Page 33 of The Vagabond

I catch her wrist mid-air, her pulse thrumming under my grip, and push her back — not to hurt her — just to hold her still, to keep her from shattering into pieces in front of me.

Her back hits the mattress. My body cages hers, a wall of heat and tension, but I don’t press down. Icould. But I don’t.

Her chest heaves. She’s shaking. It’s not fear, but fury. Confusion. With the burning ache of a girl whoremembers.

“You bastard?—”

I let go instantly, hands raised. But I don’t move back. Ican’t.

“I just needed to see you.”

“Breaking into my apartment?” Her voice is a whipcrack, slicing the air. “That’s your idea of seeing me?”

“Would you have answered the door?”

Her glare could set the room on fire. “I would’ve called the cops.”

I smirk, dark and sharp. “Iamthe cops.”

Her lips tremble, but she doesn’t back down.

She yanks the blanket tighter around herself like armor, her shoulders coiled, her breath ragged.

She’s already halfway to burning me alive with her hate.

“Why are you here?!?” Her voice shakes, raw with betrayal. “You think you can just slither back in like nothing happened? You left me, Saxon! You left me there! And now you break into my home like I’m some unfinished project you forgot about?”

Her chest rises and falls in jagged pulls. The blanket slips down one shoulder, but she doesn’t pull it back up. She’s too far gone, too full of rage and grief and heartbreak.

“You don’t get to do this,” she spits. “You don’t get to play hero now. Youhadyour chance. You left me. You’re a fucking monster.”

My face goes still. I don’t flinch.

I just murmur, low and raw, “Yeah. But I’myourmonster, Maxine.”

Her eyes glisten — not with softness, but with that aching, bitter kind of recognition, like she can’t believe she still feels anything for me except hate.

“What are you doing here?” she whispers, voice shaking. “How did you get in?”

I don’t answer. I don’t tell her what I want to say. That I know her every routine. That I know the way she bites her lip when she’s lost in thought, the way her jaw tightens when she’s angry. That I hear her cry in the shower. That I know the shape of her in the dark, the taste of her name on my tongue.

“You need to leave,” she says, voice cracking. “Get the fuck out!”

“Maxine…”

“Don’t!” she snaps, eyes blazing. “Do you evenhearyourself?”

“I hear you,” I growl, stepping closer. “In my head. Every fucking night.”

Her breath stutters. She can feel the heat rolling off me now, the raw pulse of a man who’s barely holding it together.

“But I didn’t come here to scare you.”

She lets out a bitter, broken laugh. “You’re doing a great fucking job.”

“I came here,” I whisper, leaning in just enough for her to feel it, “because I can’t let you live a life that doesn’t have me in it.”

“You don’t belong in it.”

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