"The Story of Max Cale"
by pari106
Disclaimer, etc., found in chapter 1.
A/N: Yea, gods, an update! Please review or I'll think you've all given up on me and this fic and won't
continue.
Chapter Fourteen…
Silence permeated the motel room. Just as it had ever since her mysterious kidnapper had
stormed out and then returned, stony-faced and unapproachable.
Not that Max particularly wanted to approach him. It had taken the entire time he'd been
gone for the blush to fade from her cheeks…for her hands to steady and her stomach to
settle. Just being near him again made Max's whole being quiver with an awareness their
odd, quick kiss had awakened within her. An awareness that confused her, embarrassed
her; angered her, somehow. And frightened her.
But it also did something else. It intrigued her. He intrigued her. She hadn't wanted to
think about that awareness all this time he'd been gone, leaving her to dread but also
anticipate his return. She hadn't wanted to think about it, so she'd thought about him
instead. And the more she thought about him the more intrigued she became.
The more intrigued she became…the more questions she formed about the man who'd
abducted her and the purpose of his presence on that rooftop. What had he been doing
there? What was he going to do with her now? What if she'd been wrong about him –
about who he was and what he intended? He didn't act like a cold-blooded killer. Nor
like any of the other criminals Max's brother had come up against in his work as Eyes
Only. He hadn't once hurt her the entire time they'd been together; not even when she'd
challenged him. He'd wanted her just as badly as she'd wanted him during their mad kiss
earlier…Max knew it. But he hadn't forced himself on her. He hadn't even pressed his
advantage over her; exploited the confusing desire he'd inspired within her. *Had* she
been wrong about him? Or was that aforementioned "confusing desire" clouding the
issue? Perhaps he wasn't who she'd thought he was. Or perhaps he was, but he had
some weird set of moral priorities that allowed him to kill and kidnap, but not to rape or
sexually manipulate his victims?
As they sat at the motel room's small table, finally attempting to eat what resembled an
actual meal, Max pondered all these questions and wondered how she would find the
answers to them. Who was the man sitting across from her? What did he really want?
How would she know if she didn't ask?
**** ****
Silence permeated the motel room. Just as it had ever since Zack had returned from
clearing his head. Zack frowned around his next bite of Chinese food, resisting the
sudden compulsion to sneer. 'Clearing his head'…yeah, right. Things didn't seem a bit
clearer now than they had when he'd left. How could they? He was still here, with
*her*. She was still every bit of goddamned unnerving as she had been when he'd left.
*He* was still every bit as unnerved as he had been when he'd left. And, damn it, he had
no idea why. Every nerve ending in his body seemed to be standing on end, and all his
muscles had tensed like tightly wound springs. He felt like the slightest movement, the
slightest sound, could totally shatter his concentration.
And, of course, as luck would have it…that's when she chose to speak.
"Are we going to keep doing this?" she suddenly asked, quietly.
She asked quietly, but after the long period of awkward silence they'd endured, Max's
words seemed loud enough to startle both of them.
Zack looked up at her, sharply. And Max felt whatever else she was going to say die in
her suddenly dry throat. Those eyes of his were piercing her again. Then they returned
to his food.
"Doing what?" he asked.
After a moment, Max relaxed. At least he was answering. That was enough to rebolster
her courage. A little.
"Acting like nothing even happened," she told him.
Zack let her words hang in the air for a moment, then set his chopsticks down. His first
impulse was to tell her 'Nothing did happen' and brush the whole thing off. It had just
been a kiss, after all. A stupid little kiss. But it had effected him. And if she was
mentioning it now, then it had obviously effected her, as well. Which could be a
problem. And Zack did not avoid his problems. They only seemed to end up biting him
on the ass that much harder when he did.
"I'm sorry I kissed you," he said finally, shrugging to give the appearance of
nonchalance.
Max hadn't known exactly what she'd expected him to say, but that wasn't it. Startled,
she spoke without thinking. Again.
"That's it?" she asked.
Zack frowned. "What more do you want?"
Max found herself inexplicable irritated by his casual tone and behavior.
She glared at the man across the table.
"Letting me go would be nice," she told him in a biting tone. "If you hadn't kidnapped
me in the first place, I wouldn't have had to try and escape. Then there wouldn't have
been a kiss."
The total absurdity of her last sentence hit struck Max as soon as she said it. She was
angry at him for abducting her, damn it, why the hell had she even bothered mentioning
that stupid kiss again. He was going to think she was obsessing about it. Then he
responded, with a short little laugh that wasn't a laugh, and the absurdity of the situation
just continued.
"I didn't kidnap you," he told her.
Max snorted. "Yeah, you just grabbed me in a chokehold and whisked me away in the
back of your van. What the hell do you call that?"
Zack shrugged again. "I thought you were someone else." It was the truth. He'd
learned, over time, that telling the truth could be the easiest way of not telling anything at
all. Because very often the truth was the last thing anyone believed. This time was no
different.
"Yeah, right," Max said. "So you'd really intended to kidnap this 'someone else'."
Zack sighed. "I didn't intend to kidnap anybody."
"Well, you kidnapped me!"
"I did not!"
"Then what the hell *did* you do?"
"I told you. I thought you were someone else. Someone who needed to leave town with
me right away, whether she wanted to or not." Why the hell was he telling her all that?
"Then now that you know I'm not her, why are you keeping me around?" Max asked.
Why the hell was she playing along as if anything he was saying were true? "You
haven't even called in and asked for a ransom." Well… At least she hadn't thought that
he had. That very well could have been what he was doing while he was gone.
Zack resisted the urge to scream. He slapped his hands down on the table instead,
causing Max to jump. He didn't notice. He leaned forward, speaking very slowly.
"There isn't going to be any ransom. I_did_not_kidnap you," he ground out.
Well…technically, he had hadn't he? But he was going to let her go. Once he
determined whether or not she knew anything about Syl or where she was. He could tell
her that if she ever gave him the chance.
Max made a sudden, frustrated keening sound in her throat and pushed away from the
table so fast her chair fell over. Then she turned her back on him, her fists clenching at
her sides. To her horror, she felt frustrated tears stinging at the back of her eyes.
"Why the hell are you playing with me like this?" she practically screamed.
As quickly as it had risen, Zack's annoyance with the strange woman he'd inadvertently
captured disappeared. He heard the thick, unnatural tone of voice and saw the slight
quiver in the woman's shoulders as she turned away from him, and he blinked in surprise.
Was she…crying? Was she going to cry?
The sudden, sickening idea that she was struck Zack and discomforted him immensely.
He was not good with crying. Of any kind. And it didn't occur to him at the moment to
question why he cared whether or not this woman cried. The only people he had ever
cared about had been his brothers and sisters. He only knew that, for some reason, if the
young woman in his charge was crying, then he'd have to do something about it.
Because he did care. And he had no idea what that "something" that he'd have to do
could be.
He stood up and walked over to her, but didn't do anything more than that. Then he
spoke.
"I'm not playing with you," he told her quietly. It was the truth, after all.
Max, having collected herself somewhat, whirled back around angrily.
"I know…"
Then her words caught in her throat when she realized he was standing right there behind
her. In fact…when she'd turned…she'd very nearly bumped right into him. Into the
strong, hard wall that was his chest. Just staring at it, Max remembered how it had felt to
be pressed up against it the last time. How it had felt to have those strong arms of his
wrapped around her…how his lips had felt on hers… Max's eyes widened.
"You know what?" Zack asked, after a long pause. Was his voice really that low, that
deep? Or was she imagining it? Max licked her lips.
And Zack felt his stomach tighten, watching her. Watching that tiny tongue reach out to
wet the full lips around it. He remembered how that tongue had felt mingling with his
own…how his captive had tasted when he'd crushed her body to his, exploring her mouth
with his own… Zack's fists clenched at his sides now, as well.
It was there again – that strange, unnerving something between them. It had happened
again – the temperature in the room had just skyrocketed. Hadn't it? Or was he
imagining it?
Max forced her mind to concentrate on the conversation at hand.
"I know you were on that roof before," she said finally, looking over his shoulder.
Looking anywhere, really, to avoid looking at him. She didn't need to look at him. Just
standing next to him was bad enough; smelling him…that scent of leather and soap and
steel and man…
Zack's gaze sharpened and his body stilled at her words, their implication suddenly
giving him something to focus on besides the desire that had ambushed them both.
"You do?" he asked carefully.
Max let her eyes return to her kidnapper's face, sighing in frustration. Now she, too, had
a focal point for her attention. One that was not this man's devastating effect on her
senses.
"Logan saw you. And I saw you, too. You've been going there often enough. I know
you were just waiting to make your move."
Zack was still standing there, staring at her, but his mind was going a mile a minute. He
had no idea who Logan was…the rich guy in the penthouse, perhaps? Quickly, he
replayed everything that had happened since the day he'd discovered Syl's fascination
with Foggle Towers. And since he'd grabbed this woman thinking she was Syl.
Something she'd said before came back to him.
"I was waiting up there for you, okay!" she'd told him, when they'd argued before.
Before the kiss.
"You know Logan," he said now. He didn't make the words either a statement or a
question. He just let the woman take them as they were. It seemed that she'd already
come to her own conclusions about this situation and, if he only waited, she would share
them all on her own.
He was right. Max had drawn her own conclusions. One of which being that he'd
known who she was. He'd been spying on Logan's penthouse all this time, he'd have to
know. Plus, he'd kidnapped her. Why would he have done that if he thought she was
just some nobody off the street? Now Eyes Only's one and only sister… Now that was
ransom material.
"I live with him," she said, irritably, crossing her arms. It was close enough to the truth.
She stayed with him most of the time. She had her own place, too; two, actually. One in
Seattle, and one in California, where's she'd been just recently before returning to
Seattle. But he didn't need to know that. If he didn't already. "You know that. You've
been spying on us long enough."
"I was up there waiting for you, okay!" The words repeated in Zack's brain yet again.
"And you were waiting on the roof to catch me," he said in another noncommittal tone of
voice. He found himself smiling. *She* had been waiting on the roof to catch *him*.
*She* had thought he was Syl. Just as he had thought the same about her.
It was awful.
It struck Zack as so damned funny it was just plain awful.
Max glared. "You don't have to rub it in," she muttered.
Zack had the horrifying suspicion that he was about to laugh. Then something else she
had said registered in his mind.
"I live with him," she'd said. She lived with this Logan guy. In Foggle Towers. She
lived with this very wealthy, very-fascinating-according-to-Syl Logan guy in Foggle
Towers. Syl had spent all this time spying on a man who was already taken. By this
woman. This woman who knew nothing about Syl.
This woman, who, it turns out, he really had kidnapped, after all.
Zack remembered the man he'd seen running through the penthouse when he'd left the
roof with "Syl" under his arm. Remembered how he'd raced about as though looking for
something. Zack had assumed it was something Syl had stolen.
Now he knew differently. He knew the man had been looking for something *Zack* had
stolen. This woman.
And with that thought, any urge Zack might have had to laugh completely fled his mind.
by pari106
Disclaimer, etc., found in chapter 1.
A/N: Yea, gods, an update! Please review or I'll think you've all given up on me and this fic and won't
continue.
Chapter Fourteen…
Silence permeated the motel room. Just as it had ever since her mysterious kidnapper had
stormed out and then returned, stony-faced and unapproachable.
Not that Max particularly wanted to approach him. It had taken the entire time he'd been
gone for the blush to fade from her cheeks…for her hands to steady and her stomach to
settle. Just being near him again made Max's whole being quiver with an awareness their
odd, quick kiss had awakened within her. An awareness that confused her, embarrassed
her; angered her, somehow. And frightened her.
But it also did something else. It intrigued her. He intrigued her. She hadn't wanted to
think about that awareness all this time he'd been gone, leaving her to dread but also
anticipate his return. She hadn't wanted to think about it, so she'd thought about him
instead. And the more she thought about him the more intrigued she became.
The more intrigued she became…the more questions she formed about the man who'd
abducted her and the purpose of his presence on that rooftop. What had he been doing
there? What was he going to do with her now? What if she'd been wrong about him –
about who he was and what he intended? He didn't act like a cold-blooded killer. Nor
like any of the other criminals Max's brother had come up against in his work as Eyes
Only. He hadn't once hurt her the entire time they'd been together; not even when she'd
challenged him. He'd wanted her just as badly as she'd wanted him during their mad kiss
earlier…Max knew it. But he hadn't forced himself on her. He hadn't even pressed his
advantage over her; exploited the confusing desire he'd inspired within her. *Had* she
been wrong about him? Or was that aforementioned "confusing desire" clouding the
issue? Perhaps he wasn't who she'd thought he was. Or perhaps he was, but he had
some weird set of moral priorities that allowed him to kill and kidnap, but not to rape or
sexually manipulate his victims?
As they sat at the motel room's small table, finally attempting to eat what resembled an
actual meal, Max pondered all these questions and wondered how she would find the
answers to them. Who was the man sitting across from her? What did he really want?
How would she know if she didn't ask?
**** ****
Silence permeated the motel room. Just as it had ever since Zack had returned from
clearing his head. Zack frowned around his next bite of Chinese food, resisting the
sudden compulsion to sneer. 'Clearing his head'…yeah, right. Things didn't seem a bit
clearer now than they had when he'd left. How could they? He was still here, with
*her*. She was still every bit of goddamned unnerving as she had been when he'd left.
*He* was still every bit as unnerved as he had been when he'd left. And, damn it, he had
no idea why. Every nerve ending in his body seemed to be standing on end, and all his
muscles had tensed like tightly wound springs. He felt like the slightest movement, the
slightest sound, could totally shatter his concentration.
And, of course, as luck would have it…that's when she chose to speak.
"Are we going to keep doing this?" she suddenly asked, quietly.
She asked quietly, but after the long period of awkward silence they'd endured, Max's
words seemed loud enough to startle both of them.
Zack looked up at her, sharply. And Max felt whatever else she was going to say die in
her suddenly dry throat. Those eyes of his were piercing her again. Then they returned
to his food.
"Doing what?" he asked.
After a moment, Max relaxed. At least he was answering. That was enough to rebolster
her courage. A little.
"Acting like nothing even happened," she told him.
Zack let her words hang in the air for a moment, then set his chopsticks down. His first
impulse was to tell her 'Nothing did happen' and brush the whole thing off. It had just
been a kiss, after all. A stupid little kiss. But it had effected him. And if she was
mentioning it now, then it had obviously effected her, as well. Which could be a
problem. And Zack did not avoid his problems. They only seemed to end up biting him
on the ass that much harder when he did.
"I'm sorry I kissed you," he said finally, shrugging to give the appearance of
nonchalance.
Max hadn't known exactly what she'd expected him to say, but that wasn't it. Startled,
she spoke without thinking. Again.
"That's it?" she asked.
Zack frowned. "What more do you want?"
Max found herself inexplicable irritated by his casual tone and behavior.
She glared at the man across the table.
"Letting me go would be nice," she told him in a biting tone. "If you hadn't kidnapped
me in the first place, I wouldn't have had to try and escape. Then there wouldn't have
been a kiss."
The total absurdity of her last sentence hit struck Max as soon as she said it. She was
angry at him for abducting her, damn it, why the hell had she even bothered mentioning
that stupid kiss again. He was going to think she was obsessing about it. Then he
responded, with a short little laugh that wasn't a laugh, and the absurdity of the situation
just continued.
"I didn't kidnap you," he told her.
Max snorted. "Yeah, you just grabbed me in a chokehold and whisked me away in the
back of your van. What the hell do you call that?"
Zack shrugged again. "I thought you were someone else." It was the truth. He'd
learned, over time, that telling the truth could be the easiest way of not telling anything at
all. Because very often the truth was the last thing anyone believed. This time was no
different.
"Yeah, right," Max said. "So you'd really intended to kidnap this 'someone else'."
Zack sighed. "I didn't intend to kidnap anybody."
"Well, you kidnapped me!"
"I did not!"
"Then what the hell *did* you do?"
"I told you. I thought you were someone else. Someone who needed to leave town with
me right away, whether she wanted to or not." Why the hell was he telling her all that?
"Then now that you know I'm not her, why are you keeping me around?" Max asked.
Why the hell was she playing along as if anything he was saying were true? "You
haven't even called in and asked for a ransom." Well… At least she hadn't thought that
he had. That very well could have been what he was doing while he was gone.
Zack resisted the urge to scream. He slapped his hands down on the table instead,
causing Max to jump. He didn't notice. He leaned forward, speaking very slowly.
"There isn't going to be any ransom. I_did_not_kidnap you," he ground out.
Well…technically, he had hadn't he? But he was going to let her go. Once he
determined whether or not she knew anything about Syl or where she was. He could tell
her that if she ever gave him the chance.
Max made a sudden, frustrated keening sound in her throat and pushed away from the
table so fast her chair fell over. Then she turned her back on him, her fists clenching at
her sides. To her horror, she felt frustrated tears stinging at the back of her eyes.
"Why the hell are you playing with me like this?" she practically screamed.
As quickly as it had risen, Zack's annoyance with the strange woman he'd inadvertently
captured disappeared. He heard the thick, unnatural tone of voice and saw the slight
quiver in the woman's shoulders as she turned away from him, and he blinked in surprise.
Was she…crying? Was she going to cry?
The sudden, sickening idea that she was struck Zack and discomforted him immensely.
He was not good with crying. Of any kind. And it didn't occur to him at the moment to
question why he cared whether or not this woman cried. The only people he had ever
cared about had been his brothers and sisters. He only knew that, for some reason, if the
young woman in his charge was crying, then he'd have to do something about it.
Because he did care. And he had no idea what that "something" that he'd have to do
could be.
He stood up and walked over to her, but didn't do anything more than that. Then he
spoke.
"I'm not playing with you," he told her quietly. It was the truth, after all.
Max, having collected herself somewhat, whirled back around angrily.
"I know…"
Then her words caught in her throat when she realized he was standing right there behind
her. In fact…when she'd turned…she'd very nearly bumped right into him. Into the
strong, hard wall that was his chest. Just staring at it, Max remembered how it had felt to
be pressed up against it the last time. How it had felt to have those strong arms of his
wrapped around her…how his lips had felt on hers… Max's eyes widened.
"You know what?" Zack asked, after a long pause. Was his voice really that low, that
deep? Or was she imagining it? Max licked her lips.
And Zack felt his stomach tighten, watching her. Watching that tiny tongue reach out to
wet the full lips around it. He remembered how that tongue had felt mingling with his
own…how his captive had tasted when he'd crushed her body to his, exploring her mouth
with his own… Zack's fists clenched at his sides now, as well.
It was there again – that strange, unnerving something between them. It had happened
again – the temperature in the room had just skyrocketed. Hadn't it? Or was he
imagining it?
Max forced her mind to concentrate on the conversation at hand.
"I know you were on that roof before," she said finally, looking over his shoulder.
Looking anywhere, really, to avoid looking at him. She didn't need to look at him. Just
standing next to him was bad enough; smelling him…that scent of leather and soap and
steel and man…
Zack's gaze sharpened and his body stilled at her words, their implication suddenly
giving him something to focus on besides the desire that had ambushed them both.
"You do?" he asked carefully.
Max let her eyes return to her kidnapper's face, sighing in frustration. Now she, too, had
a focal point for her attention. One that was not this man's devastating effect on her
senses.
"Logan saw you. And I saw you, too. You've been going there often enough. I know
you were just waiting to make your move."
Zack was still standing there, staring at her, but his mind was going a mile a minute. He
had no idea who Logan was…the rich guy in the penthouse, perhaps? Quickly, he
replayed everything that had happened since the day he'd discovered Syl's fascination
with Foggle Towers. And since he'd grabbed this woman thinking she was Syl.
Something she'd said before came back to him.
"I was waiting up there for you, okay!" she'd told him, when they'd argued before.
Before the kiss.
"You know Logan," he said now. He didn't make the words either a statement or a
question. He just let the woman take them as they were. It seemed that she'd already
come to her own conclusions about this situation and, if he only waited, she would share
them all on her own.
He was right. Max had drawn her own conclusions. One of which being that he'd
known who she was. He'd been spying on Logan's penthouse all this time, he'd have to
know. Plus, he'd kidnapped her. Why would he have done that if he thought she was
just some nobody off the street? Now Eyes Only's one and only sister… Now that was
ransom material.
"I live with him," she said, irritably, crossing her arms. It was close enough to the truth.
She stayed with him most of the time. She had her own place, too; two, actually. One in
Seattle, and one in California, where's she'd been just recently before returning to
Seattle. But he didn't need to know that. If he didn't already. "You know that. You've
been spying on us long enough."
"I was up there waiting for you, okay!" The words repeated in Zack's brain yet again.
"And you were waiting on the roof to catch me," he said in another noncommittal tone of
voice. He found himself smiling. *She* had been waiting on the roof to catch *him*.
*She* had thought he was Syl. Just as he had thought the same about her.
It was awful.
It struck Zack as so damned funny it was just plain awful.
Max glared. "You don't have to rub it in," she muttered.
Zack had the horrifying suspicion that he was about to laugh. Then something else she
had said registered in his mind.
"I live with him," she'd said. She lived with this Logan guy. In Foggle Towers. She
lived with this very wealthy, very-fascinating-according-to-Syl Logan guy in Foggle
Towers. Syl had spent all this time spying on a man who was already taken. By this
woman. This woman who knew nothing about Syl.
This woman, who, it turns out, he really had kidnapped, after all.
Zack remembered the man he'd seen running through the penthouse when he'd left the
roof with "Syl" under his arm. Remembered how he'd raced about as though looking for
something. Zack had assumed it was something Syl had stolen.
Now he knew differently. He knew the man had been looking for something *Zack* had
stolen. This woman.
And with that thought, any urge Zack might have had to laugh completely fled his mind.