by J. M. Madden
Cupping his rough chin in her hand, she made him focus on her. “Max, how long have you been taking all these pills?”
Shrugging, he frowned. “Not sure. A while. They help with the dreams.”
And created new ones. One of the most powerful pills in the box had a well-documented history of inducing hallucinations.
The spiders.
Knot in her throat, she urged him up off the toilet. The towel fell at his feet, but they didn’t pay it any attention. Lacey walked the big man to the bed and knew that she was going to have to get involved. She snorted to herself. Like she wasn’t already.
Max sighed as he flopped into the bed, burrowing his head into the pillow. Lacey tugged the light blanket over his lax form, taking the barest moment to brush her hand over his granite hard shoulder. Feeling bold, she pulled the corner away again to look at the tattoo. A stylized eagle screamed down his back, talons out, clutching a three-pronged trident. Navy SEAL. She should have known.
Lacey pulled the blanket back over his shoulder.
Chapter Four
‡
Max woke warm and content, as well as surprisingly at ease. What was up with that? The first time he shifted in the bed though, he had to groan. What the fuck did I do this time?
Flipping the blanket away, he sat up enough to look down his legs. Bright white bandages covered the outside of his right thigh and the inside of his right arm. As he held it up to look, he caught sight of the sheet beneath his bare ass. Confusion swamped him. When did he get blue sheets?
Swinging his legs to the side, he planted his big feet and looked around. The window was dark beyond the blinds, but he had no sense of ‘when’. Must be evening. Pushing to his feet aching in places he didn’t remember hurting he padded to the bathroom. It was as he was taking a leak when he realized something was off. Looking around, his gaze fell to the counter.
What had he done with his piece?
He finished his business and went into the bedroom, searching the bedside table. Not there. Bureau top. Empty, as always. More than concerned now, he headed for the living room.
And stopped dead.
A woman was curled up in his brown leather recliner, sound asleep.
If she hadn’t been in his brown leather recliner, he’d have been worried he’d walked into the wrong apartment again.
He eased around a few feet to get a better look at her face. Recognition teased at his brain, but he couldn’t say exactly where he had seen her before. There were a lot of people that lived in the apartment complex; maybe she was one of them.
But as he continued to survey her delicate features, the fine dark brows arched prettily over her even features, he felt like he knew the taste of her very kissable dark pink lips. Which was ridiculous, right?
As his eyes traced down her curvy shape, it was obvious she had no bra on beneath that thin t-shirt. He wondered what she would do if she woke up with a naked man standing over her. As he looked down at himself, he smirked. Make that an aroused, naked man.
As if she’d heard his thoughts, her bright-blue eyes fluttered open.
Then widened with shock.
Max tried to hide himself, but it was difficult when he was erect.
A hectic flush of color darkened her cheeks and for a moment he felt bad for embarrassing her. Then he remembered this was his apartment.
“Mind if I ask what you’re doing here?”
She blinked at him sleepily and straightened in the recliner. “No, sorry, I fell asleep. You were having some problems earlier, so I helped you out.”
Max scowled. “What kind of problems?”
Brows raised in surprise, she motioned to the bandages on his leg. “I believe you wrecked your motorcycle. Not sure how else you would have gotten that much road rash.”
Max cataloged his injuries. That sounded feasible with the long scrapes decorating his body. His arm felt like it’d been filleted. He had a flash of skidding on pavement, then everything going dark. Fuck. His bike.
Turning from the room and her, he went to the bedroom long enough to pull on a pair of athletic shorts and shoes. He snatched a t-shirt from the dirty-clothes pile, scowling again when he realized she must have straightened up. Walking back into the room, ignoring the grating pain down his right side, he frowned at her. “Where’s my Sig?”
Lucky for her, she didn’t pretend ignorance. “The gun is under the cupboard. The clip in the medicine cabinet.”
Without a word, he retrieved his weapon, slipping it into a holster inside the band of his shorts. Her eyes focused on the lump at his waist when he walked into the living room, but she didn’t say a word.
Gritting his teeth against the scalding rawness of his injuries, he jogged down the four flights of stairs to the parking area. The woman followed along behind silently.
Oh, hell. No… His mint condition Buell Firebolt XB12R was in shambles. He hadn’t even parked the damn thing, just dropped it on its side. At least he was in the right parking spot. Max started to kneel down but the ripping pain in his side stopped him. Instead, he planted his hands on his hips and glowered.
When he looked up, the woman was gone.
Another kick in the balls.
Scrubbing his hands over his hair, he gritted his teeth to keep in the howl of rage. After all the shit that he’d gone through, why the fuck couldn’t he get a break?
Max rubbed his eyes, trying to remember what had happened with the motorcycle, but the last day was a blank. Maybe he’d cracked his head.
Retrieving the key from the ignition, which he’d forgotten earlier, he turned for the stairs. Every step he climbed hurt more than the last. All he could think about were the pills at the top of the stairs. They would remove the pain.
By chance, he glanced up at 2C when he circled the landing. The door with its cheery flower wreath stood open and he saw the woman that had been in his apartment pass the open doorway. She turned to him when he paused and he was shocked at her tear-stained cheeks.
“Have you seen Frank?”
Max started to shake his head, not knowing who the hell Frank was.
“My cat,” she explained. “I came down from your apartment and my door was cracked open. He must have slipped out.”
Fresh tears trailed down her cheeks and Max felt something shift inside him, thawing. He felt bad she’d lost her cat. The hopeful expression on her face implied she would like him to find the damn thing. It had been a long time since anybody had depended upon him.
Was he worth depending upon? Damn, he needed the numbness back. But as he looked at her heartbroken face, and felt the bandages she’d put on his arm and leg, he couldn’t just walk away. It just wasn’t in him to be so cruel.
He sighed, fighting away the biting need for oblivion. “What does he look like?”
“Tiger striped with a white diamond on his chest. He has a blue collar on.”
Max turned to look around, but there was nowhere a cat could hide on the landing. Without a word, he limped back down the steps to the ground level. He’d never had a cat in his life, so he had no idea how to even call one or find one. If he were a cat, he would be looking for pussy, he smirked, or food. At the base of the steps he looked around.
He had no idea what time it was, only that it was deep into the night. Nobody moved. No vehicles on the street. As he peered under bushes and around cars, he prayed nobody called the cops on him.
Using the flashlight on his phone, Max found the cat across the small patch of yard between complexes. It was curled up under a bush, eyes wide and dark with fear. When he reached under the bush for the animal, it spat and took off. With a mighty lunge, Max grabbed the damn thing by the tail and reeled it back, then grabbed it by the scruff of the neck with his other hand. It continued to spit and hiss as he carried it back to his building, then up the stairs to her apartment.
The woman cried out when she saw them and rushed forward to take the monster from his hands. It immediately curled into her arms, purring
to beat the band but turned its head enough to glare at him. Max shook his head. “He was across the way, at the next apartment building.”
She cringed and he assumed that was a long way for the cat to go.
“Frank’s not allowed outside. Thank you so much for finding him.”
As he looked down into her blue eyes, with their dark rings around the iris, his chest swelled a little that he’d actually done something good. As ridiculous as it sounded, it had been a long time since he’d felt like he’d contributed to anything. She would have a little less heartbreak in her life.
As he turned to go, she reached out to touch his elbow. “Wait, Max.”
She carried the cat inside the apartment and he heard a door close deeper inside. When she returned, she was cat-less. Pushing her door open wider, she motioned him inside.
“You’ve ripped open your bandages.”
She motioned to his thigh.
He’d felt something pop when he’d lunged for the cat, but the pain had been a constant burn. The blood that coated the nylon of his shorts and ran down his leg meant he’d ripped it pretty good. Of course. No good deed goes unpunished.
Max shrugged away her concern. “No big deal. It’ll stop eventually.”
She raised a brow at him and rested her hands on her hips.
Max wanted to believe the concern was for him, but he thought it was just her nurse bossiness.
How the hell did he know she was a nurse? Was that another detail he’d lost, like the fact that he’d wrecked his motorcycle at some point and totally didn’t remember it?
“Are you a nurse?” he asked, curious if he was right.
She nodded her head. “I told you that last night. My name is Lacey.”
Lacey. He had known that. And as he looked at her face, he realized he remembered her, too. Angel.
She tilted her head at him. “We’ve met several times, actually. You were at a Starbucks last week and had an issue and you ended up kissing me. Do you remember that?”
His jaw fell open and she could have knocked him over with a feather. “I kissed you?”
She nodded, eyes flashing.
But now that she mentioned it, he did remember kissing her. Explained why he thought he’d known her taste.
Max nodded his head, dazed. “I think I do remember.”
Actually, he was horrified. The Starbucks trip sounded vaguely familiar and kissing her, but nothing else. “What issue? What did I do?”
Dark brows furrowed over her eyes. “You were hallucinating that you had spiders on you.”
Oh, yeah. Shuddering, he looked down at his arms. The spiders weren’t there, but he remembered the feel of their feet stabbing into his skin. Unable to help himself, he swiped his hands down his skin.
Lacey stepped forward and took his hands into her own. “I’m going to tell you something and I want you to listen to me. This is the most coherent I’ve ever seen you and I want you to hear what I’m saying. You’re not going to like this, but you need help. You are on too many medications.”
Max snatched his hands away.
“They are cancelling each other out,” she continued, “and causing you more problems. I don’t know what your original injury or illness is, but the pills that you’re on are making it worse.”
Confusion swirled in his mind but what she said had the ring of truth. There were too many inconsistencies in his life and he’d been flirting with a reckless death for too long. But why bother to stay around? It wasn’t as if anybody needed him. The government was releasing him from his service because he wasn’t any good to them any more. Since Yemen he had the lung capacity of a newborn. His family didn’t care. In his heart, he knew he’d been taking too many pills, but they had him in their grip now, and he didn’t have to worry about all that other crap when he took them.
She seemed to sense what he was thinking, because she stepped forward into his space, a finger pointing at his face. “And let me tell you something, Bub, you better not be thinking about offing yourself. No Navy SEAL I know would dare even think that.”
He choked out a laugh, somehow not shocked she’d guessed his branch. “You’d probably be surprised.”
Dreams of suicide haunted him nightly. And daily. He’d even kind of tried a couple times. Hell, once he’d written a note to his parents and everything, then sat in the tub with the muzzle of his beloved Sig in his mouth. It was one of the greatest personal humiliations of his life that he hadn’t gone through with it. That had been a few months ago.
Lacey caught his neck in her soft hands and pulled his face down to hers. “You are so worth fighting for Max Tate. I don’t know what has happened to you in your life, but I refuse to let you be one of the twenty-seven men that kills themselves every day.”
The number sank into his mind and he wavered. But what the hell did she know about what he’d gone through?
“You have no idea what you’re asking,” he growled.
Tears filled her eyes. “I do.”
For several long seconds he held her liquid look, but he finally had to turn his head away. It was too close to a promise, holding that determined gaze.
Regretting he had to do it, he pulled from her grip on his neck. The hope in her expression dimmed and he felt like he’d just stomped on a kitten’s tail, but she let him go. Her soft, comforting hands fell to her sides.
Max felt bereft, as if he’d lost his team all over again, but he straightened his spine. This woman was nothing to him. And she was seeing what she wanted to see. All women looked at men like they needed to be saved.
Forcing himself to back away, he gave her a mock salute. “Have a nice night, Angel.”
He was almost to the door when she called his name. Unable to deny one last glance of her he turned…and caught her in his arms as she pressed up against his body. Strong arms wrapped around his neck, then her lips found his. Shock held him immobile for several long seconds, then he let himself sink into the heat of her mouth. She tasted of hope and sex, two things his life had been completely bereft of for too long. Unable to do otherwise, he took everything she had to give. Cupping her jaw, he tilted his head for a better angle.
Max lost all sense of time and space as he cradled her to him, basking in the warmth she poured into his soul. It burned away the fogginess he walked through every day and sharpened the need he’d felt, but tried not to acknowledge. He hardened against her lush belly. Flexing into her softness, he let his hands drift south to cup her hips.
Lacey cried out against his mouth and rocked her pelvis into his erection. Max could have easily dropped to the floor and satisfied them both, but some niggling sense of chivalry made him hesitate. What right did he have to take advantage of her kindness that way?
Max shuddered as he slowed his movements and prayed he had the strength to actually let her go. Lacey tugged herself out of his arms though, leaving him feeling more bereft than before. Her bright eyes were languid with desire and her cheeks were flushed with arousal. The lips he’d feasted at were puffy from his attention.
Max had never seen anything more beautiful.
Lacey rubbed her face with her hands and folded her arms beneath her sharp-nippled breasts. “I didn’t mean for it to go that far. I’m sorry I attacked you that way.”
Chuckling, he stroked a finger down her cheek. “It was definitely unexpected.” He paused, knowing he had to create some distance. “I don’t know if we should do it again, though. You’re a nice lady, Lacey, but I’m not a good bet.”
Her eyes narrowed on his and he could almost feel the ire building. “You damn well could be, if you gave yourself a chance. You need help, Max, to see what I see.”
Turning away, she crossed to a small desk and grabbed a pen and paper. His eyes traced down her narrow back as she scribbled something down, then added another line of script. For some reason his throat was tight, as if he’d just missed his boat.
Lacey returned and held the paper out to him. Max took it reluctantly, r
eading the neat lettering on the page. Eric O’Hanrahan. There was a string of letters after his name Max assumed meant he had a lot of schooling.
“I don’t need this.”
He tried to hand the paper back but she held her hands up defensively. “You need it. Your doctors are trying to medicate the problem away and you’re not dealing with the underlying issue. I’ve seen it before when I worked at Walter Reed. And it’s not something you can kick on your own.”
Max’s eyes narrowed on her and her assertions suddenly took on weight. If she’d worked at Walter Reed, maybe she was seeing something he didn’t. Without saying anything more, he took the paper from her hand and folded it away, then walked out the door.
Chapter Five
‡
Lacey forced the tears back as she watched his strong back disappear through her door. Dragging in gulps of oxygen, she tried to make sense of what she’d just done.
Hopefully enough to get him to seek help.
Technically he wasn’t a patient, but her professional demeanor had completely gone out the window with Maxwell Tate. What the hell had she been thinking, kissing him like that?
Pushing the door shut, she leaned her back against it, praying that he would use the information she’d given him. He was seriously overmedicated and those medications were making him suicidal. Was that the complete answer? Probably not. But the pills concerned her the most.
No matter what he’d done he deserved to be treated with the utmost care by the medical community he depended upon, and it wasn’t happening. She had a feeling they were all trying to medicate the problem away.
She’d seen it before.
Max put the paper on the fridge door, though he doubted he would use it. He’d already been to so many doctors and counselors it wasn’t even funny. They couldn’t make him feel better about getting his team killed. Only the pills dulled the pain enough to make him forget. Yes, he knew he probably took too many, but he didn’t know any other way to deal.
