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MAXINE
He’s already backing away.
I see it in the way his shoulders tense, the way his jaw clenches like he’s trying to bite the words back before they break loose. Like if he steps too close, he’ll cross a line we both know doesn’t really exist anymore.
Too late. There’s no line between Saxon and me. There never was. Just a battlefield with no ceasefire. A mess of memory and trauma and things we never said out loud because if we had—we might’ve broken.
He looks at me like he wants to say something, but instead he gives me his silence. So I move first. I grab his shirt. Just a fistful of fabric, but it’s enough. It stops him. He freezes, that steel-posture slipping just enough for me to pull him closer. Not much. An inch. But it’s everything.
“The only thing I remember of that time is your hands,” I whisper.
His breath hitches.
“In that place… all those hands on me. Most of them blurred. Most of them—I trained myself to forget.” I swallow hard. My grip tightens. “But yours? I couldn’t. I still can’t.”
His eyes go sharp. Haunted. “Maxine?—”
“I know it wasn’t real,” I say quickly. “I know you had a job to do. I know what undercover means. ButI still remember.” My voice cracks. “Because it wasn’t your hands that haunted me, Saxon. It was what I saw in your eyes when you touched me.”
He exhales like the air’s been punched out of him. Something raw and ancient flickers between us. It’s not love or lust. It’s recognition.
Without another word, he steps in and kisses me. And it’s not gentle or careful; it’s years of ghosts slamming into the present like a freight train.
His hands find my hips and I gasp into his mouth. It’s not like before. It’s not cold or clinical. It’s not a role. This is real. It’shim.
“Saxon,” I breathe, forehead pressed to his. “Do you want me, or do you want redemption?”
His hands still. I feel his lips brush mine again.
“You,” he rasps. “Always you. Redemption’s never wanted me back.”
He slams me against the wall like he’s been waiting his whole goddamn life to do it. Like he’s starved. Like I’m the only thing that’s ever tasted right and he’s finally lost control of his appetite.
His mouth crashes into mine—rough, demanding, all tongue and teeth and punishment. His hands are everywhere. Tangling in my hair. Clawing at my hips. Yanking my shirt up like it personally offends him.
I moan into him, dragging his jacket off with shaking hands, nails biting into his shoulders. It hits the floor with a heavy thud, and then he’s pressing harder into me, like we could fuse at the spine if he just pushes hard enough.
“You’ve been driving me fucking insane,” he growls against my mouth, voice hoarse. “You don’t know what you did to me.”
“I remember everything,” I gasp. “I rememberyou.”
That breaks something in him. He spins me, slams me down onto the sofa, and follows like a storm, pinning me beneath the weight of unfinished business.
His hands trail up my thighs, greedy and unforgiving. He doesn’t undress me gently—he strips me like he’s peeling away the time we’ve lost, the lies we told ourselves, the versions of us that were too scared to want this.
My bra hits the floor. He exhales like he’s been sucker punched.
“Max…” His voice is gravel. “You sure?”
I drag him down by the collar. “Don’t you dare stop.”
And then he’s on me again. Devouring me. Hands everywhere. Mouth trailing down my neck, over my collarbone, between my breasts. He bites—not enough to break skin, but enough to stake a claim.
My fingers fumble with his belt, desperate. Shaking. He helps me, growling when I finally shove his pants down, freeing him.
There’s nothing slow about it. Nothing patient. He shoves my thighs apart, lines himself up, and sinks into me with a snarl that sounds like he’s dying. And maybe he is. Because I sure as hell am.