Free All He Wants by Melanie Shawn Page B

been held in a coffee shop that had three points of entry and exit. Front door. Side door. Back door. He’d spent the entire night keeping track of who was coming and going. Who stared a little too long at Maxi, who paid no attention to her at all. Sadly, one of the people in the paid-no-attention-at-all category happened to be her date for the evening. Simon had seemed much more interested in analyzing and sharing his thoughts on the poets performing than he was in Maxi, or Maxine .
    It’d taken discipline that Billy hadn’t known he possessed not to call him out on his pretentious, douchebag behavior. He’d bitten his tongue so many times he wouldn’t be surprised if he had permanent teeth marks in it.
    With a quivery breath, Maxi licked her lips nervously. Again the man downstairs decided to interpret the gesture as all systems go before getting the orders from his brain. His shaft pulsed heavily beneath his zipper as he watched her tongue slip between her full, pink lips.
    His eyes shot to the blank television and he tried to think of anything other than how badly he wanted to pull Maxi onto his lap and take over her lip-licking activities.
    “I’m sorry.” Her voice was so soft—just like it had been when she’d come out of the room for her date—that he wasn’t even sure that he’d heard her correctly.
    “What?” he repeated, this time his tone not quite as harsh.
    “I know you’re mad at me and I don’t blame you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what was going on with me. I wanted to tell you…I just…I didn’t know how. And, honestly, I kept thinking that it would stop. I didn’t want anyone to know. I didn’t want my dad to worry. He’s seemed tired lately—”
    “You think I’m mad at you?” He knew that she’d said other things after that, but his brain had kind of gotten stuck on that.
    “You are.” She shrugged as if it was not an assumption but a foregone conclusion.
    “No. I’m not.” Billy felt a hell of a lot of things when it came to Maxi. The list was long. Lust. Fear. Need. Anxiety. Possessiveness. Confusion. Desire. But anger wasn’t on it.
    “Yes, you are.” Confusion swam in her bright blue eyes as they searched his. She lifted her hand and started counting on her fingers. “You couldn’t even look at me when you walked into Jessie’s office earlier today. You haven’t been yourself, even around me, especially around me. Jana was practically throwing herself at you and you barely noticed. You haven’t said more than ten words to me or anyone else the entire night. I know you hate when people keep things from you. Lie to you. I remember…I mean…I just…I know you. I know when you’re mad.”
    Billy knew what she was talking, or actually not talking, about. One night, right after he’d started training with Charlie, his mom had come down to the gym, drunk off her ass. She’d told him that her boyfriend had locked her out of their apartment and she’d demanded that Billy go “kick his ass.” When he’d refused, and told her to go sober up, she’d started offering sexual favors to the other boxers in the gym in exchange for them beating the shit out of her boyfriend.
    He was so angry that his mom could do something so humiliating. Drunk or not, at that point he didn’t care. He couldn’t even look at her. Charlie had helped him get her out of the gym and on the way home she’d passed out. When they got her to the apartment her boyfriend said that she’d stormed out screaming that her son was going to kill him because she’d found a text from another woman.
    He’d gone home with Charlie that night, and Maxi had stayed up watching movies with him. She hadn’t pushed him to talk and they’d never spoken about it since.
    Billy shifted, turning towards Maxi. His emotions and hormones were running on overdrive. As much as he was worried that he was going to say or do something that he shouldn’t, he knew he needed to set her straight.
    It was a long