Page 110 of Glutton for Punishment

A small smile breaks through.

“I want to be with you too.” The words barely leave me before I melt into him.

He catches me, arms wrapping around me like he has been waiting for permission to touch me again. I bury my face against his chest and breathe him in, feeling some knot inside me finally loosen after weeks of distance.

He presses his lips to the top of my head.

“I hate that you’re leaving with that asshat,” he mutters into my hair. “But at least you’ll have your other bond there to protect you if I can’t.”

Guilt stirs in my stomach, but I am not touching the bond conversation right now. Instead, I lean back enough to look at him.

“So...” I say carefully. “Your anger at Atticus…”

His expression darkens.

“It’s because he and Paris had a relationship?”

He groans and drags a hand down his face. “Something like that.”

That is not the response of a man who wants to elaborate.

I narrow my eyes. “Maddox… you don’t seem like the type to throw a fit over a friend getting a girlfriend.”

He huffs. “It’s not like that.”

He leans back against the headboard, looking annoyed that this conversation is happening.

“Don’t you think it’s time to let that grudge go?” I add, hoping I can repair the relationship between my two bonds.

His jaw tightens. “It’s not that simple,” he says. He doesn’t look at me when he speaks again.

“Paris… she’s not the worst of them,” he starts. “But she wants our father's approval. Same as the rest of us did.”

He pauses. “You know our fathers are close from their Council alliance. So Atticus and I grew up together. Same age. Same rooms, half the time. Same bullshit that came with the name.” His mouth tightens at the corner. “We were close. For a long time.”

His voice goes quiet. “I trusted him. With everything.”

Maddox drags a hand through his hair.

“I found a way to reach my mom after a ton of digging,” he says. “Burner phone. Took me a while to track down a number that worked.” He says it plainly, but his hands have gone still in mine.

“I was ten when they took me. Hadn’t heard her voice in years. I didn’t tell anyone. Just called her when I could. Late, when everyone was asleep. It was enough, for a while. Hearing her voice was enough.”

He pauses again.

“After a while, I wanted to see her. To escape and go to her. I told Atticus.”

My throat goes dry.

“Only him,” he adds, more firmly.

“I saw him less after he started seeing Paris,” he continues. “But I didn’t think much of it. We were teenagers. I thought it was normal.”

His gaze finally lifts, but it doesn’t meet mine. It goes somewhere past me, like he’s watching a memory.

“Then one day, my phone just stopped working. I got a disconnected message. Tried over and over again. Nothing worked.”

He removes his hand from mine and crosses his arms.