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I swallowed. I could still see him opening the door and pulling Trent backward, out onto the pavement. I could still see him crouched over Trent, shaking him, shouting, his hands on Trent’s neck. I could still see Max’s face, so unlike the Max I knew.
That Max was gone. In his place was this man, who simply looked at me like he wanted me. I knew, just like I knew my own name, what it had cost him to come here. What it was still costing him.
Maybe I should have been angry at him. Or afraid of him. But I looked at him and realized I just loved him instead.
“Come in,” I said, stepping aside.
He closed the door softly behind him. “How are you?” he asked, his voice rough.
I shrugged and gave him the truth, tired of using the word fine. “My stomach hurts,” I said. “It’ll bruise, and then it’ll heal. I cried once, when my mother called me. I didn’t throw up. I can’t sleep.”
He ran a hand through his hair, mussing it further, and sighed. “Fuck, Gwen, I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” I crossed my arms over my chest and looked at him. “For which thing, Max? For kicking Trent’s ass when he abducted me? Or for getting me out of
the stupid situation I’d gotten myself into in the first place?”
“Gwen.” He shook his head. “This was my fault, and you know it.”
“It’s Trent’s fault,” I said. Just the thought of Trent’s pasty face made me wish I could hit it, even though I knew he was in deep shit right now. “He made his choices. So did I when I decided to work for him, to keep working for him. Because I was too blind to see what the job was doing to me.”
That made him frown for the first time. “Maybe. But that doesn’t change the fact that since you met me, I’ve managed to screw everything up for you.”
“What are you saying, Max?” I said. “Are you saying that we should never have met? Is that it?”
He looked at the ceiling, like he did when he was choosing his words. “In the overall scheme of things, it probably would have been best,” he said. “But there’s nothing that can be done about it now. I’ve already fucked up your life.”
God, I was crazy about him. I wanted to smack him and yell at him and kiss him and climb him like a tree. No one made me insane like Max did. “So why are you here, then?” I managed to say. “If we shouldn’t be happening at all?”
“Because I don’t care,” he replied. He came toward me, and I could see in his gait that his leg was bothering him. I wasn’t about to demean what I’d just been through, but he’d lived through a fucking explosion. This man was the definition of courage.
He put his hands gently on my face and looked down at me, his thumbs on my cheeks. “I don’t care,” he said again. “I’m messed up, and I’m pissy half the time, and I’m not even whole. I’m bad for you. I’m the very worst. And I’m still not leaving.”
“Good,” I said, fighting back the emotion in my voice. “Don’t you dare.”
His face was stark with pain and want. “I’m wrecking your life,” he warned me again.
I put my hands over his. “It needed wrecking, you dope.”
“And you’ve sort of wrecked mine.”
“I think you’ll live.”
He kissed me, slow and sweet and tender, and it was exactly what I wanted. It was sexy, but there was no rush; for the first time, we took our time.
Still, I dropped my robe and pulled him on to the bed. I tossed away my top while he pulled off my shorts. He trailed his fingers lightly over my tender stomach, the touch feather-light, as he looked at it closely. Then he moved down, lifted one of my legs, and kissed the skin on the inside of my knee, his beard scratching me. His hand massaged my calf while kissed his way up the inside of my thigh, stopping just high enough, and then he switched to the other leg and did the same.
I relaxed into the pillows. I wanted him—I always wanted him—but I also wanted to be touched. After the day I’d had, I wanted him to touch me with kindness, with tenderness, with care. And somehow, like he always did, he knew exactly what I wanted.
He paused to unzip his sweatshirt and toss it off, then he picked up my leg again, his muscles moving beneath his t-shirt.
“Max?” I said, watching him.
He made a noise against my skin.
“What you did today was badass.”
He stopped kissing me to shake his head. “You’re bloodthirsty.”
