She’s a ball of tension in my arms, which activates every protective bone in my body. I default to action. With a trio of forceful steps, I back her into a notch of space in the wall behind the bar. While my shoulders protrude from the crevice, it’s deep enough to accommodate all of her and most of me.
I finally relent my hold, moving my hands to rub gently up and down her arms. “Once the cops get here, they’ll get things under control. I can sneak you out the back and through the alley. Better yet, you can just stay here the whole day.”
The new warmth of my voice gives away how I’d love nothing better, but Kara’s still hunched in and shivering like she’s caught on a washed-out bridge. Still, when she lifts her stare up at me, there’s new hope in her eyes.
“You’d let me do that?” she whispers.
I lift a hand to her face. Press my forehead to hers. “That’s like asking if I’d let myself glimpse heaven.”
In a rush of sweet, sighing energy, she finally slackens a little. But not so much that she relents her hold on me. My senses heighten as she slides her arms around my neck, even shifting one hand into my hair. Her tentative smile ignites me…pulls at me. Despite the din that continues outside, I’m going to kiss her. And she’s going to let me. Nothing can break our bond. Nothing can hold back our heat.
Except the second my mouth brushes hers, a ruthless sound blares from her dress’s pocket. And in the space of that heartless hail, everything about Kara’s composure is back to washed-out bridge mode.
No. Worse.
She pulls out her phone, which is still screaming like a tornado warning and buzzing like ten beehives, from her pocket. “It’s my mother.”
“I’m sure she’s familiar with how voicemail works.”
“You don’t understand. Honestly, it’s probably best that you don’t.”
She flattens a hand against my chest like the mere sound of her mother’s ringtone is a call to flee. In that moment, recognition hits without mercy. If I don’t block her from leaving, I’ll lose her.
“Kara, don’t leave. Neither of us expected this, but—”
“This is more important.” Her voice wavers. “I’m sorry.”
“So you’re saying that those idiots with their cameras and whatever conclusions anyone wants to draw about the photos they snap is more important than everything I’m feeling for you…every goddamned way I’m drawn to you?”
“No. But this is my life. I didn’t choose it. It’s just the way it is.” Her breath leaves her in harsh husks. “I’m sorry, Maximus. I’m so, so sorry—but I have to go.”
“I’m not letting you leave this way.” It’s irrational and probably unfair, but the advantage of my strength is something I’m willing to use to keep her here a little longer.
“Please. If I don’t go, she’ll come here, and—”
“Then let her come.”
“Maximus.”
Nothing about her shaky plea or the quivers in her fingertips prepares me for how she punctuates that. By shoving me with all the force in her arms. A force equal to that of a dozen full-grown men.
A force strong enough to set me back a few steps.
It’s a new experience. No one’s ever been able to budge me by an inch, let alone full steps, without me consciously allowing it. I’m not sure I like it. At all.
While my brain struggles to catch up with my shock, Kara deals an even harder blow. Her gaze, so full of torment and conflict, is worse than any physical blast she could ever unleash on me.
“I’m sorry,” she says once more.
This time when she turns to leave, rushing out the back entrance, I’m struck with more than the ache of missing her. More than the torture of being left with her cinnamon spice in my senses and her pretty fedora at my feet.
For once, I wonder if the river between us has changed directions. Because the devastating force of the feelings she fled with is a cinder block in my chest now. The heartbreak in her eyes. The defeat in her withering energy, like she used the last of it to push me away.
And for the first time since she walked into my world, a new agony rips ruthlessly through me. The possibility that I might never get her back.
Chapter Twenty-One
Kara
“Tell me there’s a good explanation for this, Kara.”
My mother’s displeasure fills the room like her too-strong perfume, pressing against the silk-covered walls of her office. I feel like I can’t breathe in