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“You,” was what I managed to say. It wasn’t much, but I must have made myself clear because he nodded and reached over me to pull out his wallet from his pants where they’d been discarded. In two seconds, he’d gotten a condom out and then dropped his wallet again. I watched all of this like I was lookingthrough a fog. Maybe haze was a better word. The haze of wanting to fuck Max. Right then. No more waiting.
He sheathed himself and then was on me like he rode the same edge of desperation drowning me. It didn’t matter that I’d just come. It had been exactly what I needed, and yet I required more now. I had to feel him, experience the connection that only happened when Max was deep inside of me.
Wasting no time, he pushed inside of me. I cried out at the feeling, both from the fact that he’d met my craving and also because he was big, it had been a little while since we’d done this, and my muscles weren’t ready for him yet.
Staring at each other, I panted like I was running a race, while he smoothed my hair off my face. “Just breathe with me, baby. I’m going to make you feel so good.”
I loved when he used endearments like that in these moments. Like he wasn’t guarding what he said, like he wasn’t weighing if he should. It was Max just being Max. I breathed with him, and then he moved again. In and out of me, each thrust passing by the bundle of nerves that made me gasp, made me dig my fingers into his back so hard, I was sure I would leave a mark. I couldn’t help it. Max took me like I belonged to him, and I only needed to hold on for the ride.
I wrapped my legs around him tighter, drawing him even deeper inside of me. His moans matched my own. We both practically shouted. I arched my back as pleasure drove me to the peak of what I could handle and grinned when I felt him finish.
Falling back down, my back hit the couch cushions, and I grinned some more. Actually, I couldn’t stop grinning. He held himself off my body, finally kissing me all over my face. “I think I made you giddy.”
“You did.” I kissed his chin. “What did I make you?”
“I don’t know that I have words for it.” He kissed my nose, then groaned as he pulled himself out of me. Faster than I would have liked, Max got off the couch and went to deal with the condom. “Did I hurt you?” he called over his shoulder.
I shook my head. Not that he could see that, which meant I actually had to answer. “Right now, I’m feeling no pain.”
“Good.” This time he answered me from the kitchen. “That was fun, Hope.”
It was. For me, it had been a lot more than fun, though. But I knew this trap, and I wasn’t falling into it. Too many of my girlfriends felt ecstatically emotional after sex and ended up on their own that way because the guy had already moved on to what or whoever he was doing next. I didn’t have the slightest intention of being one of those women.
I knew the score with Max. He wasn’t in this for the long term except as my friend. Eventually, we’d have to stop having sex, and the thought pushed my euphoria away. Wow. That had been fast. I got off the couch and dressed slowly. Max had left his clothes where they were on the floor, wearing pajama pants he must have grabbed from the bathroom instead.
They were the same brand but differently colored than the ones he’d had on this morning when he’d gotten out of bed before me. We’d been sleeping like two people who didn’t know each other since we’d gotten here. Me on one side of the bed, him on the other, and never the two shall meet.
I sort of hated it. Did cuddling have to be off the table? Or maybe it was that I—thanks to the drugs—had been sleeping, and I had no idea if he had because I passed out every night and didn’t wake up till morning. That would probably stop since I’d cut back the drugs. Maybe we’d go back to late night conversations and dozing together.
Pretending I hadn’t needed more hugging after we’d just had sex, I slid onto the stool to watch him cook. He smiled at me.“This is something I’ve been working on for Hyperion, so be brutally honest when we eat, okay?”
“Sure.” Of course, it was the only thing I was going to be brutally honest about since I had to lie, even to myself, about what was going on between us. Sure, I could be easygoing Hope who didn’t get her heart involved.
But I had to ask, why did the guy who followed me into gunfire and brought me home to care for me have to be off limits? Why did it have to be no?
He said he was fucked up, but I saw no evidence of that. Not really. “How long have you been working on the recipe?”
I really was a coward sometimes.
18
We needed to get his mother a gift. It was her birthday. The thought occurred to me the day before we were supposed to have dinner at her home, where I would meet the rest of his very large family. Max had been twitchy all day, and when I reminded him about the need for the present, he immediately suggested we should go to Portland to buy it. This was going to be my third time in Portland, since I counted landing there in the plane as one. The doctor had been the second visit, and now we were shopping for his mom.
I’d never gone shopping for someone else’s mother before. Moms had been a foreign concept to me growing up. Something other people had, sure, but I never did. I used to make Mother’s Day cards in school, because we had to, and then throw them out. Teachers would say things that were meant to be helpful, like how I could make a card for a grandmother—we really didn’t see them very much, either, and then they were both gone from this world—or that I should make a card for my mother in heaven. I’d burst into tears with that one—maybe I’d been in second grade?—and Bridget had told off the teacher. Not all holidays were celebrated in all countries, but Mother’s Day wasone of those celebrated most places. I just never knew exactly what day I was going to have to face that pain.
So picking out a gift for Hayley Broadley was a novel experience, and Max wasn’t helpful when it came to deciding what to get her. I got a lot ofI don’t knowswhen I asked specific questions, which eventually led me to buying her a soft, warm designer blanket that was tan in color and hopefully she wouldn’t hate. She could put it into a trunk, if she hated it, and people always needed extra blankets. I was pretty sure they did, anyway.
The small store was happy to gift wrap the gift, so we left. I was bundled in what I was pretty sure was an old coat of Susan’s, and it was sort of hard to believe that just a little over a week ago, I had been in Germany dealing with having been shot. I was still dealing with it, but it was a world of difference now.
His sister had been over every day to work with me a little bit, and I liked her more and more each visit.
Max remained incredibly quiet. “Something wrong?” I finally asked him.
“No, I love it here.”
Well, I hadn’t expected that answer. Not in the least. “Good to be back in Maine?”
“I meant Portland. I do love Portland. Always did. Used to think that this would be the perfect spot to open a restaurant.” We headed toward the car. “Close enough to my family that I could visit, or they could come see me a lot, but not close enough that my mother is in and out of my house all the time.”
