Chapter Nineteen
Calliope hadn’t known what to expect when the door creaked open. Well, fine, she’d expected something ordinary. Not this.
Maxen stood there.
Bare.
Bare. Chested. Bare chested. Bare hands. Her heart didn’t just beat. It stuttered, then paused, then thundered like it meant to escape her entirely. Every rational thought fled as her gaze swept over him.
He was a man man.
Muscle and scars and muscle.
And stars save her, she wanted to press her mouth to every scar, trace every line with her tongue and ask the stories with her hands. Not a thought a sensible woman should indulge! But Maxen Fury didn’t make her feel sensible.
He made her feel wild.
Broad shoulders, cut from some wicked sculptor’s fantasy.
The planes of his chest a canvas of sin, defined and dusted with a line of dark hair that arrowed down toward the waistband of his trousers.
There was a scar just above his heart—red and angry—like he’d been stabbed.
Slice marks adorned his ribs, his side, even his abdomen.
Some clean. Some ragged. Each one a story she might never get to hear but was still dying to know anyway.
She swallowed hard.
If she’d thought him handsome before . . . This was dangerous, dangerous.
Every instinct screamed that she shouldn’t be here. That she should turn around, close the door, pretend she hadn’t come to him at all. But her feet wouldn’t obey. Why had she come here again?
Oh, yes. Concern.
Yet, now, no words would form on her lips.
His brow drew together. “Is something wrong?”
Wrong. Hah. Everything about this moment was wrong. But somehow, also maddeningly, frighteningly right.
“No,” she said, her voice oddly breathless. “I—um. No.”
His gaze dropped to her hands, as if searching for signs of distress. Then his eyes rose again, calm, unreadable. But there was something there. A flicker of calculation. Something darker beneath the coolness.
She shouldn’t stare. But her gaze dropped to his hands again.
Big hands. Calloused and strong. But inked.
The tattoos on his palms, black swirling lines that twisted into forms and runes she didn’t quite recognize.
Even his fingers were inked. She imagined one brushing down her cheek.
She imagined all five pressing into her back.
Calliope!
Since when did you become a woman to have such thoughts?
She stepped closer without meaning to. “I mean . . . are those names on your fingers?”
He held out one hand, fingers curling slightly.
Yes, they were. Names etched deep into the skin:
Knight. Drake. Reaper. Serpent. Saint.
How extraordinary.
“They’re your brothers’ names,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“You must love them very much.” The intimacy made her whole body clench. To wear his loyalty on his skin like that. His knuckles bore their names like vows—etched deep, permanent. No one had ever loved her like that.
His jaw worked slightly. “My family is my life.”
She nodded, smiling. “I’m envious. That is something I do not have anymore. Family.”
He stilled. “Is that the reason you came to Brighton?”
Calliope hesitated. Then nodded. “Yes. Amongst other reasons.”
“Other reasons?”
“Curious, are you?” she countered, still smiling.
“You could say that.” He looked down at Prince sticking to her legs. “You do have family, as unconventional it may be. He’s a good dog.”
“He is.” Albeit a bit traitorous.
And she? She could still barely breathe. Because he was still bare-chested. She was still standing there. Because somehow the air between them had thickened. Her gaze dropped again. She couldn’t stop staring at his hands, wondering what all the marks meant.
“The other is a compass,” he said quietly, as if he could hear her thoughts. “A reminder to stay the course. The thorns represent obstacles. They cover the scars.”
Scars? She hadn’t even noticed the scars, too dazed by the black ink, but now she couldn’t miss them. Cuts and burn scars. Her heart went out for the man. What a life he must have lived. “Did they hurt—the tattoos?”
He studied her. “Not more than what was already there.”
She couldn’t even fathom those words. She hesitated but finally asked the question that had been hidden in the back of her mind from the moment she met him. “Have you ever killed a man?”
His reply came instantly. “Not a man, no.”
Oh.
“The act was one of mercy.”
Oh. Well, that was oddly comforting. A non-bloodthirsty beast. “Right, you don’t kill people. Rules like that start for a reason, correct?”
“To take a life,” he said slowly, “you must first understand the value of one. We understand. So we don’t take it.”
Stars. This man was going to ruin her. “So you have different ways of taking care of your enemies?”
“There are many ways to ruin a man. Or woman. They don’t require my hands.”
Her gaze dropped to his hands again. “You hide them,” she said softly. “Your hands.”
He nodded.
She didn’t know why that made her chest ache. “Then why did you let me see them now?” Her gaze lifted to his. “There are many ways you could have hidden them.”
“I didn’t let you.” The corner of his lips twitched. “You walked in.”
Her eyes flew wide. “Right! Intrusion! I seem to be excellent at that.” Intruding in all sorts of situations.
“You are.” His voice was soft. Deep. Almost amused.
No, most assuredly amused. Her cheeks warmed.
He stepped closer.
Calliope felt that one step in her weakening knees.
“You shouldn’t be in my chamber.”
Stars, forget her knees. Her whole body was in jeopardy here. “Because you are dangerous?”
“Yes.”
Then why did that yes sound so inviting?
The air charged around them. The moment before a storm breaks.
She wanted to touch his chest, press her palm to that scar above his heart.
Everything in her thundered to retreat—this man, this moment, this feeling—but her body had gone traitorous again, just like her dog.
Why had she come again?
Concern, yes. That was the excuse. But deep down, she’d known.
From the moment she heard him take the stairs, from the moment she’d told herself don’t, she’d already decided to.
And here he was in a way she wasn’t ready for.
Bare chest, ink, scars, and eyes that saw more than they should.
He didn’t hide the wreckage of his past. He wore branded into his skin. And maybe that’s what shook her most.
She hid her past. Buried it as far as she could.
The urge to flee rose. “I should go,” Calliope said softly.
His eyes—those dark storms—roamed her face. “Yes, you should.”
Neither of them moved.
She squared her shoulders, refusing to give into habit. “You don’t scare me.”
His lips curved slightly. “You should be scared.”
“But I’m not.”
He leaned in, and her hands rose to his chest, pressing against the firm wall of him. He sucked in a breath, and the skin of her arms broke out in gooseflesh.
“You’re doing it again,” he said roughly.
“Doing what?”
“Stripping me of my power.”
That was promise. A promise of power. And the promise made something in her break free.
She wanted to taste that promise. To make those words real.
To press her lips to something that felt like seductive truth.
Before she could stop herself, she rose to her toes, fingers digging into his flesh, and kissed the beast on the mouth.
*
Her lips met his, and the impact ripped the breath clean from his chest. Maxen didn’t move.
Didn’t breathe. Didn’t dare. She tasted like the sweetest damn hope he’d ever tasted, and everything he hadn’t let himself want for too damn long.
And then she pulled back, startled by her own boldness, her eyes wide like she’d just stepped off a ledge without knowing what waited below.
God. Not yet.
He reached for her, his hands coming up as if pulled by a force older than logic.
One cradled her jaw, the other curved around the back of her head, fingers threading through the loose strands of her hair like he’d dreamed of doing it a thousand times.
If he didn’t kiss her again, he’d damn well explode into a million damn pieces.
His lips claimed her.
Calliope gasped against him, then melted, not holding anything back either. He kissed her like he didn’t know how to stop. Like it hurt. Like it healed. Like bloody survival itself.
No finesse. Just pure want.
Her hands dragged down his bare chest, trembling slightly as they pressed against scarred skin.
He broke the kiss only to drop another at the corner of her mouth.
Then her cheek. Her jaw. The column of her neck, then the dip of her collarbone like each part of her held a secret he needed to learn.
He curled a lock of hair around his finger and said hoarsely, “What the devil did you do to me?”
A shaky breath left her, one that was half-laugh. “I didn’t mean to do any—”
“You don’t need to mean it to do it.”
She tilted her face up to his again, her lips a whisper from his. “Then kiss me again.”
He pulled back a fraction to study her. Her eyes were dazed. Her lips swollen. Well, damnation.
He was lost.
So he kissed her again. This time slower.
One of her hands drifted to his shoulder, the pads of her fingers brushing the raised ridges of a scar. He hissed, the rush of being touched by her hands intoxicating. Being touched softly.
He didn’t know softness.
But gods, he wanted to know.
She leaned into him to deepen the kiss, and he lost himself again—her taste, her scent, the answering willingness. Christ, he kissed her like he could convince himself he deserved her. And she kissed him like he already did.
Time stopped.
Or maybe time stretched.
He didn’t know. Didn’t care.
His mouth moved over hers again and again, until it was no longer just his hands memorizing her—but everything. His soul. His breath. His bones.
Her name—Calliope—lodged in his throat like a prayer.
He cupped her face, his thumb brushing across her. His other hand slid down to hers, gently lacing their fingers together.
Her breath hitched. “Your hands . . .”
“You’ve seen the worst of me,” he said softly, reluctantly leaving her lips to press his forehead to hers.
She didn’t answer with words. She leaned in and brushed her lips over his again. Soft. Certain.
“You’ve commandeered my mind,” he said against her mouth. “What the hell do I do?”
She laughed. “To repeat my earlier sentiment: You kiss me again,” she whispered urgently, “and you don’t stop unless I do.”
So bloody bold. “Christ, Calliope.”
He gathered her closer but didn’t dare touch anywhere below her shoulders. This wasn’t about lust. It was about touch.
Desperate. Aching. Touch.
But everything else, her hair, her face, the fluttering pulse at her throat, he worshipped. He’d never been more terrified. And never more alive. It burned his soul—the touch of her fingers on his skin. His on hers.
Slowly, she broke away from his lips.
His chest rose and fell like he’d just finished a fight, but he didn’t step away from her. Didn’t tell her to leave again. He just stood there. Bare-chested. Bare-souled. Her hands touching both.
She stared up at him. “Is it too late to say I should go?”
He exhaled. Rough. “It’s too late.”
What the devil did a man do now? And what the blazes did he mean by saying that?
He didn’t know. But he couldn’t stop himself either.
Promises were only as good as the people who made them.
But she made him want to listen to all her promises.
She made him believe there was something left in him worth touching.
Worth saving.
Worth believing in.
But only for a moment.
A woman like her didn’t really belong with a man like him. She lived in the light, while he lived in the shadows. She needed protection, while he still had to fight. Still had to find the rat who hurt his brother and set lit matches to his property. Used her to distract him.
“Why does this feel like something we can’t undo?” she asked.
Because it was. “Nothing that’s happened can ever be undone.
” Only forgotten. And even that was impossible in most cases.
And if she walked away now, he’d ache for her in ways he didn’t have language for.
He didn’t know how to do this. How to want someone with such force. How to be wanted by someone back.
Her thumb brushed along the scar that cut his lip. Maxen closed his eyes, letting the moment soak into him.
He hadn’t been touched like this before.
Not ever. Not by someone who saw all the cracks and touched him so gently anyway. Who didn’t flinch at his scars. Who didn’t recoil at his truths. Not even in the moments he’d taken care of his needs. They were just impulses being dealt with. No need for real care.
He tangled their fingers together again, lifting their joined hands to his mouth. He pressed a kiss to her knuckles. If this was a dream, he’d rather die than ever wake up.
“I need you to be safe,” he said, voice thick. He needed that more than he needed anything else.
“You don’t have to keep me in a cage to do that.”
Who said he couldn’t do just that? “I’m not sure I know another way. And this is not a cage.”
She smiled then. “Ship, then. I know you want to lock me up.”
What could he say? It was the damn truth.
“You know,” she murmured, “solutions that are found together obtain victory together.”
Her words struck something deep inside him. They were true, but for one thing. Both parties must commit to the solutions or both risked losing out. This woman before him, she was the sort to commit.
Christ, he wanted to claim her lips again.
No, he needed to kiss her but . . . Could he keep his soul, his damn nerve, if he did? He didn’t think he’d be able to stop if he did. If this continued, he would take something from her he could not return . . .
Maxen stepped back, his fingers curling into fists at his sides. The pained growl left him before he could stop himself. “You should leave.”