Hunter was home.
…
Some days being a paramedic flat out stunk. And Beau motherfucking Montgomery had some kind of EMT ESP when it came to their shifts. He always managed to be driving—leaving Hunter teching—when they caught the truly unholy calls. Today’s had come in innocently enough, as a customer at The Atlanta Cantina with difficulty breathing. He’d shown up ready with the epinephrine, fully expecting a food allergy, and come out covered in a few of his least favorite occupational hazards because some drunk-ass moron had tried to win a hundred bucks off the other three drunk-ass morons at his table by consuming three Fire in the Hole Habaneros in one bite.
The only thing fouler than the incident was his mood. Dealing with an idiot-induced shit-storm tended to suck the good humor right out of him, but even more so knowing it didn’t bring him a damn bit closer to his goal. What would Ashley add to his rec letter based on today? Hunter Knox can handle any hot mess you throw at him. I still don’t know if he’ll make a good doctor, but he’s fully qualified to be a frat house janitor.
He pulled into his driveway and mustered up a wave for his neighbor, Nelle. While he waited for the garage door to open, he glanced at the house and caught sight of Madison and Joy standing at the front door. The late afternoon sun put a gleam in her loose, dark waves and backlit the lines of her body. Black leggings showcased slender thighs and calves. The baby sling draped across her like a pageant sash, and an oversized black hoodie swallowed her upper body—except for her breasts, which strained the limits of a clingy workout top she’d definitely bought a while ago. She cuddled Joy against those lush, ample curves.
His mind flashed back to their kiss the other night, the feel of those curves pressed against him, and her soft lips opening under his. The moment had been a mistake, practically an accident, and he’d read all kinds of uncertainty on her face as soon as she’d pulled away, but his dick didn’t know the difference. Not then, and not now. Jesus, Knox, you sick fuck. He drove into the garage and cut the engine. How the hell are you supposed to walk into the house like this?
An Everlast heavy bag hung from a rafter near his treadmill, bench press, and weights. He seriously considered going a few rounds with one hundred pounds of sand for as long as it took to pound the tent pole out of his pants.
But that might take all night.
He peeled off his uniform shirt and prepared to dump it in the laundry basket when a new wave of irritation settled under his skin. The laundry basket sat empty on the dryer. Where the hell was the rest of his dirty laundry? Gone. Three guesses who’d done it. They’d already talked about this tendency of hers to clean up after him. Just yesterday morning he’d had to wake her on his way out the door for work to ask her where the hell she’d put his car keys. How did that make either of their lives easier? He didn’t need a houseguest with a renegade sense of indebtedness serving as his maid, or his… Their kiss flickered in his mind again, and irritation turned to something mean and ugly that dragged sharp claws through his gut. What else did a sense of indebtedness inspire?
He stepped through the door and into the kitchen, ready to lay down the law about laundry, and kisses, and… Holy shit, his kitchen gleamed. Even the glass-front cabinets. Every surface sparkled, which was definitely not how he’d left it this morning. Those invisible claws tightened around his stomach, and now he wanted to throw up. A Pyrex pan covered with aluminum foil sat on the counter. Dammit, she’d prepared dinner again, too, even though he’d already told her she didn’t need to cook for him. He was supposed to be taking care of her.
A few more strides brought him to the empty, and equally spotless, living room. Unacceptable. He intended to put a stop to this right now.
“Madison?”
She said something he didn’t catch, but the response came from his office. Correction, his guestroom/nursery. He made his way there and found the door hanging half open. He stepped through just in time to see Madison bare her breast in preparation to nurse Joy. His hard-on came back with a vengeance at the same time he realized she’d said, “Give me a minute.”
“Sorry.” He made a move to back out of the room, but she started speaking.
“It’s okay.”
It was not even close to okay, but apparently her perv-o-meter hadn’t picked up on that yet. She got Joy situated and arranged a baby blanket over her chest. “I wanted to let you kn
ow I left a couple stacks of clean clothes on your dresser. I would have put them away for you, but I didn’t want to go into your drawers without permission.”
Under other circumstances he might have cracked a joke at such an inadvertent double entendre, but the image of her going into his drawers turned his hard-on into something brutal. His voice followed suit. “Cut it out. You’re not here to do my laundry, cook for me, clear my dishes, or tidy up the living room. If I wanted a live-in housekeeper, I’d get one.”
Nice job. Her wounded look made him feel like an asshole.
“I needed to wash some things for myself and Joy. Your clothes were there, and where I come from, you do a full load…” She broke off, smooth forehead wrinkling as her big, concerned eyes scanned his face. “What’s wrong?”
He backed up. “Nothing. I’m going to take a shower.” A long, cold one. “Do me a favor and give the maid the night off.” With that pissy remark hanging in the air, he strode to the bathroom, closed the door, and stripped off his clothes. A twist of the knob put the water on full blast. He adjusted the temperature and attempted to do the same with his attitude. He’d been raised better than to bite the head off someone who’d tried to do something nice for him. She didn’t deserve the brunt of his sour mood. A simple “thank you” wouldn’t have killed him.
He stepped under the spray and let it pound him for a couple minutes. As the steam loosened the tension in his neck and shoulders, he acknowledged his bad reaction this evening had little to do with work, and absolutely nothing to do with any burning desire to handle his own laundry. No, the bug up his ass had a name—obligation—and he hated the idea of Madison doing anything for him out of some misplaced sense of it. Especially kissing him.
He worked the soap into a lather and did his best to scrub his frustration away. They hadn’t talked about the kiss. Normally, he never second-guessed a woman’s motives for putting her lips on him. Mutual attraction, a sense of adventure, a desire to have a little fun… Call him shallow, but he was okay with any of those reasons.
Unfortunately, the situation with Madison was far from normal. Iron pills, better rest, and regular meals seemed to have resolved the issues that had landed her back in the hospital, but that didn’t change the fact she’d given birth a month ago. There were semi-hard limits on how much fun and adventure she could handle—although the idea of exploring every inch of ground right up to those limits inspired a whole new level of cock torture. Hopefully nothing a blast of cold water and cool reason couldn’t cure, because acting on mutual attraction with a woman sharing his house for the next little while edged toward the bat-shit crazy end of the reckless scale. Even if he could navigate the hard limits—which he could—and disregard the reckless—which he’d definitely done on other occasions—their dynamic was so unbalanced at the moment, his conscience kept protesting. Motives did matter, as it turned out, and he wasn’t one hundred percent sure of hers. Accepting kisses, or anything else along those lines, as some kind of appreciation for giving her a place to stay… He was not okay with that.
Right. So there it was. He turned off the taps and grabbed a towel. He’d apologize for acting like a prick, thank her for doing his laundry, and keep his reckless on a goddamn leash. No more fantasizing, no more kissing, and absolutely no exploring limits. As long as she lived under his roof, she was completely off-limits.
He wrapped the towel around his waist and stepped out into the hall. Madison walked out of the guestroom at the same time. She’d ditched her shoes and the hoodie. Her leggings and stretchy little top showed off just how well a healthy twenty-two-year-old female body bounced back from pregnancy. He hoped the towel did something to hide how much his healthy twenty-seven-year-old male body appreciated the view. Their eyes locked, and then hers slid down his chest, lingered over the towel long enough to do some more damage, and then skimmed along his legs to his feet. Every muscle in his body tightened as if she’d touched him. By the time she made her way back to his face, huge pupils dominated her blue eyes. She inhaled as if she’d forgotten to breathe for the last sixty seconds.
Then she took a step toward him. His reckless surged forward and snapped the leash.
Fuck.
Chapter Nine
Madison backed out of the bedroom and drew the door halfway shut behind her. Joy had lost interest in nursing a little early tonight, but hopefully she’d sleep for a couple hours anyway. More than enough time for her to sneak in a bath, as long as Hunter didn’t mind keeping an ear out in case the baby woke. And he wouldn’t mind, because apparently it was perfectly okay for him to help her out, but got forbid she try to return the…