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I sucked in a shallow breath before Maxwell ushered me back down the steps, both of my heavy bags thrown over his one shoulder, his other hand firmly locked with mine, long strides carrying us across the town common we’d just come from. Back to his house, the library, my safe place. At least for now.

Eighteen

Maxwell

I called the police and had them at my apartment in less than twenty minutes after we arrived home. Elle had begged me not to tell them about the visits from Tony the other day, saying he probably wasn’t even related to anything. It was random, she kept insisting. For once, I agreed with her, not about the random part. I believed full goddamn well Tony had something to do with the burglary at her apartment. The only thing missing was her laptop, which contained vital financial information.

What I agreed with her about was not telling the police about Tony in case he had to disappear. I would deal with him in my own brand of justice, and it would require keeping things on the down low. More publicity was not something I needed.

So I played the pleasant boyfriend, holding her hand and listening as she’d rattled off the few details about her time at the shit hole of an apartment, and I waited, biding my time. After they left and Elle lay down for a while, I pounced. By this time tomorrow, I’d make sure our little problem was gone, no matter the consequences.

Feeling like a dishonest bastard and caring not one ounce, I flipped through the contacts on her phone, which she’d left on the counter, until I found the last name Scardelli. Of course she had his name in her phone. This girl had more secrets than I had, and that was no small feat.

I glanced over my shoulder one last time, making sure soft breathing was all I could hear before I stepped down the long stairway and dialed the number on my own phone.

“Hello?” a strange voice answered, gargled and drowsy with sleep or drink.

“Tony?”

“Yeah?” he asked, waking up at the warning in my voice.

“Elle’s boyfriend. We need to have words.” That certainly woke him up because I heard a quick shuffle and then a voice clearing.

“Sure. When? Where?”

“The town common, out in front of the library. How soon can you be here?”

“Uhh, quick. Give me ten minutes.”

“Great,” I growled and hung up, my fists clenching at my sides, not sure what I’d have to do to keep her safe.

I stood with a dark hoodie over my head, waiting next to the steps of the library near the streetlamp. A dark figure walked up minutes later, a cigarette burning in one hand before he threw it into the dark street.

I hated him with every pore in my tightly strung body.

“You’re her boyfriend?” he huffed, recognition settling in his eyes when he stepped up. The measly fucker reminded me of a rat, unkempt with the smell of beer and pizza on his breath. Fucking low life. How did she find herself involved with these people?

“What’ll it take to get you the fuck out of town?” I growled, shoving my hands in my pockets, trying to keep myself from landing a blow to his cheekbone. I could shatter it; I’d done it before.

“Two hundred thousand,” he mumbled in an arrogant tone.

“Two hundred?” I grit, feeling the sting of his words as he said them. Money, it always came back to money. Maybe she had found her way into my library for a reason.

So what now? I loved her, I knew that much. I knew I couldn’t trust this guy. Weighing him down with cement boots didn’t sound like a half bad idea, but that would only invite more suspicion.

I clenched my fists at my sides, my mind reeling with the possibilities. What I knew for sure was she didn't have a pinch to her name, and didn’t desperate people do desperate things? Maybe she’d stumbled across an old news article of me and knew my history. Maybe she’d sought me out for that reason alone.

But that couldn't be, right? The way she came alive underneath me, calmed my raging mind and giggling like a sweet child at my jokes. Dammit, I loved her, and I knew, as with anyone I loved, that meant I only had one option.

“Two hundred and I never see your rat bastard face again? Because I can promise you if I do, I’ll fucking pulverize it. Your mother won’t even recognize you.”

The little man’s eyes bulged in the dim lamplight as I smelled the fear wafting off him. “Yes, yes, of course,” he stammered.

“Good. Give me five minutes,” I huffed, then stalked up the steps, heading for the back room at the library, the place I kept hidden and dead-bolted. For the first time in four years, I’d be digging back into the vault.

Nineteen

Elle

I woke in the middle of the night to the soft thud of a heavy door closing. My heart leapt in my throat when I reached out for Maxwell and found only empty sheets in his place.

A minute later, I heard heavy grunts and the sound of fists meeting something solid. I followed the echoes down the hall and found Maxwell landing fist after fist on a punching bag secured to the ceiling in the dining room. It looked like he took out his aggression on the equipment, and he seemed to have a lot of aggression right now. It was hot.
He
was hot. But the look in his eyes was also a little frightening, a little dangerous. I turned to pad back to the bedroom, thinking I would leave him be. Until he caught me.

His fist wrapped around my elbow and hauled me back against his solid chest, his arm holding me to him as one palm wrapped around my neck, the fingers dancing across my jaw. He felt so large, so in control, so dominant, and every move he made left me weak with arousal.

“Don’t turn away from me.” He whipped me in his arms, his lips crushing my own and his tongue thrusting down my throat with fierce abandon. His kisses bruising, his hands kneading at the flesh of my ass and hips; this was different. This was touching the live wire. This was a side of Maxwell I’d never seen before. It felt like flirting with danger and it curled my stomach in delicious ways.

“I’m sorry, Maxwell,” I whimpered against his lips, my own feeling bruised from his kisses.

“I can’t bear seeing you turn away from me.” He lifted my tank over my body. “Show me how I make you feel,” he ground, almost pleading before his heavy hands were in my hair, his dark eyes biting with an edge of lust I wasn't used to seeing from him. “Show me you need me,” he grunted and I dropped to my knees, eyeing his erection jutting angrily between us. I hollowed my cheeks and sucked him in, feeling his fingers pulling at my hair and the tip of his length pressing at the back of my throat.

“Good girl.” His endearment fueled my pent-up passion. I loved him with this wild edge, the bite in his fingers, the raw, bruising force of him.

His hands were suddenly lifting me from my knees and pressing me against the wall. I squirmed, feeling mishandled, but in his special gentle way, until he slid his thick length past my soaked lips and soft sighs fell from his throat as he began to rock against me.

I sighed, finally feeling connected with him, though I missed his touch beneath my fingertips. I clutched at the beige paint of his apartment walls, wishing desperately to feel his muscles tensing under my palms, to see him face to face instead of this more impersonal act. It turned me on because I was human, but I missed the emotional connection we’d shared before. His thrusts grew erratic before he finally seated himself inside me and I felt hot spurts of his release coating my insides. Without a word, he pulled out slowly, his molten sex flowing down my thighs and making me feel more like a whore than someone cherished and loved. Was this what he’d meant when he’d spoke of hurting people? Of being unlovable and dangerous? Was this what I would have to endure for his love?

I waited for the comforting palm that usually caressed my skin after our bodies disconnected. The gentle acknowledgement, or at the very least, his fingers at my clit, bringing me to my own satisfying orgasm. But I got none of those things. Instead, I found myself empty and alone in the living room, Maxwell tracking down the hallway before I heard the shower spray. Not a word exchanged between us.

Where had the gentle man gone that had made love to me last night? Was this what he’d meant about needing more? He liked angry, impersonal sex? Well, I didn’t think that would do for me. I thought he cared, had feelings…this, this man caged a monster inside, and I’d already had more than enough hurt by the men in my life.

I swallowed the stubborn lump of tears in my throat and trailed back to his bedroom, sliding a top over my body as I went, then tucking myself into his cool sheets, hoping the man that would join me out of his shower would be the man I’d found myself starting to fall for, not the man that took advantage of my feelings and used my body like a meaningless slave.

I burrowed into the cotton, tears hovering at my eyelids and about to fall asleep when I heard the soft snick of the door, and then his quiet footsteps approaching the bed.

“I’m sorry.” His heavy form descended on me. “I had a rough night. I should have taken care of you.” His fingers caught my chin. Warm and loving, gentle and masculine.

“I don’t like feeling like that. I feel robbed of my favorite part of making love... you.” Irritation and tears burned behind my eyes.

“Oh, baby.” He swallowed me in his arms. “I’m so, so sorry, Elle. Please forgive me.” One gentle palm caressed my cheek. “I swear to you, I’ll never let it happen again. I felt terrible the instant it was over, so ashamed.” His head dropped to my shoulder in quiet genuflection. “My favorite part of making love is making love with you.”

The remaining vestiges of my anger dissipated with his words. He was complicated and moody, sometimes a jerk and always infuriating, but he was kind and loving, and the most thoughtful man I’d ever known. He was my gentle beast and my charming prince all wrapped up in one beautifully complicated package.

“Do you want to talk about what happened that made you...?” I struggled to find words, but willing to give him the only comfort I could think to give: myself.

“Not right now. Will you shower with me? I just need to be with you.” His eyes pleaded as his fingers traced a lock of my hair over one shoulder. “You make me feel better.” His forehead dropped to mine and his lips murmured, “I need to know we’re okay.”

I swallowed the lump of overwhelming emotion in my throat and nodded. He lifted me in his iron biceps, pulling me against his broad chest and making me feel pure, unyielding love for this dark man with a gentle heart.

I was sure I was strong enough to love him. I already did.

Twenty

Maxwell

I woke the next morning on only a few hours of sleep and more anxious than ever. Not because of what I’d had to do last night—the act had been inconsequential to a man like me—but that I somehow felt like I’d been manipulated into doing it. The more I thought it over, the more I thought she’d positioned herself perfectly on my doorstep, and in my bed. I couldn’t think about it anymore. And when I’d seen her darting around the corner after catching me pounding the shit out of my punching bag, I couldn’t let her walk away. She had no idea how she’d made me feel, and I needed someone to take it out on. I’d known I was being an ass, I knew she deserved better, but I couldn't get past that indiscretion. The web she’d pulled me into, the fact that this was something that might haunt us forever.

I wanted her. Hell, maybe I even needed her. But I still wasn’t sure I trusted her.

“You’re late.” I flicked on the light in my room where she lay sleeping peacefully. Her eyes wavered open and I saw for the first time the dark circles that resided there. So we’d both gone without sleep last night.

I’d done my best to make up with her in the shower, because I couldn’t leave her trembling and alone after I had the orgasm of my life taking her from behind. I’d been angry, looking for something to punish. That was why I installed the gym equipment, but she’d caught me with a freshly gaping wound to the heart. I’d handed over the cash to Tony fucking Scardelli and all I could think was that I’d been played by the pretty little dark-haired girl and her goon.

A slow frown passed over her face as I walked across the room to open the blinds, already fully showered and dressed, anxious to head downstairs and move on from the pain of last night. “Doors open in thirty minutes; you’d better be there.” I heard the dark edge in my voice, but my racing thoughts left me powerless to filter it. I stalked from the room before I changed my mind and darted back in to pull her into my arms and forgive her for both of our fucked up pasts.

I clenched my fists and took the stairs down to the library two at a time, thinking I could get some reading done until doors opened to keep my mind off everything.

I turned on one soft lamp and then opened my copy of
The Count of Monte Cristo
I kept behind the desk, flipping through to a passage about surviving and persisting when the world seems out to get you. It resonated now more than ever.

I’d been foolish to think I could escape my past, that anyone I came into contact with wouldn’t know about what had happened in my picture perfect family. It’d made headlines all over the state. Of course she knew.
Everyone
knew.

My eyes cast up fifteen minutes later when I heard her soft footfalls coming down the stairs. Anticipation and anxiety coiled my gut as I prepared to see her in the bright light of day after doing everything I could to save her from her dark past last night.

Twenty-One

Elle

Maxwell sat behind the circulation desk, soft lamplight caressing the hard angles of his jaw, while he read with a book propped in one hand. So endearing, so beautiful, so misunderstood. I wanted to crawl into his lap and listen to him read, then kiss away his pain and soothe away his worries. I thought I’d be able to at one point, but with the way he’d been last night, and then so short this morning… Even when he’d made up with me, he’d only done it out of obligation. He was a kind man; the protector in him was unable to walk away from someone in pain. I hadn’t been special and it led me to think that maybe he didn’t want me anymore. Maybe he’d used me. But for what? I had nothing that could appeal to such a beautiful, accomplished, well-rounded man as him. “Morning,” I finally offered when I entered the room.