She sucks harder, moves her head faster. As the pleasure starts to wash over me, I tighten my grip in her hair and hold her head still, arcing in and out of her mouth.
“That’s it, beautiful. Take me deep. Relax that throat.” I slow down, so she can follow my orders, and she does, allowing me to push deeper. Heat sweeps over me. My balls tighten and lift.
“Are you going to swallow for me, Madi?”
She gives a muffled assent around my cock, and I let her take over the action. She grips my ass with one hand, uses her fist with the other and bobs over my cock like she’s competing in the blow job Olympics.
I let out a growl that sounds more wolf than man, but I can’t stop myself. I bark and then come down her throat. She swallows and swallows and then sucks me clean.
“Good girl. So fucking good.” I caress her cheek and help her to her feet before I tuck my dick away.
“Are you okay?” She looks a little dazed, but I’m not asking about the post-sex state, I’m asking about our fight. I know I can be a real bastard when I’m bent out of shape, and the last time I took it out on her, I nearly lost her.
“I’m sorry I made you cry. Did I scare you?”
She shakes her head.
“No, you’re not scared of me. You were torn over your decision.”
“Yes.” She looks sorry, and I want to punch my own face for being a dick to her. She cares about me-enough to try to fix the holes in my life.
I stroke her face. “You’re a special person, Madison. One of a kind.”
She falls into me, and I wrap my arms around her. Hugging is not normally part of our repertoire-it’s usually some form of rough sex, often with a flavor of degradation or power exchange because that’s what turns her on.
This is more intimate than anything we’ve done up to now.
“My mom murdered my dad.”
I surprise myself with the words. I had no plan of telling her-ever. Yet now I’ve said them, and I can’t take them back.
She gasps, horrified, and pulls away to stare up at me.
It’s too intense. I look past her, out the wall-to-wall windows in my office.
“A-re you sure?”
I nod.
“Did she get arrested? Could they prove it? I never read anything about it in my-“
“We didn’t report it,” I cut in. Wolves don’t involve human law enforcement in pack matters.
“Brick, you should have.”
I love when she uses my first name. My wolf finds it satisfying on some shallow level.
“She’s my mother, Madi. What was I going to do? Put her in prison?”
Madi claps a hand over her mouth, her expressive brown eyes welling with tears. “My God-I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine.”
“So you can see why I don’t like her showing up at Thanksgiving or at the office.”
A tear slips from her eye.
“Don’t.” I thumb it away. “It kills me when you cry. Please don’t.”
She sniffs and shakes her head. “I won’t.”
Now I want to kick myself. It’s not fair to ask her to hold it in or fight it. But her logical brain comes online. “H-how did she do it?”
“Poison.” Silver dust mixed in with the tobacco. Silver is poisonous to shifters. Totally debilitating. “She brought my dad a gift. She’d gone to Cuba and brought him cigars-his favorite. They were poisoned. When he smoked the first one, it went straight into his lungs and killed him immediately.”
Her eyes swim with tears, but she blinks them back. “That’s horrible. Are you sure it was her? I mean, she brought the cigars, but did she know about the poison? Were they out of her or your father’s control any time between her giving them to him and him smoking them?”
I leave Madison and walk to the windows to look out at the city below. Her questions are valid, but I resent every one of them. I don’t want to open this can of worms-I’ve never wanted to. It was hard enough to assimilate what happened without examining it all too closely.
“If it wasn’t her, it was her family. My uncle or even my great-grandmother, who is a seriously creepy old woman. It doesn’t matter. My mom was the instrument of his death.”
Madison walks up behind me. In the glass, I see her reach out, then pull her hand back, like she’s afraid I won’t receive her touch. “Is it the same, though? Her knowing and participating versus being the unwitting instrument? Those are pretty different things, aren’t they?”
“To me, it’s the same.” My voice sounds dead.
The Adalwulfs killed my father and stole his company. My mother is an Adalwulf. These things can’t be separated. I can’t forgive her, no matter what her part in it was.
“You see her as complicit, whether she acted directly or not,” Madison guesses.
“Exactly.”
“What if she wasn’t?”
I whirl on her, and she immediately throws her hands up in surrender. “I’m not trying to piss you off. I just think it’s important to have all the facts before making judgments. Especially about things that are close to the heart. Like your own mother.” She adds the last part softly, and I tug her against my body and kiss the top of her head.
Her scent smooths my frayed temper.
“Your input has been noted,” I murmur against her silky hair. “Call my pilot and have him bring the helicopter around. I need to get some fresh air.”
She lifts her head, brow furrowed. “You’re going to the Berkshires?”
“Yes. You can leave for the day,” I say, even though it’s only three in the afternoon.
“I can’t. I need to finish up those reports. My boss is a real dick.” She tilts her head when I don’t respond. “That was a joke, of course.”
“Finish them in the morning.”
“I’d rather finish them tonight. Are you trying to get rid of me?”
“No.” I shrug although it does feel wrong to leave her working here after I’ve put her through the wringer today. But this is why I value her as an assistant. Even without her scent. That hot as fuck body. Even without the attraction, she’d still be the best employee I’ve ever had.
* * *
Madi
I stay late working. I’m a perfectionist by nature, but I’m sure some of my workaholism tonight is guilt-driven. I screwed up with Brick today, and I hate screwing up. My heart aches for him. I can’t imagine the level of pain he must feel to believe his mother actually killed his father.
I believe there are layers of the trauma that need to be peeled back. I’m not as apt to blindly believe his mother was responsible based on circumstantial evidence, but it’s obvious he’s not willing to unpack it. It’s all too sore for him.
I check my cell phone to see if Aubrey responded to my text, and I see an email has come into my personal account from Eleanor Harrington at Torrent Cosmetics. A shard of guilt stabs at me, but I push it back. I’ve done nothing disloyal to Brick by contacting her. It’s not like I’m going to leave this job. I just want to have a back-up plan in place for when things crumble because I feel certain they will.
Her email is brief but warm.
Madison,
Sorry for my delayed response-I just got back from Paris. I was hoping I would hear from you. I would love to get together. I have lunch free on Friday. Meet me at Tiffany’s at noon?
Eleanor
Huh. She signed it “Eleanor.” Somehow, I wouldn’t have pegged her as a friendly first-name-only type. She seemed crustier than that. I also never dreamed she’d suggest a lunch rather than a phone call or an interview at her office. It seems almost like a social call rather than business. But that doesn’t make sense.
Friday is not ideal as it’s the company holiday party, and I need to be around to field the demands on Blackthroat, but I also don’t want to miss this opportunity. I respond that I will be there and put it on my calendar, so he’ll know I’m going to be away. Hopefully it won’t blow up in my face.
Jerry, the janitor, is already almost finished with cleaning our floor when I finally get ready to leave.
“The boss is already gone, huh?” He sends me a friendly smile. He’s used to seeing us both in here late.
“Yep. He left early for a change.”
“So why are you still here?”
I shrug. “Trying to get ahead of him, I guess.” It’s just small talk.
Jerry’s an older guy in his sixties but still totally fit. He wears jeans and flannel shirts, which always strikes me as odd because the rest of the janitors I’ve seen around the building wear blue Dickies uniforms.
“Jerry, I love that you get to wear jeans to work. How is it you have special privileges?”
“Aw, I work after hours, so no one has to see what I wear.” He waves a gloved hand at me. “No one except you and the big boss when you’re here burning the midnight oil.”
Big Bad Boss.
My chest tightens again thinking of Blackthroat. It’s striking how different I feel about him now that he’s shown me his vulnerabilities.
“But even when I leave, the janitorial staff on the first level is in uniform.”
“Ah, they said you were bright. You know what, Madi? I just wear whatever I damn well please. I’m supposed to wear those costumes, but I don’t like the way they feel.”
My brain stutters on the they said you were bright.
Who said that? Why would the janitor be discussing me with anyone? Particularly anyone who knows me?
“You see, my family goes way back with the Blackthroats. We’ve always worked for them. So Moon Co doesn’t fuss much with me. Did you ever wonder why I’m the only one allowed to clean the executive offices? They want it to be someone they trust to prevent corporate espionage and all that.”
Huh. I actually hadn’t wondered, but it makes sense. I guess it’s always who you know on Wall Street. Even for the janitorial positions.
I stand and gather my things. “Are you finishing up? Should I get the lights?”
“No, I’ll get them, Madi. You head on home. I’ve got everything here taken care of.”
“Okay, goodnight.”
I take the elevator downstairs, sagging against one wall as I immediately forget Jerry and return to the problem of Brick and his mother. What an awful situation.
My energy reserves feel empty, and I realize I haven’t eaten much today. I put in an order for eggplant lasagna and ask Tony if he’ll drop me off at the restaurant again. A short walk to stretch my legs and a hot meal will do me good.
There’s a black limo parked in front of the restaurant when I come out. At first, I think it’s Tony, waiting for me even though I told him I needed a walk. But there’s a different driver behind the wheel. For one brief, heart-flopping moment, I think it might be Brick, until I remember he left in the helicopter.
I head towards my apartment, cutting between buildings. The wind is icy, and I duck my head.
The limo follows me. I slow my steps as it stops. The driver hops out and opens the back door and beckons toward it, as if I could get in. “Ms. Evans,” he says, as if we know each other. Which we don’t. He’s not Tony or Blackthroat’s driver.
I don’t know what’s going on.
I walk a little closer, eyeing the darkened interior of the limo. I’m not dumb enough to get in a strange car, not even when it’s a limo, but I’m curious.
“Madison.”
I recognize the creepy, rasping voice, before the fair-haired man in a long, dark coat climbs out of the limo. Aiden Adalwulf.
I back away slowly. I’m in a quiet alleyway between brick buildings. The narrow street is a shortcut, and it’s well lit, but typically empty.
Not tonight. Up ahead, a big guy strolls towards me, his sleek suit doing nothing to narrow the bulk of his arms and shoulders. He looks like one of the bodyguards who flanked Aiden when he accosted me at the coffee shop. Behind me, just past the limo, his twin closes in. They’re both huge, taking up more than their fair share of the alley, strolling slowly like they don’t have a care in the world. I know without a doubt that they’re here to stop me from escaping before I talk to their boss.
On a scale of one to swiping right on Patrick Bateman, how much trouble am I in?
Aiden is a respectable businessman. Sure, he’s cutthroat, but what Wall Street executive isn’t? And yes, he gives off serial killer vibes, but he wouldn’t literally cut my throat. At least not here, in the middle of a bustling neighborhood. Shops and restaurants full of people are only a block away.
Aiden wouldn’t do it himself. He wouldn’t risk blood staining his ten thousand dollar suit.
Better to not flinch. Rule number one.
The more confident I act, the more power I hold onto.
I face him. “Yes?”
“I’d like to offer you a job.”
I stifle my first instinct, which is to scream
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