“I’m so sorry, Camille.” Max honks the horn and revs the engine. Several daring reporters block our exit, but the officers don’t hesitate to remove them from the path.
We peel away from the curb with a screech of tires, but they’re already racing into vans, piling in before we can get away. Max reaches across my lap and opens the glove box, grabbing a single dome-shaped light from inside. He winds down the window and places it on the top of the car. The wailing hurts my ears, but it clears us a path through the thick New York traffic.
We’re on the Brooklyn bridge before he turns the siren off, and the silence in the car falls thick and heavy between us.
“Are you okay?” he asks in a tentative voice. It’s so strange from a man whom I’ve come to know as anything but timid.
I have no words, so I just shake my head.
I’m exhausted. I’m nothing. I’m left. Forgotten. Lost.
I close my eyes and lean back against the headrest. When I open them again, we’re in a parking garage, and Maximus is gently shaking me awake.
“I um . . . I didn’t know where else to bring you. I didn’t want to take you back to your father’s, and you were kind of out of it.”
I lower my gaze.
“Sorry, Si . . .” I trail off, caught by how automatic it is to follow an apology with Sir. “I-it’s fine. Where are we?”
“My apartment. I can take you to a hotel if you prefer?”
“No, this is fine.” I open the door and climb out before he can say anything else. I’m not ready to talk about what just happened. I’m not ready to deal with it at all. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready. I don’t ever want to be.
Max climbs out of the car and locks it, and we walk over to what appears to be a service elevator. I follow him in and try to ignore the way he stares at me.
When the elevator reaches its stop on the fifth floor I leap out, as if afraid I’ll get bitten. Maximus studies me for a beat before heading to a door at the end of the hall. He slides the key in the lock and opens it wide.
Max’s apartment is a one-bedroom loft. The windows are huge, overlooking the Hudson. There’s a tattered couch, a busted up tan leather armchair, a wooden coffee table, and an old TV. He has no curtains or drapes. The kitchenette is so small I wonder how Maximus even fits in there, but it’s clean. The whole apartment is. Everything is orderly and tucked away in its place.
“It’s no mansion in Hudson Valley or swanky apartment in Manhattan, but it’s home.”
“It’s really nice.” I let him take my coat, scarf, and gloves, and I walk over to his refrigerator. I stare at the photographs stuck to it. There are several pictures, all with Maximus. There’s a grainy black-and-white shot of New York covered in ash, and beside it, a picture of a young Max and an older man in the pale blues. A cop.
“That was my pop. I joined the force because of him.”
I run my finger down over their faces, studying the family resemblance with a smile.
“His crew was first on the scene when the planes hit. He died after the second tower fell.”
“I’m so sorry.”
He nods and brushes by me to enter the kitchen. His big body feels nice pressed against my back, and his hands grip my elbows. I close my eyes, and wonder what it would feel like to be naked beneath him. Would he crush me? Would I care?
“You want something to drink?”
“God yes,” I turn and stare up at him. “Please?”
He nods and shuffles me out of the way. His kitchen is too small for the two of us, but I like the closeness. I like the way he towers over me. And I especially like the way he smells. Male. Virile. Powerful.
He opens the fridge and leans over, giving me a perfect view of his ass. “I got beer or beer.”
“Beer’s great.”
He nods and pulls two bottles from the fridge, popping off the tops on the edge of the kitchen sink before handing one to me. He clinks his bottle with mine and I climb onto the counter behind me, crossing one leg over the other. Maximus’s eyes roll over me and then quickly dart away. I’m wearing jeans, so it’s not like he can see my body, but I feel his embarrassment all the same.
“You wanna talk abou—”
“No. I really don’t.”