Page 10 of Seduced in Ink

“I’m sorry I lied. No, fuck that. I’m not sorry. I heard what she said to you. It was horrible. I couldn’t just stand there and let her continue.”

“I would’ve stood up for myself.”

“Would you?” Aaron asked and immediately regretted the words.

Madison’s expression fell, tears filling her eyes. But she shook her head and blinked them away. “I’d like to think I would have. We’ll never know for sure. However, that’s not the important thing now. The important thing is that my mother and father think we’re getting married. What the fuck? What am I going to do? When you dump me, they’re going to blame me. How could you do this?”

Aaron rubbed his temples and shook his head. “I wanted to help.”

“You didn’t. You made it worse. Now they’re going to blame me, and they’ll lord this over my head forever. I couldn’t even stand up for myself. I should have. Only I didn’t have the guts to do it.”

“Maybe it’s time that someone stood up for you,” Aaron said, his voice low.

Her eyes widened for a moment. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say next. It didn’t matter, because the door opened, and Maeve and Mark McClard stepped out.

Without thinking, knowing it was probably a mistake, Aaron stepped forward, put a hand on either side of Madison’s face, and lowered his mouth to hers.

She let out a soft breath of exclamation as her eyes widened, but then there was nothing else.

Just her taste on his tongue. It was all he could do to not moan and push her against the railing and beg for more. He plundered her mouth, aching, wanting. She was so small, so deserving of being cherished.

And while he might not be the right person for that, he could pretend for the moment. He could imagine.

“Excuse me,” Maeve said with a pointed cough. “We didn’t realize we’d be interrupting.” Aaron heard the smile in her voice, so he moved away, needing to catch his breath anyway.

“Mother,” Madison said, her lips swollen from his kisses, her breath a little choppy.

He’d done that.

Fuck.

That kiss hadn’t been fake, at least not on his end.

And…hell.

“You’re coming to dinner,” Maeve said into the silence.

Aaron frowned. “Excuse me?

“You’ll be coming to dinner. We need to meet the man my precious daughter will be marrying.”

Aaron heard Madison mutter the wordprecious, and he did his best not to laugh. What the hell was up with this woman? He did not understand this mother-daughter relationship, but he knew that Madison always tried to please her mom, even though he knew the woman didn’t deserve it.

He wasn’t sure Madison understood that, though.

“Dinner?” Aaron said again. “I can do that. What do you say, baby?”

Madison raised a single brow, something that he was never good at. But it looked sexy as hell on her.

He really needed to stop that line of thinking.

“Yes, dinner,” Maeve repeated. “We want to get to know you. After all, you’ll be our son-in-law. Imagine that.” Maeve narrowed her eyes. “Interesting, isn’t it, Madison? That the perfect man just showed up out of nowhere for you, right when we finally found someone that would take you.” Her mother paused. “Very interesting.”

Before Aaron or Madison could say anything in response, both Mark and Maeve left the porch, leaving Aaron and Madison alone.

“Your mother’s a piece of work,” Aaron said softly.

“I know. Yet I still love her. And I have no idea why.”