Every inch of that big body was packed with tight, rippling muscle, both arms completely covered in colors and designs that danced with a story I wasn’t close enough to read.
Still, there was something about it that felt as if he had peeled off his layers.
A book sitting wide open to confess his sins.
Maxon tipped his head, mischief playing out in those eyes, and I realized my mouth was hanging open, drool probably running out the side.
Oh god.
He’d caught me checking him out.
Could this get any worse?
Redness flushed, and everything heated, and I swiped at the dampness that gathered above my lip as he was stopping a foot away from me.
“Hot out here, isn’t it?” he asked, something arrogant swimming in the depths of those blue eyes, the icy, vast color of a glacier tinged by the sea.
“Very.”
Those plush, full lips twisted into the softest smile, his demeanor jumping from one extreme to the next.
Remorse and regret and affection. Things I was sure I wasn’t ready to see.
“Izzy,” he murmured, and his hand was reaching out. Like . . . like he was gonna touch me.
Panic sent me stumbling back, my eyes going wide. I splayed my hands out over my chest as if it could protect me.
He huffed out a frustrated sound and sliced his fingers through his hair, looking away for a beat before he was turning that powerful gaze back to me. “How have you been?”
Bitter laughter came rushing up my throat. I tried to hold it back, but there were some things you couldn’t keep contained. “Are you really askin’ me how I’ve been?”
He winced, but he didn’t drop his gaze. “Yeah, I am.” He edged forward a little, stealing my breath.
I tried to shield myself from it, but there I was, sucking down his aura.
An intoxicating cocktail of the woods and the sea.
All man.
All sex.
“As if you really care.” God, I hated sounding petulant. Carrying around this chip on my shoulder. But he’d cracked me, left that gaping cavern right through the middle of me that throbbed and ached.
There hadn’t been an ounce of me that hadn’t believed in him. In his love. In his devotion.
Him throwing that away had only made it hurt all the worse.
A weighted sigh blew from his mouth, and he was slowly shaking his head, and still he wouldn’t let me free of the trap of his stare. “I do, Izzy. I fucking do, and I shouldn’t, but if you think I haven’t been worried about you all these years, wondering how you were and where you were and who you’d become, then you’re wrong.”
“You never even crossed my mind.”
Oh nice, Izzy. You are officially thirteen.
Amusement came riding back to his striking face. “Not even once, huh?”
“Nope.”
Lies, lies, lies.
He knew it, too.
Because those lips were twisting up, all sorts of smug and far too playful. As if we were the oldest of friends, and he didn’t mind if we sparred.
Ripping myself from the trance, I stepped back and hugged myself tighter, needing to get away from the draw of this man.
Or maybe I was just trying to hold back my heart that was trying to make a break for it, climbing a rib and getting ready to swing from a wayward rope.
Just another foolish, deadly jump.
“Listen, Maxon, I really need to get back to my mama and daddy’s. I picked up my mama’s medicine in town, and she’s waiting for it. Is there any way you could take a look or maybe call me a tow truck that can take it to a shop where they might let me make payments?”
I really didn’t want to be asking him for any favors, but what else was I supposed to do?
His expression both softened and hardened with worry.
But that wasn’t what I wanted.
His worry.
Him thinking he needed to swoop in and save the day the way he always had.
It was far too late for that.
“Izzy,” he started to say, and I put up a hand.
“About what happened the other day . . . it was no big deal. I didn’t keep close track of my account when I was traveling, and I spent a little more on gas than I’d first thought. It was no big deal. You don’t have to worry.”
He grabbed the wrist of the hand I had put in his face.
A gasp ripped from my lungs, and flames licked up my arm.
Hotter than the sun.
I was staggered by it, unable to do anything but get lost in the ferocity that blazed from him. “I do worry,” Maxon gritted.
I managed to pry my wrist away, hugging it close, the burn too real.
“I do worry,” he muttered again, shifting in discomfort, as if he was beggin’ me to believe him.
I couldn’t reply, all the words and confessions locked up inside, so heavy they were close to making me choke. Pain brimming and lapping and rising to cut off the flow of oxygen.