Superb and Sexy (Sky High Air #3)(35)

“Maddie—”

She kept splashing him, and with an oath, a string of oaths really, he managed to surge to his feet and grab her, holding her against him.

But that just really did her in. She was so furious she saw stars, and yeah, way back in a corner of her mind, waaaaay back, she knew it wasn’t Brody that was making her so crazy with fear and fury and guilt, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t care.

Her nightmare had reminded her of a time when she’d been young, alone, helpless, and in her head, she was there again. Memories, none good, had crashed down on her, pelting her, hurting her, killing her. “I can’t—” She shook her head wildly. “I can’t—”

“Sh-h.” He softened his hold. “Shh, it’s okay.” He pulled her in against him. “It’s okay, Maddie, you’re okay.”

But it wasn’t. In spite of the hot water, she was cold, iced to the bone, and even worse, she couldn’t control herself. Yet somehow, Brody’s voice came through, achingly soft and so gentle she couldn’t handle it.

“I’ve got you,” he was saying, holding her to his big, steaming hot body while the storm raged both outside the building and within her. “It’s me, Maddie, just me.”

Pride and ego kept her struggling, but he just held her tighter. “Come on now. Stop.”

“I can’t.” She fisted her hands in his drenched shirt, feeling that welcome heat of his body coming through, the comforting steady beat of his heart, and she gripped him for dear life. “I can’t stop.”

“I’ve got you now; you’re not alone.” He was holding her, his hands on her bare skin, his grip easy, soothing, firm.

He had her.

He really had her. And unlike any other time when she’d been falling apart, there was someone to catch her. It was then, reeling from that, still shaking from the dream, still bombarded by memories, still wanting to scream, wanting to fight, that she horrified herself by bursting into tears.



At Maddie’s first sob, Brody’s heart cracked right open. There was nothing more wrenching than a woman’s tears, and that it was Maddie, strong, tough Maddie, made it all the more so.

Scooping her up against him, he turned off the shower and stepped out of the tub. Grabbing a towel, he tossed it over her the best he could and moved out of the bathroom. The main room was dark, but lightning lit it up, followed by a crack of thunder that rattled the window.

He set Maddie on the bed, planning on doing anything to make her stop crying, anything at all. He’d promise her the moon if he had to. And once he got her to stop, he needed to get her dressed, preferably in a suit of armor, because they were not going to the bad place again—that being the place where his brain ceased to function properly. And then when she was no longer naked or breaking his heart, he was going to make her talk. “Maddie.”

He expected her to try to karate chop him again. Or maybe dive under the covers and pretend he didn’t exist.

She was good at both.

Instead, with the only sound in the room being the driving rain and wind coming from outside, she curled toward him, pulling him down over the top of her.

“Mad—”

Her fingers shut him up, brushing over his mouth. Then she replaced those with her lips, while her hands ran down his arms, over his back, trembling, needing…It sucked him right in.

She sucked him right in.

Her mouth was on his, warm and salty, and somehow sweet, so damn sweet.

“Maddie—”

Or at least that’s what he tried to say, but it was hard to talk with her tongue stroking his, not to mention the sheer, heart-stopping sensation of lying over the top of her while she was nothing more than a drenched, sleek, quivering form of mouthwatering curves. Naked curves. He couldn’t possibly think straight. In the back of his mind, he knew she was trying to distract him, just as he registered it was working all too well, and then her hands tugged at his wet shirt.

“It’s your turn to strip,” she murmured, her voice all husky from her tears and barely audible over the sound of the storm raging outside.

Strip. He knew it was such a bad idea, but was getting caught up on the why. He had a reputation for being big and bad, but mostly, that was all attitude, and despite what women always said, they really didn’t tend to fall for big and bad.

At least they hadn’t been falling for him.

He’d had several relationships that had lasted longer than a few dates, but nothing in a long time, especially not this past year when he’d done little but work night and day to get Sky High Air off the ground.

So it’d been a while since he’d been naked, but he remembered how to get there. What he didn’t remember, ever, was having a woman be so desperate for him that she was trying to climb into his skin, and it was just odd enough—especially for Maddie—to make him put his hands on her arms and pull back to look into her face. “You are Maddie, right?”

She went utterly still for one beat, then turned back into the wild woman with superhuman strength, but she was done catching him off guard, thank you very much. Pinning her to the bed, he stretched out over the top of her to hold her down. “Okay, it’s you. I’m sorry, I—”

But she wasn’t listening; she was busy trying to kill him again, so he threw a leg over hers, drawing her hands up over her head to get a better grip on her.