****
"I still can't believe that I just stood there. I've been thinking about that moment for months and I just --- and you're asleep."
Ariel stopped rubbing her wet hair with the towel and stared at Daniel, who was sprawled across one of the beds still in his suit, snoring. She sighed and yanked his shoes off, tossing them into the closet so he didn't trip on them in the middle of the night when he inevitably woke up and shuffled off to the bathroom.
She glanced at the clock and realized it was only eleven o'clock. Daniel’s finals might have sucked the life out of him, but Ariel wasn't ready to go to bed yet. She saw the book on the nightstand and picked it up, flipping it open for the first time to see the inscription Max had written.
You are beautiful. Max Grimsley.
Ariel's breath caught in her throat. Even more restless now, she dressed as quickly as she could, put on more makeup despite having just washed it all off in the shower, and headed down to the hotel lounge. She had only taken a few steps in when she saw Max sitting at the bar, staring down at his drink contemplatively.
She drew in a deep breath, taking a moment just to appreciate the curve of his body beneath his dark clothing. This was her chance to fix the awkwardness of their first encounter, even though she dreaded even getting near him for fear of how she would react. Today had not been a stellar day for her self-control.
Ariel took an arced path to approach him so that she came up behind him rather to his side. This gave her a few more seconds to come up with what she wanted to say to him. His back rose and fell, the broad muscles across his shoulders shifting beneath the black fabric of his shirt making her mind wander back to tucking the book with his name inside under her pillow and the alternative she had suggested to Daniel. Max suddenly straightened as if she had spoken and turned to her. His eyes caught hers and she saw his lips part slightly.
"Thank you for signing my book," she said, forcing out the only words she could come up with under the entrancing power of his stare.
"Of course," he said back, "Would you like to join me?"
Ariel nodded and went to step toward the barstool beside him, but Max stood up and took a step away from the bar.
"Not here?" she asked and he shook his head.
"Come for a walk with me."
Max started for the door to the bar and Ariel followed, intrigued and slightly overwhelmed by what was happening. They stepped outside into the crisp air of an autumn evening and walked in silence away from the hotel until they reached a black gate.
"What's this?" she asked and Max pulled a card-shaped key out of his pocket.
"My private beach," he replied, opening the gate and stepping aside so that she could walk past him, "It's connected to my suite and for some reason the hotel decided they needed to treat it like a convict and close it away from everyone else."
Ariel watched him close the gate behind himself and come toward her. A shiver rippled across her arms and she rubbed them.
"I'll never understand why they host these conventions at beaches during the cold weather."
"No tourists to get in the way?" he offered. There was a pause and he tilted his head down slightly. "I hope I didn't get you into any trouble with your boyfriend."
"Who?" she asked, confused.
"The man that was with you at the gala."
Ariel laughed.
"That's Daniel. He's most certainly not my boyfriend."
"I'm glad to hear that."
Her breath grew more shallow as she saw Max coming toward her.
"Why would you get me into trouble?" she asked quietly.
"My inscription. I felt a little silly writing that, but I couldn't bring myself to say it to you, even though I had been thinking it since the moment I saw you at my speech."
By this point he was only a few feet away and Ariel could see the luscious color of his eyes and the plush softness of his lips. She took a breath to try to settle her trembling. Her body felt drawn to him in a way that she had never experienced. It was as though it knew something that she didn't.
"Would it make you feel better to know that I think you are incredibly beautiful?" she whispered.
He stepped even closer, and for the first time, Ariel realized that he had one sleeve of his shirt rolled up to his elbow and the other kept buttoned at his wrist. She ventured to touch the sleeve, feeling the warmth of the skin and the strength of the muscles beneath the fabric.
"What's with the sleeve?" she asked and saw a flash of darkness flicker across his eyes.
"How well do you know my books?" he asked.
Ariel looked at him quizzically.
"Extremely. Why?"
Max looked faintly pained, but something in his expression told her that his words and his gestures held meaning well beyond what she understood of them and pled her to be patient. He released the buttons on the cuff of the sleeve he wore full-length and slowly pushed the fabric up, revealing his forearm and a long, jagged scar in his skin.
Her hand flew to her mouth and Ariel rested her fingertips tenderly against the smooth scar. Words streamed through her head in a continuous ribbon, appearing typed against a white background as she remembered the detailed description of that exact scar. She knew the weapon that had created it and what shifter wielded that weapon. It was, to its every feature, exactly like the scar on borne by Lazar in Max's books.
"It's just like…" she trailed off, not sure exactly what this meant.
Max nodded.
"It is."
She lifted her eyes to him sharply, processing the words, trying to decipher their meaning. Was he only affirming that the scar on his arm was like the one of his main character; that perhaps it was the inspiration for the brutal battle wound the shifter suffered while in wolf form?
Or could he possibly be telling her that it was, in fact, that scar?