“Aren’t those for girls?”
“They were on sale at Target, and I figured I needed all the inspiration I could get.”
Max smiled, running his finger along the soft edge of the red camisole. “That house was a mess. You shouldn’t feel bad if you couldn’t fix it—not everything is fixable, Vivienne.”
The words kicked at the exhaustion, and she thought of her family. “Maybe not everything. But a lot of things can be. Just wait until you see the house. Wonder Woman worked wonders.” She added a whip of snapping fingers in the air. “We’re talking clean.” But the simple movement zapped her of every remaining ounce of energy, making her knees go weak.
Before she knew it, he had swept her up again and carried her into the bathroom. “That house might be clean, but you aren’t.”
He set her on the velvet chaise, then started the water.
“Now what are you doing?” she squeaked.
He answered by taking each of her hands. “These have got to hurt.”
She looked down at the scrapes and cracks, her nose wrinkling. “They’ve felt better.”
Max pulled her up. Then he started to lift the Wonder Woman tank top.
“I can do that.” But when she tried to tug it free, her muscles screamed in protest.
With quick efficiency, he undressed her completely.
In some deep recess of her mind she knew she should be mortified or outraged—or even a little indignant. But she couldn’t muster up more than a “Can you help me into the tub?”
He did, but not before he found her Extra Bubbly Champagne bubbles and poured plenty in. When she finally sank into the warm water, she sighed.
She lay back until the bubbles lapped at her chin. “Good thinking to clean me up before our next lesson,” she said, her eyes closed, her brain doing its best to string words together in what she hoped were coherent sentences.
He didn’t respond other than to take a washcloth, lather it with soap, and start a slow, methodical cleansing of her body. Yet again she searched around in her tired body for one ounce of energy to do it herself.
Instead she only breathed deeply at his ministrations. It was half a cleaning, half a kneading of muscles she never knew she had. Every inch of her ached, followed by every inch sighing in pleasure as Max washed the pains away.
When he told her to sit up, she did, curling her arms around her knees as he ran the cloth over her back, down her spine to her hips. Something welled up in her at the touch, deeper than awareness, stronger than need and longing. She felt the stinging bite of tears tighten in her throat at the realization that no one had ever touched her with such care. Not her mother, not her father, not anyone in the boarding schools she had grown up in.
How had she lived without this?
“So, you can’t live without me,” she murmured into her knees, wanting to change the direction of her thoughts.
His hand stilled for a fraction of a second before he laughed softly and continued on. “Apparently.”
“As much as I’m flattered, I think there’s another reason you’re here.”
“Really? What would that be?”
“You hate this holiday.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It only makes sense. You said your dad left on Thanksgiving, and your mom died a year later.”
“You remember that?”
“I told you, I have a mind like a steel trap.”
He chuckled for a second, then he sighed. “She died a few days before Thanksgiving—like she had finally accepted he wasn’t coming home and she gave up.”
“I’m sorry.”
He wrung out the washcloth. “The kids were in shock. I remember that. All of them sitting in a row on this old vinyl couch we had in this tiny room. Pat holding Lila, who was barely six months old. It was like they couldn’t get their minds around what had happened. Like they didn’t know what death meant.” He set the cloth aside. “Hell, I hardly understood. But I was too damn busy to think. I had a funeral to plan, a hospital breathing down my neck, wanting to know when I’d pay the bill. And then Thanksgiving Day. Mom gone. The first taste of being on our own.” He shook his head. “I thought I’d make everything seem as normal as possible. But the turkey was still pink inside, and the rolls about caught the place on fire.”
“So the minute you had enough money you started taking them to Ruidoso to ski.”
“Yeah. I guess that’s the easy way out.”
“Not easy, Max. Never easy. Just easier than having a family dinner that does little more than remind you that your mother and father are gone.”
She turned her head to look at him. He stared at her for what seemed like an eternity. “What is this between us?” he asked, confusion lining his strong features.
“I’m not sure anymore,” she answered, her candor surprising her. “I just know that I’m not ready for it to end.”
He laughed out loud, like a release, as if that was something that he could handle.
“You might drive me crazy, but you always make me smile.”
She rolled her eyes with as much energy as she could muster. “Go on with the flattery.”
Instead he whipped out a soft-bristled manicure brush. “Let me have a look at those hands.”
She hardly recognized this dominating man as once again that ease she experienced only with him settled between them. Moved by his care, she reveled in it, amazed that pulling weeds could do such damage. He sat on the floor next to the tub, his shirt tossed aside, his button-fly jeans hanging low on his hips as he took her fingers one by one and brushed them clean.
All too soon he finished, making her stand as the water drained away. Then he took the handheld faucet and rinsed her. When he was done, she marshaled her strength and started to get out. But he was ready for her, wrapping her in the largest velour terry towel she had ever seen. Then he swept her back into his arms.
The moon drifted through the sky as Max dried her, then returned her to the chaise, where he brushed out her hair with mesmerizing strokes. This massive man, who was filled with a primal arrogance and sensuality, cared for her without the slightest concern for his own vulnerability. He thought only of her. And just when she was sure he would leave, or kiss her, he kneeled before her on the floor. She looked into his eyes, uncertain what she felt.
Fear?
Unease over someone else’s selfless act of caring for her?
Or was it that she couldn’t allow herself to believe that anything this good could be real?
In the dimly lit room, as the silver moon slipped through the nighttime sky, she was afraid to truly look at the feelings that churned inside her.
She knew he wanted her. But he also had told her that he didn’t understand that desire. It had never mattered before, because she hadn’t wanted him either—at least she hadn’t wanted anything more than a mindless way to satisfy what she had told herself was only a physical attraction.
For reasons she didn’t understand, this man made her forget. He had the ability to set her precarious world aside—make her feel as if she could survive when all the rules she had grown up with had been tossed aside, her paddles lost, her boat drifting free in waters she didn’t know how to navigate.
But, looking at him now, she had the bone-chilling thought that perhaps she felt more. That what she didn’t want to end was something deeper. Perhaps she wanted more from this man than escape and safe passage through white waters.
She turned away from the thought, because if she was honest with herself, she didn’t want to want more than sex from him. Not now, when she was building a new life for herself. An independent life. She was proving that she didn’t need anyone to take care of her. She was building a normal life. But she couldn’t be complete until she had filled the emptiness inside her. She had to be whole on her own first, before she could be whole with someone else.
Her confusion must have shown.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“
Nothing.”
She started to push away, but he held her there, coming up to sit beside her.
“What is going through that head of yours?” he persisted.
“Just thinking.”
“You do a lot of that.”
“Amazing, isn’t it? Most people think I don’t have a brain in my head.”
“I think you let people believe that.”
Vivi scoffed, working up indignation. “Don’t tell me we’re back to the Oprah self-help sessions?”
“No, but you constantly prove how different you are from the person you pretend to be. You told me you had zillions—your word, not mine—of people to spend time with over the holiday. Instead, I find that you worked day and night at that house.”
She shrugged, not liking the direction of this conversation. “Holidays are for family. I didn’t want to intrude on all those zillions.”
“Ah, family. But yours isn’t here.”
She tried not to care. “No.”
“I’m beginning to wonder if your parents are ever around.”
She hated the tightness she felt in her chest. “Don’t look so aghast. It’s not that big of a deal.” How many times had she told herself that? “There are more people than you can count who don’t even have parents to spend any time with. Heck, look at you.”
She saw him tense and she felt bad. “I wasn’t trying to be mean. I’m just pointing out that I at least have parents. So there’s no need to feel sorry for me.”
“Then I commend you. Not everyone would be so understanding.”
“It’s just the way it is.” No doubt it was the long days of fatigue that made her susceptible, but her mind drifted back to the early years. “When I was really young, my parents were crazy about each other. I was more the third wheel than the daughter. Then, as I got older, I could see the cracks starting to settle between them, and next thing I knew they were traveling all over, but separately.”
“Leaving you at home?”
“With friends, or at school. I didn’t live here a lot of the time. And it’s not so uncommon for girls in boarding school to spend a holiday or two there.”
“It sounds like you spent most there.”
“Yeah, well.” The thought trailed off, then she laughed. “I remember thinking that if I could just be perfect enough, then my mom and dad would see how good I was and what a great family we could be, and everything would be okay.”
“So you became the perfect princess.”
She looked him in the eyes. “Not the perfect princess. I wanted to be the perfect daughter. My father wanted me to be the princess.”
His face darkened. But he didn’t say anything. He stood, then surprised her when he pulled her up into his arms, cradling her, nothing covering her but the thick towel.
“Ah, the lesson?” she managed, thankful to change the subject.
He held her close for a second, his lips against her hair without really kissing her. She felt the shift in him, as if his long-held control had eased another notch. Then he looked at her, and she realized in that moment that he saw her differently.
His lips quirked, and his dark eyes seemed to lighten. “Yes, now for the lesson,” he said.
“Good.” Safer ground. Sex and none of those emotions rushing through him as if he felt more for her than she could afford for him to feel. “Yes, good,” she added with a firm nod. “Some real live sex. Let’s get it on.”
Max grimaced.
“Not the sex talk you had in mind?” she inquired. “All right. How about . . .” She considered. “Maxwell, you fine specimen of a man—”
He nearly dropped her.
“Hey!”
Muttering about patience being tried, he carried her into the bedroom. But when she thought he’d peel the towel away, he went to her chest of drawers, not returning until he had a long flannel nightgown.
“Stand up,” he commanded.
She stood, not happily, until her towel fluttered to the floor and Max’s impatience evaporated, his gaze like a heated caress. He looked at her with sheer, undiluted awareness.
A blush crawled up her body to her face, but she didn’t cover herself. She stood before him, and he drank her in.
“You are beautiful,” he said, his voice fierce. His gaze ran over her as he took a step closer, just close enough so that he could reach out and touch her.
“Your nipples are like cherries that I want in my mouth.”
Instantly, she felt them pull into taut peaks even before he gently squeezed the buds between his thumb and forefinger.
Her breath winged out of her, but he didn’t take her in his arms. He reached out with both hands, his palms just barely drifting over her nipples until she wanted to demand that he do more.
He didn’t read her mind, or if he did, he didn’t comply. He pulled back, leaving her yearning.
“Your arms are beautiful, and your hands, even now, are elegant. I dream of you going down on me, pulling me into your mouth.”
He took her hand and pressed it to the unmistakable ridge of his hardness. “Do you feel that?” he asked, his voice raw.
“Yes.”
“Do you feel how much I want to be inside you?”
She could only murmur, her eyes fluttering closed until his fingertips grazed down the center between her ribs. Lower and lower, until he nudged her feet apart with his own.
Sensation coursed through her when his fingers trailed lower, parting the curls between her thighs.
“You’re wet,” he stated with an arrogance she had come to recognize.
He found her clitoris. “Do you feel that?” he asked.
She couldn’t breathe, much less talk. Then she sucked in a breath when his finger began working magic. Slowly he pressed her back toward the bed. With insistence, he laid her down on the mattress. Not letting her move when her eyes opened wide, he gathered her knees and opened her to him.
“Max?” she asked, her voice shaking.
“Hush, Vivienne.” He kneeled between her thighs.
“I was thinking more about sex, not . . . this.”
“There is more to sex than intercourse.”
“Okay, so I was a little generic—”
He parted her gently.
“—ah, in my wording.”
When his mouth came down on her, his tongue like fire where his finger had been seconds before, she forgot about protests.
Her hands curled into the bedspread as his lips closed around the sensation-filled nub, her hips lifting up to him. His palm came up and flattened on her belly, then slid higher, caressing her and gentling her at the same time.
Every muscle in her legs was taut, straining, and he whispered against her to relax. “Open for me,” he commanded.
Shaking, she spread her feet for him, barely, but enough that he took her more deeply and she gasped.
Her body burned and sought, reaching for that pleasure he had shown her before, but never with such slick, fiery need. Rocking her head from side to side, she wanted more of this, of him, her mind aware of nothing but the desire to find release.
“That’s it,” he murmured. “Let go, Vivienne.”
Then he reached up and took the taut bud of her breast between his thumb and forefinger, sucking her core one last time, making her cry out as her body shattered.
Vivi arched off the bed for the intensity of her body’s reaction, sensation pulsing through her in waves. He cupped her mound as she orgasmed, murmuring sweet words as he came over her, stretching alongside and pulling her into his arms. He held her tight as her body quivered with the echo of passion, leaving her spent.
“Max” was all she could say when finally her body began to calm, and he brushed his lips against hers one final time.
After long minutes, she looked up at him, his blue eyes shimmering like hot coals in the silver light. “You keep doing that,” she whispered, not certain what she felt.
“Doing what?” he asked, his confident grin pulling at the corner
of his mouth.
“Making me feel,” she finally said. “Over and over again you make me feel until I think I’ll die.”
“A little bit of heaven,” he said, kissing her again, then rolling away.
“Where are you going?” she asked before she could stop herself.
He tugged the covers from underneath her, then instructed her to put on the thick nightgown. He helped her get into it when her limbs couldn’t manage on their own. Then he tucked her in, pulling the blankets and comforter around her.
She wanted to stay awake. There were so many things she wanted to talk about. But her eyes wouldn’t stay open. He leaned over to kiss her on the forehead, then smiled. She sensed more than saw a change in him, that shift from earlier shifting even more.
She tried to focus her mind, tried to understand what it was. But it took too much effort, and she couldn’t bring herself to leave this blissful place.
“Thank you,” she said softly, burrowing deep into the pillows.
For a moment he seemed surprised. Then he chuckled. “You’re welcome.”
He headed for the door, and just as she curled up on her side, her mind floating, she said, “Next time it will be my turn to give the lesson.”
Chapter Twenty-three
Two weeks later, the West Texas December cold finally wrapped around the city in a relentless grip. Max was standing in his bedroom when the front door banged open. He thought how surprised the girls and Vivienne would be that he had come home early from work.
Since the day Max had carried Vivienne upstairs to the bath, his mind had been filled with thoughts of her, his body taut like a drum, his hands itching to touch her again.
But it was more than sexual. God help him, she had the ability to make him smile. She made him happy.
There was no question that he wanted to lose himself in her in a way that he had fought against since the second she walked into his office. She did something to him, always had, twisting his thoughts and emotions until he hardly recognized himself.
But the wanting went to a place that had made him begin to wonder if it had to do with how she saw him. Really saw him. No matter what he said or tried to portray, she always saw the truth. She understood him in a way that no one in his life ever had. She didn’t care about his power any more than she had cared that he was a poor boy from the wrong side of town when she walked toward him on the stage.
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