Because damn, he was dazzling.

“You know, being ordered by the court to pick up other people’s shit, paint walls, and otherwise make the world a better place,” he replied dryly, giving me a wink.

“Well, it’s good to know you’re taking it seriously,” I remarked, watching him as he took another drag from his cigarette before dropping it on the ground and stomping it out.

Maxx shrugged. “It’s just I can think of a lot of other things I’d rather be doing,” he said.

Was I supposed to find a hidden meaning in his seemingly innocent statement? And why was I second-guessing every nuance in our conversation? It wasn’t like me to be so unsure.

“Really,” I muttered dryly.

Maxx chuckled and then sobered, his eyes heated and smoldering.

“Definitely,” he said quietly, raising an eyebrow, a smirk dancing across his lips.

He looked at me in a way that was both warm and intense, the kind of look that stripped you to the bone and left you shivering.

His eyes were piercing in their directness, and I knew he wasn’t fooled by my attempts at sarcasm and nonchalance. My uncomfortable attraction to him, which had begun only a few days before, practically oozed from my pores. It was mortifying.

And I knew I needed to shut this down—for both our sakes. It wasn’t appropriate. And he was making me feel . . . disconcerted.

“Well, I think the group is going to be really helpful. I’m sure you’ll get a lot out of it,” I said lamely, hoping he got the point. It seemed extremely important to remind us both of who I was and what my role was in his life. I needed to reinforce where I belonged. I was a counselor in training, someone whose role was to guide him on a difficult journey.

Nothing more.

Maxx gave me a look that was hard to decipher. “I hope you’re right,” he said, running a dirty hand across his face, leaving a smudge along the bridge of his nose.

I had to clench my hand into a fist in order to resist the urge to wipe the smudge away. And I knew there was more than my OCD at work here.

His words unsettled me. Was I perceiving a subtext that wasn’t there? Or was he purposefully communicating something that I had yet to figure out?

My guess was the latter.

He suddenly dropped his eyes, and I was surprised by the vulnerability that danced across his face.

“I really hope you’re right,” he said softly, and I didn’t know whether the comment was for him or for me.

I tilted my head at him, looking at him closely. He seemed lost in thought, and I wondered what had him so consumed.

I couldn’t help but be curious about him. He made it impossible not to be. He was obviously a complicated man with a complicated past. I was simultaneously intrigued and annoyed that I was intrigued.

There was a definite line I shouldn’t cross. So why after meeting this man once was that boundary so hard for me to remember?

Maxx frowned and opened his mouth, then closed it again. Then he looked at me, and I watched as his face smoothed over and any sign of openness was lost.

“At least I’ll like the view.” His gaze purposefully raked up and down my body as he raised his eyebrows mockingly. His smile, while trying to be seductive, was hard and brittle. Any softening I had felt was trampled by the overwhelming urge to scream in his face.

His need to fuel my unease seemed forced. As though he were firmly putting us back on ground he was more comfortable with.

“That’s not really appropriate,” I managed, annoyed by how let down I felt. Because I already missed the elusive, unguarded Maxx that I had glimpsed only seconds ago.

Because that Maxx seemed real.

This Maxx was something else entirely.

But who really knew which persona was authentic?

Hell, maybe neither was, and the real Maxx was someone I hadn’t met yet.

But one thing was for sure: I couldn’t allow myself to want to get involved with any side of him. He was in a group I was helping to facilitate. Any relationship we had would need to be strictly professional. I was required to uphold a code of conduct that was as essential as it was required. There wasn’t room for gray areas. There was only black and white. Right and wrong.

In-betweens couldn’t exist, particularly between me and a man I knew instinctively was trouble—a man who brought with him a whole mess of problems, a man I could only imagine to be the worst kind of disaster.

I hefted my book bag up on my shoulder and shifted on my feet. “I’d better let you get back to painting. Nice seeing you,” I said, lying through my teeth. Our encounter had been anything but nice.

Confusing was probably more accurate.

Maxx smiled again, and this one was much more natural. He crouched down to the ground and picked a pale purple aster flower from the campus landscaping. He got to his feet and handed it to me. I took it hesitantly, meeting his eyes as I tried to understand his motivation.

“It’s just a flower, Aubrey. Don’t read anything into it,” he scoffed, his eyes laughing at my wariness.

I tilted my chin up, my shoulders stiff, my spine straight as I met Maxx’s eyes one final time. “Thanks,” I said. I cleared my throat, which had become oddly tight. “I’ll see you later.”

My heart hammered in my chest as we stood there, staring at each other again. A thousand things seemed to be communicated in his look, if only I was fluent in Maxx.

“Yeah, see ya in group next week,” he said, gathering up the drop cloths.

I gave him a small wave and left in the direction opposite the one from which I’d come, forgetting about going to the commons. I just wanted to get back to the sanctuary of my apartment.

It wasn’t until I had left campus that I looked down to find the flower crushed in my tightly closed fist. I slowly opened my fingers and let the ruined petals fall to the ground.

chapter

six

aubrey

“devon wants to go back to Compulsion tonight,” Renee said, coming into my bedroom. She didn’t venture far from the door, standing awkwardly as though unsure she had a right to be there.

At one time, she wouldn’t have thought twice about barging in and sitting down on my bed. If I’d complained about having homework to do, she would have thrown a pillow at me and then gone about trying to convince me to get drunk with her.

We would have gone out, and Renee would have gotten wasted. I would have been the DD, but that was all right, because I would have had fun. Because that’s how it had been with me and Renee. That was us.

Now she stood in my room as though she had never been there before. She wouldn’t make eye contact, and even though her bright red hair was perfectly styled, her makeup was just shy of overdone, and her clothing was clearly thought out and planned. This was not the girl who used to invite the entire soccer team back to our apartment for a game of strip poker.

Renee’s eyes were dead, her mouth turned down, and she was uncharacteristically . . . blank.

“What?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

“Devon wants to head over to Compulsion tonight. I thought you might like to come with us. Get out of the house for the evening,” Renee suggested with feigned indifference.

No matter how unaffected she tried to act, I knew she was nervous. She did not want to go back to the club. Otherwise she’d never have asked me to come along. She would never put Devon and me in a social situation together unless she was completely and totally freaking out.

“Why would you want to go back there?” I asked sharply. I tried to rein in my bewildered accusation. As much as I hated the reason she was asking, I couldn’t help but feel a smidgen of hope that her asking at all was a sign that our friendship could be salvaged.

Because I missed Renee Alston. A lot.

Renee’s jaw tightened, and her eyes became flinty. “Look, I knew asking you was a lost cause. God forbid your weekend consist of something other than watching The Vampire Diaries for the millionth time while Brooks makes his super-witty comments that no one finds funny but him,” Renee snapped. I felt a flash of anger.

“Look, if you want me to go anywhere with you and that loser you call a boyfriend, you’re going about it the wrong way, sweetheart,” I countered sarcastically, allowing myself to unload some of my anger in her direction.

Renee sucked in a breath. “Fuck off, Aubrey,” she bit out.

“So this is how it’s going to be from now on, I guess. Us barely talking. Me biting my tongue in half instead of telling you what I really think of your fuckhead boyfriend. Both of us ignoring the fact that you’ve changed. Big-time,” I challenged, my voice rising the angrier I became.

Renee’s eyes became glassy, and I recognized the tremble of her bottom lip all too well. Her imminent tears made me feel like shit.

“Forget it,” Renee whispered, and left the room before I could say anything else. I pressed the heel of my hands into my eyes and swallowed down the urge to scream. I took a deep breath. Okay, she was being a bitch, but I could have handled it a little better myself. She had tried to reach out in the only way she seemed capable of at the moment, and I had smacked her hand away. And while hanging out with Devon and his idiot friends for the night didn’t sound like my idea of a good time, being with Renee in whatever capacity was possible seemed like a positive step forward for us.

I went into the hallway with every intention of making peace.

But just as I was about to call out to her, to accept her invitation, however strange and awkward it had been, I heard the front door open and then shut with a decisive slam.

Not two minutes later, the door opened again, and I hurried to the living room to try to repair the unfortunate situation with Renee.

“I’ve told you a thousand times to lock that door,” Brooks scolded as he headed into the kitchen. He really didn’t understand the concept of personal boundaries. Somewhere along the way, my house became his house. My chips became his chips.

My chocolate became his chocolate? Oh, hell no!

I grabbed the bag of Hershey’s Kisses from his hands. “There are lines you can’t cross, Brooks. Hands off,” I warned, putting the bag back in the cabinet.

Brooks looked unfazed as he instead reached for a box of Ritz Crackers and went into the living room.

“I passed Renee in the hallway. She looked as though her ass was on fire. Oh, and she was dressed like a hooch. Let me guess, hot date with her boyfriend, aka I like to kick kittens with steel-toed boots?” Brooks asked, rolling his eyes as I started wiping his cracker crumbs from the couch cushions.

I handed him a paper plate, which he accepted with exaggerated slowness, just to irritate me.

I sat down beside him with a flop. “She went back to Compulsion, can you believe that? And she wanted me to go with her. Sorry, but I just don’t see the appeal of worrying about whether you will be knifed in the bathroom for your lip gloss,” I muttered.

“Shit! Really? You wanna go?” Brooks asked, perking up.

I leveled him with my version of his patented “are you crazy?” look.

“So we can be humiliated when we’re told to go home by the Barbarian Bouncer?”

Brooks tossed the box of crackers onto the coffee table and wiped his hands on his jeans, making me cringe.

“Aubrey, seriously, we should go! Ever since last time I’ve really wanted to check it out, and you know you want to keep an eye on Renee,” he countered.

I started to voice my protests but was rudely cut off by Brooks placing his hand over my mouth.

“Don’t you dare deny it! You won’t be able to relax tonight for worrying about that flaky roommate of yours. So come on, get dolled up, and let’s go get our club on!” I smacked Brooks’s hand away and tried in vain to stay irritated with him, which was damned difficult as he started to wiggle his shoulders in a poor imitation of dancing.

“I don’t think I have anything in my closet that remotely resembles what a dominatrix would wear. There’s no way we’ll get inside,” I reasoned, hoping he’d drop it while simultaneously hoping he’d wear me down.

Because, damn him, he was right. I wanted to go. Though I wouldn’t admit that I had other reasons than just to keep tabs on my friend, that I was actually a teensy bit curious about the world Compulsion offered.