“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked in a low, deadly tone. I was actually afraid for Josh just then.
“This isn’t any of your business. She was my girlfriend first,” Josh spat when he got his balance back.
Max’s right fist cocked back just a split second before it pistoned out, catching Josh’s mouth. He fell to the ground, hand flying up to the lip Max had just split.
“Are you insane?” Josh asked, his words muffled.
Max took a step toward him, making him scramble backward like a terrified little animal. “No. You are if you ever touch her again,” Max replied in that same deadly tone of voice. He pointed up toward the house. “You’re so damn lucky we’re here and not out on the street somewhere—it would be in your best interest to not cross my path again after this weekend. And if you’re smart, you’ll go back indoors and tell them you tripped in the woods and hit your lip on some rocks. Unless you want your in-laws and your boss to find out about you manhandling Mimi and trying to dump your pregnant fiancée. I used to think you weren’t good enough for Mimi. Now I know you’re not even good enough for Lillian.”
If there was ever a time I wanted to jump the man and promise to have his babies while ripping his clothes off, that was it. He took my hand without saying a word and led me back to the house. I heard him breathing hard and fast through his flared nostrils, like an animal on the verge of attack.
“Thank you for that,” I breathed.
“He won’t do it again,” he muttered. “He fucking better not, or I’ll break his damn jaw.”
“I think he got the message loud and clear,” I said softly.
“Is your hand okay?” He looked at me with the expression of a man who couldn’t believe he’d heard what he just did, so I guess that meant he was all right.
It was the like the weekend of things I’d never done. Visiting the Hamptons. Sex in the shower. And now, two men had fought over me. One had even punched the other. Megan would shit a brick when I told her.
Mimi
When we got back to the house the first person we met was Lillian. She looked at me suspiciously.
“Have you seen Josh?”
“Nope,” I lied without batting an eyelid.
“I wonder where he is,” she said, still staring at me.
“He might be out taking a walk. The woods are nice this time of the year,” Max said.
“It’s too cold to go out walking. I’m not supposed to exert myself. I’ll wait for him in the conservatory.”
Max nodded. “Mimi and I are going upstairs for a…nap.”
I flushed to the roots of my hair and Lillian’s head snapped around to me. I stared at her in astonishment. Oh, my God, she was jealous of me. She wanted my man!
Max tugged my hand and we walked up the grand staircase. He pulled me into the room, kicked the door shut and started to undress me.
“Whoa,” I said, surprised.
“I hated seeing him put his hands on you. You belong to me,” he said, his eyes blazing with need.
His face looked cruel and beautiful as he crashed his lips on mine. Burning heat flowered in my core. All thought ceases to exist. With his mouth fused with mine, he was tearing away my clothes. Until I was standing in front of him naked.
“I’m going in raw this time,” he said, unbuttoning his jeans and pushing them down his slim hips roughly. His cock was so hard it was sticking out over the waistband of his underwear.
I looked down as it nodded. I wanted him too. He would be the first man I ever allowed such a thing, but an electric current of pure excitement raced up my spine. There was something completely primal about a man filling you with his seed. It was like an ancient pact; a man who took a woman and marked her with his semen. He turned me around and grabbing my hips with both hands he thrust so deeply into me, I cried out.
Like a greedy hussy, I pushed back and ground myself into him.
He grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled my head back. While he fucked me ruthlessly, he growled, “you’re fucking mine.”
I gasped with pleasure.
“Say it,” he commanded.
“I’m yours,” I cried.
He sucked the side of my neck hard. I knew what he was doing. Like a wild animal, he was leaving his mark. He was telling everyone I was his. I stretched my neck and offered it to him, to lick, to suck, to bite.
“Play with yourself,” he ordered close to my ear.
I obeyed immediately, my fingers working furiously, as he pounded me from behind. His cock rammed into me, and his balls slapped against me as my climax began. My knees locked and body began to convulse and clench uncontrollably. I thought I would fall.
“I’m coming,” I cried.
He tightened his hold on me and slammed so brutally into me, pain mixed with the pleasure. A loud deep groan rumbled in his chest as he emptied his warm cum into my pussy. The aftershocks of my climax made my thighs tremble. He thrust slowly in and out of me. His grip on my hair loosened. His hand brushed strands of hair away from my face and neck. Then he gently kissed my neck while his hand traveled down to splay over my stomach and tightly hug my body.
“I loved that,” I whispered, my heart pulsing.
“You’re the only woman who has ever made my cock ache for her.”
The air left my lungs in a long sigh of contentment. I don’t know how long we remained in that position, with him just cradling me, until a sound from the outside world intruded.
“I’ve cleaned all the downstairs bathrooms. I’ll be starting with the Green Room next,” someone called in the corridor outside.
I turned to look into Max’s eyes. He smiled softly.
“Of course, Max won’t be winning any angling competitions any time soon,” Alexander teased during dinner.
Max shrugged good-naturedly, much calmer than he was when we first got back to the house earlier that morning. “I can’t be good at everything.”
I caught Josh hurling a nasty look his way, but only I saw it. Everybody else was busy laughing.
“How’s your lip, Josh?” Gretchen looked concerned—and maybe slightly amused? I couldn’t tell. Even if she somehow blamed me for seducing her daughter’s fella, she had to hold him responsible, too. Maybe she enjoyed seeing him hurt a little. A total mama bear.
He shrugged, looking down at his bowl of soup. He couldn’t handle much more than that, or so he said, since opening his mouth too wide hurt too much. “It’ll be fine,” he mumbled.
Alexander nodded sagely, his bald dome gleaming in the light from the overhead chandelier. “Gotta be careful in those woods, my boy. You never know what you’ll run into.”
Max snorted quietly, his head down. I kicked him under the table. He kicked me back, though not as hard. We’d finally been able to laugh about it after a little while. Josh hadn’t hurt me, and it would be a very cold day in Hell before I ever considered being with him again.
Life was good, I thought with a satisfied smile. I had a man in my life who was willing to fight for me. No matter what happened when we got home, there was no way we could go back to being just friends. I had seen his ‘O’ face. You can’t go back from that no matter how hard you try.
And I was sitting in a gorgeous dining room in a home I would never have had the chance to visit otherwise. With genuinely nice people, for the most part. Max found my hand, resting on my lap, and squeezed. I squeezed back, wondering what that night would bring. We were both wearing entirely too much clothing, as far as I was concerned. From the way he released my hand and started stroking my thigh, I could tell he felt the same way.
“So, Max.” Alexander’s strident voice broke into our little moment. “How are things going at work?”
“Oh, just fine.” I was intrigued. Max never talked about work. I might finally get to hear about it.
“And how’s that pesky little troll you’ve been dealing with?”
To my surprise, Max pales. He becomes white under his tan.
“You know,” Alexande
r says with a mocking laugh, “the one who won’t leave her apartment?”
Mimi
Max’s hand froze. So did my entire body. Including my heart.
“What’s this all about?” Peter asked, looking in our direction.
Alexander jumped in when Max didn’t say anything right away. “He’s been trying for months to get one last tenant out of her apartment so he can finally go ahead with renovating the entire building into luxury apartments. But she won’t budge, the pain in the…well, you know. It’s been a bit of a setback. There’s always gotta be one holdout, doesn’t there?”
I looked down at my plate, fighting back the tears that threatened to spill over. Max’s hand was still on my thigh, so I picked it up by the wrist and dropped it on his own leg. The entire world was crashing in on me and the rest of the table talked and joked as though nothing was happening. How was that possible? How? I was dying inside. I couldn’t sit there for another moment.
“What are you going to do with this woman?” Gretchen asked curiously.
“I suggested he seduce her,” Alexander said with a laugh.
“Excuse me,” I whispered, pushing my chair back.
“Oh, that was before I knew he was going out with you, obviously,” Alexander blurted out, suddenly realizing what he had said.
I took pains to look casual, I even managed to smile sweetly at everyone on the table. “Don’t worry. It’s nothing you said. I’m just not feeling very well. I think I’ll go upstairs and lie down for a bit. Enjoy your dinner.”
I could see Millicent wanted to ask me what was wrong, but I walked out of the room before her question could be asked.
I heard Max mumbling something about checking on me, so I knew he was following. As soon as I was away from the dining room, I dashed to the stairs and ran all the way up. By the time Max reached the bedroom, I was already packing.
“Hang on. Let me explain,” he whispered urgently.
“Don’t say a word, Max. If you don’t want me to cause a scene and embarrass us both, you’ll go back downstairs to dinner and forget you ever knew me.”
“What are you doing? Are you leaving?” He stood beside the dresser as I grabbed blindly at my things, shoving them into the suitcase. “Please, Mimi. Listen to me. You have to give me a chance.”
“I don’t have to give you shit,” I whispered.
“Just listen to me.”
“Are you the developer?” I asked.
“Yes,” he confessed.
I shook my head. “How could you? How could you!”
He reached out a hand to grab my hand and I recoiled as if he was a striking snake. “I swear, I’m going to scream this house down if you don’t leave me alone, Max. You need to get out of this room. Now.”
“How will you get out of here?” he asked.
“I’ll get an Uber. No big deal.”
“Uber? All the way back to the city?”
“What the hell do you care?” I turned away, pushing my clothes and toiletries down so I could close the zipper. “Don’t start pretending to care about me now, Max. It’s pretty low.”
“I do care. You know I care.” I heard the urgency in his voice, the desperation even. And part of me wanted to give in and give him a chance to explain himself, but what could he say to make things better. He was the developer and he had taken Alexander’s advice and seduced me. The only problem was, I was not going anywhere. He was going to have to build his precious apartments around me. I thought he was one of the good guys. I let myself fall in love with him.
I wished I were dead.
I wished he were dead.
I looked up from my bag to find him pale-faced, worry lines creased his forehead. For once, he didn’t look sophisticated. All it took was a slip of somebody else’s tongue to turn him from a god into a despicable human being.
“I don’t know anything about you,” I spat. “And you kept it that way. Never talking about work, about where your money comes from, or what you do with it. Oh, unless you were trying to impress me with your limo and your concert tickets and your fucking friends in the fucking Hamptons. Now I understand why.”
“Mimi, please…”
“Oh, you don’t want them to hear me?” I sneered. “Don’t worry about it. Nobody needs to know that the great Max Black would stoop low enough to seduce a woman just to get her apartment. Ugh. Sickening”
“Oh, my God. That’s what you think? Mimi, that’s crazy.” He took a step toward me.
“Don’t come any closer,” I warned. “I mean it. Don’t even think about touching me, either. It’s over. Whatever this is, whatever we had, it’s done. And for the record, you’ll never get that apartment from me, so bad luck. I hope I never lay eyes on you again. I thought Josh was bad, but he’s got nothing on you.” I raised one arm, pointing to the door. “Now get out before I start screaming. I mean it. Everybody’s going to know what you did if you don’t leave right now.”
He raised both his hands and backed away, looking stricken. “All right. What do you want me to tell everybody?” he asked.
“Don’t you get it? I don’t give a fuck what you say to them. They’re not my friends. Tell them I’m sick. Tell them I found out I hate you. Whatever. You decide. You’re good at making things up.”
I pulled out my phone with shaking hands and opened the Uber app to request a car. When I looked up again, he was gone.
I collapsed onto the bed, shaking from head to toe, but I couldn’t cry. Not yet. Not until I was far away. I couldn’t run the risk of him seeing me fall apart.
In a daze, I looked up at the steel-gray sky with its fast-moving clouds. We would get early snow out of those clouds. It smelled like snow, the air holding that certain special scent it only got before a storm.
The first available cab would be here in an hour’s time. I was already waiting outside for it. It was a hell of a tab, but it was a small price for getting out of there as quickly as possible.
Max had tried to wait with me. Maybe he wanted to talk or explain and make new excuses, but I turned on him with such venom, he raised both his hands in a gesture of appeasement and went back inside.
When the car pulled up to the house, I went down the steps, pulling my suitcase behind me, my laptop and purse over one shoulder. I felt bruised, beaten, ready to give up. There had been only one place I could imagine going just then. Ever since Grandma died and Mom and I drifted apart, but I had always felt sad about it. Right now. I needed her.
“Wow, nice place?” the driver said.
“Yeah,” I said quietly and stared out of the window. He probably thought I was a snob. He didn’t know my heart was broken. Half-way through the journey, I started sobbing my heart out. The poor driver must have thought I was insane.
Mimi
Mom was waiting at the door for me. She held it open as I maneuvered myself and my bags inside. I hadn’t told her why I was coming, only that I was on my way and needed her very badly. She took one look at my swollen, tear-stained face and opened her arms for me to step into her embrace.
“What happened, baby? Who hurt you?”
“Oh, Mom. I can’t believe it. I’m such an idiot.”
“I’m sure it’s not your fault,” she murmured, stroking my hair as I shook with fresh sobs.
“I’ve been so stupid.”
“Come on. I’ll fix us some tea and we’ll talk it out. I’m sure it’ll be all right. Everything looks better after a pot of tea.”
One of my grandmother’s favorite sayings passed down to my Mom and then to me. The thought of her, of that apartment I loved so much, only made me feel worse. My chest hurt, literal physical pain. I wondered if I was having a heart attack. Maybe that was what happened when a person’s heart broke. They had a heart attack and died and didn’t have to hurt anymore.
I finished crying in the time it took the water to boil and splashed my face as the tea steeped. Mom waited until I was seated in one of the little wooden chairs around her small kitche
n table before asking any questions.
“What happened, sweetie?”
I poured the whole thing out. Josh, Max, the way he’d saved me when I was cornered. The way we pretended to be a couple. She smiled when I told her about hurting my ankle, and the way he’d been so sweet to me. I even hinted at things moving to the next level with Max without getting graphic. We were friends and all, me and my mom, but we weren’t that close.
And then I told her about what Alexander said at dinner. She knew about the buyer who tried to get me to move out, of course, and she covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh, no. Oh, that’s horrible!” She looked genuinely heartbroken, just like any mother would when their child was in pain.
“So, that’s what happened. I came here instead of going all the way home. I couldn’t imagine being there alone right now.”
“Of course, honey. I’m so glad you came. I’m so sorry this happened.” She patted my hand, wiping away her own tears with the other.
“Is it me? Am I a magnet for these jerks who think they can use women and get away with it?”
She shook her head. “Of course, you’re not. You’re just having a run of bad luck.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” I whispered. The tea did help a little, at least. Chamomile. Just the scent relaxed me, and the memory of nights spent drinking tea together tugged at my bruised heart.
“I thought I was in love with him, Mom. I’m so ashamed of myself.”
She clucked her tongue in sympathy. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of. You can’t blame yourself for developing feelings for him. He sounds like the total package when you don't include the apartment issue."
“That was what I thought, too. I thought he had it all. And he wanted me, which obviously made him even more attractive.”
We both snorted into our teacups, which ended in a sob for me.
“Let me pass on a little bit of wisdom I’ve picked up,” she said, her voice as soft and gentle as ever.
“Please, do. I’m in dire need.”
Kissing Booth Page 33
