High Tide

by Michelle Mankin

  “No.” His arms coming up around me again, he held me tight.

  “Please.” I dipped my chin, grateful that my hair slid forward to cover my expression.

  “Why would I let you go, when you’re everything I want. Everything I need.”

  “Because I’m an idiot blathering about sentimental stuff after we’ve just had sex for the first time.” I wiggled in his hold.

  The cotton towel was rough beneath me, but he was thick and hard. Shivery warmth flowed through me.

  “I told you I was falling for you.”

  “Falling,” I muttered. “Not fallen.”

  “Falling. Freefall. A rapid and continuing state of decline.”

  “Oh.” My lips lifted.

  “There she is. The beautiful, sensitive, caring, confident woman. The sugar that makes all the bitter that came before I met her sweet.” Holding me with one arm, he lifted his other hand, swiping his thumb softly across my cheek. “Eyes sparkling like shattered diamonds on platinum, just from a compliment.”

  The look of adoration in Max’s expression made my spirit soar. He didn’t know how few genuine compliments I’d received. The affirmation acting provided satisfied a need for approval nothing else had filled.

  His hand drifted lower. “Your curves make my cock hard.”

  My nipples drew to points as he trailed his fingers lightly across one breast and then the other.

  Since his hands were drifting, I let my hands do some exploring too. Well, more like a rocket on a mission straight to that twist in his towel.

  “Shug, wait. Slow down.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath as I separated the two ends and his cock sprang free.

  “Baby.” He lifted my chin with a curled finger. “Don’t look at me like that.”

  “Like how?” I licked my lips to moisten them. There had been an interesting pearl of moisture on the slit of his cock.

  “Like you want to put your mouth on me.”

  “I do.” I searched his eyes, and my lips curved. “You’d like that.”

  It wasn’t a question. I’d already seen the heat in his eyes.

  I slid off the bed, knelt on the carpet with my hands on his thighs, and gazed up at him for a beat. His cock bobbed in front of my mouth. I dipped my gaze to it and exhaled a warm breath, just to see what would happen. I wasn’t disappointed. Another pearly drop emerged, seeping into the other.

  “Where did you learn to do that?” His voice was gruff, as thick as his milky secretion.

  “I hear guys talk.” Grasping him low at the root, I lowered my head and licked him.

  Max groaned. The sound of his desire echoed deep inside me.

  “Salty,” I said wondrously, shifting my weight back onto my feet and swiping my thumb through the excess viscosity on my lips.

  He watched me with a hungry expression, the desire in his gaze plying more of my own. Leaning forward again, I grasped the velvety width of him and wrapped my lips around the bulbous head.

  He groaned. The vibrations traveled down my throat and pulsed as I slid my mouth down his length. I nearly gagged going halfway down, he was so incredibly formed. Withdrawing until only the head remained, I allowed his hand on my nape to guide me. I glided my mouth down another time, only faster.

  “Hollie. Fuck.” He grabbed a fistful of hair, taking control over the rhythm, over me.

  I liked that, liked that his grip tightened as I sucked harder. I started to throb. I liked him being in control, and loved the deepness of his voice as he spoke my name. Gripping him tighter at the base, I sucked harder. Saliva leaked from my mouth, and a glossy wetness slicked my inner thighs.

  “Baby, that feels so good.” He pulled my hair, so far gone in the pleasure I gave him that I didn’t even think he noticed what he was doing. “Enough.”

  He suddenly pulled me back, the release of my mouth from him making a popping sound.

  I lifted my gaze, and the look on his face and the starkness of his desire made my core clench. A new rush of wetness coated my inner thighs as he plucked me up off the carpet, shifted, and tossed me backward onto the bed.

  I loved that I could make Max wild like this.

  Putting a knee to the mattress in front of me while I watched him with heated eyes, he grabbed and rolled on a condom, prying my knees apart as he joined me. He stared at me as if I were a prized possession, piercing me with longing. I wanted to be his in every single way I could, wanted so badly to please him.

  “Prettiest pussy on the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen.” Covering my waxed mound with his palm, he swiped a deliberate thumb across my drenched folds that made me shudder. “You’re so wet, shug.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath as he swirled a circle around my clit.

  “You like that?” he asked, his gaze lifting, his eyes as dark as the deep ocean.

  “Yes, only . . .” My words left me as he did it again, and my hips lifted off the mattress.

  “Only it’s not enough. You want more. Yes?”

  “Yes.” My reply was throaty, and I held my breath as he positioned himself between my legs, pausing with the head of his sheathed cock at my entrance.

  “Good. That’s very good.” He pushed inside me, slowly this time. As he went deeper and deeper, he watched me, and a look of pure masculine satisfaction curled his lips when I smiled.

  “That feels nice.” It seemed different than the time before. Now there was a stretching and a fullness, and beneath those sensations was a desire for more.

  “Nice isn’t good enough for you. Let’s make it nicer.” Keeping us connected, he lowered his head and fastened his lips around one of my nipples.

  Wet, pleasurable heat engulfed the aching tip as he swiped his tongue across it, then he moved his mouth to the other one, sucking on it so hard I gasped. More warmth rushed inside me to dampen my core.

  “Max.” I moaned as he grazed his teeth across one furled point and then the other.

  “Yes, baby?”

  “That’s nicer,” I whispered.

  Grooves bracketed his mouth briefly before it crashed down on mine. He speared his wet tongue between my lips. Shallow and then deep, the rhythm of his tongue in my mouth matched the rhythm of the plunges of his cock, shallow and then deep inside me.

  My desire rose higher and higher. I dug my nails into his ass, lifting my hips into each of his thrusts, trying to clamp him tighter to keep him deep when he withdrew to penetrate me shallow.

  “Max!” I ripped my lips from his, my hands urgent, gliding up and down the tense perspiration-dampened planes of his back. “More. Faster. Deeper. Harder. I want . . .”

  “I want to, baby.” He groaned against my mouth, trailing hot kisses along my jaw, and then hot breath streamed into my ear as he pumped into me faster, deeper, and harder.

  “I’m close.” I panted. “So close.”

  On his next penetration, he dug his hands under my ass, lifted it, and went deep. I lifted my hips to take him even deeper, and the pleasure reached the top.

  The center of the universe became our hot connection.

  I let go, surrendering to it, to him, to the warm, wet, unbelievable heat. Max stiffened inside me, becoming impossibly harder, groaning deep and long. Elated, I clamped my arms and legs and everything I had tighter around him as we tumbled over the fiery edge together.

  This time it was me who returned from the shower while Max waited. Seated on the side of the bed, he glanced up from the display on his phone. The flare of heat in his eyes as he looked at me chased away my postcoital shyness.

  “Come here,” he said. Setting his cell on the nightstand, he threw back the coverlet, climbed in, and patted the vacant spot beside him. “And ditch the towel.”

  “All right.” I gulped as I untwisted the towel. Being naked while he was holding me was one thing. Being naked while he leisurely raked his cobalt-flamed gaze over me was another.

  “We should get some sleep.” He reached for me, pulling me into his rock-hard side as soon a
s I climbed into the bed.

  The soft kiss he pressed to the top of my head made me feel adored like a child, and not like a woman who had just had sex for the first time.

  “But I’m not tired yet.” Warmth painted my cheeks as soon as I said the words. I sounded like a petulant child.

  “I imagine you’re not.” He skimmed his fingertips across the line of my clavicle, and I shivered, my nipples tightening to points. “I’m certainly not thinking about sleep after making love to you, but it’s late, and you have an early start tomorrow. Plus, I bet you’re sore.”

  “Only a little.” It was a pleasant ache, one that reminded me of the pleasure, but a yawn sneaked up on me that I had to suck back. Okay, maybe I was slightly tired. “Was . . . I mean . . . did I do it . . .”

  “Best sex I ever had.”

  My cheeks heated further and I nodded, grateful he had filled in where I’d faltered.

  “Go to sleep now, shug. Not many hours left till morning.” Tucking me tighter, he stroked my hair.

  I closed my eyes. Max’s rhythmic touch was soothing, his body was warm, and he was a solid, comforting presence beside me. But I’d never slept naked before. It made me feel vulnerable, especially as my mind continued to actively turn over what hadn’t been said tonight.

  Where had he been the past few days? Why hadn’t he kept in contact? He’d been planning to leave. Who had he been talking to in the guest bedroom for hours?

  I’d given him a pass, believing him when he said what I didn’t know wouldn’t change the way he felt about me. It reassured me, and had been enough at the time. I’d wanted him so badly. Needed him so badly. He was the one my heart wanted.

  But as the minutes and then the hours clicked by on the digital clock beside the bed, his grip on me loosened and my certainty waned. One thought kept spinning in my head.

  What Max hadn’t shared might not change the way he felt about me, but would my knowing change the way I felt about him?

  • • •

  “Wait in the other room.”

  My agent’s sharp voice woke me. I snapped open my bleary eyes to see her standing in the doorway to my bedroom. Her head was turned toward someone behind her. She seemed to be trying to block their view of my bed.

  “Do you know what time it is?” She frowned at me.

  “No, I don’t. I—”

  “I let her sleep in,” Max said. “She was exhausted.”

  “I’ll bet she was.” The crease between Olivia’s eyes deepened. “But I wasn’t asking you, Mr. Cash.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, taking ownership for messing up, knowing from experience it was the best and quickest way to dispel her displeasure.

  “Apology accepted.”

  Olivia shook her head, though, and her hair up in her usual chignon remained confined. Being sorry might ease her disappointment, but it didn’t completely remove it.

  “You need to give me advance warning for a development of this magnitude. I came over with a crew in tow to get you ready for the premiere. One of the stylists just caught an eyeful of you and Mr. Cash, word of which will likely be all over the internet soon.”

  “I don’t care if people know.” But I drew the sheet up to my chin.

  “You’ll care when they make crude insinuations about you that detract from the premiere.”

  Max cursed under his breath and bolted out of the bed.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, frustrated pressure building behind my eyes as I heard his clothes swish and his belt buckle rattle. It seemed like he couldn’t get out of my bed fast enough. It reminded me of how he’d reacted when the pictures of us in New York came out.

  “Can you keep the stylist quiet?” Max asked Olivia, and I opened my eyes to see him fully dressed and looking as unhappy as she did.

  “Not likely, and if I ask her to, it’ll only fan the flame in her mind. But I don’t work for you.” My agent narrowed her gaze on me. “How do you want to play it?”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “She’s likely to talk. Acknowledgment is what I recommend. Be forthcoming with a couple of details about the two of you. Downplay it, and the public and your fans will lose interest faster.”

  “Okay. Sure. Then that’s what I’ll do.”

  I glanced at Max for confirmation. He didn’t speak, but he didn’t seem to like that idea. His jaw was clenched so tightly, I imagined his teeth hurt.

  “Go ahead and get dressed,” Olivia said in her no-nonsense way. “We have a lot of ground to cover and not a lot of time.” She turned to Max. “You haven’t said much. What’s your decision? Are you her boyfriend or her bodyguard?”

  “Bodyguard publicly, for as long as I can remain just that.” He held my irritated agent’s gaze, seeming to avoid my attempt to catch his eye. “I’d appreciate it if you would ask whoever just saw us in bed together to be discreet. I’d like a little time to adjust before my life becomes as big a spectacle as Hollie’s is.”

  “You should’ve thought of that before you slept with her.”

  “It was about all that deterred me. That and her age, or I would’ve made my feelings known to her sooner.”

  My heart latched onto Max’s declaration. It seemed he wanted me, and his feelings matched mine. But his reticence to make our relationship public concerned me. What if he decided being with me wasn’t worth the trouble?

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Olivia gave him a single nod. “It would help facilitate the ruse if we could get you back into your uniform as soon as possible.”

  “The security firm dropped me.” His eyes were as hard as sapphires and trained on her.

  He was definitely avoiding looking at me. My spinning unease returned. Briefly, I considered running through a surely, certainly, and truly scenario to settle myself. But I wasn’t that girl anymore, was I? I was a woman now. His woman. I hoped.

  “Blazer. Khakis. Button-down minus the Security You Can Trust pin. It will have to do. You can represent yourself as an independent contractor, but we need to class you up. A Tom Ford charcoal three-piece suit will do nicely. Black-and-white striped or a checkered tie. Get both. I’ll leave you the name of one of my personal shoppers at Nordstrom. I want you to contact her tomorrow. Got it?”

  Max nodded.

  “Good. Now get out.” She inclined her head to the door. “Hollie and I have work to do.”

  After I emerged from my shower, I belted on a robe and stepped out into the living room.

  “There you are. Finally.” Olivia made eye contact with me and clucked disapprovingly from her spot on the sectional. “No time for personal training or a masseuse. I sent them both away. We’ll have to rush as it is to get you ready.”

  In the background behind her were two stylists I vaguely knew—Miranda, a quiet brunette with her hair in a ponytail like mine, and Tonya, a blonde who delighted in sharing celebrity gossip. Which one had seen me naked in bed with Max, I didn’t know, but given my luck lately, it was probably Tonya.

  “Is there any coffee?” I asked as I moved deeper into the main living space. The stamped concrete was cool beneath the soles of my feet.

  Reaching Olivia, I glanced around, looking for Max. I didn’t discover him amid the racks of designer gowns, trays of jewelry, and rows of shoes. The disarray splashed frenetic color all over the monochromatic room. The coffee table was barely visible beneath the hair products, makeup boxes, and the photo albums I knew contained pictures of different looks for me to choose from.

  The morning before a premiere was always chaotic, and my inner turmoil was as significant as it had been before I announced my lawsuit against Samuel. Remembering that ramped up my anxiety now. I pressed a hand to my empty stomach as it whirled and churned.

  “Here’s your coffee,” Max said from behind me. “Black, just the way you like it.”

  I turned to see him stepping out of the kitchen, a steaming mug in his grip. “Thank you.”

  I took what he offered, curling my hands around the mug, but
wanted so much more. I wanted the hope I felt like being his would give me. Yet when I tried to find the confirmation I sought in his eyes, he dropped his gaze and drifted away from me. The porcelain radiated welcome heat into my palms, heat I now desperately needed with him acting so distant.

  Filled with unmet expectations, I stared at him, watching him move into a vigilant position along the windows near the far edge of the room. In a navy blazer and khakis, he was dressed as Olivia had suggested. The bodyguard had returned. His decision rankled, yet I didn’t let on, not now, nor had I earlier in my bedroom, but it hurt that he wanted to keep our relationship private.

  My throat tight, I brought the mug to my lips and took a small, careful sip. Steam rose to warm my face. The caffeine was a much-needed boost to my lagging energy level, but my stomach lurched when the liquid sloshed inside it.

  Did what Max and I had shared mean to him what it meant to me?

  Lacking courage and the privacy I needed to press the issue, I pasted on a professional mask of my own and turned to Olivia. “What should I wear?” I asked, focusing on the practical.

  There was no need to discuss further with her what to do about Max. She and I had talked before my shower. We had a plan in place should the topic of him come up during the Firelight press junket.

  “I suggest something dramatic.”

  “All right.” I bowed to her expertise.

  Setting the mug of coffee on the end table, I moved closer to the racks of dresses that a myriad of designers had sent over, hoping I would choose one of theirs for my big night. As I flicked through them, I looked for one to catch my eye while trying to ignore my unsettled feelings for the handsome but distant man I could feel watching me.

  I dismissed one garment after another—a pristine white, a ruby red, and a black one, the last merely a bra and panties stitched together with see-through mesh. Too virginal. Too flashy. Too trashy.

  I stopped on a floor-length black dress in a high-sheen satin that looked like it had crushed diamonds sprinkled all over it. Sliding it off the bar, I turned and showed it to Olivia.

  “What do you think of this one?”