Romance Impossible

by Melanie Marchande

  But now, I felt brittle. And I hated him for it. How could he still affect me like this? It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. There must be something wrong with me. I'd spent so long convincing myself that I was strong, that I'd moved on with my life, I'd almost convinced myself it was true.

  My first day back at the restaurant was pure hell. I drifted to and from my station like a ghost, barely focusing on my work enough to avoid cutting off a finger. I assume I didn't screw anything up, because Max didn't say a word to me all night.

  It took me so long to tidy up my station that by the time I looked up, the place had emptied out almost completely. Only Max was left, and I realized he was watching me.

  "You can talk about it, you know," he said, very suddenly. I would have jumped, if I was capable of being startled in my current mood.

  "If you want to, I mean," he said. "It just...it seems like there's something weighing on your mind."

  I paused, swallowed hard, and told him exactly what had happened. Just one or two brief sentences, but the words felt so raw in my throat that they hurt to speak.

  "Everything you're feeling now," he went on, coming a few steps closer, "is completely normal. Don't be too harsh on yourself."

  I managed a hollow smile. "Okay," I said. "Thanks."

  While work was going on, I'd wanted nothing more than for it to end. But now, the prospect of my quiet, empty apartment, with only Heidi for company...

  "Is there anything else to do around here?" I asked, quietly, not looking at him. "Anything you've been putting off? I could stay late."

  He considered this for a moment. "Been meaning to rearrange the basement," he said. "Get a better system going. Many hands make light work, if your dog will be all right."

  "Yeah, it's fine. I'll just text my neighbor to walk her." I had a pretty good arrangement with one of my fellow dog-owners across the courtyard. We usually had opposing schedules and helped each other out whenever we could.

  "Good," said Max, looking at me - a little searchingly, I thought, but he didn't actually want to ask any questions.

  The basement looked perfectly organized, to me. I glanced around the room, trying to figure out what could be wrong with it. Max didn't say anything, and for a minute I was reminded of when my mom used to have me "organize her jewelry box" to get me out of her hair.

  "I was thinking," he said, finally, "over here, we should..." He gestured towards one of the corners, drifting off.

  "You've got nothing," I said, amused. "I mean...thanks, but you've obviously got nothing for me to do."

  "Sorry," he said, actually looking a little sheepish. "I was sure I'd be able to think of something before I got down here."

  Sighing, I sat down on one of the heavy crates. My feet ached. I hadn't even noticed how much until now. It was tempting, terribly tempting, to just unload everything on him. But in spite of everything, I still felt wary. I had to keep my guard up. He couldn't think of me as weak. Even though I was obviously a mess of emotions just because my ex tried to manipulate me back into a relationship with his cheating ass, I wanted to retain some of my dignity.

  "Don't feel like you need to explain yourself," Max said. He was standing quite close now, leaning on the end of the handrail beside the stairs. "Trust me, I know."

  I looked up at him, hands folded in my lap. "I thought you said you'd never been in a relationship longer than a couple of months."

  "What we lacked in time, we made up for in co-dependency," he said. "Besides - I might have exaggerated, a little."

  "I can't picture you being co-dependent," I said. "Unless..." My gears were turning, but slowly. There was something about his compulsive need to teach people, to help them, to direct them, to rescue them. He needed to be needed, didn't he?

  "Suppose I do," he said, and I realized that I must have been thinking out loud. "There are worse character traits in the world. Unfortunately I have most of those, too."

  "Stop it." I smiled at him, and it was genuine, this time. "You're harder on yourself than you are on anybody else, you know that?"

  "Always have been," he said. "Not that it matters."

  "It matters," I told him. "Trust me. You're not a hypocrite. That's pretty much the only thing that really matters, in the grand scheme of things."

  He looked down at the floor. Chef Maxwell Dylan, struggling to take a complement. I never thought I'd see the day. And his touching attempt to give me some work to do, even though he knew there was nothing down here. Nothing but alphabetized wine and an overflow cooler that Aiden already scrubbed with a toothbrush whenever things got slow.

  "That's it," said Max. "I'm firing my therapist. What's your hourly rate?"

  "I don't charge for friends," I said, before I could stop myself. The back of my neck immediately started to feel hot.

  "I could never take advantage of you like that," said Max, softly. He looked a little surprised. So was I.

  Are we friends?

  Do I want to be his friend?

  Or do I want something else...

  I knew the answer to that last one, it was easy, a freebie. But I didn't want to think about it now. I couldn't. Not with Max standing inches from me, and the two of us alone here, completely alone, with all the time in the world.

  "I'm sure everyone's already told you this," he said. "But you deserve better than him."

  "I don't even know what that means anymore," I confessed, my gaze sliding back down to the floor. "People always say that. But it's not like I was perfect. It's not like I didn't fuck up. He should've...he shouldn't have done what he did. But what does it say about me, that that's who I picked? That I had no idea what kind of person he really was?"

  "You did exactly what you were supposed to do," said Max, reaching out and touching my arm. The warmth of his fingertips seeped through my chef's coat. "You acted in good faith. You trusted someone. That's nothing to be ashamed of."

  "I have to blame myself," I said. "Somehow. Otherwise..."

  "Otherwise it could happen again," he said, softly. "Otherwise you can't control it. You can't protect yourself."

  When I looked up at him, finally, my eyes were brimming with tears.

  "I'm sorry," I whispered.

  "Please." He swallowed, hard. "Don't apologize. I didn't mean to make you cry, but please don't apologize."

  "You didn't," I said, taking a deep breath, trying to fight down the lump in my throat. "I just...I feel like I'm back to square one. I hate this."

  His fingers trailed up my shoulder, still just a friendly touch, I thought, but that didn't stop the goosebumps. "Every time the wound gets reopened, it's like this. But every time, it takes less time to heal again." A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. "I promise."

  "Who could possibly break your heart?" I asked, trying for a teasing tone, but not quite succeeding. A tear was trickling down my cheek. His fingers reached the collar of my coat, and drifted past it, to my neck.

  Oh. Oh.

  He was cupping the side of my face now, his thumb brushing the tear away. "You'd be surprised, I think," he said.

  "Nothing about you surprises me anymore," I lied, as he ducked his head down closer to mine.

  "Well, then," he whispered. "We can't have that, can we?"

  His lips were so soft and warm, pressed up against mine, and I felt like I hadn't been properly kissed in years. In a way, it was true. New York had happened so fast, and ended up abruptly, that I barely had a chance to feel it. This was so, so different. He kissed me with a sense of urgency, yes, but restrained. His hand splayed out on the small of my back. I hooked my arms around his neck, pulling him closer, scooting closer to the edge of the crate.

  His free hand rested on my knee, the pressure reminding me to part my thighs and make room for him. A moment later his body was pressed against mine, and I forgot to worry that he'd have a sudden attack of conscience and leave me here. I forgot to worry that I wasn't ready for this.

  I forgot to worry that it would change everything.<
br />
  He undid my chef's coat with practiced fingers, pushing it aside to reveal the thin camisole I wore underneath. It was almost certainly still damp with sweat from the heat of the kitchen, and I felt briefly embarrassed, but what was the point?

  "Jill," he whispered, his mouth blazing a hot trail down the side of my neck, to my chest, leaving me with nothing to do but sigh. I tilted my head back, letting my eyes fall closed even though I wanted to fight it. I wanted to see him, every part of him, forever - but for now, I had to close my eyes.

  There was still too much bulky fabric between us. I undid his coat as best I could, in the small space between our bodies, and he shrugged it off his shoulders with a small movement. His muscles rippled underneath my fingers. I wanted to touch him everywhere at once, and this was happening too fast, and somehow too slow, all at the same time. Hastily, and a little awkwardly, I wriggled out of my pants and let them slide down past my ankles.

  Wrapping my legs around his waist, I felt his fingers edging underneath my thighs, lifting me up. Once I was angled more towards him, my pelvis tilted back so that I was resting on my tailbone, one of his hands grasped me possessively, in the place where I craved his touch the most.

  I hissed.

  It took so little, just the slightest of touches through the fabric of the panties, quickly soaked through, and I was twisting and moaning and begging incoherently.

  "Shhh," he whispered, punctuating it with a flick of his thumb that sent a shock of pleasure up my spine. "The neighbors will hear, love."

  The feelings only twisted higher, and when it finally peaked - shuddering and shivering through my whole body with a force that felt like an earthquake - I let out a hoarse yell. I couldn't help it.

  His eyes shone in the darkness.

  "Do I have to gag you?" he whispered.

  "Maybe," I panted, jerking my hips towards him. I was shameless and I didn't care.

  This was what he made of me.

  Max shoved my panties aside, and the cool air hitting my over-heated flesh made me hiss again. Did I used to be this loud in bed? Who knows? Who cares?

  A second later, he was pressing against me, the blunt hard heat unmistakable and unforgettable, and I'd never wanted anything more in my life.

  His hands found their grip around my waist, and he just stayed there for a moment. I watched his chest rise and fall with each harsh breath.

  "What are you waiting for?" I whispered, finally, my hips rotating a little of their own accord.

  He let out a little huff of laughter. "Always so demanding," he said, breathless. "Why don't you let someone else decide what's best, for once?"

  My fingers closed around the short hairs, the ones closest to the back of his neck. Hard. Harder. Until I saw the muscles in his jaw twitch in the dim light; until he bit his lip against the pain, but still wouldn't yield.

  "Tell me something," I whispered, locking his eyes with mine. "Do you ever get tired of being the smartest person in the room?"

  And then he was inside me, in one harsh movement, and I yelped as the small of my back collided with the concrete wall. A dull throb set in, and I saw the hesitation flash across his face.

  "I'm fine," I insisted, through gritted, teeth, and it was true. The far greater pain was having him inside me, stretching me open oh-so-slowly, but not moving. I needed him to move.

  I needed him to take me like he wanted, hard and fast, until I had to bite my lip to keep from screaming, until I tasted blood.

  I needed this. I needed to leave everything of my old life behind, and I couldn't do it yet. Not until I'd had someone else, besides Eric. Not until my long, self-imposed celibacy was broken by a man who was everything that Eric was not.

  Satisfied with my answer at last, Max drove into me again and again, shaking the milk crates beneath me, making my teeth rattle. I let go of his hair and my hands were everywhere, nowhere, reaching down instinctively to steady myself. My fingers slipped through the slats of the crates. I held on for dear life, while Max's fingers left bruises on my ribs.

  I wouldn't have it any other way.

  He was relentless. I felt like we must have been this way forever, locked together in the basement of the very building where I'd first seen his tattoo. Where my eyes had first drifted down the trail of hair that led from the middle of his stomach down beneath his waistband, pointing down to the very part of him that was wrenching a series of harsh cries from me, sounds that felt like they were ripped from the very back of my throat.

  He didn't complain about the noise anymore. But finally, one hand clamped over my mouth, silencing me once and for all.

  A jolt of pure ecstasy rocketed through me. I closed my eyes, and I saw stars.

  When my inner muscles clamped down around him, he finally stuttered - hesitated a little, starting to lose his perfect, relentless rhythm. I felt a rush of triumph. Like breaking a prize stallion.

  I win. I win. He's helpless.

  He groaned next to my ear, long and low and guttural, his fingers squeezing so hard around my waist that I squealed, muffled, into his other hand. Inside me, he twitched and swelled.

  At last, we were still.

  His harsh, panting breaths were all that filled my ears.

  In that moment, I didn't know what the hell was going to happen. And strangely enough - that was all right.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Quadrillage

  The quadrillage is one of those finishing touches that turns ordinary food into a beautiful presentation. Simply rotate meat or vegetables carefully on a grill or grill pan, not too frequently, and at just the right angles to create a crosshatch pattern from the blackened marks. It is not always bad to burn. Sometimes, it makes everyday things beautiful.

  - Excerpted from Dylan: A Lifetime of Recipes

  ***

  Max

  ***

  The sobering reality started to kick in, right about the time my erection started to flag.

  Funny how that always works, isn't it?

  I swear to you, on my life, I didn't walk into that basement with the intention of fucking Jillian Brown. But there she was, and there I was, and, you know...

  Well, I was obviously doing her a favor. She practically begged me for it. No, scratch that - I'm almost one hundred percent certain she did actually, literally beg.

  Not that that's a reasonable excuse, on my part. Call me stubborn or call me strong-willed, but either way, I should have easily been able to walk away from that situation. I could have stopped it long before it spiraled out of control, but I didn't.

  And I'd have to live the consequences of that.

  Much as I wanted to pretend, I knew things would never be the same again.

  We parted in a slightly awkward silence, cleaning up and putting ourselves back together without making eye contact. To my surprise, Jill was the first one to talk.

  "Well," she said, standing up, smiling a little bit hesitantly. "I'll uh...I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

  Her face was still glowing with the pleasure I'd given her, her hair ridiculously mussed from being slammed up against the wall. And here she was, talking like we were just any other boss and employee, saying goodnight after a hard day's work.

  "Sure," I said, because, well - what else could I say?

  I was going to have to deal with this.

  God damn it.

  ***

  Stop fighting it. Just stop. Why bother? Act like a normal person. Tell her how you feel. Ask her to be your girlfriend.

  The idea almost made me snort out my tea. How would Jill react, if I came to her like that? She'd probably laugh at me. Think I was joking. Slap me, maybe. Any of those would be reasonable reactions. Far more reasonable than my assuming she'd actually want to be with me in the long term.

  She didn't love me. She didn't even like me. She liked parts of me, and I could attest - that really wasn't enough to make for a healthy relationship.

  Not that I know anything about healthy relationships. Bu
t I knew enough about unhealthy ones that I felt like it made up the difference.

  I had to do something, though. I couldn't just ignore this anymore.

  If only I could figure out what.

  ***

  "Jill," I said, at quitting time. It was the first time we'd really spoken all day. She turned to me, her face softer and more open than I'd ever seen her.

  God, what have I done?

  "Listen, I need to talk to you about something important," I said, feeling a tendril of guilt slowly wrap its way around my heart. "Do you have any plans for dinner tomorrow night?"

  Her eyes went very big, and I tried hard to convince myself that she wasn't imagining something that I never intended.

  "Don't you need to be here?" she asked.

  I shook my head. "Don't worry about that," I said. "Yes, or no?"

  She swallowed a few times, with an effort. "Yes," she said. "Of course."

  A smile crept across her face as she went to gather her things. Like she knew a secret that no one else did.

  Please, don't let her hate me.

  At least, not any more than she already does.

  ***

  Jill showed up to the restaurant glowing all over, in a long blue dress that made her eyes shine.

  "Thank you for coming," I said, as she sat down. "I really do appreciate it."

  She nibbled on her lower lip, a little confused.

  Please don't let her think this is personal. Please don't...

  What on earth was I thinking, bringing her here like this? I'd intended for it to be a peace offering, but this...I realized now how it looked, and I saw it clearly in her face, for the first time. The one thing I'd been denying for so long, I hardly remembered when it started.

  There was respect in her face, admiration, appreciation. All the things I had wanted from her. Everything I'd asked for.

  But more than that, there was love.

  A sick feeling crawled through my stomach. The server approached, hesitated a few paces away. I made a small gesture to dismiss him.