Beautiful Redemption (The Maddox Brothers, #2)

by Jamie McGuire

The bourbon and sweet vermouth tasted like loneliness.

He had threatened to love me forever.

“Where did you transfer from?” he asked. His too-tight black V-neck, manicured cuticles, and perfectly gelled coif betrayed his flirtatious smile.

He glanced in my direction, and in that half second, his hazel-green eyes registered everything about me he wanted to know.

Letting my guard down for a beautiful stranger for an hour was justifiable, especially after a sixth glass. We would flirt, I would forget about any residual guilt, and I would go home. I’d possibly even get a free drink. That was a respectable plan.

his sweat mixing with mine, making our skin feel like we were melting together.

There was something about a new project, a blank page, that gave me a particular enjoyment that nothing else could.

When desperate to leave, any door would do.

My couch was being held hostage, surrounded by cardboard.

the tall back making me feel like I was sitting in a throne—my throne, and this joker was trying to piss in my court.

“Are you going to ask me to leave?” I asked, looking at him over my shoulder. “You mean, tell you to leave?” I shrugged. “Semantics.”

“Okay, but this is really non-intelligence here, Val. Even if it’s atypical, you’re pulling the fire alarm for a candle.” She arched one brow. “I’m telling you, you just knocked over his candle.”

When he looked at me that way, I felt like the only person in the city.

Then, he brought my fingers to his mouth and kissed them. My entire body leaned toward him a fraction of an inch as if by a gravitational pull I couldn’t control. As I watched his lips warm my skin, I felt jealous of my own hands.

“You need to get one thing straight. I am not bossy. I’m the fucking boss.”

“You can love someone without wanting to be with them. Just like you can want to be with someone before you love them.”

Not only did I not hate Thomas, I liked him. Worse than that, he knew it.

don’t let a failed relationship govern your next one.

Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to see you walking around the office in a skirt, knowing you never wear panties?”

Well, the patriarch isn’t going to fuck itself.

She held the corkscrew like a weapon between her fingers, but then she crossed her legs like a lady.

One minute, I was in Jackson’s grasp, and the next, Jackson was in someone else’s.

“That I would have to be careful. I lost someone I loved before, and it changed me. I gave up someone I loved before, and it crushed me. I know that when you leave, Liis, however it goes down…it will end me.”

“Showed up at your place, begging. What a vagina full of sand.”

Since we’d met, I had done nothing but deny my feelings for him while I fought ferociously for my independence. But I was free only when he touched me. Outside of our intimate moments, I would be held captive by thoughts of his hands.

Just a few weeks before, Thomas had said my name as if it were a swear word. Now, when he formed his mouth around it, I melted.

Taylor opened his door and bent down, looking sheepish. “Sorry, Liis.” I shook my head, half-amused and half in disbelief at their banter. It was as if we had fallen down a rabbit hole and landed in a frat house full of drunken toddlers. Suddenly, Eat Me had a whole new meaning.

Someone turned down the music and then switched off the lights. It was pitch-dark, and I was standing alone.

I took one last longing look at the room. This was the site of the beginning of what was to come, whatever that was.

“I didn’t date much in high school, but it’s avoidable. One can analyze behaviors and observe markers that tip off the end of any relationship. It’s not that hard to calculate risk.”

“Feds don’t chase. They hunt.”

watching the sky bruise with pinks and purples.

I stayed behind, watching the dark ocean roll onto the sand, with the sky crying on my shoulders.

“What does that even mean?” Thomas asked. “Speak English!” “I’m speaking English. I just don’t speak drunk,” I said.

“Why do we do this to ourselves?” I asked, mostly to myself. “We’re grown adults. Love makes us so stupid.”

I loved a man who I couldn’t love, who loved someone else but loved me more. Love could kiss my ass.

“I went to KC Barbeque. Thomas was there with a very tall and pretty blonde.” Val pursed her lips. “You’re way better than her. Everyone knows she’s a total skank.” “Do you know her?” I asked. “She is Polanski’s assistant.” “Oh,” Val said. “No, Allie is super sweet, but we’re going to pretend she’s a skank.”

I picked up the other frame and looked at it. It was all five Maddox brothers. I picked up the last one to see his parents.

“I loved her first,” Thomas said. “But you, Liis…you are the last woman I will ever love.”

I stood there, speechless, and then retreated toward the door. “Can I…have my pictures back?” he asked. I realized then that I had left the file on his desk, and instead, I’d walked off with the pictures in my hands. I slowly walked...

Thomas kissed me as if he had needed me for ages, and at the same time, he kissed me good-bye. It was longing and sadness and anger, twisted but controlled, in a sweet soft kiss.

“It can’t be any worse together than it is apart.”

“I don’t just want you, Liis. I need you. That doesn’t go away.”

Thomas loved me. He needed me. Maybe I wasn’t the first woman he’d loved, and maybe the kind of love a Maddox man felt lasted forever, but I needed him, too. I wasn’t the first, but I would be the last. That didn’t make me the second prize. It made me his forever.

It was true. Evil ate people from the inside out.

We’d had to find each other to finally understand that love could not be controlled. Predictions, assumptions, and absolutes were illusions. My love for him was volatile, uncontrollable, and overpowering, but…that was love. Love was real.

“It’s somewhere in the unforeseen when the best, most important moments of our lives seem to happen.”