Stealing Emma

Chapter 20 - The Heist

Max waited anxiously for her to arrive to the classroom. The last twenty-four hours had been absolute hell and he just needed to see her.

He could still feel the taste of her incredibly soft skin, and that look of absolute pleasure as she came apart in his arms was now permanently embedded in his brain. It would haunt him for the rest of his life. He knew he could never be the same man after that.

He had replayed the nightmare that ensued afterwards countless times, trying to figure out what had gone wrong, trying to understand how that had even happened. He had said so many things in the heat of the moment that weren't even remotely true and he couldn't even blame her for hating him. He stared blankly at her empty seat as the knot in his stomach grew bigger and bigger.

He hadn't realized it until then, but he actually found a tremendous amount of comfort in seeing her sitting there every day. Even if it was just the back of her pretty little head, he would get easily lost in the way she played with her hair when she was nervous, only imagining it was him running his fingers through those silky strands. Or the look on her face when she was trying to concentrate or found a lecture amusing. Even the way she absently played with her pen and doodled in her notebook was fucking adorable.

It didn't matter that she would never be his - she had made that crystal clear, but simply seeing her cute butt planted in the second chair of the third row five days a week made him happy because he knew she was okay.

Not today though.

He glanced at the clock on the wall seeing class was about to start in two minutes. Surely she should be here by now. She was always one of the first people in and she never skipped.

He was still staring at the seconds tick by on the clock when he saw movement in the hallway. Starting to feel relieved, his breath caught in his throat when he saw it wasn't her, but him.

Roy was walking casually by to his classroom, but there was something in his expression that made his heart stop. His eyes were stone cold but when he turned to look at him, a ghost of a smirk appeared on his face and it was directed solely at him. Like he was holding a big fucking secret only he knew and was dying to tell.

Max quickly looked away, trying to shrug it off, but he immediately knew something was wrong. He could feel it in his gut.

Oh God. Emma.

He looked at the clock again and he could see they were now approaching the top of the hour. The ticks of the seconds got louder and louder in his ear until it felt like it was pounding inside him. His breathing turned ragged as the professor turned to start his presentation of the day. It was now or never. With ten seconds left to go on the clock, he lunged for his bag, all but tripping over it, and ran the hell out of there.

By the time he arrived at Emma's apartment building, he was sure he had committed at least ten different traffic violations and was on the verge of losing his damn mind. He had promised he wouldn't contact her anymore, but that promise was all going to hell at the moment. He had already called her numerous times on the way over, all of his calls ending up going to voicemail.

Double parking his car on the sidewalk, he ran into her building and sped past the doorman as if it was his own home. He headed straight to the mailroom, frantically searching the names on the mailboxes until he came across 'Samson 3F'. He hated seeing that name and that Emma was attached to it – to him. Tossing the nauseating thought aside, he bolted down the hallway and ran up the stairs to her apartment.

He rang the doorbell, pounded on the door and yelled for her all simultaneously, but somehow he knew that wouldn't work. How the hell was he going to get inside? Knock the damn door down gung ho style? Maybe he could try for the neighbor?