Page 93 of False Start

A child.

I was a father.

Madelyn was the mother to my child.

My throat constricted, and Madelyn swiped away the tears that slid down my jaw.

“We can’t go back and do anything different,” I finally said, forcing a long inhale and exhale. “We can get angry, and sad, but none of that will change what happened.”

Madelyn nodded, her bottom lip wobbling.

“But we can be together now,” I said, tilting her chin up.

“How?” she whispered. “You’re about to be a rookie in the NFL, Kyle. I… have a kid, one whoisn’tyours. I have to get away from Marshall. I have to—”

“Fuck all of that,” I said gruffly. “Fuck any excuse your brain is trying to give you right now. You’re a survivor, Mads, and I get it now. I understand why. You’ve had to survive on your own your entire life, and now, you have Sebastian depending on you, too.”

She let out a little sob at that.

“But listen to me,” I added, bending to hold her gaze again. “You don’t have to do this alone. Not anymore. Not ever again. You’remine, Mads. You always have been. I lost you then, but I refuse to lose you now. Whatever you need, I’ll give it to you. Whatever we have to do, we’ll do it — together. No more letting anyone or anything get between us, you hear me?”

She nodded, her arms wrapping around my neck.

“From this moment on, it’s you, and me, and Sebastian. Okay? We will figure it out. We will find a way. But I’ll be fucking damned if I ever let you go again. I’ll lay down my life before I let you walk alone. I’ll walk away from everything else if I have to — Seattle, the team, football, my family — but never you. Do you understand me? Never,everyou, Mads.”

The words were still leaving my lips when she pressed her mouth to mine, and I crushed her to me, one hand in her hair and the other flat against the small of her back. As if neither of us could bear to sit any longer, we were moving, standing, clinging to one another like a lifeline.

I breathed her in, everything that she was, everything that we never had the chance to be.

And I swore on my life right then and there that I’d make it right with her.

I’d make it all right again.

Madelyn deepened our kiss, pulling me to her like even a centimeter of space between us was too much. She climbed into my arms, and I held her waist as she wrapped her legs around me. Every kiss was urgent and needy, every touch burned like the hottest flame.

“Kyle,” she sighed into my mouth, her tongue dancing over mine. “I need you. I need—”

I silenced her request with my mouth, one arm still holding her tight to me as the other weaved into her hair and tugged with just enough pressure to make her gasp and arch her neck for me.

I knew what she needed. What we both needed.

And I was all too eager to lose myself in her forever.

Madelyn

Every kiss Kyle pressed against my skin was intentional and sure, as if he could see all the broken fragments I’d become, and he was hell bent on piecing me back together.

Tears still stained both of our faces as he clutched me to him, and I gasped into his mouth when his hands curled into my hair, tugging with just the right force. My hair was still pinned up from the night, but Kyle’s fingers slid between the bobby pins and gripped what he could find until he became too impatient.

Then, one by one, he plucked each bobby pin from my hair.

“Mine,” he husked against my mouth, and then two pins clattered to the floor. “Always mine, Mads.”

With every pin he pulled, my hair fell more around my face, and when the last one was gone, he massaged my scalp with his massive hands, eliciting a groan from me as I tore at the buttons on his dress shirt.

Where I was in a hurry, Kyle took his sweet time.

He let me strip him out of his dress shirt, allowed me to thumb the top button of his slacks through the slit and slide his zipper down. But he didn’t match my greediness.