“Those words don’t do her justice,” he admitted.
Joss was a woman of equal innocence and naughtiness. That was the sweetest type. His favorite, in fact. He recalled in vivid detail the way she’d melted under his hands a year ago, and that’s what had been driving him crazy all week. He needed to get her out of his head. He needed to stop smelling her sugary perfume when she wasn’t there. He needed to stop hearing her sexy-as-fuck moans when she came during his dreams.
Grey downed a big gulp of beer, watching Maddox closely. When he lowered the bottle, he noted, “I see by that twitch in your eye, you’re still being the gentleman.”
“My eye is not twitching,” Maddox snorted, beginning to move the cooked burgers off the grill to the serving plate. Once he’d finished, he tossed on some more meat then called out, “Burgers up.”
Grey silently watched the crowd, who, like vultures, claimed all the patties. Not until everyone was out of hearing distance did he continue. “Bullshit. You’re twitching like a man who needs a fix.”
Maddox couldn’t deny that. He felt like an addict who was scrambling to put his life back together again. She was simply there in his mind. All the time. He’d jerked off every morning and every night—sometimes twice—since she’d come back into his life. “Regardless,” he told Grey, tending to the burgers, “there are obstacles in my way. Very serious ones.”
Grey barked a laugh. “And when has that ever stopped you before?”
Never. He took what he wanted when he wanted it. The problem was, he never conquered a woman a second time. Doing so could lead to an attachment. And he’d learned from his father that that never led anywhere good. “The last thing I need is a sexual harassment lawsuit,” he said, offering up a concern Grey could understand.
“You’re right, you don’t,” Grey agreed. “Though you could test the waters and see if she’s looking for what you are. Perhaps she’s trustworthy enough that something playful between you would be doable.”
Maddox flipped the burgers then looked up and examined Joss grabbing a beer from the cooler. Her white summer dress highlighted her spectacular curves, enticing him to bend her over that cooler. The memories of her were vivid. How creamy her skin was, the way she moaned, the way she smelled, the way she tasted, he remembered it all. And so did his throbbing cock.
“It’s risky,” Maddox said, glancing back to Grey. “Too risky.”
Grey grinned. “Which makes it even more fun.”
Sounded great to Maddox, too. That was the problem.
While he tended to the burgers, flipping the ones needing it, he considered all the ways he could make this happen with her again and then rejected each idea. Besides the fact that their shared professional life was a huge obstacle, and even though he did have a feeling after working with her for a week that she was trustworthy, touching her again broke his one unbreakable rule: Don’t screw twice.
Tension tightened the muscles across his shoulder blades when Grey, who was looking at the bonfire, asked, “So, these are your new rookies, huh?”
“Some of them.” Maddox reached for his beer resting by the grill and downed a big gulp, scanning the crowd in his backyard. Some of his team sat around the bonfire, while others hung around the outdoor bar. When his father had gone into the home, Maddox had sold his bachelor pad and opted for the house that had been in the Hunt family for three generations. “Not a bad-looking bunch, are they?”
Grey’s eyes zeroed in on Holly, the most recent rookie to join the team. “You are a lucky son-of-a-bitch, you know that, right?”
Maddox grinned, knowing why Holly drew Grey’s attention. He loved blondes, and the curvier, the better. Maddox tipped his beer bottle toward Grey. “That might be true if I were allowed to touch. Which you well know I’m not.”
Grey tsked, shaking his head in obvious disappointment. “You can’t touch women who look like that and who come with their very own pair of handcuffs?” He glanced at Holly again, who was approaching the bar. “What a waste.”
Maddox chuckled, tending to the burgers again, fully understanding Grey’s point. A fondness for kinky sex was one thing Grey and he had always had in common. They’d even shared a couple of women once or twice throughout the years. There wasn’t a fantasy Maddox had that hadn’t been fulfilled. He made sure of it.
Though, over time, the show had eventually gotten old.
Grey went through girlfriends like he went through boxers. Maddox stuck to one-night stands to keep things interesting and to give him the distance he preferred. He’d never been a man who wanted one woman.