She was his. He’d known her less than twenty-four hours, and everything in him roared this truth. She was his and he was hers.
“Ex-boyfriend,” she corrected, and calmed the possessive beast he hadn’t known resided within him. “Anyway, being on the road a lot, I didn’t make time for regular doctor visits. But at the beginning of the year, I did. And I was there for almost five hours because my doctor was about to admit me to the hospital. My blood pressure was so high, if I hadn’t come in, he believed I would’ve had a stroke within the next few days.”
“Jesus,” Maddox rasped.
“Yes.” She nodded, tipping her head back and chuckling, although it carried a hard edge to it. “I’m young, live a good life, turned my passion into a career and am damn successful at it. High blood pressure, stroke, possible kidney disease and liver failure—that happens to my grandmother, not me.” She shook her head. “For a long while, I was angry at my body for betraying me. But then I had to admit that the tiredness, headaches, dizziness and occasional shortness of breath hadn’t been due to stress and constant traveling. That it’d been me eating quick and easy foods at shows and exhibitions with little to no exercise. I had to stop beating myself up and instead forgive myself for neglecting me. With that came a determination to take control in all areas of my life.”
She bent her head and rubbed a finger over the ring finger of her left hand. The finger where an engagement ring would’ve sat. An unprecedented spurt of jealousy blasted through him because she’d worn another man’s ring first.
Shit. He was turning into a caveman.
“Kenneth and I were together for two years. It’s been four months since I removed his ring, and one month since I stopped feeling guilty about it. They call high blood pressure the silent killer, and it definitely made me intimately aware of my mortality. So I had to change my diet, exercise regimen, lifestyle...and my partner.”
“Was he—” he trapped the growl in his chest “—abusive?”
“No, well... God.” She huffed out a breath and thrust a hand through her curls, bunching them in a fist. “A part of me hates saying yes. Because it makes me feel weak. Stupid for staying with him so long. When I’m neither.” She blew out another gust of air and turned her head to look at him, her gaze unwavering but...sad. “Yes. Never physically, but emotionally? Mentally? Yes. I was never good enough. I was selfish for traveling so much and not placing our relationship first. I was too big, and because I wouldn’t lose just fifteen pounds apparently his concerns, his needs didn’t matter to me.”
She shoved to her feet, and he followed, but maintained his distance. Let her pace. Let her get this out as if she were lancing a wound and releasing the poison.
Intuition told him she didn’t do this often.
“If I loved him—if I cared about us—I would put my business degree to use and work in a jewelry store instead of designing and selling my own. Make more money. Two years together and he didn’t get that creating my own work was like riding for me. Which, surprise, surprise, he hated, too.” She barked out a laugh. “Both are pure energy, a high. When I’m in my workshop or on a bike, I’m not caged in... I’m free. Whether I’m wrestling with getting the silver to mold just so or riding against the elements, the adrenaline is a rush. How could I give up either? But he didn’t understand. And what he didn’t understand, he resented.”
She halted mid-pace and curled her arms around herself, standing near the rise of the hill, inches from where it dropped off. Her eyes closed, her rich brown skin gleaming in the sun’s rays. His heart thudded against his rib cage, but he ordered himself to remain where he stood. This woman, who craved freedom, wouldn’t appreciate him trying to wrap her in wool.
“I started to realize that he didn’t...like me. Not the real me. He couldn’t if he wanted to change everything about me. But then, several months after my diagnosis, one morning I walked out of our closet into the bedroom, and he looked at me and said, ‘I’m glad you got sick. At least now you’re losing weight.’ That was it for me. I couldn’t do the toxicity, the tearing down of my soul anymore. That day, I refused to give him any more of me. And I promised myself that I wouldn’t change anything about me for a man—for anyone—ever again. So maybe Kenneth wasn’t too wrong. If not for me getting sick, if not for me going to the doctor’s that day, I wouldn’t have woken up and decided to take better care of my health. Decided to get rid of everything and everyone that was poison to me.”
“Cherrie.” Maddox flexed his fingers next to his thighs, desperate to touch her. “Can I hold you?” He would beg her if necessary.
She shifted, considering him over her shoulder. “Yes,” she finally said. Then added, “Please.”
It was that “please” that snapped his control. In three long strides, he was on her, dragging her into his arms. Holding her tight. Probably too tight, but easing his grip was beyond his ability at the moment, and she didn’t protest. No, she gripped him, her fists balled into his T-shirt. Every curve and dip aligned with his harder, larger planes and angles, and they fit. Goddammit, did they fit. A shiver worked through him, and he didn’t try to prevent it. Or hide it. He wanted, needed her to know how she affected him. How her strength humbled him. How her spirit and courage awed him.
Inhaling her scent of lavender, vanilla and the perspiration from their ride, he buried his face in the crook of her neck. And because he couldn’t help himself, he pressed his mouth to the base of her throat, feeling the rapid throb of her pulse against his lips. Rejoicing in it.
“Ask me again,” he demanded, lifting his head and staring down into her almond-brown gaze. “Ask me, Cherrie.”
She didn’t pretend to misunderstand him. But caution, and yes, the whisper of fear he’d glanced earlier in the day, passed through her eyes.
“Maddox,” she said, regret thick in her voice. “You were right to turn me down. Us, this... It isn’t a good idea.”
“I didn’t turn you down,” he argued. “And you think it’s not a good idea—which I disagree with—but it’s inevitable.”
She released his shirt, her hands falling to his waist. Not pushing him away, but not holding him close, either. “I...” She briefly closed her eyes, the long fan of her lashes hiding her eyes from him before she lifted them, and the resolve there set his heart pounding. “I’m not the woman you want, the woman you need. Starting something when I’m only going to leave... It’s not fair. To either one of us. We shouldn’t start what we can’t finish.”
“Then give us right now.” He tunneled his fingers through her hair and drove back a groan at finally, finally having her curls in his hand. Twisting them around his fist. Savoring the coarse silk crush of them between his fingers. “The thought of going through the rest of this life without knowing what it is to kiss you, to taste you, to be buried inside you... It fucking scares me. Right now, baby.” He tugged her head back, and her soft gasp ghosted across his mouth. “So, Cherrie, ask me.”