Crazy Thing Called Love Read online

You’re better than this, she said to herself, trying to start a rally, but her heart wasn’t interested in rallying. Her heart was interested in sex.

  And since sex wasn’t available, she’d make do with more ice cream … and possibly a Magic Bullet food processor, because she’d cook more if she had something that made fresh restaurant-style salsa in less than ten seconds.

  That was how these infomercials got her, they found the cracks in her perfect life and turned them into chasms.

  And kissing Billy Wilkins and getting caught by her segment producer? Oh, the cracks in her life were deep and plentiful.

  Thank God Sabine would keep her mouth shut.

  This—this kissing, this teenage mooning, this fever in her blood and ache between her legs—it was the first step in a terrible pattern.

  It started off with kissing. And he was so utterly irresistible, so totally exciting, that the kissing would lead to sex. And the sex … the sex would be epic. Addictive. And he would look at her like she was the only person in the world that mattered. And she would slowly, a piece at a time, start giving herself away to him. Bits of her time and her energy, things she’d convince herself she didn’t need. And from there it would grow. Until suddenly Maddy would find herself all alone, a stranger to herself.

  Again.

  But God, she wanted to have sex with him.

  Shifting on the couch, her foot kicked over the ice cream container. She glanced down at the congealed green fat in the bottom of the pint and felt her stomach turn. She’d eaten herself sick.

  Gina was going to have a conniption.

  “This is your idea of professionalism?” she muttered.

  You need a new plan.

  Tilting her head, she looked at the green ice cream in a new light.

  Okay, so she wanted to have sex with Billy. Badly. Every woman who had sustained a diet for as long as she had knew that sometimes you had to give in to the craving. You had to eat the ice cream until you didn’t want it anymore. You had to eat it until your tongue was coated with milk fat solids and artificial sweeteners. You had to eat until your teeth hurt and your stomach rolled and you were filled, utterly filled, with the disgust that came free with each pint.

  The key was making sure it was only one pint of ice cream. Not a lifetime supply.

  Excitement and confidence coiled and danced through her. She could do this.

  He might have come back into her life under the delusion that there was a future for them, but she knew that was impossible.

  And having sex with him was not the same as agreeing with him.

  Making sure he saw that, that he fully understood it, was probably easier said than done, but she was a full-grown woman now. Not a love-struck teenager.

  And she had to have the ability to say no. To say stop.

  This affair would have to happen on her terms.

  “Ma’am?” The Snuggie-pusher on the phone was getting persistent. “I need the expiration date on your credit card.”

  “I’ve changed my mind,” she said and hung up.

  Unsticking the bare skin of her arms and shoulders from the leather couch, she stood, her knees protesting the sudden work required of them.

  It wasn’t as if she was in jeopardy of falling in love.

  The sparks of feelings between them were residual, or the result of adrenaline from the show. Either way, they weren’t real.

  Madelyn watched Dallas wake up outside her windows and calmly and rationally prepared the rules that would allow her to sleep with Billy, and keep her heart safe and far-removed.

  * * *

  Billy’s fame didn’t often come in handy. Most of the time drunk men just wanted to fight him. “You’re not so tough,” they’d say, just before taking a giant swing at his head.

  But every once in a while, he’d find a hockey fan in just the right spot.

  For instance, Lou, the security doorman at Maddy’s fancy Turtle Creek condo building was a huge Mavericks fan. Thank God.

  “She’s out for her Saturday morning run,” Lou said and checked his watch. “She’ll be back in about fifteen minutes. You can have a seat.” He pointed to a small couch surrounded by potted plants in the corner of the lobby.

  “Thanks, man,” Billy sat. Oddly enough, it had been pretty easy for him to find out where she lived. The receptionist at the studio had a boyfriend who was also a fan. Two Mavericks fans when he needed them was nearly unheard of. The promise of a couple of tickets to the season opener had bought him Maddy’s address. Which made him worry about security on that set.

  “You want a drink or something?”

  Billy smiled. “I’m good. Thanks.”

  “I saw the Mavericks’ last game.” Lou whistled through his teeth and Billy smiled, knowing which way this was going. “That was some fight.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Good to see the boys with some fire in their eyes again.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “I tell you,” Lou shook his head, the sunlight in the lobby sliding over his bald scalp like oil. “It’s a shame what they’re doing to your sport.”

  “How do you mean?” Billy asked and glanced down at his watch. Fifteen minutes of hockey talk. No problem.

  “Getting rid of the fighting.”

  “You think that’s a problem?” He shifted one of the plants so it partially hid his face, trying to avoid the possibility that Maddy might take one look at him and keep on running. Only one of the many worst-case scenarios he’d thought of this morning.

  “Fighting is the life of hockey. The guts.”

  “I thought goals were the life of hockey.”

  “Without fighting it’s just soccer. Who likes soccer?”

  “Millions of people in every other country but this one. How long does Maddy usually run on a Saturday morning?”

  “An hour or two. But she’s always back at ten.”

  An hour or two, no wonder she was so skinny.

  Ten to ten now. He had ten more minutes to figure out what to say to her. He’d spent a sleepless night working out arguments, but none of them really seemed to hold water.

  So he’d come here planning to just let her scream at him if that’s what she wanted. He’d take her anger on the chin, because he’d never done that in their marriage.

  And she probably had plenty of anger.

  Oh, the screaming he was going to get.

  “If you ask me,” Lou said as he sat back in his chair. His red jacket with the security badge on the breast pocket was a size too big. Made him look like a kid dressing up in his dad’s clothes. “Coach Hornsby isn’t using you the way you should be used.”

  “Tell me about it,” Billy muttered. This was usually his favorite conversation, but he was so damn preoccupied with looking for any sign of Maddy.

  Just as Lou was really getting warmed up on penalty kills, Maddy ran up to the glass door in sleek black running pants and a gray T-shirt, stopping at the edge of the wide red mat in front of the door.

  Her chest heaving, she pushed a button on her watch and then pulled out her earbuds.

  Maddy, his entire body sighed.

  A week ago she’d come to his house, swearing there would be no second chance for them, but the whole time enough sparks had traveled between them to light Arizona on fire. And yesterday … God, yesterday she’d been in his arms again. After years. Cold year after cold year.

  The time for pretending was over.

  Somehow, he just had to show her he had changed and that the chemistry between them on her show was proof she hadn’t changed, not as much as she thought.

  She waved at someone over her shoulder and then pulled open the door, using all the weight of her lean body. Panicked, excited, he stood as she came in.

  “Hey, Lou.” Her voice was husky, and sweat poured down her face, turning her gray T-shirt black in places.

  It turned him on. The athlete in him wanted to sweat with her. Wanted to lick her, taste the salt and heat of her. Oh G
od, he was getting hard. He shifted a little more behind the large plant.

  “Got a guy here waiting for you.” Lou smiled and jerked his thumb over at Billy, who felt more and more like a prom date who was about to be rejected.

  That loose, easy, post-run look on her face vanished.

  She boarded herself up tight.

  “Hi.” He lifted his arm, waved it limply like an idiot.

  “Billy.” That was it. His name and nothing else. Then she turned and kept walking through the granite foyer, toward the elevators. She punched the up button and the wooden elevator doors opened.

  That’s it. She’s leaving. What’s your move now hotshot?

  “You coming?” she asked, without looking at him.

  Like he was charging toward a play in front of the net, Billy crossed the foyer to get in that elevator with her.

  Once inside, the doors closed behind them.

  “Maddy—”

  “Don’t say anything.” She dug her iPod out of the band around her upper arm, her face turned away as if managing her playlist was the most important thing in the world.

  Poised on a knife’s edge, he clenched and unclenched his fists, listening to a tinny, instrumental version of Elvis’ Hound Dog.

  The elevator binged, the doors silently swept open, and Maddy turned left down the hall. He followed, trying not to stare at her ass in those pants, but Lord, it was hard.

  Using a key she untied from her shoelace, she opened a door at the far end of the hall, and he stepped into her home behind her.

  The walls were filled with art and photographs, and a white leather couch covered in bright pillows sat across from a wall of windows. Outside, the city glimmered in the sun. He wanted to inspect every inch of the room, stare at every photo, connect every pillow to the woman who had bought them.

  “Take off your shoes,” she said as she kicked off her runners.

  He toed off his beat-up tennis shoes. The small trash can under the bright pink hall table was stuffed full of red roses.

  “I see you got my flowers.”

  She was silent.

  “We need to talk about yesterday.”

  Looking up at him through her lashes she said, “Is that what we need to do?”

  That put him off his stride and he felt the room shift under his feet. She tossed her iPod on the pink table under a silver mirror and then pulled the rubber band out of her hair. Her curls, brought back by the humidity and the sweat, fell around her face, against her shoulders.

  There was something happening in this room, something totally unexpected, and he wasn’t sure what to do.

  He wanted to touch her hair so badly, his fingers twitched.

  He was lost. Lost in her bright, cheerful home, the scent of her sweat, the sight of those curls. Arms at his sides, heart hammering in his throat, he just stood there. Obviously she had some kind of agenda, and he’d wait to find out what it was.

  “How’d you sleep last night, Billy?”

  “Uh … fine.”

  “Well, I didn’t sleep very well at all.” She stared out her window, the city like a steel carpet at her feet. “And sleep is pretty damn important to me. My routine makes my life do-able. Without control, everything falls apart.”

  She looked at him as if expecting a response, so he nodded. He saw the steel locks all over her. The chains around her life. He got it. This was a woman who owned her days, attacked them.

  “You want to control me?” he asked, eager for it. Well, if not eager, then at least ready. Ready to try.

  Her low laughter burned through the room. “Please, Billy. No one controls you. Not even you.”

  “Then … what do you want?”

  “To control myself.” She faced him fully, her eyes like lead. “To control my reaction to you. To get rid of this shit I feel for you.”

  Hurt by her words, he flinched. “Shit?”

  Her long legs ate the distance between them, and somehow this pristine condo, its white walls and clean scent, suddenly felt dirty. He knew what she was going to say before she said it, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to say no.

  “We’re going to have sex,” she said, a foot from him. His blood pounded in visceral reaction to the smell of her. His wife. His woman. “Until I can’t stand myself anymore.”

  He shook his head, trying to talk himself out of this. Even as his body roared in approval of her plan.

  “Stop.” She was undeniable. “You’ll agree because you want me. However you can get me.”

  “And you don’t want me?” he mocked.

  “I want you out of my head.”

  Furious that she had pegged him so easily while staying so damn aloof, he let his temper go.

  He reached for her hands, yanking her into his arms, where she fit so perfectly. If she wanted a demon to exorcize, fine. He could be that demon.

  He leaned down to kiss her but she turned her face away. “No kissing.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Why?”

  She blinked up at him, her lips tight, her face tighter. A stranger in so many ways, and now she was going to fuck him and keep that distance. Brutal game.

  But brutality had been his bread and butter for a long time—how different was this going to be?

  But I wanted it to be different, he thought, mourning even as he was jacked up on the power in her.

  “I don’t want it to be like what we had,” she said. “That’s over. Gone.”

  “You think you won’t feel anything if we don’t kiss?” He laughed, but she reached down between them, her hand cupping him through his jeans, and he hissed.

  The heel of her hand pressed hard against the tip of his erection, and he staggered back against the door, seeing stars.

  Her fingers flew over the buttons of his pants. “Take off your shirt,” she murmured and he whipped it over his head. Her smile was feral, mean and satisfied all at once.

  It was familiar, that look. Plenty of women since her had looked at him that way, like they couldn’t wait to bite him. To use him.

  “Maddy—”

  “Shut up.” And then she leaned forward and bit him. Her teeth clamping down on the flesh of his shoulder, the muscle underneath, and it felt like lightning.

  He groaned, his head hitting the door behind him, and she bit him again, his pectoral. His dick surged against her hand and he hated this. Hated it as much as he loved it.

  This was Maddy. His Maddy. Back in his arms like some kind of nightmare, and he wanted to walk away. Wanted to be better than the sick, twisted way she was going to use him, but he couldn’t.

  “Touch me,” she whispered against his chest. “Billy—”

  He lifted her, his hands holding her upper arms as he twisted and pushed her up onto that little hallway table, keys scattering down around their feet.

  She was panting, her eyes heavy, dilated.

  Somehow she was still the most exciting woman he’d ever touched. He leaned down to kiss her but she pushed him away. “No. Kissing.”

  Angry and turned on, he arched against her, the edge of his erection finding the sweet hollow between her legs. He curled his fingers around the corner of the wall, grinding himself against her so hard, it had to hurt. But she only gasped, spread her legs farther. Clutched at the belt loops of his jeans, holding him with all her strength.

  With one hand he reached down between them, found her breast, the hard ridge of her nipple utterly foreign under the layers she wore. He let go of the wall, stepped back slightly so he could rip off her shirt, the red sports bra under it. Her belly was lean, muscled, her breasts smaller than he remembered.

  But still breasts.

  “Will you let me kiss you here?” he asked, crudely, roughly cupping her breasts in his hands. His thumbs rubbed over and around her pink nipples. Gasping, she nodded.

  “How about here?” He thrust his hands down the front of her pants to find the wet heat of her. The incendiary dampness. She cried out
, pain, pleasure, acceptance, denial. All of it was in that gasp and he laughed, low and dark in the back of his throat.

  She wanted to control her reaction to him. Fuck that.

  “Can I kiss you here?” he whispered again into her hair, sliding one finger along the furrow between her legs. She jerked against him as the calloused edge of his thumb found her clit.

  “Maddy?”

  “Yes,” she gasped, swallowing as if she couldn’t get enough air. As if she were drowning. Rough, without gentleness, as if she had asked for it this way, and hell, maybe she had, he didn’t know what was going on anymore—he thrust one finger inside of her.

  She screamed, her nails biting into the skin above his pants.

  Fuck, he thought. What am I doing?

  She jerked, slipping off the table, and he caught her, shoving her back up onto that narrow ledge. Her muscles were shaking. All of them, the tiny ones under her skin, the larger ones in her arms and legs. Everything inside her was trembling.

  Memories rolled through him. Thousands of them. He closed his eyes and braced his forehead against the wall, beside her head.

  The night after prom, the first time they had sex, that startled gasp in his ear when he took her virginity. “It’s okay,” she’d whispered when he tried to pull out, agonized by the thought of hurting her. “I’m glad it’s you,” she’d said. “I love you.”

  That time they’d watched porn in Chris Alfano’s basement and she’d tried to give him a blow job in his car. She’d laughed and choked and finally he told her to stop, but she wouldn’t until she got it right. And she had. She really had.

  Their wedding night, she’d been eighteen and he’d been twenty. Their first anniversary in the hotel room down in Atlanta, when they’d had too much champagne and nearly drowned in the heart-shaped hot tub.

  After every fight that last year, when she would come apart in his arms and then sob curled up on her side of the bed and he’d stare up at the ceiling, feeling worthless and angry, wondering if this was how marriage was really supposed to be.

  He pulled his finger out of her body, the electric heat slipping across his knuckles.

  “What are you doing?” she gasped, clutching his wrist.

  “Not like this,” he whispered, kissing her ear. “Not with you.”