She shook her head in an attempt to shake out her jealous thoughts, but they nagged at her. Jealousy over a man she wasn’t even sleeping with was a sign of weakness.
The best lesson that her affair with Simon had taught her was that she was weak. And Max was so sexy and compelling that she couldn’t trust herself around him. Her body craved his touch, and there was nothing she could do to control it or make her nagging desire for him go away.
She put a few final flourishes on the site, and it was ready to go. As she fixed a cup of coffee in the kitchenette, she heard the door to the studio open. The tread of the steps told her it was Max.
“Letty?” He didn’t sound angry or upset, so maybe he was going to cooperate with her plan of ignoring yesterday and their desire to jump each other’s bones going forward? A sliver of hope worked its way through her system.
“In here.” She couldn’t keep her voice from cracking. “Want some coffee?”
And then he was at the door, stealing her breath. Freshly showered, with a little gel in his overly long hair so it went away from his face. The strong structure of his jaw and brow made him look like a model for a sculpture instead of a sculptor.
His white T-shirt, the way it made his pecs stand out made her so thirsty she burned her tongue on a long drink of coffee. She coughed and he rushed over to her, but he didn’t touch her.
“Are you okay?” His concern touched her even though she probably wouldn’t be able to taste anything for a week.
“F—fine.” He grabbed a glass from the cupboard and poured her a glass of water from the tap, offering it to her. “Thank you.”
He returned her weak smile. “When you’re done, we need to talk.”
A stone sank in her belly, tacking her to the floor. Of course, he was just being extra nice because he was firing her. She drank the water, even though she was afraid it would come back up. “Okay.”
“It’s nothing bad. I promise.” And then he smiled at her, which woke up lust but didn’t completely exterminate her anxiety. She was so on edge around him. He was overwhelmingly hot, but there was something else there. His intensity and her physical reaction to that intensity made everything feel—more.
This man made her feel more things at once than she’d felt during her entire relationship with Simon, and she’d never even touched Max.
She took another gulp of water when she saw him walking away before following him.
Out in the studio, he was seated at his worktable, and he’d pulled another stool across from him. He motioned for her to sit, and she was struck by how formal it all was. Maybe he was still firing her? At this point, it might actually be a good thing. She could finally stop feeling like the earth under her feet lurched every time she got too close to him.
And, if her career was truly over, maybe she would finally have an excuse to move away from her family, where no one knew her. She could change her name and adopt a new identity—maybe go work in a finance office with people who didn’t know anything about art.
“I’m sorry.” His words hit her like a ricocheted bullet.
“You’re sorry?”
“Yes, I shouldn’t have assumed that you wanted to—um.”
The only problem with this apology was that she had wanted to “um.” With him, right on the table. And the fact that he’d apologized for almost kissing her made her want him even more. The problem wasn’t that he’d assumed that she wanted him—it was that she wanted her boss again so much.
“You don’t have to apologize.”
“I don’t?” The color topping the ridges of his cheekbones was charming.
“No. You didn’t make a bad assumption.”
All the stiffness went out of his body, and he slumped on his stool. “Good.”
Why did she feel an insane need to explain this all to him? She didn’t owe him anything—especially the most embarrassing parts of the path that had brought her to his doorstep.
“I’m confused.” She couldn’t help but giggle at the lost-little-boy look on his super-masculine face.
“I really do just like to keep business and pleasure separate.” Now. After Simon.
His brow furrowed, and a warm pool of tenderness formed in her chest. She wanted to grab him and hug him. It was as though he’d turned from an iconoclast to a lost boy in an instant. Maybe that was why he was so compelling to her?
Letty had always liked nurturing people. Her parents, her sisters, her friends—Simon. And it was usually at her own expense. This might just be another stitch in a lifelong pattern. No matter how much she wanted to throw herself at Max right now, she had to tear that pattern at the seams if she was ever going to stand on her own two feet.
“Is this about the thing you don’t want to talk about?”
He’d actually listened to her? It sort of had her choked up. But she wanted to talk about it with him, and maybe he would understand. And it would be worlds better if she told him instead of some wench in the art world who would try to ingratiate herself with him using gossip. If he was going to learn about the whole sordid thing anyway, shouldn’t he learn it from her?
“I was fired from my last job for sleeping with my boss.” Such a simple, little sentence. Yet it felt like she’d pulled her guts out and laid them on the table for him to pick through. She felt as though she was bare naked, and he didn’t respond for a long moment. His face screwed up, and he straightened his posture. It seemed as though he filled the whole room with his presence and this tangible anger.
Part of her wanted to hide under the table to escape the wrath building up inside him, but before she could move, he said, “You got fired?”
She nodded, and looked at him, pulled in by his growing anger.
“You got fired for sleeping with your boss?” His words were quiet, and she couldn’t figure out if he was mad at her or the situation. She hoped for the latter, but she couldn’t shake the fear that it was the former. People blamed women all the time for putting themselves in a position to be harassed. And she had jaunted in willingly, joyfully. Of course, she was to blame. “Motherfucker.”
“Him?” Her voice came out as a squeak. God, she hated being so meek and afraid all the time. She wished she could wear her anger on the outside like Max was wearing his.
He stood up almost violently, and the stool he’d been perched on clattered against the cement floor. She jumped, and he stilled. “Did he hurt you?”
She wasn’t sure what he meant, hurt came in all forms, but he was probably talking about something physical. “No.” Just her heart.
“Then, you jumped just now because of me?”
“You’re a little scary when you get mad.”
His face softened, and his hands twitched as though he wanted to reach for her but stopped himself by a hair’s breadth. “I won’t hurt you.” His voice was grim, and there was a sadness in his gaze that she couldn’t quite let go.
“He hurt my heart.” All she wanted was to assure Max that he was nothing like Simon. The fact that Max had gotten so pissed on her behalf made her want to share more of herself with him. “He told me that he’d only been dating—sleeping with me—because I would do his job for him and because of my family’s money.”
Max’s gaze narrowed when she said that last part, and his lips twisted into a grimace.
Simon had never looked at her with an ounce of genuine lust. She’d realized that the first day that she’d walked in this studio. Just a flick of an appreciative look from Max had more panty-melting power than a full-on make out session with Simon. Not that her ex-lover wasn’t skilled, he was. He just hadn’t wanted her, and it had shown. “And he said that I was too fat for him to date for real.”
Immediately, she realized that she should have left out that last part. Max’s nostrils flared, and she half-expected him to start stomping the ground like an angry bull. Because of his
too-tight T-shirt, she could see almost every muscle fiber tense with more than anger—rage. “He said what?”
“I mean, I know I’m not skinny.” Her instinct to soothe him went into overdrive. “I don’t even know if it was an insult. He had a reputation to protect, and I don’t exactly fit. I really should have known that he was more into dating a rich girl than he was into being with me.”
He stopped her with a hand over the fist she had balled up on the table. Immediately, she felt grounded in the room. Her blood slowed in her veins and vessels as she looked up to find his searing gaze. “He’s a dick.”
“He told me the truth.”
“That’s not the truth.” A small shake of his head. Almost imperceptible, but it totally changed the energy of the room. Max had no idea how magnetic he was. His charisma was like a living thing when it was focused on her. She should be afraid of it, but right now she didn’t have the will break his thrall. “You’re not too anything.”
* * * *
Max was lying. Letty was too good for him, but that was her only too. And now that he knew that her ex-fucker had only wanted her for her family’s money, he had confirmation that she was too rich for him. Even if they did end up sleeping together, which he was still dumb enough to hope happened, they’d never get to the part where they were sharing their lives. Then, he’d have to share his finances. And she would for sure think that he was with her for her family’s money if she knew he had none of his own.
All of his shit was beside the point. Letty was hurting now because her ex-douche had made her feel ugly. Max had never understood why some men insisted only on skinny girlfriends. Because he’d never committed long-term, he’d had skinny girlfriends and less-skinny girlfriends. And he’d liked fucking all of them. He’d always reacted more to a robust mind and heart than to a small dress size, though cooking for girlfriends who didn’t worry about every morsel of food was more fun.
The fact that someone had made her feel small, and he’d made it worse by making a move yesterday enraged him. He pushed people away before they got too close because he wanted to protect them. Part of what his grandmother had said last night made sense. He was so intent on not hurting other people that he made himself lonely.
Trouble was, it hadn’t worked with Letty. And he didn’t know if he really wanted it to work with her. He’d never coveted a woman before. If he had a cave, she’d make him want to club her over the head and drag her there. He felt raw and feral around her, and the more she revealed about herself, the less sure he was that he could resist her.
Letty broke his gaze and looked down at their joined hands. He was going to pull away until she unfurled her fist and rubbed her thumb against his knuckle. “Are you just saying that to be nice?”
“No.” He’d always been a terrible liar. If he didn’t have anything nice to say, he was more likely to keep his fucking mouth shut.
“Are you still trying to convince me to sleep with you?” Now, she had a small smile on her face. He wanted to press his mouth to hers still, and he couldn’t deny that her warm skin against his hand had all the blood that should be in his brain rushing below the belt.
So, he grunted.
“That’s not an answer.”
“What do you want to hear?” He didn’t want to be anything like her asshole ex-boss right now, but he still wanted her. There was no way he couldn’t, especially now that she’d revealed herself to him. Now, he admired her. She’d picked herself up in a way that a lot of people wouldn’t. Scrap was one of the best qualities a person could have. It was something his sister and grandmother had in spades, but his mother lacked sorely.
Maybe she could put up with a man like him with that kind of backbone?
He pushed the thought away. Chasing down a relationship with her wasn’t what she needed right now. “Is that why you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel with me?”
“You’re hardly the bottom of any barrel.” She sighed. “But yes, I came here thinking that you were a step in the right direction, and that maybe it would lead to another step. Simon refused to give me a reference.”
Fucker was probably thinking she’d move out of town and disappear so he didn’t have to look at her and feel guilty. Max abhorred that idiot’s weakness and added it to the list of reasons he wanted to kick the guy’s ass.
“I’ll give you a reference if you walk out the door right now.” In fact, he’d call his cousin Javi’s wife right after she left and tell her to hire Letty. Even if she didn’t need an assistant. And he didn’t even bother to ask why she wouldn’t ask her parents for support instead of hustling on her own. Even after only knowing her for a few days, he knew that she was like him in that she wanted to be independent of her family. Only she was successful at it. She wanted to make her living independent from them and be loved for who she was instead of who they were. “I’ll give you a reference even if you need to kick me in the balls to get over what happened yesterday.”
Letty covered her mouth with her free hand to stifle a laugh. He wanted to eat her laughter with hungry kisses. Some animal part of him wanted to consume her, but he had to tell that part to quiet the fuck down.
She needed him to be her boss and, if he was lucky, her friend. “I’m so sorry that happened to you, and I promise it won’t happen with me.”
“You’re not going to try to kiss me again?” He probably imagined a hint of disappointment in that question.
Still, he had to make things perfectly clear. “I’m not going to try to kiss you again.” He let go of her hand, needing to remove even that small temptation. “As much as I want to kiss you—do a whole lot more than kiss you—I’m not going to do that today. I’m not going to do that ever.”
Her lips pouted and she nodded. “Okay.”
“I’m not going to kiss you, but you can kiss me.” He paused, trying to hold back a smirk. “You can do whatever you want with me.”
There. Her cheeks pinked up again, and she looked up at him through her unimaginably long lashes. “Anything I want covers a lot of territory.”
“Want me to narrow it down?” The energy of the room shifted, softened. All he needed was a word from her, and he would reveal all the details of how he wanted to palm her pretty tits as she held her legs open to take his cock. He’d tell her how he wanted to spend hours between her legs, pillowed by her strong, soft thighs. She’d blush when he talked about memorizing her clit with his tongue or painting her belly with his come.
He telepathically dared her to open the door.
“Can you wait to do that until I no longer work for you?” She bit her bottom lip. “To keep things professional?”
In less than two weeks. Could he wait almost two weeks to give her all the details of how much he wanted her? Could he keep his moodiness on lockdown for two weeks as she turned him into a sex-crazed lunatic? How much work could he get done with a hard-on? “Maybe.”
“It’s only eleven days.” But how many times would he have to stroke himself off thinking about how much he wanted her to wrap her damp mouth around his aching cock?
“What if you change your mind?”
“You mean, what if I can’t keep my hands to myself?”
He nodded. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t noticed how she looked at him. And loved it. His T-shirts couldn’t get much tighter, but he could find ways to entice her. They’d be spending a lot of long days and evenings together in the next twelve days, and he could woo her. Make sure there was a beautiful meal for lunch. Maybe work with his blowtorch in front of her. Girls liked men who sweated and played with fire, right? “If you give the signal, all bets are off.”
“Why are you even interested in me?”
That question set him back on his heels. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I’m sure I’m not your type.” She looked down and bit her lip, not in a sexy way. She was unsure.
“Because of what that motherfucker said about your body?”
She nodded. “I mean, your sister’s a ballerina. You must be used to being around skinny women.”
He didn’t know how to make this okay for her. He didn’t want to brush off her concerns by telling her she was “beautiful” and leaving it at that. That would imply that she was beautiful despite the size of her body. How could he make her see that her body wasn’t less sexy—that he didn’t want her any less—because of a tag in her clothes?
“What’s your favorite kind of art?”
“Modern.” She tipped her head at him, and her hair brushed the tip of her breast, making it difficult to concentrate on making his point. “What does this have to do with my body?”
He looked up to meet her curious gaze. “You don’t think a sculpture is beautiful because of how much space it takes up, do you?”
“No, that would be ridiculous.”
“And it would be just as ridiculous of me to think you’re less beautiful because you take up more space than some of the other women in my life.”
She arched a brow. “You have a lot of women in your life.” Damn, she was sensitive about this topic.
“You mentioned my sister.” He stepped closer, wanting to be close even though he couldn’t touch her. “I love her and I think she’s a beautiful person. Not because she’s petite or manipulates the laws of gravity with her dancing, but because she’s my baby sister.”
“But what does that have to do with me?” He didn’t expect it when she added, “Or sex.”
He squeezed the skin between his brows with two fingers, needing her to understand him perfectly. “I don’t want you because of or in spite of your size.”
“You don’t have a preference? I could just be any woman? Any hole will do?” There was a touch of humor in her voice, like she was fucking with him. But there was also some pain there. Her ex-asshole had really done a number on her, and he wanted to beat the shit out him more with every passing moment.
Night and Day Page 6
