I took his hand. “Thank you, Max.”
There was such warmth in his eyes when he looked at me. “You don’t ever need to thank me. Not ever, my Hope.”
“No, I need to apologize to you.”
He winced. “For what? I think you have that backward.”
“For placing you in that position, with the mob coming and no time, demanding answers. It was my way or no way at that moment. Your back was against the wall. It wasn’t at all the emotionally appropriate way to do that.”
He scooted his chair closer just as the waiter arrived, setting down two bowls of soup. Max couldn’t possibly expect me to eat that?
“Hope, I wasn’t wrong—I don’t love like other people. I…I am more obsessive than I have any right to be, but that is how I need you, how I love you. It’s not just a void to be without you, but a total absence of sunlight and anything good.”
Was I crying? “Max…”
“You paid off my restaurant. I know it was you. How did you do that? Even you aren’t walking around with that kind of cash.”
I wiped at my face with a laugh. “I’m not nearly as rich as I once was, trust me on that.” Although both Bridget and Zeke were investing my money, so it was better than it was. “I sold my mother’s painting. Remember the sad one? September?”
“Fuck.” He reared back and closed his eyes. “You didn’t have to do that, love, you really didn’t. You didn’t owe me anything. You didn’t fuck up my life. I could have done any number of things I didn’t do. I could have hired a PR firm. I could have approached you and asked you to say something publicly. I could have even responded myself. I did nothing but sink. That’s on me, not you. Please stop thinking you screwed up my life when you are my whole life, and I cannot do without you.”
Now it was my turn to scoot closer. “Max, I didn’t do it only because I screwed up your life.”
“Then why did you do it?” We were just a breath away from each other.
“Because I love you, and you needed it, and it felt like goodbye. Like I could give you something that you could have for the rest of your life. And sure, yes, there was some element of me wanting to fix what I’d broken. Yes, that was there. That’s always going to be a part of me. I’m not ashamed of it.”
He squeezed my hands in his. “I want to be worthy of you, Hope.”
“I don’t even know what that means.” Worthy of me? I wasn’t anything particularly special.
He shook his head. “I need you to let me make up this year I took from us. Can you do that? Can you let me make you so happy every day that you’ll eventually forgive me for taking this year from us? Please, baby.”
“Max.” I ran my hand down the side of his face. “It might have been a good thing. Not that we both suffered without each other, not that we had to hurt, but because the time forced me to get some help I might not have otherwise gotten. To do some things. Figure myself out. Get stronger.”
He ran his finger over my tattoo again. “Get inked.”
“Yes.” I grinned at him. “And other things.”
Max tilted his head again in that questioning way that he did. “Other things?”
“I’ll tell you if you elaborate. I think you said other things earlier yourself.” I forced him to meet his gaze. “What other things did you do?”
“I…” He spoke in a very low voice. “I used my considerable set of abilities to rid the world of someone who didn’t deserve to still be here after what he did to you.”
He’d killed Shawn. “You could have been hurt.”
His mouth fell open. “Hope, I just told you that I did a thing that most people will never do, and that I’m obsessed in how much I love you, and you are concerned that I might have hurt myself?”
I nodded. “I’m glad that you didn’t. And…and thank you, Max. Thank you for ridding the world of him.” I pressed our foreheads together. “I got my belly button pierced. That is my other thing.”
He kissed me. I was so glad he did. It was what I needed more than I did my next breath. Just his mouth against mine. He smoothed his finger down the side of my face as he kissed me again. The waiter arrived with another dish, and Max surged backward in the chair before he dismissed him with his hand. “Tell Anna to hold the food.”
“Right.” The waiter ran again.
“You terrify him.”
He scratched his head. “I’ve maybe been in a very bad mood for the last year.”
“That so?” I wanted him to kiss me again. But we were in public. In his restaurant. I had to behave. Somehow.
“Well, my girl vanished. I couldn’t find her. Couldn’t make the tears that I made her shed go away. Couldn’t beg her for forgiveness. Couldn’t know if she were happy or healthy. If she was warm. It’s put me off.”
I kissed his cheek. “Seattle.”
“That’s where you’ve been?” He rubbed his face. “I should have looked there.”
“The whole city? Searched the city all around until you found me?” I lifted an eyebrow.
“Whatever it took.” His face said he was dead serious.
“I took a page from your book—close to family, but not too close. I went to school. Got a certificate so that I could actually work in fundraising for nonprofits and not just trade on my name and face. Learned some things. Got a job. I’m getting another certificate now. Or I hope I am. I might fail since I skipped out today. Used a fake name. Michael got me set up with paperwork. That’s what I’ve been doing.”
He was so quiet, I didn’t know what to do. Should I just keep talking? “Hope, I have no right to ask you this. None. But could you please come home to me? Could you please come do all of those things here? Please.”
Chapter 21
“We haven’t spent a day together in a year. You might regret asking me that.”
He tugged me so close to him that I practically sat on his lap. “I love you. However you’ve changed. Whatever you have done or will do. You are mine. I can close this place down and come to Seattle if that is what you want. I can do that. You are all I need.”
That actually sounded completely wrong. He’d created a life, and all these people had jobs because of him. No, he wasn’t going to shut anything down and move for me. That would be just awful to do to these people, even if they were afraid of him because he’d been in a bad mood for an entire year.
“I’ll come.” I said the words that I knew would change everything for me. “It’s going to take me a little bit to get things together and to get Michael to change my life back to my real name. But I’ll come.”
He pushed back his chair. “Can we get out of here? I know you must be starving. I will feed you tonight. Myself. Please.”
I rose. “You don’t have to keep saying please to me. Of course, we can get out of here if that’s what you want.”
He put his arm around me and dragged me against him. “I do.”
We left there just like that. I hadn’t eaten a bite, but we’d certainly made a scene, even though we’d been quiet. All eyes were on us.
He didn’t live far from the restaurant, within walking distance. Once we got into the place, it was just as I would have pictured it—sparsely decorated with no pictures anywhere and just enough furniture to function.
“I didn’t have any pictures of us. Not any.” He put his arms around me from behind when I stopped in the living room. “Nothing but your old social media to stare at all the time.”
I spun around in his embrace and put my arms around his neck. I don’t know what I would have said because he kissed me, hard. It was possessive, and it was clear he had no intention of stopping. Max kissed and kissed and kissed me. His tongue slid over my bottom lip, then he bit me. Our tongues danced together, and he moaned. It was like one thing was happening and then the next. I couldn’t think or process. All I could do was feel.
Was it possible that my body could have been this lonely for his? It was like he was pooling energy back into me where I had been completely
depleted from needing him and not having him. Finally, I pulled back enough to speak to him. “I was so tired from missing you.”
“Exhausted. You are life to me. I wish I could have known myself better before you were gone. Then I would have said yes, Hope, I love you. But I’m going to love you in a really fucked up way because I’ve got a number of screws loose.”
“Your brand of fucked up works for me, Max.”
He picked me up and carried me to the bedroom. I knew these sheets. They were the same one he’d had at his cabin. He laid me down on the bed, gently, and with the sweetest, easiest movement, he came over me so that his body hovered over mine.
“I really want to be inside of you.”
I kissed his chin. “That’s what I want too. It is the endgame for what we’re doing.”
He smiled down at me. This was real. This was happening. I was there. With him. “What I mean is that I want to be inside of you. No condom. Just you. Just me. Nothing between us.”
That sounded like heaven. “You can have that.”
Max lifted his eyebrows. “You’re ready to potentially have a baby? I would love that. Putting a baby inside of you is one of my fantasies. I didn’t think you’d want that just yet.”
He smelled like mine. “Don’t worry about that. I’m on the pill now. Not going to get me pregnant, not yet.”
His face fell. Was he that disappointed that he couldn’t get me pregnant right this second? We were absolutely not in a place yet where we should be getting pregnant, not that I was opposed to the idea of having his babies. “What’s the matter?”
“I…I’m just… I guess I didn’t realize you’d be on the pill. I didn’t really let myself think that you’d have been with someone else. I couldn’t. You were mine, and I let you go. The fact that you were with someone else is my fucking fault. I just want to kill whomever it was. I need a second to reset.”
I shook my head. “There hasn’t been anyone else. I’m on the pill to take care of my bad periods. The cramps. The doctor in Seattle thought it was ridiculous I wasn’t already on it.”
Max blinked. For a second, he looked downright befuddled. “Oh, I thought…” He closed his eyes. “Shit.”
I smirked at him. “Actually, if you want the honest-to-god truth, I was thinking about having sex with someone else.” His eyes flew open. “And then you showed up on television, so I broke up with the guy and came here.”
“Thank fuck I filmed that segment.” He took a long breath. “Have I spoiled the moment?”
I ground my hips into his. “Not possible.”
“Good.”
Max went back to kissing me, and I let myself get lost in it. Slowly, we undressed each other. I’d been right when I thought he looked thinner on television. Still gorgeous, but leaner. Apparently, he’d been cooking for others but not eating any of it himself. He smoothed his hand over my belly button with the ring before he smirked at me. A second later, he tongued it.
I moaned. Yes, this was the image I’d had that I’d gotten myself off on so many times. Max had just done it. Exactly like I’d wished he would.
“Oh, you like this.” He kissed my stomach. “And I really like this new decoration you gave me to play with on your body.”
I grinned at him. “Can I admit that when I got it, I kept thinking of you?”
“Yes, you can admit that. I fucking love it.”
I ran my hands over his body, feeling his muscles jump beneath my touch. I couldn’t believe I was back in his arms. He loved me. The thought spurred me to kiss his chest. Then his stomach. He groaned. “You do that, and I’m going to be in you very, very fast.”
Leaning back, I stared up at him. “What would be wrong with that?”
“Fuck, Hope.”
That seemed to really spur him onward. He was all over me like he couldn’t stay in one place long before he had to have his mouth someplace else. Both of my thighs. My stomach, my hips, my chin. I could hardly hold on to him, and then he was there.
He placed a finger inside of me and pulled it out to suck on the taste. “You are so wet.”
I caught my breath. Wow. That was really hot. “Probably have been since you first walked into the restaurant.”
His smile was slow. “Nothing between us.”
“Nothing.”
I wanted to stroke him, but I never got the chance. Max pushed himself inside of me. Balls to tip, all at once. I cried out. Yes, suddenly I was full where I had been empty. “Stay still.” I spoke in a low whisper. “I just want to feel like this for one more second, so I can remember it all the time.”
“Hope, open your eyes and look at me.” I hadn’t realized I’d closed them, but I did just as he asked. I’ve give him anything right then. “I will stay wherever you want me for as long as you want me, but we are going to have lots of moments like this. You won’t have to remember it. We’ll be like this forever and ever.”
I touched his cheek. “Okay.”
“I swear I’m going to make you believe it.” He kissed me, the sweetest caress, and I sighed against his lips.
“If you want to move, you can. Thank you for the moment.”
He shook his head. “Don’t ever thank me for anything.”
Then his body took mine. These were the moments I’d craved—the way Max always knew how to move, how to make me respond to him. The way that he just defined sex to me. No one could ever make me feel the way that he did right then. I wrapped my legs around him and held on. Each thrust, each pull, better than the last.
We moaned together, and when I made a particular noise—I didn’t even know what it was—his lips met mine, begging me for more, like he wanted to drink me down, ingest whatever it was that I’d done.
He scooted us back until I was up against his headboard. His movements were rough, and I was glad for something to hold on to. I couldn’t get enough. There was no such thing as too much right then. Just more. I needed more.
Then I exploded. A years’ worth of nothing became something right then. He was inside of me, his skin touching mine, his body claiming mine again. I needed to be owned by him. I wasn’t ashamed of it, so I took it as my own because I had him too. He belonged to me.
Max spent inside of me. For the first time, I felt that warmth. It filled me in a new way, and I reveled in it.
He smoothed his thumb over my bottom lip. “I like this grin.”
I bit the tip of his thumb, and he grinned. “Forgive me, Hope.”
“You’re forgiven,” I whispered back, and he nodded. Max rose and came back with a washcloth to clean me. He was gentle, almost reverent. Then he tugged me against him in the bed. “Can’t get you close enough.”
“That’s okay.” I pressed my head against his chest. “I like being this close.”
“I can’t spare you my need for you. Can’t put it away where I can’t touch it. Won’t do that. And I haven’t figured out how to tame it yet. Soon. When I’m certain I have you with me, I’ll be able to push it down, but this is what I never let myself acknowledge. This…need I have for you. Essential.”
“Not complaining.” I closed my eyes and breathed him deep into my lungs. “I have to get a ticket in a second, have to pull away to book a plane back to Seattle, so that I can pack up my life, quit my job. To come back here.”
He loosened his grip. “For that, I’ll let go.”
I shook my head and made myself move away from him to grab my phone where it had fallen on the ground when we’d undressed. I had a million texts. My sisters had officially seen his show. They didn’t know I was there, but their curiosity was going to have to wait until morning. Max was getting all my attention. I used an app and quickly made arrangements to leave the next day. He rolled onto his side to watch me.
“What name were you living under?” He stroked his finger over my thigh.
“Amelia West.” Having gotten the arrangements done quickly, I went back to where I’d been, and he rolled onto his back to let me.
G
ood. I was settled. I was there. He was mine. He loved me. “Say it.”
He kissed my hair. “I love you so fucking much, Hope.”
I closed my eyes.
I roused just a bit when he tugged me against him. “You moved too far. Sorry, baby. Go back to sleep.”
That was perfectly fine. I wanted to be that close too. “So much better.”
“It is.” I knew he’d understand.
I woke again when his finger slipped inside of me. This time, I smiled. That really was the best way to rouse from a dream.
The sun streaming into the window woke me. I still lay smushed against Max, and that made me smile. We hadn’t separated during the night, or if we had, he’d put me right back against him. Now, he was sound asleep, even snoring just a little. It was the tilt of his neck. I remembered that sometimes used to happen.
I lifted my head to admire him in the early morning light. He was beautiful. I stared at the clock. I had three hours left before I’d have to get up, go back to my hotel room to collect my things, and leave for the airport.
This whole thing was such a whirlwind. I’d gotten there, and I was going to leave again just to come right back. Crossing the country in bursts of speed to get where I needed to go.
His eyes fluttered open, and he blinked. “You really are here.”
“I am.” And I was going to be sad not to be when I got home to Seattle tonight. Now that I’d tasted this again, the absence would be even more acute.
“I’m sorry, but I have to come with you.” He rolled over and grabbed his phone. “I know. It’s too much, but I explained last night. I can’t…I can’t stop it just yet. I can’t have you across the country right now. I have to be with you. I’ll help you pack.”
My mouth fell open. “That’s perfect.”
He stopped touching his phone. “Really?”
“I was just thinking that I was going to be wrecked tonight without you. Please come if you can. I have to pack. Quit my job. Unenroll from school. And go see Layla, Zeke, and Noah. They’re having another baby.”
Redheaded Redemption (Redheads Book 2) Page 24
