“For the sake of avoiding any more awkward misunderstandings, when you say you’ll do it—”
“I’ll be your first,” Max clarified flatly as his hands fisted at his side.
Not exactly the body language of someone gleefully anticipating the task ahead of him. In fact, if she had to put a label on it, she’d say Max looked like he was downright dreading what was to come.
But if he didn’t want to, then why was he there? Was he offering her a pity f—
No. No way, no how was she going to let the man burning a hole in her fantasy file ruin everything by grudgingly giving it up for her. She still had her pride. Or at least a little of it.
“Look, Max, it’s very generous of you to offer,” she started, trying to keep the humiliation out of her tone, “but unnecessary.”
She waited for him to say something. To make another flimsy offer or just fall back against the wall and let out a gusty sigh of relief. Anything so she could deal with it and move on. She would get Max out of her apartment and crawl into a nice bottle of wine to cool the burn of embarrassment. Maybe Sean would just cancel. The fridge wasn’t that important. They had those Popped Rice Crisps in the cabinet. Chocolate chips too.
When nothing happened, she finally forced herself to meet Max’s eyes, and what she saw in them most definitely wasn’t relief.
“Max?”
“So you—you already found someone else who took… I mean, you don’t need… You aren’t still…” Max broke off, rubbing a hand over his face as if trying to clear something he didn’t want her to see.
Ahh, now she got it. And didn’t really appreciate it either. How fast did he think she moved? It had been less than a week since he’d turned her down. And while she fully intended to get her situation resolved before moving to New York, it would be nice if she could stop thinking about Max before propositioning the next guy. Call it common courtesy.
“Umm, no.”
Max’s head came up with a jerk. The air he sucked in seemed to fill his frame, broaden his chest and shoulders, and straighten his spine.
“No?” he asked again, taking a step toward her.
Sarah let out a sigh and held up her hands. “If you really want to know, I’m not interested in a pity lay. While it may be hard to believe, I’ve still got my pride.”
“Pity lay? Your pride?” Max shook his head like he didn’t get it. Which really irked her, because this was one conversation Sarah didn’t need to have. Her ego had taken enough of a beating as it was.
“That’s right. Look, I appreciate that you don’t want to leave me hanging, but I assure you, I’ll be able to handle this on my own. I get that you’ve always been a charitable guy. But this”—arms out to her sides, she pointed inward toward her little problem—“this is my limit.”
Max ran a hand over his face, wiping away his confusion and leaving what looked suspiciously like amusement in its place. His mouth started to twitch, but as far as she could tell, there wasn’t one damn thing about this worth laughing at.
“No, Sarah, the reason I’m standing here grinding my molars into dust isn’t because I don’t want you. And I’m sure as hell not offering a pity lay. What’s happening here is now that I’ve stopped telling myself I can’t have you, I’m doing everything in my power to keep from just taking you.” His eyes raked down the length of her, and his voice lowered. “Grabbing you and backing you up to the nearest wall. Fuck.”
The nearest wall?
A wall sounded really, really good. Lots of potential.
“What you’re seeing, Sarah,” he said, taking another step toward her, “isn’t reluctance. It’s barely maintained restraint.”
Her pulse skipped, and her hands came together in front of her chest. “Really? Like you’re actually having to work to hold yourself back?”
“Yeah, but don’t look so happy about it,” he said with a pained laugh.
“No, I know.” She shouldn’t. But he looked miserable. Like it required some Herculean effort not to just take her. Oh jeez, that was really good stuff. “It’s just that after thinking you might be forcing yourself to do it to accommodate me? Okay, I know it’s stupid. But I can’t help liking that you find me hard to resist.”
His brows pulled together, his eyes clearing. “I’ve always found you hard to resist.”
He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Like she should know. But that wasn’t the way she remembered things.
“What’s changed?” she asked, needing to know before things went any further. Before she let herself believe again.
Max reached out and tucked a bit of loose hair behind her ear. “Not me wanting you. Just how I felt about whether I could actually have you. Sarah, I know you could do better. You deserve better, but if you’ve decided you don’t want to wait—” He closed his eyes and blew out a slow breath.
“I’ve been losing my mind thinking about you with some other guy. I know it’s shitty. I know we’re not together. That you’re not looking for forever in this. And neither am I.” He stroked her shoulder with the backs of his knuckles, sending a tremor through her as she leaned in. “But I could do this for you. I could do this with you, and I could do it right.”
Only then she remembered. “Wait, Sean’s on his way over.”
“No, he’s not,” he said, glancing away. But not before she caught the hint of guilt in his eyes.
That didn’t look good.
She was almost afraid to ask. “What happened to him?”
“He…uh…mentioned that he was coming over here to help you out with something. That you needed a favor.”
Her eyes went wide. “And you thought—”
“Yeah.”
“This is what you were talking about when you said you were losing it thinking about me with someone else?”
“Pretty much.”
“Sean’s okay?” Please let her boss be okay!
“So far, he’s gotten out of helping me hang drywall and helping you move your fridge. He’s fine.”
Her brows lifted. “So we’re alone in my place, with no one else on their way over, and a change of heart between us.” Stepping closer to Max, she rested her hand against his chest. Her body responded to the way he was watching her, and it made her bold. “Whatever shall we do now?”
The muscle in his jaw flexed, and she thought she could hear the popping of one molar against another.
“Not what you’re thinking.” His arms closed around her, his hands moving toward opposite poles along her back. “We should talk a minute, Sarah.”
She laughed softly, because she didn’t know how he figured they were going to talk when he was ducking down to run his mouth along the length of her neck, melting her brain with soft, openmouthed kisses and just the barest hint of suction against her skin.
Dropping her head to the side, she offered him more access and felt her world spin as he drew harder.
“Max,” she gasped, as warmth stirred low in her center. “No more talk.”
His head came up, and the heat in his eyes set her on fire. “No more talk,” he replied, grabbing her by the backs of her thighs and hiking her up so that her legs wrapped around his waist as he found her mouth with his and kissed her hard.
* * *
Max backed her down the hall past one closet, Piper’s room, and a bathroom before hitting pay dirt with the doorknob that led to Sarah’s bedroom. Finally. Her kiss was making him crazy, and the way she was clinging to him was driving him wild. Her arms twined around his neck, holding tight, and her leg was caught up at his side where he held her with one hand beneath her thigh and the other around her back. Jesus, her mouth was sweet.
He wanted her like he couldn’t remember wanting anything before.
Almost there. He braced his knee on her bed, ready to lean her back and follow her down. He wanted to
feel the give of her body beneath his, the spread of her legs as she made room for him, the rush of her breath against his cheek as he burrowed his face into her neck. Yeah, he wanted all of that, but then he saw it. The shift he felt only a second later, when everything in Sarah went from yes, yes, yes…to some small part of her whispering no.
It didn’t happen with words; it was more of a physical thing. A tensing of her muscles. The fingers that had been kneading the back of his skull tightened into a ball there, and then the last, most significant tell of them all was one eye squinting open before pinching shut even tighter than before, suggesting someone was starting to freak out and didn’t want him to notice.
“Don’t stop,” she pleaded, still clinging to him, even as her nerves gave her away with the crack of her voice.
Max pressed his forehead to hers, closing his eyes as he sucked a slow breath.
“Baby, we’ve got to.”
Releasing her hold around his neck and waist, she sank back into the mattress with a pout. “You’re a tease, Max.”
Catching one of her hands in his, he interwove their fingers and pulled them up over her head.
“You’re impatient.”
One slender brow arched at him. “I’m a twenty-eight-year-old virgin, Max. How much more patient can I be? I’m just nervous. But I don’t want to stop.”
Then her other brow bounced as high as the first, as a light filled her eyes and she craned back to look where he’d placed their hands.
“Oh wait, is this a control thing?” she asked, sounding just a little too eager. Her voice dropped to a whisper, and she said, “I’ve read books about this, and while I admit they do it for me a little bit—I’m not going to lie—it seems a little advanced for a first time.”
Max stared down into her wary but excited eyes, his brain all but shutting down from the information coming at him. Because knowing the idea of a little control play excited her? It hadn’t exactly been on his agenda, but hells to the yeah, if she was up for it. Only that game was definitely reserved for the advanced class.
“You’re killing me here, Sarah.” Her free hand flattened over his chest in a maddening caress he could barely think past. “It’s not a control thing.”
“Then what’s the problem?” she asked, wrapping her legs around his hips.
“The problem is, I want to give you something special. Meaningful. I want you to be ready.”
Sarah’s fingers were at the back of Max’s T-shirt, tugging it toward his shoulders as she let out little grunts between her words. “You’re still thinking…about that girl…who was waiting on a fairy tale. News flash: it blew up…in her face.” She flopped back and met his eyes. “Come on, can’t we just do it?”
Jesus, they were back to this? He wanted to say yes.
Right then, there wasn’t any fear in her eyes. He’d backed off, so she’d started to advance. But something told him that as eager as she might be to get it over with, it would be a whole lot better if he took it another way.
“No. Sarah, listen a minute. I’ve got a plan. I think it might work for both of us.”
“Oh yeah?” Her hands played along his ribs and down his sides. Max lifted himself up so she could press her palms against his chest the way she had before. The way he’d liked.
Only instead of flattening against his pecs, her hands moved lower. Tickling their way past his abs to the button on his fly. “Sarah,” he warned, voice tight, because a part of him really wanted her to go there.
Taking the possibility off the table, he lowered his weight over her, trapping her wandering fingers where they were, barely breaching his waistband.
“No fair,” she pouted in a huff.
Damn, she was cute.
Dropping his lips to hers, he kissed her and then pulled back.
“Are you listening?”
“Yes. Under protest.”
“That’s fine. So here’s the deal. This isn’t just going to be your first time. It’s going to be my first—and probably only—time being someone’s first time. I want it to be special for both of us. I don’t want to be some box you check off your bucket list, Sarah. I want it to be good.”
“I’ve heard the rumors, Max. Heck, I actually saw your name written on the stall wall in the ladies’ bathroom at Belfast. It said ‘For a good time.’”
His chin pulled back. “Did you scratch it out?”
“No. But if I go back, I could take a Sharpie with me, I guess…but what I’m getting at is that I’ve been hearing how good you are since college.”
“Yeah, but a first time is different. I don’t want you waiting for me teeth gritted, bracing for impact.” He lowered his mouth to the shell of her ear. “I want you desperate and aching for me. Breathless. Moaning. Baby, I want you ready for me.”
He heard her swallow, felt her breath become shallower, and saw the color rise across her skin. She looked at him, completely serious. “Okay, this isn’t me pestering you to get what I want, but after that, what you just said, I think I might actually be ready right now. Really.”
Max chuckled, and though it half killed him to do it, he backed off the bed.
Sarah pushed up on her elbows, a little scowl on those sexy lips of hers. “No dice, huh?”
Much as it pained him—and promised to pain him all through the night ahead—no. “So here’s what I’m thinking. You let me take you out a few times, and we warm up to it. Together.”
It would be perfect. While neither of them was looking for something serious, there was nothing better than spending time with this girl. And for once, rather than trying to stifle that chemistry or connection or whatever had been there from the start, he’d be able to foster and encourage it. Build on what was already between them to give what they were about to share at least a fraction of the meaning it deserved.
“You need to warm up to it?” Sarah asked, her voice squeaking just a little.
She plucked at the tank top he’d been admiring on her since she opened the door, curling her lip in distaste. “Okay, maybe I get that.”
“You’ve got it wrong, Sarah.” Leaning back over her, he braced himself on one arm and reached for her hand with the other. This wasn’t something he’d normally do, but no way was he going to let doubt eat at her insecurities.
He pulled her hand to where his fly was straining from the hard-on behind it.
She gasped and met his eyes.
“For the record, physically, I’m more than capable of getting the job done. But, Sarah, for you to remember it the way I want you to, for it to be special, we should warm up to it. I want to romance you. I want to tease you and give you time to think and wonder about what it’s going to be like between us. I want to build that slow burn inside you, so by the time we’re together, you’re on fire.” He stroked her cheek. “That’s what a first time should be like. Like your next breath depends on it.”
“You could do that, without it getting complicated?”
“It’s already complicated,” he said, removing her hand from his fly, because while he definitely liked it, that wasn’t really a first date activity. “Hell, I nearly punched my best friend in the face when I thought he might have been on his way over here to offer his own assist.”
She blinked. “That would have been bad. He’s my boss, Max.”
“Yeah, but I pulled his head out of the toilet when he passed out drinking once, which trumps the boss thing.”
A steady stream of air passed her lips. “I’ve been working for this promotion for years. Chicago is supposed to be an extended stopover. I can’t afford complicated.”
He knew that and was proud of her for keeping her priorities straight. No way would he risk screwing up her plans.
“How about we uncomplicate it then. Put a few ground rules in place.”
A skeptical brow raised his way. “Like what, no ki
ssing on the lips?”
He laughed. “We’re talking about maintaining the semicasual component of once-in-a-lifetime special sex here, Sarah—not prostitutes protecting their hearts.” He shook his head, remembering that this was how it had always been between them. Conversations made all the more entertaining by their frequent need for clarification. His girl got the craziest ideas, and damned if he didn’t get a kick out of hearing them. “You give me four dates over two weeks to get us to our goal. And when it’s over, you let me kiss you good-bye, and we go on as just friends with a wicked hot memory between us.”
Sarah climbed off the bed and began to pace. No question he had her full attention now.
“Is the fourth date part of the warm-up or the day the deed gets done?”
“It’s do day.” Not a chance in hell he’d be able to wait longer than that. Already, he was regretting saying four dates instead of, say, two.
But Sarah freezing up beneath him wasn’t something he ever wanted to experience again. If she knew where the lines were drawn, what they weren’t moving past, she’d be able to relax and enjoy the journey, and by the time the lines went away, he sincerely hoped she’d be ready for it.
“And the good-bye kiss,” she asked, her hand coming up in question. “With tongue?”
Max ran his palm over his mouth, trying not to grin. “Definitely with tongue.”
Now, with all the important facts sorted out, she took one last debating breath before giving him a single nod. “Okay, so when’s this first date, and what exactly does it entail?”
“I’ll tell you while we move the fridge.”
Chapter 11
With one last stroke of sunflower-yellow nail polish smoothed on the nail of her big toe, Piper cocked her head and cleaned up the edge with her thumbnail before returning her attention to Sarah, who was tucked into the corner of the couch in their cluttered living room.
“So let me get this straight. He showed up at the door last night after nearly beating up your boss so he could help you out with the fridge and your other little problem?” Piper asked, pointing to Sarah’s lap, which was apparently her favorite new thing to do.