Page 26 of Forgiveness
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Maggie
Maggie’s horse pokedits head out of the stall followed by Flux’s confused expression, which quickly turned guarded as soon as he saw who was speaking. He cleared his throat and tucked something into the pocket of his cut.
“Is that a flask? Are you drinking on the job?” Maggie felt like a school teacher wagging a finger at a student. “What’s going on with you?” There was no way to keep her accusatory tone on lockdown.
Flux grunted and hid from view, making her outrage simmer to a low hum of disbelief that made her ears ring.What kind of child did I sleep with last night?How could he put himself in danger by drinking when he spent a majority of his day surrounded by huge bulls that could spook with the wrong movement and flay him in an instant?
Instead of talking, Maggie unlocked the paddock door, grabbed Flux by his cut and dragged him out into the narrow hallway that separated all the stalls. Once she’d locked up after petting Odysseus on the nose, she flung her full attention at Flux.
“Explain. Talk. Make words happen. Now.” She squared off in front of him, planting her feet shoulder-width apart with her hands on her hips. “I know you know how to have an adult conversation, so break out the good stuff now or I’ll out you so fast your head will spin. Got it?”
Maggie hated the idea of resorting to being a rat fink, but that was the only threat she had in this fight. She didn’t have a clue if she’d get anything out of him without it, given their screwed-up emotional circumstances. Flux leaned against the wall and crossed his muscular arms, straining his tight black T-shirt as he crossed his legs at the ankles. The guy even refused to wear the usual cowboy boots, and instead went for steel-toed shit-kickers. Maggie’s gaze skittered over his body as she absorbed how far away he was from her normal type, yet how right things had felt the night before between them.
“Don’t fuckin’ threaten me,Duchess.” He jammed his hands into his pockets, and she saw a muscle jump in his jaw.
Flux’s look went through her with an icy blow, but Maggie pretended to shrug it off. He licked his lips, shaking his head with a snort through his nostrils.
“You wanna talk to me so badly that you’re throwing threats at me? I don’t go for that. Doesn’t seem very friendly to me, now does it?”
“I think we passed friendship about four hours ago, big guy.” She glowered at him, ignoring the wild beating of her heart.
Maggie had never in her wildest dreams felt as pulled in by this biker than she had by any of the upright, cowboy types who’d fallen in her romantic path over the years. And that was the trouble. Sure, she’d only known him for a short time, but he was like a burr stuck on the bottom of her foot that just wiggled its way deeper into her skin. No matter if they ignored each other for the rest of eternity, the way he’d touched her, the way he’d talked to her—it would all be etched in her head as “the bar,” and good luck to any other man who tried to compete with it.
“Yeah … I guess we did.” Maggie started to say something but he cut her off with a scowl. “You wanted to listen to me, so fuckin’ listen ’cause I’m only saying this shit once.”
She nodded and dropped her hands down to her sides as a burst of adrenaline made her lightheaded. Whatever was coming, it had to be some kind of turning point. Maggie tried to mentally prepare herself the best way she could while Flux rubbed a dirt-streaked hand along the back of his neck before cracking his knuckles.
“Nothing about being near you is fuckin’ easy, you know that, Duchess?”
Maggie didn’t make a sound. She was too afraid to break whatever spell allowed him to talk to her without walking in the other direction.
“Last time I checked, I wasn’t a billboard, so I don’t need to advertise myself to anyone. No one gets to demand jack shit from me, except my brothers in my MC. Do you see any of them here right now? Because I sure as hell don’t, but I’m here talking to your perky little blonde ass because you asked me to. Shit.”
“That’s it?”
Flux splayed his hands on his thighs. “Whaddya want me to say? That I’ve been a fucking dick all day?” His gaze flew to her face, but the anger in his eyes had been replaced with something infinitely softer.
Tenderness? It couldn’t be.Maggie moved her boot around the dirt in circles. “Yeah, because you have been a fucking dick.”
Flux exhaled a long breath like he’d been holding it for a while. He blinked at her. A muscle tensed, then loosened in his jaw. “Yeah, well … fuck … this isn’t easy, Duchess. I thought it would be like all the others and fall right back into place—with the two of us on the same page that what we shared was nothing more than pure sex. But fuck, that isn’t what happened and we both know it.” He cracked his knuckles again and moved his head from side to side like he was working out a kink or something, then he tilted his head back. “Whenever I close my eyes, I see you staring up at me. I fuckin’ hear your greedy little moans in my ears. And your scent, you fuckin’ marked me up last night, and all I can taste past this goddamn whiskey is your lips.”
Flux’s gaze never wavered. He watched her intently as if gauging her response, and Maggie had to keep herself locked in place so she didn’t go to him. Now wasn’t a good time, even if every muscle in his body seemed to strain beneath the burden of airing everything out that was inside his head. He turned around and put both his hands on the top of the stall, leaning his weight against the wood.
“What I did this morning and this afternoon was fuckin’ wrong of me—you didn’t deserve it.” He breathed out an audible exhale, a whoosh of air that made Maggie tense again, wondering what could be coming next. “But you don’t know me, Duchess, and you need to walk the fuck away right now before you get to know me.”
“Flux, I don’t need you to make cho—”
He held up one hand to stop her from speaking, and Maggie forced her lips closed while everything inside her longed to argue with him. But he needed this space to air out his shit. If she didn’t give it to him, who knew when he would clam back up again and re-erect all those walls.
“It’s my fuckin’ job to do everything in my power to keep you the hell away from me. You don’t have a goddamn clue what darkness I got inside me. You and I would never fuckin’ work. I don’t want any woman in my life. I’m a nomad, choosing to live in solitude. I stayed away from you today for your own fuckin’ good, even if you don’t see that right now, Duchess.”
“I don’t believe that for a second, Flux. For some reason you’ve decided that you should live a life of pain and loneliness and that’s batshit crazy. I don’t understand why can’t we be friends. It’s not like I’m proposing marriage here.” Maggie threw her hands up, at a loss for why he would want to completely cut her out of his life when they had a good thing going between them. “I just want you to acknowledge that I exist and, maybe, go out for a few beers once in a while, okay?”
Flux pursed his lips and shook his head. “No, it’s not okay. That’s how shit starts with us. It’ll never be one or two beers and then we’re done, it’ll be one or six beers and then we’re fucking in your truck or I have you pressed up against a tree with my hands in your pants. This isn’t something I can escape or get rid of or scrub from my damn head.” He was breathing heavy as he turned around to face her and the rawness that sculpted his features took her breath away.
“Something changed last night. I know you know what the fuck I’m talking about so don’t play dumb, Maggie. I can’t come back from that place. And you don’t wanna know why I can’t go there with you … You don’t wanna know me at all because you won’t like what I bring into your life. Just be satisfied to leave me in the one-and-done category, and let me get on with the rest of my fuckin’ existence.”
