“Time to spar with you.”
Now I wasn’t angry, I was confused. “We’re… sparring?”
“You’re off, you were better the other night.”
“Better at what?”
He didn’t answer me, instead he repeated, “I gotta go.”
“Max –” I started but he began to walk around me so, instinctively, my hand shot out and my fingers curled around his bicep.
He stopped but my body had frozen and my eyes had dropped to his arm.
My fingers were there, holding what felt an awful lot like steel. Niles didn’t have steely biceps. Niles had soft, fleshy biceps. One would think steely biceps didn’t feel nice but they didn’t only feel nice, they felt nice.
“Nina,” Max called and I jumped and yanked my hand away.
“I want to thank you, for being so nice about me being… sick and, um… everything, but really, I have to go.”
“Why?”
“Why?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Well, because.”
“Because why?”
Was he crazy?
I didn’t get it. Why did he want me to stay? Two days ago he didn’t want me to stay. Why were we even having this conversation?
“You’re home,” I reminded him.
“Yeah?”
“And, well, we can’t share the house.”
“Why not?”
I didn’t have an answer for that because it was such a bizarre question, I figured there was no answer.
Then I did, so I said, “I don’t know you.”
To that, he grinned and it was a grin that made me highly uncomfortable but in a weirdly good way.
“Duchess, I’ve seen you mostly naked.”
At his words I still felt uncomfortable though no longer in a good way, weird or not. I also felt my eyes get big, I felt my cheeks get hot and I felt my heart start pounding.
Then I felt my blood pressure rise.
“Yes, this is true. You’ve seen that against my will,” I reminded him.
“It wasn’t against your will.”
I leaned forward and snapped, “I was unconscious!”
“There she is,” he muttered but he looked bizarrely pleased.
“Who?” I snapped again.
He ignored my question and informed me humiliatingly, “Last time I saw that body of yours, baby, you lifted your arms for me yourself.”
I did do that, I remembered.
“I did not,” I lied.
“You did.”
“I was in the throes of a fever!” I said, my voice getting loud.
“You still did it.”
I threw a hand out. “Okay, fine, you’ve seen me naked. That doesn’t mean we know each other.”
“Slept with you too.” My mouth dropped open and he asked, “Do you remember that?”
“No,” I whispered but I did.
“You wouldn’t let me go.”
Oh my God. I remembered that too.
“I will repeat, I was in the throes of a fever.”
“Don’t care what you were in the throes of, you take care of a sick person, you sleep with someone, you get to know them.”
“No you don’t.”
“Yeah, you do.”
“You don’t!”
He rocked back on his heels and told me, “You got a borin’ life so you got a wild hair up your ass, you’re out here on some adventure, timeout, because you got a fiancé at home who doesn’t give a shit about you.”
My head jerked and I stared. I didn’t remember telling him that. Any of it. Most especially about Niles.
“He gives a shit about me,” I whispered.
“Then why hasn’t your cell rang in two days?” he asked.
“I –”
“And why you been awake and functioning for at least half an hour and you haven’t phoned him?” he went on.
Drat!
Max leaned into me and I watched with not a small amount of fascination as his face grew soft. His face was always amazing, soft it was something else entirely and that something else was even better.
“You’re half a world away, Duchess, you been sick as a dog and your man doesn’t contact you? Even not knowin’ you’re sick, a man gives a shit, he phones.”
He, unfortunately, had me there.
Therefore, I just stood there staring at him not knowing what to say.
Max wasn’t so uncertain.
His hand came out and grabbed mine, lifting it between us, his fingers in my palm, his thumb toying with my diamond engagement ring.
“I was your man, you were halfway around the world from me, honey, I’d fuckin’ phone you,” he said quietly.
“Niles is reserved,” I whispered.
“Niles is an ass,” he returned and my brows drew together.
“You don’t know him.”
“I know men and I know he’s not reserved, he’s an ass.”
I pulled my head together, my hand from his and snapped, “Yes? And how do you know that?”
“Because I’ve seen you naked, I’ve seen you sweet, I’ve seen you unsure and I’ve seen you riled and, seein’ all that, I know, you were half a world away from me, I’d fuckin’ phone.”
“Perhaps that’s not the kind of relationship Niles and I have,” I suggested snottily but his words hit me somewhere deep, somewhere I didn’t know I had.
“You on a timeout?”
“What?”
“If you told me you needed a timeout, first, I wouldn’t fuckin’ let you have one, second, I wouldn’t give you reason to fuckin’ want one, last, you took off anyway, I’d fuckin’ phone.”
My head tilted to the side and I felt my body start warming up not, this time, with fever.
“You wouldn’t let me have one?”
“Fuck no.”
“Ergo, you would not be my man.”
“Ergo?”
“It’s Latin, it means ‘therefore’.”
“Whatever,” he muttered, “I gotta go.”
“Hang on,” I snapped. “You may think you know me but I was delirious. I didn’t get to know you.”
“You will.”
“I won’t.”
“So you think you’re leavin’?” He switched the subject.
“I am leaving,” I declared, happy to be on this subject.
He stuck his hand in his front jeans pocket, pulled out the keys to the rental, dangled them in front of me for a brief flash then his hand closed around them and he shoved them back into his pocket.
“Be hard gettin’ down the mountain on foot, carryin’ that huge-ass suitcase of yours, which weighs a goddamned ton, your overnight bag, your purse and a shitload of groceries,” he informed me.
“Give me those keys,” I snapped.
“I’d tell you to go for them, honey, but don’t have time to play.”
At his words, my mouth dropped open again, he grinned, chucked me gently under the chin with the side of his fist (yes, I will repeat, he chucked me under the chin) and then he walked away.
I stood staring at the space he used to be in then, when I heard the front door open, I ran to the railing.
“Max!” I shouted.
“Later, Duchess,” he called, a hand up, two fingers flicking out, he didn’t even look back.
Becca looked back though, and up. She gave me a wince-I’m-sorry-face and a finger wave and I knew she heard everything. I’d totally forgotten she was there.
Then I watched Max throw his now black leather jacketed arm around her shoulders and I wondered who Becca was and what she was to Max who was just upstairs, semi-fighting with me and also, if I wasn’t wrong, and I didn’t think I was, flirting with me in a rough, macho, mountain man kind of way
They talked for a few seconds at the side of her car then they separated. Becca got in her sporty, red, mini-SUV. Max got in his black Cherokee. They both drove away.