Page 20 of The Vagabond

SAXON

M axine Andrade.

She’s the itch I can’t scratch. The wound that won’t close.

The ghost that haunts me even when I’m wide awake.

And now, here she is—moving through the ballroom like sin in silk, her hair swept up, her mouth painted the shade of temptation.

She doesn’t look back, but I can feel her like static in the air.

Mason Ironside looked at me like he was already picking out a grave plot.

And Brando Gatti? His trigger finger twitched the second I stepped into this marble-covered nightmare.

Maybe I should’ve turned around. Perhaps I should’ve taken one look at the wolves watching over her and walked the hell out.

But I didn’t. Because she’s here. And no matter how suicidal it is, no matter how many loaded guns stand between me and the last woman I should want—I tell myself she’s worth it.

She’s worth the pain. Worth the fallout.

Worth the fucking bullet to my heart. Because if I’m going to die, I’d rather do it chasing the only thing that ever made me feel alive.

She disappears down a hallway—cool and composed, like she isn’t splintering me from the inside out .

I wait a minute. Then I follow. I know I’m going to do something fucking stupid . But logic left the building the minute I saw her in that dress.

Scarlet. Fitted. A goddamn siren’s song stitched onto her skin.

Every step she took was a dare, and every breath she took was one I didn’t deserve to witness.

The slit up her thigh could drive a priest to sin, and the curve of her back where the fabric dipped low—I’ve killed men for less temptation.

I move fast, silent. No one sees me.

The door to the ladies’ room swings shut behind her, and I wait three seconds. Three. That’s all the mercy I’ve got left. Then I follow her in and lock the door with a soft click.

The room smells like jasmine. Everything is polished, too clean. Too sterile for the firestorm happening inside me.

She doesn’t see me at first. She’s at the mirror, head tilted slightly, applying lipstick with slow, precise strokes.

Petal pink.

Of fucking course.

She presses her lips together, makes that little pop sound, and my grip on reality snaps like a tripwire.

I close the distance before she realizes she’s not alone.

My voice is a razor against her neck. “I hate that fucking lipstick.”

She jumps, the tube slipping from her hand and rattling against the porcelain basin.

“What the hell?—”

I crowd her before she can finish, pressing her back into the counter.

One hand on either side of her. Not touching.

But caging her in all the same. My shadow swallows hers.

My silence dares her to run. My voice is rough—low enough to scrape against her spine.

There’s no calm left in me, just heat and hunger and the kind of wrath that comes from wanting something you can’t fucking have .

“That lipstick,” I say, eyes locked on her mouth like it’s a loaded weapon, “doesn’t deserve your lips.”

I step in further, close enough for her perfume to cloud my judgment, close enough to make her pulse stutter.

“They don’t belong to it.” I dip my head, voice razor-sharp now—cutting, claiming, branding. “They belong to me.”

I reach out. Run my thumb across her lower lip—slowly, like I’m wiping away someone else’s fingerprints. Like I’m removing a fucking insult. The smear of lipstick paints my skin pink. And I hold it there, between us. Proof. Possession.

“This—” I say, eyes on her mouth, her trembling lips, her every goddamn inhale, “—is mine. Always has been. Always will be.”

Her breath catches. Her eyes darken. And for a second, just one wild second, I see it—the war inside her. The part of her that wants to run. And the part that wants to stay.

Her eyes flick to mine. Her lips part—barely. Breath shallow. But her eyes? They’re fire.

Saxon,” she breathes, voice shaking.

The way her throat moves when she swallows. I want to mark it. Want to kiss it just to feel her pulse stutter under my mouth.

“I hate that I’ve had to watch every man in that ballroom look at you like they want to ruin you.” I lean in until my mouth brushes her ear. “But I have a newsflash for them, sweetheart. I’m the only man that will have that honor for the rest of your life.”

Her breath catches. She pushes at my chest, but it’s weak. Surreal. She wants this. Wants me.

“You’re crazy,” she hisses.

“Obsessed,” I counter.

“Psycho."

I smile, but there’s nothing nice about it. “I’ve been obsessed since the moment you looked at me like I was the only hope you had left in the world.”

“You are a monster.”

My hand finds her waist, palm burning against silk and skin.

“And you love monsters, don’t you?”

She opens her mouth to snap back, but I take that second to crash my lips against hers.

It’s not gentle or sweet. It’s punishment, and it devours her.

I taste that damned lipstick. I suck her bottom lip between my teeth, bite hard enough to make her gasp.

Her hands fist in my jacket. One second away from pulling me closer or pushing me off.

I don’t know which, and I don’t care. I drag my mouth to her jaw, her neck, her collarbone—leaving streaks of pink behind. Lipstick and lust and madness.

“I haven’t stopped thinking about you,” I growl against her skin. “Not for one second.”

“You’re using me,” she whispers, breath hitching. “You think I can help you end what Kadri started.”

I freeze. My hands tighten on her hips.

“I came back for you .”

“You left me,” she says, voice cracking.

“I had to. If I stayed, you would’ve died.”

“Then maybe I should’ve.”

I shove back from her like her words are a physical blow to my soul. My jaw clenches, fury and heartbreak boiling under my skin.

“Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that.”

Tears shine in her eyes, but she blinks them away. “You don’t get to play savior, Saxon. You broke me.”

I step back in. Cup her face. My thumb smears the lipstick across her cheek. She’s trembling. So am I. And we’re both bleeding. But I’d rather bleed with her than breathe without her .

“I’ll never stop coming for you,” I say. “Even when you hate me. Even when you pretend you don’t want this.”

She closes her eyes. Her lips part, smeared and swollen. And then, softly, she confesses.

“I do want this.”

I kiss her again. And this time? She kisses me back. She kisses me back like she means it. Like I’m the only goddamn thing keeping her tethered to the ground. But then, all at once, she rips herself away.

“No—no, no, no!” she gasps, voice cracking as she shoves me. Hard. Her palms slam into my chest with a strength that’s not physical—it’s emotional. It’s soul-deep. “Get away from me!”

I stumble back. My hands go up, but not because I want to. Because I have to. Because she’s feral, eyes wet, mascara smudging as angry malice spills out of her in violent, beautiful pieces.

“Do you think this is okay?!” she screams, her voice echoing off the tile walls like thunder. “Do you think you can just break into my life—again—and touch me like nothing ever happened?! Like you didn’t leave me in that hell?!”

“Max—”

“No!” She points at me like she wants to drive her finger through my chest. “You don’t get to say my name like that. You don’t get to kiss me. You don’t get to want me. You’re a Fed, Saxon. You’re not my hero, you’re my biggest fucking mistake.”

My jaw clenches. I take a step toward her.

“Don’t,” she warns, backing up so fast she hits the counter. Her hands are trembling, fists curling like she doesn’t know whether to punch me or fall to the floor. “Don’t touch me. Don’t you dare touch me.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I say, barely able to get the words out. “I was trying to protect you. He would’ve killed you, Maxine. ”

Her laugh is hollow. A broken sound that makes something in me split clean open.

“You think that makes it better?” she cries. “That you left me there? That you vanished after promising I was safe? Do you know what happened after you whispered that bullshit in my ear and disappeared?”

My throat goes tight. “Tell me.”

“No,” she snaps. “You can’t have that story. You don’t get my trauma. You don’t get to collect pieces of me like they mean something. Because they don’t. Not to you.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is . ” Her voice breaks. She slams her fist against the sink. “You used me. I was a fucking tool to you so you could get what you want."

“Maxine—”

“I let you touch me,” she whispers, quieter now. Devastated. “I let you get under my skin. I told myself you were different. I needed you to be different.”

She turns away. Her shoulders shake. And then—she collapses. Not to the ground, but inward. Like her body’s too tired to keep housing the pain.

“I can’t do this again,” she says, and it’s barely a sound. “I can’t feel this again.”

I want to reach for her. I want to drop to my knees and tell her I’d burn the Bureau, the world, myself just to undo the pain I caused her. But I don’t. Because she’s right. I did use her. I lied. I let her believe I was the light in the room, when I was just another monster lurking in the shadows.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m so fucking sorry, Maxine.”

She doesn’t respond. She stares into the mirror, at the pink smeared across her mouth, her cheek, her chin. Her war paint. And then she scrapes the lipstick off with the back of her hand like it disgusts her. Like I disgust her .

“Get out,” she says. “Before I scream.”

And I know she will. So I leave. Because this time? She means it.