Unconditional

“You want me to take you home?”

I nod emphatically. “Yes.”

“Do you want me to come back in with you?” He nods towards the restaurant but I don’t think Brad and Cal need any more time in the same vicinity.

“No—” I shake my head just as I hear my name being called. Cal drops his hand from my mouth in an instant and takes a step back from me, trying to cool the heat sizzling between us as Sasha approaches us. Her ash-colored eyes move back and forth between us as if her vision is unfocused before and now she’s seeing things clearly.

Fuck.

“Hey.” Her eyes flicker to Cal, who’s raising an eyebrow at her daring her to question what she’s walked in on. They sweep back to me because although she talks a big game, I know Cal intimidates her. “Everything good?”

I smile, trying to appear less guilty than I feel. I hate lying to Sasha and keeping things from her. “Yeah, Sash, but I’m really not feeling great, I think I’m going to go.” Her brows furrow and shoot to Cal.

“Are you really making her leave?”

“I’m not making Maddie do anything, Sasha. She can make her own decisions. It sounds like you pressured her into something she didn’t want to do in the first place.”

“Cal…” I trail off. I shoot him a look telling him to lay off and he rolls his eyes. I try to downplay the conversation we are having with our eyes but Sasha must notice because she clears her throat.

“Can I talk to you for a second?” Sasha asks, before shooting Cal a glare. “Alone?”

Cal huffs, irritation flowing off of him in waves as he nods towards his Jeep. “I’ll be in the car.” I turn back to Sasha, with a plan to lay it on thick of how tired I am from the day when she speaks up first.

“Are you sleeping with Cal?!” she blurts out, her eyes trained on the Jeep parked several cars down.

“No!” I look around, worried that someone might overhear when I realize that even if they did, it’s not like they’d necessarily know who we were talking about.

“Madeline.” She looks at me, her eyes narrowing and she puts her hands on her hips. “I’m your best friend, if you can’t be honest with me who can you be honest with?”

Cal.

“I am being honest.”

“Swear on your slippers.”

I bite my bottom lip. When I was a kid, whenever I had an ultimate truth, I swore on my ballet slippers. “I swear on my slippers I’m not sleeping with Cal.”

She looks at me like she doesn’t believe me, which is dangerous because Sasha can be relentless in her quest for the truth. “You know you can tell me anything.”

My heart sinks that I can’t be honest with her. That I have to lie to her and keep this secret from her. But what if she didn’t understand? What if she told someone? “I know, Sash.”

She takes a step forward and wraps her arms around me. “You really have to go?”

“Yeah.” My eyes are trained on the ground, unwilling to meet her penetrating and curious gaze. She kisses my cheek and squeezes me.

“You do you.” My heart thumps in my chest as I swear I hear the double meaning when she pulls away. “Just…” she trails off, “take care of yourself. I know you expect Cal to do that, but make sure you know how to do it too…for when he’s not there.”

SOFT, WARM LIPS ATTACK MY face as soon as the door closes behind us. Maddie hasn’t even removed her coat when she throws her arms around my neck and pulls me down to kiss her. I welcome her lips hungrily, opening my mouth and meeting her tongue with urgent eager thrusts. She tastes like cinnamon and sex and every time she swipes her tongue along mine my cock tightens in my pants. She wraps one leg around me, pushing her sex against me and opening herself up to me. I grab her hips and lift her into my arms allowing her to wrap her legs around my waist. She yanks her coat off and pushes mine to the floor as I walk us up the stairs, our kisses getting more desperate and frantic. “No fucking dates, Madeline,” I growl at her.

The second she told me she was going out with Sasha I knew there was more to the story and then she told me a boy was involved and I saw red. Thank God Ryan was off the clock and his woman rang the “I need dick” alarm, so I didn’t need to come up with an excuse to go find Maddie and stake my claim. I almost broke that fuckers arm off for thinking he could even breathe Maddie’s air let alone touch her.

“I didn’t want to go.” She pulls back and looks at me. Her lips are swollen and red and glossy and her eyes are shimmering wi

th tears. “You said you weren’t mad.”

I push her cheeks together and run my lips from her forehead to her chin, kissing her cheeks and nose in between.

“I’m not mad at you. The thought of anyone touching you just drives me fucking insane.” I grip her forearms harder as anger whips through me and she yelps. I drop her to the bed and straddle her waist, rubbing my erect cock against her sex. “God, I want to fuck you.”