by Kilby Blades
He held his breath to hear her response. When she set back to measuring her sugar, he knew none would come.
They worked in silence, Cella molding the sugary mixture, with Max handling the delicate confections like glass. After he set the chestnuts, she used a fine brush to seal the assembly with caramelized liqueur. They spent the next half hour silently cleaning up after themselves as their concoction set in his chiller.
"Time to taste," she proclaimed when the timer went off.
She retrieved the tray. He picked up two pieces—so carefully—before placing one in her delicate hand. Their eyes remained locked as each one took a bite. It was the size of a bonbon—his teeth sliced into half, his senses rejoicing in the drunken sweetness that melted across his tongue.
"They're perfect," she breathed. He watched as her lips curled into a beatific smile.
His second bite was less guarded—he took out the base but left the nipple. He wanted to save the chestnuts for last. Watching as she devoured the rest of hers, Max followed her lips as they moved. Lazily, he fed himself his last bite. At some point, he noticed that her eyes were fixed on his lips.
"You missed a spot," she whispered, extending her finger to point to the corner of his mouth.
He let his own finger run the length of his bottom lip before licking it with the tip of his tongue.
"Did I get it?"
She shook her head, eyes still glued to his mouth. "No."
Before her finger could reach his mouth, he sealed his lips to hers.
Her kiss was hungry, and surged his desire as her tongue lapped at his mouth. Max was certain that it was not as hungry as his. Before he could contemplate what he was doing, he'd grabbed her by the waistline fold of her apron and pulled her close. Their tongues stroked deeply, urgent licks of fire, each of their mouths refusing to let go. Her soft moans caused him to pull her in closer as his arousal stiffened impossibly. With the sounds that he made, she tightened her grip where her twined fingers pulled on his hair. God, did that turn him on.
“Cella…"
She nuzzled his neck, and he gulped, gripping her hip with one hand and the counter behind him with the other. His hold on her hip was tight and he no longer knew whether he was holding her at arm's length or pulling her in.
"Do you want to stop?" she asked.
She licked his ear and he shuddered. "No.”
“Do you want this?”
Her breath was hot on his ear. “God, yes.”
She dove in for another kiss, which he eagerly met, covering her lips this time without hesitation. The next thing he knew, he had untied her strings and her apron was on the floor.
"I want to make a slow meal out of you, Marcella," he crooned, leaning in deeply to kiss her lovely neck.
They were against the counter; Cella bowed back to receive him, exposing to him her luscious expanse. He pushed her shirt up and over her head, revealing a lacy, green bra, its pattern and hue in the likeness of vines of cascading ivy. More gorgeous than the pretty thing that had teased him from beneath the edge of her shirt was her ample bosom heaving enticingly from above the intricate top.
Freeing an itching hand, he slid his fingers from her hip up her pillowy flesh until her more-than-a-handful weighed magnificently in his palm. He gloried in their buoyant substance, in their perfection—they were just like risen dough. When her nipples pebbled he lowered his teeth to her opposite breast, grazing the tip with a playful bite.
"Next time," she commanded, after letting loose a strangled groan. “Make a slow meal out of me next time.”
With a speed and agility he never knew he possessed, Max divested Cella of her clothes. She helped him, too—untying his apron before pulling his V-neck over his head and unbuttoning his jeans. He panted lightly as her one hand traveled up his chest and the dominant one reached into his boxer briefs. So slowly, she ran the heel of her hand from the swollen tip down the underside of his cock.
Though her palm was firm, her fingers as they grazed his balls were fantastically light. He moaned helplessly, halfway gone. His eyes followed her wrist from where it emerged from his shorts, up her soft arm, across her lovely clavicle, quickly to her face before dropping down to her perfectly weighty breasts.
But, he didn't stop there-he let them drop farther, down her tanned, smooth stomach, to her womanly thighs. His hands reached out to touch them and his erection jerked at the feel of their fleshy softness.
I can smell you.
"You are the sexiest woman in the whole wide world," he moaned in utter sincerity.
He slid his fingers inward, and upwards, toward one of many places in which he wished to get lost.
"I'm on the pill. And I've been tested."
He lifted her onto his kitchen counter.
“They test us every month. I'm clean."
Taking himself in his hand, he slid his head up and down on her slit, making a small circle each time he reached her swollen nub. When she crossed her ankles behind his back and arched up toward him, Max held his breath and plunged inside.
Though mindless with pleasure, Max had faint awareness of the loaded words that teased the tip of his busy tongue, words as true and instinctual as his actions, forbidden words that he managed to keep at bay. His pace was controlled, but eager, and his thrusts were deep. He moved inside her with abandon. He watched her receive him, experience him, in the same way as she did food.
It didn't take long before they were uttering soft, united cries and shuddering into a desperate embrace. It didn’t take long before he was stroking her cheek and searching her eyes. It didn’t take long before his whispered name on her lips echoed some new vulnerability in her touch. Didn't take long for him to know that things, irrevocably, had changed.
20 The Next Morning
Motherfuck, Liz. Not right now.
Cella was busy enjoying the rapture of Max biting the juncture of her shoulder and her neck, his breath fanning her skin in gentle waves as his arms encircled her from behind in a possessive hold. They hadn’t spoken a word to one another as they’d floated, naked and entwined, into sublime wakefulness. The gentle throbbing between her legs became more insistent in the moment when he gave her erect nipple a tug.
“Ignore it,” he whispered, when Cella’s phone rang for the third time in fifteen minutes. Ignoring Liz’s call was exactly what Cella did as Max shifted his body to face hers, pulling her around to him with one arm as the backs of his fingers brushed the underside of her breast. Her eyes were closed. It didn’t matter. Their bodies moved in tandem, magnetizing to achieve the perfect kiss.
He moaned a little, as if it were she who had enraptured him, probing a commanding tongue with desperate need that touched the bottom of her soul. They’d been up half the night, entangled and speechless, the room filled only with the sounds of their breathless gasps and the crashing waves of the ocean. But this was morning. The sun shone in. Light curtains billowed in the breeze. A new day—a brighter day—had dawned.
Cella was sore. She didn’t care. She’d been ready again from the moment she felt the graze of his teeth on her skin. It wasn’t only his body she craved—though, good God, Max Piccarelli had been blessed. She could have died happy if all she’d had was his size and skill. But what happened the night before had been so much more than that.
Pulling back after he had kissed her for a good long time, Max took a sweeping breath. Cella swooned for a final, long moment before opening her eyes. When she did, she saw it again—everything that had felt like a dream the night before. Utter reverence. Unfiltered desire. A vulnerable adoration that stole her breath.
He whispered her name as he lifted her, never breaking her gaze as he brought their bodies together, his own eyelids lulling as he slid her down onto him. She didn’t think she would ever get tired of this, but she was willing to test her theory for as long as it took to disprove it. When Cella’s phone rang a seventh time during what could have been a lazy post-coital bliss, she seriously considered finding a b
rick to bludgeon it with. Not moving to release her from his arms, Max kissed the top of her head tenderly.
“What if it’s an emergency?”
“Everything’s an emergency with Liz.”
“I need to feed Cujo anyway.” Max did move to release her that time.
Cella pouted a little instead of fully enjoying the sight of a very naked Max as he made his way into the bathroom. She let her eyes follow his chiseled form through his closet and into his glass-walled shower. Shifting herself on the bed until she sat up on the pillows, she considered powering her phone off so she could join him. The second she picked up her phone to turn it off, it started ringing again.
“Did somebody die?”
Her guess was that Liz was calling to smooth things over. The day before, their conversation had not gone well.
“You’re gonna wish that he did.”
“Who’s he?”
Cella was still distracted by the vision of Max in the shower.
“Who else? Kevin.”
“I told you yesterday. We agreed to terms.”
Sitting up more fully, Cella took a handful of covers and pulled them off of her legs, swiveling her hips until her feet hit the floor. She cast a final glance toward Max, whose strong back rippled appealingly as his fingers washed his hair. Instead of destroying her phone, and joining him as she wanted to, she strode into his closet and opened a drawer. She doubted he would mind if she put one of his t-shirts on.
“Kevin’s attorneys called. They’re rejecting the settlement.”
“What the hell happened?”
With heavy steps, Cella descended the stairs, her foul mood diminished only by a hungry-looking Cujo.
“He thinks he’s got you for breach of contract.”
“What did I breach?”
Cella set her phone on the counter and put it on speaker as she moved around the kitchen, getting Cujo his water and food.
“He thinks you’ve found a new restaurant partner. They’re saying you trumped up a reason to break with Kevin because your new project has you looking for an out.”
“This is why you called me eight times this morning?” Cella seethed. “This is a non-issue you should’ve been able to work out. He can’t prove something that isn’t true.”
“He’s got something.”
“Kevin is a liar and a thief. What could he possibly have?”
“Pictures of you with Max Piccarelli.”
Cella’s blood ran cold and her eyes darted to the stairs. She strained her ears to try to tell whether the shower was still on. All she could hear was the happy chomping of Cujo. She picked up her phone once again, tiptoeing toward the stairs as she took it off of speaker.
“What did you just say?” she whisper-hissed.
“He knows where you are. And he found a picture online of you and Max.”
Cella closed her eyes. She and Max had been interviewed for a few papers together two days before to promote the charity event.
“The restaurant isn’t even for sale.”
“Maybe not, but he’s speculating on the story. You spending time with the owner of a famous restaurant isn’t that big of a stretch.”
“I’m not opening a restaurant with him. I’m helping him with a charity event.”
“You have to back out.”
“No.”
“Cella, you—“
“No.”
Things got so quiet between them for a drawn-out minute that Cella heard Max moving around upstairs.
“The truth doesn’t matter,” Liz said finally. “What matters is how it looks and how much leverage it will get Kevin.”
“What leverage?” Cella nearly shouted. “We’ve made efforts to come to a fair agreement and Kevin’s team keeps stringing us along. If we can prove it’s a petty accusation, won’t a judge be able to throw it out?”
“With this in the mix, they’re threatening us again with a trial. A judge will hear it only if we take it to court. To avoid a trial, you have to settle, and with this in his pocket, Kevin’s price just went up.”
“This is extortion.” Cella had said it before.
“Another accusation you would have to go to trial in order to prove.”
Cella was practically shaking. She took two deep breaths. She wondered whether it was too early for wine. Suddenly, she felt sick. All this time she’d been nervous about the paparazzi descending. She’d have taken a hundred paparazzi if it meant avoiding this.
“Do whatever you have to do, to insulate Max from this. I don’t want this to bring damage to him, or to turn the Preservation Society fundraiser into a circus.”
“Alright…” Liz sighed. “I’ll handle it. But, remember, their endgame is to settle. And because they’re not stupid, they know it’s also ours. And there’s only so much I can do without you hear. Sooner rather than later, you’ll have to come back.”
Cella didn’t know how long she sat on Max’s kitchen stool staring out at the ocean. She didn’t even hear him come down the stairs. What she did register was his clean scent, the feeling of his strong arms around her and the press of his warm kiss to her temple. She squeezed her eyes shut futilely to staunch the flow of her tears. She didn’t want Max to see her like this. All at the same time, she wanted him to wipe her sorrows away. When he spun her around on his stool and collected her in his arms, she did a mixture of both.
Her head was buried in his chest as he shooshed her. She didn’t have the energy to sob, yet she was sure they both could feel her soaking his shirt with silent tears.
“Are you in some sort of danger?” She heard tension in his voice, even though it was deep and low, even though his question was asked carefully enough to appease her.
Oh, Max, what you must think.
She raised her gaze, knowing what he was asking and knowing she had to look him in the eye when she answered. “Things with Kevin are getting messy.”
He seemed to choose his next words carefully. “It’s safe here, Cella. Nothing can touch you when you’re with me.”
If only that were true. Every problem she’d come there to escape, and foolishly hoped would work out by the time she left, had reached its tentacles across the country, gripping her from three thousand miles away.
She could have told him everything—about how attorneys in Los Angeles knew his name and were speculating on the fate of his restaurant, or how a media shit storm could be brewing. She could have told him things that would kill his sense of security and privacy, just as hers had been killed so long ago. In an act of mercy, she simply said, “I know.”
“We have to go.”
Cella’s soft command barely achieved halfhearted status. Maybe next time, she’d be smarter than to plead her case while Max was trailing his lips up her calf.
“We don’t have to do anything,” he murmured between kisses, breaking his reverent concentration long enough only to affix her with a saucy gaze. “It’s a holiday. We’re taking the day off.”
She bit her lip as he resumed his worship. The whole “kissing every inch of a woman’s body” trope had never seemed sexy to her when she’d seen it in movies. For two glorious days Cella had pretended that no one but them existed and reveled in having been proven wrong.
It was more than just firm, slow kisses and the gentle force of Max’s sure hands plying her body to his hold that got her going. It was watching him get off on it, and nearly purring like a cat when working her over sent his smooth, dry body, slithering against hers.
“The barbecue—“ she protested.
“—is an all-day thing. We don’t have to show up on time.”
She meant to bring up the three dozen eggs in her refrigerator, all needing to be deviled and taken to the party. Instead, she took a shuddering breath as he crossed into the territory of her inner thigh. He took his time there, nuzzling skin that prickled with anticipation for a drawn-out moment. Suddenly frisky, Cella hoped he might give her a little bite.
He pulled back his lips, th
ough not before trailing his nose closer to her apex, breathing her in. His darkened eyes stayed on hers the whole time. She wanted him to lick. Instead, a wicked knuckle ran the length of her slit. Her eyes closed and her head fell back in pleasure. Not before she had a chance to see him smirk.
His mouth wasn’t even on her. Two deft fingers commanded her pleasure—his thumb on her clit and a long finger stroking her firmly from inside. He’d made her so sensitive that the waft of his breath over her skin created heightened bursts of ecstasy. He had her in a delicious limbo. She couldn't decide whether to beg him to finish her like that or beg him to let her reciprocate. His cock was glorious and some part of her was desperate to have it back in her mouth.
“I could stop if you really want me to.”
All thoughts of this were interrupted when his movements halted and his fingers abandoned her heat. She pulled her head back up and leveled what she hoped was an effective glare.
“Oh, you liked that? You want me to keep going? Okay.”
He did use his mouth when he went back in. It didn’t take long before Cella was digging her fingers into his shoulder and pulsing around his skilled tongue. Too busy teaching him a lesson about teasing her to worry again about the barbecue, they and their deviled eggs didn’t arrive at Jake’s for another three hours.
Cella covered her mouth with the back of her fingers to prevent what might have been a conspicuous laugh. Watching Max with his goddaughters was just too much fun. She didn’t blame him for temporarily abandoning her for the three-, five- and six-year-olds who squealed in delight as he played with them in the waves. He’d been apologetic, but the girls were so cute—Britt’s two and Jake’s daughter, Evie—that she’d have abandoned her date for them, too.
Date.
It may have just been a barbecue, but it seemed that a date was exactly what this was. They’d arrived together, would leave together, and their coziness had been the talk of the party. Cella was used to being the center of attention, or at least the subject of everyone else’s talk. But her dating status wasn’t something she usually let factor in.
