Sanctuary Found (Pelican Bay 2)

I didn’t answer him. Instead, I tried to duck out from between him and the wall, but his arm shot out to stop me. His palm slapped against the wall next to my head. I closed my eyes.

“Open them,” Maddox ordered, his voice hard and unyielding. I was helpless to do anything but obey, and I kind of hated him for that.

I made myself look into his eyes, even though all I wanted to do was look at the floor.

No one, not one person, knew about me what he did. I’d had one thing left in my life that had well and truly been mine, and he’d taken that from me.

And now it was like I was mourning its loss.

“Are you finished?” Maddox repeated.

I was at the point that I wanted to beg him to let me go, to give me back the scrap of dignity I’d stupidly thrown away by confronting him. But before I could say anything, his mouth was on mine. I gasped in surprise and he quickly took complete possession of my mouth. I was breathless by the time he pulled back.

“Are you wearing them now?” Maddox asked, his mouth practically brushing mine as he spoke.

“Wha… what?” I croaked.

“Are you wearing the same ones or ones like them?” he asked. His eyes actually dropped to my groin. Heat sizzled beneath my skin as my dick responded to the question. He kissed me again until I felt too dazed from the sheer pleasure of it all to even consider my words.

“No… I… no, I don’t… what?” I whispered, completely confused.

This time I was kissing him because kissing him was so much better than trying to form actual sentences. I felt his hand slide down to my ass and then he was pulling me forward against him, his big hand splayed over my backside.

“I don’t think you’re a freak,” he said softly against my mouth. “I think you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” He nibbled at my lip piercing before settling his mouth on mine once more.

By the time he let me come up for air, I was dizzy from the pleasure of it all. At some point I’d moved my hands up to his shoulders. I threaded my fingers through his short hair. There wasn’t enough of it to tug on to force his head back down, but it wasn’t really necessary. The slightest bit of pressure against his scalp had him leaning down to kiss me again.

It could have been minutes, hours, or days when he finally released my mouth.

But not me.

His hand wasn’t on my ass anymore, but it was resting on the small of my back. His other hand was still against the wall and he was resting his forehead against mine.

“Are you gay?” I asked.

“No idea,” he responded.

I let out a dry laugh and said, “It’s not a trick question.”

“Does it matter?” he asked with a sigh.

“Um, yeah, it kind of does.”

“Why?”

“Because…”

Yeah, that was all I had. Because.

“Tell you what,” Maddox murmured against my mouth before brushing a kiss over my lips. “You tell me what I am, okay?” Before I could respond, he cut me off with another kiss, then said, “You’re not the first guy I’ve kissed. And I’ve kissed plenty of women too.”

My interest in the conversation went south quickly at that point, because I definitely did not like hearing about the other people he’d kissed. He must have sensed my imminent protest, because he kissed me again. He kept at it until I was basically jelly in his arms. Only then did he continue.

“But you’re the only person I’ve never wanted to stop kissing. You’re the only one who keeps me awake at night as I imagine what it would be like to be inside you. You. Not Isaac the man or Isaac with the makeup or Isaac, the guy who wears women’s underwear. Just you.”

This time when he kissed me, I let out a little whimper because I was still reeling from his words. He ripped his mouth free of mine and ground out, “I want to punch Sawyer every time he looks at you. I want to hunt down whoever put those bruises on your throat and the marks on your face. I want to never see the fear I saw in your eyes the day the sheriff showed up here and you thought he was here for you and Newt. I never want to see another tear roll down your cheek for as long as I live, and I want to kill any man who thinks it’s okay to use you and throw you away like you’re nothing. And I want to know how the fuck it’s possible to feel so much in so little time. So tell me, Isaac, what does that make me? Gay? Straight? Bi?”