I paced from one side of the apartment to the other side. I wished Justin would answer. It wasn’t like we were close. We never had been, and our relationship certainly hadn’t changed since he’d handed Layla a bad credit card and left her penniless after stealing from her in Paris, when we’d taken even a further downswing. He was a drug addict, and I had absolutely no idea how to help him recover.
But he’d reached out, and he was my family. That meant I had to pay attention. I had to help him.
Didn’t I?
I sat down on the bed and my phone dinged, only it wasn’t Justin. It was Max. Tonight was fun.
I couldn’t help my smile. It was.
I copied the message that Justin sent me and texted it to Zeke. I wasn’t sure what else to do. I supposed I could send it to Michael Li, but truth was, I didn’t know how Justin was being handled.
Before I could overthink, I sent Max another message. It was easier to be distracted by him, simpler to focus on that than what was happening with Justin. Max was a person who never had to know about my brother and the things he’d done to my sister. How it tore me up inside. One of them hurting the other. Layla was fine now. Happily married. She had a baby that Justin didn’t even know existed. How could that be?
Shouldn’t our shared history bond us?
Those were the thoughts that pushed through my mind as I texted Max.
Obviously, what you said is true. I’m very attracted to you.
I threw myself back down on the bed and stared at my ceiling as the phone rang. I picked it up. “Don’t make me regret saying that.”
“I’m not. But what I want to say to you next, I want to say, not text like some seventeen-year-old kid who can’t own his words, can’t hear his own voice saying things.”
I rolled onto my stomach. “You already had my attention. Now you really have it.”
“I told you tonight, I don’t do relationships, and that’s not something I just say. I tend to get what I want. I work for it. Sheer force of will sometimes. If I wanted to be someone’s boyfriend or husband or anything like that, I would be. I don’t.”
If only he knew how perfectly fine with me that was. “You get that I’m a little fucked up, right? I mean, I don’t have to spell it out, do I? I’m not on a path to traditional normalcy. Stop assuming I’m looking to marry you and go live in Connecticut with two kids and a dog.”
Although I really should get a pet. But not a dog. They needed too much attention. Maybe a goldfish.
“I don’t get you at all, Hope, and I’ve known a lot of fucked up in my life. I don’t know if you qualify or not. I just know I want to spread open your legs and put my mouth on you until you come on my tongue. I know that can’t happen as long as you think you’re in some kind of debt to me. I’m not taking you as long as things aren’t equal between us. So I’ll just say this. If we have sex, it all stops. You stop using your connections to help me out of some need to fix what can’t be fixed.” He was quiet for a second. “Or this stops right now.”
The last thing he said was very final. I didn’t think I’d get him to budge on that point if I wanted to. “They’re two separate things. Me wanting your body” —if only he knew how rare a thing that actually was for me. He was like magic or something—“and me wanting to get onions for you when you can’t.”
“They’re not to me.” His voice was so low, it moved through me like a gust of wind that almost knocked me over, even though I lay on my bed. “What’s it going to be, Hope?”
“I’ll stop with the food.” That was how badly I wanted him. It was like a desperate wanting, and I was terrified it would go away.
“Give me your address. I can be there soon.”
No. If he came here, then he might see through the layers I still had separating him from my level of not being okay. “I’ll come to you.”
“I’ll text you my address.”
I swallowed. This was really happening. “Great. Max, is this officially a booty call?”
“This is me getting off the phone. I’ll see you soon.” He hung up, and I grinned. I’d never had an experience like this before. Mostly because I’d avoided it like the plague. I didn’t do things that ended up with people asking me to come over for sex.
Nerves settled in my stomach. I had almost no experience with this, and what I did have was…bad. I got off the bed. I could say no. It would be easy enough. I’d text him back and just be pithy about changing my mind.
Only I didn’t want to. No, I wanted to know what it was like to have sex with this man whose presence had woken me up inside in a way I’d thought wasn’t possible.
Can I go through with this?
I could.
I still looked relatively put together from dinner and quickly adjusted my makeup. On my way out the door, my mother’s painting caught my attention. I’d bought it in an auction my first year out of college. It was worth a fortune, and I’d never have been able to pay for it now. Then, however, I’d been living off my father without thinking about money and getting a paycheck for doing very little for his company. I’d wanted it with a focus I hadn’t had since.
Funny, I’d never considered how I’d bought it right after I got out of the hospital. I might not have been in the best frame of mind, but that didn’t matter anymore. I had it.
My mother had painted the sun coming over the horizon, only the colors weren’t bright. They weren’t the golden touches of a new morning. No, they were blue, black, and dark purple. The sun itself seemed to be glaring at me.
She’d painted it toward the end of her life, and my father had sold it, and every other work she created, almost immediately afterward to pay the bills.
Then he’d gotten very rich.
The title of this one had been September. She would die in October. My birthday was in September. I sighed.
Before I could overthink it, I sent Justin a message. There’s nothing so bad we can’t fix it.
I had to believe that for myself too. There was nothing I couldn’t get past. I promised myself, my future sunrises weren’t going to look like September.
I grabbed my coat and headed outside to search for a future that might start because I had one night with a man that wouldn’t end in a relationship. Tonight could be about sex, and maybe if I could figure out how to keep it just that, I could start to let go of the past.
It shouldn’t embarrass me to tell Theo where I was going, but it did. I just gave him the address and then totally pretended I wasn’t embarrassed to have given them the address of where I was going to have sex.
I just stayed silent and pretended I was cool. I was a twenty-four-year-old woman. I could have sex with whomever I wanted without being judged by the guards employed to keep me safe. I sighed. My life was a little bit fucked up.
I texted my sisters. I’m going to have sex.
It took a hot second for Bridget to answer me. Congratulations?
She didn’t get it, and that was my fault, not hers. I put away my phone. The building was right in between Midtown West and Hell’s Kitchen. It wasn’t a neighborhood I frequented. His home was on the corner of 48th and 10th. It was pretty there, so I made a mental note to check it out more later.
The building looked like it was a converted…something. I couldn’t describe it better because it seemed like all the apartments in the area had been turned from one thing into something else. The last apartment I visited in the area had been made from a converted schoolhouse. They’d left chalkboards hanging in the apartments to indicate the past of the structure. I sort of loved it.
But I didn’t know what his had been in its previous life. Some kind of warehouse, maybe? I wasn’t sure. My hands shook as I sent him a quick text that just said here. Of course, I could just turn around and run. I could. Theo might not even judge me. Luke wouldn’t care. He’d drive home and never mention it again. What was wrong with me? Twenty-four-year-old women went and had sex all the time. It was the thing to do. And yes, I—
; My train of thought stopped as Max opened the door. I’d sort of expected him to buzz me in. With buildings like this, if the doorman was off or even if there weren’t one, then that was the way it worked. Mostly. But there he was. He’d come to open it up himself, and that was sort of…sweet.
I forgot I was nervous.
“Hi.” I smiled at him and left my worries on the street behind me. This would be fine. It would.
Max threw a look over my shoulder at the car, where Theo stood on the street, but then turned all of his attention toward me. “I was hoping you’d still be in that dress.”
“Well, I aim to please.” Not really, but it seemed like something a woman with any sense of how to behave in a situation like this would say. I even winked at him, which made him frown at me. I hadn’t meant that. Was I already fucking up?
He lived on the second floor, so we took the stairs because he told me the elevator was crazy slow. That was okay. I always preferred to walk when I could, and it had the added benefit of showing me where the stairs were, something I also really liked to know. Oh boy. This might not go as well as I hoped. There was nothing like not being able to control my thoughts. Escape routes and strange frowns. I might be behaving a lot odder than even I realized.
Maybe.
His apartment was beautiful. I saw so many and I wasn’t easily impressed, but his was gorgeous and I loved it. The twelve-foot-tall windows must’ve let in incredible light during the day. With the shades open, I could see the lights of Manhattan surrounding us. I sometimes forgot, because I was simply used to the spectacle, how extraordinary New York looked at night. I kept my own drapes closed all the time. I never looked at anything anymore.
He didn’t have a lot of furniture. A table that was low to the floor in what must have been the living room. There wasn’t much of a separation between that and the eating area and the kitchen. Very standard for apartments this size. His table seated two. Max must not get too many guests. I smiled at the thought. Maybe this was unusual for him too. He had one couch, and it was white. Honestly, I would never have pictured him in such a bright place.
“This is gorgeous.”
He nodded. “I was lucky it was available when I was looking. The first time I lived in New York, I lived downtown. This time, I wanted some separation from the restaurant.”
He must be renting the space. Coming and going. If he’d owned his apartment, he would’ve come back to it. That was just how it worked with real estate in the city. I would probably own my place until I died, even if it were a hundred years from now.
I turned to look at him. Now that I could see him standing there, I realized he fit the space. Everything was clean, orderly. His kitchen in the restaurant had looked this way too. He might be the kind of person who kept order in his life. Clean lines, bright lights. No September here, for certain.
The whirlwind of mess that was me wouldn’t fit in his space. Not long term. “How am I doing? Acting weird?”
His grin surprised me. “How am I acting? Wondering the same thing.”
“Well then, maybe we could just both acknowledge doing this kind of thing is a little bit off and move forward from there.”
He stepped toward me, touching the side of my face. “We could just talk.”
That was sweet and absolutely the right thing for him to have said, only it wasn’t what I wanted. I’d love to talk to him anytime, but that wasn’t why I was here. Of course, he had no way of knowing how much I had on the line.
Or how gorgeous he was, and how I felt alive just looking at him.
Maybe he did know. I wouldn’t put it past him to be fully aware of how good-looking he was.
I shook my head. “Always happy to talk, but I’d like to…” I let my voice fade off. What was the right word to use? Have sex? Fuck? I didn’t know, so I left it unspoken.
He nodded once, stroking his finger over my cheek. “Me too. Want a drink?”
Yes, but the answer had to be the opposite. “No thank you, but I will take some water.”
“Water it is.” He strode to the kitchen, and I immediately felt bereft from the lack of his hand on my cheek. It was cold where it had been warm. “I also have seltzer. Want that? Or flat water?”
“Oh.” I followed after him. “I love seltzer.”
He poured some in a glass and then side-eyed me. “Ice?”
“Yes, please.”
His fridge was one of those that made ice, and after making a little bit of a squeaking noise, it deposited two ice cubes into the glass with the smallest of splashes. He winced. “Should have put the ice in first.”
He was cute. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him flustered before. He handed it to me, and I took it. “Thanks.”
The water was cold on my tongue, and I was glad for it. He picked up a drink off the counter. It was an amber liquid that I’d guess was whisky. I actually loved a good glass of whisky. He drank it straight. Well actually, he sipped it. I watched him for a second because that was what he seemed to be doing to me. It was an odd moment, and not one I was sure we’d ever repeat—two people obviously watching each other drink.
I set down my water. He wasn’t aggressive, that much was obvious. A woman my age who wasn’t fucked up would know what to do with a gentle man—of that, I was sure—so I stepped toward him. “Should I kiss you?”
Maybe I should have just done it, because talking about things wasn’t sexy.
“I’d really love you to.” He set down his drink and tugged me to him. Tight against his body, I waited for the anxiety that even thinking about being in a man’s arms would have caused just a year ago, but none came. He was warm, and he smelled fantastic. Clean and spicy, which I guessed came from the whisky.
I reached up and kissed him. He leaned down to meet me halfway, which was good because I was significantly shorter than him. His lips were warm and moist. I could immediately taste the whisky on him and decided that the mixture of Max and that liquor was my favorite new thing.
He was warm. I wrapped my arms around his neck. He drew me even closer, picked me up suddenly, and placed me on the counter. I yelped, then laughed. He’d managed to surprise me. I waited for the panic, but it didn’t happen.
I pulled back to regard him for a second. He was beautiful, and I’d bet he’d hate it if I said the word aloud. I stroked my fingers down the side of his cheek. He’d let a little bit of facial hair grow, and it scraped against my fingertips. He smiled, a slow, sexy grin, as I stroked my finger over him.
Eventually, he stopped me, bringing my hand to his mouth to kiss it. I shivered. Neither of us said a word. Were most people silent during sex? I had no idea. But in this case, I thought perhaps the less said the better.
He kissed me, this time with so much heat, I thought I might expire from it. How could such a thing happen from just the touching of our lips? It never had in the past. I’d been kissed plenty as a teenager.
I tugged at his shirt, and he shook his head. “Not so fast.”
“Why?” I lifted an eyebrow. “Are we waiting for something?”
“Yes.” He picked me up again. “For starters, I really like the kissing part. I can tell you do too, so why rush through it? We have all night.”
The idea both comforted and terrified me, but not so much that I wanted him to stop. Max carried me in his arms across the apartment to his bed. His bedroom was medium sized for a New York City apartment. That was all I noticed. Well, that and the sexy black sheets as he laid me down on them.
I caught my breath. It just became very, very real. “I don’t do this.”
I don’t know what compelled me to be so honest, but there it was. I had to say it, and now he knew. Well, he knew as much as I would ever confess. Maybe he could get the gist—I wasn’t the sexually experienced woman social media called me, if he followed such things.
He shook his head. “Neither do I. Can’t remember exactly how long it has been for me. But you got under my skin, and I have to have you tonight.”
/> Something about his words, about his tone, about his possessive attitude, spurred me forward and shed what remained of my anxiety. Right then, I didn’t care what happened in the past. I only wanted now. “Have me.”
Max kissed me again. I no longer felt compelled to rush him through it. Maybe it wasn’t the finish line that I needed to reach as much as to go through for this journey. He didn’t know the gift he gave me tonight. After this, there would be freedom from wondering what the first time since the incident would be like. I would know.
And so far, I loved it.
His mouth came down on my own as he held his much bigger body off my smaller one like he was doing a plank. I didn’t know how long he could maintain the position—I’d never been great at it—but he didn’t seem to have any trouble, so I decided not to worry about it. I kissed and kissed him. Time passed, and I was so hot that I squirmed beneath him. He was hard everywhere, and I wanted to rub against his strength until I got lost in it.
But I controlled myself. I didn’t know if that was weird or something. What I needed for this to be was as normal as was humanly possible, considering things.
He kissed both my cheeks and then tugged his shirt over his head before he winked at me. “Put your hands over your head.”
“Why?” Some of the good feelings I had fled. Why would he want me to do that? My heart rate kicked up a notch, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about what he said.
He tilted his head. “So I can take off your clothes.”
“Oh, yes. Sure.” I did as he asked, and he pulled my dress over my head.
Max didn’t look down at my chest or check out my body. Instead, his gaze stayed on my face. “Nothing you don’t want to happen will happen. This can stop right here.”
“I do want this.” I smiled. “I was just confused, I guess.”
He kissed my chin, and then my nose. “A little dominance in bed can be fun, but not if we don’t talk about it first when we’re both dressed. Nothing even remotely like that is going to happen tonight. Or ever.”
Redheaded Redemption (Redheads Book 2) Page 6
