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 throat 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.”