King of Hearts (House of Cards Series 2) [Student/teacher]

Three of Clubs

A/N: Old and familiar faces are going to be coming back into this story. For those of you who remember, Alice and Malcolm's story is winding to an end at this stage, but I promise Maddison and Westley's story won't end until the events at the end of QoS are entirely wrapped up ;) There's going to be a little time jump soon, I'm trying to get this story to the Gala already

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Maddison was bent over, hands on her knees and chest heaving. Her lungs burned, her vision blurred and she felt like throwing up, but Mad had made it back before hte boys had. No one else was responsible for the mad dash she'd just done, Maddison only had herself to blame. Because never once in her brilliant 'I'll follow West' scheme, did she ever remember that he would be coming back and expecting her to be home, waiting for him.

So when she'd seen Romeo distract her Cuban for a moment, Mad had slipped to a different road and started running for home. Not being a part of the dance troupe and taking a week in Mexico had made her soft, her endurance already less than it had been. Still, her fast retreat home had given her enough time to catch her breath, calm down and think of how she wanted to approach this with West.

Everything was planned out. Maddison was going to just pretend she hadn't seen the events of tonight, let West explain it to her in his own words. She didn't want him getting upset that she could have potentially been in danger had things gone differently. Eventually she'd point out to him that she had been there and had been perfectly safe, but not until he'd calmed down more from it. Maddison knew her Cubano well enough to know that this would make his blood boil for a few weeks yet.

Of course, Maddison's plan had revolved around the concept that he hadn't seen her follow him, watch the events or sneak away. The look on West's face when he came in near midnight, let Maddison know real quock that he was pissed off, and it was directly related to her.

"What the hell were you doing there?" West roared the moment he saw her.

Maddison's eyes went wide and she gaped, momentarily stunned speechless. How did he find out? His big hands grabbed her shoulders and gently shook her. Past the anger in his voice she saw the fear in his eyes and Maddison broke free from her anger.

"What the hell were you doing trying to keep that from me?" she demanded back, knocking his hands off her shoulders.

"I was trying to keep you safe!" West argued back.

"I was trying to make sure you were safe!" Maddison shouted back. This time she shoved West's chest a little. Maddison's own anger coming up to chase away her startlement that West was yelling at her. Much to her surprise, West's mood did another 180 and he stopped screaming at her and instead grabbed her, pulled her to his chest and hugged her tightly.

"When I realized you'd been there and we couldn't find you, I thought the Dog's had found a way to grab you." he spoke into her hair, refusing to loosen his grip around her.

Maddison felt a little guilty at the amount of relief in his voice. He had been honestly afraid for her, and she'd been the one to cause that. "How did you even find out I'd followed you?" she asked, letting West hang onto her, knowing her Cubano was reassuring himself that she really was alright.

"You dropped this in your skulking." West's tone sounded less anxious, more amused now. And he held up Maddison's wallet, with picture ID in it and everything. Mad felt the blush burn across her face and down her chest, dropping her wallet really hadn't been all that slick.

"I'm sorry I made you worry." Maddison started to apologize.

West didn't use words to express himself, He tipped Maddison's chin up and kissed her as if he could make her safe with his lips and breath. His grip was still locked around her, and Maddison let her Cubano have control, knowing he needed to recover from his night and his fear. West kissed her and she could almost taste the unshed tears on his lips. Maddison tried to erase the lingering fear dancing through his system, telling him with her lips and tongue that she was alright, they were both safe.