Chapter Eight
Calliope still didn’t know what had happened.
One moment she was blinking up at Maxen Fury, still half-winded by the aftermath of swinging a boot at his—well, his everything—and the next she was following him to his lodgings.
His cold, dark, barren lodgings.
Prince sniffed here and there before giving her a look that said: This is where you brought us?
Well, she wasn’t thrilled either.
She tightened her cloak around her. Was this place even lived in? The quarters looked like they hadn’t been touched in over a decade. Even the shop below wasn’t a shop. The space was filled with boxes and barrels containing only God knew what.
What had she agreed to?
She wasn’t even sure how the words all right, fine had made it past her lips.
Had she perhaps fallen unconscious for a second?
That would explain her lapse! The lasting trace of shock of the break-in, the cold fear, the other man calling her a mouse, a spy, and Maxen suddenly—absurdly—blocking his view of her. Maxen calling her love.
She refused to dwell on that endearment.
Refused to!
But she could stare in fascination as he struck flint to steel and coaxed a flame to life on a solitary candle that sat on a lone table with a lone chair, the sudden glow carving his features in sharpness.
Her gaze lifted to the scar on his lips, stark and vicious in the flickering light. How would it feel to trace a finger along the edges? She quickly glanced away, cheeks threatening to heat, her gaze falling on the black leather gloves covering his hands instead.
“Do you not find those uncomfortable?” she asked before she could think better of it, nodding faintly toward his hands.
“I don’t take them off.”
“Ever?”
“Not in company.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask why, but she swallowed the question back.
What did he keep hidden from the world? Heaven help her, he made her want to peel them back finger by finger.
Conflictingly, some part of her almost preferred the barrier.
The gloves had become part of him—dark, forbidden, and somehow unspeakably alluring.
She rubbed her temples. “I think this was a mistake.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” he agreed, leaning against the doorframe, arms folded, gaze on her.
“Weren’t you the one who invited me over?” If his command could even be called an invitation. “Then I should just return to my living quarters.”
“I couldn’t disagree more.”
She crossed her arms, mirroring him. “You just agreed it’s a mistake.”
“I’ve made worse choices.”
Hah! She didn’t doubt that. “I should still go back,” she insisted. “To my own space. My own bed.”
“And sleep with the door to your shop in splinters?”
“I’ll barricade it.”
“You’ll still be alone.”
She opened her mouth, then promptly pursed her lips. Yes. She’d be alone. Which, she finally grasped, was why she had agreed to come with her landlord in the first place. She hadn’t wanted to spend the night questioning every sound the night welcomed. “Just so you know, I can take care of myself.”
“Of course,” he said softly. “But tonight, you don’t have to.”
She pointed toward the small chamber beyond, where an open door showed that a single bed waited. “Where am I to sleep?”
He straightened from his lazy lean and stepped inside. “Bring the light.”
She hesitated, then lifted the candlestick and followed him in, the soft glow throwing their shadows across the walls. She swallowed. How could two shadows on the wall look so . . . intimate?
“I’ll sleep on the floor.”
Naturally, she didn’t argue. The situation was awkward enough without drawing more attention to the fact that she was alone with a man.
Calliope ought to even have felt a slight pinch of wariness.
Maybe even fear. But those things were curiously absent.
And well, the man looked like no floor could bring him down.
Like he’d slept in alleys and battlefields all his life.
She shouldn’t admire that. She absolutely did.
Have you forgotten he’s a ruffian?
Of course not, but it was hard to remember when he looked like a dark knight existing only to protect her! Besides, hadn’t they mentioned Mr. Rollings earlier? The very alive Mr. Rollings? That counted for something, right?
“The sheets are clean.”
Oh! Lord. Had she been staring at the bed too long? “Thank you,” she mumbled, placing the candle on a small table and making haste in slipping between the covers, shrugging off her boots as she did so and tugging the blanket up to her chin before glancing over at him.
The man moved like a storm barely held at bay, meticulously shrugging off his coat, tossing the garment over the back of a chair before pulling a quilt from the closet and spreading it right beside her bed.
They might as well have shared the coverlet.
They were so close. Too close. Closer than she’d ever been to any man at night.
Stars. His presence was all consuming even when he wasn’t with her.
Like this? The man was impossible to ignore.
Impossible not to feel. He wrapped himself around the room.
Around her. How was she meant to fall asleep with him so near?
He was everywhere. No matter how tightly she closed her eyes, she wouldn’t be able to shut him out.
He blew out the candle before lowering himself onto this rough pallet, stretching out on the floor, and Prince promptly trotted over and curled against his side.
Traitor.
“Do you honestly believe I’m a spy?” she asked to distract herself.
The answer came instantly. “No.”
She blinked into the dark. “No? I should be relieved, so why do I feel oddly offended?”
A low chuckle. “You don’t hide well.”
Impossible! She was the best at hiding! “I do too,” she whispered. “You just . . . see too much.” From what she could gather, at least.
A beat of silence followed, then the low creak of floorboards beneath his weight. “You noticed that.”
“How could I not?”
Two heartbeats passed. “It’s how I stay alive. Keep my brothers alive.”
Her scalp prickled. What kind of life required noticing everything just to survive? But was she really one to ask? Hadn’t she been the same in that household? Letting her guard down meant she could be separated from Prince, locked in some small space, or even trapped and beaten.
“Is that how you noticed someone broke into the shop?” She’d wondered about that.
“Mmm.”
What? No details? Such a Maxen Fury thing to do. She would accept the lack of information, but only for tonight. Tomorrow, she wanted answers. “Well, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring trouble to your doorstep.”
“You didn’t.” Another slight pause. “Trouble was already there.”
Her brows furrowed. “What does that mean?”
“It means . . .” He exhaled, a sound that somehow managed to brush against her skin even though it was nowhere close. “Trouble doesn’t always knock. Sometimes it sneaks in through the back and waits for you to step through the door.”
She didn’t know if he meant him or herself.
Knowing the man, likely both.
She rolled to her side, her front facing the direction of his voice. Though the room was cloaked in darkness, she could make out the shape of him lying on the floor. One arm behind his head. The other stretched toward the edge of her bed—but not touching.
Just . . . close.
He shifted, and her skin prickled.
This wasn’t a man who gave away pieces of himself freely. But she couldn’t help the absurd sense that maybe—just maybe—he’d handed her a corner of something about him tonight. A little scrap of the true man. The man hiding beneath all that black. Beneath those black leather gloves.
She tugged the covers up just a little higher.
“Maxen?” she murmured, her voice barely above a breath.
“Hm.”
“Thank you for tonight.”
He didn’t answer for a moment, then simply said, “Always.”
She almost laughed. Everything about this situation was ridiculous. Uncomfortable. Dangerous, even. And yet, here she lay. Not exactly a bed of her own making, but one she’d willingly entered.
Trouble had clearly found her. And at this moment, it was lying just an arm’s breadth away.
I’m never going to fall asleep.
*
Maxen opened the door and scowled at Drake, who had disturbed them at the arse crack of dawn. “Do you know what time it is?” he asked in a low voice, blocking the entrance with his body.
“I do. Do you?”
The hour must be later than he thought. He stretched out his arms, joints cracking. His back ached somewhat, but at least his balls didn’t anymore. “What are you doing here? Did something happen?”
“You slept with a woman.”
“False. And even if I did, is that bloody newsworthy?”
“You brought a woman home.” Drake’s brows rose. “That’s a Fury first. And of all of us, unlike you the most.”
“Get lost.”
Drake pushed past him anyway. “But she’s here, in your bedchamber.”
Maxen dragged a hand down his face and closed the door behind him with more force than necessary but less than he wanted. “She’s in the bed. I was on the floor.”
“How very proper of you.” Drake gaze tracked the room, landing on the door of his chamber. “I’d be impressed if I believed for one damned second you slept.”
He hadn’t.
He’d lain on the floor all night, muscles tense, listening to the various states of her breathing. The subtle shifts of her body.
But not the damn point.
He wasn’t sure what unsettled him more—the fact that she’d taken up so much space in his thoughts . . . or how right it had felt to have her here. Which in itself was so bloody damn wrong. She was soft. Light. He was . . .
Not.
Drake leaned against the windowpane, arms folded. “I’ve never known you to offer protection to anyone outside of blood.”
“It’s my duty as a landlord,” Maxen defended flatly.
“Right. Your duties as a landlord.”
“She’s an innocent.”
“Yet to be proven.”
Maxen’s jaw ticked. “She’s not a spy. Might even be in danger.”
“I didn’t say she was or that she wasn’t.”
Christ. It was too early for this. “Are you telling me you didn’t just imply both?”