He still thinks of their first kiss from time to time. Remembers how sweet her lips had tasted, like cinnamon and sin, a kind of sweet addiction he just couldn't shake free of. He's not sure he ever wants to.
She called to him with her wounded heart, she of the poison barbs lobbed at her enemies that slid out between such deceptively sweet looking lips and the eyes… the icy blue orbs that could melt or freeze you depending on the temperature of her mood. She was his siren call, his heart her willing captive.
She was the end of a search, the beginning of a quest. He could finally stop looking for that girl that he would love forever. Now he just had to brave the journey into her heart. He was already in her life, that door she swung open with surprising ease, but her heart – that path lay littered with hidden traps and thorn-covered vines that wrapped their way around intended interlopers.
But he was brave. Maybe not guns blazing, fists flying Stone Cold brave, but he was Jackal brave. Especially when the achingly beautiful Maximista flung her arms around him and declared him her savior though really all he'd done was beg for her life to be spared. But the beautiful blue eyes glistened with tears of relief and her tiny body pressed close to his trembling, and he fell that last little tiny bit of space into completely in love with her. And it made him brave.
Made him ache with happiness and vibrate with determination. She was sex and she was sin, she was bitter regrets and wrenching sorrow, she was teasing kittenish charm and she was shrill harsh condemnation and he knew she would be his. Knew he would never regret falling in love with her, knew it could end in a shattered heart pieces strewn beneath careless heels of a woman wounded by life and by the universe that kept trying to shove her down but he would never regret it.
She was that universal truth, better to have love and lost then never to have loved at all – she was that something worth fighting for and he knew that she wanted him to fight for her. He would never be able to decode the explanation of why she did, but for her he was brave. She was the intangible fantasy made real by harsh reality that pushed him to see her, to really see her. For to see Maxie Jones, was to love her. But few could. Few could brave beyond the walls of indifference cemented together with the bricks of self-destruction and frozen solid by the icy breeze of her deep insecurities and self-doubt, but he could. For her, he would – he was brave. Maybe not turning his back on happiness from a misguided sense of responsibility Stone Cold brave, but he was Jackal brave.
She was melting cookie dough, sticky and sweet that clung to his fingers and slid over his parted lips, sugary pleasure coating his tongue that kept him coming back and back tempting him with its heady rush. She was the discovery of temptation, of treasure hidden beneath rocky treacherous cliffs, but he was brave. Maybe not diffusing bombs, surviving plane crashes and drunken brothers Stone Cold kind of brave, but he was Jackal brave.
And one day, she would be his.