He stares for a moment longer before dumping the ruined bread back in the basket and covering it with a cloth napkin. He then dabs his own napkin into his water and wipes his hand down.
“But I suppose you can lead a horse to water, yet it cannot be forced to drink.”
Justin pauses again as our appetizers come out, smiling and thanking the waitstaff profusely all over again.
“What are you saying? You’re going to … hurt my friend if I don’t start acting like a selfish asshole?”
“All I’m saying is that I’ve been kind to you thus far. I’ve given your friend home-cooked meals, purified water, fresh sheets. Did I have to do those things? I didn’t. But I wanted to please you. Now, I’m just not so sure …”
“Why do you hate me so much?” I whisper back, my appetite completely gone by this point. I have a bad feeling that if I don’t eat anything, Justin will get upset. I force myself to pick up one of the little crackers with the cheese and fruit jam on it, stuffing it into my mouth and swallowing. “I can’t hurt Maxine like that. What I want is to be able to talk to my sister. That’s what I want. And I most definitely do not want to hurt her. So here I am, asking for all of those things. Does that work?”
Justin squeezes his own cracker so hard that it crumbles a little in his fingers, but then he puts it in his mouth anyway, chewing carefully as he watches me.
“Maxine Banks is not your sister,” Justin says, his voice cold and low, and oddly reminiscent of Tess’. “At best, she was an innocent bystander in the situation. But you seem determined to make her so much more than that.”
“What do you want me to do now?” I manage to whisper, noting the trembling in my hand as I reach for another cracker. “I haven’t spoken to her. I … slept with her ex. I told her I hated her, that I’d never loved her.”
Justin nods, but he isn’t looking at me. He’s watching the other restaurant patrons with a calculating expression on his face.
“And yet, you still refuse to embrace the spirit of the assignment. If you don’t understand, I’m not sure how else to explain it to you. Perhaps another lesson would help?”
“May I be excused for a moment?” I ask, and Justin’s eyes sparkle. He nods once.
“Don’t take too long; our entrees should be arriving shortly.”
I ignore him, shoving up from the table and weaving my way back through the restaurant.
I probably should’ve brought my phone, but I’m too angry, too upset. Instead, I head outside to check for Chasm’s car. When I see that it’s still there, I wander around until I spot the pair of them talking to an employee.
Squaring my shoulders, I storm across the lobby, grab Maxx by the shoulder and spin him around. He follows my lead, but only because he’s so surprised. He’s built like a brick wall; I couldn’t move him if he didn’t want to move.
“Kota, are you okay?” he starts, but that last word is cut short when I throw my arms around his neck, pressing our mouths together in a wave of brilliant heat. It arcs through me like a lightning bolt, cutting me right in half. There’s the old me, the one who’s screaming on the inside. Then there’s … well, whoever this is. The girl who wants to kiss Maxim Wright so badly that she trembles when she thinks about it.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I repeat in my head, but I’m not sure who it is that I’m even apologizing to anymore. Myself, probably.
Maxx goes stone-still, his green eyes wide. I close my own, so I don’t have to see his expression. So I don’t have to think about how stiff he is, how unyielding to my touch. And then everything happens in a flash; one of his hands is on my hip, the other digging fingers into my braid, his tongue diving between my lips. He presses close to me, close enough that I end up crushed between his warm, hard body and a decorative column not unlike the one Chasm pressed us into when we first had sex.
“Oh shit,” Maxx groans, turning his head away suddenly. “Dakota Banks, you’re killing me.”
I carefully open my eyes, searching his slightly reddened cheeks and swollen lips for disgust. For disappointment. Instead, he glances back at me, and I find that I can’t see anything else in the world but for him. My hands come up to rest on either side of his face as Chasm curses in Korean behind him.
“I’m sorry,” I tell X, and he raises both brows in response.
“I’m not,” he says, yet again. Not the first time I’ve heard that. But it does make me feel better. “Is this a Justin thing or …?”
