“Daisy.”The rough shreds of my name stretched their ragged fingers through the opening and wrapped around my throat.
Max had heard me. He knew I was here.
Chapter 18
Daisy
Oh no. My heart thundered in my chest, the beats pounding regret into my veins.Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.
Max had heard me come in, which meant I couldn’t turn around now and leave.Oh my god, Daisy. What were you thinking?The heat of embarrassment suffocated my senses. If I didn’t answer him, he’d think something was wrong, so I had to say something. My feet carried me to the bathroom door, instructing myself,Just apologize and tell him you’ll talk to him when he’s done.
Just apologize and leave.
“Max—”
“Fuck.”The pained curse derailed my words—derailed my thoughts—derailed me.
Not only did syllables collide in my throat, but for a split second, I forgot about the extra inches ofbaby bellysticking out my front. I moved too close, and my stomach bumped into the door, sending it swinging open.
“Oh no!” I scrambled to catch it. “I’m so sorry, Max. I?—”
One single step into the bathroom was plenty far enough to reach the knob to pull the door closed again. Except when I reached for it, I saw him.
Max’s muscled shoulders cowed against the warm spray beating his back. His one hand was splayed, his long fingers flat to the shower wall at his side. The other flexed tight around his cock.
He stopped mid-pump, his ruddy flesh bulging from his grip, and his head lifted to me.
That gaze…it might as well have been the barrel of a gun I stared down the way Max had me in his sights.
Water dripped from the dark ends of his hair onto the angles of his face, making all of him glisten. I’d always thought he’d looked fit before, but he dressed well, and sometimes, clothing concealed the details of what was underneath. Now, I saw every delicious detail right down to the devastating size of his cock.Good lord, how were there not women lined up around the block to spend a night with him?
“What are you doing here, Daisy?” Max forced the question through locked teeth, maintaining a surprising veneer of calm.
Like I hadn’t walked in on him jacking off.
Like I hadn’t walked in on him jacking off and thinking of me.
The thought hit me like an avalanche.Daisy.He’d said my name. Not because he’d heard me come into his room, but because he was fantasizing about me. Because he was masturbating to the thought of me.
My core clenched, flooding the lower part of me with the ache I thought I’d stifled earlier. It wasn’t that I didn’t know he desired me. I knew. But there was a difference between knowing it and having a front-row seat to the show.
“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—I should go,” I stammered, surprised by the fresh husk to my voice. Surprised even more when I didn’t move, when I didn’t even budge.
Somehow, I stayed rooted right to that spot, my eyes roaming over his well-proportioned body where the water jittered on the surface of his skin like the whole of him was electrified.
“Daisy,” Max growled, a hard exhale blowing droplets of water from his lips.
My eyes snapped to his, finding a different glint in them than I’d ever seen before. Something wicked. Something predatory. He dropped his hand from the wall and straightened, but instead of dropping his other hand from…that, Max instead started to roll his wrist again. His forearm flexed, water coursing through the valleys cut between muscles and veins, and he pumped his cock at a leisurely pace.Daring me to keep watching.
I tried to swallow but couldn’t, my throat like a valve sealed tight. I tried to look away but couldn’t. He was so beautiful. So perfect.So hot.
“I should go,” I repeated, like it would spur my legs to move.It didn’t.
“Then go,” Max dared me out loud, his jaw pulsing with a hard beat like he might just lunge out of the shower and make me stay if I didn’t run.
My heart thrashed in my chest, wild and wanton. I said I was going to leave. He told me to. And all I did was stand there, eyes wide and mouth parted, like I was on some kind of life support, staring at him.
What do you want? What can I do?His questions and my own chose that moment to haunt me. To hit me at my weakest when there was nothing I could do except admit that I didn’t really want to leave. I wanted to stay.I wanted to watch him.
