Pushing out the strain, I tossed the rag I’d been using into the sink. “Better get them into bed.” I popped up and kissed her on the cheek. “Thanks, Mama. Tonight was really hard, and you doing all of this means the world.”
“Well, your daddy sure didn’t make it any easier.”
A soft smile pulled at one side of my mouth. “He’s just bein’ protective. I kinda like it.”
Mama chuckled. “Older he gets, the ornerier he gets.”
“Boys love him to pieces.”
Mama sobered, angled her attention to where Maxon was now reading the boys a story, both of them piled on him. “Just who are you talkin’ about?”
Ignoring the implication, I forced myself to walk that way, my heart rate kicking with each step. His presence gettin’ bolder the closer I got.
“Bedtime,” I whispered quietly, somehow not wanting to break up the tranquility.
“Ahh, do we have to?” Dillon complained.
“Yes, you do. We have a big day tomorrow. Benjamin has his first therapy appointment. It’s gonna take a lot out of him.”
Even though I knew he tried to hide it, Benjamin cringed, fear taking hold of those blue eyes that told their own kind of story. One of courage and determination and a life filled with pain.
The kid my hero.
When he turned his face away, I knelt down in front of him. He was sitting right up next to Maxon, and my pulse tripped.
Jumped at the proximity.
I tipped my son’s chin toward me. “Hey, brave boy. I know you’re nervous for tomorrow, but you are going to do great. More than great. You’re gonna blow them away. And just think of all the things you’re gonna achieve there. You are amazin’. Absolutely amazin’.”
Grief panged at my ribs when his crooked mouth twisted with a smile of timidity, this child never wanting to make me worry about him.
“It’s okkkay,” my sweet son promised in his fearless way.
I could feel the anxiety and questions coming off of Maxon, the way he stiffened as he angled the full weight of his attention on Benjamin.
He looked at him as if he were a stranger.
As if he’d known him forever.
As if he got it and didn’t have the first clue of what to do about it.
He glanced at me, gutted, at a loss.
Maxon slowly shifted and climbed onto his knees, and carefully he edged all the way in and wrapped his arms around Benjamin.
He hugged him close.
Pressed his nose into his hair.
Inhaled him as if he were meeting him for the first time.
Benjamin didn’t reject him or hesitate. He wrapped his scrawny arms around that fierce, strong neck, and hugged him back.
Emotion raced my throat, thick and sticky, and my hands started trembling, unsure of what to do as I knelt there on the floor as he hugged the child that I’d fought for. The child who’d caused me so much pain and so much relief.
A thousand sleepless nights and a whole, beating heart.
Maxon stood the rest of the way up and helped Benjamin adjust his forearm crutches, the man standing next to him as if he were meant to be his protector. As if he were the one fighting for him, too.
I was a fumbling mess when I climbed to my feet and swung Dillon into my arms in the hope that this whole thing might seem halfway normal.
Who was I kidding?
There was no chance of that.
Not when Dillon was uncharacteristically quiet as we started out of the kitchen.
I caught my mama’s eye as we went, her expression wistful.
Maxon followed right behind, his hand on Benjamin’s shoulder, standing guard over him the whole way up the stairs.
“Brush your teeth.”
I set Dillon down at the bathroom door. Benjamin sent me a confused, heartbreaking glance when he passed.
The child sensing the disorder.
The reality that our lives were coming up on a change.
A big, big change.
They brushed their teeth and got ready for bed, and Maxon followed us around as if he wanted to be a part of the process but had no idea how he fit.
The man lurked in the shadows.
Watching.
Too intent.
So much for him being nothing more than a friend who had come over for dinner.
The whole time, I struggled not to break down. Not to drop to my knees and cry with the weight of it all. To issue up a thousand prayers that I wasn’t makin’ a horrible mistake.
That I wasn’t putting my children in the line of fire.
Leaving their hearts unguarded.
Benjamin climbed onto his bed across the room, and I scooted Dillon toward his on the opposite wall. He scampered up. “Here we go,” I said, dragging his covers to his chin and pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Goodnight. No more troublemaking for tonight,” I whispered softly.
He grinned a sleepy smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll save some for tomorrow.”
“I’m sure you will.”
I pushed to standing, crossed the room, kissed the top of Benjamin’s head, brushed my thumb over his cheek.
“Goodnight, brave boy.”
Shyness bled into his cheeks. “Night, Mmmmom.”
I turned, unprepared to take in the sight of Maxon standing in the doorway. So gorgeous. Stunning. Completely broken down.
Our eyes met in a tangle of questions, and I slowly stepped back and gave him the permission he clearly was seeking.
He edged in, big body taking up the space, filling it full. I gulped around the force of it, shivers raking my flesh.
He inched by, and he made his way over to Dillon. He towered over his bed. Tension curled through the muscles on his arms.
Cautiously, he leaned down and ran a hand over the top of Dillon’s head, pressing a kiss to the same spot on his forehead where my lips just had been. “Good night, Lil’ Dill. Thanks for letting me hang out with you tonight. It was the best night I’ve had in a long, long time.”
His voice was grit. Rough and choppy. Overflowing with all the things he couldn’t say.
“Will you come again?” Dillon asked.
“I hope so.”
“Tomorrow?”
A soft smile tugged at one side of Maxon’s mouth, that dimple peeking out for a beat because I just needed one more thing to make me weak. “I’m not sure about that, but I’ll talk to your mom and see what I can do. How’s that sound?”
“Deal,” Dillon said, sticking out his hand. Maxon shook it, then he brought it to his mouth and pressed a kiss to his palm.
Oh, my stupid heart.
My stupid, wayward heart that was beating wild. Getting way out there where it shouldn’t be.
It only got worse when he straightened, and he moved with slow, measured steps over to Benjamin who was sitting up on his bed.
His gangly legs hugged to his chest, his body thin and his teeth as crooked as his grin.
Maxon sank down onto his knees in front of him and reached out and took him by both shoulders.
Emotion crashed.
I wasn’t sure I was gonna make it.
“I’m going to be thinking about you all day tomorrow. I know you’re scared to start something new, but you have this. I know you do.”
Benjamin’s brow furrowed in a sweet, curious way. “But you dddon’t even know me.”
No doubt, my smart boy knew this wasn’t a random encounter. That all of this meant something, even though none of us had any idea where it was going to lead.
He could feel the currents. A riptide. The crosswinds coming in from the opposite direction.
“I don’t have to have met you before to know you, Benjamin. I can feel you. I can see you. You are brave and strong.”
“Likkke you?”
Maxon winced, and those hands tightened. “Braver. Much, much braver.”
This man was going to wreck me. Wreck it all.
I cleared the sob I could feel working its way to my thr
oat and forced out the words, “All right, lights out. It’s going to be a really long day tomorrow.”
Maxon waited for me to head for the door, and his gaze swept the room as if he were making one last pass. Ensuring its safety.
Sheer, unmitigated protection in his stance.
I got to the doorway, and he seemed to have to pry himself from that spot.
“Goodnight,” he said at the door, his gaze shifting between the boys, hesitating before he flipped off the light switch.
Reaching around him, I pulled the door almost all the way closed.
I shifted back around, and Maxon was right there.
Stealing the air.
Filling it.
Oxygen.
The man a lifeforce that I’d always believed would sustain.
I dropped my attention before I got lost there. “It’s late.”
“Yeah. I should go so you can get some rest, too.” He didn’t necessarily seem all that enthused by the prospect.
I started down the stairway, my hand on the railing to keep me from stumblin’ beneath the pressure. But that pressure only increased, Maxon right there, two feet behind.
His breath on my neck.
His presence on my soul.
I swore every single one of his steps sent a vibration scattering beneath our feet, a tremor along the floor.
Downstairs, it was quiet, most of the lights turned out except for the bare glow beneath the kitchen door. My daddy had retired at least two hours before, claiming he was wiped, but I was pretty sure he just couldn’t tolerate the tension any more.
Couldn’t blame him a bit.
I was in the exact same boat.
A prisoner to the tension that just grew and grew.
Maxon said nothing. But I could feel it. A thousand words. A million confessions. Insurmountable regrets that I wasn’t sure either of us could topple.
I opened the door to the surging, summer night.
Humidity clung to the darkness, the threads of it almost visible where it whooshed through the trees.
I stepped out onto the porch, and Maxon followed, and I could feel the heaves of his chest.
Distress and misery.
Slowly, I turned around. I kinda wished I hadn’t. I was struck by the expression on his face that was illuminated by the porch lamp hanging next to the door.
Agony was etched into every line. “Does it hurt?”
I blinked, caught off guard, not even sure how to answer considering everything did.
“Benjamin,” he clarified, taking a step forward.
His aura was overwhelming. Pure inundation.
The woods and the sea. Power and sex.
It was enough to make my head spin.
“When he goes to therapy? Is that why he’s scared? Because it hurts?”
I barely nodded when I realized what he was asking. “Yes. Some sessions more than others. And he knows this study is going to be gruelin’. They already prepared us for that. It’s going to require all that he has.”
Maxon surged forward, closing in, and I froze, completely trapped by the fierce gaze of the dragon that had awoken. The man volatile. Close to unhinged. “I want to be there for him. I need to be.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. You’re movin’ fast,” I stammered.
In a flash, he had me pinned to the wall, the man a barely-contained fire.
“Moving fast?” His voice was incredulous. “I missed twelve goddamn years, Izzy.”
I gulped, trying to see through the nearness. Through the haze of attraction. Through the force of who he was to what I was supposed to be fighting for. I found the will to look up into that fierce, destructive beauty.
“He doesn’t know you, Maxon. He needs time to adjust. And so do you. You’ve got to be sure you’re ready for this.”
A groan pulled out of him, something guttural, something raw. He pressed both of his fists to the wall above either side of my head. The man writhed in physical pain. “I can’t stand the idea of him hurting, Izzy. I can’t. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
His words were razors, cutting him deep.
Old, old love leached from my spirit, flooding my bloodstream. I tried to convince myself not to do it, but there wasn’t a thing I could do to resist.
Nothing I could do to stop that overwhelming feeling from taking hold.
My dragon.
My dragon.
My hand was shaking when I reached up and traced my fingertips along his sharp jaw and down over his chest to his pounding, shattered heart. “It’s not the same as what that man did to you. Not at all.”
Maxon’s eyes slammed shut, misery twisting him in two. “I should have protected him against anything bad happening to him. I swore, that if I ever had a kid, he or she would never go through what I did. And then I promised myself I’d never have one because I couldn’t take that risk.”
“He’s not,” I croaked through the promise. “He might be in pain, but he’s got love. So much of it.”
“I had it, too, Izzy Baby. I had it, too. But I had to let it go.” He dropped his forehead to mine, and I was sucking down his ragged breaths, breathing his pain, wishing there was a way for me to bear some of it.
But the man was bleeding from the wounds that I’d never had the power to heal.
His head rocked back and forth, his body shaking, shoulders pumping up and down.
“Izzy,” he murmured, so low, my name a needy groan.
“Maxon.” I shouldn’t have said it because it came out sounding like a plea.
“Little Bird,” he whispered, his lips featherlight where he painted the words along the length of my jaw.
A gasp left me on a breath as a riot of sensation erupted. Tingles streaked, gooseflesh rising in an undulating wave.
“So pretty,” he mumbled.
He exhaled a breath that became mine.
Our noses brushed.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
Oh, God, what was he doin’?
Flames flickered beneath the bare caress. The man my fire, my cold body begging to come alive under his scorching touch.
I whimpered, sagging against the wall when he stroked his hands down my sides and slipped them under my dress, palms riding up the outside of my thighs.
Better question was what I was doing. But there was no reason. No sanity in the middle of this.
No logic where heartbreak and hope met.
“You are so fucking sexy.” His confession was a growl. Deep and dark. “Do you have any idea what it was like sitting across from you all night? What it was like waking up with you asleep in my chair? Like staring at the sun, knowing you’ll go blind if you look for too long, and knowing taking in that beauty for even a second would be worth it.”
He nudged forward, erasing the space between us, and his hands spread wider.
Desire raced. A flashflood of need that shivered across my flesh.
His mouth traced the shell of my ear. “Want to stare at you forever. Get lost. Take you. Possess you. How’s it possible you’re here, Little Bird? You came back to me. Feel like I’m dreaming.”
“It was you who didn’t want me.”
His hands tightened on my thighs, tugging me forward against his hard body, eyes pinned on me. “There’s never been a single day in my life when I didn’t want you. We are endless.”
That was the last thing I heard before his mouth crushed against mine. All senses failing except for the one that registered that Maxon Chambers was kissing me.
It was a reckoning.
Lightning.
A crack of thunder in the air.
I moaned a low sound of pleasure, a groan of pain.
His kiss was fevered.
A demand.
Push. Pull. Take. Give.
A promise.
An apology.
Sensation rushed my body.
This old love trying to bust free.
To climb out.
Reach for him.
Endless. Endless.
I whimpered.
“Izzy,” he raked at my mouth, his hot tongue stroking out in search of mine.
There was nothing I could do. Nothing but open to him. Our tongues met in a dance of greed.
Desperate in their play.
As desperate as our hands that began to fumble and grasp. Both of us searching for what might have been.
His hand fisted in my hair, tugging as he kissed over my jaw and down my throat.
A fever pitch.
Our bodies ignited, grappling and groaning and begging to get closer.
He licked down to kiss at the flesh that my dress exposed above my breast, and then he was palming it over the fabric, thumb tracing circles over my nipple that immediately puckered into a hard peak.
It’d been so long since I’d been touched this way. So long, and it felt so good, so right.
Urgency burned in my blood, reaching a boiling point, and I let my hands slide over his wide shoulders.
Holding on.
Fingers digging in to beg for more.
I was losing control.
This moment that was spinning out of our grasps and given to something bigger.
Sweeping me from my feet, he hiked me up and pressed me against the wall, winding that big body between my thighs.
Second nature.
The skirt of my dress bunched around my waist, and I was gasping, making all these sounds that I didn’t recognize as he rubbed against me, his hand on my breast, his fist on my soul.
He dove back into my mouth, and in the same beat, both of his hands moved to my bottom.
The man took two handfuls of bare flesh.
A spike of pleasure tore through the middle of me, and I jerked and arched, and he was pressing himself to me, the hot, hard length of him seeking my surrender. “Nothing has ever felt as good as you. Nothing. Want to get lost here, Izzy. In this body and this sweet, sweet heart.”
Oh, was that heart speeding, sprinting out ahead, and I was lettin’ him wrap an arm around my waist, the other hand slipping around the front and nudging my panties aside, fingers sliding through the throbbing flesh.
“So wet,” he groaned, and I was trying to get closer, welcoming the intrusion when he pressed two big fingers inside my body, and I had the craziest thought that I wished it was his cock that was pushing inside of me instead.
Good judgment demolished.
He drove his fingers deeper, the man groaning as he devoured my mouth.
Pieces of Us: A Confessions of the Heart Stand-Alone Novel Page 19
