Page 19

Max

He didn’t show.

That arrogant, brooding, dark-eyed motherfucker didn’t show.

I’d stood in that club on Friday night with my drink in my hand, swaying my hips to the music, wearing that fucking dress instead of my usual black one, my lipstick applied to perfection, and he never walked through the door.

I had convinced myself he would.

I knew I had gone there for Chris, but I was hoping for him too.

I had felt his eyes on me all week, sensed his attention like heat on the back of my neck.

The way he looked at me in the café, the way his eyes followed me when he thought I wasn’t looking – there was no fucking way he wasn’t going to show.

But apparently, I was wrong.

I gave him the perfect bait and he ignored it.

So maybe, I had imagined it all, maybe I had fabricated the intensity in his gaze, the tension in the air when we were near each other.

Maybe he really was just a guy who happened to frequent Melinda’s at the same time I did, who had asked a few innocent questions about me.

But it sure as shit didn’t feel like that.

It felt like he was stalking me, watching me closer than anyone ever had before.

It felt like I had seen him before, maybe on the street somewhere, but I knew subconsciously that the café wasn’t the only place I’d seen him.

Fuck, I really needed to pay more attention to my surroundings.

I decided to go to for a long jog that Saturday, needing the burn to clear my thoughts, but it didn’t help.

Every tall man I passed, I double looked at.

Every man I saw in a dark hoodie made me pause.

I was losing my fucking mind, and it was truly starting to irritate the shit out of me.

By Monday morning, I was still pissed off.

The feeling sat under my skin like an itch I couldn’t scratch.

I had put way more effort into my appearance Friday night – not because of Chris, he was an easy target, basically a sitting duck.

But I wanted to see Connors reaction, I wanted to see that dark flicker in his eyes when he saw me in that dress, the same flicker I saw when I challenged his stare back at Melinda’s.

But instead, it was wasted on friggin’ Chris.

And now it was burnt and disposed of after being covered in his blood.

I hated how much it had bothered me that he wasn’t at the club.

Why was I so bothered that my stalker, wasn’t actually a stalker? I clearly needed therapy.

“Fucking asshole,”

I muttered under my breath as I dressed for work.

Fuck this, I didn’t enjoy the mind games.

I decided I was going to confront him after work, but I needed the day to psyche myself up.

He clearly had some interest, and I needed to figure out how deep his interest went.

Maybe he was actually working for the police and that’s why he was so interested in me, and it wasn’t because he was completely obsessed with me and stalking my every move.

I was going to suss this asshole out, one way or another.

After work, I walked into the café, still furious and entirely too confident for a five-foot-six woman about to confront a total stranger that I had assumed was my stalker.

And there he was, sitting at his usual table.

Except this time, he wasn’t reading his book, with that smug little smirk on his face like he knew something I didn’t.

His head was down, hands wrapped around his coffee cup, the muscles in his forearms tensed, making his veins pop.

His jaw was hard making his mouth sit in a tight line.

He looked… tense, almost angry.

Shit.

Maybe today wasn’t the right day for this.

I grabbed my coffee and turned toward my usual table instead.

I wasn’t about to antagonise a man that looked that fucking angry at the world, I wasn’t that stupid.

“Max.”

I froze.

My name had never sounded so fucking good, it sent instant goosebumps all over my body.

I turned slowly, feeling the rush of heat that spread through my body as I met his gaze.

His eyes were hard, almost predatory.

I could feel his emotions radiating from him, like he was angry, in pain, concerned?

“Uh… yeah?”

Connor stood, his shoulders broad beneath his hoodie.

He was taller than I realised, bigger too.

He was built like a fucking shit brick-house.

“Where were you this morning?”

His voice matched his face – hard, cold, with a roughness beneath it that made my toes curl.

I raised an eyebrow, “Excuse me?”

He brushed past me—the slight contact sending electricity through my body—and sat at down in the chair opposite the one I usually sat in, his back facing me.

Without hesitation, like my brain had rewired itself to follow this man like a fucking puppy, I sat down too.

Meeting his gaze was like staring into a black hole, the bags under his eyes prominent like he hadn’t slept well in days.

His jaw ticked, the muscle there twitching as his grip on his coffee cup whitened his knuckles.

“Where.

Were.

You.

This. Morning?”

I stared at him, heart pounding so hard it was nearly deafening.

“I… I just went straight to work.”

I shrugged, trying to play the cool, calm, collected.

“I didn’t realise that I had to come here every day.”

“Well, you fucking do,”

he said flatly.

“It’s kind of our thing.”

I blinked.

Our thing? “So I wasn’t imagining it?”

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“You’ve been showing up here… because of me?”

His mouth kicked up at the corner slightly, “Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

I scoffed.

“I’d convinced myself you were stalking me, then convinced myself I was being dramatic because you didn’t show up Friday night.

And now here you are, acting pissed that I missed our… ‘thing.’”

His eyes lit up, a sparkle entering them as lips curled into a dangerous, lethal smile.

“Maybe I am.”

“Maybe you are what?”

“Stalking you.”

My pulse exploded, my mouth parting, moving like a fucking fish because the words stuck in my throat.

He wasn’t joking, he wasn’t smiling.

He was serious.

I should’ve been terrified, should’ve screamed, should’ve thrown my coffee at him and ran, but there wasn’t an ounce of fear in my body.

Just… heat and dark, burning excitement.

“I have to go.”

I whispered

“Max—”

I shot out of my seat, my heart racing as my legs stumbled as I moved quickly to get out of the Café, the bell above the door chimed as I pulled it open, setting my senses into overdrive.

I walked fast, then jogged, then I fucking ran.

I reached my apartment building, heart slamming against my ribs as I glanced around ensuring he wasn’t following before entering inside.

I repeatedly tapped the button for the elevator, panting hard waiting for the door to open.

As I reached my floor, I threw myself out of metal door, heading straight for my apartment as I fumbled around my bag looking for my keys, my hands shaking so hard I almost dropped them.

I couldn’t focus, I couldn’t calm myself.

The only thing I could hear was the pounding in my ears of my blood pulsing through my veins.

A hand pressed against the door, right next to my head.

I gasped, turning to find him.

Connor.

He loomed over me, his dark brown eyes so intense they looked almost black, his broad chest heaving.

He had me caged like a lion with a mouse, watching me with a predatory stare as he lowered his head, his face inches from mine.

“Maxine,”

he murmured, his voice low and rough.

“I’ve been watching you for quite some time.”

My breathing stalled, the blood roaring in my ears almost drowning out what he was saying.

He was confessing everything to me, whilst having me trapped and completely at his mercy.

He knew where I lived, he followed me home.

“The way you walk like you own the world,”

he said, eyes trailing down, then back up my body.

“The way you smile at the lady at the café, the way you play with your keys when you enter your apartment building.

The way you push your hair behind your ear, just on one side, usually the right, when you’re lost in your head.”

My chest was rising and falling too fast.

I should scream, I should run.

But I didn’t, I couldn’t.

“You’re a dangerous little thing, Maxine.”

His hand slid along my jaw, tilting my chin up, sending a shiver down my spine, “The way you have consumed my every thought – my every fucking breath.

I was handling it you know, I was just fine seeing you at Melinda’s.

But you just had to miss our dates.

Friday was bad enough, but missing them twice?”

He tutted, gently swiping his thumb across my lower lip.

“That’s just not acceptable.”

My heart was in my throat, my body on fire.

My lower lip tingled in response to where he had trailed his thumb.

“You’ve pushed me to the brink of madness, Max.”

His hand slipped from my jaw, down to my throat, not squeezing – just holding.

“Tell me, have I consumed your thoughts the same way you’ve consumed mine?”

I stared up at him, wide-eyed, my body trembling.

“Do I have the same effect on you that you have on me?”

He whispered, his mouth brushing my ear as he moved his body closer, just close enough so that I can feel him against me.

I gasped, looking down to confirm what I’m feeling.

He’s hard.

“Or should I just fucking walk away?”

He breathed against the shell of my ear.

My knees were buckling.

I pushed back my head to look back at him, the way his lips parted, releasing shallow breaths like he was struggling to hold himself together.

I swallowed, inhaling his scent.

Coffee, vanilla, and a slight scent of aftershave.

He smells fucking delicious.

“Tell me to leave,”

he said, his thumb brushing over the pulse at my throat.

“Tell me you don’t want me here.

Tell me to leave, Max and I swear you’ll never see me again.

But say nothing, and I’ll spend every moment making you mine.”

I should tell him to leave, I should tell him to get the fuck away from me.

I should run, but the way he purred the words ‘making you mine’, set my nerves alight with excitement.

“Tell me to leave, Maxine.”

He panted, his voice now husky and dangerously low like he was on the verge of absolute destruction.

I swallowed hard, staring into his intense gaze, “I… I can’t.”

He went deathly still.

And then his mouth crashed against mine.