Page 51 of Surrender: XXX Maxim
“Shut up,baby!” Eric balls up his napkin and throws it at her. Squealing, she throws it back, and they dissolve into a silent war while Mikie takes the reins of the conversation, steering it back to less volatile topics.
“How much does a yacht cost?” he demands of Maxim, raising an eyebrow. “Hypothetically speaking, if your only income came from cutting grass in the summer, how many summers might it take to buy one?”
Once again, we somehow manage to pass the awkward huddle and return to a smooth, easy rhythm of conversation and silence.
But as the darkness gradually claims the landscape, I sense a palpable shift in the man beside me. His responses slow to silence. His gaze grows more distant, fixated beyond this moment. Eventually, he stands and enters the house with a polite, “Goodnight.”
At the same time, Ainsley starts rubbing her eyes, and I take the sign as a cue. “Bedtime.”
The others groan in unison, but I follow them upstairs, surprised by the feeling building in my stomach. It isn’t until I tuck Ainsley in bed and plant a kiss on her cheek that I can name the sensation for what it is.
Dread.
That cold, dark room awaits. But it isn’t fear that sends my heartbeat surging as I finally approach the master suite. Maybe it’s a little grief? The open, relaxed Maxim from earlier is dead and gone.
The figure standing hunched over the foot of the bed is a different creature—the other half of the twisted coin that is this beautiful, broken man.
“It’s dusk,” he says in a rasping tone. His hand gestures curtly toward the window. Sure enough, the horizon is a bloody, brilliant scarlet mingled with shades of orange. The sun is making its last stand. Technically, it isn’t nightfall just yet. “If before… You can ask me one thing. The question I know is burning on the tip of your tongue.”
My heart skips. His offer isn’t a thoughtful request or a meaningless gesture. It’s an olive branch. Reassurance—this is a true give and take. No matter how much effort it requires on both our parts.
“Do you want children?” I blurt out. He’s right. That one question has been hovering in my throat, and I didn’t even fucking realize it until now.
He sighs, lowering his head. “Would you trust me as a father?”
I’m unprepared for the question—one so different from his usual defensive responses. I think of how he can be with Ainsley, Eric, and the others—so gentle. On the other hand, it seems to take effort on his part. So much damn effort that at night, he needs to lock himself in a room just to express the pent-up violence. And with me…
He’s slipped before, going too far, almost beyond reach. Could someone as small as Ainsley or even smaller be able to stop him?
No,a part of me whispers in horror.But you know that. You’ve known it all along…
I shake my head, banishing the doubts. “I don’t know.”
“Oh?” He laughs in a way that raises goosebumps, cold and distant. “Youdoknow.”
“Should I?” I swallow hard, watching him. He must have opened a window. A breeze drifts in, disrupting the golden halo of hair brushing his shoulders. For the first time, I toy with dissecting the real reason he’s kept me with him, apart from the kids, except during our strained hiatus. I’d always assumed he preferred to live alone, but what if there is more to it than that? “Are you okay with my kids being here now?”
He doesn’t answer.
I blink more rapidly, my eyes burning, my throat tight. “If this is all too much…”
“It’s not,” he says, and it isn’t until now that I realize just how much I needed to hear that. My knees buckle at the genuine honesty in his voice. “I don’t mind them. I will never lose control around them, I promise you that.”
But something is on his mind, gnawing away at his previous composure. Something he can’t—or won’t—explain, no matter how many seconds tick by.
“Does this help you?” I finally ask, avoiding the real secrets looming between us. “The room. Even if you don’t talk about it? Does it help?”
He nods, and it’s like I can track the instability building within him. His spine goes rigid, his hands clenching into fists, his body hunched and angular. “Yes,” he confesses hoarsely. “I need this… I need this fromyou.”
“Okay.” I turn to that infamous door, this time freed from hesitation. When I grip the handle, a mechanical noise sounds before it opens. I’ve barely stepped over the threshold when I sense him on my heels, herding me inside.
“Kneel.”
Choking down a hiss, I sink to the hard floor. Every ache from last night throbs, renewed beneath his gaze. With him, pain takes on a sick connotation, enhanced by his reaction to it.
He inhales as if feeding off every flinch and twitch of sore muscle. I track his steps to the opposite end of the room. That one drawer, I suspect.
Sure enough, as he returns to me, the telltale snap of leather cuts the silence. Instantly, a stinging pain bites at my hip—a warning.
