Two
Elle
I just needed a job. I came here for a job. But there was something about this man. I didn't know how to answer his questions, and his whole demeanor was so intimidating. He was terrifying and yet somehow beautifully ravaged with a thick scar slashed across one cheekbone, losing itself in the coarse hair of his well-kept stubble. He didn’t quite have a beard, but it was long enough for someone to push her fingers through. He was the most handsome man I had ever seen and that scared me. I knew a lot about handsome and terrifying men. Men were dangerous. They were scary and mean, but I knew how to keep away. I knew no one would keep me safe. I learned at a young age to stay away from men. They took what they wanted and left. They didn't protect but destroyed.
Maxwell's words hummed on a loop in my head as his dark eyes roamed across my body in a lascivious manner before he adverted his eyes away. Men never turned their eyes away; this was new. Usually, the men that my father had hanging around would look at me like I was dinner. Shame never dwindled in their eyes; there was only hunger. Maxwell had that same look, this predatory gaze that would stop a timid being right in their tracks, but with him, there was something more, something gentle and also haunting.
His gaze bore through me like the embers of a fire before it engulfed a forest. His eyes darkened like the calm right before a storm. I knew this man was not one to be trifled with. He was used to having his demands answered, his needs met. “Umm,” I choked, backing against one long shelf that capped the classics row. Right up against Dante and Dickens, he was stealing my sense, and maybe something more. “I don’t even know your name.” I had not even contemplated those words until I said them. This man who looked at me in such an intimate way was a stranger. I didn't know him, but I knew I wanted to. Never in my life had I been so intrigued by a man. Never had one touched my body with his eyes the way this scarred stranger did.
“Maxwell.” He leaned closer, the sharp angle of his surprisingly elegant nose just millimeters from my ear, the heavy pants of his breath washing across my skin and sending shivers down my body. I had a strange desire to gently brush my hand across his scar. “What’s yours?”
The vibration of his voice shuddered through me like a high voltage shock. His tone, like currents, pulsed through my veins, stimulating every nerve ending in my body. “Elle.” My eyes dropped closed and panic consumed me. I started to feel like the walls were closing in. I felt trapped. This man had trapped me. Fight or flight, fight or flight.
When men got too close, when they ogled and defiled, my body took over. My survival instincts took over. My mother had always been hurt, but that was my dad's fault. My mother kept me safe the best she could.
The next thing I knew, I was curled up in a ball on the floor, completely humiliated with tears streaking down my hot cheeks. Giant footsteps rushed away from me. Great; I had completely left myself vulnerable to this bear of a man that I didn't know. A man that looked at me with predatory eyes. I slowly lifted my head from my arms when I knew he was far away, but way too soon, his giant steps came crashing towards me and, once again, I felt my breaths accelerating.
“Here, drink this.” His words were curt as he shoved a tall glass of ice-cold water at me. My hands trembling, I held the glass and took slow, deliberate sips. His eyes looked confused, menacing, and soft all at once. My eyes, of their own accord, shifted to his scar. I wondered how he’d gotten that violent slash on his face. How it must feel to have scars showing on the outside for the world to see.
I knew all too well about scars. How they were ugly and deformed from the outside in. Daunting slashes scraped across layers of delicate flesh. Maxwell wore his scar on his face, I wore mine on the inside. Mine festered and did not heal. My scars destroyed me and made me run; his seemed to have destroyed him and made him hide.
Maxwell raised his hand and gently clasped my face. His rough palm, though formidable, was remarkably gentle. My breath hitched at his touch. I longed for it. It both excited me and left me agitated. I didn't trust it. He slowly moved his hand, brushing his fingers ever so gently along my arm. His touch felt like an artist’s brush and my body a blank canvas for him to mold. I was nothing and yet his touch made me feel like a priceless work of art. I had never been touched like this before, my body an inferno. I could almost feel the molecules buzzing with warmth and about to ignite.
His gentle palm roamed my skin and hovered just above my breastbone, as if he held me suspended by his invisible sexual energy, before his long middle finger made contact at the cotton between the rounded globes of my breasts. He dragged one finger down my rib cage, brushing over the soft dip of my navel, before ending at my waistband. I shut my eyes, longing to get lost in his touch. I wanted to shut everything off and just feel. I wanted his fingers gently brushing my skin. I wanted to be his muse, I wanted him to make me forget, I wanted to be safe in his arms. “You’re a distraction,” he finished, and with my eyes still closed, I felt almost happy.
His heavy hand clasped with my own, leaving me feeling oddly protected and calm. Why was he doing this? Why was I letting him?
“Help me put away the rest of these books.” On another breath, he was gone, the air absent of his protection, my mind reeling from his simple touch, my body burning up.
“Sure,” I stuttered, trying to get my bearings. I stumbled my way to the circulation desk and found my application in the trash and a stack of books in his arms that need shelving. “You’re throwing my application away? Please, Maxwell, I need this job. I love books, I am well read. My whole life was spent in the library. I am a hard worker and very dependable,” I rambled in desperation.
“Got everything I need.” His eyes sparkled and his beautiful lips twinged with a smile before he adjusted the collar of his crisp shirt. My eyes cast on the bronzed hollow of his throat, over the sharp edge of his clavicle, down, down to the bronze dusting of hair layered brazenly across his muscled pectorals. Being in the same room with Maxwell Black was a disastrous distraction. “You were the only applicant anyway, so I didn’t have much of a selection.”
I found my lips turning up on their own. This was my salvation, my escape. “I will take that as a compliment.”
“It wasn't meant to be one. If I were giving you a compliment, beautiful Elle, you’d know it.” He paused and then moved his body behind me. “You’d feel it here,” he whispered at the nape of my neck and left shivers trailing down my body from his mere breath. “Definitely here.” His fingertips danced at the back of my thighs, inching higher by the centimeter before backing away again. “You’ll know when I want you.” His tone fell another octave and rumbled straight into my stomach, twisting my insides and coiling my core into a tightly wound spring.
“Who says I want you?” I hummed, my confidence weak in his presence. It was his turn to laugh as a belly chuckle filled the small space. I was determined not to show weakness. Men never protected. All this was a mirage and I was so thirsty.
“We’ll see about that.” He followed closely behind me as I turned down the fiction aisle and shelved a Rebecca Du Maurier classic. “And, Elle?” His sexy voice singsonged; he was playful all of a sudden. “I like the chase. When you are ready, you will like it too.” I nearly dropped the remaining books at my feet before I opened my eyes and he was gone again, his tall burly figure already rounding the corner of the stacks.
Damn him. I wanted him more than I’d ever wanted anything. But I knew with every beat of my heart he would be nothing but bad for me. How could a man like that be good for anybody? And on top of all that, the scar. Whatever had happened to him hadn’t been pretty, yet a part of me wanted to find out. Maxwell intrigued me and normally I was too frightened to be intrigued.
So I lifted my chin in the air and followed Maxwell, determined to stay in his good graces and keep this job. My life depended on it.