Page 22 of Thirst Trap

Maddison’s grin softened into something sly. “Maybe I like the risk.”

Remy groaned. “God, you’re insane. You’re mixing your Helmetdaddy_xo thirst with your real-life boss. That’s how girls in crime documentaries end up missing.”

“Oh, honey.” Maddison slid her phone across the table.

A new message glowed from:

@helmetdaddy_xo:

You’ll ruin me if you keep this up.

Maddison smirked. “See? I’m playing both games. And he doesn’t even know it.”

Remy buried her face in her hands. “You’re gonna give me gray hairs.”

***

Across the street, Lucas gripped the steering wheel of his sleek black car until the leather groaned under his hands. Through tinted glass, he watched her. Maddison.

Laughing. Glowing. Untouchable.

Every flick of her hair. Every gleam of her smile. He catalogued it, memorized it, burned it into his skull like scripture.

It was supposed to be routine. One of his men reported she went out after work. He told himself it was just security. Precaution.

But the truth was simpler. Uglier.

He needed her.

“You’re in over your head,” he muttered. But the words had no teeth. Not when she looked like that.

A man leaned too close to her table. Lucas’s jaw locked, vision sharpening like a blade. His hand twitched toward the door handle. He pictured peeling the stranger off her, breaking his wrist, grinding him into the pavement until Maddison’s laugh belonged to no one else.

No one got near her.

Not tonight.

Not ever.

He told himself it wasn't an obsession. That it was controlled. That it was safe. But his phone betrayed him, screen glowing with her texts, her voice notes, her pictures. He scrolled through them like a starving man. Read every word twice.

Zoomed in on her mouth, her hands, even the messy scrawl of her smiley face on the napkin she’d left behind.

He couldn’t stop.

She was under his skin. In his lungs. Poison in his blood.

And when she laughed again, throwing her head back like she was free?

Lucas knew. He was already hers. And if she ever tried to leave.

God help anyone who stood between them.

Chapter 13

The Descent

Maddison wasn’t meant to find this place.