“I’m going to let you…dress.” She would have turned and fled if he hadn’t moved closer, inciting her reaction to take a step back, and then done that again, until she was against the wall.
“Max, what are you—” Her voice was panicked and she had every right to be. He was crowding her. Her hands fell from the braids and clenched into fists at her side. She didn’t like being crowded.
“Don’t you like me?” he asked and she stared up into his hazel eyes in confusion. What the hell was he talking about? “I said I liked you. Don’t you like me?”
Honestly, she didn’t know. She spent so much time hating Max, hating him through college, and then through their time in this apartment. Had she grown even slightly fond of him during that time? Somewhere from within there was a disbelieving snort at the question.
Oh please, you like him way too much for your own good.
That wasn’t true. She didn’t like Max, hadn’t liked him since the second semester of freshman year when he’d turned into a first-class asshole. Max didn’t respect anything but himself and Vivienne. No one else. She’d learned that lesson years ago.
“I tolerate you, Max, because I love Vivienne,” she heard herself say. His eyes narrowed. She wasn’t sure if it was from anger or something else, and she looked away. She swept her gaze down, and gasped, wishing she hadn’t. Oh boy. Max was…erm…saluting her. A slight tingling sensation erupted at her core as she recognized that she’d caused that. “I—I’m going to go now. Just don’t do anything like that again, o-okay?” She slid along the wall in an attempt to get away from him but he followed her. His hand came to rest near her head.
“Don’t do anything like what?” His voice had changed, lowered. His eye color shifted to a sensual light brown color, and she found herself lost in his gaze.
“W-w-what?”
For that, she was rewarded with a deep smile that tilted in one direction. When he smiled like that, he reminded her of palm trees and sunny island Christmases. A smile started playing around her lips before she remembered where she was and whom she was with. This was Max! The Maximilian Carter who’d teased her mercilessly about everything in college, who still irked her now, and who’d just chased away a client because he felt like it. That was who stood before her; that was who she didn’t like.
“Max, you’re crowding me.” Her voice was still shaky, but it was clear.
“I know.” Arrogant bastard.
She reached up and touched her palms to his shoulders. She gave a hard push, and smiled when he stumbled backward with a look of confusion on his face. Max had probably never been rejected in his entire life.
“Did you forget you were with the ice queen, Max?” she taunted, remembering one of the names that he’d called her in college. There were many, and all had gotten to her because they were names he’d given her.
The smile faded as he moved away and reached for the burgundy towel hanging behind the door. When it was snugly around his waist, she crossed her arms against her chest and tapped her foot on the ground. He walked over to the faucet.
“I’ll bring over whoever I want and you won’t say anything about it. If not, I’m out of here, and you and Viv can look for another roommate.” She stopped when she saw his eyes widen in the mirror, as if he’d never thought of that. Men could be so dense at times. “Understood?”
“Yeah, whatever,” Max responded at last, turning on the faucet and ignoring her. He grabbed his shaving cream and sprayed some into his palms, waiting for the mousse to form before applying it to his cheeks and neck. He reached into the cupboard for a razor, which he placed at the side of the sink.
“You still here, Drew? Volunteering to shave me?” His voice was terse and an eyebrow shot up as a challenge. Shaking her head and rolling her eyes, she turned and scurried from the bathroom.
Chapter Five
Conall’s eyes snapped open as his ears caught the vibrations of a phone. Sliding from the bed so as not to disturb Vivienne, who’d been asleep for the past hours, he followed the sound. At first he thought that it was his phone, that Sloan or Raoul were calling to report that one of the younger pups in his pack had done something in a drunken state to put them at risk, but it wasn’t.
He located the black Motorola phone in the carelessly tossed bag in the living room. Picking it up, he stared at the name.
Max.
Conall’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the time above the name. It was after two in the morning. Why was Max calling Vivienne? Why was another man calling his mate?