Page 4 of Her Reclusive Beast

“Jenna! What the hell are you doing?”

3

Iwipe the tears defiantly from my face and turn to stare disdainfully at the man who, for all intents and purposes, broke my heart. It doesn’t help that my left ankle is somehow caught between the rough stones of the wall and yanking it free might send me tumbling to the ground.

“Leaving,” I inform him stiffly.

One dark eyebrow wings up. “Jenna…” Impatience colors his tone like I’m being deliberately obstinate.

“I want nothing to do with whatever sick game you and Diana cooked up.” I turn to yank on my ankle some more. It springs free and I have to catch myself abruptly before I slide off the wall entirely. Two hands grasp my waist and lift me up despite my startled squeak.

Max plops me down on the backseat of the car and returns to the driver’s seat. I hear the click of the locks engaging. “Hey! What are you doing? What about my suitcase?” I wail. I can’t afford to lose anything at this point.

“You aren’t leaving this car until we clear this up. Your suitcase is just fine where it is,” he growls.

I don’t believe him. I pull on the door handle to no avail, watching in panic as the gates slide open with just a touch of a remote control. They’re well oiled and silent, making a mockery of my earlier scrambles over the wall. A small feral growl of my own escapes. Max’s lips twitch, but he doesn’t say another word until he’s pulled up in front of the house and turned the engine off.

“Now, little Jenna, what games are you talking about? I didn’t invite you here, but now that youarehere, I feel slightly… proprietary. Explain, please.”

“Diana said… she said…” I can’t bring myself to say it. It’s so crude and transactional and just plain cold.

“What did Diana say?” Max bites out, his hands remaining clenched on the steering wheel.

I sigh and say it all as fast as I can, so the taste of the words won’t linger in my mouth. “She said she expected me to offer sexual acts, and that you had… that she had done that in the past and if I don’t deliver the book, I’m out of a job.”

Max goes very still. Almost frozen. I try the door latch once more. Although honestly this far from town, I don’t see my chances of escape as being particularly high if he’s determined to catch me. I moan in distress. And Max moves.

He’s surprisingly fast and silent for such a big man. In no time, he’s out of the car and has swept me up in his arms and onto the front porch. He sits down on the glider, cradling me in his arms. It might look comforting, but I can’t break free. He smells of pine and warm man, like what you might imagine a Christmas movie tree farmer would smell like. Except it’s all clearly an illusion.

Max breathes into my hair for a minute and then he clears his throat. “If Diana didn’t exist and there was no book deadline, would you still want to leave?” he asks quietly.

I twist my neck in an attempt to see his face, but he’s too big. All I get is an eyeful of beard. My snarky sense of humor tends to come to the fore when I’m stressed. “If you shaved… then maybe,” I mumble, but only because it’s a hypothetical.

A rumble starts deep in his chest and works its way upward. “Noted. You aren’t a fan of the beard.” He chuckles again. “Diana came here once,” he muses almost absently, “much like you, but with a far sharper attitude. I didnotoffer her a room for the night, but then she arrived with a rental vehicle. And while she insinuated she’d be willing to do what you said, she never came out with anything specific enough to lodge a complaint. In a way, it worked because I was highly motivated to finish that book so I could insist on a new editor.”

I’m both relieved and fuming because Diana had flat out refused to let me rent a car for any length of time, saying the budget didn’t stretch for that kind of luxury. “So you got stuck with me?” I ask finally when Max doesn’t seem ready to offer up more information. My stomach is still churning, but somehow I believe that he never got naked with my boss.

He shakes his head. “No, that was the editor before you. I’m not sure what happened to her — she never came here and seemed to leave rather abruptly. All I know is that I made it very clear to the management that Diana was not someone I was willing to work with again.”

“Oh.” I feel deflated. Like maybe I let my imagination run away with me and I’ve been very silly. “But the book needs to be rewritten. And edited. In ten days.”

What little skin I can see above and below his beard turns pink. “That’s already done, baby girl.”

Max’s grip has loosened sufficiently for me to pull back and stare at him. I blink in consternation. Surely, I hadn’t heard that right? The bit about the book or… what he called me. I’m probably hallucinating due to the stress of the entire situation. Itdoesn’t help that he smells so good. It’s making me want to take deeper and deeper breaths in without exhaling.

“W-w-what?” I finally stutter.

He pulls me tight against his broad chest once again and holds me there while seeming to hesitate. My cheek is pressed tight against the soft wool of his sweater. “If you return to New York and Diana, she will attempt to traffic you to another author. I’m under no pretense that I’m somehow special in that regard.”

“Why would she do that?” I mumble into his chest, since once again I’m not allowed to lift my head.

“Because you’re sweet and passionate and a little naïve. Catnip for an insecure author who needs his ego firmly stroked.”

This is the funny and slightly cynical man I got to know over the phone. So I reply in kind, “Do you need your ego stroked, Max?”

He growls and lightly pinches the skin just above the waistband of my jeans. “No. But I… I need to know that you aren’t being taken advantage of when I’m not around to look out for you. This book ends my contract with Rudnam. I won’t be renewing.”

Oh. This is big news. I wonder if Diana knows that? Is she hoping I’ll get him to sign a new contract, too? Or was that going to be her next demand in order for me to keep my job? Questions and general anxiety swirl in an endless melee through my head.

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