Page 92 of I’d Be Honored

Hayley held Maddie’s gaze, her expression softening. “The moment I saw you in New York, back when Caitlin and Gemma were still filming Forbidden Love, my heart just… stopped.” An embarrassed smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “A few weeks later, I was with a woman when I called her by the wrong name. I called her your name, Maddie. During sex. Gemma still hasn’t let me live that one down.”

That pulled a chuckle from Maddie. She’d never known Hayley had felt that same spark she had, all those years before.

Her smile faded, and her voice grew quietly serious. “But the thing I regret most? Letting you walk out of that wedding. I should have gone after you—I wanted to—but I froze. Then for weeks, I tried to convince myself it was better this way. Because if I had to lose you one day, the way my dad lost my mom… I wouldn’t survive. So I let you go.” Hayley looked down at the glass in her hands, turning it slowly. “I always thought being alone was the safest way to keep my heart in one piece, but I don’t want to live like that anymore. I don’t want to be afraid.”

“So what do you want, Hayley?” Maddie’s pulse hammered.

Hayley took another long draw of whiskey, then set the glass on the coffee table. Slowly, she rose, moving closer to Maddie and lowering herself onto the carpet in front of her. She knelt between Maddie’s legs, her expression open and vulnerable in a way Maddie had only seen once before.

“I want you, Maddie.”

A tremor shivered up Maddie’s spine. She had imagined hearing those words more times than she cared to admit. But wanting them and trusting them were two very different things. How could she know Hayley wouldn’t run again at the first sign of trouble?

Hayley took Maddie’s hands, threading their fingers together. “I will go back and pack up my apartment tomorrow and move to LA if that’s what I need to do. I mean it. I’ve thought about it. I can start a West Coast branch of Maddox Group.” She squeezed Maddie’s hands in a silent plea. “Before you, my life was… quiet. Sterile. Dark. But then you showed up and filled it with color and light. Because of you, I can see again, feel things again that I’d forgotten I could feel. I don’t want to lose that,” Hayley whispered. “I don’t want to lose you.”

Maddie’s eyes flicked to Hayley’s lips, the sheer weight of the sacrifice finally sinking in. She had never even considered Hayley leaving New York to be an option, let alone for her.

Pulling her hands from Hayley’s grip, Maddie reached up to cup her face. “Then don’t lose me, Hayley Maddox, because I want you too. I want all of you.” She gazed into Hayley's dark eyes, wanting her to feel the truth in every word. “I want your entire heart, every piece of you. Not just the good parts.”

Hayley closed her eyes for a moment, then turned her head just enough to press a kiss to each of Maddie’s palms. “You have it. Every piece of me. I’m in love with you, Madison Crane.”

“Hayley…” Maddie was at a loss for words.

Hayley had just laid her heart out in front of her, bare and exposed, and was now bracing herself in the bitter silence that followed.

When Maddie still didn’t speak, Hayley took a careful breath and continued. “I want a life with you, Maddie, a real life. I want to come home to you at the end of the day and wake up beside you in the morning. I want to watch every season of Summer House with you in my arms, even when you talk through half the episodes. I want to hold your hand on the boardwalk and watch you steal my dessert. However long I have left on this earth, I want to spend it with you.”

A small, hopeful smile broke through as Maddie’s eyes welled. “Will you let me take you on real dates?”

Hayley leaned in closer, brushing away the stray tear slipping down Maddie’s cheek. “Anytime you want.”

Maddie tilted her head down to kiss her tentatively, afraid that Hayley might vanish if she moved too quickly. Hayley’s lips felt warm and familiar—like coming home.

“I can’t believe you’re really here,” Maddie breathed.

Hayley rested her forehead against hers. “And I’m not going anywhere.” She wrapped her arms around Maddie’s waist, pulling her to the edge of the couch. “I will find you in every lifetime, and I will choose you, over and over.”

Maddie kissed her again, this time with desperate certainty. “I swear to God, if you ever let another woman touch you like that again, I will personally tear the world apart.”

Hayley grinned softly. “No one but you will ever lay a finger on me again.”

Maddie’s heart, quiet for so long, leaped back to life now with the simple, undeniable proof in Hayley’s presence.

Hayley slowly rose from where she’d been kneeling, her hands resting on Maddie’s thighs. She brushed a kiss against Maddie’s lips and pulled back with a smile like she had just been handed everything she had ever dreamed of.

She watched as Hayley straightened, her fingers undoing the knotted belt that wrapped around the waist of her jacket. Maddie hadn’t even noticed Hayley was still wearing it. When the long coat fell from her shoulders, Maddie gasped.

Bathed in the soft light of the room, Hayley stood before her entirely bare, a sculpted goddess fully on display. There was nothing—no armor—between Hayley and her. Not a piece of fabric holding the soft swell of her breasts or resting high on her hips, accentuating the V that cut into her figure.

“Jesus.” The word escaped on a single breath. Maddie let her gaze roam over Hayley’s naked body, committing every exposed curve to memory.

“You can do more than look.” Hayley eased forward and placed one knee onto the cushions on either side of Maddie, straddling her thighs. “You can touch.”

Maddie swallowed hard and steadied herself, her hands settling on Hayley’s hips.

She is so goddamn sexy.

“Has anyone ever told you that you kind of look like Megan Fox?” Maddie asked.