There was only one place I belonged. Only one person I needed.
So I walked the four and a half blocks to find him.
And when he wasn’t there, I waited.
I’d always wait for Maxx.
Chapter twenty-six
aubrey
“why can’t I come with you?” I asked Maxx as I lay naked and tangled up with him in his bed. His fingers stroked up and down my back, making me squirm.
We had been wrapped up in each other for most of the day. It had been almost a week since we were last together, and when I finally saw him again, there was no explanation for his disappearance. There never was.
I wanted to be angry with him. I wanted to be upset and sad. But I couldn’t be. Not when he touched me and held me like his life depended on it. Not when my own feelings were jangled and raw from my burst of self-realization.
I loved Maxx Demelo. I felt it deep in my bones.
I was bursting with wanting to tell him. To lay my heart at his feet as easily as he had done. I imagined the way his eyes would light up when I told him. I fantasized about his reaction. He would kiss me, make love to me, worship me with his beautiful words.
But I love you was quickly being swallowed by other things.
Primarily it was the life he led when we were apart, the life I hated as surely as I loved the man who lived it.
The need to protect what little hold I had left on my heart rendered me mute. So the words remained unspoken, even as they tattooed their presence on my heart.
“I won’t be there long. Just a few hours. Why don’t you stay here, just like this? So that when I get home, I can do this,” Maxx replied huskily, rolling me onto my back and fitting himself between my thighs.
I had learned that Maxx used sex as a way of shutting me up. When I questioned him or expressed concern, he’d flop me on my back and f**k me into silence.
And while I couldn’t help but enjoy the methods he used to control the direction of our conversations, it was also frustrating.
So when he pressed the tip of himself between my wet, warm folds, kissing me so that our talk was finished, I resisted.
I pulled my hips back even as my body begged to join with his. I tore my mouth away and turned my head to the side. I pushed against his chest. “I want to go to Compulsion, Maxx. Please, take me with you,” I pleaded.
I’m not sure why I was making a big deal about going to the club with him on Saturday. Except that I was tired of spending my weekends wondering what he was doing while he was there, though I didn’t have to imagine too hard to figure it out.
While he tried really hard to keep the drugs away from me, I knew they were still there. The bitch demanded so much of his time. While he denied his addiction was there at all, it was a constant presence in our relationship. And he gave her, his need for pills, more attention than he gave me.
I was jealous.
I was scared.
Maxx was turning me into a mess of emotions both good and bad. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to help him. Here I was, studying to become an addictions counselor, and I couldn’t do anything for the man I had fallen in love with.
Every time I had tried to bring up his drug use, he claimed that there wasn’t a problem, that I needed to stop worrying about him. He didn’t see himself the way I did, as a sad, desperate man who had no idea of the destruction he was unleashing on himself. He thought he had it under control. He thought he was in charge. He thought that he could hide the worst of it from me, that I’d never know.
He was so, so wrong.
I could tell the difference between the Maxx who was high as a kite and the Maxx in the grips of withdrawal, both of which were starting to occur with more frequency and severity, and the Maxx who fell somewhere in between.
The two extremes were quickly becoming the only state he lived in. The in-between Maxx was slipping away. I knew he struggled, he hurt, he craved. And though he didn’t use in front of me, not since that time after we went to see his brother, I knew he still spent the majority of his time high.
I wanted to press him, demand to know the truth, but I was scared to. I knew that if I did, he’d freeze me out, and then I’d never have a chance to help him. So I let myself be quieted, hating that I was allowing it, yet frantic for him all the same. I was letting him use our bodies to make us both forget the truth.
But I was growing weary of my willful ignorance. I was frustrated with the levels of my own denial. I was sick and tired of turning a blind eye even as Maxx shredded us both.
I wanted to go to the club with Maxx.
I had decided that being with him was a hell of a lot better than obsessing about it all alone. All I could think about in those dark hours until I saw him again was whether this would be the time he wouldn’t come home at all. I was afraid that eventually the limits wouldn’t matter and he’d go over the edge.
Maxx let out an irritated breath and sagged his body, resting his forehead on my collarbone. “Why is it such a big deal to you?” he asked, sounding annoyed. “You’ve been there, and I can tell it’s not your scene.”
I pushed out from under him and rolled onto my side. I folded my hands beneath my cheek and regarded him steadily. “Because I want to be with you. I hate waiting around for you to come home, wondering what you’re doing,” I explained.
Maxx folded his arm under his head and looked up at me, lines forming between his eyebrows. “You know what I do there, Aubrey,” he said softly. Yes. I knew what he did at Compulsion. He made money selling drugs to the miserable and hopeless. How could I ever accept this part of him?
“You don’t want to see that,” he finished, running the pad of his thumb along my bottom lip.
I kissed his finger before saying, “But I want to be with you.”
“How can I ever say no to you?” he asked me, smiling. My stomach knotted up at his statement.
Because it was a lie.
I didn’t have the power to make him stop using drugs. He’d deny me if I asked him to never sell drugs again. I knew what his response would be if I insisted he stay away from Compulsion and all the temptations it held for him.
As much as Maxx wanted me, as much as he loved me, my influence went only so far. And he was still saying no to me each and every day.
“I’ll pick you up tomorrow night at nine. I have some stuff to do before then,” Maxx said, wrapping an arm around my waist and dragging me across the bed. “Now can we get back to this?” he asked, picking up my leg and hooking it up and over his hip. He dipped his hand between our bodies.
“Yes,” I breathed out, followed by a guttural groan as Maxx pushed two fingers inside me. He moved his hand, his mouth conquering mine, and once again I let myself forget.