite, so they both knew all the words and sang along, loudly to Hotel California the whole ride home.
“Make it to go,” MJ said to the waiter.
“In a hurry?” Rachael asked. “Got a hot date?”
Maddie’s insides jolted. Please no, don’t let him have a date. She instantly felt guilty for wanting him to be alone. How selfish could she be? She had Talan’s ring around her neck after all.
But, she and Talan were on a break, and maybe…
No. She couldn’t start anything with MJ that she’d have to call quits again. It wasn’t fair to either of them.
He tapped the table and shot Maddie a look like he wanted to eat her alive. “Just ready to get back.”
Maddie felt her entire body flush, from her toes to her hairline. MJ had given her heated looks before, but nothing like the one she was getting from him now.
He wet his bottom lip with his tongue. The pulse points in her neck hammered with her rapid heart rate.
The server brought their plastic dishes of gelato, breaking the tension, and the three of them piled back into MJ’s car. He turned the radio up loud on the way back so none of them could hear each other to talk.
There was something about him so inherently dominant, but at times, he fell vulnerable and needy. MJ’s moods had always shifted from hot to cold faster than Maddie could catch her breath.
MJ parked his car in the driveway and turned to her. “I need to talk to you. Alone.”
She froze with her hand on the door handle and his eyes on hers, searching again like she had all the answers.
She did have the answers, she just never allowed herself to give them to him.
Maddie pushed her door open and hopped out so Rachael could climb out of the backseat. “Thanks for lunch. It was fun.”
“You’re welcome. Thanks for coming with me.”
Maddie smiled and watched her stride toward the house.
MJ got out and stood beside his door while Maddie rounded the car. “What do you need?” she asked, almost afraid of the answer. He’d been so cocky this afternoon, God only knew what would come out of his mouth.
“Follow me.”
She hated the emotionless, monotone, monosyllabic way he spoke to her. Skeptical, she narrowed her eyes, but followed behind as he led her around the garage and through the door to the stairway up to her dad’s apartment.
“If there’s a problem,” she said, halting at the bottom.
MJ grasped her wrists and pinned them above her head, pushing her against the wall before she could finish her thought. His lips claimed hers in a hard, possessive kiss.
At first, she fought against the flame igniting in her belly and stayed unresponsive and tense. She had to push MJ away. She should want to push him away. But she couldn’t stop her lips from moving against his, and finally her entire body gave in to his demands. Fighting her feelings for MJ was as futile as attempting to make time run backward.
He teased her bottom lip with his tongue and cupped her breast with one hand, the other wove through her hair, pulling her even closer. Her mouth opened in response. She quickly grabbed her ring and ran it along the chain behind her neck and let it dangle between her shoulder blades.
He couldn’t see it. Not like this.
His tongue met hers, and she sighed relief into his mouth, running her hand up over his shoulder to the back of his neck.
She’d wanted him for so long. It was wrong, but at the same time,