“Could you just do it anyway?” she asked with the kind of hopeful smile he’d seen when a kid was asking for ice cream after dinner.
“No!” He laughed, backing off the bed in earnest. Or at least he tried to, but Sarah followed him up, her fingers still gripping his shirt, so they were both on their knees.
“Come on, Max. It would be so quick,” she pleaded.
“Oh, would it?” He should have been insulted, but hell, coming from Sarah, it was just comical.
“Yes! Just in and out. And you can be done.”
He’d thought he saw vulnerability in her gaze, but clearly he’d been wrong. Because now that he wasn’t a hairsbreadth away from heaven, the light was better and there was no missing the turning wheels behind those big, brown eyes. The calculation.
The utter lack of experience.
Apparently knowing he wasn’t going to give it up was just the aphrodisiac she’d needed, because suddenly Sarah was all confidence again.
“Just looking for a one-pump chump, huh?” he asked, peeling her fingers free of his shirt and then dropping a kiss on her still-closed fist.
“Exactly!”
Christ. This had to end. He had the feeling if he didn’t cut her off, pretty soon she’d be promising to lie there quietly so he could get it over with.
Pass.
Those few well-tended fantasies he’d held on to over the past eight years were already shot to hell, which was a damn shame considering his relationship with them had outlived any other he’d attempted, real or imagined. Max rubbed a palm across his face, then met Sarah’s eyes with a single, definitive shake of his head.
She sat back on her knees and let out a quiet, defeated sigh that got to him more than any of her offers or cajoling. He’d heard it before, and it reminded him of the last time they were together. She’d been asking him for the same thing then, and like now, the casual element that would have been his expectation with any other woman, any other night, hit him like a blow. Because for some unfathomable reason, he’d always thought Sarah was offering him more. And he always wanted it. But apparently he wasn’t the kind of guy she wanted more with.
He wouldn’t forget it again. And he wouldn’t hold it against her either. After all, he’d been the one who made sure she saw him the way she did.
Stripping his shirt off, he held it out. “Put this on. We’re going to talk, and no way is it happening with you sitting there in your bra and panties.” Lacy bra and economically cut panties in what had only a few minutes before become his favorite shade of pink.
One mahogany brow pulled into a slow, calculating arch. “Why’s that?” she asked, fingering the fabric of his shirt as she searched his eyes for weakness. “Not sure you can hold out against a little lace and a lot of skin?”
Jesus, who was this woman, and what had she done to that too-sweet, too-agreeable girl whose easy acceptance of his last dictate had been the harbinger of the worst years of his life?
“Trust me, Sarah. I’m sure.” But seeing her nearly bare would make it hurt a hell of a lot more.
“Fine,” she huffed, sticking her arms into the overlarge shirt. Letting the fabric gape, she leaned back against the headboard, fingers linked over her belly, legs outstretched in front of her and crossed at the ankles. “If this makes you more comfortable.”
“It does.” Not. Even. A. Little. Bit.
And that knowing upward curl of Sarah’s lips wasn’t helping in the least. He’d entered dangerous territory, and there wasn’t any backup for a situation like this.
“Look, I’m sorry, Max,” Sarah started, her bare feet shifting together. “I don’t know what I was thinking.” She peered at the ceiling and blew out another laugh. “Okay, I did. I thought you would be good and maybe you wouldn’t notice, and it would be no big deal to you and a huge life changer for me. But I still should have been honest with you.”
He held up a hand. There were so many things wrong with what she’d said—starting with her belief that a guy who wouldn’t notice she was a virgin could even have a shot at being good, and ending with the idea that anything she qualified as life changing for her could be no big deal to him.
“I’d like to think, since you trust me enough to try to trick me into being your first, you might trust me enough to tell me what’s going on. Why now? Why me? Why not that douche you were engaged to?”
She raised a brow at that, then cocked her head and let out a pretty laugh. “He really was a douche.”
Glad they were in agreement. But it didn’t get him where he wanted to go.
“Sarah, talk to me.”
He just wanted to understand. Hell, maybe he needed to.
“Look, I never intended to hold on to my ‘virtue’ this long,” she said, uncrossing her arms only long enough to make the finger quotes. “I don’t know if you remember, but waiting on marriage was never part of my plan.”
He remembered. Even now, he could feel it. See it. The wind off the lake catching in her hair as she laughed over something she’d heard about him from the weekend. Something he’d only then realized he regretted. But rather than own up to it, he’d turned the conversation back to her, challenging that not everyone was waiting for marriage like she was.
It had been nuts, the way his heart had started thumping hard like he’d just finished a game of hoops, when he was just waiting on a confirmation that shouldn’t have mattered to him at all, but did.
Sarah had turned to him with that screwed-up look on her face and laughed again. “I’m not waiting on marriage, Max. But to me, sex is meaningful, you know? It’s the kind of shared intimacy I don’t want with just anyone, anytime. I want it to be special and, at least the first time, I want it to be with someone I love. Kind of desperately.”
He’d felt that statement down to his gut, hating the way it confirmed what he already knew. As bad as he wanted Sarah, he couldn’t have her.
“You were waiting for love,” he replied to the Sarah of all these years later. The one who’d been in love at least once—because she’d taken the douche’s ring and put it on her finger. “The desperate kind.”
“I guess I was. Pretty sad to be sitting here with the one guy who knows that, after being just plain desperate in front of him.”
“We’re friends. We’re allowed to lose our cool in front of each other.”
She cut him a wry look from beneath those thick, dark lashes. “If you say so.”
“Come on, Sarah. What happened?” He wanted to know. Desperately, but hypocrite that he was, he couldn’t tell her that.
“In my defense, the douche seemed like a pretty good guy when we met. It was after you’d graduated—”
“I know.” He’d asked about her, remembered how fucking bad it felt to hear she’d gotten serious with someone.
She paused, a questioning look in her eyes, but quickly continued. “So I was a couple of months into senior year when we started dating. He totally respected my feelings about sex and never pushed. In fact, when I finally told him I thought I was ready, that I loved him and wanted us to be together that way, it turned out he had stronger convictions on the subject than I did. He thought we should wait until we were married.”
“He wanted to wait?” Max couldn’t believe it.
“Not really. Turned out, he wasn’t talking about both of us waiting. But I didn’t find that out until a few months before the wedding.”
A few years into dating. Jesus. No one deserved that kind of betrayal, but the idea that Sarah had suffered it? He wanted to hunt Cory down and put his fist in the guy’s face. “Damn, Sarah. I’m sorry.”
“After we broke up, I was so mad. Disgusted that I’d been waiting for this prick all those years—only to realize he hadn’t thought I was worth waiting for at all. So I went out with the sole intent of picking up a guy and getting rid of this albatross between my legs.”
“Albatross?” Max choked out, his eyes seeking that shadowy spot beneath his shirt.
“I know, way to sell it.” She laughed.
Jesus, that she was having to sell it at all? Forcing his eyes back to her face, he asked, “How’d that turn out for you?”
“I realized the minute I walked into the bar I wasn’t going to follow through. Cory had cost me enough time. I wasn’t going to let my feelings and resentment toward him cost me what I’d been waiting all my adult life for. I wanted my first time to be special, so I decided to wait.” She drummed the fingers of her hand over her arm. “And in the meantime, I figured I’d throw myself into my career. Which it turns out I do very well.”
“So I hear. Sean says you’re kind of a badass.”
A look of pure unadulterated satisfaction lit her eyes. “Nice of him to notice.”
That pang of jealousy hit him again, making him feel like a total ass. Sarah wasn’t into Sean. Not that it mattered now anyway. “So how did we go from waiting for special to hoping I wouldn’t notice this was your first time?”
Sarah shrugged. “Special got stale. Honestly, Max, that first year after the breakup, I was completely turned off to dating. And after that, it wasn’t so much that the guys were turning me off as my career was turning me on. I was getting so much satisfaction from kicking ass and taking names. I don’t know. Dating just fell off the radar. I mean, I tried it on and off, but eventually I decided it was time to just bite the bullet and say, ‘Get thee behind me, virginity.’ Only it never worked out. I mean, in case you haven’t noticed, the whole I’m-still-a-virgin-but-I swear-it-doesn’t-mean-anything conversation can be kind of a mood killer.”
“I can’t believe there weren’t any takers.” Most guys just weren’t built that way.
Shooting him a nasty look that had him laughing again, Sarah crossed her arms tighter. “Of course there were takers. But by the time we’d worked through the assurances and wary looks, I just wasn’t interested. I might have given up on waiting for love, and waiting for special, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask that I at least be a little turned on.” She huffed, waving one dismissive hand his way. “So for a number of reasons, it just kept not happening. But it needs to.
“I don’t want to go through what happened with Cory again. It’s not like I’m ready for my happily ever after. Right now is about my career, and maybe picking up a little experience in the dating arena on the side. But eventually I will be ready to get serious again, and I’m hoping when that happens, I’ll have had enough experience to know more about what I want in a man, in a relationship. To know what’s important to me. What’s not.”
“You want to play the field a while,” Max offered, cringing inside over how mistaken he’d been with her. Not that he’d thought this time he’d get to keep her. She was only in town for a couple of months, and he knew better than to try to get in the way of a woman’s plans. But for while she was here?
Well, not exactly what she’d been looking for. And the more she talked, the less he could blame her.
“I want to do some research, so when the time is right, I’ll be able to make an educated decision I can be confident about.”
Because she didn’t want to get hurt again. It killed him to think about the mind fuck that douche had done on her. How, as tough as she seemed, she was still so afraid of letting herself be hurt.
“The thing is, Max, it’s tough to tell what kind of connection you have with someone, what you like about them and what you don’t, when first you’re worrying about the coming conversation, and then they’re worried about what that means.”
Yeah, he could imagine.
After another frustrated breath, she looked up at him. “When I ran into you at the party, and I realized there was still something between us, I thought maybe. Maybe we could have one night. The night we never had back in school, but I’d wondered about for I won’t even tell you how long after. One night, and this obstacle that feels like it’s in the way of everything would finally be gone. Only then I started thinking about having the talk with you, and I just couldn’t. So I left. But after, I was kicking myself for letting it stop me. And anyway, that’s why I decided not to say anything tonight. It wasn’t right, and I’m sorry.”
She was killing him. A woman like Sarah, so smart and sexy and sweet, ought to have a man loving her every night. If things had been different, it might have been him. She wouldn’t be a virgin, that was for damn sure. Because while he’d had her, Max would have made sure she was coming apart with his name on her lips every chance he got.
But she hadn’t wanted that from him. And what she had wanted? Well, he’d wanted more for her.
“Sarah, I get it. But I can’t be the guy to help you out.”
Her shoulders slumped as she quietly asked, “Can you tell me why?”
“Because I’m the guy who remembers your eyes when you told me you were waiting for love. I’m the guy who wanted that for you so bad he walked away to make sure you had a shot at it. I’m sorry, but I don’t think I could live with being the guy looking into your eyes when you realized what you’d done with me meant you were never going to get it.
“You deserve more. And even with you telling me you don’t need it, I still want you to have it.”
Sarah sighed, a half smile on her lips.
“It’s okay, Max. You’re a good guy, and I don’t want you to feel bad about doing what you feel is right. But I do kind of wish I could stop offering more than you want to take though.” She laughed lightly, but Max’s guts twisted with what she’d said. He couldn’t tell her how wrong she’d been. How much he’d wanted what she was offering eight years ago. How he’d wanted more.
Crawling off the bed, she handed Max his shirt back and walked over to where her dress lay on the floor. Slipping the first layer over her head and then the second, she let the lacy fabric slide down her body.
Again, she was killing him.
She glanced over her shoulder. “A little help?”
He crossed to her and had the zipper half up, his fingers burning to spread out over that creamy expanse of skin, when she blithely stated, “I get why you said no. And it really is fine. I’ll find someone else to assist with my little problem. There’s got to be some palatable prince out there willing to help a girl out when she needs a favor. I’m ready to get this over with. And I’d like to do it before I get to New York and the rest of my life starts for real.”
His hand slipped from the zipper. “Sarah—”
She turned to him, no judgment or apology in her eyes. Just honesty. “It was good to see you, Max. And while I may not have shown it, I really do appreciate the friendship.”
He nodded, that knot in his gut getting worse as she slipped into her heels and then found her purse.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
A slender brow rose.
“Becoming platonic sleepover buddies with my hardest crush is a low even I won’t sink to. I’ve got my own room. Take care, Max.”
He could stop her from leaving. All it would take was a few steps, and then he could kiss the last thirty minutes out of her memory. Now that he knew she was inexperienced, he’d go slow, warm her up to his every touch before moving on. He could give her everything she wanted and—
And the door closed behind her.
“Take care, Sarah.”
Chapter 8
Max had been sharing Sunday morning breakfast with Molly since she’d first started showing up at his lakefront dorm for weekends his freshman year. Three years younger than he was, she’d still been in high school and living at home when he left for college. He’d been nervous about leaving her without an ally in the war zone where they’d grown up, so when he’d found her sitting outside his door that first Friday evening, two weeks into school, he’d welcomed her with a sigh of relief rather than grudgi
ng reluctance.
He’d never had to worry about her getting in the way, since she’d spent most of her life trying to stay out of it. And with the alternative being weekends at home with Vick and Dana Brandt screaming at her and each other, Molly wasn’t about to make any trouble. She’d been fifteen, and best of all, she’d looked it, with baby-blue eyes that seemed a little too big for her face and that gangly posture she hadn’t quite grown out of. Which meant Max hadn’t needed to lay anyone out for getting ideas about her, because they all knew she was way too young.
’Course by his junior year, Molly was seventeen and the story had changed. But by then she’d been practically living with him, Jase, Brody, and Sean for two years, and his mom had finally followed through on more than a decade of threats and left his dad. Despite having to throw some heavy glares around while reiterating his little sister’s not-so-legal status, Max liked having her close enough to keep an eye on. He liked her knowing she could count on him to be there for her no matter what—and knowing she could be counted on to—
“Bow-chicka-wow-wow. Hey, Bro!” Molly sang out from behind the island that served as both a table and a division between the kitchen and living room in the apartment she shared with a revolving door of roommates.
“Enough with the porn music, Molly. It wasn’t like that.” Yeah, Molly could be counted on to make sure he felt as dirty as she thought he was on any given day of the week.
“Well, it kind of looked like that, Big Brother. Considering you stole Sean’s date right out from under him.” She made a show of looking all around. “And yet, I don’t see her here. Which means pull up a stool and start talking. Sean was a total ween and wouldn’t give me anything last night except that she’s that Sarah.”
Molly had a thing about keeping track of Max’s dates, and not just because she loved giving him crap about them. The way she saw it, she needed to know who to avoid if casual turned cranky, and Max couldn’t blame her. So he ponied up names, first and last, and the most pertinent details of his dating life without argument.