“Quiet,” I murmured, and miracle of miracles, he obeyed me and kept his trap shut as I carefully took us along the slushy, icy streets. The trip out of the city lasted about forty minutes longer than it usually did, and with a silent Maxwell in the seat beside me, it felt like five years.
He fidgeted.
He stared at me.
He bit his lush bottom lip and I had to fight to keep my eyes on the road. The snow made everything brighter at night with reflected light, so I could see him clearer than usual while we were still in the city. Once we got onto the two-lane highway on the outskirts that led to the country lane to my house, the road was more ice along with the snow, and it was darker in the Land Rover.
All those things combined made it easier not to wreck us into a ditch, because I couldn’t sneak sly looks at him, and I let out a sigh of relief as I eased the Rover into my driveway. Tension built in the air again as we came to a stop, and I hit the button for the garage door. Three eternities passed while we waited for groaning old metal to make its slow ascent and allow me to park out of the elements.
“This is where you live?” Kalinski asked, a mostly friendly tinge of surprise in his voice.
Glancing up, I smiled at the drafty old Victorian decked in live green wreaths under each window with electric candles burning on the sill above them. I’d had Dubois Manor’s exterior painted this summer, and it looked absolutely picturesque with white snow drifting down in front of the windows. The redder-than-holly-berries trim popped against the gloom. I couldn’t wait to get inside. This house was built for nights like tonight.
“Yes, and it will be cold until we get in there and start the fireplaces and crank up the heat. I keep it just above freezing the pipes while I’m at work. The bedrooms each have fireplaces, too, and I’ll help you start one in yours.”
He whimpered, like maybe that much work for heat was too overwhelming for him, and I had to wonder what was going through his head. Had I become the boogeyman of some Gothic fairytale in his imagination? I licked my lips. Was I a bad man in his story? I glanced at him as the garage door creaked up the final few inches. How bad could I stand to be in real life?
God, did he even want a man?
Once the car was parked, I turned to look at him as I unbuckled, and decided whatever evil I might like to inflict upon his body, and whatever sounds I might like to hear from him, none of it mattered. His head tilted back, and his eyelids drifted closed. I’d never seen anyone who screamed exhaustion quite the way he did. I got out, and he fumbled with his door and nearly hanged himself when he tried to step out without unbuckling. I narrowed my eyes and slammed my own door shut. I had his suits and bag in hand before he managed to step foot on solid ground. He shuffled, shy and uncertain, beside me and held out his hands.
“Just get the door,” I said testily. I wasn’t actually angry with him, but it was habit at this point to be mean to him, to mold my every response to be biting.
He flinched.
Why had he stayed at city hall so long with me acting like this? Why hadn’t he run away? It made no sense. “Maxwell, be a good boy and open the door for me,” I said, forcing myself to sweeten my tone, but then I wanted to smack my head off the side of the SUV. I needed to stop calling him boy.
He complied fairly quickly when I smiled at him, though he still looked half-asleep, maybe lulled that way by the ride and the heat in the Rover. I was the opposite after fighting to keep on the road, with adrenaline rattling around in my blood. The door between the garage and house was modern and new, but once we stepped through into the hallway, with antique molding along the floorboards, it became apparent I’d attempted to keep as much of the old as I could.
I kicked off my shoes and removed my coat and gloves, and he did the same before following me into the slightly warmer kitchen. The stove was a massive eight-burner stainless steel beauty; however, the rest of the kitchen, even the fridge, blended with the old-world woodwork. The island in the middle was my addition, but I’d done it in the original style with a chef’s-block top. The Crock-Pot simmering away on the counter stood out like a sore thumb. I didn’t even own a microwave because I hated to ruin the ambiance.
“Smells good,” he murmured hopefully, and I had to agree. The heavy, delicious scent of fatty beef bouillon wafted on the air and had my stomach growling.
“It does. I put it on this morning.”
“All the Christmas decorations,” he said, brightening up. There was garland strung around the top of all the cupboards, which gave a hint of pine to the room, and other decorations hung on the cupboards themselves, such as wooden holiday cutouts. “You did that?”
“My aunt Josette’s doing. She probably loves this place even more than I do and stops by once a week to direct the cleaners who come. It’s just too big and too much work for any one person to manage keeping this place dust free. She’s been adding holiday decorations since October. I’d stop her, but I have a massive attic, so there’s plenty of storage space for her insanity.”
He chuckled, and my heart pattered faster. I ignored it. “You sound like you enjoy the holidays, too.”
The beginnings of a smile was on my lips before I remembered I shouldn’t get too friendly with him. A shiver wracked his slim frame, so I draped his suits over a stool at the island, dropped his bag, and then went out into the hallway beyond the kitchen that linked most of the rooms downstairs. Silver-and-black-striped wallpaper gleamed as I flipped on the overhead lights and turned the thermostat up to 68 degrees—warmer than I would have if I was home alone. I sighed as the air kicked on. The mortgage on this home was a steal because no one who could afford it seemed to want to live this far from the city; the real killer was the utilities. But still, I didn’t like the idea of havinghimbe cold.
My heart squeezed. Part of me wanted to interrogate him, to find out what the hell was going wrong with the parts of his life that weren’t in the office—the rest of me didn’t want to know what his problem was because I couldn’t afford to start having sympathy for the traitorous little bastard.
But was he really a dangerous enemy? I went to lean in the kitchen archway and watched him stand, arms crossed over his stomach, staring at his feet. He hadn’t even been here for ten minutes and he looked terrified, though I didn’t think it was of me. Or had I put that expression on his face?
My heart twisted and I swore loudly.
He snapped his head up. “What did I do?”
Something unpleasant settled over me as I saw yet more evidence in him of some deep negative conditioning. It had been a while since I had anyone of my own. I liked immersive play, liked taking care of another person, and I needed to have complete control over my partner’s life, not only in the bedroom, to feel satisfied. Very few people were willing to hand over that amount of control to someone, and as such, I’d been alone for a few years. But I watched Maxwell wind himself up with no help from me, and there was an insidious familiarity to it.
How moldable was he? It was almost too easy to train responses into a person, and someone had done a real number on him. I’d noted suspect reactions in him before, along with his ever present anger, but there was nothing in my kitchen that would make him immediately fire back with self-defense, no situation pressed in on him at the moment to make him rely on fight-or-flight reactions.
Yes, Maxwell Kalinski had messed-up situational responses, and in someone I liked I might suspect abuse of some sort.
Good thing I didn’t like him.
