by Leslie North
Of course, casual conversation in the face of their discovery now was unthinkable. She was pretty sure she could hear the delighted smile in Max's voice even if his expression didn't show it. The solarium was small, private, and connected to a greenhouse. A thin layer of dust covered everything, muting its beauty—as if the world they had just discovered together had been cast under a fragile spell that their intrusion could break any minute.
“Max!” Brandy gasped and went instantly to the gorgeous flowers blooming all around them. How was this possible? She glanced up toward the solarium’s glass roof and noticed a few broken panels. The holes in the roof must have let the rain in to water the lush garden before her. She turned her attention back to the flowers, heart hammering in her chest. “Do you know what these are?” she asked him.
“I have no idea,” he admitted. “Care to enlighten me?”
Brandy lifted one of the blooms to her face and inhaled deeply of their elusive, clean scent. A memory stirred inside her, although she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. “I think these are delphiniums,” she said finally. “They were my mother’s favorite flower. At least, that’s what my grandmother always told me. She said the hospital room was filled with them, the day I was born.”
But that couldn’t be where her recollection came from. Could it? Between the flowers and the unexpected photo album she had found tucked away in the library, Brandy felt as if her carefully-constructed world was starting to unravel, thread by thread and piece by piece. Everything she thought she had known seemed thrown into question. Could it be that her father had been responsible for planting these flowers?
“Brandy.”
Brandy turned, startled to be reminded suddenly that she wasn’t alone. Max shifted her hair back, tucking one of the flowers behind her ear. She moved her hand to hold it in place, and discovered that his own hand still cradled hers.
“Max, you said that we…”
“I know what I said,” he whispered. “Forget what I said. I was wrong.”
He leaned in, and when his lips touched hers, she blossomed for him as if he was the sun setting the solarium aflame. He tasted rich and dark, like the brandy he had been drinking all afternoon. Brandy. She shivered, wondering if his choice had been deliberate; wondering if he couldn’t stop thinking about her the same way she couldn’t seem to dismiss a single thought of him. To her senses, Max also tasted like a homecoming. Now that she found herself so far from all she had known, it was a wonderful, welcome sensation. Brandy sank into the moment and never wanted to resurface.
Max pulled her in close. His fingers combed her tresses, careful to avoid the flower adorning her ear. His lips moved with her own, articulating a dance that they instinctively knew the steps to. Why had she ever stopped kissing him? And how had she been able to fool herself that one night in this man’s embrace would be enough?
“I was wrong,” he repeated in a husky whisper. He hugged her close, and Brandy pulled away to bury her head in his chest.
“You’re just saying that.” She could scarcely remember how to breathe anymore. “You were out at the pub.”
“No. I mean, I was. But believe me when I say this has been weighing on me a long time.”
“Are you saying I’m heavy?”
Max laughed in surprise, and Brandy grinned. He turned the tables on her the next instant, though, by lifting her up off her feet and securing her in his arms. “Hmmm.” He meditated on her question overlong, and Brandy punched him in the shoulder. She wouldn’t, couldn’t, acknowledge how fast her heart was beating. "If you are, it’s nothing I can’t handle."
"Because you’re so strong?" she teased him.
"You said it," he whispered huskily. "Not me."
Brandy shivered. She needed more, she realized: more of Max. More of this. This banter, this tiptoeing around their attraction, wasn’t enough. She had to get to the heart of the man who held her in his arms. There were depths to him as secret as the passage they had just explored together, and she wasn’t afraid of what she would find there; in fact, she was eager to discover all she could about him.
Her curiosity, like her heart, wasn’t about to slow down.
8
"Tell me about yourself, Max."
"Dangerous last words." Max leaned forward to pour her a glass of wine, then helped himself to some as well. The blood-red liquid caught the reflection of the fire, flames seeming to dance in its ruby depths. Max raised his glass and studied it, turning it this way and that.
They had walked back together from the solarium and now sat in front of the fire he had built up in the library hearth. It was Brandy who had brought out the wine. She had seemed almost shy about it, mentioned that her tastes were probably not his own... meaning she thought he was used to more expensive wine than the kind she could provide. He saw her watching him now as he swirled his glass, then brought it to his lips and took a sip. The wine had a pleasant bouquet, and it wasn't as fruity as it smelled. Max swallowed and enjoyed the warmth of it sliding down his throat the same way he enjoyed the heat of the fire beside them.
"Haven't you done your research on me?" he asked curiously.
Brandy shook her head. "I mean, I've googled you, but... it felt weird, to be honest."
"I've googled you, too," he mentioned.
Brandy laughed and drew her legs closer to her chest. "Oh, God." He thought she looked a little pleased, though.
"I've even started reading one of your books."
She waved her hand. "Please. Don't tell me which one. I'll sleep easier."
"But—you're proud of your work?"
"Of course." She swirled her own glass and gazed into the fire with a fond smile. "I love what I do. I see that in you, too. You work all the time, but you aren't miserable doing it. I... admire that."
"It's something we have in common," Max agreed.
Brandy smiled wistfully. "It's kind of lonely," she said. "Haven't you found that to be true?"
Max didn't respond right away. He, too, contemplated the fire, watching it leap and caper and dance. It threw twisting shadows onto the walls around them, until the books seemed alive on their shelves. It was too intriguing to watch the way its light kissed Brandy's face and lent the beauty new mysterious contours. As with most things, he decided to look at the source, instead.
"You get used to it," he said at last. "I've been alone most of my life. Went to boarding school. Hated it. My father would drop me, and I wouldn't hear from him again. Then my mother..."
His throat went dry, and he didn't drink right away to re-wet the words. It had been a while since he’d thought about the past—at least, the far past. He thought every day about Drakar and how he would exact revenge on Betty's behalf, but he tried not to think too deeply about his family otherwise if he could help it.
Brandy surprised him by laying a comforting hand on his knee. "Hey." She peered up into his face. "You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to. Family is... it's complicated. Maybe the most needlessly complex thing on earth." She tilted her head and gave a little laugh but sounded sad. "Love shouldn't be so messy, you know?"
"It is in your books," Max pointed out.
Brandy simply shook her head. She was waiting, he realized, to see if he would continue, or if he would run with the diversion she had already started to create. He felt grateful to her, suddenly, for not pushing him. For being open. For the first time in a long time, it felt to him as if there were no expectations to meet. Only a beautiful woman by his side, her hand on his knee, her heart open, like one of the secret flowers they had found together in the solarium.
"My mother left my father for another man," Max said finally. His glass of wine hovered forgotten in his hand as he gazed into the fire, and into the past. "I have zero contact with her. It's the same with Bettina. After our successes, she tried to reach out, but..." Max shook his head and scowled. "The damage she did to our father, to our family, was irreparable. I've been working all my life to clean up her m
ess. She took half of what he owned, and he poured what remained into his children's education. I've set him up now in a house on the coast, and Bettina looks after him most of the time, but... money can't heal a broken heart."
"And the boarding schools," Brandy echoed. "You hated them."
"Of course I hated them. To me, those institutions were more akin to prison cells. I never went home for holidays. My family rarely visited me. Father scrimped and saved for years to ensure that Bettina and I could complete our education, and that meant no unnecessary visits. There were times I wouldn't see my family for a year or more."
"But isn't that where you met your friends?" Brandy pointed out. "The ones you call all the time?"
"Gavin and Tony," Max agreed. "And we do not call all the time."
"I think it's kind of sweet the way the three of you seem to rely on each other." Brandy's eyes twinkled, and she smiled unabashedly at him. For a moment, Max suspected she was teasing him, but it seemed good-natured and genuine at its heart. "And your sister," she added. "You really lucked out in that department. I was an only child growing up."
"Raised by your grandmother," Max supplied. He wanted her to know that he remembered the things that were said to him. Every detail. He wanted her to know that he remembered that night at the hotel even before they had gone back to his room, the conversation they had shared...
"Yeah." Brandy faltered a little and tucked a piece of dark hair behind her ear. It sprang free again almost instantly, and on impulse, Max reached for it. He pushed it into place for her, then allowed his fingertips to linger on her face. Her eyes, a darker blue than his own, leapt to his.
"You can tell me," he said. "Anything, or nothing at all. I'm not going to funnel information to my lawyers or stop the presses. You know you could probably do both with all you've come to learn about me."
"I would never," she whispered.
"Then what is it? Something's been troubling you this afternoon. Even more than I do."
Brandy laughed appreciatively. Then, she did something completely surprising: she leaned into him, pillowing her head on his shoulder. She breathed a shaky sigh as she stared at the fire. After a moment, Max wrapped his arm around her and secured her against him.
"I found something," she admitted. "Something more than just the passageway to the secret garden. When I was in the library, I found an album full of photographs.” He felt her head shift as if she glanced up at his face and then away. “Full of photographs of me."
It took him a while to process this. "You think your father...?" He trailed off.
Brandy shook her head, then turned her face into his chest. "I don't know what to think," she whispered. "About any of this. It seems like nothing is what I expect, recently. And the thing is, it isn't all bad. But what if I dig deeper, and it turns out... that I..."
"Dig," Max said. "Confront the past. It can't hurt you unless you let it. And you deserve to know the truth."
"And what about the present?" Brandy drew away to look at him. Max set his wine aside and took that fine-boned face of hers gently in his hands.
"What about the present?"
"What do you want, Max?"
"The same things as you," he replied. "That's what got us into this situation in the first place."
"Maybe I don't want to get out," Brandy whispered as he leaned in. "Max..."
He tasted his own name on her lips, swallowing it down, and carried her down onto the rug beneath him. The fire seemed to leap with new life as he slid his tongue in against hers, entwining with her as he entwined their bodies. He shifted his knee between her legs to keep her solidly pinned beneath him, although she communicated with the force of her own kiss how little it had crossed her mind to go anywhere. His fingers encircled her wrists and slowly, agonizingly slow, he pushed her unresisting arms up and over her head.
"You never stopped tempting me." He growled his confession into the silk of her neck. "Brandy. I can't get anything done with you around. I can barely think straight."
"So move out. Give up the castle." Even now when she was beneath him and completely at his mercy, she wouldn't stop challenging him. She gazed up at him with those almond-shaped eyes of hers, so cat-like—sleek, like the rest of her. But her eyes gave her away. They were hooded with desire, and her pupils had expanded in a telltale signal. She wanted this, badly. And as he felt himself hardening at the thought of taking her again, he couldn't resist a little more exploration to confirm his suspicion. He slipped his hand between her parted legs and down the front of her jeans. His fingers smoothed along her mound, her panties, and her body answered him without words: a damp patch awakened at his touch.
"I don't think I'll leave," he returned quietly. "Not when you seem so eager for me to stay." He hooked a finger and caught at Brandy's clit. She gasped and bolted up beneath him, but Max forced her back down again with the wider breadth of his chest. His pulse raced, and his blood rushed in a frenzy through his veins as Brandy clutched at him. Every time she so much as grazed his swiftly-hardening cock, he thought he would explode. He was so pent-up from denying himself what he’d wanted for weeks. He had scarcely even touched himself to thoughts of her, so determined was he to go cold turkey and get the woman out of his system. But the dreams had returned to him, night after night, thwarting him again and again with delicious visions of her sneaking into the west wing and climbing into bed with him...
Max growled as his hands returned to the front of her shirt. He tore her blouse open, sending buttons flying in all directions. Brandy gasped in outrage, but the fire shining in her eyes was brighter than the one roaring beside them.
He had been testing a theory, and he had been right: a romance author definitely had some appreciation for all the clichés she wrote about.
He was pleased to find she wasn't wearing a bra; hell, he had suspected it from the moment he’d first clapped eyes on her in the foyer upon returning, but he had fought with himself to keep from looking closely enough to confirm it. Her bare breasts now heaved beneath his hands. He caught one, squeezed it, and lowered his mouth to its summit. He took that taut little nipple between his lips and teeth and teased it until she couldn't catch her breath.
"Tell me you want this." He let his own breath ghost across her nipple and watched as it seemed to pebble even more. He turned his attention to her other breast, delighting in her shudder. Her fingers dug into his hair as he lowered his mouth once more to its prize. "Tell me," he whispered.
"I want this," Brandy gasped. "I want you."
Agreement be damned. Hearing her say the words, Max was all too happy to oblige.
She had no recollection of when or how they’d shed their clothes; of who had grappled with what. All at once, they were surrounded by discarded garments, wearing nothing. The flower Max had tucked behind her ear back in the greenhouse was perched near the fireplace, its lovely face open to them.
Brandy felt like her body had been reduced to one giant nerve. She shuddered and gasped beneath Max's eager mouth and his hard, possessive hands. He was just as likely to caress her as he was to grope her, and she could never guess which she was in store for. One moment, his tongue was tasting the salt of the skin between her breasts, and the next he had hold of her hips and was pulling her roughly to him. Brandy grabbed in vain for the rug as she was towed against her will. Her ass hit his thighs, and his rigid cock bounced into place atop her navel.
"Max!" she exclaimed. She was on her back, and he was kneeling over her; she had never felt more vulnerable than she did in that moment. His blue eyes blazed as he commanded her gaze. She couldn't blink or look away. She was mesmerized, falling harder, falling deeper... and suddenly, Max was falling toward her. He eased down onto his forearms, propped on either side of her head, and he drew her lower lip between his teeth. A sharp spark of pain only seemed to amplify the pleasure she felt.
She felt him between her legs, pushing. The pressure built. She was soaking wet, limbs quaking, and she could hardly stand it any
more. She couldn't wait. She reached between them as he claimed her mouth, grasped his cock, and guided it slowly inside her. Her body remembered.
She shifted her hips without thinking to accommodate him, and Max groaned. "Brandy."
He sank fully inside her. Brandy cried out and nearly came up off the rug, but Max forced her back down beneath him with an animal growl. The fire leapt, the shadows on the library ceiling spun, as his hips began to pound against hers.
There was no going slow. It was impossible. These past four weeks together had been sheer torture; Brandy was certain it was worse than anything that had ever been devised in a castle dungeon centuries ago. All those poor sadistic lords had missed out on getting to know the worst torture of all in Max Benton.
But now he was hers, and she his. Brandy pulled him in close and wrapped her legs around him. His left hand slid beneath her to cup her buttocks. He pulled her in tight. Brandy let out a desperate moan as he filled her, and she clutched him with all her might. The slapping of their flesh, rolling and coming together, filled the room and only seemed to urge Max on further. It was deliciously indecent, meeting like this. Succumbing like this. The stone walls of the home they shared would hold their secret.
In the morning, they could wake up and returned to being enemies if they wanted. And yet... there was something about the way Max looked at her as they made love, and the tender way he buried his face in her shoulder when he was trying to hold himself back, that made Brandy wonder. She knew, even while nearly going out of her mind with pleasure, that they had already crossed the line before this moment. There was more than just physical attraction between them. There was banter; there was intrigue. There was emotion. As much as Max tried to hide it, he couldn't in this moment. Each was laid bare before the other, literally and figuratively. And being so weak had never felt so good.
"Max," she whispered. "I'm... I’m going to..."
"Ye-es." He drew out the word, then raised his head to take her earlobe between his teeth. Brandy cried out. He growled in response, "I want you to."
