My eyes, which were almost shut, snapped open wide and up to his.I couldn’t have heard…He couldn’t mean…
I’ve had years of moments spent with Max. Public moments. Private moments. Sad moments. Happy moments. But no moment ever felt like this. No moment had ever felt both intimate and combustible at the same time, like a seam about to burst.
“Max…” His name wasn’t a sound, but the hum of longing in my chest.
His lips tightened like he was trying to rein them in, trying to keep them from kissing me. But god, all I wanted was for him to kiss me. All I wanted was to taste every promise he’d made me on the edge of his tongue. All I wanted was to give something to the man who gave everything.
“I’m sorry…”
I reached up and grabbed his wrists. “Don’t” was all I could manage. My tongue was too thick to say more, my lungs too clogged with lust.
I didn’t want him to pull away now. I wanted him closer. I wanted those lips on mine. I wanted even more from this man who’d already given me too much.
His muscles tensed as I slid my hands up his arms, his gaze tracking them like they were snakes—predators—and he wasn’t sure if it was safer to shake me off or stay perfectly still. In the end, he didn’t move until my fingers found the side of his face, and his whole body released a shudder.
For a second, I thought the sound I heard was thunder, but it wasn’t. It was the groan that quaked from his chest, the one that sounded an awful lot like restraint breaking under the weight of longing.
“Max,” I whispered, the tip of his nose bumping mine. We were so close now, not even the rain had space to fall between us. Instead, it splattered on my cheeks as I tipped out of the protection of the truck.
All my life, I’d been so focused on protecting myself from everyone who could hurt me or let me down. But not now. I didn’t want to be protected from him.
He would never hurt me.
“Kiss me.” The plea spilled from my parted lips.
“Dammit, Daze,” he groaned. “What are you doing to me?”I had no idea, but it felt like the same thing he was doing to me.My eyes fluttered shut as his head dipped. The warmth of his breath greeted my lips, and he moved his hand on top of my left one, where I held his cheek.
“Shit.”
My eyes flung open. His tone changed.Everythingchanged. The longing in his gaze was now soaked with pain, and instead of kissing me like he’d been about to—like I begged him to—he turned his head away and pressed his lips to my palm, his eyes squeezing shut like the taste of my skin was his very last meal.
“You’re getting soaked,” he said, releasing my hand and stepping away from me. “Let’s get you home.”
My tongue was too thick to protest. Iwasgetting soaked, but it had nothing to do with the rain and everything to do with him.Everything to do with the fact that the barriers that we’d stacked between us for years felt like they’d finally come down. Until he pulled away.
To protect me.
I knew Max, and it was the only reason I could think of as he bundled me back into my seat and carefully closed the door.
How did I convince him that holding back wasn’t protecting me? That he wasn’t taking advantage of me by kissing me?
I’d never felta silence so thick and heavy as the one that filled Max’s truck on the remainder of the drive back to the apartment. It was almost as though…
I turned to him. “Max?—”
“Let’s get inside before it starts up again,” was all he said before he let himself out of the truck, making it to my side just as I slid my feet back into my sandals.
He helped me down, used his jacket over me to protect me from the drizzle, and held the door for me to enter first. It was like he wanted it to be like nothing had changed. Except it had.
He’d almost kissed me.And I’d wanted him to.
“Why did you stop?” I asked quietly when I reached the top of the steps, positioning myself in front of the door so he couldn’t reach it.
Here in the stairwell, he only had two choices: answer my question or turn around and leave.
Max’s jaw tightened. “Daisy?—”
“I wanted you to kiss me, and you didn’t. Tell me why,” I said, lacking all bandwidth to be anything other than demanding.Anything less, and my reservations would be too overpowering. My fears that it wasn’t right or fair or the right time would drown out the one thing I wanted for myself.Him.“The whole truth, Max, or say goodnight.”
