10. Draven
Draven
Because nothing was going right tonight.
I never should have told Max I’d tell him my secrets, firstly. But I was a sucker for a sweet face, apparently, and now I’d promised too much, even though I hadn’t told him anything yet.
And the moment I’d started to feel true affection for him, something flickered inside me like a faulty light.
Because affection was off limits.
I wanted to fuck him. Wanted to be inside him.
But I wasn’t going to get attached.
It had been an hour since I left the beer fest, and I’d opened another, stronger beer after I got home. Dominic had texted me twenty minutes ago, and I didn’t like what I saw.
Dominic
Your dad’s still pissed. Tried to put in a good word for you at our meeting tonight, but he told me, in exact terms: ‘He’s not strong-arming me out of this one.’
Draven
Fuck him.
You’re not going to like this, either.
Goddamnit. What else?
He has a meeting with Bill Franklin tomorrow, with Franklin’s financial advisor.
Fuck.
They might be going through with it.
I didn’t think he still would. Not with what I know. God fucking damn it.
I’m working on a plan, D.
Anything about Brody?
Brody is radio silent. He sure as fuck hasn’t spoken to me.
It’s weird, going from the 3 of us to the 2 of us.
You ever miss having a third friend? Our little trio?
I don’t miss a goddamned thing about Brody McGowan.
I almost put a gun to his head. Can’t say I miss him, either.
He can rot in hell. Talk to you later, Dom.
I set my jaw, tossing away my phone and grabbing a crowbar.
I’d immediately started tearing down the drywall at the edge of the dining room, prying pieces off.
The wall needed to come down, and now I needed an outlet that didn’t involve violence or very rough sex in this town.
I ripped pieces of the wall away in large chunks, thinking of everything I’d left behind in Montana.
I’d shoved almost every thought of Brody out of my mind. I hated him so much now that ‘hate’ wasn’t even enough of a word to describe it.
Brody had betrayed my friendship, and betrayed Dom’s, in a way we would never forgive.
But even if I pushed away every moment of thought about Brody…
It wasn’t really about the house, or the wealth, or even the parties.
My father would have to take my life before he’d ever take my pride.
A lifetime of him treating me like I was the “mistake” of the family.
Conversations I’d overheard where Dad sat in smoke-filled rooms and literally told colleagues that he hadn’t wanted me .
That Xander had always been his more serious son.
He’d always showered me with money, mostly to keep me placated and occupied, like a nuisance he paid to keep quiet.
He always gave me more money after leaving me with a particularly dark bruise.
I had no hopes for the situation in Montana to improve.
And now, the alcohol was working its way into my veins, tormenting me with every reason I shouldn’t have been getting close to Max Burnett, either.
You’ll hurt him, too.
No one can avoid it, from you.
Even the people you cherish always get hurt.
I ripped at the drywall too hard, a stray edge hitting my arm wrong and giving me a thin streak of blood.
The knock at the door had shaken me from the endless dark tunnel of thoughts I always ended up in when it came to my family.
I tossed away a piece of the drywall and made my way toward the front.
I swung the front door open and got an eyeful of Max.
My heart swelled a little too big for my chest. He looked so pure. Gorgeous. Lickable and delicious and—he fucking needs to get away from my goddamn mess.
I looked him up and down, glaring at him.
“You shouldn’t be here. Not now.”
He furrowed his brow. “Great way to greet a guy.”
My blood was surging with rage and adrenaline. This would have been the best time for Max to stay the fuck away from me, but he didn’t know what was going on in my world.
I realized he was holding a bottle of nice whiskey in one hand.
A kind called Black Opal, which I’d just discovered last year. The bottles were at least $500 a pop.
“You paid that much for a bottle of whiskey?” I asked.
“Thought you might like it. I have some cash, after my videos have been doing well.”
He looked down at the crowbar I’d forgotten I was holding, then his eyes glanced over at the cut on my arm, which I hadn’t realized was bleeding a little worse than before.
I knew how I must look to him.
Villainous.
A thin sheen of sweat on my body as I breathed heavily. A frown on my face. Blood and dust.
Max’s sweet-boy Tennessee eyes could barely hide the judgement: to him, I was dangerous.
What the fuck else is new.
He swallowed, blinking after a moment and standing up straighter, looking me in the eye. “I came to say I’m sorry,” he declared.
How many times had he rehearsed saying that before he showed up at my door?
Adorable.
Too cute to be in a ten-mile radius of someone like me .
Especially when I’m in a mood like this .
My blood still ran hot as I looked him up and down again. “Sorry for?”
“Being unwelcoming to you.”
I put the crowbar down onto the floorboards near me. “Max, the hockey stick thing was fun, I promise.”
“Not just that. But… since then, too. I don’t know if you’re following me around town because you actually want to protect me, or if you’re just hell-bent on following a random bartender, but I refuse to be angry about it anymore. So I brought more whiskey.”
I paused for a moment before I spoke.
“Why?”
“Because you like it.”
Too nice.
He handed me the whiskey bottle and I held it, nodding at him. For a moment I thought he was going to turn and leave, but he stayed planted there outside my front door, his gaze trained on mine.
“You really do need to worry about your safety, Max. I am following you to protect you. That is the only reason.”
Not that I don’t enjoy looking at you, too .
“You don’t have to be nice to me,” I said. “I understand why you don’t trust me.”
“I don’t think I trust you,” he said. “Yet. But I did like watching you. The other day.”
A quiet desire stirred inside me.
Wasn’t expecting you to admit that to yourself ever again, let alone to me.
I nodded. “I know.”
He kept looking down at my lips and then back to my eyes again. Was he going to try to kiss me?
Faint pink slashes appeared on his cheeks and he blinked like he was taking himself out of a trance.
“Do you have some peroxide or rubbing alcohol for that cut, by the way?” he asked.
“First aid kit was one of the first things I bought,” I said. “I get good use out of them.”
He nodded. “Have a good night, Draven.”
I watched him walk back to his car, suppressing every urge to push him up against the front wall of the house and drag his pants down.
I want to tear you apart.
And I also want to hold you close until I can fucking guarantee you are safe, forever.
Both of them are impossible.
Because I don’t know how to handle nice boys.
I don’t know how to handle anything, anymore.
My dreams were bad that night. I was back in Montana, and everything seemed wrong. Everything had been wrong and getting worse , for far too long.
In the dream things were normal, at first. Up in my bedroom, with the view overlooking the field that gave way to the striking dusky purple mountains behind it. The last remnants of evening light came through my tall windows as I lay on my bed.
But when I turned back to the other side of the bed, Max was there.
Max.
Small-town, big-hearted Max.
You shouldn’t be here .
My heart lurched somewhere up into my throat.
Max tossed away the bedsheets and he was naked underneath, looking over at me like he was more than proud to show me himself. Smooth skin. Firm muscles. Nothing to hide.
“Not here,” I said in the dream.
“Want you to destroy me,” he said.
“You shouldn’t.”
He brought his palm onto my chest, dragging it down my skin, his fingers brushing over the lines of my tattoos and resting at my hip. And then he moved in closer. He was insistent, leaning in to bite my earlobe.
My cock ached. My entire body ached.
I wanted to touch him, badly. I wanted to pin him down and fuck him—fuck his mouth, fuck his ass, come inside his perfect body and, yes, give him what he asked for and destroy him, before I rested a while and then took him to pieces all over again.
He was nibbling gently at my neck now, his breath on my skin, and it felt like I was handling live ammunition.
If I touched him, we’d both explode like a grenade.
“ Fuck ,” I hissed.
The rest of my life orbited around me like a dark swarm, ready to suffocate. To pull me back in, and Max along with me.
No .
He deserves better .
A sharp protective urge went through me and I groaned as Max’s hand roamed lower, finally landing on my cock.
And in the dream I did what I never could: I denied myself.
“Want you to fuck me,” Max was murmuring as he palmed my cock.
“No.”
He begged.
I’d talked such a big game, coming to Tennessee and toying with him. Sending him pictures. Telling him he’d love my tongue.
Now, in my dream, he was begging, and it was like a brick wall had come up inside me. I felt the crushing weight of how much I wanted to relent, but then the weight of my life, too, as massive as the mountains outside. How people got hurt if they stayed near me, one way or another.
Or how people always realized, eventually, that I was bad news. Unwanted. A dead end. Always making bad decisions and never stopping to regret any of them. Even Lily hadn’t left my world unscathed, even though every part of my relationship with her had been different.
No good road to go down.
I can’t ruin you like everything I touch.
Then Max was on top of me in the bed, looking down at me, hungry and wanting.
“I know you,” he was saying. “I know you.”
“You don’t ?—”
He leaned down to kiss me and before his lips touched mine I woke up, sweating in a bed far, far away from my home.