Rival (The Fall Away Series Book 3)

Enough was enough. I couldn’t let him continue to affect me so much. True, Madoc had grown up. No buts about it. He was smart, fun, and more good-looking than ever. He seemed to care about his friends, and someday, he might even make a good husband and father.

I just wasn’t the right girl for him, and he certainly wasn’t for me. He’d had me once and forgotten me. Now, I wanted to leave this house of my own free will with my head held high. I wouldn’t be a rat in a cage, dressed to my mother’s approval or a toy for Madoc to play with when he felt like it. I would never want to be like her and end up with her life. Jason Caruthers cheated on his wife—constantly. Although my mother also cheated. I’d found that out—not that I had doubted it anyway—through my preparations.

Their marriage was empty and superficial, and Madoc had grown up with an innate entitlement. He knew he could do what he wanted, when he wanted, and if a girl didn’t like it, another one would come along to replace her.

I wouldn’t be one of the numbers.

I trudged out of the water, shivering as the air hit my wet skin. Tate leaned back on her hands, legs bent and her bikini slightly more modest than mine. I would’ve worn a one-piece if I’d known a kid was going to be here. Jared lay on his back next to her with a hand on her thigh and his eyes closed. Lucas was eating an apple and peanut butter sandwich crackers.

“So what’s up now?” Madoc asked Jared and Tate as he grabbed a towel and threw it at me. I reached up just in time to stop it from hitting me in the face.

Jared sighed as in “Here we go.” “I asked her to move in with me,” he admitted, and my eyebrows shot up.

Madoc snorted. “And she threw shoes at you? Sounds like a marriage to me.”

“In Chicago,” Tate clarified with a sharp, scolding tone. “He asked me to move in with him in Chicago. I told him that I want to be around for my dad more, so I’m going to Northwestern instead of Columbia. He then tells me that he didn’t want to go to New York anyway and wanted to stay in the area to be close to Jax.”

Madoc busied himself taking out waters from the cooler. “So that’s good. It’s a win-win. What’s the problem?”

“The problem is,” I chimed in for Tate and turned toward Madoc, “that he wasn’t communicating with her. He already had his own plans that he wasn’t involving her in.”

“So did she,” he argued back.

“But he sounds like he never wanted to go to New York.” My voice got louder, and I could feel Tate’s and Jared’s eyes on me. “Now she feels like she pressured him or was making him do something he didn’t want to do.”

Madoc rolled his eyes. “Cover your ears, Lucas.”

Lucas obeyed, and Madoc looked around the circle, meeting everyone’s eyes.

“Look, I’m sorry, Tate, but you’ve been living in fucking rainbow-sprinkle-cupcake land if you actually thought that Jared Trent was going to move to New York City. People don’t drive there. How’s he supposed to stretch his legs? Do you even know how much it would cost to park a car there?”

Jared’s eyes were still closed, but his chest shook with silent laughter that he was smart enough to keep to himself.

Tate’s jaw hung open, and not in a wow-that-really-made-sense kind of way. It was more of a what-an-asshole-I’m-going-to-dropkick-him kind of way. I couldn’t tell for sure, but Madoc probably felt the heat of her fire behind her sunglasses.

I held up my hand. “So you’re saying that his car is more important than her?” I yelled at Madoc.

He blew out a sigh and walked behind me, standing at my back and covering my mouth with his hand.

I could hear the smile in his voice as he spoke to Jared and Tate. “So you’ll both be in Chicago. I’ll only be an hour and a half away at Notre Dame. Win-win.”

•   •   •

Around four o’clock, Jared and Tate left to go break the news to her father about her change in college plans, and Madoc and I took Lucas home in time for dinner.

Madoc drove the twists and turns of the quiet roads leading to our—his—house, and neither of us broke the silence. The tension was thicker than wet clay, and I didn’t know what was on his mind. He was usually such a chatterbox. Now, he looked almost stoic as he zoned out on the road and sped over the black highway. Trees loomed on both sides, making me feel like we were in a cave.

“Fallon,” he started, and I looked to him. “We’re not sixteeen anymore.”

I stared at him, not sure what that meant.

“I know.”

He yanked down on the stick shift, sending us into sixth gear. Between looking out the window and the front windshield and not meeting my eyes, he looked uncomfortable as hell. “I think we can get along better if we grow up. You can stay the summer if you want.”

What? Was he serious? When the punch line didn’t come, I just averted my gaze out the window.

He doesn’t want me to stay, I thought to myself. Or maybe he did.

“Yeah, Pussy-on-the-Premises, right?” I felt the flutters in my stomach dull as I realized why he probably wanted me to stay.

He shook his head. “I didn’t mean that.”

Yeah, right. Why else would he want me around? We may have cleared up some miscommunication, but he still saw me as damaged goods. Not good enough, just like my mother said.

And I didn’t much like him, either. Even if he really did want me to stay, would I want to suffer his company all summer?

“If I wanted pussy, I could get it, Fallon.” He blew me off. “But what can I say? I kind of like having you around, I guess. And I know you like me, too. As much as you try to hide it, I still turn you on. So stop acting like you don’t like me.”

I ground my teeth together as he pushed the button on the remote on his visor, opening the gate to his community.

Was he serious? Did he not realize that just because two people have fun in the bedroom doesn’t mean anything? People go to bars, know each other for an hour, and go home together! One has nothing to do with the other.

“You know what I really don’t like?” I huffed, climbing out of his GTO as he parked in front of the house. “I hate your car! It sits too low, they’re too many blind spots, and it looks like a Chevy Cavalier which would’ve cost you half the money as this waste of metal!”

I ran into the house, hearing his laugh behind me. “You seemed to love it last night when you were screaming my name!”

•   •   •

Who was I kidding? I’d have better success trying to jam a tree branch up my ass than convince myself I didn’t want him. But who cares, right? Yeah, I want him. Sure. Who wouldn’t? I could enjoy this. Just one more time. I just have to be the one in control, that’s all.

Jumping in the shower, washing, and jumping back out took me less than two minutes. My hands were shaking a bit, and I was blinking a lot—something I do when I’m trying not to think. I dressed in black lace panties and a pale pink vintage satin bra. Actually, it was only a bra in the sense that it covered my breasts, but there was no support. It was loose like a slip that had been cut off right under the boob area.

Madoc was going to love it. Not only was it sexy, but it was user-friendly lingerie. He didn’t need to remove it to get his hands where he wanted them.

Letting my hair out of the ponytail, I fluffed it, leaving it a little tangled—Madoc seemed to like it that way—and applied a little mascara and color to my lips. Before heading to the door, I snatched my black-framed glasses off the bedside table. The hall was dark as I jogged the few feet across the hall to Madoc’s room. Slipping inside, I heard the water in his shower running, and smiled as I headed to his bed.

Good. I wanted to be here before he got out. For once, I wanted to surprise him.

I sat on the end, clenching my teeth to keep my smile from escaping. Heat raced through my veins, and my toes curled into the beige carpet as I put both of my palms down on the bed next to my hips.

How should I do this? I bent my legs a number of different ways, tried a slew of different poses, but everything felt unnatural. Legs spread, not spread. Leaning back on my hands, lying down on my side. It was all stupid. Madoc was going to laugh.

Okay, maybe not, but still . . .

Everything tonight was my way, I reminded myself. I didn’t want to let him dominate me.

I decided to leave my feet flat on the ground, legs together, with my hands folded in my lap.

The water shut off, and I tried to force my heartbeat into a calmer pace.

Madoc walked out, black towel around his waist, and immediately locked eyes with me.

His eyes went round, and his mouth snapped shut. He looked intense and a little angry.

I was afraid for a moment, afraid I’d overstepped my bounds by coming in here after him even though he’d invaded my space numerous times, but then I looked down. The bulge under his towel was growing. I fisted my fingers and tried not to feel pride, but it was impossible.

My confidence boosted me up like a pair of six-inch heels.

“You’re mad,” I taunted, leaning back on my hands. “I changed the game.”

He inched closer to me, his steps like a beast of prey. “Not mad, really. Just surprised.”

“But you’ve had other girls in this bed, haven’t you?” I asked. “Why not me?”

I hadn’t really thought about it until the moment I asked the question, but it was true. Madoc had slept with other girls in this bed, in this room. Probably.

But never me.

“Is that what you want?” His voice, sultry and sexy, played with me.

But I faltered.

Did I want that?

“You didn’t love girls in this bed,” I assumed. “You fucked them.”

They were in, and then they were out, only to be replaced with another one.

I could talk myself up one hill only to find that I was still at the foot of mountain.

I did not want to be used, forgotten, and nameless.

He was right. What the hell am I doing? I looked everywhere but at his eyes, not sure where the answers were or even what the hell my questions were anymore.

Madoc and I could screw tonight. I could walk out of here instead of being kicked out . . . but what would Madoc have really lost?

Nothing. Having sex with him and then taking it away didn’t hurt him at all.

I blinked long and hard, finally seeing how stupid I’d been. So I stood up, tears stinging my eyes, and I swallowed the lump in my throat. “No, I guess I don’t want that after all,” I whispered and walked past him out the door.

“Fallon?” I heard him call, confusion lacing his voice

But I was gone.

Running across the darkened hallway, I dove in my own room, slammed my door shut, and locked it. I collapsed against the door, breathing hard, and closing my eyes so the tears wouldn’t come.

I hadn’t cried in years. I was always able to stop it, to swallow it.

You can do this, I told myself. Just do it. Before you do anything else stupid.

My phone sat on my bedside table, and I opened my last text.

Will post when you’re ready.

That text was three days ago when I arrived. My weak fingers tapped out my response.

“Fallon?” Madoc knocked on the door, and I stopped typing.

“Just leave me alone,” I ordered, talking to the closed door.

“No.”

Excuse me? I raised my voice to respond to him. “You told me to lock the door to keep you out, dickhead. That’s what I’m doing.”

“I came up with that line when I was sixteen and had toothpicks for arms!” His muffled voice got louder. “I have muscles now,” he continued, “and this door is going to be firewood in five seconds if you don’t open up!”

I raced over and yanked the door open. “Don’t you dare!”

“What’s your problem?” He pushed past me into the room, turning around to face me. “We had a fun day. And I had an even better night planned, beginning with the Jacuzzi.”

Of course he did.

I slammed the door shut behind him, shaking my head and letting out a bitter laugh. “I told you to leave me alone. Why can’t you just do that?” My tone stayed flat, but the muscles in my arms and legs were rigid as I walked past him.

He hooked my elbow, bringing us face-to-face.

“You come into my room, dressed like that.” He gestured up and down my body. “And then you run out, expecting me to not wonder what the hell is going through your head?”

“What does it matter? You don’t care. Not about anyone but yourself, anyway.”

I pulled my arm away and walked over to the side of the bed, putting a safer distance between us.

His eyebrows were pinched together in confusion, like he didn’t understand what I was getting at. Why would he? I’d done a complete about-face from earlier, letting him seduce me, and then I’d changed the game and tried to seduce him to prove that I could. Crashed and burned at that—and now I was pushing him away. He was confused, and he should be. I sure was. I had thought I knew exactly what I wanted to have happen when I came back here.

“Where the hell is this coming from? Is this about the other-girls-in-my-bed question?” he asked, inching toward me.

A small, quiet sigh escaped me, and with it, my plan. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I could ask you about other guys, but I don’t.” His expression was angry. “You want to know why? Because I would care. Do you really want to know how many girls I’ve had in my bed? How many girls I’ve slept with?”

He would care?

“No, I don’t want to know. We’re not in a relationship,” I bit back.

Madoc stood immobile, his face hardening a bit and his chin lifting a little, but other than that his body was like stone. I didn’t know if he was angry, hurt, confused, or annoyed. But I knew he was thinking. I watched his large frame, his black pajama pants hanging low on his hips, walk across my bedroom, take my wide gray cushioned chair, and carry it to sit in front of my floor-length mirror.

“Come here,” he commanded, and I curled my toes, staying planted where I was.

When I didn’t budge, he softened his voice.

“Please?” he asked.

He planted himself in the chair and looked at me through the mirror, waiting.

He leaned back, slouching, with his legs about a foot apart. His chest glowed smooth in the barely lit room, and I had to lick my lips, because I was so thirsty all of a sudden.

This is ridiculous! I planted my hands on my hips, trying to look away but always reverting back to his gaze.

Okay, screw it.

I dropped my hands and walked over slowly, trying to look bored. Madoc took my wrist and led me around the front of the chair, yanking me down into his lap.

“Hey!” I argued, trying to stand up again, but his hands held my waist.

“Trust me.”

I huffed, but I stopped, if only to see where this was going.

“What do you want?” I snarled, inching my ass up his body, because straddling his thigh was . . . yeah.

“Look.” He tipped his chin up. “Look in the mirror. What do you see?”

“What do you mean?”

What the hell?

“Open your eyes!” he barked, and all of the hairs on my body shot up.

Shit. Yeah, you could never tell when Madoc was going to go from easy to scary, but it was always sudden.

Reaching around, he twisted my chin toward the mirror, and I sucked in a breath. “What do you see?!” he shouted.

“You and me!” I blurted out. “Madoc and Fallon!”

My heart was racing.

I looked at him through the mirror. I sat on one side of his lap, so he could see from the other side, and we stared at each other, my chest rising and falling more urgently.

“That’s not what I see,” he said in a low voice. “Those names mean nothing to me. They’re simple and empty. When I’m with you, I don’t see the daughter of a gold-digging bitch and an Irish drug lord or the son of a crooked lawyer and a vegan Barbie.”

I almost wanted to laugh. Madoc had an ironic way of looking at the world.

But he wasn’t smiling. He was scowling. He was dead serious, and I knew from experience that his genuine moments were few and far between.

He reached up, threading one hand into my hair while the other hand rested on the chair.

“I see everything I want for as long as I can have it,” he continued. “I see a woman that wears the cutest little scowl like she’s two years old and was just told she couldn’t have candy. I see a guy that went and got an apadravya piercing, because he wanted to live in her world for even a little while.”

I closed my eyes. Don’t do this to me, Madoc.

“I see a beautiful woman with a knockout body and the guy she drives insane with wanting her.”

His hand moved to my neck, stroking up and down.

“I see a thousand nights of kitchen counters, showers, pools, and couches where he’s going to fuck her until she screams.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I see her eyes and how they look when she comes.”

My nipples hardened, and I had to start sucking in air. Opening my eyes, I could see his blue ones, shining like crystals, watching me.

“I see the guy that went so crazy when she left that he tore all of the shit off his walls, thinking she hated him.”

My face cracked, and my eyes watered; the lump in my throat had grown too big for me to swallow around.

“Madoc—”

“I see,” he cut me off, trailing his hand over my stomach and into my lacy top, “the body he sucked rain off of last night and he wants in his mouth right now, because, baby, you are torturing him.”

He leaned in, kissing my upper arm in soft, sensual kisses, trailing over to my back. He flipped my hair over my shoulder, digging his lips into my spine and going up as I dropped my head back onto his shoulder.

“Madoc . . .” I gasped, tingles spreading down my back.

His lips . . . oh, my God, his lips.

His hands were both under my slip-bra, kneading and squeezing as I started rolling my hips into him.

“Goddamn, look at you.” His breathless voice made my sex clench.

I opened my eyes, seeing what he saw.

A young woman in lingerie, sitting on a man’s lap backward with his hands up her shirt. Our eyes met, and the heat made me want to tear him apart with my teeth. I wanted him.

Fuck, I wanted him.

Snuggling my head into his, I kept my eyes on him in the mirror as I reached down and slipped my hand inside my panties. His eyes became as sharp as needles as he watched me. I spread my legs and gently ran my fingers up and down my heat, watching him watching me.

He leaned back, continuing to stroke my back with one hand while he just took me in.

Having his eyes on me, having him so interested, was doing things to my body I didn’t expect. Madoc always used to be in a hurry, and then last night was pedal to the metal.

But now he looked like he owned the room. He looked like I was his and he wasn’t rushing to have me before the sun came up.

Standing up, I slid my hands down the sides of my panties and slipped them off, letting them slide down my legs. His hands fisted where they hung off the armrests, and I saw him harden through his pants. His body needed me, and the pulse on my clit throbbed. One time. Two times. Three.

Damn. Everything about Madoc was intense and made me feel good.

“I . . .” I wanted to tell him that I didn’t hate him. That I thought about him. That I was sorry. But the words won’t come. “Madoc, I . . .” I let out a breath. “I want you here.”

And I sat down in his lap backward, facing the mirror. “I want you like this.”

A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, and then I gasped as he put a hand on the front of my neck and pulled me back to him.

Our lips came together, moving over each other. Then I reached around and slid my fingers into his soft, short hair, kissing him as if it was the only thing I ever needed to survive. His hand slid down my stomach, and I spread both of my legs to rest on the outside of his thighs.

“Madoc,” I whispered, pleading. “I’m burning already.”

I took his hand and led it between my thighs, sucking in a breath when his fingers slid inside of me.

Oh, God, yes.

His fingers moved, my wetness easing him in and out, but the fire in my belly had me so hungry I started rubbing into his hand.

“Madoc.”

“I love it when you say my name.” His head fell back, and his chest rose more quickly. He looked like he was enjoying this although I wasn’t touching him. He just liked touching me that much?

My hips rocked into his hand, and for the first time in two years, I wanted things. I wanted this. I wanted him. I wanted it all again.

But I knew I couldn’t have it. I knew this was it for us.

This was the last time he’d make love to me. The last time I’d kiss him.

The last time he’d want me.

And I wanted to bury my face in my hands and scream that I didn’t have to do this. I didn’t have to walk away, but there was just too much between us to get past.

Instead I stood up and turned around, straddling his lap and facing him.

Running my fingers down the side of his face, I kept my voice quiet for fear I wouldn’t be able to hold back the tears. “I want to see you.” My throat ached so hard I could barely whisper. “I want to kiss you when you come.”

I leaned up on my knees, giving him room to push his pants down. Before he kicked them off, I reached into his pocket for the condom.

He smiled. “How’d you know that was in there?”

“Because you’re a confident son of a bitch,” I whispered huskily, not sounding sarcastic in the least.

I shoved the condom into his hand before wrapping my hungry arms around his neck and kissing him hard. His lips worked mine, and we didn’t lose the connection when he worked behind my back to get the condom on. Rocking my hips, I rubbed against his thick hardness, feeling the burn get heavier and heavier as the pulse in my clit pounded harder and harder.

“Now, Fallon,” he breathed out, letting his head fall back on the chair. I hesitated, hearing my name. He used to call me “baby.”

“Say my name again.” I sat down on his cock, and we both closed our eyes with the sensation.

I was filled.

“Fallon,” he gasped.

“Who’s kissing you right now?” I trailed soft kisses along his jaw, slowly sucking and biting until he moaned.

“Jesus,” he groaned.

“Not Jesus.”

He laughed. “Fallon.” And he put his head up and looked straight at me as I slowly moved up and down his length.

Up so slowly, watching his eyes as he watched my body move on him.

And back down, taking him in, amazed how his lids would close with the sensation. I’d never done this before. I was never on top, and he felt so good like this.

I mean, he always felt good, but the angle of him in the chair got him so deep.

I could feel him rubbing the walls of my womb. That piercing made me want to slow down and speed up, but it also made me never want to stop.

“Who’s riding you?” I held his face, my thumbs on his cheeks and fingers at the back of his neck.

“Fallon.” It seeped out of his mouth like a bullet in slow motion. My breath caught in my throat as he wrapped his arms around my waist and shot up, guiding my legs around his body. Air rushed in and out of my lips as he just stood there, his mouth touching mine. “You don’t get to win this game, Fallon. Though I like how you play.”

He slammed me up against the mirror, sinking his mouth into mine before letting my legs fall. God, his kiss stole my breath, but I didn’t care that I couldn’t breathe.

As soon as my feet touched the ground, he spun me around and cupped both of my breasts, burying his mouth in my neck.

I watched him in the mirror, and I no longer gave a damn about owning him or dominating him.

Although I wanted to control this, it was clear I wasn’t in control now. Until he said, “Why do you drive me so crazy, Fallon?” His breath was ragged, and his hands and lips moved rough and fast. “Why does it have to be you?”

And that’s when I realized he wasn’t trying to dominate me. He was desperate.

I was in control.

“Madoc,” I whispered, turning my head and melting my lips into his.

Breaking away, I widened my legs and leaned forward into the mirror. “Please, I need you.” I could feel the heat of him on the inside of my leg.

Madoc positioned himself and slid into me. I bit my lip at the sweet pain of his depth.

“So good.” It was barely a whisper as I felt the rest of my insides fall apart around his thick length inside of me.

And then he closed his eyes and laid his head back, his voice shaky. “You’re going to ruin me, Fallon.”

No more than you ruined me.