by Lexi Ryan
“I HAVE a buttload of flowers to pick up from the florist to put on Cally’s cake tomorrow. Would you mind the extra stop?” The sky is filled with stars tonight, and I take a minute to breathe it in as Max opens my door.
“Flower shop and then the bakery?” he asks as I climb in.
With a grateful smile, I nod. Then, for some reason I’m not entirely sure of, I lift onto my toes and press my lips to his. He freezes for a moment. Probably because no one’s watching and there wasn’t any reason for me to kiss him.
Slowly, he cups my jaw with his big hand, and when I part my lips under his, he sweeps his tongue inside my mouth. The kiss is slow and tender, and it reminds me of the early days of our relationship, when I was so nervous about my body that kissing and over-the-clothes groping was as wild at it got.
When we break the kiss, I can’t deny the sadness in his eyes, and guilt sweeps over me. What’s wrong with me that I couldn’t see his love for me for what it was? Why did I let Meredith control my perception of Max?
I want to apologize, but the words turn to dust on my tongue. Are there any apologies more difficult than the ones we owe the most?
He kisses my forehead before heading around to his side of the car.
“Thank you for tonight,” I whisper as he starts the car. “It meant a lot to me.”
He takes my hand and presses my knuckles to his lips. Then he puts the car in gear and starts driving to the florist.
“We’re here,” he whispers, lightly brushing my hair from my face. “I’ll take the flowers into the cooler. You can go up to bed.”
I blink at him. I was so tired that I must have fallen asleep. I shouldn’t let him do this without my help, but every cell in my body seems to be demanding more sleep now.
“Okay,” I murmur.
He helps me out of the car and watches me walk up the stairs before he turns back to get the flowers.
At my door, I dig in my purse for my keys, and when I wrap my fingers around them, I realize my mistake. He’s going to need the key to the bakery. I peek over the balcony and frown when I see the back door open and light flooding into the alley as Max hauls the giant flower box inside.
I look down at my keys then back at the door. “How…?” Slowly, I make my way back down the stairs and into the bakery. Max is locking up the walk-in cooler when I step inside.
He gives me a soft smile. “I thought you were going to bed.”
“You know,” I start carefully. I look around my commercial kitchen with new eyes. “I really thought Nate Crane was the silent partner. I thought he just wasn’t admitting it. But I was wrong.”
“Hmm.” He shoves his hands in his pockets and shrugs. “Maybe it’s just a private investor and nothing personal.”
I take a breath, my heart heavy and full. “This was personal. The apartment upstairs, the care that was put into the remodel.”
He turns his head and studies the gleaming stainless-steel countertops. “Whoever it was should have spent the extra money on putting those stairs inside the building. Then you wouldn’t have to go outside every time you needed to get between the apartment and the bakery. And maybe you wouldn’t have fallen.”
“I think he did more than enough,” I whisper.
He shrugs. “I’m just glad you get your bakery.”
“Were you ever going to tell me that you’re the one behind all this? That you’re the one who set it all up for me to live my dream?”
He drags a hand through his hair and studies the ground.
“Max. Look at me.”
He shifts his eyes to meet mine. “It was your dream. I knew you didn’t believe in yourself enough to do it on your own. But I believed in you. I’ve always believed in you. You’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met.”
Oh, God. How could I have been so wrong about him? “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t really intend for it to be a secret. I was in the middle of investigating the opportunity to buy this building when you broke up with me, and when it looked like it could work, I didn’t want you to think there were strings attached. I had to find a way to give this to you without you believing the gift was contingent on marrying me.” He shrugs awkwardly.
“Max,” I whisper. And then I can’t help it anymore. I cross to him, wrap my arms around his neck, and kiss him hard. Because Max gave me something more than a dream. He gave me the dream and put it in New Hope the way only someone who was raised here would understand to do. Any other investor would have wanted me to go to the city or take a bigger location off the historic New Hope square. Max didn’t just give me the dream. He gave me the dream wrapped up in home.
I make myself pull away and leave it at a chaste kiss, but as I lower back down to my heels, his hands come up to cup my face, and then he’s lowering his mouth to mine and kissing me back—sweetly, softly, and with a tender love I’m not sure I deserve.
His fingers slide into my hair and he releases the clip and lets it fall down around my shoulders. Then his hands are sliding down my body and under my ass and he’s hoisting me up on the counter and parting my thighs to step between them. When he returns his mouth to mine, his kiss is harder than before. Deeper. Stronger. It’s the kiss of a man who has found something he thought he lost. The kiss of a man who will do whatever it takes to hold on.
And I kiss him back in the same way, the love and the pain in my chest wrapping around and through each other until they are one and the same. They are the disease and the remedy. They are the poison and the antidote. They fill me and whisper to me until I know the only thing that can make the hurt go away is this man’s kiss.
“Come upstairs with me,” I whisper against his lips.
He releases his breath in a rush. “Hanna. That’s not why—”
“I know.” I want to kiss away the sadness in his eyes. I want to take away the pain I put there. “I know,” I repeat, taking his hand.
Carefully, he helps me off the counter. “Okay.”
He follows me up the stairs, and the minute the door closes behind him, my fingers start at the buttons on his shirt. I need Max. Naked. Against me. Now.
He stops my hands with one of his. “Can we just…” He closes his eyes like he’s not sure where to start. “I love you. I don’t want to rush this.” He brushes his knuckles over my cheek. “I don’t want to scare you away.”
“I’m right here,” I whisper. “And I’m not going anywhere.”
He tugs on my dress, and I lift my arms as he pulls it off and tosses it to the side. His smoky eyes drop to my breasts, skim over my belly. His fingers tighten on my hips. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve fantasized about this. You. This body. The sounds you make when you’re about to come. The way you taste here.” He brushes the pad of his thumb over my nipple. “And here.” Grazes my navel. His voice drops deeper, and he slides his hand between my legs and cups me. “Imagined how you’d taste here.”
“Max,” I whimper, my hips rocking into the pressure of his hand.
“Don’t ever doubt my attraction to you. You are it for me, Hanna. I don’t need anyone else, and I don’t want anyone else.” He drops his head to my breast and sucks me through the lace of my bra. Pulling my nipple into his mouth, he sends a painful pulsing and vibrating between my legs, where his hand rubs me over my panties.
I fumble with the remaining buttons on his shirt, yanking it down his arms until he tosses it onto the floor. His skin is smooth and hot over thick muscle, and suddenly I need to memorize it. My mouth and hands are all over him, my fingers skimming across the flat plains of his abs as I take his shoulder into my mouth and bite softly. He groans as I nip, bite, and suck my way up to his neck and my fingertips slides under the waistband of his pants.
I unbutton his pants and draw his dick from his briefs, and he steps back.
His gaze roams over me, hungry and greedy, but he doesn’t step closer. He nods approvingly and eyes my bra and panties. “Let me see all of you.”
&n
bsp; I release the clasp on my bra first and let it fall to the floor. Then I hook my fingers at each side of my panties and wiggle them off my hips. I don’t turn off the lights and hurry into bed and under the covers. I stand exposed in the light, wanting him to see the softness in my belly and the stretch marks at the tops of my thighs. This is my body, for better or worse.
When I meet his gaze again, his eyes have gone darker, his pupils dilated, his nostrils flaring. He grunts and steps closer. “My attraction to you has never been pretend. You’re fucking beautiful, and you always have been. And when I imagine your belly round with these babies…” He brushes his fingers across my stomach, and my eyes fill.
“I want you,” I whisper, wrapping my fingers around that thick length of him again. “Here. Now.”
His eyes darken and his nostrils flare. “Don’t test me.”
“I’m not testing you. I’m asking you.” I stroke him, squeeze and releasing, squeezing and releasing. “I never wanted to wait until marriage to have sex.”
Hurt slashes across his face at my words.
“Max, I was scared that you’d see me naked and realize I wasn’t as beautiful as you’d convinced yourself I was, scared that I wouldn’t be able to make up for it with my seduction skills. I was terrified I’d disappoint you.”
“Jesus. You’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever touched. You would never disappoint me.”
“I finally believe that.” And I finally see how much damage I did by not believing it sooner. I press a hand to his chest, and his skin is hot against my fingers. I trace the line of hair between his pecs and over his stomach, down to the dragon tattoo on the V of his pelvis, and he draws in a sharp breath. “Do you mean what you said about that night at the gallery?”
“The gallery?”
I take him in my fist. His eyes shut and he clenches his fists at his sides, hanging on to control.
“What I said?” he manages.
“About the first time you kissed me? About what you wanted from me that night?” I move over him in long strokes. “Do you still feel that way?”
“It’s different now,” he says. “I want you just as much—more—than I did then, but I love you too. I love you so much that I want to give you everything. I want to make you happy and safe. And when you told me that you wanted to wait for marriage, those two desires came into direct conflict with each other.” He kisses the inside of my wrist, then my palm. “I guess I’m a little slow, though. I thought what you wanted was to wait. But what you really meant”—he forces his gaze back to mine—“and help me out here, because I’m not fluent in female—”
I giggle, and the seriousness of his expression breaks for a minute.
“—you meant that you needed to believe you were beautiful, needed to see what I see, before we made love.”
I can’t do anything but give him a sad smile, because that’s exactly what I needed. He dips his head and brushes a kiss across my lips and in the corners of my eyes.
“I think you speak female okay,” I whisper.
He cuffs both of my hands behind my back with one of his. “I can’t think when you’re touching me like that.” He runs his free hand up the side of my body and works his tongue at my neck, and I arch toward him in response, my breasts pressing against his chest.
“Please,” I murmur as his thumb circles my navel.
I can feel his sigh in the crook of my neck when he says, “I love you, Hanna.”
“I love you too.” A single, hot tear rolls down my cheek. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
“Me too, baby. Me too.”
I’M KISSING her. My hands are in her hair and my mouth is on hers, and I’m so desperate to drink her in that I don’t stop her when I feel her reaching for my cock again. I’m already lost.
She tears her mouth from mine and presses kisses to my neck and across my pecs and abs. When she skims her tongue over my tattoo, I have to pull her back to me. All those months we were together, she insisted any time we touch be about me. I can’t let this first time back together be that way. I need to show her.
I lead her to the bedroom and turn on the lights.
When I step back to look at her, she lets me. None of the insecure covering or turning off the lights she used to do. She lets me look my fill.
I rake my eyes over her again and again, drinking her in. “You woke up without your memory, and you just assumed you’d gotten over all of your hang-ups over the last year.” I step closer so I can feel her breasts against my chest. I slide my hand between her legs as I whisper in her ear. “It was a miracle to me because you were suddenly willing to let me see you. To let me touch you. And when we were in the steam room and I got to kiss you for the first time here…” I brush my knuckles over her. She’s already wet, and I’m dying to slide my fingers inside her, to feel her wrapped around them as I make her come. She digs her nails into my shoulders and shudders in pleasure at the faint contact. I want more. Need more. “I felt so damn guilty for keeping the whole truth from you, but I’m an asshole, Hanna. I’m a fucking selfish ass who had to bury his face between your legs before you remembered—to show you pleasure, to prove to you how fucking much I want you.” My knuckles brush again, and she gasps, her fingers curling into my triceps now. “I crave you. I fucking need you. You accused me of keeping my distance from you after the accident, said I would have spent more time with you if I’d really wanted to be with you. The truth is that, after the night in the steam room, I didn’t trust myself. I knew you’d let me take you. You would have let me that night. I didn’t trust myself to keep touching you without fucking you.”
She whimpers. “You could have.”
“Exactly. I dream about fucking you. Your legs wrapped around me while I slide into you or biting this sensitive spot on your neck while I fuck you from behind.” I nip to show her where, and she rocks her hips into my touch. “You’re looking for someone who loves your body as much as your mind? I’m your man, Hanna. Just give me a chance to show you.”
When I pull back, her eyes are half closed, her lips parted. “Show me,” she whispers.
I shouldn’t. Not when things are so confused and complicated between us. Not when she’s so emotional and vulnerable.
“It’s okay.” She brings her hand to my cheek. “I need this. I need you. More than ever.”
I kiss her then, trailing kisses along her jaw and down her breasts. When I stop and draw a nipple into my mouth, she cries out and buries her hands in my hair, holding me there. My cock is so damn hard it aches, but I lower to my knees and press my mouth between her legs. She gasps as my tongue hits her clit. Widening her stance instinctively, she keeps those hands in my hair as I lick her, taste her, find her with my hand, and pump my fingers inside her. She tightens her hand in my hair, and I wrap my lips around her clit and suck.
There is nothing as sexy as fingering Hanna while she rocks her hips against my face. She tugs at my hair, and I know she’s close. I slide a second finger inside her while I add suction to her clit. She screams and bucks, and it’s the fucking sexiest thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.
When I stand, she wraps her arms around my neck and kisses me hard. I move us to the bed and pause when I’m hovering over her. “I didn’t bring a condom.” I didn’t expect tonight to end like this. “I’m clean, but if you want…”
She shakes her head. “I’ve never had sex without a condom. I want you to be that first.”
My chest is tight, and I swallow hard as I slowly slide into her. She’s so tight and slick, and I don’t know how I’m going to last, but she arches against me and moans, and I know I’ll find a way to make this last—to make sure she comes again while I’m inside her.
I watch her as I move, and she holds my face in her hands. When tears trickle out of the corner of her eyes, I kiss them away, and she smiles at me.
“They’re happy tears,” she promises. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” I murmur.
Her eyes float shut, and I can feel her tightening around me. I kiss her as she comes. Kiss her as I sink deep and pray to God that this is real and not some amazing dream.
LIZZY ADJUSTS the diamond pendant on my necklace and sniffs back tears. “You look beautiful.”
“Thank you.” This is really it. My wedding day. The first day of the rest of my life with Maximilian Hallowell.
Liz sniffs again and wipes away tears. “He’d better know how lucky he is.”
“He knows,” calls a deep voice.
We both gasp and turn toward the back exit to the area above the gallery, toward the sound of Max’s voice, deep and sure as he walks in the door.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” I object, but the words don’t hold much conviction because, truth be told, I need to see him. I need to see the confidence in his eyes when he talks about our future. My stomach is a mess of butterflies and rattlesnakes and I’m not sure which will win.
He draws in a long breath as he looks me over. “You’re so gorgeous.”
“I’ll give you two some privacy,” Lizzy says. She presses a kiss to my cheek and whispers so only I can hear, “You deserve this.”
I have to look at the ceiling and breathe long and slow. I just did my makeup. I don’t want to have mascara streaming down my face when I walk down the aisle.
Lizzy closes the door behind her as she leaves, and Max and I just stare at each other for long seconds before he steps closer and takes my hand.
“Are you ready?”
I nod, and when he presses his lips to mine, I return the kiss. Something in the back of my mind tells me that I’m a liar, but I ignore it because Max’s lips are on mine, taking little sips from my mouth until the tension starts draining from me.
