9. Max
Max
I was going to jump out of my own damn skin.
There was definitely something wrong.
When I’d spotted Draven at the beer fest, my first thought about him had been loud and clear in my mind: get the fuck away from me .
A flash of heat had gone through me earlier as I watched his black hat and the hard curves of his muscles as he made his way from tent to tent, chatting with other people and even making some of them smile.
You get me on the ground and show me you could kill me in the first minute of meeting me…
But with everybody else you trick them into thinking you’re some charmer?
He finally approached my tent, and now he was up close, in a fitted black T-shirt and dark jeans that hugged his body.
“Holy shit, cowboy at ten o’clock,” Andrew murmured to me as Draven came up, not bothering to be very subtle with his comment. “Howdy.”
“Pleasure. I’m Draven,” I said, shaking Andrew’s hand.
“You know this guy?” Andrew asked me.
“I know him,” I said.
I crossed my arms.
“Who do I have the pleasure of meeting?” Andrew asked.
“Lily’s boyfriend,” I said.
Andrew nodded.
“Ex-boyfriend,” Draven corrected.
“Oh. Sorry to hear that,” Andrew said.
“We’re friendly. It’s fine.”
“Would you like the Radler, the shandy, or a standard summer ale?” I asked Draven, abruptly changing the topic.
“Trying to put a beer in my hand so I’ll leave?”
“Just trying to serve a customer.”
“Cute video you filmed earlier,” Draven told me. “Bet your followers will love it.”
He wouldn’t take his eyes off me. My cock was already perking up, thinking of every awful thing Draven had sent me.
The pictures of the outline of his cock.
And where I’d been yesterday, just inches away from it.
My body had somehow gotten addicted to the feeling of complete and utter frustration.
“Watch out. Keg coming in.”
It was Kane, wheeling another beer keg into the side of the tent. Thank fuckin’ Christ. Having Kane around always felt like having a true adult in the room—I was 22, but Kane had to be in his early 40s, not that I’d ever asked.
He owned the Hard Spot, and he ran it well.
He always had the right answer to everything.
And if Draven tried to pull any weird shit, Kane wouldn’t let it happen.
“Still plenty of space in the corner,” I said, moving a couple of cardboard boxes to the side so that he could slide in the extra keg. He situated it, got it off the cart, and stood back up, looking toward the front of the tent.
“Draven,” Kane said, a rare smile coming over his gruff face. “Glad you’re here.”
“Didn’t want to miss it,” Draven said, nodding.
Sorry.
What?
How the fuck do they even know each other that well?
Kane gave Draven a nod back. “How’s the house so far? Did you fix the main bath?”
“It’s nearly there,” Draven told him. “The leak is fixed, now it just needs a new shower fixture and it’s good to go.”
“You’re going to make that place shine. Okay. I’ve got one more keg to bring out, and you’re going to love it. It’s the first of the October Oak Ale you tried.”
“I do love that.”
“Be right back out with it.”
I turned and gave Andrew a confused look.
Kane had been downright friendly to Draven. He’d smiled . He was usually the biggest grump in all of Bestens, but not only did he somehow seem to know Draven already—he was acting like they were friends.
“Since when do you know Kane?” I asked Draven.
“There are nights when you don’t bartend at the Hard Spot,” Draven said. “Kane was very happy to have me there last night. We talked about you.”
My stomach did a little flip. “Bullshit.”
“Kane told me he thinks of you like a little brother,” he continued. “I thought that was cute.”
“He’s just that kind of guy,” I explained. “Kind-hearted. Likeable.”
“Oh, shit. Robbie’s over there,” Andrew said, nodding over toward a stall across the way. “I’m going to go join him and see if Jesse’s around, too. Might be back in a bit, might not.”
“Go join him,” I said. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve got things covered here.”
“Nice to meet you, Draven,” Andrew said before heading off into the crowd.
As I watched Andrew walk off, a wave of jealousy moved through me.
Just a year ago, I’d been a TNU student just like him, and everything had felt simple. Andrew played football, drank beers, and went to parties. My life used to be like that, too.
Easy.
Not completely confusing, like it was now.
Because the moment Draven was in my presence it was like hundreds of volts of electricity started coursing through my veins. Being alone with him made me feel like every cell in my body was on fire .
Secretly I wished I could reach out and yank Andrew right back into this tent.
Now it was just me and Draven here.
I looked down, organizing the tiny beer sample cups that I’d just poured, putting them into neat rows. Suddenly the sound of the crowd seemed deafening.
“I’m going to tell you why I’m really here,” Draven said.
I knocked one of the cups onto its side.
It had a domino effect, and a few other sample cups tipped over, each of them spilling two ounces of beer onto the table.
I pulled in a long breath. “Why do I still feel like I don’t believe you?”
He narrowed his eyes at me “Here. I’ll help.”
“I’m fine,” I said, but Draven had already come behind the tent, grabbing paper towels from the roll beside me and helping to clean up the spill. He was close by my side now, and he smelled like fresh lumber and the clean, spiced scent I was hopelessly addicted to.
And now I couldn’t stop thinking of his fucking cock.
How my hand had felt around his neck, and how much he’d liked it.
I watched his arms as he swept the paper towels over the spill, my eyes landing on his tattoos.
The rose. An abstract portrait. Patterns that worked their way up his arm.
It felt like so long ago that I’d bitten him there. How had I ever been that out of control?
“I despise keeping secrets,” Draven said. “No matter what you might think of me.”
“Sure doesn’t seem like you mind having secrets. You don’t tell me shit.”
“It’s not always a good thing to know … certain things.”
He had a look in his eyes I’d never seen before.
Something… faraway. Like for once, he wasn’t shooting crackling lightning bolts at me with his eyes.
“Let me guess. You were involved with some kind of white-collar crime in Montana,” I offered.
“Tax fraud or embezzlement or something. You lost millions, or your friends lost millions, or something, and now you feel all lone-cowboy guilty about it, even though you could piss on piles of hundred dollar bills and be fine?”
His expression didn’t change. “Not quite, babe.”
I stepped back right as Draven walked to toss the paper towels in the trash, and he gently put his hand at the small of my back so that we wouldn’t collide.
He kept his hand there for a moment. His palm felt so warm. My cock responded to his touch, thickening again under my pants, but I also felt…
Good, with his hand there.
Safe.
It’s just his hand on my back.
It doesn’t mean he’s suddenly trustworthy.
“Did something really bad happen to you?” I asked softly.
I remembered how Lily looked when she talked about him. Like she felt sorry for him, rather than being afraid. Was there something to that?
“Of course,” he said simply, taking his hand away from my back. “Bad things always happen to me.”
His scar seemed more prominent in the light under the tent.
Or maybe my eyes were just focusing on it, now, wondering what had happened to him.
“I’ll tell you some things. Some of them,” he said. “Under one condition.”
I breathed deep, watching his eyes. “You want me to install a security system at my barn.”
“I do,” he said, reaching out to wipe a stray streak of beer from the top of my forearm. “But I was going to say stop putting your exact location tags on your online videos.”
“I didn’t even know there was an exact location tag.”
He groaned, shaking his head. He pulled off his black hat and ran a hand through his hair before placing it back on.
“What am I going to do with you, Baby Blue?”
He was so close to me.
I wanted his hand on my back again, to feel his warmth, to have his scent wrapped around me.
His body was the only thing I could focus on when he was so close to me. It was like all of my common sense went out the window and my mind became a repeat of dumb, strange observations.
Like that rose tattoo looked on his wrist.
“You giving my baby brother a hard time?” I heard from beside me.
Lily was there a moment later, with her old high school friends Natalie and Ranna at her side.
Draven turned and both of them smiled, embracing each other in a hug.
You break up, clearly with some bad history, but you still act like such great friends?
What the fuck was the deal with whatever happened to them in Montana? I’d always felt like I understood Lily, but something about her relationship with Draven didn’t make sense.
“The Bridezilla isn’t giving you a hard time, is she?” Draven asked. “I can handle her, if you need me to.”
Lily grinned. “No need. She’s calming down. I’m sure in the days leading up to the wedding it’ll all explode again, though. Max, are you getting to know Draven?”
I swallowed. “Yeah. Draven’s a good guy.”
Ugh.
Why did those words keep coming out of my mouth?
Draven could barely hide his surprise as he looked at me, clearly not expecting me to say nice things about him.
He really doesn’t think he’s a good person, does he?
Well, maybe he was right.
He was a fucking suspicious threat at best, and a psychopathic criminal at worst, but…
There was something more to him, too.
I wanted to grab his wrist, drag him behind one of the nearby buildings, and force him to tell me the truth, once and for all.
“Max came by my new house the other day,” Draven said, and my spine went cold.
Do not fucking say a word to Lily about what we did.
About our texts, or ? —
“It was nothing,” I blurted out.
“He was curious,” Draven said, “about how I’ve been fixing up the place.”
A blush landed on my cheeks, burning hot. “He’s making it his own, for sure.”
“I think you’re going to transform old Marsden’s place,” Lily said. “It used to be such a cute house, with the little ranchland around it. Nothing compared to your Big Sky estate, obviously, but you can make it shine.”
“Nothing compares to Big Sky,” Draven agreed.
“You guys talk about it like it’s a castle or something,” I said.
Draven nodded. “No moat. No stone. But it’s almost like a modern, beautiful castle. I worked with the architect to make it exactly what I wanted, when I was only 21 years old. Even then, I knew I wanted enough stables to eventually take on rescue horses.”
For fuck’s sake.
When Draven was a year younger than me, he’d had enough millions to throw around that he designed his own home on a ranch.
I pictured Draven on top of a black mare, riding around his giant property like some sort of surveyor.
“He rode horses more than anyone else in the Lyons family, that’s for sure,” Lily said.
Draven pulled in a long breath. “Riding was the best way to get away from them, when I was growing up. Out on the land, just me and the horses, instead of…”
“Being around your father,” Lily said.
“Or my mother. Siblings. Cousins. Any of it.”
Lily reached out a hand and briefly squeezed Draven’s arm. It was clear she still cared about him, even if their relationship was very much over.
“Holy shit, Lil! Did you see the oil paintings they’re selling over here?” her friend Ranna said, waving from one of the nearby tents.
“Got to go,” Lily said. “Be nice to him, Max!”
She was gone in a moment.
I expected Draven to hang around my tent, hovering over me like he had been since the moment he got to town. But I was surprised as he nodded, taking a few steps away.
“You have a good night, Baby Blue.”
He was gone a moment later, disappearing into the crowd. But I kept seeing his black hat around the beer fest.
He stopped on a bench for a while, still in sight of me.
Then he moved under a tree across the way—still able to keep watch on my tent.
Was he really that fucking worried about whatever dumbass online stalkers I had?
A group of guys came over soon after, sampling all of the different beers, but my mind still circled around Draven. I didn’t want him here, but his absence stoked a craving in me, like an addiction I didn’t ask for.
The feeling of his hand on my back. That look in his eyes.
What the fuck was I going to do about him?
My mom had told me since I was a kid that it’s always better to “ kill ‘em with kindness” rather than fight. I’d never really had to do it, because most people in Bestens actually were nice, and I’d never been much of a fighter.
But I couldn’t keep trying to meet Draven anywhere near his level.
But kindness? I was good at that.
The only thing that seemed to shock him was when I called him a good person.