Chapter 20
“You’re home late,” I observe when Max shuffles into the living room looking haggard and exhausted. I rise to greet him and help him shrug out of his jacket. He looks as if he might just collapse on the spot. “I thought you were supposed to be here over an hour ago,” I comment as I lay his jacket across the back of the chaise lounge.
“I was,” Max replies, falling down onto the sofa in a worn out heap. He throws his forearm over his eyes. “Milton asked me to stay and count inventory. I thought my eyes would cross permanently from looking at all those numbers.”
I perch myself on the edge of the sofa and smile down at him. “Since when does Milton ask a regular staff employee to do inventory?” I inquire casually, although truthfully my heart has speeded up at the possibilities.
Max lifts his forearm from his eyes, his answering grin stretching from ear to ear. “Since he asked me to become an assistant manager.”
My squeal of delight can wake the whole house but I don’t care. I throw myself atop him, jumping up and down with excitement. “Do you have any idea how great this is?” I charge him, grabbing hold the lapels of his orange uniform vest and shaking him like a madwoman, “You’re going to be a manager!” I lean down close and give him a thorough kiss. “We have to celebrate, baby. Meatloaf and potatoes just will not do!”
“You’re acting like I’ve just been elected president,” he smiles. He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers lingering against my face. “It’s no big deal.”
He’s touching me so sweetly, his fingers beating over my face with the delicateness of a butterfly’s wings. I frame his face between my hands, feeling my heart brim with pride and love for him. “Of course, it’s a big deal,” I insist softly, “You’re a manager, Max. A manager. Only two months ago you didn’t even think you’d get the job. You must have made some impression on Milton.”
How he had worried over that, too. When he finally received the call I took him out for a steak dinner. I was so happy I’d even invited Maria and Isabel along. In the end, Max, me, Katie, Maria, Isabel, Michael and Alex ended up having dinner at a local restaurant to celebrate. It had been loud and raucous and hardly ideal…possibly the best time I’d had in years. I find myself smiling presently just thinking about it and from the way Max is smiling now he’s probably thinking about it, too. His next words prove my suspicions correct. “That was one wild time, wasn’t it?” he chuckles wryly.
“Michael and Maria doing shots at the table may have been a bit much,” I agree with a playful wink, “We won’t take them this time. It can just be you and me.”
“Liz, it’s so late--,” Max tries to argue.
“Come on!”
He tries again. “You’ve got to go to work early tomorrow morning.”
“Come on!”
“It’s almost eleven o’clock at night,” he persists, rolling his eyes in mock exasperation, “There’s not a restaurant open this late.”
“We’ll go to a movie then,” I suggest wildly, determined to take him out. I roll off of him and begin tugging at his arms. “I won’t take no for an answer.”
My behavior must seem extraordinarily antsy to him but I can hardly help it. I’ve been sitting on pins and needles waiting for him to come home all night. No particular reason either other than the intense need I seem to have just to be near him. It’s strange because I can’t really remember feeling this way before. I must have. There must have been some point in our marriage where I found myself pacing anxiously, watching the door and waiting for Max to come home. However, I can’t seem to call one single instance to mind. I can’t recall one single time when I waited for Max with girlish anxiety, my heart pumping like a marathon runner, not even in the beginning when I believed myself head over heels.
It’s only now, in hindsight, that I realize that I didn’t have the first clue what love was, that I had never even known it. Ten years ago I had been dazzled by Max’s wealth, his charm, his beauty. I had seen this wounded man and I made it my mission in life to heal him. Never had I taken the time to see him for who he really was. An emotional weakling, an issue-ridden individual who was more in need of a therapist than a wife. But I’d been a foolish idiot in those days, thinking that I could change him somehow. My love would change him. I hadn’t realized that Max had never wanted to change.
This time is different. There is nothing for me to heal. The man before me now is whole and confident and unselfishly loving. Whereas once he had been greedy to take love but stingy to return it before, now he gives love without reservation expecting nothing for himself in return. I didn’t have this tremendous weight of expectation on my shoulders when I was with him. Max wasn’t counting on me to be his savior or anchor. He only wanted to be my friend and have my friendship in return. So simple. No wonder it had been so very easy to fall in love with him, but this time really fall.
I manage to tug him from the sofa though he’s reluctant to move. “We could see a movie,” I suggest with a wheedling smile. “How about Chicago?”
Max scrunches up his face in distaste. “A musical,” he balks, “No thank you. If we go to the movies I definitely want to see Biker Boyz. It’s got that Brendan Fehr actor in it, you know, the one who looks like Michael?”
“You want to see a movie with an actor who looks like Michael?” I reply blandly, “Is that what you’re telling me?”
Max only shrugs. “He said it was good.”
“This from the guy who belched the tune to the Star Spangled Banner at the dinner table last week,” I remind Max sarcastically. Since he and Maria started dating I’ve had Michael over for dinner at least a dozen times. The more I see him the more certain I become that he and my sister are perfect for one another. “Come on, Max,” I wheedle, “Do you really want to see Biker Boyz?”
“Do you really want to see Chicago?” he counters dryly. I suppose that some things never do change. Max and I couldn’t agree about movies before his shooting either. I emit a disappointed groan. “But I really wanted to take you out to celebrate.”
“Just being with you is celebration enough,” he whispers right before settling his lips against mine. We’ve become quite proficient at kissing in the past two months. Max has turned the intimacy into an art form. He doesn’t just kiss my lips but he worships them. He settles his hand in the small of my back and pulls me closer as his my gently plunders mine. The kiss is a masterpiece of nibbles and tongue and fluid strokes.
I lose myself in his kisses, lose time, lose space. There’s only one center, one focal point of my awareness and it is zeroed on Max completely and the sweet sexiness of his kiss. However, when I wrap my arms around him in order to fit my body more closely to his, he pulls away, his breathing ragged and uneven. “I think that’s enough for now,” he whispers, smiling at me.
I smile back, but it’s to mask the frustration that’s beginning to roll and bubble within me. The intimacy between us never escalates further than those fiery kisses. Whenever I try to take it further Max will always invariably pull back. What I can’t understand is why. Before I had been willing to accept his excuse that he needed to know me better and that I needed to know him. I gladly gave him his space. However, he can no longer use that as an excuse anymore.
Very gradually over the last two months I have been getting to know Max even better while acquainting him with the man he used to be. I didn’t tell him the extent of it, the infidelity, the cold silences, but I did confess to him that we had fallen out of love with one another and on our way to divorce. That truth had rocked him, as expected, especially because he couldn’t reconcile how we could have been so far apart then but so close now. I gave him the time he needed to sort out his confusion and it had taken a while. He had numerous questions about how he and I had reached that point and I answered them all truthfully. But with each new revelation I could see Max liking the person he had been less and less and shame gradually shadow his eyes.
However, when he began isolating himself from the family I knew that it was time to set him straight on a few matters. First I had to make it absolutely clear to him that I was not holding a grudge against him for past misdeeds, neither did I hold him responsible. As far as I was concerned the Max Evans pre-shooting and the Max Evans post-shooting were two different men. I told Max that he had to realize that as well.
It took some time, but I really believed that he came to term with the things I’d revealed to him. Our relationship definitely deepened in the aftermath, almost as if Max were trying to make up for those old hurts and mistakes. But despite our growing closeness the intimacy between us seemed to be at a standstill. Max would allow me to kiss him and would kiss me back, but it was apparent he didn’t want to go further. I haven’t allowed myself to wonder why before this point. Now, however, I do.
I close the distance between us, sliding my palms up the hard expanse of his chest. “Why is it enough, Max?” I ask in a sultry whisper. He’s uncomfortable with my proximity I can tell, but when he tries to sidestep me I won’t allow it. Instead I take hold of his hand and lay it against my breast, right above my thumping heart. Max gulps audibly at my boldness. “Can you feel how fast my heart is beating, Max?” I whisper, “Don’t you know how much I want you?”
“Liz…”
“Don’t you want to touch me, Max?” I coax. I don’t wait for his reply, but guide his palm down the slope of my breast, past the rigid hardness of my nipple. Of his own accord Max feathers the aroused peak with his fingertips. “God, that feels so good…” I moan into his throat. I nibble against his skin, touch my tongue to the pulse at the base of his throat. His breathing becomes shallow and serrated. My knees nearly buckle when he finally gives in, sliding his palms upward to cup my breasts, kneading them firmly.
And then we’re kissing again, taken up in the fire that has ignited between us. His hands are suddenly everywhere. My breasts, my back, my shoulders. They float over my body with hungry urgency, demanding, desperate… I walk Max back up against the sofa, my intent to have him right then, right there.
He tears away from me at just the last second so that I tumble onto the sofa. I actually growl into the cushions before flipping over to face him. “What is the matter with you?” I groan in exasperation.
“You’re going too fast!” he accuses me hotly.
“Going too fast,” I guffaw, “Max, we’ve done nothing but kiss for the last two months! And you think I’m going too fast?” I have to snort at this point. At the moment, I’m so sexually frustrated I could jump him right this second despite his protestations. I fist my hands into a nearby pillow, trying desperately to regain my composure. Finally, when my breathing is somewhat even I say, “We can’t continue on like this.”
“You said you’d wait for me,” he pouts.
“And I have waited, Max,” I reply sharply, “And waited and waited and waited so more. How long am I supposed to wait?”
“I just want to--,”
“You just want to what, Max?” I snap furiously, “You can’t have it both ways, you know. You can’t keep insisting on kissing me and then just pull back and end it when it starts to be too much. Either you give yourself completely or don’t bother.” I can’t believe I’m saying these things to him, but the words are flying out of my mouth seemingly on their own. There’s no excuse, but he’s been pushing me away for so very long and finally I’ve had all I can stand. “You run hot and cold with me, Max!” I accuse him fiercely, “You need to decide whether you want me or not.”
“I do want you, Liz,” Max protests. My outburst has shaken him. He looks torn between bolting right there on the spot and falling at my feet and begging for forgiveness. His expression is almost enough to make me feel guilty. Almost.
“If it’s true that you want me, then why do you keep pulling away?” I counter stiffly.
Max drags a shaky hand down his face. It’s then I realize that his entire body is trembling. He stumbles over for a chair and sits. “Alright, I’m just going to come out and say it,” he announces softly, his head bent towards the floor, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, okay! That’s why I keep stopping you.”
Of all the explanations I expected that one had never entered my mind. I am flabbergasted….as well as disgusted with myself because I’ve made him feel so terrible, because I forced him to admit something he is evidently embarrassed about. “You don’t know what you’re supposed to do?” I repeat carefully.
He answered with a slight shake of his hand. Staring down at his hands, he says, “I’ve thought about going to the library to check out a book about it, but I’ve just been too embarrassed.”
“Why would you need a book, Max?” I ask gently. All the anger and frustration is spent, evaporated as if it had never existed and replaced with something else, something tender and blooming. As I stare at his bent head, noting how his hair grew in that beautiful swirl pattern I recognize the sensation for what it is. Love. I’m so in love with this man before me. In love with his smile, his words, his gentleness, his genuine yearning to please me. I’ve never known anyone like him in my entire life. It’s like God took away my husband only to replace him with an angel. An angel who adores me. I feel humbled by the knowledge.
Finally, he lifts a golden gaze swimming with uncertainty to my face. “I don’t know how to make you feel good, Liz,” he utters miserably.
And I can’t resist anymore. I rise from the sofa to go and kneel before him, taking his hands in my own, meeting his gaze steadily. “You always make me feel good, Max. Always.”
“But I don’t know anything about how to make love, Liz,” he whispers. Max tries to avert his gaze from mine but I won’t let him. The conversation is making him tense and uncomfortable, but we need to have it, we need to eradicate this last barrier between us. “Please,” he pleads desperately, “Please don’t make me do this, Liz… I don’t know how to be a lover.”
I capture his face in my hands and brush his lips with mine. “You’re a wonderful lover,” I assure him.
“I won’t be like before, don’t you see?” he agonizes, “What if…what if you’re disappointed?”
“You’ve never disappointed me once in the entire time I’ve known you, Max,” I tell him sincerely, “Lovemaking won’t be any different.”
Regarding Max (M/L, Adult) (Complete)
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Deejonaise
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Deejonaise
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Chapter 21
I am thoroughly engrossed in the book Sex and Marriage: Tips on How to Make Your Marriage Bed Sizzle when a box comes flying at me unexpectedly, bouncing against my hand before flopping to the bed. I literally yelp in surprise. At the moment my mind is considering the numerous sexual positions being suggested for maximum pleasure so you can well imagine the guilty flush that stains my cheeks when I look up to find Maria smiling at me from the doorway. That’s when I glance down at the box.
My sister has thrown an economy pack of Trojan lubricated condoms at me. Okay. I don‘t know how to respond at all. My bugging eyes ricochet back to the doorway where Maria is leaning nonchalantly against the frame, her generous lips curved into a knowing smirk. Reflexively, I shove my book beneath the covers before she can catch a glimpse of the title and lay into me about that as well. Fortunately she doesn’t pay any attention to the book, she‘s already got enough to tease me about apparently.
“I thought those might come in handy for ya,” she declares smugly, nodding towards the box, which is only an inch from my hip.
I snatch up the prophylactics and glare at her. “You’re giving me condoms?” I gasp out, “What makes you think I would need condoms?”
She only shrugs, as irreverent as ever. “Well, considering the conversation I overheard last night not to mention all the heavy moaning and groaning that followed I figured I needed to work fast. You know what they say, sis…no latex, no love.” I roll my eyes as if to say, “oh brother,” but Maria only grins. “You know I’m telling the truth.”
“You’re sick,” I throw out inanely, pitching the box back at her, but Maria sidesteps it pretty easily and it thumps against the wall before bouncing to the floor. I hardly notice I’m so mortified. “You conniving little snoop,” I accuse her in disbelief, “I can’t believe you were eavesdropping on us!”
Maria rolls her eyes as she bends to retrieve the condoms. “Oh, please,” she snorts, throwing the box right back at me, “You were hardly being discreet. I could hear you both moaning all the way in my bedroom. It’s a miracle you didn’t wake the entire house! Besides I left when it got hot and heavy…no way was I sticking around to watch Max feel you up.”
“You’re completely disgusting,” I reply tightly.
“I’m disgusting?” she retorts with a laugh, “I’m not the one who was dry humping my hubby on the sofa last night.”
By this point I’m beyond mortified. Any lingering afterglow I feel over making out with Max on the sofa has been thoroughly dispelled in response to Maria’s crudity. How does she manage to make something so romantic, so sexy, so provocative seem dirty? Sometimes Maria can just be exasperating beyond measure. I swear if she weren’t my sister I wouldn’t have anything to do with her at all. She’s unapologetically obnoxious. I shake the box of condoms at her. “You’ve obviously done what you came here for, Maria,” I spit out in annoyance, “Now you can leave!”
“Look don’t get your panties all twisted, okay,” she retorts, actually indignant, “I just wanted to come by and tell you that it’s okay with me.” She gives me the thumbs up sign. “Rock on, sister-dear!”
She has to be annoying me on purpose. No one can be this obtuse in real life. But as I look at Maria I can see that, beyond her teasing demeanor, she’s being perfectly genuine. I can’t begin to describe how scary I find this fact. Knowing I will probably regret the decision I ask in exasperation, “You’re okay with what exactly?”
“You and Max fucking, hitting the sheets, knocking da boots, doing the wild monkey dance…whatever you want to call it,” she clarifies blithely, “Personally I think you’ve waited way too long to get yourself some action. God knows it would have done wonders for your disposition.”
My mouth literally falls open at this point. I have no idea why I’m shocked, as I should have come to expect this sort of thing from Maria all the time. Still, she manages to top herself every single time. Nothing about my sister is subtle. She’s loud, she’s crass and she makes absolutely no excuse for it. I guess I shouldn’t expect her to either, but for once it would be so nice if she acted like a normal grown-up. “Okay, Maria…you’re obviously determined to express your opinion about this…even though it‘s none of your business,” I intone stiffly, “So go right ahead.”
Maria seems not to notice the sarcastic edge to my tone. She flounces into my room and sprawls across the bed as if we‘re about to have a sisterly heart to heart. Propping herself up on her elbow she confides in a low whisper, “All I’m saying is that I think it’s a good thing that you and Max are finally healing and moving on.” Her expression softens almost lovingly. “It’s nice to see you smiling for a change.”
I’m gaping again. Just when I think I’ve got her figured out she flips completely, leaving me in the dark once more. Evidently, my sister’s bag of surprises is far from empty. I tap my fingers against both my ears. “I’m sorry…would you care to repeat that?” This is a complete 180 for Maria, an absolute attitude reversal. Not six months ago she had been adamantly against me even helping Max with his recovery and now she’s glad we’re moving on together. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth or anything, but what the fu--? And what makes the entire experience even more unbelievable is that she actually appears sincere. No, I can‘t have heard her correctly. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say blandly in response.
Maria chuckles a bit at my tone. “I know I’ve given you a hard time--,”
“Given me a hard time?” I interrupt with a snort, “Giving me a hard time doesn’t even begin to cover it, Maria!” And it didn’t. She and Mom rode my back for months, everyday dishing out a dose of browbeating with breakfast, lunch and dinner. Finally, my mother fell off, only because I had threatened never to see her again if she didn’t. However, that didn’t prevent the disapproving grunts and sighs she was more than happy to emit when she came to visit Katie. Maria, on the other hand, had been curiously silent in the last couple of months. I thought it was maybe because she feared I would kick her out if she kept at me, but now I can’t help but reassess my assumption. “Since when did you become Max’s biggest supporter?” I ask her carefully.
“Since I saw how happy he makes you,” Maria responds simply.
I have nothing to say in response to that. Maria is sounding curiously wise at this moment. The change is so unexpected, so unbelievable that I’m left speechless. I almost feel as if she‘s morphed into a completely different person. The process is happening right before my eyes. I cough out a stunned laugh. “You’re absolutely serious, aren’t you?” I murmur aloud in surprise, “I can’t believe you’re actually saying these things to me right now.”
Maria offers a noncommittal shrug with no apparent intention of going into details. “Neither can I,” she quips, “There was a time when I would have cut out my tongue rather than encourage you to stay with Max Evans.”
“And what suddenly changed?” I demand quietly.
“He did,” she replies simply, tracing small circles in the comforter, “He‘s nothing at all like he was before. Anyone can see that he totally adores you.”
“Even you?” I prompt, “Can you see it?”
At my question Maria pushes herself upright so that her green eyes are locked with mine when she answers. “Look, Lizzie, I won’t lie to you,” she begins solemnly, “Before his accident Max was no good for you. I still stand by that. I’ve dated enough losers in my life to spot a dud within a one-mile radius. Max, the way he was then, he would have never made you happy. He wanted someone to take care of him instead it being the other way around. That‘s not a man, honey.”
“Maria, come on-,” I start to argue but she cuts me off again.
“Liz, don’t make excuses,” she orders sharply, “Max didn’t take care of his business…not with you and not with Katie, alright.”
“And now,” I ask, completely astounded by the depth of Maria’s profundity. I can’t believe she’s hidden so much beneath the surface. I would have never imagined she possessed such an understanding for people. Outside she had always seemed so frivolous and irresponsible. I hadn’t thought she contained much substance at all. But I was coming to realize that I didn’t know Maria quite as well as I thought I did…just like I’m learning that I hadn’t known Max either. “Now what do you think of Max?” I add in a tentative whisper, “Do you think he‘s ‘taking care of business’ now?”
Maria doesn’t even need a moment to think. She answers almost immediately. “I think he wants to take care of you this time around,” she says sagely, “Despite all his limitations he’s pushed himself to be the best he can because he doesn’t want you to have to take care of him. Look how hard he worked to learn to read and write and what he did to get his job at the UFO Center. It’s crap pay, but still he did it on his own…I respect that. He wants to take care of you now…and that definitely wasn’t the case with the way he used to be.”
“You don’t think Max took care of me?” I demand with a frown of surprise, “He’s the one who bought this house, Maria. I was able to quit my job and stay home with Katie because of him, not to mention the wonderful job he did of caring for our finances… That’s the only reason we didn’t go under after he was shot. We never wanted for anything.”
“Don’t you even hear yourself, Lizzie?” Maria scoffs, giving her blond head a defiant toss, “You’re talking about all the wonderful ways Max took care of you financially, but you never once focus on the fact that he left you emotionally high and dry.”
I can’t argue with her there. Even when Max and I had been dating his problems had always taken precedence over mine. I had a neurotic mother and an equally neurotic half sister, but I could never talk to Max about my family woes. His problems were always bigger, more substantial. After all, he had grown up without the supervision of his parents or even their presence. They had been absent from every major milestone in his life. Max had always made me feel, though not purposely I suspect, that no misunderstanding or disagreement I had with my mother or sister could compare to his troubles. Consequently, I served as a sounding board for Max’s frustrations while I had none for myself.
At the time it had made sense to me. Of course, my issues didn’t compare with the things Max had suffered. He had spent his entire life unsure of his parents’ love for him, caught between wanting to please them and wanting to forget them completely. None of the petty arguments I had with my mother and Maria seemed to compare to that. However, now with Maria confronting me this way I can finally see things from a whole different perspective. My problems didn’t have to equal Max’s in magnitude in order to be equally valid. But somehow, during our relationship, my insecurities and pain had been invalidated, whether intentionally or not. It was little wonder that Max had no respect for me…I had allowed him to devalue my feelings for most of our courtship. I had devalued myself…
When I look at Maria again it is with new eyes of truth and clarity and she can see it. “Now do you understand why I was always on your case about staying with him?” she asks me softly, “It wasn’t because I didn’t want you to be happy and it wasn’t because I was jealous…I just knew he didn’t deserve you.”
“All this time I believed you weren’t being fair to him…” I murmur absently.
Maria covers my hand with her own, giving my fingers a gentle squeeze. “I didn’t think he was a bad person, Lizzie,” she tells me tenderly, “I just thought he was bad for you.”
“Why are you telling me all this now?” I ask her, bewildered and emotional by this point. I don’t realize that I’m crying until Maria reaches forward and begins brushing the tears from my cheeks.
“I see the way he looks at you,” she says with a far-off smile, “The way he touches your hair when you’re sitting together…how he’s always aware of the slightest change in your mood…he’s in love with you, Liz.”
“No,” I protest hoarsely, shaking my head, “He’s never said--,”
“He doesn’t have to say,” she interjects before I can finish, “It’s written all over his face exactly how he feels about you. He‘s not concerned with hiding it.”
“Maria-,”
“I want you to be happy,” Maria plunges on, “You deserve it…so does Katie and, I think, so does Max.” Her attitude is just flooring me. I can only stutter her name in response. “Shush,” she orders me with a smile, “I know better than anyone how it feels for someone to hold you responsible for another person’s mistakes. I can see that Max has changed…I can see that he loves you.” She presses my face between her hands. “Go and grab happiness, Lizzie…grab it before it gets away.”
I am thoroughly engrossed in the book Sex and Marriage: Tips on How to Make Your Marriage Bed Sizzle when a box comes flying at me unexpectedly, bouncing against my hand before flopping to the bed. I literally yelp in surprise. At the moment my mind is considering the numerous sexual positions being suggested for maximum pleasure so you can well imagine the guilty flush that stains my cheeks when I look up to find Maria smiling at me from the doorway. That’s when I glance down at the box.
My sister has thrown an economy pack of Trojan lubricated condoms at me. Okay. I don‘t know how to respond at all. My bugging eyes ricochet back to the doorway where Maria is leaning nonchalantly against the frame, her generous lips curved into a knowing smirk. Reflexively, I shove my book beneath the covers before she can catch a glimpse of the title and lay into me about that as well. Fortunately she doesn’t pay any attention to the book, she‘s already got enough to tease me about apparently.
“I thought those might come in handy for ya,” she declares smugly, nodding towards the box, which is only an inch from my hip.
I snatch up the prophylactics and glare at her. “You’re giving me condoms?” I gasp out, “What makes you think I would need condoms?”
She only shrugs, as irreverent as ever. “Well, considering the conversation I overheard last night not to mention all the heavy moaning and groaning that followed I figured I needed to work fast. You know what they say, sis…no latex, no love.” I roll my eyes as if to say, “oh brother,” but Maria only grins. “You know I’m telling the truth.”
“You’re sick,” I throw out inanely, pitching the box back at her, but Maria sidesteps it pretty easily and it thumps against the wall before bouncing to the floor. I hardly notice I’m so mortified. “You conniving little snoop,” I accuse her in disbelief, “I can’t believe you were eavesdropping on us!”
Maria rolls her eyes as she bends to retrieve the condoms. “Oh, please,” she snorts, throwing the box right back at me, “You were hardly being discreet. I could hear you both moaning all the way in my bedroom. It’s a miracle you didn’t wake the entire house! Besides I left when it got hot and heavy…no way was I sticking around to watch Max feel you up.”
“You’re completely disgusting,” I reply tightly.
“I’m disgusting?” she retorts with a laugh, “I’m not the one who was dry humping my hubby on the sofa last night.”
By this point I’m beyond mortified. Any lingering afterglow I feel over making out with Max on the sofa has been thoroughly dispelled in response to Maria’s crudity. How does she manage to make something so romantic, so sexy, so provocative seem dirty? Sometimes Maria can just be exasperating beyond measure. I swear if she weren’t my sister I wouldn’t have anything to do with her at all. She’s unapologetically obnoxious. I shake the box of condoms at her. “You’ve obviously done what you came here for, Maria,” I spit out in annoyance, “Now you can leave!”
“Look don’t get your panties all twisted, okay,” she retorts, actually indignant, “I just wanted to come by and tell you that it’s okay with me.” She gives me the thumbs up sign. “Rock on, sister-dear!”
She has to be annoying me on purpose. No one can be this obtuse in real life. But as I look at Maria I can see that, beyond her teasing demeanor, she’s being perfectly genuine. I can’t begin to describe how scary I find this fact. Knowing I will probably regret the decision I ask in exasperation, “You’re okay with what exactly?”
“You and Max fucking, hitting the sheets, knocking da boots, doing the wild monkey dance…whatever you want to call it,” she clarifies blithely, “Personally I think you’ve waited way too long to get yourself some action. God knows it would have done wonders for your disposition.”
My mouth literally falls open at this point. I have no idea why I’m shocked, as I should have come to expect this sort of thing from Maria all the time. Still, she manages to top herself every single time. Nothing about my sister is subtle. She’s loud, she’s crass and she makes absolutely no excuse for it. I guess I shouldn’t expect her to either, but for once it would be so nice if she acted like a normal grown-up. “Okay, Maria…you’re obviously determined to express your opinion about this…even though it‘s none of your business,” I intone stiffly, “So go right ahead.”
Maria seems not to notice the sarcastic edge to my tone. She flounces into my room and sprawls across the bed as if we‘re about to have a sisterly heart to heart. Propping herself up on her elbow she confides in a low whisper, “All I’m saying is that I think it’s a good thing that you and Max are finally healing and moving on.” Her expression softens almost lovingly. “It’s nice to see you smiling for a change.”
I’m gaping again. Just when I think I’ve got her figured out she flips completely, leaving me in the dark once more. Evidently, my sister’s bag of surprises is far from empty. I tap my fingers against both my ears. “I’m sorry…would you care to repeat that?” This is a complete 180 for Maria, an absolute attitude reversal. Not six months ago she had been adamantly against me even helping Max with his recovery and now she’s glad we’re moving on together. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth or anything, but what the fu--? And what makes the entire experience even more unbelievable is that she actually appears sincere. No, I can‘t have heard her correctly. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say blandly in response.
Maria chuckles a bit at my tone. “I know I’ve given you a hard time--,”
“Given me a hard time?” I interrupt with a snort, “Giving me a hard time doesn’t even begin to cover it, Maria!” And it didn’t. She and Mom rode my back for months, everyday dishing out a dose of browbeating with breakfast, lunch and dinner. Finally, my mother fell off, only because I had threatened never to see her again if she didn’t. However, that didn’t prevent the disapproving grunts and sighs she was more than happy to emit when she came to visit Katie. Maria, on the other hand, had been curiously silent in the last couple of months. I thought it was maybe because she feared I would kick her out if she kept at me, but now I can’t help but reassess my assumption. “Since when did you become Max’s biggest supporter?” I ask her carefully.
“Since I saw how happy he makes you,” Maria responds simply.
I have nothing to say in response to that. Maria is sounding curiously wise at this moment. The change is so unexpected, so unbelievable that I’m left speechless. I almost feel as if she‘s morphed into a completely different person. The process is happening right before my eyes. I cough out a stunned laugh. “You’re absolutely serious, aren’t you?” I murmur aloud in surprise, “I can’t believe you’re actually saying these things to me right now.”
Maria offers a noncommittal shrug with no apparent intention of going into details. “Neither can I,” she quips, “There was a time when I would have cut out my tongue rather than encourage you to stay with Max Evans.”
“And what suddenly changed?” I demand quietly.
“He did,” she replies simply, tracing small circles in the comforter, “He‘s nothing at all like he was before. Anyone can see that he totally adores you.”
“Even you?” I prompt, “Can you see it?”
At my question Maria pushes herself upright so that her green eyes are locked with mine when she answers. “Look, Lizzie, I won’t lie to you,” she begins solemnly, “Before his accident Max was no good for you. I still stand by that. I’ve dated enough losers in my life to spot a dud within a one-mile radius. Max, the way he was then, he would have never made you happy. He wanted someone to take care of him instead it being the other way around. That‘s not a man, honey.”
“Maria, come on-,” I start to argue but she cuts me off again.
“Liz, don’t make excuses,” she orders sharply, “Max didn’t take care of his business…not with you and not with Katie, alright.”
“And now,” I ask, completely astounded by the depth of Maria’s profundity. I can’t believe she’s hidden so much beneath the surface. I would have never imagined she possessed such an understanding for people. Outside she had always seemed so frivolous and irresponsible. I hadn’t thought she contained much substance at all. But I was coming to realize that I didn’t know Maria quite as well as I thought I did…just like I’m learning that I hadn’t known Max either. “Now what do you think of Max?” I add in a tentative whisper, “Do you think he‘s ‘taking care of business’ now?”
Maria doesn’t even need a moment to think. She answers almost immediately. “I think he wants to take care of you this time around,” she says sagely, “Despite all his limitations he’s pushed himself to be the best he can because he doesn’t want you to have to take care of him. Look how hard he worked to learn to read and write and what he did to get his job at the UFO Center. It’s crap pay, but still he did it on his own…I respect that. He wants to take care of you now…and that definitely wasn’t the case with the way he used to be.”
“You don’t think Max took care of me?” I demand with a frown of surprise, “He’s the one who bought this house, Maria. I was able to quit my job and stay home with Katie because of him, not to mention the wonderful job he did of caring for our finances… That’s the only reason we didn’t go under after he was shot. We never wanted for anything.”
“Don’t you even hear yourself, Lizzie?” Maria scoffs, giving her blond head a defiant toss, “You’re talking about all the wonderful ways Max took care of you financially, but you never once focus on the fact that he left you emotionally high and dry.”
I can’t argue with her there. Even when Max and I had been dating his problems had always taken precedence over mine. I had a neurotic mother and an equally neurotic half sister, but I could never talk to Max about my family woes. His problems were always bigger, more substantial. After all, he had grown up without the supervision of his parents or even their presence. They had been absent from every major milestone in his life. Max had always made me feel, though not purposely I suspect, that no misunderstanding or disagreement I had with my mother or sister could compare to his troubles. Consequently, I served as a sounding board for Max’s frustrations while I had none for myself.
At the time it had made sense to me. Of course, my issues didn’t compare with the things Max had suffered. He had spent his entire life unsure of his parents’ love for him, caught between wanting to please them and wanting to forget them completely. None of the petty arguments I had with my mother and Maria seemed to compare to that. However, now with Maria confronting me this way I can finally see things from a whole different perspective. My problems didn’t have to equal Max’s in magnitude in order to be equally valid. But somehow, during our relationship, my insecurities and pain had been invalidated, whether intentionally or not. It was little wonder that Max had no respect for me…I had allowed him to devalue my feelings for most of our courtship. I had devalued myself…
When I look at Maria again it is with new eyes of truth and clarity and she can see it. “Now do you understand why I was always on your case about staying with him?” she asks me softly, “It wasn’t because I didn’t want you to be happy and it wasn’t because I was jealous…I just knew he didn’t deserve you.”
“All this time I believed you weren’t being fair to him…” I murmur absently.
Maria covers my hand with her own, giving my fingers a gentle squeeze. “I didn’t think he was a bad person, Lizzie,” she tells me tenderly, “I just thought he was bad for you.”
“Why are you telling me all this now?” I ask her, bewildered and emotional by this point. I don’t realize that I’m crying until Maria reaches forward and begins brushing the tears from my cheeks.
“I see the way he looks at you,” she says with a far-off smile, “The way he touches your hair when you’re sitting together…how he’s always aware of the slightest change in your mood…he’s in love with you, Liz.”
“No,” I protest hoarsely, shaking my head, “He’s never said--,”
“He doesn’t have to say,” she interjects before I can finish, “It’s written all over his face exactly how he feels about you. He‘s not concerned with hiding it.”
“Maria-,”
“I want you to be happy,” Maria plunges on, “You deserve it…so does Katie and, I think, so does Max.” Her attitude is just flooring me. I can only stutter her name in response. “Shush,” she orders me with a smile, “I know better than anyone how it feels for someone to hold you responsible for another person’s mistakes. I can see that Max has changed…I can see that he loves you.” She presses my face between her hands. “Go and grab happiness, Lizzie…grab it before it gets away.”
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Deejonaise
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Chapter 22
“…so I was a jerk, huh?”
I come to a stop in the hallway as Max and Katie’s conversation floats over to me. They are sprawled out together in the living room, coloring together like two school friends. My chest aches to see their identical dark heads leaned in close together as they carry on in whispered conversation. I’ve only just happened on the tail end of it, but I get the feeling that what they’re talking about is really important. As a result, I hold myself back and don’t announce my presence right away. I feel to do so would be intruding on a private moment between them. And so I hang out in the hallway and listen to their exchange with an affectionate smile.
“Well, not that big of a jerk,” I hear Katie answer uneasily in response to Max’s earlier question.
Max pauses in coloring to regard his daughter speculatively. “Did you like me?” he asks her pointedly. Now I’m wondering just what I’ve managed to stumble in on. I can’t be entirely certain about what’s going on in Max’s mind right now. He’s done a rather stellar job of avoiding me for the better part of the day. Not that his silence has been cold or indifferent. He’s smiled and waved at me all day even while he continues to dance out of my presence. It’s as if he senses my plans for him tonight, as if he knows, without my saying a word, that I’m not waiting a second longer.
I am shaken from my carnal thoughts when Katie sets aside her crayon and leans back to survey her father with an uneasy look. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about this, Dad.” Her beleaguered tone makes me think that he’s been questioning her about this for some time now. “I already told you…you were okay sometimes.”
Max sits back as well, his face determined, but gentle. “Please, Katie…” he insists so softly that I can barely hear him, “I need to know…how did I treat you…how did I treat Liz, I mean your mom? Was I a good dad and husband or did I suck?”
I hold my breath at his question. I’ve held nothing back when he questions our past together, but I’ve refrained from giving him the painful details. I didn’t see what good it could possibly do to give him all the gory particulars. I know how sensitive Max can be. It would destroy him to know how emotionally neglectful he’d been of Katie and me, not to mention the frosty wasteland our married life had become. But obviously Max wants to know these things. I feel somewhat guilty that he ultimately has to turn to Katie to get the complete truth, but even then I’m half hoping that she won’t give it to him either. I should have known better.
Katie hangs her head. I can hear his sigh of resignation even through the distance between us. “Yeah…you kinda sucked. Sometimes you made Mommy cry…” she finally admits in a small voice, “…you made me cry, too.” Just as I expected Max looks absolutely devastated by the admission. His expression says that he expected something along those lines, but it’s obvious that the truth hurts him. He emits a strangled cry at her confession, almost as if he were about to cry. It breaks my heart to see him in pain and I start to go to him right then, but Katie beats me to it. She wraps her tiny arms around her father’s shoulders and hugs him tight. “Don’t feel bad, Daddy…you haven’t made us cry in a really, really long time now. You’re really a lot better than you used to be. And besides Mommy says we should leave the past in the past.” I smile to myself when I hear her words. It’s comforting to know not everything I say to her goes in one ear and out the other.
“But aren’t you mad at me because…because I made you cry?” Max asks her hoarsely.
I hold my breath in anticipation of her answer but Katie doesn‘t disappoint me at all. “At first I was,” Katie confesses in a whisper, “I was so mad at you for making Mommy unhappy that…that I wasn’t sure I wanted you to come home. And then I met you again and you were like this different person, this really nice person and I wasn’t mad anymore.” That’s my daughter; she can tell the brutal truth and smooth over the pain all in one fluid motion.
Max frames her small face in his hands and offers her a tremulous smile. “You mean you don’t hate me?” Katie manages to shake her head despite the confinement. Max hugs her against him in an embrace that looks rib crushing. “I promise I’ll make it up to you,” he vows solemnly, “You’re the very best daughter I could ever have.” He’s just lost in the hug, rocking her against him and squeezing her tight, but I can see it’s becoming too much for Katie. I have to swallow back my laughter as she squirms in Max’s impervious embrace.
“Dad, Dad,” Katie bleats, “I…can’t…breathe.”
Max releases her immediately. “Sorry,” he says with a contrite smile. He beams at her proudly. “I guess we can color now.”
I make my entrance just as they are sprawling onto their bellies once more. Katie barely flicks me with a glance. “Oh, hey Mom,” she greets absently, engrossed in coloring her picture of Arielle the Little Mermaid. In contrast, however, I have Max’s undivided attention. He is staring at me, mesmerized, watching my every movement as I advance closer. I imagine that our expressions mirror one another perfectly at that moment.
“Having a good time?” I inquire, folding myself down beside him.
“Katie got a new coloring book,” he explains lamely, “She was sharing with me.”
I bite my lip to keep from smiling. “So I see,” I comment neutrally, passing a casual glance over his artwork before lifting my eyes back to his, “I haven’t seen you around much today.”
Max quickly averts his eyes, plainly guilty. “I’ve…I’ve been really busy,” he stammers.
“Too busy to talk to me?” I inquire.
His anxious eyes zigzag back to my face, wide and dismayed. “No!” he exclaims vehemently, “I’m never too busy for that. That’s not it at all, Liz.”
“You just didn’t feel like my company?” I prod further.
Max shakes his head miserably. “That’s not it either.”
“Well, do you have a minute now?” I ask him.
I watch as he wages an internal struggle, caught between the desire to go with me and the wisdom of staying behind. He knows I’m up to no good. Somehow he knows that once I get him out of this room I have very wicked plans for him. The man is much too perceptive. Finally, after a few moments of silence, he whispers tentatively, “I have a minute, I guess.”
I smile at him, expelling the tense breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. “Come on, then,” I invite softly, enfolding his hand in my own and pulling him to his feet, “Katie, I’m gonna borrow your dad for a while.”
“Okay,” Katie says, finally lifting her eyes from her coloring book, “Just don’t keep him a long time.”
“It might be a minute,” I warn her with a secret smile. My daughter actually has the nerve to roll her eyes in exasperation.
“He’s supposed to do a puzzle with me tonight after dinner,” she says blithely, “Will you be done with him by then?”
Katie might be ignorant to my double entendres but Max definitely is not. Aware that he is fidgeting beside me blushing fifteen different shades of pink and red, I reply mildly to Katie, “I should be done with him then…but I’ll need him back afterwards.” I then take hold of Max’s hand and begin leading him towards the hallway. “Where are we going?” he asks when I drag him past his bedroom door.
I toss a look at him over my shoulder. “My room.”
Max stops cold, planting his feet in the carpet and refusing to budge. “Your room,” he repeats blankly, “We‘re going to your room?”
I swivel around slowly to face him, a slow, provocative smile curving my lips. “Yes,” I confirm, “my room.”
“Wh…Why?” Max stutters nervously.
I don‘t play coy at all. Lowering my eyes, I rub up against him, pressing my body to his, chest to chest, hip to hip. It’s peculiar, but his innocence, his very shyness is what I find so incredibly sexy. The more nervous he is the more turned on I am. But in spite of his obvious nervousness, his uncertainty it is apparent that he wants me. His arousal presses into me boldly as I rub up against him. “We need to finish what we started on the sofa last night,” I say in a sultry whisper.
We came so close the other night. Maria wasn’t at all exaggerating when she talked about us going hot and heavy. After I had reassured him that he would make an excellent lover we kissed again, only that time our kiss went further than ever before. We ended on the sofa once again, undulating, grinding, our hands racing over one another in desperate urgency. Max bared my breasts to his hungry eyes, worshiping them with his hands and tongue. Our hands weren’t halted by the barrier of clothing. That night nothing could stop us from sampling each other’s naked skin. We had been lost in a sensual world of our own making, surfacing only when Max’s hot seed spilled over the back of my fingers.
He had pulled away then, overwhelmed by the force and suddenness of his orgasm. I think he was embarrassed to have lost control the way he had. So the fact that he’s avoided me for the better part of the day isn’t all that surprising. I can‘t bring myself to regret it all that much. Though I did miss his company, I was able to have a rather edifying conversation with my sister because of it. However, now, this avoidance dance he’s been doing has to end. It’s my turn to choose the tune.
I nudge my hips against his once again. “There’s something I want to show you…” I murmur in a rush of breath.
Max swallows audibly. “In…in your room?” he stutters out in question. My smile widens further and I answer him with an emphatic, deliberate nod. But when I take his hold of his hand again he still refuses to be budged. “Liz…Liz, wait!” I finally pause because I can sense the genuine panic in his tone.
I look up at him quizzically, falling into his beauty, his warmth, his boyish uncertainty. It’s near impossible to resist this man. He’s so mouthwatering, both inside and out. I still not entirely certain that he’s not an angel…heaven knows he’s perfect enough.
I reach up to smooth my fingers down his cheekbones, over his eyes, the perfect ridge of his brow line. “Max, are you afraid of me?” I ask him in a breathy whisper.
He captures my hand to kiss my fingers lightly before answering. “No,” he says almost deliberately, “I’m not afraid of you.”
His breath stirs against my face as he whispers the words and he’s so close. His lips are mere inches from my own. I want so badly to taste him then, to touch him all over his body and show him, once and for all, how beautiful, how exquisite lovemaking can be. I nuzzle against his collarbone, suppressing a moaning shudder when I feel his lips moving through my hair in response. “Then what’s wrong, baby?” I implore softly, as I dart my tongue over his sweet, salty flesh, “Don’t you want me?”
He slides his lips further down my face in a nibbling path, tracing the rim of my ear with his tongue. “Yes,” he mutters right before plunging it inside, “Yes, I want you.”
I don’t know how I manage to keep standing at this point. My legs are jelly, barely holding me upright as he unleashes his tender assault on my ear, his hands massaging my shoulders in a provocative circular pattern, inching their way down the length of my spine. “Max, Max,” I gasp, tipping back my head to allow him the most access, “please don‘t stop.” He doesn’t disappoint me. He presses an openmouthed kiss to my throat and begins to suck.
“What if I do something wrong,” he murmurs against my flesh. How can he manage to be so unsure and so sexy all at the same time? “I’m so nervous, Liz.”
“Don’t be,” I whisper, lifting my head so I can stare into his fathomless honey brown eyes once more, “I won’t hurt you, Max.” I take his lips in another slow kiss, whispering into his mouth, “…unless you want me to.” He groans a laugh then and with no further encouragement Max presses me back against the wall, fitting his hips easily between my thighs and lifting me from the floor, as he plunders my mouth hungrily. My Max, shy, sexy introvert, is plunging his fingers into my hair, while his tongue works sensual magic, darting in and out of my mouth in quick forays. Max grinds his middle against me, pushing me higher and harder against the wall. I smile into his mouth. He may be innocent and shy, but there’s no way he doesn’t know what he wants. He’s making his desires abundantly clear right now.
Understandably, it takes a moment to dawn on me that we are in the middle of the hallway, making out for all to see. I come up for air then, smoothing my hands over his shoulders to hold him back. And that’s when I catch a glimpse of his eyes. They are wild, primitive, so dark with desire they are glittering. He gazes down at me in unadulterated need, his hips continuing to grind against me without being completely aware that he is. “Why did you stop me?” he asks in breathless surprise.
“Katie, could come by…” I say, trying to keep myself from falling into his eyes and kissing him all over again, “She could see. We should go…we should go to my room…”
He nods his agreement and allows me to slide down his body, past the rigid evidence of his desire. I nearly groan aloud from the contact. My body is literally humming with excited desire as I take his hand and begin leading him down the hallway towards my bedroom.
“…so I was a jerk, huh?”
I come to a stop in the hallway as Max and Katie’s conversation floats over to me. They are sprawled out together in the living room, coloring together like two school friends. My chest aches to see their identical dark heads leaned in close together as they carry on in whispered conversation. I’ve only just happened on the tail end of it, but I get the feeling that what they’re talking about is really important. As a result, I hold myself back and don’t announce my presence right away. I feel to do so would be intruding on a private moment between them. And so I hang out in the hallway and listen to their exchange with an affectionate smile.
“Well, not that big of a jerk,” I hear Katie answer uneasily in response to Max’s earlier question.
Max pauses in coloring to regard his daughter speculatively. “Did you like me?” he asks her pointedly. Now I’m wondering just what I’ve managed to stumble in on. I can’t be entirely certain about what’s going on in Max’s mind right now. He’s done a rather stellar job of avoiding me for the better part of the day. Not that his silence has been cold or indifferent. He’s smiled and waved at me all day even while he continues to dance out of my presence. It’s as if he senses my plans for him tonight, as if he knows, without my saying a word, that I’m not waiting a second longer.
I am shaken from my carnal thoughts when Katie sets aside her crayon and leans back to survey her father with an uneasy look. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about this, Dad.” Her beleaguered tone makes me think that he’s been questioning her about this for some time now. “I already told you…you were okay sometimes.”
Max sits back as well, his face determined, but gentle. “Please, Katie…” he insists so softly that I can barely hear him, “I need to know…how did I treat you…how did I treat Liz, I mean your mom? Was I a good dad and husband or did I suck?”
I hold my breath at his question. I’ve held nothing back when he questions our past together, but I’ve refrained from giving him the painful details. I didn’t see what good it could possibly do to give him all the gory particulars. I know how sensitive Max can be. It would destroy him to know how emotionally neglectful he’d been of Katie and me, not to mention the frosty wasteland our married life had become. But obviously Max wants to know these things. I feel somewhat guilty that he ultimately has to turn to Katie to get the complete truth, but even then I’m half hoping that she won’t give it to him either. I should have known better.
Katie hangs her head. I can hear his sigh of resignation even through the distance between us. “Yeah…you kinda sucked. Sometimes you made Mommy cry…” she finally admits in a small voice, “…you made me cry, too.” Just as I expected Max looks absolutely devastated by the admission. His expression says that he expected something along those lines, but it’s obvious that the truth hurts him. He emits a strangled cry at her confession, almost as if he were about to cry. It breaks my heart to see him in pain and I start to go to him right then, but Katie beats me to it. She wraps her tiny arms around her father’s shoulders and hugs him tight. “Don’t feel bad, Daddy…you haven’t made us cry in a really, really long time now. You’re really a lot better than you used to be. And besides Mommy says we should leave the past in the past.” I smile to myself when I hear her words. It’s comforting to know not everything I say to her goes in one ear and out the other.
“But aren’t you mad at me because…because I made you cry?” Max asks her hoarsely.
I hold my breath in anticipation of her answer but Katie doesn‘t disappoint me at all. “At first I was,” Katie confesses in a whisper, “I was so mad at you for making Mommy unhappy that…that I wasn’t sure I wanted you to come home. And then I met you again and you were like this different person, this really nice person and I wasn’t mad anymore.” That’s my daughter; she can tell the brutal truth and smooth over the pain all in one fluid motion.
Max frames her small face in his hands and offers her a tremulous smile. “You mean you don’t hate me?” Katie manages to shake her head despite the confinement. Max hugs her against him in an embrace that looks rib crushing. “I promise I’ll make it up to you,” he vows solemnly, “You’re the very best daughter I could ever have.” He’s just lost in the hug, rocking her against him and squeezing her tight, but I can see it’s becoming too much for Katie. I have to swallow back my laughter as she squirms in Max’s impervious embrace.
“Dad, Dad,” Katie bleats, “I…can’t…breathe.”
Max releases her immediately. “Sorry,” he says with a contrite smile. He beams at her proudly. “I guess we can color now.”
I make my entrance just as they are sprawling onto their bellies once more. Katie barely flicks me with a glance. “Oh, hey Mom,” she greets absently, engrossed in coloring her picture of Arielle the Little Mermaid. In contrast, however, I have Max’s undivided attention. He is staring at me, mesmerized, watching my every movement as I advance closer. I imagine that our expressions mirror one another perfectly at that moment.
“Having a good time?” I inquire, folding myself down beside him.
“Katie got a new coloring book,” he explains lamely, “She was sharing with me.”
I bite my lip to keep from smiling. “So I see,” I comment neutrally, passing a casual glance over his artwork before lifting my eyes back to his, “I haven’t seen you around much today.”
Max quickly averts his eyes, plainly guilty. “I’ve…I’ve been really busy,” he stammers.
“Too busy to talk to me?” I inquire.
His anxious eyes zigzag back to my face, wide and dismayed. “No!” he exclaims vehemently, “I’m never too busy for that. That’s not it at all, Liz.”
“You just didn’t feel like my company?” I prod further.
Max shakes his head miserably. “That’s not it either.”
“Well, do you have a minute now?” I ask him.
I watch as he wages an internal struggle, caught between the desire to go with me and the wisdom of staying behind. He knows I’m up to no good. Somehow he knows that once I get him out of this room I have very wicked plans for him. The man is much too perceptive. Finally, after a few moments of silence, he whispers tentatively, “I have a minute, I guess.”
I smile at him, expelling the tense breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. “Come on, then,” I invite softly, enfolding his hand in my own and pulling him to his feet, “Katie, I’m gonna borrow your dad for a while.”
“Okay,” Katie says, finally lifting her eyes from her coloring book, “Just don’t keep him a long time.”
“It might be a minute,” I warn her with a secret smile. My daughter actually has the nerve to roll her eyes in exasperation.
“He’s supposed to do a puzzle with me tonight after dinner,” she says blithely, “Will you be done with him by then?”
Katie might be ignorant to my double entendres but Max definitely is not. Aware that he is fidgeting beside me blushing fifteen different shades of pink and red, I reply mildly to Katie, “I should be done with him then…but I’ll need him back afterwards.” I then take hold of Max’s hand and begin leading him towards the hallway. “Where are we going?” he asks when I drag him past his bedroom door.
I toss a look at him over my shoulder. “My room.”
Max stops cold, planting his feet in the carpet and refusing to budge. “Your room,” he repeats blankly, “We‘re going to your room?”
I swivel around slowly to face him, a slow, provocative smile curving my lips. “Yes,” I confirm, “my room.”
“Wh…Why?” Max stutters nervously.
I don‘t play coy at all. Lowering my eyes, I rub up against him, pressing my body to his, chest to chest, hip to hip. It’s peculiar, but his innocence, his very shyness is what I find so incredibly sexy. The more nervous he is the more turned on I am. But in spite of his obvious nervousness, his uncertainty it is apparent that he wants me. His arousal presses into me boldly as I rub up against him. “We need to finish what we started on the sofa last night,” I say in a sultry whisper.
We came so close the other night. Maria wasn’t at all exaggerating when she talked about us going hot and heavy. After I had reassured him that he would make an excellent lover we kissed again, only that time our kiss went further than ever before. We ended on the sofa once again, undulating, grinding, our hands racing over one another in desperate urgency. Max bared my breasts to his hungry eyes, worshiping them with his hands and tongue. Our hands weren’t halted by the barrier of clothing. That night nothing could stop us from sampling each other’s naked skin. We had been lost in a sensual world of our own making, surfacing only when Max’s hot seed spilled over the back of my fingers.
He had pulled away then, overwhelmed by the force and suddenness of his orgasm. I think he was embarrassed to have lost control the way he had. So the fact that he’s avoided me for the better part of the day isn’t all that surprising. I can‘t bring myself to regret it all that much. Though I did miss his company, I was able to have a rather edifying conversation with my sister because of it. However, now, this avoidance dance he’s been doing has to end. It’s my turn to choose the tune.
I nudge my hips against his once again. “There’s something I want to show you…” I murmur in a rush of breath.
Max swallows audibly. “In…in your room?” he stutters out in question. My smile widens further and I answer him with an emphatic, deliberate nod. But when I take his hold of his hand again he still refuses to be budged. “Liz…Liz, wait!” I finally pause because I can sense the genuine panic in his tone.
I look up at him quizzically, falling into his beauty, his warmth, his boyish uncertainty. It’s near impossible to resist this man. He’s so mouthwatering, both inside and out. I still not entirely certain that he’s not an angel…heaven knows he’s perfect enough.
I reach up to smooth my fingers down his cheekbones, over his eyes, the perfect ridge of his brow line. “Max, are you afraid of me?” I ask him in a breathy whisper.
He captures my hand to kiss my fingers lightly before answering. “No,” he says almost deliberately, “I’m not afraid of you.”
His breath stirs against my face as he whispers the words and he’s so close. His lips are mere inches from my own. I want so badly to taste him then, to touch him all over his body and show him, once and for all, how beautiful, how exquisite lovemaking can be. I nuzzle against his collarbone, suppressing a moaning shudder when I feel his lips moving through my hair in response. “Then what’s wrong, baby?” I implore softly, as I dart my tongue over his sweet, salty flesh, “Don’t you want me?”
He slides his lips further down my face in a nibbling path, tracing the rim of my ear with his tongue. “Yes,” he mutters right before plunging it inside, “Yes, I want you.”
I don’t know how I manage to keep standing at this point. My legs are jelly, barely holding me upright as he unleashes his tender assault on my ear, his hands massaging my shoulders in a provocative circular pattern, inching their way down the length of my spine. “Max, Max,” I gasp, tipping back my head to allow him the most access, “please don‘t stop.” He doesn’t disappoint me. He presses an openmouthed kiss to my throat and begins to suck.
“What if I do something wrong,” he murmurs against my flesh. How can he manage to be so unsure and so sexy all at the same time? “I’m so nervous, Liz.”
“Don’t be,” I whisper, lifting my head so I can stare into his fathomless honey brown eyes once more, “I won’t hurt you, Max.” I take his lips in another slow kiss, whispering into his mouth, “…unless you want me to.” He groans a laugh then and with no further encouragement Max presses me back against the wall, fitting his hips easily between my thighs and lifting me from the floor, as he plunders my mouth hungrily. My Max, shy, sexy introvert, is plunging his fingers into my hair, while his tongue works sensual magic, darting in and out of my mouth in quick forays. Max grinds his middle against me, pushing me higher and harder against the wall. I smile into his mouth. He may be innocent and shy, but there’s no way he doesn’t know what he wants. He’s making his desires abundantly clear right now.
Understandably, it takes a moment to dawn on me that we are in the middle of the hallway, making out for all to see. I come up for air then, smoothing my hands over his shoulders to hold him back. And that’s when I catch a glimpse of his eyes. They are wild, primitive, so dark with desire they are glittering. He gazes down at me in unadulterated need, his hips continuing to grind against me without being completely aware that he is. “Why did you stop me?” he asks in breathless surprise.
“Katie, could come by…” I say, trying to keep myself from falling into his eyes and kissing him all over again, “She could see. We should go…we should go to my room…”
He nods his agreement and allows me to slide down his body, past the rigid evidence of his desire. I nearly groan aloud from the contact. My body is literally humming with excited desire as I take his hand and begin leading him down the hallway towards my bedroom.
-
Deejonaise
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 385
- Joined: Thu Feb 28, 2002 12:48 am
- Location: On my rusty dusty...
Chapter 23
Max closes and locks my bedroom door with a definitive click before finally turning to face me again. He leans back against the door, a sexy half-smile playing at the corners of his mouth and then deliberately crooks his index finger at me. “Come here,” he bids softly. I feel like a puppet, drifting to him on an invisible string. I’m so lost in his eyes right now that his newfound boldness doesn’t even register until he’s pressing his lips against mine.
His kiss begins gentle, almost wispy, not really kissing at all, but an exchange of breath. Still, it’s enough to make my heart beat a crazy tattoo. I slide my hands up between our bodies and splay my fingers wide over the hard expanse of his chest and that’s all it takes. He opens his mouth wide and I’m sucked into a vortex of sensation. It’s almost as if he’s worshiping my mouth right now. His tongue does this expert dance within my mouth that is both maddening and beautiful. It isn’t crude or sloppy, but a gentle dipping, a scooping as he delves in to taste me again and again.
I’m clinging to his shirt now, my fists like tight, desperate vises around the material. That’s the only thing keeping me on my feet right now. That and the fact his hands are tunneled into my hair, holding my face captive as he kisses me into near breathlessness. I’m so lost in his tongue, his touch, his tempting web of innocent seduction that I don’t realize he’s walking me into the bed until I feel the mattress bump against the back of my knees.
Only then do we come up for air, our breathing escaping us in harsh, shallow pants, mingling together. My eyes meet his in what seems to be a cataclysmic moment. Something has changed in Max during the moments we were kissing. No longer are his eyes uncertain and wary, but they are now full of hungry appeal, darkened with knowing desire. Somehow, in those shattering few seconds, Max has become the aggressor and I have become the seduced.
I barely have time to puzzle over how that came about because his fingers are already fluttering to the silk covered buttons at the top of my blouse. I glance down at his fingers in surprise before lifting my eyes to his. His gaze is unwavering and intense as he asks, so softly I almost can’t hear him, “Can I?”
A simple yes would have sufficed but I go him one better. Instead, I back away from him and lay myself out across the bed, crooking one finger, as he did to me earlier, in invitation to join me. He does so deliberately, bracing one knee on the bed and slowly climbing up over my body. Only when he is hovering over me completely does he lower himself down against my side. Our lips find each other in another searching kiss and I turn my body into his, fitting myself against his hard contours.
His hands are moving everywhere now. In my hair, down my back, cupping my buttocks to bring me in closer contact with his arousal. He does all this even without ever breaking our kiss, suctioning my mouth with rapacious hunger, transmitting his desire to get closer, to be inside. He makes his way around to the front of my blouse once more, but this time there is no pausing for questions. His fingers nimbly unfasten the buttons, exposing my fevered flesh to the cool air. Once he has pushed my blouse from my shoulders completely only then does he lift his lips from mine.
Max locks eyes with me briefly before his gaze travels in a slow, deliberate trail down the column of my throat, past my collarbone, to my heaving breasts. And he gasps audibly, literally gasps. I’m stunned by the sound, shaken, mesmerized by the expression of utter wonder on his face. As I watch he lifts one trembling hand and trails his fingers along my soft, quivering flesh. “The other night…” he whispers, his voice so hoarse his words sound garbled to my ears, “…it was so dark…I couldn’t see…” He looks at me then and my heart leaps into my throat when I see that his eyes are glazed over with reverent tears. This man, this beautiful man is actually crying at the sight of me. I can feel my own tears begin as he slips his fingers into my hair, inching his face closer. “I didn’t know you’d be so beautiful,” he murmurs right before his lips descend on mine once again.
This moment between us is nothing like I expected at all. I had imagined our coupling would be full of fierce hunger and need, but I hadn’t imagined that it would be so achingly beautiful as well. I hadn’t imagined that I would feel so adored, so cherished…so completely loved.
Max is kissing down the curve of my throat now, his tongue playing at the delicate pulse that beats at the base, his hands sliding up and down my sides in a sensual rhythm. I’m held captive beneath his tender assault, plunging my fingers into his unruly hair and giving myself over to his kiss, his touch, his need. He nibbles a burning trail over my collarbone, his lips meandering over the soft flesh before he finally drags them across the gentle slope of my breast.
Through the lacy material of my bra he nips at one breast while his hand moves up to cover the other. It’s a maddening effect; the feel of his tongue playing lightly at one distended nipple while the other is kneaded and massaged between Max’s blunt fingertips. I twist my hands into the thin material of his t-shirt, arching my body higher in craving for his touch. His tongue swirls about my nipple, his mouth creating a warm cavern around the areole and then he finally, thankfully draws the stiffened peak inside to suck. It feels so good that I can’t suppress my answering moan of pleasure. I don’t want to. I don’t think I could even if I did.
My moans must be quite audible by now but I couldn’t care less. All that matters to me is Max’s sweet, warm mouth, his flicking tongue and his hot, gentle hands. I think I could come apart just from that alone. I press my fingers into his scalp, urging him to suck harder, to caress further, to take me to the very edge. God knows I don’t ever want him to stop; yet unexpectedly he does. My whimpers of pleasure quickly become whimpers of disappointment and loss when he pulls away.
He sits upright, pulling me up with him as he does. “I need to see you,” he says urgently, dispelling any momentary disappointment I might have felt. Before I can even nod he’s already pushing my blouse completely down my forearms. When I’m free of it he tosses it away, his fingers quickly flying to the front clasp of my bra. I have to help him with that, but somehow his uncertainty adds to the sexiness of the moment rather than distracts from it.
Once my clasp in unfastened I let my hands fall away, watching his face closely as he peels back the lacy cups. His moan coincides with mine when I feel his palms cupping the warm heaviness of my breasts. I look down then, watching him caress my skin in mouthwatering hunger, barely able to keep from gasping in pleasure as his fingers pluck at my aroused nipples.
I moan his name as we somehow fall back against the bed together. Wordlessly, I cup his face between my hands and bring his lips back against my nipples. If I thought his previous assault was mind-blowing in pleasure nothing has prepared me for Max’s mouth against my naked skin. For a novice he is quite adept at seduction. He expertly scrapes my sensitized skin with his teeth before sucking hard, drawing as much of my flesh into his mouth as possible.
Desperately, I tug at the hem of his t-shirt in response, needing to feel his skin as well, needing to have his naked torso against mine. It doesn’t take Max long to decipher my cues. He pulls away long enough to whisk his t-shirt over his head before settling back against me and burying his lips against mine.
My breasts are pressed against his naked chest as Max takes my lips in yet another soul-destroying kiss, his fingers plunging into the hair at the nape of my neck, his body undulating slowly against mine. Our tongues still locked in a hungry duel for dominance, Max grabs hold of my hand, lifting it from his shoulder and taking it down between our bodies. I don’t realize what he’s about until he’s pressing my palm against his distended fly. Just then all movement stops. I break from our kiss and stare at him, desire riotous, almost uncontrollable within me.
But Max must think he’s done something wrong because he averts his eyes and starts to roll away. I roll with him so that he’s on his back and I’m sprawled across him. “Baby, what is it?” I whisper gently.
He’s embarrassed, I suspect, because he can’t even look at me. “You don’t have to,” he responds simply.
“I don’t have to what?”
“Touch me,” he clarifies tightly.
I almost smile at that, but somehow I manage not to. Instead, I strum my fingers over his taut abdomen. “And if I want to touch you?” I counter breathily.
Startled honey eyes dart to my face. “Do you?” he whispers. I can only nod in answer. My throat is too constricted to speak at the moment. The way he’s looking at me now is nearly too sexy for words. He smiles a tentative smile in response and captures my questing hand, sliding it down over his fly once more. Only this time I hear the tear of his zipper and then he’s taking my fingers into the warm confines of his shorts.
“What do you want me to do?” I ask in a whisper, flicking at his nipple with the tip of my tongue. I can feel the heat of him burning against my fingers. It’s enough to intensify the ache building between my legs.
“Touch me,” Max orders, quickly unfastening the waistband of his jeans and spreading them open to provide me with greater access. And then his fingers curve around mine and guide me straight to his leaping penis. The moment my hand closes around his silken, hot skin he hisses in pleasure. “God…Liz…”
“Tell me,” I urge, kissing my way down the corrugated side of his abdomen even as my fingers are playing over the creamy head of his cock.
“Hold me tight…stroke me,” he whimpers. But he doesn’t leave it at that. His hand tightens around mine to teach me the exact rhythm he wants. Up and down, gradually from root to tip, slow and hard. Eventually, his hand falls away completely, leaving me master to his body. He arches into my hand, guttural groans of pleasure gurgling from his throat.
And that’s exactly when I strike, when he least expects it, I replace my hand with my mouth, startling a keening moan from him. For a second, I think he might actually push me away, that I’ve perhaps gone too far, but his hands plunge into my hair, digging into my scalp to hold me captive as he spears deep.
I hold my mouth around him tightly to keep from gagging and then pull up slightly, allowing Max to set his own rhythm. As he drives into my mouth again and again I reacquaint myself with his taste, the soft ridge of his arousal. I plunge my tongue into the groove at the head of his penis, collecting the pre-cum that’s gathered there, and he goes wild. His fingers bunch into my hair as his hips jerk spasmodically and circle, trying to push himself deeper, desperate to reach the finish…and then he’s shuddering, filling my mouth with the salty-sour taste of his orgasm. I swallow every drop, oddly aroused by the way it slides down my throat.
When I climb up his body once again I expect to find his expression delirious with pleasure, but instead he looks quite horrified. “What’s wrong?” I ask quickly.
“I didn’t mean to…” he answers uneasily, “I didn’t mean to…do that…in your mouth…I…I…it just felt so--,”
I kiss him then, running my tongue along the soft skin of his inner lip, allowing him to have a taste of his own essence. “I wanted it,” I whisper into his mouth. He groans in response and the sound exhilarates me. I want more. “I wanted to taste you, Max,” I moan again, “You taste so good, baby…”
I don’t get to finish. I’m abruptly flipped over onto my back, my skirt jerked up over my hips. Our eyes lock again in a hungry stare as Max hooks his fingers in the waistband of my panties and then drags them down my hips and past my thighs before whisking them away completely. And then he’s spreading my legs wide, probing my moist entrance with the tip of his cock.
He brushes himself back and forth against my opening, breaching my body just barely before pulling back. I close my eyes in concentration as I jerk my hips against him reflexively, dying for the moment when he will drive inside me. But he continues to tease, rubbing his penis over my clitoris, circling his hips in the most maddening rhythm.
He’s so adept at this game of teasing that I am wholly unprepared when he finally rams inside me, burying himself to the hilt. A scream of pleasure rips from my throat as he rocks against me, his thrusts quick and hard and deep. I bunch my fists into the sheets, lifting my body to meet the pounding demand of his hips. I can’t believe how he’s filling me up, completing me like I’ve never been completed before. I can’t remember it ever being like this between us…where it’s so hot I can’t think, I can’t breathe. The only thing that exists is his cock inside me, driving, pumping, giving me pleasure like I’ve never known.
I’m chanting his name loudly and I don’t care, don’t care about anything but the pressure building between my thighs, the pressure and the hardness of him. My eyes fly open at the moment I feel him expand inside me, becoming even larger. It’s all I need to sail over the edge. My orgasm silences through my body and I bow off the bed, taking him even deeper as he spills his seed inside me. The moment is earth shattering, timeless, like nothing I’ve ever known in my life. The sheer beauty of it actually brings tears to my eyes.
Once he’s spent Max collapses atop me and buries his face into my neck, panting harshly, his body slick with sweat. I skim my fingers down his back and smile into his hair. “Did you like it?” I whisper softly.
He nods and I can feel him smile against my neck. “I especially liked how you were moaning my name at the end,” he teases breathlessly.
I give his shoulder a playful pinch. “Oh, you would,” I charge in response, “You’re such a man!”
He lifts his head then and gazes down into my eyes reverently. What I see swimming in those golden depths stuns me into silence. “I’m your man, Liz…always,” he whispers solemnly, “I love you.” He snuggles back against my neck, not waiting for my response. I’m not sure I could have given him one at the point anyway. My body is trembling with too much emotion. I can only hold him against me, listening as his breathing evens out into the deep pattern of sleep, just shaking and shaking.
Max closes and locks my bedroom door with a definitive click before finally turning to face me again. He leans back against the door, a sexy half-smile playing at the corners of his mouth and then deliberately crooks his index finger at me. “Come here,” he bids softly. I feel like a puppet, drifting to him on an invisible string. I’m so lost in his eyes right now that his newfound boldness doesn’t even register until he’s pressing his lips against mine.
His kiss begins gentle, almost wispy, not really kissing at all, but an exchange of breath. Still, it’s enough to make my heart beat a crazy tattoo. I slide my hands up between our bodies and splay my fingers wide over the hard expanse of his chest and that’s all it takes. He opens his mouth wide and I’m sucked into a vortex of sensation. It’s almost as if he’s worshiping my mouth right now. His tongue does this expert dance within my mouth that is both maddening and beautiful. It isn’t crude or sloppy, but a gentle dipping, a scooping as he delves in to taste me again and again.
I’m clinging to his shirt now, my fists like tight, desperate vises around the material. That’s the only thing keeping me on my feet right now. That and the fact his hands are tunneled into my hair, holding my face captive as he kisses me into near breathlessness. I’m so lost in his tongue, his touch, his tempting web of innocent seduction that I don’t realize he’s walking me into the bed until I feel the mattress bump against the back of my knees.
Only then do we come up for air, our breathing escaping us in harsh, shallow pants, mingling together. My eyes meet his in what seems to be a cataclysmic moment. Something has changed in Max during the moments we were kissing. No longer are his eyes uncertain and wary, but they are now full of hungry appeal, darkened with knowing desire. Somehow, in those shattering few seconds, Max has become the aggressor and I have become the seduced.
I barely have time to puzzle over how that came about because his fingers are already fluttering to the silk covered buttons at the top of my blouse. I glance down at his fingers in surprise before lifting my eyes to his. His gaze is unwavering and intense as he asks, so softly I almost can’t hear him, “Can I?”
A simple yes would have sufficed but I go him one better. Instead, I back away from him and lay myself out across the bed, crooking one finger, as he did to me earlier, in invitation to join me. He does so deliberately, bracing one knee on the bed and slowly climbing up over my body. Only when he is hovering over me completely does he lower himself down against my side. Our lips find each other in another searching kiss and I turn my body into his, fitting myself against his hard contours.
His hands are moving everywhere now. In my hair, down my back, cupping my buttocks to bring me in closer contact with his arousal. He does all this even without ever breaking our kiss, suctioning my mouth with rapacious hunger, transmitting his desire to get closer, to be inside. He makes his way around to the front of my blouse once more, but this time there is no pausing for questions. His fingers nimbly unfasten the buttons, exposing my fevered flesh to the cool air. Once he has pushed my blouse from my shoulders completely only then does he lift his lips from mine.
Max locks eyes with me briefly before his gaze travels in a slow, deliberate trail down the column of my throat, past my collarbone, to my heaving breasts. And he gasps audibly, literally gasps. I’m stunned by the sound, shaken, mesmerized by the expression of utter wonder on his face. As I watch he lifts one trembling hand and trails his fingers along my soft, quivering flesh. “The other night…” he whispers, his voice so hoarse his words sound garbled to my ears, “…it was so dark…I couldn’t see…” He looks at me then and my heart leaps into my throat when I see that his eyes are glazed over with reverent tears. This man, this beautiful man is actually crying at the sight of me. I can feel my own tears begin as he slips his fingers into my hair, inching his face closer. “I didn’t know you’d be so beautiful,” he murmurs right before his lips descend on mine once again.
This moment between us is nothing like I expected at all. I had imagined our coupling would be full of fierce hunger and need, but I hadn’t imagined that it would be so achingly beautiful as well. I hadn’t imagined that I would feel so adored, so cherished…so completely loved.
Max is kissing down the curve of my throat now, his tongue playing at the delicate pulse that beats at the base, his hands sliding up and down my sides in a sensual rhythm. I’m held captive beneath his tender assault, plunging my fingers into his unruly hair and giving myself over to his kiss, his touch, his need. He nibbles a burning trail over my collarbone, his lips meandering over the soft flesh before he finally drags them across the gentle slope of my breast.
Through the lacy material of my bra he nips at one breast while his hand moves up to cover the other. It’s a maddening effect; the feel of his tongue playing lightly at one distended nipple while the other is kneaded and massaged between Max’s blunt fingertips. I twist my hands into the thin material of his t-shirt, arching my body higher in craving for his touch. His tongue swirls about my nipple, his mouth creating a warm cavern around the areole and then he finally, thankfully draws the stiffened peak inside to suck. It feels so good that I can’t suppress my answering moan of pleasure. I don’t want to. I don’t think I could even if I did.
My moans must be quite audible by now but I couldn’t care less. All that matters to me is Max’s sweet, warm mouth, his flicking tongue and his hot, gentle hands. I think I could come apart just from that alone. I press my fingers into his scalp, urging him to suck harder, to caress further, to take me to the very edge. God knows I don’t ever want him to stop; yet unexpectedly he does. My whimpers of pleasure quickly become whimpers of disappointment and loss when he pulls away.
He sits upright, pulling me up with him as he does. “I need to see you,” he says urgently, dispelling any momentary disappointment I might have felt. Before I can even nod he’s already pushing my blouse completely down my forearms. When I’m free of it he tosses it away, his fingers quickly flying to the front clasp of my bra. I have to help him with that, but somehow his uncertainty adds to the sexiness of the moment rather than distracts from it.
Once my clasp in unfastened I let my hands fall away, watching his face closely as he peels back the lacy cups. His moan coincides with mine when I feel his palms cupping the warm heaviness of my breasts. I look down then, watching him caress my skin in mouthwatering hunger, barely able to keep from gasping in pleasure as his fingers pluck at my aroused nipples.
I moan his name as we somehow fall back against the bed together. Wordlessly, I cup his face between my hands and bring his lips back against my nipples. If I thought his previous assault was mind-blowing in pleasure nothing has prepared me for Max’s mouth against my naked skin. For a novice he is quite adept at seduction. He expertly scrapes my sensitized skin with his teeth before sucking hard, drawing as much of my flesh into his mouth as possible.
Desperately, I tug at the hem of his t-shirt in response, needing to feel his skin as well, needing to have his naked torso against mine. It doesn’t take Max long to decipher my cues. He pulls away long enough to whisk his t-shirt over his head before settling back against me and burying his lips against mine.
My breasts are pressed against his naked chest as Max takes my lips in yet another soul-destroying kiss, his fingers plunging into the hair at the nape of my neck, his body undulating slowly against mine. Our tongues still locked in a hungry duel for dominance, Max grabs hold of my hand, lifting it from his shoulder and taking it down between our bodies. I don’t realize what he’s about until he’s pressing my palm against his distended fly. Just then all movement stops. I break from our kiss and stare at him, desire riotous, almost uncontrollable within me.
But Max must think he’s done something wrong because he averts his eyes and starts to roll away. I roll with him so that he’s on his back and I’m sprawled across him. “Baby, what is it?” I whisper gently.
He’s embarrassed, I suspect, because he can’t even look at me. “You don’t have to,” he responds simply.
“I don’t have to what?”
“Touch me,” he clarifies tightly.
I almost smile at that, but somehow I manage not to. Instead, I strum my fingers over his taut abdomen. “And if I want to touch you?” I counter breathily.
Startled honey eyes dart to my face. “Do you?” he whispers. I can only nod in answer. My throat is too constricted to speak at the moment. The way he’s looking at me now is nearly too sexy for words. He smiles a tentative smile in response and captures my questing hand, sliding it down over his fly once more. Only this time I hear the tear of his zipper and then he’s taking my fingers into the warm confines of his shorts.
“What do you want me to do?” I ask in a whisper, flicking at his nipple with the tip of my tongue. I can feel the heat of him burning against my fingers. It’s enough to intensify the ache building between my legs.
“Touch me,” Max orders, quickly unfastening the waistband of his jeans and spreading them open to provide me with greater access. And then his fingers curve around mine and guide me straight to his leaping penis. The moment my hand closes around his silken, hot skin he hisses in pleasure. “God…Liz…”
“Tell me,” I urge, kissing my way down the corrugated side of his abdomen even as my fingers are playing over the creamy head of his cock.
“Hold me tight…stroke me,” he whimpers. But he doesn’t leave it at that. His hand tightens around mine to teach me the exact rhythm he wants. Up and down, gradually from root to tip, slow and hard. Eventually, his hand falls away completely, leaving me master to his body. He arches into my hand, guttural groans of pleasure gurgling from his throat.
And that’s exactly when I strike, when he least expects it, I replace my hand with my mouth, startling a keening moan from him. For a second, I think he might actually push me away, that I’ve perhaps gone too far, but his hands plunge into my hair, digging into my scalp to hold me captive as he spears deep.
I hold my mouth around him tightly to keep from gagging and then pull up slightly, allowing Max to set his own rhythm. As he drives into my mouth again and again I reacquaint myself with his taste, the soft ridge of his arousal. I plunge my tongue into the groove at the head of his penis, collecting the pre-cum that’s gathered there, and he goes wild. His fingers bunch into my hair as his hips jerk spasmodically and circle, trying to push himself deeper, desperate to reach the finish…and then he’s shuddering, filling my mouth with the salty-sour taste of his orgasm. I swallow every drop, oddly aroused by the way it slides down my throat.
When I climb up his body once again I expect to find his expression delirious with pleasure, but instead he looks quite horrified. “What’s wrong?” I ask quickly.
“I didn’t mean to…” he answers uneasily, “I didn’t mean to…do that…in your mouth…I…I…it just felt so--,”
I kiss him then, running my tongue along the soft skin of his inner lip, allowing him to have a taste of his own essence. “I wanted it,” I whisper into his mouth. He groans in response and the sound exhilarates me. I want more. “I wanted to taste you, Max,” I moan again, “You taste so good, baby…”
I don’t get to finish. I’m abruptly flipped over onto my back, my skirt jerked up over my hips. Our eyes lock again in a hungry stare as Max hooks his fingers in the waistband of my panties and then drags them down my hips and past my thighs before whisking them away completely. And then he’s spreading my legs wide, probing my moist entrance with the tip of his cock.
He brushes himself back and forth against my opening, breaching my body just barely before pulling back. I close my eyes in concentration as I jerk my hips against him reflexively, dying for the moment when he will drive inside me. But he continues to tease, rubbing his penis over my clitoris, circling his hips in the most maddening rhythm.
He’s so adept at this game of teasing that I am wholly unprepared when he finally rams inside me, burying himself to the hilt. A scream of pleasure rips from my throat as he rocks against me, his thrusts quick and hard and deep. I bunch my fists into the sheets, lifting my body to meet the pounding demand of his hips. I can’t believe how he’s filling me up, completing me like I’ve never been completed before. I can’t remember it ever being like this between us…where it’s so hot I can’t think, I can’t breathe. The only thing that exists is his cock inside me, driving, pumping, giving me pleasure like I’ve never known.
I’m chanting his name loudly and I don’t care, don’t care about anything but the pressure building between my thighs, the pressure and the hardness of him. My eyes fly open at the moment I feel him expand inside me, becoming even larger. It’s all I need to sail over the edge. My orgasm silences through my body and I bow off the bed, taking him even deeper as he spills his seed inside me. The moment is earth shattering, timeless, like nothing I’ve ever known in my life. The sheer beauty of it actually brings tears to my eyes.
Once he’s spent Max collapses atop me and buries his face into my neck, panting harshly, his body slick with sweat. I skim my fingers down his back and smile into his hair. “Did you like it?” I whisper softly.
He nods and I can feel him smile against my neck. “I especially liked how you were moaning my name at the end,” he teases breathlessly.
I give his shoulder a playful pinch. “Oh, you would,” I charge in response, “You’re such a man!”
He lifts his head then and gazes down into my eyes reverently. What I see swimming in those golden depths stuns me into silence. “I’m your man, Liz…always,” he whispers solemnly, “I love you.” He snuggles back against my neck, not waiting for my response. I’m not sure I could have given him one at the point anyway. My body is trembling with too much emotion. I can only hold him against me, listening as his breathing evens out into the deep pattern of sleep, just shaking and shaking.
-
Deejonaise
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 385
- Joined: Thu Feb 28, 2002 12:48 am
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Chapter 24
I suck my finger free of spaghetti sauce, grimacing slightly in thought. “It’s missing something,” I tell Max with a bewildered frown.
Max raises his brow pensively and leans across me to dip his finger into the pot for a taste. He appraises me speculatively. “Hmm…basil maybe?”
“You’re asking me?” I laugh, “Aren’t you the one taking the cooking class?”
Max considers my logic for a minute and tastes again before answering me with more honesty than I’m prepared for. “Okay, it needs more oregano and rosemary, too…and I think you overdid it on the garlic.” He catches a glimpse of my dumbfounded expression just as he‘s finishing up and then tries to belatedly cover his ass. “But that’s just my opinion,” he adds lamely and then to take away any lingering sting he brushes his lips across mine. “Anything you cook is perfect because you make it, Liz,” he whispers sweetly.
I smirk up at him. “Nice save.”
“Did I make it?” he asks hopefully.
“Not by a long shot,” I reply good-naturedly, giving him a playful shove. I turn back to my sauce and stir it with a petulant pout. “We can’t all be the Frugal Gourmet, Max,” I grumble under my breath.
He demonstrates just how seriously he takes me by whacking me on the bottom. “Try Molto Mario, baby. He‘s the man,” he corrects irreverently, winking at me. I’m not proof against his teasing and my disapproving scowl collapses into an eye-rolling smile.
Still, I try to maintain an air of indignance. “You hurt my butt!” I accuse hotly.
“Oh, did I herwt da widdle baby’s butt?” he croons in a coddling tone, “I guess I’ll just have to make it all better.” Before I even realize his intentions, he drops down to his knees and presses a provocative kiss to my left cheek. I drop my spoon. He blinks up at me with hooded honey eyes. “Did I make it better?” The question isn’t innocent. It’s loaded with meaning, heavy with desire. Evidently, Max isn’t playing any more.
I swallow spasmodically past the lump of emotion that’s formed in my throat. “Max, don’t,” I whisper, but what I’m really saying is “Max, don’t stop! Max, take me, right here and right now.” And he knows it. Instead of releasing me, he massages my buttock gently, sliding his lips across my flesh once more. I bite back an answering moan.
“I want you,” he whispers. His thumbs play at the sensitive juncture between my thighs, sliding back and forth creating a delicious friction. I quickly become damp and quivering under his sensual assault. “Forget about dinner,” he coaxes in a murmur, “Come to bed.” How did such a simple game turn so quickly? How had I ever imagined this man an innocent? The way he’s looking at me now, with that sexy half hooded stare, is definitely NOT innocent.
“Max, I’m…making…dinner,” I groan in protest, “I can‘t…just leave it.”
“Come to bed,” he insists again as he slides up my body.
Oh, what the hell! I turn in his arms completely just as Max’s mouth swoops down to claim mine. He angles me away from the stove so that my back is pushed up against the counter. And then his hands are cupping my bottom, lifting me up onto the hard surface. He slides between my legs in one fluid motion and all without taking his lips from mine.
“Apparently, you two have decided to have dessert before dinner.”
With the intrusion of Isabel’s laughing tone we tear away from one another and swivel around to regard her in reddened embarrassment. “I…I was just helping Liz with…with dinner,” Max stammers out lamely.
“Yeah, I can see that,” Isabel smirks, “I’m surprised you didn’t set off the smoke alarm.” I feel the heat in my face grow to a fevered pitch. Lowering my eyes, I slip down from the counter as inconspicuously as I can manage, which isn’t all that inconspicuous considering Max is still between my legs. “Max, Alex is in the living room if you want to go and say hello to him,” Isabel suggests, relieving the tension in a highly awkward moment.
Max appears eternally grateful for the reprieve from the tension. He presses a quick kiss to my lips. “See you later,” he promises with a crooked smile before disappearing from the kitchen.
I still can’t look at Isabel. My entire body is burning with mortification. When I finally build the courage to peek up at her I find her grinning. “You’re not mad?” I question in surprise, “Or shocked?”
Isabel rolls her eyes. “Liz, I’ve been listening to you moan my brother’s name for the last five nights,” she retorts dryly, “I think the thrill is gone.”
A moment before I didn’t think I could possibly be more embarrassed than I already was. I was wrong. My cheeks must be on the verge of bursting into flames by now. “Alright,” I reply evenly, “I don’t suppose there’s any reason to sit you down and explain to you what’s going on then, huh?”
“You wouldn’t have had to anyway,” Isabel says with a dismissive wave, “I would have had to be blind not to have seen it coming.” She pulls out a chair from the kitchen table and falls into it. “I’m glad to see that you’re making progress together.”
Her accepting attitude is so unexpected that I wilt with a sigh of relief. And then I fall into the chair opposite Isabel and pour out my heart, suddenly needing someone to talk to. “God, Isabel, thank you for being so cool about this,” I tell her sincerely, “I’m really happy about us.”
“I can tell…you’re glowing and everything.”
I duck my head with a self-conscious smile. “Am I?”
“You look thrilled,” she confirms, “and in love.” She sighs. “So does Max. I’ve never seen him like this before…not ever, not even when you two got together the first time. He‘s different now, more devoted or something.”
“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing,” I confess softly, “He told me he loved me the other night.”
Isabel’s eyes widen with interest. “And what did you say?” she prods.
My smile falters a bit. “I didn’t say anything,” I admit shamefully, “I was just so shocked and I wasn’t expecting it and--,”
“And you’re scared,” Isabel finished knowingly.
I confirm her assumption with a miserable nod. “We started off wonderfully the first time, too,” I remind her sullenly, “and then look where we ended up.”
“I think you know this time is different,” Isabel advises sagely.
“Maybe.”
“You know it, Liz,” she insists.
“Yes, yes,” I confess in defeat, “I do know it…but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m scared out of my mind. This time I stand to lose more than I did the first time, Izzy. Max doesn’t just have my heart anymore…he has my soul. I love him so much that it hurts inside.” My shoulders slump forward in woebegone happiness. “What am I gonna do?”
“Live happily ever after?” Isabel suggests irreverently.
I glance up at her, surprised to see that she’s being genuine. I can’t help but snort a laugh anyway. “You make it sound so easy,” I tell her.
“Maybe because it is.”
What is with everyone lately? First Maria and now Isabel. I swear it’s like invasion of the body snatchers. This cannot be my real family. “Oh, now you’re Isabel Evans, believer in fairytales now?” I quip mockingly and then I catch a glimpse of her hand, more specifically the full carat rock that’s gracing her ring finger. I sweep up her hand, gaping. “Oh my God,” I utter, staring at her in stupefaction, “Is this what I think it is?”
Isabel bobs her head in a happy nod. “He asked me last night.”
I continue to gape. “I didn’t even realize things had progressed that far between the two of you,” I whisper.
She shrugs. “I didn’t want to talk about it,” she replies casually, “I suppose I was afraid I’d jinx it or something. Anyway, we haven’t set a date or anything. I’m just trying to take it all in right now.”
“Oh, congratulations, sweetie!” I offer, belatedly wrapping her in a hug, “I’m so happy for you, Isabel. I really am.”
“Not nearly as happy as I am for you,” she whispers in return, “You were right about me taking the time to get to know the new Max. He’s a sweetheart and he’s definitely head over heels for you.”
Her words touch me like nothing else has. I, probably better than anyone, know how difficult it must have been for Isabel to let go of the past and the man her brother had once been. Though my memories of the old Max are tied up in bitterness and recriminations Isabel has an entirely different history with him. During their lonely childhood he was her friend and confidante. Her champion. When her parents made her feel unwanted and unloved Max had filled the void. He had been there for her when no one else had been.
After his accident it seemed that he had been replaced with a stranger. All those memories, child and adult, were vanished, as if they’d never existed. He was no longer the man who had dried her tears and kissed her goodnight, who had fought off the bullies and helped her with her homework, but some fresh faced innocent stranger who needed her instead. Isabel hadn’t liked the idea of someone trying to take her brother’s place.
But in the past few weeks she’s managed to put her resentment aside and love him for the man he is today. He might not be her protector any longer, but he’s definitely the man who makes her laugh when she has a bad day, who makes her favorite dish, chicken parmesan, to perfection, and goes bowling with her when no one else will. She now has a hundred different reasons to love the new Max and is finding even more everyday. She’s not the only one either. So am I. My eyes have been opened to a whole host of new possibilities.
“I don’t think we would have ever made it here without your support, Isabel,” I say solemnly as I finally pull back from our hug, “You deserve every ounce of happiness you get.”
“I’m glad you feel that way,” Isabel replies with a shy grin, “because I was actually hoping you’d agree to be my matron of honor.”
Again I’m gaping. This is becoming quite the norm for me lately. “Are you serious?”
“Well, who else would I ask?” Isabel demands in exasperation, “You are my only friend.”
“I don’t know about that,” I say, “but yes, I’d definitely love to be your matron of honor.”
“And Max? What about him?”
My lips twitch with laughter. “I’m sure he’ll be flattered,” I answer, my face perfectly blank, “Though he might have a problem with wearing the dress.”
Isabel guffaws with laughter. “Not to be my matron of honor, you moron,” she snorts, tapping my hand playfully, “I’m talking about being best man for Alex.”
“I think he’d love that,” I reply, “Is that what Alex is doing now?”
“Yeah, he was nervous about it the entire ride over.”
“There’s no reason for him to be,” I reassure her with a smile, “Max will probably be shocked that Alex thought to ask him in the first place.” I grin at her, proud and mystified by the glowing happiness alight on her face. “I can’t believe you’re getting married,” I breathe in awe, “Who would have thought we’d both get happily ever after, huh?”
“Not me,” Isabel answers.
And not me either. Definitely not me.
I suck my finger free of spaghetti sauce, grimacing slightly in thought. “It’s missing something,” I tell Max with a bewildered frown.
Max raises his brow pensively and leans across me to dip his finger into the pot for a taste. He appraises me speculatively. “Hmm…basil maybe?”
“You’re asking me?” I laugh, “Aren’t you the one taking the cooking class?”
Max considers my logic for a minute and tastes again before answering me with more honesty than I’m prepared for. “Okay, it needs more oregano and rosemary, too…and I think you overdid it on the garlic.” He catches a glimpse of my dumbfounded expression just as he‘s finishing up and then tries to belatedly cover his ass. “But that’s just my opinion,” he adds lamely and then to take away any lingering sting he brushes his lips across mine. “Anything you cook is perfect because you make it, Liz,” he whispers sweetly.
I smirk up at him. “Nice save.”
“Did I make it?” he asks hopefully.
“Not by a long shot,” I reply good-naturedly, giving him a playful shove. I turn back to my sauce and stir it with a petulant pout. “We can’t all be the Frugal Gourmet, Max,” I grumble under my breath.
He demonstrates just how seriously he takes me by whacking me on the bottom. “Try Molto Mario, baby. He‘s the man,” he corrects irreverently, winking at me. I’m not proof against his teasing and my disapproving scowl collapses into an eye-rolling smile.
Still, I try to maintain an air of indignance. “You hurt my butt!” I accuse hotly.
“Oh, did I herwt da widdle baby’s butt?” he croons in a coddling tone, “I guess I’ll just have to make it all better.” Before I even realize his intentions, he drops down to his knees and presses a provocative kiss to my left cheek. I drop my spoon. He blinks up at me with hooded honey eyes. “Did I make it better?” The question isn’t innocent. It’s loaded with meaning, heavy with desire. Evidently, Max isn’t playing any more.
I swallow spasmodically past the lump of emotion that’s formed in my throat. “Max, don’t,” I whisper, but what I’m really saying is “Max, don’t stop! Max, take me, right here and right now.” And he knows it. Instead of releasing me, he massages my buttock gently, sliding his lips across my flesh once more. I bite back an answering moan.
“I want you,” he whispers. His thumbs play at the sensitive juncture between my thighs, sliding back and forth creating a delicious friction. I quickly become damp and quivering under his sensual assault. “Forget about dinner,” he coaxes in a murmur, “Come to bed.” How did such a simple game turn so quickly? How had I ever imagined this man an innocent? The way he’s looking at me now, with that sexy half hooded stare, is definitely NOT innocent.
“Max, I’m…making…dinner,” I groan in protest, “I can‘t…just leave it.”
“Come to bed,” he insists again as he slides up my body.
Oh, what the hell! I turn in his arms completely just as Max’s mouth swoops down to claim mine. He angles me away from the stove so that my back is pushed up against the counter. And then his hands are cupping my bottom, lifting me up onto the hard surface. He slides between my legs in one fluid motion and all without taking his lips from mine.
“Apparently, you two have decided to have dessert before dinner.”
With the intrusion of Isabel’s laughing tone we tear away from one another and swivel around to regard her in reddened embarrassment. “I…I was just helping Liz with…with dinner,” Max stammers out lamely.
“Yeah, I can see that,” Isabel smirks, “I’m surprised you didn’t set off the smoke alarm.” I feel the heat in my face grow to a fevered pitch. Lowering my eyes, I slip down from the counter as inconspicuously as I can manage, which isn’t all that inconspicuous considering Max is still between my legs. “Max, Alex is in the living room if you want to go and say hello to him,” Isabel suggests, relieving the tension in a highly awkward moment.
Max appears eternally grateful for the reprieve from the tension. He presses a quick kiss to my lips. “See you later,” he promises with a crooked smile before disappearing from the kitchen.
I still can’t look at Isabel. My entire body is burning with mortification. When I finally build the courage to peek up at her I find her grinning. “You’re not mad?” I question in surprise, “Or shocked?”
Isabel rolls her eyes. “Liz, I’ve been listening to you moan my brother’s name for the last five nights,” she retorts dryly, “I think the thrill is gone.”
A moment before I didn’t think I could possibly be more embarrassed than I already was. I was wrong. My cheeks must be on the verge of bursting into flames by now. “Alright,” I reply evenly, “I don’t suppose there’s any reason to sit you down and explain to you what’s going on then, huh?”
“You wouldn’t have had to anyway,” Isabel says with a dismissive wave, “I would have had to be blind not to have seen it coming.” She pulls out a chair from the kitchen table and falls into it. “I’m glad to see that you’re making progress together.”
Her accepting attitude is so unexpected that I wilt with a sigh of relief. And then I fall into the chair opposite Isabel and pour out my heart, suddenly needing someone to talk to. “God, Isabel, thank you for being so cool about this,” I tell her sincerely, “I’m really happy about us.”
“I can tell…you’re glowing and everything.”
I duck my head with a self-conscious smile. “Am I?”
“You look thrilled,” she confirms, “and in love.” She sighs. “So does Max. I’ve never seen him like this before…not ever, not even when you two got together the first time. He‘s different now, more devoted or something.”
“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing,” I confess softly, “He told me he loved me the other night.”
Isabel’s eyes widen with interest. “And what did you say?” she prods.
My smile falters a bit. “I didn’t say anything,” I admit shamefully, “I was just so shocked and I wasn’t expecting it and--,”
“And you’re scared,” Isabel finished knowingly.
I confirm her assumption with a miserable nod. “We started off wonderfully the first time, too,” I remind her sullenly, “and then look where we ended up.”
“I think you know this time is different,” Isabel advises sagely.
“Maybe.”
“You know it, Liz,” she insists.
“Yes, yes,” I confess in defeat, “I do know it…but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m scared out of my mind. This time I stand to lose more than I did the first time, Izzy. Max doesn’t just have my heart anymore…he has my soul. I love him so much that it hurts inside.” My shoulders slump forward in woebegone happiness. “What am I gonna do?”
“Live happily ever after?” Isabel suggests irreverently.
I glance up at her, surprised to see that she’s being genuine. I can’t help but snort a laugh anyway. “You make it sound so easy,” I tell her.
“Maybe because it is.”
What is with everyone lately? First Maria and now Isabel. I swear it’s like invasion of the body snatchers. This cannot be my real family. “Oh, now you’re Isabel Evans, believer in fairytales now?” I quip mockingly and then I catch a glimpse of her hand, more specifically the full carat rock that’s gracing her ring finger. I sweep up her hand, gaping. “Oh my God,” I utter, staring at her in stupefaction, “Is this what I think it is?”
Isabel bobs her head in a happy nod. “He asked me last night.”
I continue to gape. “I didn’t even realize things had progressed that far between the two of you,” I whisper.
She shrugs. “I didn’t want to talk about it,” she replies casually, “I suppose I was afraid I’d jinx it or something. Anyway, we haven’t set a date or anything. I’m just trying to take it all in right now.”
“Oh, congratulations, sweetie!” I offer, belatedly wrapping her in a hug, “I’m so happy for you, Isabel. I really am.”
“Not nearly as happy as I am for you,” she whispers in return, “You were right about me taking the time to get to know the new Max. He’s a sweetheart and he’s definitely head over heels for you.”
Her words touch me like nothing else has. I, probably better than anyone, know how difficult it must have been for Isabel to let go of the past and the man her brother had once been. Though my memories of the old Max are tied up in bitterness and recriminations Isabel has an entirely different history with him. During their lonely childhood he was her friend and confidante. Her champion. When her parents made her feel unwanted and unloved Max had filled the void. He had been there for her when no one else had been.
After his accident it seemed that he had been replaced with a stranger. All those memories, child and adult, were vanished, as if they’d never existed. He was no longer the man who had dried her tears and kissed her goodnight, who had fought off the bullies and helped her with her homework, but some fresh faced innocent stranger who needed her instead. Isabel hadn’t liked the idea of someone trying to take her brother’s place.
But in the past few weeks she’s managed to put her resentment aside and love him for the man he is today. He might not be her protector any longer, but he’s definitely the man who makes her laugh when she has a bad day, who makes her favorite dish, chicken parmesan, to perfection, and goes bowling with her when no one else will. She now has a hundred different reasons to love the new Max and is finding even more everyday. She’s not the only one either. So am I. My eyes have been opened to a whole host of new possibilities.
“I don’t think we would have ever made it here without your support, Isabel,” I say solemnly as I finally pull back from our hug, “You deserve every ounce of happiness you get.”
“I’m glad you feel that way,” Isabel replies with a shy grin, “because I was actually hoping you’d agree to be my matron of honor.”
Again I’m gaping. This is becoming quite the norm for me lately. “Are you serious?”
“Well, who else would I ask?” Isabel demands in exasperation, “You are my only friend.”
“I don’t know about that,” I say, “but yes, I’d definitely love to be your matron of honor.”
“And Max? What about him?”
My lips twitch with laughter. “I’m sure he’ll be flattered,” I answer, my face perfectly blank, “Though he might have a problem with wearing the dress.”
Isabel guffaws with laughter. “Not to be my matron of honor, you moron,” she snorts, tapping my hand playfully, “I’m talking about being best man for Alex.”
“I think he’d love that,” I reply, “Is that what Alex is doing now?”
“Yeah, he was nervous about it the entire ride over.”
“There’s no reason for him to be,” I reassure her with a smile, “Max will probably be shocked that Alex thought to ask him in the first place.” I grin at her, proud and mystified by the glowing happiness alight on her face. “I can’t believe you’re getting married,” I breathe in awe, “Who would have thought we’d both get happily ever after, huh?”
“Not me,” Isabel answers.
And not me either. Definitely not me.
-
Deejonaise
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 385
- Joined: Thu Feb 28, 2002 12:48 am
- Location: On my rusty dusty...
Chapter 25
The sliding door is ripped back unexpectedly but Max throttles my scream of surprised terror with his mouth. I’m taken completely off guard as he sweeps into the shower stall with me, holding my mouth captive in his hungry kiss. Without a word, he angles me back against the cold shower tiles, lifting me in his arms and nudging apart my thighs. He fits himself between them easily, his cock already hard and throbbing, probing at my sensitive opening. And then he’s driving inside me, his hands gripping my buttocks firmly as he begins his deep, penetrating strokes. The sensation of him filling me so suddenly is nearly too much. I arch my back against the tile, urging him even deeper, locking my ankles about his pumping hips in order to make it so.
The shower spray pounds down onto us unnoticed, the steam filling the bathroom as much from our heated coupling as the water’s temperature. We’re caught up in the moment, caught up in each other. I hold onto Max desperately, riding out his frantic thrusts, tightening my vaginal muscles about him as he heaves inside me one last time and shudders.
Gradually, he goes limp against me, his fingers loosening their near bruising hold on my flesh. He leans his forehead against my collarbone, his breathing ragged. “God, I needed that,” he mutters softly.
I stroke at his dampened hair. “Bad day,” I query softly when he finally lowers me to my feet again. Between my legs I’m achy and sore from his sudden, passionate assault and my knees feel like jelly. I must admit that I kind of like it.
“Not bad exactly,” Max replies as he bends to scoop up my bath scrunchie from the shower floor. I dropped it after he’d yanked back the shower door and nearly scared me to death. Now he casually reaches for my bath soap and works up a generous lather. “I’ve just been missing you,” he finishes before spinning me around to gently soap my back.
He starts with my shoulders, washing my skin in slow, inviting circles. And then he inches his way downward, his touch whisper soft. When he makes it to the small of my back he then steps full against me, so that I can feel his awakening arousal pressing into my buttock. He drops the scrunchie. It bounces against my foot before rolling away. “Your soap smells good,” he compliments thickly, “What scent is it?”
I can barely form my answer. His soapy hands have roamed around front, slipping over the quivering slopes of my breasts. He massages them fully, circling his hips against my backside as he does. Now what the hell did he ask me again? I rack my passion befuddled brain for several seconds but only manage to draw a blank. “Liz?” Max prods deeply, his mouth playing down the column of my neck.
The answer suddenly pops into my head. “M-Mango,” I stutter.
“Hmm,” Max purrs into my ear, “How very tropical…” His hands are slipping further now, past my midriff, past my navel. My knees almost buckle completely when he plunges his fingers into the curly hair at the apex of my thighs, just stroking at my mound before his parts my nether lips to find the sensitive nub hidden there. My eyes roll to the back of my head as I groan in pleasure. “Turn around,” Max orders softly.
I do as he tells me, moaning again when I feel his cock throb against my belly. “I should have gone slower before,” he murmurs, dipping his head to taste the underside of my jaw. The water streaming down on us is quickly becoming tepid, but it does nothing to ease our fevered skin. I cling to him in an effort to fit myself closer to his hardened body. “Max, please…please,” I beg, but I honestly don’t know what I’m pleading for.
Max must know, however, because before I’ve regained my senses he’s shut off the tap and whisked me from the shower. I’m shivering from the cold air wafting over my naked body as he lays me down across the bed but that doesn’t last long. Seconds later he’s covering me over with his large, hard body, grabbing hold of my hands and pinning the above my head. With one hand his holds my wrists captive while the other meanders over my breast and torso, down my belly and between my thighs.
I spread my legs to give him better access, emitting a keening moan of pleasure when he plunges his finger inside me. He dips that one maddening digit in and out, in and out, before finally adding another. With his two fingers he strokes me expertly, caresses my heated flesh both outside and in. By now he knows the best ways to please me. I’ve told him exactly what makes me hot. That’s the best part about our lovemaking. We hold nothing back from each other, nothing is off limits, nothing is taboo. What he wants he gets and what I want I get. What’s requested is given freely and without reservation. The pleasure is continually flowing for the both of us. It’s a rather lovely arrangement, I think.
After Max has assured that I’m slick enough he replaces his fingers with the blunt tip of his arousal. His pushes inside me with a grunt and I can feel my flesh contour around his rigid length as he delves deeper. This time between us is tapered with a lazy sort of enjoyment. There’s no rush, no frenetic pace, just slow, sensuous lovemaking. Our skin breaks out in a fine gleam of sweat as we strain our bodies together, taking it as far as possible and yet yearning for more. The orgasm that washes over us is mutual, spurred on by the convulsions of both our bodies.
Max falls against me, resting his weight atop me briefly before slipping his penis from my body and rolling onto his side. “Now I feel better,” he teases with a smile, pulling me back against his sweat-dampened body.
“I glad you do,” I retort sweetly, “but it looks like I’ll have to take another shower.”
Max chuckles against my neck. “I’ll take one with you,” he offers magnanimously.
“Oh, no you don’t!” I laugh, “That’s a sure fired guarantee that I’ll never get clean!” We fall into a contented silence and I almost begin to drift off to sleep when I hear a, “Hey, Liz?” whispered against my ear.
I crack open one sleepy eye. “Hey what?”
“Why don’t we make a baby together?”
Those seven words render me wide-awake. One moment I’m boneless, only a yawn away from dreamland and the next my every sense is on alert. Did he just say what I thought? Did he just say he wanted to have a baby? I know that he did, but I’m just having a hard time comprehending the facts. To say that his suggestion is unexpected is stating it mildly. I’m left without words. Though, I’ve thought about many things since Max and I began our reconciliation, a baby has never, NEVER entered the equation. And the truth is…the idea alone simply terrifies me.
Though I love Katie, in fact, there are no words to describe just how much I truly adore her, but I can never forget what it was like when I carried her. Bar none, it had to be the most miserable experience of my life. Max and I fought the majority of my pregnancy and then, after Katie was born, I had the most horrible depression to deal with. And that wasn’t even the clincher. Ultimately, it was that period in my life, my pregnancy and afterward, that created the wedge in my marriage to Max and ultimately destroyed us.
And perhaps it’s crazy, hell flat out ridiculous, but I’m terrified of that happening again. This love I have with Max is so new and fresh and precious I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize it. And yes, yes, right now I have this nagging, awful feeling that a baby will jeopardize it. I know I’m being paranoid, but I honestly can’t help it. To lose Max the first time had broken my heart, but if I were to lose him this time, if we were to fall apart again…it would simply kill me.
“Liz?” It’s his questioning whisper, the sound of my own name that reminds me that he’s waiting for my answer. I can feel my heart begin to thump in a slow rhythm of dread.
“When did you start thinking about babies, Max?” I ask him carefully.
He sighs. “You know I love Katie, right?” I nod my confirmation. “Well, it’s so frustrating not to be able to remember her birth…or remember you pregnant…” That’s not entirely a bad thing I’m thinking, but of course I don‘t say it aloud. “I just wish I could share those memories with you.” He buries his face even deeper into my hair. “I want to see you pregnant with my child.”
“But Max, a baby…” I protest softly.
He takes hold of my chin so that I’m forced to turn and meet his gaze. “Does it seem too soon for you, Liz?” he wonders aloud gently.
“No, it’s not too soon--,”
“Liz, come on,” Max urges quietly, “You’re scared, okay! It’s written all over you face. Now just tell me why.”
I want to avert my eyes, want to kiss him, want to do anything that will distract him from his quest and postpone this discussion for at least a hundred years. The last thing I expected after such tender, sweet lovemaking is to be reopening old wounds. I hadn’t expected those old wounds to still be as painful either. “Max, do we have to talk about this now?” I hedge, trying to turn my face away. He won’t let me.
“Tell me,” he coaxes.
“Alright!” I cry in exasperation, “When we had Katie it was a disaster, okay!”
He doesn’t take offense at my snappy reply, but only plods on in his same gentle tone. “What do you mean it was a disaster?”
“We didn’t plan to have her,” I tell him, “We were young…still in our early twenties. I didn’t want a baby then. I didn’t think the time was right so when I found out I was pregnant I wasn’t exactly ecstatic.”
“And we fought about that,” Max guesses astutely.
“Yes, a lot,” I confirm morosely, “It got really bad between us. You could say that was the beginning of the end for our marriage.”
“And after Katie was born,” Max prompts.
“Things got even worse. I suffered from Post Pardum Depression,” I whisper, “I was a wreck for months afterward and our marriage was never the same.” He doesn’t say anything, only frames my face in his hands and dips his head for a kiss. Max transmits monumental feeling with just that fleeting touch. I can feel his comfort, his warmth, his love exuding through that brief brush of his lips. His very tenderness makes me cry. My tears spill over completely as I sob, “Oh Max, don’t you see? What if having a baby ruins us the way it did the first time?”
“That’s not going to happen,” Max assures me, brushing away my tears.
“How do you know?” I sniffle.
“I’m not the same man,” he answers quietly, “and you’re not that same woman, Liz. This time is completely different.” My uncertainty must be obvious because he tips up my chin and asks solemnly, “Don’t you want to have my baby?”
How can I possibly say no to such a sweet and beautiful request. “Yes, yes,” I murmur, “I want to have your baby, Max.”
“Then let’s don’t think about anything else but making a baby together,” he whispers.
“But what if I--,”
“Shh,” he croons, silencing my protests with his kiss. It doesn’t take me very long before I’ve given in, wrapped my arms around him and opened my mouth to his kiss. But then it’s always this way with Max now. How can I ever tell him no?
The sliding door is ripped back unexpectedly but Max throttles my scream of surprised terror with his mouth. I’m taken completely off guard as he sweeps into the shower stall with me, holding my mouth captive in his hungry kiss. Without a word, he angles me back against the cold shower tiles, lifting me in his arms and nudging apart my thighs. He fits himself between them easily, his cock already hard and throbbing, probing at my sensitive opening. And then he’s driving inside me, his hands gripping my buttocks firmly as he begins his deep, penetrating strokes. The sensation of him filling me so suddenly is nearly too much. I arch my back against the tile, urging him even deeper, locking my ankles about his pumping hips in order to make it so.
The shower spray pounds down onto us unnoticed, the steam filling the bathroom as much from our heated coupling as the water’s temperature. We’re caught up in the moment, caught up in each other. I hold onto Max desperately, riding out his frantic thrusts, tightening my vaginal muscles about him as he heaves inside me one last time and shudders.
Gradually, he goes limp against me, his fingers loosening their near bruising hold on my flesh. He leans his forehead against my collarbone, his breathing ragged. “God, I needed that,” he mutters softly.
I stroke at his dampened hair. “Bad day,” I query softly when he finally lowers me to my feet again. Between my legs I’m achy and sore from his sudden, passionate assault and my knees feel like jelly. I must admit that I kind of like it.
“Not bad exactly,” Max replies as he bends to scoop up my bath scrunchie from the shower floor. I dropped it after he’d yanked back the shower door and nearly scared me to death. Now he casually reaches for my bath soap and works up a generous lather. “I’ve just been missing you,” he finishes before spinning me around to gently soap my back.
He starts with my shoulders, washing my skin in slow, inviting circles. And then he inches his way downward, his touch whisper soft. When he makes it to the small of my back he then steps full against me, so that I can feel his awakening arousal pressing into my buttock. He drops the scrunchie. It bounces against my foot before rolling away. “Your soap smells good,” he compliments thickly, “What scent is it?”
I can barely form my answer. His soapy hands have roamed around front, slipping over the quivering slopes of my breasts. He massages them fully, circling his hips against my backside as he does. Now what the hell did he ask me again? I rack my passion befuddled brain for several seconds but only manage to draw a blank. “Liz?” Max prods deeply, his mouth playing down the column of my neck.
The answer suddenly pops into my head. “M-Mango,” I stutter.
“Hmm,” Max purrs into my ear, “How very tropical…” His hands are slipping further now, past my midriff, past my navel. My knees almost buckle completely when he plunges his fingers into the curly hair at the apex of my thighs, just stroking at my mound before his parts my nether lips to find the sensitive nub hidden there. My eyes roll to the back of my head as I groan in pleasure. “Turn around,” Max orders softly.
I do as he tells me, moaning again when I feel his cock throb against my belly. “I should have gone slower before,” he murmurs, dipping his head to taste the underside of my jaw. The water streaming down on us is quickly becoming tepid, but it does nothing to ease our fevered skin. I cling to him in an effort to fit myself closer to his hardened body. “Max, please…please,” I beg, but I honestly don’t know what I’m pleading for.
Max must know, however, because before I’ve regained my senses he’s shut off the tap and whisked me from the shower. I’m shivering from the cold air wafting over my naked body as he lays me down across the bed but that doesn’t last long. Seconds later he’s covering me over with his large, hard body, grabbing hold of my hands and pinning the above my head. With one hand his holds my wrists captive while the other meanders over my breast and torso, down my belly and between my thighs.
I spread my legs to give him better access, emitting a keening moan of pleasure when he plunges his finger inside me. He dips that one maddening digit in and out, in and out, before finally adding another. With his two fingers he strokes me expertly, caresses my heated flesh both outside and in. By now he knows the best ways to please me. I’ve told him exactly what makes me hot. That’s the best part about our lovemaking. We hold nothing back from each other, nothing is off limits, nothing is taboo. What he wants he gets and what I want I get. What’s requested is given freely and without reservation. The pleasure is continually flowing for the both of us. It’s a rather lovely arrangement, I think.
After Max has assured that I’m slick enough he replaces his fingers with the blunt tip of his arousal. His pushes inside me with a grunt and I can feel my flesh contour around his rigid length as he delves deeper. This time between us is tapered with a lazy sort of enjoyment. There’s no rush, no frenetic pace, just slow, sensuous lovemaking. Our skin breaks out in a fine gleam of sweat as we strain our bodies together, taking it as far as possible and yet yearning for more. The orgasm that washes over us is mutual, spurred on by the convulsions of both our bodies.
Max falls against me, resting his weight atop me briefly before slipping his penis from my body and rolling onto his side. “Now I feel better,” he teases with a smile, pulling me back against his sweat-dampened body.
“I glad you do,” I retort sweetly, “but it looks like I’ll have to take another shower.”
Max chuckles against my neck. “I’ll take one with you,” he offers magnanimously.
“Oh, no you don’t!” I laugh, “That’s a sure fired guarantee that I’ll never get clean!” We fall into a contented silence and I almost begin to drift off to sleep when I hear a, “Hey, Liz?” whispered against my ear.
I crack open one sleepy eye. “Hey what?”
“Why don’t we make a baby together?”
Those seven words render me wide-awake. One moment I’m boneless, only a yawn away from dreamland and the next my every sense is on alert. Did he just say what I thought? Did he just say he wanted to have a baby? I know that he did, but I’m just having a hard time comprehending the facts. To say that his suggestion is unexpected is stating it mildly. I’m left without words. Though, I’ve thought about many things since Max and I began our reconciliation, a baby has never, NEVER entered the equation. And the truth is…the idea alone simply terrifies me.
Though I love Katie, in fact, there are no words to describe just how much I truly adore her, but I can never forget what it was like when I carried her. Bar none, it had to be the most miserable experience of my life. Max and I fought the majority of my pregnancy and then, after Katie was born, I had the most horrible depression to deal with. And that wasn’t even the clincher. Ultimately, it was that period in my life, my pregnancy and afterward, that created the wedge in my marriage to Max and ultimately destroyed us.
And perhaps it’s crazy, hell flat out ridiculous, but I’m terrified of that happening again. This love I have with Max is so new and fresh and precious I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize it. And yes, yes, right now I have this nagging, awful feeling that a baby will jeopardize it. I know I’m being paranoid, but I honestly can’t help it. To lose Max the first time had broken my heart, but if I were to lose him this time, if we were to fall apart again…it would simply kill me.
“Liz?” It’s his questioning whisper, the sound of my own name that reminds me that he’s waiting for my answer. I can feel my heart begin to thump in a slow rhythm of dread.
“When did you start thinking about babies, Max?” I ask him carefully.
He sighs. “You know I love Katie, right?” I nod my confirmation. “Well, it’s so frustrating not to be able to remember her birth…or remember you pregnant…” That’s not entirely a bad thing I’m thinking, but of course I don‘t say it aloud. “I just wish I could share those memories with you.” He buries his face even deeper into my hair. “I want to see you pregnant with my child.”
“But Max, a baby…” I protest softly.
He takes hold of my chin so that I’m forced to turn and meet his gaze. “Does it seem too soon for you, Liz?” he wonders aloud gently.
“No, it’s not too soon--,”
“Liz, come on,” Max urges quietly, “You’re scared, okay! It’s written all over you face. Now just tell me why.”
I want to avert my eyes, want to kiss him, want to do anything that will distract him from his quest and postpone this discussion for at least a hundred years. The last thing I expected after such tender, sweet lovemaking is to be reopening old wounds. I hadn’t expected those old wounds to still be as painful either. “Max, do we have to talk about this now?” I hedge, trying to turn my face away. He won’t let me.
“Tell me,” he coaxes.
“Alright!” I cry in exasperation, “When we had Katie it was a disaster, okay!”
He doesn’t take offense at my snappy reply, but only plods on in his same gentle tone. “What do you mean it was a disaster?”
“We didn’t plan to have her,” I tell him, “We were young…still in our early twenties. I didn’t want a baby then. I didn’t think the time was right so when I found out I was pregnant I wasn’t exactly ecstatic.”
“And we fought about that,” Max guesses astutely.
“Yes, a lot,” I confirm morosely, “It got really bad between us. You could say that was the beginning of the end for our marriage.”
“And after Katie was born,” Max prompts.
“Things got even worse. I suffered from Post Pardum Depression,” I whisper, “I was a wreck for months afterward and our marriage was never the same.” He doesn’t say anything, only frames my face in his hands and dips his head for a kiss. Max transmits monumental feeling with just that fleeting touch. I can feel his comfort, his warmth, his love exuding through that brief brush of his lips. His very tenderness makes me cry. My tears spill over completely as I sob, “Oh Max, don’t you see? What if having a baby ruins us the way it did the first time?”
“That’s not going to happen,” Max assures me, brushing away my tears.
“How do you know?” I sniffle.
“I’m not the same man,” he answers quietly, “and you’re not that same woman, Liz. This time is completely different.” My uncertainty must be obvious because he tips up my chin and asks solemnly, “Don’t you want to have my baby?”
How can I possibly say no to such a sweet and beautiful request. “Yes, yes,” I murmur, “I want to have your baby, Max.”
“Then let’s don’t think about anything else but making a baby together,” he whispers.
“But what if I--,”
“Shh,” he croons, silencing my protests with his kiss. It doesn’t take me very long before I’ve given in, wrapped my arms around him and opened my mouth to his kiss. But then it’s always this way with Max now. How can I ever tell him no?
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Deejonaise
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- Posts: 385
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Chapter 26
“Max and I are going to try and have another baby,” I announce to my mother with a happy sigh. It’s a bad move. A very, very bad move. She sloshes hot tea over the rim of her cup and burns her hand. Nope, it’s definitely not a good start at all. She hisses a curse as I run to get ointment for her hand. When I come back with the Neosporin she is reclined back against the sofa and regarding me with a dour expression.
“I can’t believe you would plan something so monumentally stupid,” she declares flatly. Her statement doesn’t anger me, particularly because I expected a reaction along these lines and I’ve prepared myself.
“Of course, you’re upset,” I reply evenly, taking a seat adjacent to her so that I can look directly into her face. Our tea is forgotten now as are the little finger sandwiches I’ve prepared in expectation of her visit.
Mom rolls her eyes. “I’ve only been after you to leave the man for the better part of a year, Elizabeth,” she throws back, “Did you honestly expect me to be happy over this?”
“Quite frankly, yes,” I retort curtly, “Most women would be thrilled to have this kind of news.”
“Most women’s daughters aren’t married to the devil incarnate,” Mom counters drolly.
I throw up my hands in exasperated annoyance. “You’re utterly impossible!”
“No, you’re the impossible one,” she snaps out, “It looks like Max wasn’t the only one to get his brain scrambled. You’ve obviously lost what little sense you had left, girl!”
“Gee, thank you so much, Mom.”
“Don’t take that snippy sarcastic tone with me,” she warns, wagging her finger at me, “You know very well that I’m telling the truth!”
“You don’t have a clue!” My earlier resolve to remain calm and mature during this discussion has just flown completely out the window. I’m fighting mad now and on the defensive. “Why can’t you just be a normal mother and be happy for me! God!”
“Oh, here we go again, Elizabeth,” my mother drones with a long-suffering sigh, “I’m not a ‘normal’ mother…I don’t want you to be happy.” She snorts in utter contempt. “Has it ever once crossed your mind that I’m telling you these things because I care, because I’ve been where you are and I don’t want to see you make the same mistakes?”
I suck in a shocked breath. This is the most honest my mother has been in some time. Her manner takes me off guard for a second, renders me momentarily speechless. It takes a while for me to work up a response but finally I manage, “Max is nothing like Daddy.”
“You’re right,” Mom concedes quickly, “He’s worse. Somehow he’s got you convinced that all his infidelities were your fault!”
“That’s not true.”
She raises her brows in challenge. “It isn’t?” she queries, “Then why on earth have you stayed with him so long?”
The thing about mothers is that they know you. They’ve watched your every move from infancy onward so they have a pretty good indication of what makes you tick. Nancy Louise Parker is no different. There’s no point in my ever trying to explain away my motivations or thoughts because she already knows them all. There’s little I can tell her about myself that will come as a shock or surprise. I know this and, yet, it still annoys the hell out of me when she proves just how adept she is at figuring me out.
For instance, she’s right about the reason I stayed with Max so long. After the hateful things that had transpired between us no love or remnants thereof was strong enough to endure in what had become unendurable. Any woman with an ounce of self-esteem would have left years ago. But not me. No, I stayed and I made excuses, for Max and for myself, because in the back of my mind I did believe it was my fault. I did believe I was the reason my marriage fell apart.
Of course, I know differently now, but still it’s an extremely touchy subject for me. I’ve learned to stop blaming myself, but I still harbor the secret fear that others might. I know I’m not the reason for the downfall of my marriage, but it’s important to me that those sitting in judgment know as well, people like my mother. I wouldn’t want for anyone to assume the wrong reasons for why I’m with Max now. It’s obvious she’s jumped to the wrong conclusions based solely on past evidence and that is just unacceptable. Because one thing has nothing to do with the other. I love Max now, no, I’m in love with him and in a way that I never have been before with anyone…I want everyone to know that.
“Mom, you’re right,” I say after a moment of thought, deciding to lay the truth bare for her and damn the consequences, “I did stay with Max for all the wrong reasons before, but that is NOT why I’m with him now.”
Mom doesn’t look at all convinced. Her expression is absolutely deadpan when she invites flatly, “Enlighten me.”
She’s already closed off her mind I can tell. I really don’t know why I even bother, but there’s just something inside me pushing to defend Max and our love for each other. “I’m with Max now because I’m in love with him,” I confess with a secret smile, “Really in love…the hard to breathe, hard to think, can’t hardly sit down kind of love.”
“You felt like that for him before,” Mom asserts dryly.
“Actually, I didn’t,” I correct, “I was…dazzled, by his looks, by his charm, by his money… He seemed the perfect epitome of what a young woman should want in a husband and I got swept up in that. Max, the way is now, is the complete opposite. He has no high powered job, no suave charm or smooth conversation skills. He’s just a plain ordinary guy with plain ordinary dreams.”
“He has the mind of a child, Elizabeth,” Mom counters acerbically, “of course he doesn’t have or want any of those things now, but what happens when he matures, hmm? What happens when he starts to want those things again? Max lost his memory, not his trust fund, darling. He’s still who he was born to be. If his money influenced him once, it will influence him again.”
“No,” I deny with a firm shake of my head, “Max has a completely different set of values now. What was important to him before is NOT important to him now. He puts Katie and me first…always. We’re what matters to him.”
“For now maybe.”
“For always,” I insist, “He‘s the one who suggested we try and have another baby.”
“As I recall,” mom drawled out, “he was the one the first time also.”
“Katie wasn’t planned, Mom,” I correct her coldly, “This baby will be.”
“I think you’re making a mistake,” she tells me.
“And I think you’re not giving Max a chance,” I tell her.
“Elizabeth,” she begins with infinite gentleness, “you forget, my love, I was married to a cheat. Don’t think for a moment I believed that Amy DeLuca was the last of your father’s conquests.”
“But you stayed with him,” I remind her.
“Because I was weak…I didn’t believe I could survive without him,” she reveals quietly, “I never had any confidence in myself to make it own my own.” I’m shaken by her admission. She’s never said anything like this before. In fact, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard her badmouth my father in my entire life. It’s always been someone else’s fault, but never Jeff Parker’s. To learn that, after all these years, my mother has harbored such intense resentment for my father and dislike for herself is stunning.
She takes advantage of my speechlessness to continue. “You’re not like me, Elizabeth,” she says tenderly, “You’re smart with a college degree and a strong mind. You don’t need Max Evans or his money to make your way. You can do that fine on your own.”
My reply to her is just as soft and gentle as her words to me. “I know that and I told you, Mom…that may have been the reason I stayed with Max before, but that’s not the reason I’m with him now.” I take her answering silence as encouragement and press on bravely, “Why don’t you stay for dinner?” I invite warmly, “Then you can see for yourself what kind of man Max really is.”
Mom looks indecisive. “I don’t know…” she hedges.
“We’re having eggplant parmigiana,” I tell her. Okay, so I’m fudging a little. We were actually supposed to have chicken cacciatore but I doubt Max will mind making the small change in the menu…not if it’s for a good cause.
“Eggplant parmigiana,” Mom considers, “Oh, you’ve definitely got something up your sleeve if you’ll resort to making my favorite dish.”
“Actually, I won’t be making it,” I tell her with a smirk and just to shock her further I add, “Max will.”
Her eyes all but bug out of her head. “Max is cooking?” she guffaws, “Are you sure that’s wise?”
“He’s been taking a culinary class for the last six weeks now,” I tell her proudly, “He’s really very good.”
“And he did this…willingly?”
“Yes, Mother,” I reply with a roll of my eyes, “Max enjoys cooking. In fact, he‘ll be graduating in another couple of weeks…maybe you could come.”
“Oh, I don’t know…”
“We’re going out to dinner afterwards,” I press on, “Everyone will be there.”
“Does ‘everyone’ include your sister?”
I level her with a disapproving frown. “Mom, don’t you think it’s time you settled this grudge with Maria,” I urge, “It was Dad and Amy who did the cheating so why are you making Maria pay for it?” She doesn’t answer, but the forlorn expression on her face alerts me that my words have made an impression. I move to sit beside her and sweep her hand up in my own. “Come on, Mom,” I coax with a smile, “Let’s make this time about new beginnings, okay, for everyone. What do you say?” I can see that’s she’s wavering so I add on a wheedling “please” for good measure.
“Alright, Lizzie, alright,” she sighs in exasperated defeat, “I’ll think about what you’ve told me, but I need to take baby steps. You know how much I dislike change.”
“Does that mean you’ll come to dinner tonight?” I press hopefully.
“Yes!” but before I can begin cheering she tacks on, “But I’ll not make any promises about the graduation, okay? We’ll just have to see.”
Honestly, at the moment, that’s good enough for me. I literally couldn’t ask for anything more.
“Max and I are going to try and have another baby,” I announce to my mother with a happy sigh. It’s a bad move. A very, very bad move. She sloshes hot tea over the rim of her cup and burns her hand. Nope, it’s definitely not a good start at all. She hisses a curse as I run to get ointment for her hand. When I come back with the Neosporin she is reclined back against the sofa and regarding me with a dour expression.
“I can’t believe you would plan something so monumentally stupid,” she declares flatly. Her statement doesn’t anger me, particularly because I expected a reaction along these lines and I’ve prepared myself.
“Of course, you’re upset,” I reply evenly, taking a seat adjacent to her so that I can look directly into her face. Our tea is forgotten now as are the little finger sandwiches I’ve prepared in expectation of her visit.
Mom rolls her eyes. “I’ve only been after you to leave the man for the better part of a year, Elizabeth,” she throws back, “Did you honestly expect me to be happy over this?”
“Quite frankly, yes,” I retort curtly, “Most women would be thrilled to have this kind of news.”
“Most women’s daughters aren’t married to the devil incarnate,” Mom counters drolly.
I throw up my hands in exasperated annoyance. “You’re utterly impossible!”
“No, you’re the impossible one,” she snaps out, “It looks like Max wasn’t the only one to get his brain scrambled. You’ve obviously lost what little sense you had left, girl!”
“Gee, thank you so much, Mom.”
“Don’t take that snippy sarcastic tone with me,” she warns, wagging her finger at me, “You know very well that I’m telling the truth!”
“You don’t have a clue!” My earlier resolve to remain calm and mature during this discussion has just flown completely out the window. I’m fighting mad now and on the defensive. “Why can’t you just be a normal mother and be happy for me! God!”
“Oh, here we go again, Elizabeth,” my mother drones with a long-suffering sigh, “I’m not a ‘normal’ mother…I don’t want you to be happy.” She snorts in utter contempt. “Has it ever once crossed your mind that I’m telling you these things because I care, because I’ve been where you are and I don’t want to see you make the same mistakes?”
I suck in a shocked breath. This is the most honest my mother has been in some time. Her manner takes me off guard for a second, renders me momentarily speechless. It takes a while for me to work up a response but finally I manage, “Max is nothing like Daddy.”
“You’re right,” Mom concedes quickly, “He’s worse. Somehow he’s got you convinced that all his infidelities were your fault!”
“That’s not true.”
She raises her brows in challenge. “It isn’t?” she queries, “Then why on earth have you stayed with him so long?”
The thing about mothers is that they know you. They’ve watched your every move from infancy onward so they have a pretty good indication of what makes you tick. Nancy Louise Parker is no different. There’s no point in my ever trying to explain away my motivations or thoughts because she already knows them all. There’s little I can tell her about myself that will come as a shock or surprise. I know this and, yet, it still annoys the hell out of me when she proves just how adept she is at figuring me out.
For instance, she’s right about the reason I stayed with Max so long. After the hateful things that had transpired between us no love or remnants thereof was strong enough to endure in what had become unendurable. Any woman with an ounce of self-esteem would have left years ago. But not me. No, I stayed and I made excuses, for Max and for myself, because in the back of my mind I did believe it was my fault. I did believe I was the reason my marriage fell apart.
Of course, I know differently now, but still it’s an extremely touchy subject for me. I’ve learned to stop blaming myself, but I still harbor the secret fear that others might. I know I’m not the reason for the downfall of my marriage, but it’s important to me that those sitting in judgment know as well, people like my mother. I wouldn’t want for anyone to assume the wrong reasons for why I’m with Max now. It’s obvious she’s jumped to the wrong conclusions based solely on past evidence and that is just unacceptable. Because one thing has nothing to do with the other. I love Max now, no, I’m in love with him and in a way that I never have been before with anyone…I want everyone to know that.
“Mom, you’re right,” I say after a moment of thought, deciding to lay the truth bare for her and damn the consequences, “I did stay with Max for all the wrong reasons before, but that is NOT why I’m with him now.”
Mom doesn’t look at all convinced. Her expression is absolutely deadpan when she invites flatly, “Enlighten me.”
She’s already closed off her mind I can tell. I really don’t know why I even bother, but there’s just something inside me pushing to defend Max and our love for each other. “I’m with Max now because I’m in love with him,” I confess with a secret smile, “Really in love…the hard to breathe, hard to think, can’t hardly sit down kind of love.”
“You felt like that for him before,” Mom asserts dryly.
“Actually, I didn’t,” I correct, “I was…dazzled, by his looks, by his charm, by his money… He seemed the perfect epitome of what a young woman should want in a husband and I got swept up in that. Max, the way is now, is the complete opposite. He has no high powered job, no suave charm or smooth conversation skills. He’s just a plain ordinary guy with plain ordinary dreams.”
“He has the mind of a child, Elizabeth,” Mom counters acerbically, “of course he doesn’t have or want any of those things now, but what happens when he matures, hmm? What happens when he starts to want those things again? Max lost his memory, not his trust fund, darling. He’s still who he was born to be. If his money influenced him once, it will influence him again.”
“No,” I deny with a firm shake of my head, “Max has a completely different set of values now. What was important to him before is NOT important to him now. He puts Katie and me first…always. We’re what matters to him.”
“For now maybe.”
“For always,” I insist, “He‘s the one who suggested we try and have another baby.”
“As I recall,” mom drawled out, “he was the one the first time also.”
“Katie wasn’t planned, Mom,” I correct her coldly, “This baby will be.”
“I think you’re making a mistake,” she tells me.
“And I think you’re not giving Max a chance,” I tell her.
“Elizabeth,” she begins with infinite gentleness, “you forget, my love, I was married to a cheat. Don’t think for a moment I believed that Amy DeLuca was the last of your father’s conquests.”
“But you stayed with him,” I remind her.
“Because I was weak…I didn’t believe I could survive without him,” she reveals quietly, “I never had any confidence in myself to make it own my own.” I’m shaken by her admission. She’s never said anything like this before. In fact, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard her badmouth my father in my entire life. It’s always been someone else’s fault, but never Jeff Parker’s. To learn that, after all these years, my mother has harbored such intense resentment for my father and dislike for herself is stunning.
She takes advantage of my speechlessness to continue. “You’re not like me, Elizabeth,” she says tenderly, “You’re smart with a college degree and a strong mind. You don’t need Max Evans or his money to make your way. You can do that fine on your own.”
My reply to her is just as soft and gentle as her words to me. “I know that and I told you, Mom…that may have been the reason I stayed with Max before, but that’s not the reason I’m with him now.” I take her answering silence as encouragement and press on bravely, “Why don’t you stay for dinner?” I invite warmly, “Then you can see for yourself what kind of man Max really is.”
Mom looks indecisive. “I don’t know…” she hedges.
“We’re having eggplant parmigiana,” I tell her. Okay, so I’m fudging a little. We were actually supposed to have chicken cacciatore but I doubt Max will mind making the small change in the menu…not if it’s for a good cause.
“Eggplant parmigiana,” Mom considers, “Oh, you’ve definitely got something up your sleeve if you’ll resort to making my favorite dish.”
“Actually, I won’t be making it,” I tell her with a smirk and just to shock her further I add, “Max will.”
Her eyes all but bug out of her head. “Max is cooking?” she guffaws, “Are you sure that’s wise?”
“He’s been taking a culinary class for the last six weeks now,” I tell her proudly, “He’s really very good.”
“And he did this…willingly?”
“Yes, Mother,” I reply with a roll of my eyes, “Max enjoys cooking. In fact, he‘ll be graduating in another couple of weeks…maybe you could come.”
“Oh, I don’t know…”
“We’re going out to dinner afterwards,” I press on, “Everyone will be there.”
“Does ‘everyone’ include your sister?”
I level her with a disapproving frown. “Mom, don’t you think it’s time you settled this grudge with Maria,” I urge, “It was Dad and Amy who did the cheating so why are you making Maria pay for it?” She doesn’t answer, but the forlorn expression on her face alerts me that my words have made an impression. I move to sit beside her and sweep her hand up in my own. “Come on, Mom,” I coax with a smile, “Let’s make this time about new beginnings, okay, for everyone. What do you say?” I can see that’s she’s wavering so I add on a wheedling “please” for good measure.
“Alright, Lizzie, alright,” she sighs in exasperated defeat, “I’ll think about what you’ve told me, but I need to take baby steps. You know how much I dislike change.”
“Does that mean you’ll come to dinner tonight?” I press hopefully.
“Yes!” but before I can begin cheering she tacks on, “But I’ll not make any promises about the graduation, okay? We’ll just have to see.”
Honestly, at the moment, that’s good enough for me. I literally couldn’t ask for anything more.
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Deejonaise
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 385
- Joined: Thu Feb 28, 2002 12:48 am
- Location: On my rusty dusty...
Chapter 27
“I’ll have the 10 oz. sirloin cooked medium-well and a baked potato, butter and sour cream only,” I tell the waiter, snapping my menu closed definitively. When I glance up Max is regarding me with an expression of comical shock. “What? What is it?” I ask, taking a sip of my water, “Do I have lipstick on my teeth or something?”
“You just ordered real food,” he notes in shock.
“So?” I prod mischievously.
“You…You NEVER order real food, Liz,” he stammers out, “It’s always soup and salad or salad and a baked potato or just sometimes plain old salad. One way or another you’re going to eat lettuce.”
“Is it such a big deal I felt like a steak,” I ask him, straight-faced. But it’s hard, oh so hard to keep my grin of joy from revealing itself.
Max shrugs and plucks up a dinner roll. “It’s just strange, I guess.” However, I can see the secretive smile playing at the corners of his mouth and I have the sinking suspicion that he’s on to me already. “Your newfound appetite wouldn’t have anything to do with your doctor’s appointment earlier this morning, would it?” he prods with feigned innocence, before taking a bite of his roll. I told him that it was just a regular check-up but he obviously saw right through my guise. He waggles his brows at me knowingly. “So stop keeping me in suspense…are we having a baby or not?”
That’s all it takes, the unadulterated joy on his face right then. I can’t hold back my excitement any longer. My smile bursts over my face like sunshine. “We are!” I announce giddily, “We‘re having a baby!”
“So tell me what the doctor said,” Max bursts out hot on the heels of my confession.
“I am eleven weeks pregnant,” I reveal with a joyous sigh, “And in perfect health. However, my doctor did say she would probably treat this as a high risk pregnancy.”
Max’s smile falters immediately. “High risk?” he exclaims, “Why high risk? Is something wrong?”
“No, no,” I’m quick to reassure him, “It’s just a formality, mostly because of my age and the difficult time I had when we had Katie.”
“And that’s all,” Max prods anxiously, his eyes wide and worried.
I reach across the table to squeeze his hand. “That’s all.” Once he finally relaxes, I ask him, “How did you know anyway? I told you I was going to have a pap smear!”
“It was pretty obvious when you asked me to meet you for lunch,” Max replies with a soft smile. He circles his thumb against my palm, his fingers stroking mine softly. I can‘t put into words just how magical it feels, sitting there with him holding hands while basking in the happiness news of our lives together. “Besides I kinda suspected anyway.”
“Oh yeah, you kinda suspected, did you?” I say in laughing disbelief, “Sure, Max!”
“I’m serious,” he insists earnestly.
“Really?” I challenge, “And just how did you know?” I expect he will make some mention how much food I’ve been consuming lately or the stereotypical pregnancy glow he sees on my face, but what he says instead causes my mouth to fall open.
He leans in closer to me. “Your breasts are different,” he reveals in a succinct whisper, “More specifically…your nipples.”
“Max!” I gasp, reflexively glancing around to make sure no one’s overheard his outlandish statement, “I can’t believe you just said that.”
“Hey, you asked,” he quips with a shrug, “But it’s the truth, Liz. I’ve noticed lately…you know…that your nipples are kinda…well, sensitive.” His voice drops even lower, becomes velvety smooth as he continues. “I mean, I barely brush them and they get rock hard, baby. And if I suck them…damned if you don‘t come right then and there.”
“Max,” I say again, but this time his name escapes me in a shuddering moan.
“They’re never like that,” he finishes seductively, “not unless you’re on your period.”
Again my mouth falls open in shock. I duck my head in acute embarrassment. “Oh my god,” I moan, mortified, “Please tell me you’re not serious.”
Max tips his head down so that he can see my face. “What?” he asks innocently, “Do you expect me not to notice? I kiss and caress them nearly every day.”
“Oh my god,” I utter again, shielding my flaming face with one hand, “Can we please change the subject?”
“Why?” Max persists wickedly, “You didn’t seem to have a problem with the subject last night.”
I shoot him a venomous look from beneath my hand. “Stop it right now, Maxwell Evans,” I warn in an underbreath.
Max just grins at me. “Are you embarrassed?” he whispers, regarding me from beneath his lashes. The gentle stroking of my palm is suddenly not so sweet as it is sensual and maddening. He brings my hand to his mouth and traces his tongue along my lifeline. “Does talking about sex embarrass you, Liz?”
Between my legs an aroused itch has manifested itself and I squirm a little. “You are so wrong!” I accuse him hotly.
He pulls back slightly without releasing my hand, his lip pulled in a boyish pout. “I’ll be good if you want,” he says petulantly.
I drop my hand away from my face then, aroused beyond belief by the expression on his face. He looks so incredibly sexy now, his eyes half-mast and surveying me with lazy pleasure, his lower lip pouting so prettily. “No, Max,” I murmur, “I don’t want you to be good…not at all.”
My response takes him completely off guard. He’s had me on the defensive this entire time, giving chase while I ran. But now I’ve turned the tables on him. This is suddenly no longer a game for Max. My last statement has aroused him thoroughly if the fire leaping in his eyes now is any indication.
He swallows hard and slowly pulls his hand from my grasp to fold his napkin atop the table. “Suddenly, I’m not very hungry anymore,” he announces quietly.
“You don’t want lunch?” I query innocently.
“I’d rather skip straight to dessert.” The way he says that I just know he’s not talking about chocolate cake. My cheeks burn even as another part of me burns in anticipation. “Let’s get it To Go,” Max suggests and that’s just what we do. After hailing down our beleaguered waiter Max presses a ten dollar tip into his palm and then takes my hand, his intention to lead me over to the hostess stand where our server will bring us our meal.
We hardly pay attention to where we’re going we’re so preoccupied with giggling and kissing. So it’s no surprise that we bump into another couple as we are winding our way to the front of the restaurant. But when I turn around to say, “excuse me” the words freeze in my throat. Theresa Harding stands only inches from Max and me.
“Oh my god!” she utters in soft exclamation when she beholds Max, “What are you doing here? I thought you were in some clinic out in the sticks!”
“I’m sorry,” Max responds blankly, “Do I know you?” He stares down at me quizzically. “Do I know her?”
“You…You used to work with her,” I croak in a dry whisper. I feel horridly queasy at present, but this nausea isn’t due to morning sickness. No, the very idea of standing in such close proximity with my husband’s former mistress is quite disgusting, made one hundred times worse because Max is standing right there. And then one hundred times more awkward because he has no idea who the hell she is and, judging from the impatient expression on his face, neither does he care.
I register all this, but it’s still so hard to stand there. But I do, my smile polite and inviting when inside I’m screaming inside. In just those few seconds all the resentment and pain Max inflicted during our marriage comes rushing back over me. I suddenly hate him again, hate him for putting me in such a position, hate him for the humiliation coursing through my body at that very moment.
I stop myself mid-thought. That Max is dead as are my feelings for him. The man standing beside me is nothing like him. The man standing beside me adores me. I’m the only woman in the world that exists for him. His very touch reassures me of that fact. How he hugs my waist so protectively, his fingers unconsciously stroking my hip, the sweet glances he’s giving me right now…it all testifies to just how deeply he adores me. I hope Ms. Harding can see it. I hope she can see it and it eats her heart out.
Her dining companion moves forward to introduce himself when his date makes no effort to do so. “You…used…to…work…with…me…too…Max,” Kyle Valenti enunciates slowly, “Do…you…remember…me?”
“No…I…don’t…remember…you,” Max replies just as slowly, giving me an uncomfortable look. His expression clearly asks, “What’s with this guy?” I might have laughed if I didn’t want to drop through the floor at present.
“Max, this is Kyle Valenti,” I explain in dull tones, “You and he used to be partners in the law firm where you worked.”
“Oh,” Max says, finally comprehending. He reaches forward to shake Valenti’s hand. “Then you knew me from before my accident,” he states, “I’m sorry but I still don’t have any memories from before.”
I barely listen to the brief conversation Max carries on with Valenti following their handshake. I am looking at Theresa Harding. She has yet to take her eyes off Max. It’s like she’s drinking him in. I feel torn between the urge to slap her silly and to walk off completely.
“They said you weren’t going to recover,” Theresa Harding interrupts, her tone full of evident shock, “I didn’t think I’d…I mean we’d ever see you again.”
“His recovery took a long time,” I snap impatiently.
But, of course, she ignores me. “You look really good, Max,” she tells him.
“Thank you,” Max replies automatically. He places his hand in the small of my back then, ushering me past them, a plastic smile pasted on his face. “Well, we have to go…it was nice to meet you.” Only when we were out of earshot did he ask, “Who were those weirdoes?”
“I’ll have the 10 oz. sirloin cooked medium-well and a baked potato, butter and sour cream only,” I tell the waiter, snapping my menu closed definitively. When I glance up Max is regarding me with an expression of comical shock. “What? What is it?” I ask, taking a sip of my water, “Do I have lipstick on my teeth or something?”
“You just ordered real food,” he notes in shock.
“So?” I prod mischievously.
“You…You NEVER order real food, Liz,” he stammers out, “It’s always soup and salad or salad and a baked potato or just sometimes plain old salad. One way or another you’re going to eat lettuce.”
“Is it such a big deal I felt like a steak,” I ask him, straight-faced. But it’s hard, oh so hard to keep my grin of joy from revealing itself.
Max shrugs and plucks up a dinner roll. “It’s just strange, I guess.” However, I can see the secretive smile playing at the corners of his mouth and I have the sinking suspicion that he’s on to me already. “Your newfound appetite wouldn’t have anything to do with your doctor’s appointment earlier this morning, would it?” he prods with feigned innocence, before taking a bite of his roll. I told him that it was just a regular check-up but he obviously saw right through my guise. He waggles his brows at me knowingly. “So stop keeping me in suspense…are we having a baby or not?”
That’s all it takes, the unadulterated joy on his face right then. I can’t hold back my excitement any longer. My smile bursts over my face like sunshine. “We are!” I announce giddily, “We‘re having a baby!”
“So tell me what the doctor said,” Max bursts out hot on the heels of my confession.
“I am eleven weeks pregnant,” I reveal with a joyous sigh, “And in perfect health. However, my doctor did say she would probably treat this as a high risk pregnancy.”
Max’s smile falters immediately. “High risk?” he exclaims, “Why high risk? Is something wrong?”
“No, no,” I’m quick to reassure him, “It’s just a formality, mostly because of my age and the difficult time I had when we had Katie.”
“And that’s all,” Max prods anxiously, his eyes wide and worried.
I reach across the table to squeeze his hand. “That’s all.” Once he finally relaxes, I ask him, “How did you know anyway? I told you I was going to have a pap smear!”
“It was pretty obvious when you asked me to meet you for lunch,” Max replies with a soft smile. He circles his thumb against my palm, his fingers stroking mine softly. I can‘t put into words just how magical it feels, sitting there with him holding hands while basking in the happiness news of our lives together. “Besides I kinda suspected anyway.”
“Oh yeah, you kinda suspected, did you?” I say in laughing disbelief, “Sure, Max!”
“I’m serious,” he insists earnestly.
“Really?” I challenge, “And just how did you know?” I expect he will make some mention how much food I’ve been consuming lately or the stereotypical pregnancy glow he sees on my face, but what he says instead causes my mouth to fall open.
He leans in closer to me. “Your breasts are different,” he reveals in a succinct whisper, “More specifically…your nipples.”
“Max!” I gasp, reflexively glancing around to make sure no one’s overheard his outlandish statement, “I can’t believe you just said that.”
“Hey, you asked,” he quips with a shrug, “But it’s the truth, Liz. I’ve noticed lately…you know…that your nipples are kinda…well, sensitive.” His voice drops even lower, becomes velvety smooth as he continues. “I mean, I barely brush them and they get rock hard, baby. And if I suck them…damned if you don‘t come right then and there.”
“Max,” I say again, but this time his name escapes me in a shuddering moan.
“They’re never like that,” he finishes seductively, “not unless you’re on your period.”
Again my mouth falls open in shock. I duck my head in acute embarrassment. “Oh my god,” I moan, mortified, “Please tell me you’re not serious.”
Max tips his head down so that he can see my face. “What?” he asks innocently, “Do you expect me not to notice? I kiss and caress them nearly every day.”
“Oh my god,” I utter again, shielding my flaming face with one hand, “Can we please change the subject?”
“Why?” Max persists wickedly, “You didn’t seem to have a problem with the subject last night.”
I shoot him a venomous look from beneath my hand. “Stop it right now, Maxwell Evans,” I warn in an underbreath.
Max just grins at me. “Are you embarrassed?” he whispers, regarding me from beneath his lashes. The gentle stroking of my palm is suddenly not so sweet as it is sensual and maddening. He brings my hand to his mouth and traces his tongue along my lifeline. “Does talking about sex embarrass you, Liz?”
Between my legs an aroused itch has manifested itself and I squirm a little. “You are so wrong!” I accuse him hotly.
He pulls back slightly without releasing my hand, his lip pulled in a boyish pout. “I’ll be good if you want,” he says petulantly.
I drop my hand away from my face then, aroused beyond belief by the expression on his face. He looks so incredibly sexy now, his eyes half-mast and surveying me with lazy pleasure, his lower lip pouting so prettily. “No, Max,” I murmur, “I don’t want you to be good…not at all.”
My response takes him completely off guard. He’s had me on the defensive this entire time, giving chase while I ran. But now I’ve turned the tables on him. This is suddenly no longer a game for Max. My last statement has aroused him thoroughly if the fire leaping in his eyes now is any indication.
He swallows hard and slowly pulls his hand from my grasp to fold his napkin atop the table. “Suddenly, I’m not very hungry anymore,” he announces quietly.
“You don’t want lunch?” I query innocently.
“I’d rather skip straight to dessert.” The way he says that I just know he’s not talking about chocolate cake. My cheeks burn even as another part of me burns in anticipation. “Let’s get it To Go,” Max suggests and that’s just what we do. After hailing down our beleaguered waiter Max presses a ten dollar tip into his palm and then takes my hand, his intention to lead me over to the hostess stand where our server will bring us our meal.
We hardly pay attention to where we’re going we’re so preoccupied with giggling and kissing. So it’s no surprise that we bump into another couple as we are winding our way to the front of the restaurant. But when I turn around to say, “excuse me” the words freeze in my throat. Theresa Harding stands only inches from Max and me.
“Oh my god!” she utters in soft exclamation when she beholds Max, “What are you doing here? I thought you were in some clinic out in the sticks!”
“I’m sorry,” Max responds blankly, “Do I know you?” He stares down at me quizzically. “Do I know her?”
“You…You used to work with her,” I croak in a dry whisper. I feel horridly queasy at present, but this nausea isn’t due to morning sickness. No, the very idea of standing in such close proximity with my husband’s former mistress is quite disgusting, made one hundred times worse because Max is standing right there. And then one hundred times more awkward because he has no idea who the hell she is and, judging from the impatient expression on his face, neither does he care.
I register all this, but it’s still so hard to stand there. But I do, my smile polite and inviting when inside I’m screaming inside. In just those few seconds all the resentment and pain Max inflicted during our marriage comes rushing back over me. I suddenly hate him again, hate him for putting me in such a position, hate him for the humiliation coursing through my body at that very moment.
I stop myself mid-thought. That Max is dead as are my feelings for him. The man standing beside me is nothing like him. The man standing beside me adores me. I’m the only woman in the world that exists for him. His very touch reassures me of that fact. How he hugs my waist so protectively, his fingers unconsciously stroking my hip, the sweet glances he’s giving me right now…it all testifies to just how deeply he adores me. I hope Ms. Harding can see it. I hope she can see it and it eats her heart out.
Her dining companion moves forward to introduce himself when his date makes no effort to do so. “You…used…to…work…with…me…too…Max,” Kyle Valenti enunciates slowly, “Do…you…remember…me?”
“No…I…don’t…remember…you,” Max replies just as slowly, giving me an uncomfortable look. His expression clearly asks, “What’s with this guy?” I might have laughed if I didn’t want to drop through the floor at present.
“Max, this is Kyle Valenti,” I explain in dull tones, “You and he used to be partners in the law firm where you worked.”
“Oh,” Max says, finally comprehending. He reaches forward to shake Valenti’s hand. “Then you knew me from before my accident,” he states, “I’m sorry but I still don’t have any memories from before.”
I barely listen to the brief conversation Max carries on with Valenti following their handshake. I am looking at Theresa Harding. She has yet to take her eyes off Max. It’s like she’s drinking him in. I feel torn between the urge to slap her silly and to walk off completely.
“They said you weren’t going to recover,” Theresa Harding interrupts, her tone full of evident shock, “I didn’t think I’d…I mean we’d ever see you again.”
“His recovery took a long time,” I snap impatiently.
But, of course, she ignores me. “You look really good, Max,” she tells him.
“Thank you,” Max replies automatically. He places his hand in the small of my back then, ushering me past them, a plastic smile pasted on his face. “Well, we have to go…it was nice to meet you.” Only when we were out of earshot did he ask, “Who were those weirdoes?”
-
Deejonaise
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 385
- Joined: Thu Feb 28, 2002 12:48 am
- Location: On my rusty dusty...
Chapter 28
I stare down at Max’s sleeping face, tracing my fingers over his naked chest. The incident at the restaurant was put quickly from his mind. However, it clung to me, while we waited for our food, when we drove home and even when we made love. Just seeing Theresa Harding again brought back a flood of memories I would have rather forgotten. But that’s the thing about bad memories, they never go away completely, they only stay hidden for a while.
Max snuffles in his sleep and shifts, contouring his body against mine. I feel guilty that my thoughts are so torn. He deserved to have my full attention this afternoon and yet I couldn’t banish that Harding woman from my mind. I still wonder to this day why Max called her after he left me. That fact still gnaws away at me. I didn’t realize how much it did until I saw her again today.
The unexpected ringing of the doorbell jostles me out of my dark thoughts and I sit up reflexively, frowning slightly. It’s strange that anyone would be calling on us right now. Max and I are actually supposed to be at work right now and we would be if we hadn’t taken the rest of the day off. Whoever it was couldn’t be there to visit Maria or Isabel either. Isabel no longer lived with us and Maria…well, she was almost never home during the day.
With a puzzled frown I gingerly push myself from the bed, careful not to wake Max and wrap myself in a bathrobe before padding, barefoot, into the living room. When I pull open the front door I’m only a little surprised to find Theresa Harding standing on my porch. Reflexively, I clutch the top of my bathrobe together when I see her, but I say nothing, only regard her with impassive eyes.
She coughs a self-conscious laugh. “I told myself not to come here,” she says in a self-deprecating tone.
I‘m not at all fooled by her innocent act. “And yet you did,” I conclude flatly, “My husband doesn’t remember you.”
Perhaps she doesn’t expect me to be so direct because she appears flustered for a moment. “I…I know that,” she stammers, “But I didn’t come here to see Max…I came here to see you.” I continue to survey her coolly. “Can I come in?” she implores uncomfortably.
Again I don’t reply, but simply stand aside and allow her entrance. I close the door behind her and then lean against it, folding my arms across my chest. “You have two minutes to say whatever it is you have to say,” I tell her crisply, “and then I want you to get the hell out of my house.”
“I guess that means you know who I am,” she whispers.
“You fucked my husband,” I reply, “You weren’t the first, but you were definitely the last. What do you want, Ms. Harding?”
“Tess,” she supplies inanely, “Peep…people call me Tess.”
“I don’t give a damn what people call you,” I snap, “Just say what you have to and leave!” My vicious tone makes her jump. She’s obviously surprised by my attitude. Hell, I’m surprised. It takes a great deal to set me off. I’m not normally quick to anger at all. Yet, standing in my foyer with Theresa Harding not three feet away, I feel dangerously close to aggravated assault right now.
She stares at me intently, as if she’s searching my face for something though I can hardly imagine what she’s looking for. Finally, she sighs. “I…I wanted to explain to you why I was in the hospital that day.”
“I already know why you were in the hospital that day,” I reply shortly.
“No, you don’t,” is her soft contradiction, “I wasn’t out there, at the store I mean, to meet Max…not the way you think. He and I were over.”
I snort at that. “You were over and yet the moment he leaves the house he calls you up to meet him.”
“Only because I threatened to come here if he didn’t.” The sneer of contempt gradually eases from my lips. She has my attention now, though I don‘t want to admit it. “Max had ended things with me earlier that week,” she explains shakily, “He said he felt like he was going through the motions with me and he didn’t want to--,”
“Spare me the details of your relationship, Ms. Harding,” I interrupt coldly.
Despite my harshness she presses on. “He wanted to make things work with you,” she tells me fervently, “The entire time we were together he always made it seem like he hated you, but then one night after work we went to have a couple of drinks… Max got drunk and that’s when he told me the truth. He…he told me he loved you, loved you more than anything, but he was afraid to show it…to feel it because he thought that one day you would leave him like his parents did.”
I don’t know what she wants to accomplish by telling me these things, but if it’s to knock me on my ass she’s done that in spades. However, I school my features against betraying even the slightest hint of emotion. I won’t give her the satisfaction of knowing I still care. I don’t give her the reaction she’s waiting for. I think maybe she will give up then but she launches back into her monologue once more.
“We broke up about a month or so after that,” she tells me, “I guess Max just got tired of fighting his feelings. The morning he ended things he said he wanted to make it work with you again, but I got hysterical. I told him if he tried to leave me I would tell you about our relationship. He went completely ballistic.”
My mouth twists into an ironic smile. “I already knew about the two of you,” I say bitterly, “I found a pair of your panties in our bed. It’s pretty evident Max wanted me to know.”
“No, no, he didn’t,” she protests, “Nothing happened…what I mean is…Max had to stop by here for some legal papers one morning and I was with him. I asked him could I use the bathroom and while he was occupied I…I planted my underwear in your bed.”
It’s a revelation I never expected. I gape at her, utterly appalled by her confession. “You planted your panties in my bed?” I demand incredulously.
She ducks her head. “I thought it might pressure Max into ending things with you,” she admits miserably, “But nothing ever came of it. I…I thought maybe you hadn’t found them or something.”
“No, I found them,” I counter dryly, “I just never confronted Max about it.”
“Oh,” she squeaks, falling into silence.
I stand there staring at her bent head, waiting for her to go on but she doesn’t seem inclined to. Unfortunately, my curiosity has gotten the better of me and I can’t simply regard her in silence as I’ve been doing. “You said that you and Max were finished,” I comment softly, “Well, if that was true why did you meet him at the store?”
“I told you,” she stresses never lifting her head, as she speaks, “I didn’t want to end our relationship. I told Max that if he didn’t meet me I would come to his house. He didn’t want that.”
Maybe I’m a fool, but I believe what she’s telling me. It explains so much. The night Max had been shot he’d been highly agitated. At first, I thought his demeanor was due to my request for a divorce, but now I realize he was fidgety long before then. His attitude at dinner had been downright callous. Max had always been indifferent, distant, even cold in the past but he had never been outright mean. But if Theresa Harding had threatened to expose their affair like she claimed it was little wonder my asking for a divorce had sent him over the edge. No wonder he’d reacted so desperately. A divorce really had been the last thing he wanted. “Why are you telling me all this?” I whisper tremulously.
“Because you needed to know the truth,” she says, but then shakes her head in amendment, “No, that’s not entirely true. I watched you and Max today…how you were giggling and kissing. He was never that way with me…not ever.”
“He wasn’t with me either,” I confess quietly, “You have to understand that the Max Evans you knew no longer exists.”
“I do…” she whispers.
“Then why did you come here today,” I charge her, “Why decide to unburden your conscience to me after nearly a year of silence?”
“I didn’t know that Max had made so much progress,” she explains.
“Why does that matter?”
“At…at the office,” she stammers on, “they said he wouldn’t recover…that he’d be a vegetable… I didn’t have anyone else to turn to.”
“To turn to for what?” I demand impatiently.
“I couldn’t raise a baby on my own!” she bursts out frantically, “Max knew that…I told him over and over.”
My heart sinks into my belly like a stone. Now I understand why she came to the hospital, why she waited so long there even after Max had used and humiliated her. Now I understand why she had been so desperate not to let him end things. “You were pregnant,” I conclude flatly.
“Yes,” she acknowledges with a jerky nod, “I…I told him that night, you know…the night he was shot. He wasn’t expecting it.” Of course not, I think. “I must have scared him or something,” she continues, a far-off look coming over her face. I can tell that she’s no longer in the foyer with me now, but back in that night, back in that moment. “I remember I was crying and hysterical and he just kept saying over and over, ‘I can’t handle this right now, Tess, I can’t handle this!’ I think I must have slapped him…I don’t really remember, but he called me a fucking cunt and told me to get out of the car. He went into the store a few seconds later but…he never came out.”
A chill has settled over me by the time she finishes speaking. There’s so much emotion welled up in my chest I can hardly breathe. Max got another woman pregnant. This woman before me had been pregnant with his child. I move my hand low to caress my abdomen where a tiny new life grows strong. Now I’m faced with the possibility that my unborn child may have a sibling. “Do you want money,” I ask as a new reason for Theresa Harding’s visit dawns on me, “Did you come here for child support? Is that what you want?”
“I’m not here for money!” she denies tearfully.
“What? Did you have an abortion!”
“NO!”
“Then you do want money!”
“No, that’s not it at all!”
“Then why are you here, dammit!” I demand, my own tears beginning to course down my cheeks hotly, “Why did you come to ruin our family this way!”
“I gave him up for adoption!” she cries. Again silence rocks the room. My breathing hitches as I try and stifle the sobs shaking my body. Just when I think I’ve endured all I can she twists the knife even deeper. “His name is Christopher,” she sniffles, “He looks just like Max…just like him…even his ears.” She covers her mouth, clearly trying to get a grip on her emotions. When she’s calmer she finishes shakily, “I tried to raise him alone. I tried really hard but I couldn’t…I’m not cut out to be a mother, I guess… I couldn’t handle it alone and so, six weeks ago, I gave him up for adoption.” Another unexpected bombshell. I think that if I weren’t leaning against the door right now I might collapse right there. “The people who took him are really decent…very loving…”
“…but they’re not his father, are they,” I rasp dully, “You should have told us…you should have…” But how would I have reacted had she done so? The truth would have utterly destroyed me. It would have destroyed me now if I weren’t so confidant in Max’s love for me…if I weren’t carrying his baby, if I didn‘t have such firm faith in our future despite this crushing setback.
“Tess” Harding whisks away the tears dampening her flawless cheeks, her blue eyes like glistening crystals when she looks at me. No wonder Max wanted her for a time. With her bouncy blond curls and petite frame Theresa Harding is almost like a little doll. I ignore the gripping pain in my heart that comes with the knowledge.
She sniffles once, twice then says shakily, “That’s the reason I came to you now…you have six months to contest the adoption before it’s made final.”
“And you want to contest it,” I reply faintly, “Did you come for our help?”
She actually looks irritated with me by this point. “I already told you that giving up Christopher was the best thing I could do for him,” she declares, “I’m not ready to be a mother. I’m telling you for Max…in case he wants to have a relationship with his son.” Her blue eyes are penetrating now, as if she’s seeing more than I intend for her to see. It makes me regret inviting her into my home at all because I recognize that I’ve invited in something else I hadn’t prepared for.
“Just seeing Max today at Cerrano’s…how he is now…” she announces carefully, her gaze unwavering, “I thought he might like to know that he has a son.”
I stare down at Max’s sleeping face, tracing my fingers over his naked chest. The incident at the restaurant was put quickly from his mind. However, it clung to me, while we waited for our food, when we drove home and even when we made love. Just seeing Theresa Harding again brought back a flood of memories I would have rather forgotten. But that’s the thing about bad memories, they never go away completely, they only stay hidden for a while.
Max snuffles in his sleep and shifts, contouring his body against mine. I feel guilty that my thoughts are so torn. He deserved to have my full attention this afternoon and yet I couldn’t banish that Harding woman from my mind. I still wonder to this day why Max called her after he left me. That fact still gnaws away at me. I didn’t realize how much it did until I saw her again today.
The unexpected ringing of the doorbell jostles me out of my dark thoughts and I sit up reflexively, frowning slightly. It’s strange that anyone would be calling on us right now. Max and I are actually supposed to be at work right now and we would be if we hadn’t taken the rest of the day off. Whoever it was couldn’t be there to visit Maria or Isabel either. Isabel no longer lived with us and Maria…well, she was almost never home during the day.
With a puzzled frown I gingerly push myself from the bed, careful not to wake Max and wrap myself in a bathrobe before padding, barefoot, into the living room. When I pull open the front door I’m only a little surprised to find Theresa Harding standing on my porch. Reflexively, I clutch the top of my bathrobe together when I see her, but I say nothing, only regard her with impassive eyes.
She coughs a self-conscious laugh. “I told myself not to come here,” she says in a self-deprecating tone.
I‘m not at all fooled by her innocent act. “And yet you did,” I conclude flatly, “My husband doesn’t remember you.”
Perhaps she doesn’t expect me to be so direct because she appears flustered for a moment. “I…I know that,” she stammers, “But I didn’t come here to see Max…I came here to see you.” I continue to survey her coolly. “Can I come in?” she implores uncomfortably.
Again I don’t reply, but simply stand aside and allow her entrance. I close the door behind her and then lean against it, folding my arms across my chest. “You have two minutes to say whatever it is you have to say,” I tell her crisply, “and then I want you to get the hell out of my house.”
“I guess that means you know who I am,” she whispers.
“You fucked my husband,” I reply, “You weren’t the first, but you were definitely the last. What do you want, Ms. Harding?”
“Tess,” she supplies inanely, “Peep…people call me Tess.”
“I don’t give a damn what people call you,” I snap, “Just say what you have to and leave!” My vicious tone makes her jump. She’s obviously surprised by my attitude. Hell, I’m surprised. It takes a great deal to set me off. I’m not normally quick to anger at all. Yet, standing in my foyer with Theresa Harding not three feet away, I feel dangerously close to aggravated assault right now.
She stares at me intently, as if she’s searching my face for something though I can hardly imagine what she’s looking for. Finally, she sighs. “I…I wanted to explain to you why I was in the hospital that day.”
“I already know why you were in the hospital that day,” I reply shortly.
“No, you don’t,” is her soft contradiction, “I wasn’t out there, at the store I mean, to meet Max…not the way you think. He and I were over.”
I snort at that. “You were over and yet the moment he leaves the house he calls you up to meet him.”
“Only because I threatened to come here if he didn’t.” The sneer of contempt gradually eases from my lips. She has my attention now, though I don‘t want to admit it. “Max had ended things with me earlier that week,” she explains shakily, “He said he felt like he was going through the motions with me and he didn’t want to--,”
“Spare me the details of your relationship, Ms. Harding,” I interrupt coldly.
Despite my harshness she presses on. “He wanted to make things work with you,” she tells me fervently, “The entire time we were together he always made it seem like he hated you, but then one night after work we went to have a couple of drinks… Max got drunk and that’s when he told me the truth. He…he told me he loved you, loved you more than anything, but he was afraid to show it…to feel it because he thought that one day you would leave him like his parents did.”
I don’t know what she wants to accomplish by telling me these things, but if it’s to knock me on my ass she’s done that in spades. However, I school my features against betraying even the slightest hint of emotion. I won’t give her the satisfaction of knowing I still care. I don’t give her the reaction she’s waiting for. I think maybe she will give up then but she launches back into her monologue once more.
“We broke up about a month or so after that,” she tells me, “I guess Max just got tired of fighting his feelings. The morning he ended things he said he wanted to make it work with you again, but I got hysterical. I told him if he tried to leave me I would tell you about our relationship. He went completely ballistic.”
My mouth twists into an ironic smile. “I already knew about the two of you,” I say bitterly, “I found a pair of your panties in our bed. It’s pretty evident Max wanted me to know.”
“No, no, he didn’t,” she protests, “Nothing happened…what I mean is…Max had to stop by here for some legal papers one morning and I was with him. I asked him could I use the bathroom and while he was occupied I…I planted my underwear in your bed.”
It’s a revelation I never expected. I gape at her, utterly appalled by her confession. “You planted your panties in my bed?” I demand incredulously.
She ducks her head. “I thought it might pressure Max into ending things with you,” she admits miserably, “But nothing ever came of it. I…I thought maybe you hadn’t found them or something.”
“No, I found them,” I counter dryly, “I just never confronted Max about it.”
“Oh,” she squeaks, falling into silence.
I stand there staring at her bent head, waiting for her to go on but she doesn’t seem inclined to. Unfortunately, my curiosity has gotten the better of me and I can’t simply regard her in silence as I’ve been doing. “You said that you and Max were finished,” I comment softly, “Well, if that was true why did you meet him at the store?”
“I told you,” she stresses never lifting her head, as she speaks, “I didn’t want to end our relationship. I told Max that if he didn’t meet me I would come to his house. He didn’t want that.”
Maybe I’m a fool, but I believe what she’s telling me. It explains so much. The night Max had been shot he’d been highly agitated. At first, I thought his demeanor was due to my request for a divorce, but now I realize he was fidgety long before then. His attitude at dinner had been downright callous. Max had always been indifferent, distant, even cold in the past but he had never been outright mean. But if Theresa Harding had threatened to expose their affair like she claimed it was little wonder my asking for a divorce had sent him over the edge. No wonder he’d reacted so desperately. A divorce really had been the last thing he wanted. “Why are you telling me all this?” I whisper tremulously.
“Because you needed to know the truth,” she says, but then shakes her head in amendment, “No, that’s not entirely true. I watched you and Max today…how you were giggling and kissing. He was never that way with me…not ever.”
“He wasn’t with me either,” I confess quietly, “You have to understand that the Max Evans you knew no longer exists.”
“I do…” she whispers.
“Then why did you come here today,” I charge her, “Why decide to unburden your conscience to me after nearly a year of silence?”
“I didn’t know that Max had made so much progress,” she explains.
“Why does that matter?”
“At…at the office,” she stammers on, “they said he wouldn’t recover…that he’d be a vegetable… I didn’t have anyone else to turn to.”
“To turn to for what?” I demand impatiently.
“I couldn’t raise a baby on my own!” she bursts out frantically, “Max knew that…I told him over and over.”
My heart sinks into my belly like a stone. Now I understand why she came to the hospital, why she waited so long there even after Max had used and humiliated her. Now I understand why she had been so desperate not to let him end things. “You were pregnant,” I conclude flatly.
“Yes,” she acknowledges with a jerky nod, “I…I told him that night, you know…the night he was shot. He wasn’t expecting it.” Of course not, I think. “I must have scared him or something,” she continues, a far-off look coming over her face. I can tell that she’s no longer in the foyer with me now, but back in that night, back in that moment. “I remember I was crying and hysterical and he just kept saying over and over, ‘I can’t handle this right now, Tess, I can’t handle this!’ I think I must have slapped him…I don’t really remember, but he called me a fucking cunt and told me to get out of the car. He went into the store a few seconds later but…he never came out.”
A chill has settled over me by the time she finishes speaking. There’s so much emotion welled up in my chest I can hardly breathe. Max got another woman pregnant. This woman before me had been pregnant with his child. I move my hand low to caress my abdomen where a tiny new life grows strong. Now I’m faced with the possibility that my unborn child may have a sibling. “Do you want money,” I ask as a new reason for Theresa Harding’s visit dawns on me, “Did you come here for child support? Is that what you want?”
“I’m not here for money!” she denies tearfully.
“What? Did you have an abortion!”
“NO!”
“Then you do want money!”
“No, that’s not it at all!”
“Then why are you here, dammit!” I demand, my own tears beginning to course down my cheeks hotly, “Why did you come to ruin our family this way!”
“I gave him up for adoption!” she cries. Again silence rocks the room. My breathing hitches as I try and stifle the sobs shaking my body. Just when I think I’ve endured all I can she twists the knife even deeper. “His name is Christopher,” she sniffles, “He looks just like Max…just like him…even his ears.” She covers her mouth, clearly trying to get a grip on her emotions. When she’s calmer she finishes shakily, “I tried to raise him alone. I tried really hard but I couldn’t…I’m not cut out to be a mother, I guess… I couldn’t handle it alone and so, six weeks ago, I gave him up for adoption.” Another unexpected bombshell. I think that if I weren’t leaning against the door right now I might collapse right there. “The people who took him are really decent…very loving…”
“…but they’re not his father, are they,” I rasp dully, “You should have told us…you should have…” But how would I have reacted had she done so? The truth would have utterly destroyed me. It would have destroyed me now if I weren’t so confidant in Max’s love for me…if I weren’t carrying his baby, if I didn‘t have such firm faith in our future despite this crushing setback.
“Tess” Harding whisks away the tears dampening her flawless cheeks, her blue eyes like glistening crystals when she looks at me. No wonder Max wanted her for a time. With her bouncy blond curls and petite frame Theresa Harding is almost like a little doll. I ignore the gripping pain in my heart that comes with the knowledge.
She sniffles once, twice then says shakily, “That’s the reason I came to you now…you have six months to contest the adoption before it’s made final.”
“And you want to contest it,” I reply faintly, “Did you come for our help?”
She actually looks irritated with me by this point. “I already told you that giving up Christopher was the best thing I could do for him,” she declares, “I’m not ready to be a mother. I’m telling you for Max…in case he wants to have a relationship with his son.” Her blue eyes are penetrating now, as if she’s seeing more than I intend for her to see. It makes me regret inviting her into my home at all because I recognize that I’ve invited in something else I hadn’t prepared for.
“Just seeing Max today at Cerrano’s…how he is now…” she announces carefully, her gaze unwavering, “I thought he might like to know that he has a son.”
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Deejonaise
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 385
- Joined: Thu Feb 28, 2002 12:48 am
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Chapter 29
Sometimes it’s funny how quickly life can kick you in the teeth when you least expect it to. I’m still haunting the foyer long after Tess Harding has gone, my heart pounding in my chest like the beat to a native drum. So I’ve received some rather monumental news, news that I will eventually have to share with my husband, right? Right? I do have to share this with him, don‘t I? It’s the moral thing to do, after all. Any decent person would do that. I know all this and yet I’m still standing there, debating over whether or not I will be a “decent” person and do this very “moral” thing.
Perhaps my indecision may make me a selfish bitch, but I don’t care. All I can think about is myself at the moment. Haven’t I sacrificed enough thus far? Haven’t I endured enough heartache already? This is the happiest I’ve been with Max in a long time…the happiest I’ve been ever in my life. I don’t want to relinquish my bliss for anyone, not even a helpless infant who needs his father.
However, I must cut myself some slack. Of course it’s perfectly natural for me to feel this way. I’ve just received the shock of a lifetime. I can’t even register all the things Ms. Harding had told me about her and Max’s affair ending I was so stuck on the fact she had been pregnant. Pregnant? Pregnant! My god, didn’t Max have better sense?
He had unprotected sex with the girl, at least one time that I knew of, but how many other times and with how many women. I stop myself before my mind starts running wild. Max doesn’t have any diseases and I know this. I specifically requested to have such tests done a few weeks after the shooting. I needed to know for myself. And recently Max just had his follow-up test done and received a negative result. I know we’re in the clear for that, but what I wonder is, “how many more fatherless children are there?”
I shake my head and drift into the living room. I’m getting hysterical right now and I’m not thinking clearly. After all, I’m thinking about Max here. He was a player, even long before we were married, but he wasn’t indiscriminate and he wasn’t stupid either. He just wouldn’t up and have unprotected sex without being aware of the consequences. That just wasn’t like him. So either he had known what he was doing when he impregnated Theresa Harding or…she had tricked him into it.
I’m suspecting it was the latter. I’m suspecting that the drunken night they had together led to more than just confession. I can remember that night now, when Max had come home bleary and reeking of alcohol. He’d wanted to talk, at two in the morning, but I had been so disgusted with his behavior I turned him away. Yes, that probably was the night.
Any woman capable of planting her underwear in her boyfriend’s bed is capable of tricking an intoxicated man into having unprotected sex. So I’m fairly certain that Max hadn’t meant to get her pregnant. I’ve also learned that he didn’t want to stay in the relationship either, but she just hadn’t wanted to let go. I can’t help but consider what would have happened had Max not been shot. Theresa Harding would have definitely made a nuisance of herself and I doubt I would have stayed with Max, or even wanted to. We would have truly been over.
In some strange way, however, his shooting was a blessing and not just for me. Yes, I met and fell in love with a man three times more wonderful than the one I married and I opened my heart in ways I didn’t believe possible, but that’s not all. Max is blessed as well. He’s a new man, a decent man, a loving one. The person he is today would never conceive of betraying my love and loyalty and trust and had he not been shot, that person wouldn’t exist. And Theresa Harding, yes, even she’s better. She has to realize now that her feelings for Max bordered on obsession. I have to believe that she’s matured somewhat otherwise she would have never been able to come to me and confess as she did.
Her reasons weren’t selfish. She didn’t come to angle for herself at all. I can see that now. Her visit was absolutely based on good motivations and solely for the purpose of informing Max he had a son. She hadn’t even once requested to see him. It was as if she’d closed that chapter of her life when she gave her son up for adoption.
I stand there in the center of the living room, contemplating it all when suddenly a pair of hands lay flat against my shoulders. I jump and swivel around to find Max standing behind me, his eyes puffy and drowsy with sleep and wearing nothing but a smile. “How long have you been awake?” I ask him in a hitching gasp, my hand pressed against my heart. I imagine my face is chalk white as I stare up at him.
“Not long,” he murmurs, his brow creasing in a pensive frown, “Why are you acting so jumpy?”
“I’m not jumpy,” I deny weakly. It’s difficult to look at him right now. His nakedness is quite distracting as is his disarming concern. This is another reason why I can’t hold Max accountable for what’s happened. He’s so obviously not the man who impregnated Theresa Harding it’s nearly laughable. He only has the misfortune of having the bastard’s face. And even that I find incredibly adorable at the moment. God, can this man be any more plain in his adoration for me? Ironically, the more evident his love for me is made, the heavier the leaden weight in my chest feels.
His content and happiness is alight in his eyes and I can‘t help but marvel over the fact that I’m the reason for it. I actually make this marvelous, beautiful perfect man before me happier than he’s ever been. This Max is a believer in fairytales and magic and happily ever after. His love is the kind that happens only once in life, the kind that is only once and forever. A soulmate’s love. In his mind, he’s never loved another and, for Max, no other kind of love exists. I ache inside to know I will shatter his every illusion in only a matter of minutes.
He cocks his head to one side, staring at me closely. “Yes, you are,” he insists quietly as his gaze becomes probing, “You jumped a mile when I touched you just now. What’s happened?”
“Of course I jumped,” I say, turning away because I’m just not ready to face him with the truth yet, “You snuck up on me, Max…like you always do.”
Behind me I hear Max chuckle and he encircles my waist, walking his nude body up against my backside. He nuzzles my neck through my hair and splays his wide, strong hands across my lower abdomen. “Yes, I did, didn’t I?” he laughs into my hair, “My bad.” But of course there’s not an ounce of remorse in his tone. He drops a kiss to my shoulder, fitting his body more closely to mine. “You smell so good,” he moans.
I slant him a wry glance that’s affectionate and sad all at once. “Max, what are you doing?”
“Trying to get a little closer to you,” he teases, nudging against my backside suggestively.
However, when I try and make a playful response to his sexy teasing my attempt fails miserably and I end up with tearing eyes instead. I try to turn away to hide them, but I’m not quick enough.
Max spins me around in his arms, his expression alarmed. “You’re crying!” he accuses me softly, “Tell me what’s the matter!”
I swallow spasmodically. I can’t keep the truth from him…I knew that from the beginning. Dropping my eyes away I stammer out, “D-Do you think you could put some clothes on?”
If I thought he looked worried before he looks downright panicked now. He answers in a jerky nod and then flies back to the bedroom to do as I’ve requested. When he returns he’s dressed in a loose fitting pair of khakis and t-shirt. I regard him from my perch on the sofa and beckon him over next to me. He’s at my side in a second, sweeping up my hand in his own. “Is it bad?” he asks tremulously, “Did something happen with the baby?”
“No, Max,” I sniffle, feeling horribly guilty that I’ve got him so twisted with worry, “It’s nothing with the baby…nothing like that.”
“Then what’s wrong,” he insists tenderly, brushing my hair back from my face, “Why are you crying?”
Wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible I simply plunge right ahead. “Max, do you remember the young woman we saw at Cerrano’s this afternoon…you know, the one you used to work with.” He nods, but it’s obvious from his expression he has absolutely no idea why I’m bringing this up. I know the news is going to rock his world completely, even more than it has rocked mine. “Well, she was just here a little while ago,” I tell him with a shuddering sigh.
He presses my hand tightly in his own. “Did she say something to upset you?”
“Well yes…no, sorta,” I waver.
“Did she or not, Liz?” Max persists.
“She told me something I didn’t know,” I rush out.
“What?” He’s clearly annoyed now, but just as confused wondering exactly what this woman could have said to bring me to tears.
“That she had a baby.”
He’s still puzzling it out, but he’s trying desperately to stay with me. “Well…okay…I guess…I understand--,”
“It’s your baby, Max,” I finish dully.
I might well have spoken Greek to him for all the reaction he gives me. His expression remains blank and unchanged. “It’s my baby?” he repeats carefully, “She told you that?” I nod slowly and Max’s expression gives way to relief. “And you believed her?” he bursts out with an incredulous smile, “Of course that’s not true, baby.”
My throat closes off with tears. I expect him to be upset, but I’m wholly unprepared for his utter disbelief, his complete denial of the situation. “Max, no she was telling the truth,” I insist gently, “You were having an affair with her.”
He yanks away from me then, his expression stunned and anguished. “No,” he denies vehemently, “I would never do that to you!”
“I know you feel that way now,” I tell him so softly I might have been speaking to a child, “but it wasn’t always that way, Max.”
He shakes his head in fierce disbelief. “No,” he says again, “I would never do that. I would never…”
“Max, it was before your accident,” I try and explain, “You were a different man then!”
“Don’t tell me that!” he moans, cringing away from me and curling into a ball, “I love you, Liz! I love you! I’d never hurt you that way…I…I couldn’t…” His eyes are welled with tears now, pleading with me to take it all back. “Please tell me I didn’t do that to you,” he implores hoarsely.
I reach out to touch his cheek lovingly. “Max, it was a long time ago,” I reassure him gently, “I…I don’t blame you…”
He jerks away from my touch and surges to his feet. “No, I don’t want to hear it!” he cries wildly, “I can’t hear what you’re telling me!”
I rise to my feet as well. “Max, it doesn’t matter anymore--,”
“Of course it matters,” he explodes tearfully, “There’s a baby, dammit! I made a baby with someone else.” He looks completely sickened by the prospect alone, like he might collapse on the spot. Max rakes his fingers through his hair desperately. “I can’t believe this is happening,” he mutters despondently, “I can’t believe it…”
My heart is aching for him, but I have to tell him everything. He needs to know the complete truth so that we can work through it together. “Max, you have to decide what you want to…to do about the baby,” I say with gentle hesitancy, “Tess…I mean Ms. Harding left all his information when she was here before. He’s been adopted, you see, and you only have about six months to contest--,”
Max holds out his hand to me. “I don’t want to know,” he rasps, “Please don’t tell me anymore.” And then he’s suddenly moving, charging into the foyer and grabbing his jacket from the coat rack. I run after him. “I have to go,” he tells me, fishing around in his jacket pocket for the car keys, “I have to get out of here.”
“Max, don’t leave like this,” I beg him, “We can talk about it.”
He shrugs into his jacket and gives a terse shake of his head. “No, we can’t.” But as he reaches for the door I grab him, wrapping my arms tightly around his waist. I press my cheek against his back. “Max, don’t,” I sob, “Please, please don’t…”
“I can’t stay,” he chokes, shrugging away from me, “I have to go, Liz.” He doesn’t say anything further, but only tears out the front door and breaks for the car. I’m too broken to do anything more than stare after him.
Sometimes it’s funny how quickly life can kick you in the teeth when you least expect it to. I’m still haunting the foyer long after Tess Harding has gone, my heart pounding in my chest like the beat to a native drum. So I’ve received some rather monumental news, news that I will eventually have to share with my husband, right? Right? I do have to share this with him, don‘t I? It’s the moral thing to do, after all. Any decent person would do that. I know all this and yet I’m still standing there, debating over whether or not I will be a “decent” person and do this very “moral” thing.
Perhaps my indecision may make me a selfish bitch, but I don’t care. All I can think about is myself at the moment. Haven’t I sacrificed enough thus far? Haven’t I endured enough heartache already? This is the happiest I’ve been with Max in a long time…the happiest I’ve been ever in my life. I don’t want to relinquish my bliss for anyone, not even a helpless infant who needs his father.
However, I must cut myself some slack. Of course it’s perfectly natural for me to feel this way. I’ve just received the shock of a lifetime. I can’t even register all the things Ms. Harding had told me about her and Max’s affair ending I was so stuck on the fact she had been pregnant. Pregnant? Pregnant! My god, didn’t Max have better sense?
He had unprotected sex with the girl, at least one time that I knew of, but how many other times and with how many women. I stop myself before my mind starts running wild. Max doesn’t have any diseases and I know this. I specifically requested to have such tests done a few weeks after the shooting. I needed to know for myself. And recently Max just had his follow-up test done and received a negative result. I know we’re in the clear for that, but what I wonder is, “how many more fatherless children are there?”
I shake my head and drift into the living room. I’m getting hysterical right now and I’m not thinking clearly. After all, I’m thinking about Max here. He was a player, even long before we were married, but he wasn’t indiscriminate and he wasn’t stupid either. He just wouldn’t up and have unprotected sex without being aware of the consequences. That just wasn’t like him. So either he had known what he was doing when he impregnated Theresa Harding or…she had tricked him into it.
I’m suspecting it was the latter. I’m suspecting that the drunken night they had together led to more than just confession. I can remember that night now, when Max had come home bleary and reeking of alcohol. He’d wanted to talk, at two in the morning, but I had been so disgusted with his behavior I turned him away. Yes, that probably was the night.
Any woman capable of planting her underwear in her boyfriend’s bed is capable of tricking an intoxicated man into having unprotected sex. So I’m fairly certain that Max hadn’t meant to get her pregnant. I’ve also learned that he didn’t want to stay in the relationship either, but she just hadn’t wanted to let go. I can’t help but consider what would have happened had Max not been shot. Theresa Harding would have definitely made a nuisance of herself and I doubt I would have stayed with Max, or even wanted to. We would have truly been over.
In some strange way, however, his shooting was a blessing and not just for me. Yes, I met and fell in love with a man three times more wonderful than the one I married and I opened my heart in ways I didn’t believe possible, but that’s not all. Max is blessed as well. He’s a new man, a decent man, a loving one. The person he is today would never conceive of betraying my love and loyalty and trust and had he not been shot, that person wouldn’t exist. And Theresa Harding, yes, even she’s better. She has to realize now that her feelings for Max bordered on obsession. I have to believe that she’s matured somewhat otherwise she would have never been able to come to me and confess as she did.
Her reasons weren’t selfish. She didn’t come to angle for herself at all. I can see that now. Her visit was absolutely based on good motivations and solely for the purpose of informing Max he had a son. She hadn’t even once requested to see him. It was as if she’d closed that chapter of her life when she gave her son up for adoption.
I stand there in the center of the living room, contemplating it all when suddenly a pair of hands lay flat against my shoulders. I jump and swivel around to find Max standing behind me, his eyes puffy and drowsy with sleep and wearing nothing but a smile. “How long have you been awake?” I ask him in a hitching gasp, my hand pressed against my heart. I imagine my face is chalk white as I stare up at him.
“Not long,” he murmurs, his brow creasing in a pensive frown, “Why are you acting so jumpy?”
“I’m not jumpy,” I deny weakly. It’s difficult to look at him right now. His nakedness is quite distracting as is his disarming concern. This is another reason why I can’t hold Max accountable for what’s happened. He’s so obviously not the man who impregnated Theresa Harding it’s nearly laughable. He only has the misfortune of having the bastard’s face. And even that I find incredibly adorable at the moment. God, can this man be any more plain in his adoration for me? Ironically, the more evident his love for me is made, the heavier the leaden weight in my chest feels.
His content and happiness is alight in his eyes and I can‘t help but marvel over the fact that I’m the reason for it. I actually make this marvelous, beautiful perfect man before me happier than he’s ever been. This Max is a believer in fairytales and magic and happily ever after. His love is the kind that happens only once in life, the kind that is only once and forever. A soulmate’s love. In his mind, he’s never loved another and, for Max, no other kind of love exists. I ache inside to know I will shatter his every illusion in only a matter of minutes.
He cocks his head to one side, staring at me closely. “Yes, you are,” he insists quietly as his gaze becomes probing, “You jumped a mile when I touched you just now. What’s happened?”
“Of course I jumped,” I say, turning away because I’m just not ready to face him with the truth yet, “You snuck up on me, Max…like you always do.”
Behind me I hear Max chuckle and he encircles my waist, walking his nude body up against my backside. He nuzzles my neck through my hair and splays his wide, strong hands across my lower abdomen. “Yes, I did, didn’t I?” he laughs into my hair, “My bad.” But of course there’s not an ounce of remorse in his tone. He drops a kiss to my shoulder, fitting his body more closely to mine. “You smell so good,” he moans.
I slant him a wry glance that’s affectionate and sad all at once. “Max, what are you doing?”
“Trying to get a little closer to you,” he teases, nudging against my backside suggestively.
However, when I try and make a playful response to his sexy teasing my attempt fails miserably and I end up with tearing eyes instead. I try to turn away to hide them, but I’m not quick enough.
Max spins me around in his arms, his expression alarmed. “You’re crying!” he accuses me softly, “Tell me what’s the matter!”
I swallow spasmodically. I can’t keep the truth from him…I knew that from the beginning. Dropping my eyes away I stammer out, “D-Do you think you could put some clothes on?”
If I thought he looked worried before he looks downright panicked now. He answers in a jerky nod and then flies back to the bedroom to do as I’ve requested. When he returns he’s dressed in a loose fitting pair of khakis and t-shirt. I regard him from my perch on the sofa and beckon him over next to me. He’s at my side in a second, sweeping up my hand in his own. “Is it bad?” he asks tremulously, “Did something happen with the baby?”
“No, Max,” I sniffle, feeling horribly guilty that I’ve got him so twisted with worry, “It’s nothing with the baby…nothing like that.”
“Then what’s wrong,” he insists tenderly, brushing my hair back from my face, “Why are you crying?”
Wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible I simply plunge right ahead. “Max, do you remember the young woman we saw at Cerrano’s this afternoon…you know, the one you used to work with.” He nods, but it’s obvious from his expression he has absolutely no idea why I’m bringing this up. I know the news is going to rock his world completely, even more than it has rocked mine. “Well, she was just here a little while ago,” I tell him with a shuddering sigh.
He presses my hand tightly in his own. “Did she say something to upset you?”
“Well yes…no, sorta,” I waver.
“Did she or not, Liz?” Max persists.
“She told me something I didn’t know,” I rush out.
“What?” He’s clearly annoyed now, but just as confused wondering exactly what this woman could have said to bring me to tears.
“That she had a baby.”
He’s still puzzling it out, but he’s trying desperately to stay with me. “Well…okay…I guess…I understand--,”
“It’s your baby, Max,” I finish dully.
I might well have spoken Greek to him for all the reaction he gives me. His expression remains blank and unchanged. “It’s my baby?” he repeats carefully, “She told you that?” I nod slowly and Max’s expression gives way to relief. “And you believed her?” he bursts out with an incredulous smile, “Of course that’s not true, baby.”
My throat closes off with tears. I expect him to be upset, but I’m wholly unprepared for his utter disbelief, his complete denial of the situation. “Max, no she was telling the truth,” I insist gently, “You were having an affair with her.”
He yanks away from me then, his expression stunned and anguished. “No,” he denies vehemently, “I would never do that to you!”
“I know you feel that way now,” I tell him so softly I might have been speaking to a child, “but it wasn’t always that way, Max.”
He shakes his head in fierce disbelief. “No,” he says again, “I would never do that. I would never…”
“Max, it was before your accident,” I try and explain, “You were a different man then!”
“Don’t tell me that!” he moans, cringing away from me and curling into a ball, “I love you, Liz! I love you! I’d never hurt you that way…I…I couldn’t…” His eyes are welled with tears now, pleading with me to take it all back. “Please tell me I didn’t do that to you,” he implores hoarsely.
I reach out to touch his cheek lovingly. “Max, it was a long time ago,” I reassure him gently, “I…I don’t blame you…”
He jerks away from my touch and surges to his feet. “No, I don’t want to hear it!” he cries wildly, “I can’t hear what you’re telling me!”
I rise to my feet as well. “Max, it doesn’t matter anymore--,”
“Of course it matters,” he explodes tearfully, “There’s a baby, dammit! I made a baby with someone else.” He looks completely sickened by the prospect alone, like he might collapse on the spot. Max rakes his fingers through his hair desperately. “I can’t believe this is happening,” he mutters despondently, “I can’t believe it…”
My heart is aching for him, but I have to tell him everything. He needs to know the complete truth so that we can work through it together. “Max, you have to decide what you want to…to do about the baby,” I say with gentle hesitancy, “Tess…I mean Ms. Harding left all his information when she was here before. He’s been adopted, you see, and you only have about six months to contest--,”
Max holds out his hand to me. “I don’t want to know,” he rasps, “Please don’t tell me anymore.” And then he’s suddenly moving, charging into the foyer and grabbing his jacket from the coat rack. I run after him. “I have to go,” he tells me, fishing around in his jacket pocket for the car keys, “I have to get out of here.”
“Max, don’t leave like this,” I beg him, “We can talk about it.”
He shrugs into his jacket and gives a terse shake of his head. “No, we can’t.” But as he reaches for the door I grab him, wrapping my arms tightly around his waist. I press my cheek against his back. “Max, don’t,” I sob, “Please, please don’t…”
“I can’t stay,” he chokes, shrugging away from me, “I have to go, Liz.” He doesn’t say anything further, but only tears out the front door and breaks for the car. I’m too broken to do anything more than stare after him.