Chapter 6 Max
1563 Words
The ride from the park was too short for Max. He had relished the feel of Lyra’s thighs against his gave him thoughts he had no business thinking about a girl who had just been assaulted. He needed to get it together on the ride to her house.
Unfortunately, now he was thinking about the way her thighs rubbed up against his as he drove back to the house they would be together in. Alone. All night. Would she make him sleep on the couch? He had no right to ask to sleep in her bed, though he would jump at the chance, but maybe he could sleep on her bedroom floor? Just to be nearer to her. To that delicious scent that filled his nostrils now, even though she was sitting behind him and the wind was blowing it away from him.
He would know that scent a mile away now. He had an idea of why, but there was no way he was ready to tell her that he knew in his bones that they were mates. That she was his and he was hers and they would be bound together for eternity. He had felt a pull to her as soon as he spotted her in the woods and just known. But the more time he spent with her, the more he knew that the moon had chosen right for him.
The way to her house wasn’t a complicated ride. Nowhere in Morning Grove was really. It was small and nothing was too far away from anything else. It bothered him that this would be another short ride, but he knew, hoped, that there would be many more to come.
“This is it,” she said faintly in his ear, the breath of her lips sending tingles down his neck. “It’s on the right.”
He pulled his bike into the weed-filled driveway. He would have to come clean it up for her is she was going to stay her. If they were going to stay here, if he had any say in it. He would find it damn near impossible to leave her, but he wouldn’t force himself on her. He would go if she told him to. Well, go to the edge of her backyard and his wolf would guard her from the brush.
“It isn’t much, I know,” she said, embarrassed.
“Nothing wrong with it,” he said, wishing he were better with words. He hoped that wasn’t something she would hold against him. He’d had a stutter when he was a child. He’s grown out of it, but he still hated talking too much. He was always nervous it might come back. “My place isn’t fancy either. It doesn’t need to be.”
“I just need a safe place to sleep,” she said and his heart ached for her. Had she not had that before? How long had she been unsafe? Had it been that dog in the woods that made her feel that way? Max had a list of questions, but he knew she wasn’t ready to answer them just yet.
They’d get there though. One day he would know everything there was to know about Lyra, but for now, he could take it slow. As slow as she needed so she knew he would never be a threat her. That she could trust him. He’d keep any secret. Remove any threat and be happy doing it.
Her keys made a soft rattle as she opened the door, or at least, her keychains. She only had the one key and he hadn’t seen a car in the driveway. She must walk everywhere. That must be why she was so slim. That and her lack of food if her appetite at the diner had been any indication.
He’d have to get her some food too.
Clear the driveway.
Buy some food.
Destroy any threat.
Easy enough.
“Please sit. Make yourself comfortable.” She disappeared into the kitchen and he took in her sparse living room. One loveseat and a TV on a end table. Well, at least he knew they would be sitting next to each other. “I have water or Coke?” She held both out to him and he took the water. He hated costing her anything at all.
Max took a seat in the only space available. He moved as far over on the loveseat as possible, so as not to crowd her when she sat. As much as he wanted to feel right up against him, just as he did on the ride here, to have her as close as possible, he didn't want to frighten her.
He knew his size made him intimidating and his short speech made him unapproachable.
He'd never cared before Lyra. In fact, he liked that people left him alone. He liked his space. His father had even joked that he would be the Lone Wolf Alpha before he passed and he was right.
But he didn't want to be a lone wolf anymore.
“We aren’t at the diner anymore,” he said. “If you want to talk about whatever it is that is after you.”
Lyra looked at him as if she were weighing him and how much she could trust this giant man who just came charging into her life. Whatever it was that she found there, she seemed to like because she sat next to him, holding her glass of water tightly in both hands, and angled toward him. “I have an ex.”
Max raged that this woman, this soft, gentle, beautiful woman could have been harmed by a man badly enough to make her live in fear. His wolf raged that another man had touched her at all. “Go on,” he growled before he tampered it down. “If you want to.”
“His name is Hal. He’s a cop. He… wasn’t always nice. I came to Morning Grove to get away from him. I didn’t think he even knew where I was until a friend of his attacked me on the trail.”
“The dog?” Max didn’t need her to confirm, of course. He should have killed the mutt then and there. Before he had the chance to run back to this Hal fucker and tell him where Lyra was.
But then, maybe that’s exactly what he wanted.
“If Hal another dog?” Max asked. He could take a dog. A whole pack of them at once if he needed to.
“No, bear shifter,” she said and shuttered. How often had that bear been let loose on her? Max’s wolf was snarling and growling and howling for a fight inside him. He’d never fought a bear, but f**k, if he wasn’t ready to go at him. “He may know where I am right now. He may come for me and I don’t know what to do. I know if I go back with him, it will be more of the same.” The idea of Lyra, his Lyra, going back with another man was unacceptable and his wolf’s hackles couldn’t be higher. He’d kill the man first. He deserved it anyway. “But if I don’t it’ll be a whole, new kind of hell.”
“What do you mean? What would he do to you?”
“Not just him. His whole department. They’re all best friends. They cover up for each other. That’s the only reason he was never arrested after our fights.”
Max should have guessed. His MC had run into plenty of trouble with the police and he knew they were loyal to their own, just like his club was. The difference was that his club didn’t throw innocent people in jail or plant evidence.
And the club sure as hell never beat on women.
“We can protect you,” he said, but what he meant was, I will protect you. Against the bastard ex or the whole f*****g police force if he needed to. They weren’t going to hurt her again. And they sure as hell weren’t taking her away from him when he just found her. “You’re tired. You should get some sleep.”
She nodded, still staring off at the wall, as if remembering something that motherfucker had put her though. He’d be more than happy to take him out when they met. Even if it meant life in prison to keep her safe. It would kill him to be away from her, but he would do it, knowing she could live free of fear.
“My bedroom is this way. I can take the loveseat.”
“Absolutely not,” he said.
“You’re too big,” she said, a little laugh escaping her mouth, and damned if it wasn’t the best sound he had ever heard. “You’ll be so sore in the morning.”
“I can sleep on the floor. I’ve slept on far worse.” And he had. A clean floor was nothing.
“You can sleep with me if you want,” she offered shyly, like there was a chance he wouldn’t say yes. “Just sleep.”
“Right, just sleep.” And they slipped down the hall to her bedroom.
- Writer
