Chapter 23

Lia

I was alive with energy, serving customer after customer, happier than I’d ever been working at Jimney’s. I refused to admit that the playlist on the speakers was making me this way, but the music Max had chosen—the slow, cock rock of Guns N’ Roses, mixed with God only knows who else—was no doubt the reason I felt the way I did.

I plucked a few limes from the bowl beneath the bar and grabbed the saltshaker from my left. Tossing my apron on the counter, I hollered at Aubrey about taking my half hour—not that she’d listen.

I approached the table full of my favorite people, only to hear Addie squeal, “Lia!” She jumped up, knocking her chair to the floor. It was apparent she wasn’t pregnant, considering how much she’d been drinking. Mom would be disappointed.

“I miss you.” Just barely giving me the chance to set the tray on the table, Addie slammed into me, her arms around my neck.

“Whoa.” My eyes went wide, zeroing in on my brother. “Maybe these extra shots aren’t such a good idea.”

Collin chuckled from over her shoulder, then leaned back to listen to something Gavin was saying.

“I know your secret.” Addie giggled against my ear and patted my head at the same time. “It’s about time you bashed that man’s meat monkey.”

I stiffened. Bashed the what? On instinct, I searched the room for Max.

“I won’t tell your brother though.” She squeezed me tighter, almost cutting off my oxygen supply. “Promise.”

I pulled back, but her glazed stare told me not to push. I’d never seen Addie this drunk before. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Red-rimmed eyes, slurring words… She was a mess.

“Have a seat, lady. It seems I have some catching up to do,” I said, settling her on my brother’s lap, all while trying to ignore the tug of guilt in my stomach. If she knew about Max and me, then it was only a matter of time before Collin found out. It’s not that I didn’t want him to know. I just wanted to be the one to tell him—at the right time.

Addie happily obliged, snuggling against my brother’s chest like it was where she belonged. Seeing her and my brother so in love only pushed me to want what they had. Things between Max and me had been so easy this past week, almost like it had been before we stopped talking to each other. Except now we got to kiss. A lot. And holy Jesus, did I love to kiss Max.

“Where’s Max?” I asked, searching the room.

“Dance floor,” Gavin grumbled, jutting his chin out.

“Hey, that’s mine.” Addie leaned forward, grabbing Gavin’s arm as he reached for her glass. The drink tipped, spilling all over his pants.

“Christ, Addie. Sober up.” Gavin shot out of his seat and took off toward the bathrooms.

“Wow. He’s a piece of work tonight.” I sipped on the soda I’d brought over for myself, knowing I couldn’t drink on the job. When I turned to look for Max again, my jaw dropped in shock.

The guy who’d vowed a commitment to me just a week ago had another woman—Addie’s best friend—falling all over him on the dance floor.

“Asshole,” I hissed, not caring who heard me or what I looked like as I took off toward the back of the bar. Max called after me, but I ignored him because of my one-track mind and suddenly pissed-off mood.

Needing space, I pulled open the back door that led to the alley. The smell of greasy food and garbage from the Dumpster smacked me in the face, drawing the anger down over me like a curtain.

He was just dancing.

He told me he loved me. That he wanted me.

Day by day…that’s all this is.

He’s not Travis, stupid. He’s Max. Max won’t hurt you.

I’m not sure who was trying to do the convincing—New Lia or Old—but either way, it crushed me.

Hands braced against the side of the building, I inhaled through my nose and out through my mouth. My stomach knotted with nerves and anger, and the edges of the bricks dug into my palms. Angry tears clung to my lashes. I quickly wiped them away, not wanting anyone to see the damning evidence on my cheeks—and hating even more that I couldn’t stop them.

What was wrong with me? Why was I freaking out over this? Not even with Travis had I been this emotionally wicked, and I’d caught him having sex with another woman.

Granted, I never truly loved Travis.

But I did love Max. More than anything.

Just when my insides began to ease, when I thought I had this unexplainable feeling inside me figured out and under control, Max came bursting out the door. “Hey, what’s wrong? What happened?” He flew toward me, pulling me into a tight hug.

I couldn’t help but lean into him, though my words spoke otherwise. “I’m fine, Max. Just…go back inside.” I cringed and looked to my right, hating the crackle in my voice.

I was jealous, bottom line. And I really needed to get over it.

Despite my request, he rubbed his nose across the side of my neck. Then he dropped his arms from around my waist, only to brace them against the wall by my head. “No. I’m not going to just go inside. Not until you tell me what’s wrong.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, knowing I needed to get this off my chest now. Otherwise, it would eat me alive. “Fine, you want to know what’s wrong with me?” I huffed. “I-I didn’t like that…that thing that just happened inside.” I folded my arms in between us, needing distance.

“Didn’t like what thing?” His eyebrows drifted together in genuine confusion.

“The dancing, you…Kenna, all…that…” God, apparently jealousy was making me incoherent. Stupid Max and his stupid spell over me. It was so much easier not caring.

But so much less amazing, Lia. Don’t forget that.

He blinked. “Are you jealous?”

I nodded once and looked at my feet. No point in refuting the truth.

A soft sigh slipped from his mouth before he whispered, “It was just a dance, Lee-Lee. That’s all. Kenna wanted to make someone jealous. My eyes were on you the entire time, if you didn’t notice.” He tucked some of my hair behind my ear, and I lifted my face to meet his eyes.

Deep down, I knew that. But hearing him say it meant the world to me. It also proved how much more I had to learn about real relationships.

Water pooled just beneath a rusted spout to my right. A light drip echoed in the space, as quick as the thud, thud, thud of my heartbeat inside my ears. Slowly, Max moved his hands around my back, tucking his fingers under my shirt and holding them flat against my spine.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered this time. “This is all just…weird and new and…not my forte.”

A slow, unnerving grin lit up his face as he said, “Just so you know, jealousy makes you all kinds of sexy.” He tickled my ribs, then pulled his hands out from beneath my shirt.

I lowered my forehead to his chest and mumbled. “It’s not a fun experience, that’s for damn sure.”

“Tell me about it.”

The rumble of the music inside Jimney’s sounded distant from the other side of the wall, the only sound between us for minutes. More than anything else, I wanted to stay right there, ignore everything inside, and be in a bubble that consisted of only us. It was easier to figure out this relationship stuff when nobody else was involved.

“I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings, Lee-Lee.” Max kissed the top of my head.

“And I’m sorry for being such a newbie at this.” I leaned my head back to look up at him. “I’m confused and scared and…not any good at being a girlfriend.” I shut my eyes, trying to calm my overactive emotions. “I didn’t feel this way with Travis, and he’s the only guy I’ve ever officially dated before.”

Max leveled his forehead with mine and whispered, “It’s okay, ’cause I’m not too good at this either, remember?” I nodded. “We’re taking this day by day. There’s no rush to a finish line. We have our whole lives to find out what happens next.”

I nodded, gripping his wrists. The scent of his warm cologne filled my nose with every breath I took, calming me even more. “You make me feel something I’m scared of feeling.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Reality.”

He hugged me to his chest, dropping his chin to the top of my head. “The good kind or the bad?” I heard him gulp and felt the increasing pressure of his hands against my back. I knew he was nervous about my answer, maybe even more than I was.

“The good.” I urged him back a bit, running my fingers through the sides of his hair. It’d grown longer over the last few months, shaggier like a puppy. He reminded me so much of a boy, though he’d been through the world as a man in so many ways.

“I love you, Lia.” He blinked once. “And I want to be the man you need.”

“You are.” Because there was no other… Never would be as far as I was concerned. “I just don’t want to lose you if I’m not enough.”

There, I’d said it. Wasn’t that hard.

“Jesus, baby. When will you understand that you’re more than enough for me?” He dropped his mouth, pressing his lips softly to mine.

I looked him in the eyes when he pulled back, trying to find a flaw in his statement. But all I could see were the love and devotion he spoke of. And desire. That was always there.

I knew then what I had to do. Accept this, flawed or not. Accept myself—and my fears most of all. If I didn’t, I’d lose the one thing that meant the world to me.

Most of all, I needed Max to know that I was tired of waiting. Tired of putting our intimacy off. It was time to prove that what happened in The Club wasn’t just because I’d been tipsy. It was because I wanted him. In all the ways he’d let me.

With slow, sure fingers, I lowered my hand to the button of my shorts and slipped it open. Max frowned, staring at my movements. He didn’t speak, and neither did I. As much as I loved his patience and his willingness to take things day by day, I was ready for the good stuff.

I put his hands where mine were, then moved my hands to my side. He pressed his forehead to mine and nearly growled as he said, “Tell me what you want.”

No regrets. No hesitation. “Touch me, Max. Show me how much you love me.”

At my demand, he slowly pulled my zipper down for me, wasting no time as he slipped his fingertips into the front of my panties.

I arched into his touch, urging his hands even lower by the wrists until his fingertips caressed the center where I wanted him the most.

Kissing my neck, he moved his other hand to the bottom of my shorts and tugged them to my ankles. “Anything for you.”

My breath came out in unsteady pants as he stepped on the denim. They held my legs in place, promising a quick fall if I tried to move. Slowly, he trailed his hands along the sides of my thighs, then tugged my panties down too.

“I’m gonna make you feel good now.” Then he dropped onto the cement before me, laying kisses on my inner thighs.

I trembled, tossing my head back against the wall. “Oh God…”

“Tell me yes, Lee-Lee. Tell me you want my mouth on your pussy. Tell me all the things you want me to do. Because I’m not touching you until I’ve got permission.”

“Yes… You can—”

In a flash, he pressed his nose against my nakedness, cutting me off. Inhaling once, he rubbed the end of his nose up and down my clit, back and forth—a pattern I couldn’t even begin to keep track of. “You smell fucking amazing. Bet you taste just as good.”

With practiced ease, he moved his hands around to caress my naked ass. Kneading the flesh, he flicked his tongue against my center. “Oh my God, Max. W-what…what are you doing?”

He smiled against me. “It’s called foreplay, baby girl.”

“No this isn’t fore… Oh shit.” I arched against his face, my knees going weak.

He slid one finger inside me, curling it at the tip, only to rub his tongue over my clit at the same time. My body shook all over, no longer just my knees.

Max and his beautiful fast-and-slow foreplay was everything.

“You know how many times I’ve imagined doing this to you?” he whispered. When I didn’t respond, he kept going, his mouth just centimeters from my clit. It was the best torture, the worst torture, the right kind of torture. “I’ve thought about it a lot, Lee-Lee. So much that nobody’s meant anything to me since I met you. Nobody will ever mean to me what you do.”

Tears filled my eyes—not the kind I wanted to deal with right now, not when I was so close to the blissfulness he promised. But still, hearing him say that unfurled something else inside me. Something I’d thought I never would find: vulnerable passion.

Panting hard, I shut my eyes against the wetness and rocked against his mouth, silently begging for him to go faster, to give me more. I tangled my fingers in his hair, urging him this way and that, until he had me crying out his name.

My ass was raw from rubbing against the brick building, but I didn’t care. Nothing was going to ruin this for me. Nothing was going to take the bliss away.

“Max, yessss.” I grinded and rubbed a little harder, nearly smothering him as my orgasm hit its highest point.

“Fucking beautiful.” He kissed and licked my clit once more, then twice. I shivered, the sensitivity too much, but not enough. Then he stood before me, and I opened my eyes, and there in his stare was the Max I needed the most: the Max who loved me like I loved him.

My shorts were now in his hands, but the underwear was MIA—most likely in his pocket. That was just the kind of guy he was, and I couldn’t, for the life of me, care. He’d just eaten me out in the alley behind my place of employment, right where Travis had fucked another girl.

Best. Memory eraser. Ever.

I accepted the shorts without the underwear and slipped them on, all while he kissed my neck, my shoulders too.

When I was dressed and ready to go back in, he pressed his palms against my cheeks and leaned forward, kissing me long and slow. His tongue trailed across mine, like he was intentionally sharing the pleasure he’d tasted with me.

“You good now?” He grinned so widely that little crinkles formed around his dark eyes.

I grinned back and then rubbed my nose over his cheek, completely at ease. “I will be once I return the favor.”

Slowly, hand in hand, we slipped back down the alley toward the door, our palms caressing, our eyes never falling far from the other’s face. This was the stuff of daydreams.

“Hey!” I blinked, coming out of my postorgasmic bliss as the sound of Collin’s voice boomed from the end of the hall just inside the door. “Where were you guys?”

I swallowed and subtly pulled my hand out of Max’s to settle it behind my back. “I was going to the bathroom. Max too.”

“Outside?” He looked behind us before shaking his head. “No matter. We gotta go. Addie puked all over the table. McKenna just punched some guy, and Gavin looks like he’s not gonna be standing much longer. I’m gonna need your help getting them all home.” Collin looked to Max, then back over his shoulder.

I, on the other hand, laughed. Postorgasm was seriously messing with my emotions.

“You’ve gotta be shitting me.” Max laughed too, looking at me with a wide grin.

Seriously. We hadn’t been gone that long.

Collin glared at me, then raised his eyebrows at Max. “Not shitting you at all. Now let’s move.”

Still high from the Mighty Max O, I followed them out of the hallway, only to be stopped at the bar by Max’s mouth against my cheek.

“Call me when you get home tonight.” He slipped his hand around my waist, splaying his fingers out flat across my stomach.

I stiffened, not used to the PDA.

“Relax.” He kissed the tip of my ear.

My shoulders fell and I turned, first looking toward the table where my brother was trying to wrangle three very drunken idiots into submission. “You better go.” I smiled and shook my head, my face heating as I met Max’s stare once more.

Dark eyes sad, Max looked at me like he was afraid I’d disappear. Maybe I’d been a little crazy there for a while, worried about things I couldn’t control, but seeing the fear in his eyes put everything in perspective.

“Are we good now?” He raised his hand to my neck, tracing my tattoos.

For the first time in a very long time, I realized my answer wasn’t going to be a lie.

“Yeah, we’re good.” And then I leaned forward and kissed him goodbye.