Maxx cocked his head to the side. “I’ve been trying to place that accent since I first met you. Southwest Virginia?” he asked, not bothering to address my earlier statement. Clearly he was here for the long haul, and I just had to suck it up.
“North Carolina,” I corrected before thinking about it.
Shit!
Do not engage, Aubrey! Do not engage!
“Ahh, a southern gal,” he said, tapping his pencil against his book.
“Mmm-hmm,” I said unintelligibly, hoping that would be an end to it.
I should have known better.
“Where in North Carolina?” he asked a second later.
“What is this, drive Aubrey crazy with a million questions?” I barked.
“You’re so touchy when you’re studying,” Maxx said, biting his lower lip to keep from laughing. My eyes were drawn to his mouth, and I found myself staring at the full curve of his lips.
Stop it!
I cleared my throat and started packing up my things. There was no way I’d get anything done with Maxx there. I might as well try studying back at the apartment and hope it was Devon-free.
“Don’t leave. I’m sorry, I’ll be quiet,” Maxx promised. He reached out and put his hand on top of mine, stilling me. “Please.” He wielded that word like a weapon. It took the wind out of any and all arguments.
It was annoying.
I settled back in my chair and opened my book up again.
“Fine, but seriously, Maxx, I have a lot to do,” I said, shocked at how quickly I had given in.
Maxx nodded and promptly opened up his own books.
I tried to get back to my research paper, but again, I couldn’t focus. I looked over at what Maxx was working on and saw that he was looking through an Advanced Corporate Finance textbook.
“I thought you were supposed to cure cancer? How does corporate finance help you become a doctor?” I found myself asking.
Maxx looked up at me, and I couldn’t look away. He had a way of looking at me that made me feel like the only person in the world. The only thing that mattered. How was he able to do that? He was so damned magnetic; it was like I was being sucked into his force field, or he was a gigantic black hole that could swallow me up.
“I don’t see being Dr. Demelo in my future,” he responded, his eyes never leaving mine. Did he realize the effect he had on people? I was almost certain that he did, and that was a dangerous power to wield.
It was impossible to read him, and I had always prided myself on my powers of intuition. But when it came to Maxx, I came up disturbingly blank.
“Why not?” I asked, shutting my book. There was no sense in pretending I was going to get any work done. I was in the middle of Maxx 101.
Maxx coughed into his hand and looked away, breaking our connection. “Just not my thing,” he answered.
I was prepared to dig—all the way to China, if I had to.
“Well, what’s your thing then?” I asked, cradling my chin in my hand as I looked at him. The alcove we were sitting in suddenly felt stiflingly warm and almost claustrophobic. I was wearing a turtleneck, and I wished I had worn something lighter. I was hyperaware of how much I was sweating.
I was sure the sudden heat wave had everything to do with the temperature in the library and absolutely nothing to do with the boy who sat across from me.
Maxx smiled a small, secretive grin, and instead of answering, he turned the tables. “What’s your thing? Counseling, right? Is that about your own issues or do you have some kind of savior complex?”
I sat back, debating whether I should be insulted or not. I couldn’t tell whether he was trying to be rude or if it just came naturally. He asked the question with just the right amount of condescension to goad me into defending myself.
“Of course I want to help people. Why else would I be working my ass off like this?” I asked, hating that I had given him exactly what he wanted—information.
“I don’t know. I thought it might have something to do with your sister,” he suggested, his face showing nothing but kind concern.
How dare he throw that back in my face! I had confided in him in a moment of weakness. I should have known I’d come to regret it. My skin flushed, and I felt myself getting angry. Maxx elicited such passionate feelings in me. Whether they were anger or lust, I felt them strongly and overwhelmingly.
He was dangerous for my constitution.
“It’s not appropriate for us to be talking about this,” I said coldly, wishing I had left when I had wanted to.
“I’m not trying to be inappropriate. I told you I thought that talking about your sister was an incredibly brave thing to do. I respect that. I respect you,” Maxx said earnestly.
“I just think that, given what happened to her, it would make you determined to help other people like her. It makes sense. That’s all I was trying to say. I’m sorry if my bringing it up upsets you. That was insensitive of me,” he said, full of apology.
Okay, so maybe I was overreacting a bit. But talking about Jayme with anyone put me on edge. And the way he had casually slipped it into our conversation left me feeling jangled.
Talking with Maxx was an oddly intimate experience. We might as well be sitting here naked.
Now I was thinking about him naked.
Crap!
“It’s fine,” I said, surprising myself with the truth of it. I couldn’t hold his observation against him because it had been the truth.
“And, yeah, I guess Jayme is why I’m doing this,” I admitted, wishing I could staple my mouth shut. Where was my brain’s shut-down function when I needed it? Why was I throwing up information about myself to Maxx of all people?
I’m sure it had nothing to do with those incredible eyes that seemed to beg me to give up my secrets.
“It’s great that you have something you want to do with your life that means something. There’s very little in my own life that I feel that sort of passion about,” Maxx said.
“It sounds like you have something, though, and that’s the place to start,” I offered.
Maxx’s eyes darkened. They literally smoldered. I had always thought that was trite nonsense best reserved for sappy romance novels. But no, Maxx was doing the whole smoldering thing really well.
“You’re right. It’s the perfect place to start,” he murmured, and my heart fluttered madly in my chest. There was that frustrating innuendo again. It left me unsettled and off-balance.
I got to my feet suddenly, knocking my chair to the floor. The clang echoed in the quiet library.