Chapter 34 Max

Chapter 34

Max

She buckles beneath me, her cries ragged and muffled by her own hand as she peaks. The sound of my name escaping her well-kissed lips when she bottoms out on a wave of pleasure is pure music to my ears. Better than my favorite song. Better than all the songs in the whole damn world.

I withdraw my fingers from her and press a kiss to both inner thighs, her taste coating my tongue and driving me wild. More kisses make their way across her half-naked body as I crawl up to find her lips. She's breathing heavily, eyes closed. Her arms fling around my neck as she pulls me down on top of her and sifts her fingers through my sweat-damp hair.

My T-shirt is tossed beside the bed, my sweatpants tented. I settle between her legs and grind against her, only a thin layer of clothing between us. We both moan.

"Max," she whimpers, gently grazing her nails up and down the planes of my bare back. "We could go further…"

My throat rolls with trapped desire. Fuck, I want that more than anything.

No …that's not true.

More than anything, I want us to go back to what we used to be. Before the accident. Before she started looking at me like I was a stranger.

Like someone she fears.

Those are the most debilitating moments. The times when I catch her off guard or accidentally startle her. She'll flinch, her gaze locking right on mine as genuine terror sparks in her eyes. It's fleeting, just a flash. But it's instinct and that's what murders my fucking heart and has it drying out like concrete inside my chest.

And then there are these moments.

The too-short nights in her bed, a cool midnight breeze sweeping in through the window, moonlight setting her aglow while she unravels beneath me. I banish her fear with my tongue and execute her demons with my soul-deep kisses. She's mine again. She's mine until the sun crests and dawn shines new light on her darkness.

I frame her face with both hands and sprinkle more kisses across her face. "I can't move forward, Sunny. Not until we go back."

Her eyes fall closed. "We can't go back."

"Then this is where we'll stay."

"I want more," she murmurs, lips quivering.

"So do I."

Every night, I stay a little longer. A half an hour, an hour, two hours. Daybreak lingers on the horizon and I wonder if tonight will be the night I fall asleep in her arms and wake up beside her, her hair haloed across the pillow, our limbs perfectly entangled.

"Hold me, Max," she says, pulling me close.

I inch up and settle beside her, tugging her to my chest. My heart pounds with hope. With desperate, foolish hope that this is that night.

"I need to tell you something," she whispers, dragging her index finger down my chest.

Tension infects the small gap between us, but I focus on her finger making lazy designs near my heart. "You can tell me anything."

Anything except that it's over.

Anything but that.

She inhales deeply and it falls out with a noticeable shake. "God…I don't even know how to say this. I still haven't processed it."

My muscles lock up as I find her eyes, nerves racing all the way down to my toes. I wonder if she's going to tell me about the fall. Tell me that some motherfucker pushed her, that someone tried to kill the girl I love. I swallow. "Tell me."

"It's…about my brother."

A frown bends my brows. "Shit," I murmur. "Did they schedule his execution already?" That can't be right. It's hardly been three years—even I know it can take decades.

She shakes her head. "No."

"Then what?"

"He…" Ella moves away and rolls onto her back, rubbing both hands over her face and through her hair. "He's free, Max. Jonah's sentence was overturned. The charges were thrown out and he was released."

What?

Her words freeze me.

Choke me.

I pull up on my elbow, leaning over her, thunderstruck. "How?"

"Contamination of DNA evidence. Jury tampering. That's the short version."

"Are you safe?" It's the first thing on my mind. The only thing on my mind.

She turns, her own frown staring back at me. Hesitating, she nods slowly, carefully. "Of course I am. Why would you think otherwise?"

"Because he murdered two people, Ella."

"No, he didn't. I just told you that the charges were thrown out. He's innocent."

"They proved that?"

Her breathing is unsteady as she sits up straight, putting more space between us on the bed. "They couldn't prove anything either way."

"So, he's not necessarily innocent. He's just free."

"He's not guilty."

My heartbeats are in a tizzy, the cold prickle of fear seeping into my bones. "Ella…you thought he was guilty. You told me yourself. What changed? Was there new evidence discovered? Was the real killer captured?"

Tears light up her eyes as she scrambles to put her clothes back on. "I was wrong, okay? Jonah would never hurt me. You don't even know him," she says. "It's hard enough living with the notion that I ever doubted him in the first place. I don't need you adding to it."

"You can't blame me for worrying. He was on death row for a brutal double homicide and now he's been released on a technicality. That fucking terrifies me." I try to reach for her but she swats me away, yanking her tank top over her head. "Sunny."

"You should go now. It's almost morning."

"Ella…please." My voice breaks on the word. "I love you."

I didn't mean to say that.

Fuck.

I've meant to say that all along.

Silence follows, my confession dangling between heartbreak and healing. It teeters on the edge of putting us back together and tearing us apart for good.

Ella stares straight ahead, her eyes wide and glazed. Breath caught, hands trembling as she fists the bedcovers. When she finally inhales, a small cry falls out. She dips her chin and shakes her head back and forth. "Don't," she says huskily.

Her response pulverizes me. Emotion snags in my throat as I move in, reaching for her. "I mean it. I should've said it months ago."

"Stop. Please."

"I won't stop. I won't stop loving you because you're scared. I'm scared, too." I take her hand but she rips it free. "I'm absolutely petrified that you're falling away from me, while I'm falling more and more in love with you. Every day. Every minute."

She covers her face with both hands, her shoulders shaking. "You don't love me," she says, the words muffled. "We're too young."

"You say that like it's insignificant," I shoot back, trying to hold it together. Trying to hold us together at the same time. "Jesus, Ella, young love is the purest fucking kind. I think I've loved you since the day I first saw you on that playground ten years ago."

"That's ridiculous. We were only kids."

"Doesn't matter. You smiled at me and I knew I was going to marry you one day."

"Stop!" she shouts, loud enough to startle me. We stare at each other, tears streaming down both of our faces. "Don't you get it, Max? God …" She forces out a laugh that sounds unhinged. "I may have been wrong about Jonah, but I was right about love. Love blinds you. That's its toxic trait. It blinds your soul."

I clench my jaw, hating her words. Hating her bleak, miserable stance on love. On my love. "Souls don't see, Sunny. Souls feel. They feel, and they yearn, and they know ." Swallowing, I move in closer, refusing to give up on this. Refusing to give up on her. "I'd feel you in any lifetime, in any version of any reality. And I'd know, without a doubt, without a shred of hesitation…that your soul was meant for mine."

"No…" She breaks apart, draping both arms across her stomach like she's trying to keep all of her precious pieces from spilling out into the chasm between us. I reach for her again. She pushes me away. I do it again and again, until finally, she launches herself at me, wraps her legs around my waist, and sobs against me, every inch of us entwined.

Her hands grab my hair and pull my face down to hers.

Our tongues lash and tangle. Salt, grief, pain, love.

She kisses me desperately, taking everything I give her. And I give her my all. My whole heart. My life. I'm hers and she's mine, whether she lets herself believe it or not.

I know she knows.

Our souls know.

Tugging frantically at my sweatpants, she shoves her hand inside the waistband and curls her fingers around me. I jerk back with a hiss of pleasure as she moves down my body, shoving at my chest, pressing me flush against the headboard. I watch as she grips me and strokes hard, cheeks glinting with tearstains, moans falling out of both of us.

Ella takes me in her mouth and brings me to my knees in less than two minutes. I want to hold out as long as I can, but I'm lost to her, lost to the feel of her mouth on me, one of my hands in her hair and the other twined with hers beside us on the mattress.

It's over before it even began.

I release inside her mouth with a low groan, shuddering through the pinnacle, through that perfect moment of completion, while dreading the moment that comes next.

She sends me away again. Just like she always does.

I stalk back home, broken down and lost, sunk with the realization that I won't be drinking in the sunrise with her tucked inside my arms. Tonight wasn't that night.

Maybe tomorrow.