“Hop on down before you fall, Fea.” Max pats my arm.
“You wouldn’t let me fall.”
“True. But do it anyway.”
Should I? It seems like a ploy so he can make his escape. “Only if you promise not to kill the boy.”
“Fea.”
“Promise me, and I’ll get down.” That’s totally the reason and not that my tummy is filling with butterflies from holding on to Max.
“I promise that I won’t kill him today.”
“Ever.”
“I can’t promise you that, and I won’t ever lie to you.”
Close enough. All it takes is for me to relax my legs a little bit, and I slide down his body until my feet hit the ground.
Max twists around in the blink of an eye and wraps an arm around my waist. My back touches the brick wall that was a few feet away moments ago. “Never do that again. Never try to stop me when I get that out-of-control mad.”
“You weren’t out of control.” Or at least not that out of control. “You wouldn’t ever hurt me.”
His hand cups my cheek, and his thumb runs along my jaw. “Never. And where did you get the silly thought that I won’t touch you?”
Shivers run down my neck straight to my heart. “You won’t.”
“You’ve got that so wrong,tesoro mio. I plan on touching you as often as I possibly can. If possible, I would never let you go.”
Oh.
Oh.
Oh.
“You don’t have a response to that, do you?”
There isn’t one. “We should talk about Hope.”
“That is the last thing I want to talk about at the moment. If I can’t kill him, I don’t want to think about him.”
“She’s a teenage girl. What did you think was going to happen?”
“That I was going to lock her up until she turned eighty and kill any boy that looked at her.”
I laugh. “Weren’t you married at sixteen?”
He growls. “And what’s your point?”
“You have one chance to keep this spectacular relationship with your daughter. Losing it because you flip out over a respectful boy doesn’t seem like a good choice.”
Max leans in until our noses are almost touching. “Are you always going to protect her and take her side?”
“This is me taking your side. You’re the man every little girl wants as her father.” He’s a man any woman would want in her life. A blush steals up my face.
“It seems to me that it’s time for us to finish that conversation we started in your apartment.”
I don’t wanna.
