Page 33 of Wickedly Played
He’s following me around the kitchen with his eyes. I can feel him watching me with every step I take. “Your conversation with Stella sounded hard for you.”
“Max,” I begin. “You need to decide if you’re going to be my bodyguard or if you’re going to be something more than that. You are giving me whiplash.”
He pushes himself off the wall to hunt me. I feel him on the back of me as I pick through takeout menus in my junk drawer. His body heat singes on my back, causing me to shiver. “Why didn’t you tell me you were married before?”
I shrug, slipping out from under his arms. “I didn’t think you would care.”
“Could he be the reason why you’re being stalked?”
“No. I guarantee he is not the reason why,” I answer flippantly.
“Serena,” he murmurs sternly.
I turn to look at him and see how glazed his eyes look at me. “Yes?”
“Fuck,” he mutters.
“What?” I’m holding a menu in my hand when he stalks toward me, but then stops before he reaches me.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
I blink several times. “There is nothing to tell. You’ve been briefed on my stalker. That’s all you need to know. You don’t need to know anything else about me.”
My heart is hammering in my chest. I can see the moment my words sink into his head as he looks me up and down. “Why is everything so fucking hard with you?”
My body tightens and coils around those words. Those are the exact words I have heard my whole life from my parents, Amanda, and Connor. Connor would say that after I found out he was cheating on me with Amanda. He loved to throw it in my face about how I was too needy or too difficult to love.
“I’m just curious,” I snap. “Do you wake up in the morning and wonder how you can be a bigger dick than the day before?”
“Fuck!” Max mouths. “I didn’t mean it like that. Shit. Sweetness, I’m sorry,” he begs.
“Just do me a favor and guard my body. Don’t worry about me at all. I can’t do this back-and-forth shit with you. I’m too old and I feel like I’m back in high school.” My chest is fuming from annoyance. I can’t believe he’s treating me like this. “I don’t need anything else from you, Max. Just do what I pay you for.”
I’m stomping away before I turn on my heels to look back at him. “If you can’t do the job, let me know. I will find another bodyguard.”
The minute I get into my room, I check the time on my phone. “Shit,” I whisper to myself.
Immediately, I open the cam app to do my next shows for the night. I have two shows scheduled for the night, followed by a D/s client visit to the club. It will be a nice distraction, but I can’t stop thinking about what Max said to me. I don’t know why he is so mean to me. I don’t know what I ever did to him to make him be such a dick.
He keeps luring me in and then shutting the door on me as soon as I peek my head in. I’m struggling with it. Either he wants me, or he doesn’t. There is no reason for the constant tension between us.
My phone chimes in my hand to remind me of my upcoming session with the cam. Max Fitzpatrick can go fuck himself with a cactus.
Chapter Thirteen
MAX
I’m a fucking asshole who deserved to be slapped across the face for the amount of pain I have caused this beautiful woman. Whenever I try not to be a total asswipe, it comes out stronger than ever.
Fuck.
After I heard the bedroom slam, I went to the security room to start researching information about her. Sure enough, after three hours, I found out so much more about her.
If I were her, I would have fired my marriage therapist for the lack of privacy they have for their systems. I have managed to find all of her records, video recordings of her and her ex-husband fighting in a room, and then in court. Serena doesn’t look like her usual self in any of these recordings, and I miss the cocky smile she has on her face like she has a secret.
“I guess that makes perfect sense that he doesn’t want me anymore, Dr. Reynolds. He’s with my sister,” Serena whimpers, holding a tissue in her hand. “I don’t know what I did that was so wrong to make him not love me anymore.”
Dr. Reynolds, a balding man, leans over and hands her a tissue box. “Serena, sometimes we can love someone so much,but it isn’t enough to make them love us back. It doesn’t mean you are a bad person. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
