Chapter 12

Jana

“You know how to cook?” I stood in my kitchen on Saturday afternoon, leaning against the counter while Max unpacked two paper sacks filled with groceries.

“Damn right I know how to cook, woman. How do you think I survived all these years?”

I grinned at his affronted look. “Aren’t there guys who’s only job is to feed you?” I bit back a laugh but the more offended he looked the funnier it all was.

“Wait until you eat it before commenting.” He puffed his chest out, broad shoulders taking up more room than necessary in my small kitchen. “You’ll not only love it, you’ll beg for the recipe.” He was so self-assured I felt my pussy tighten in anticipation.

“I guess we’ll see, won’t we?” Pushing off the counter, I went over to what could, generously, be called my wet bar. Really it was a hutch topped with bottles, and a drawer full of other cocktail making tools. “Can you at least tell me what we’re having so I can make us drinks?”

“Fish.”

I tapped my chin, fully aware of his gaze on me, and thought about what I could make. For a guy like Max it had to pack a punch but it couldn’t be too girly. “You’re not really a martini kind of guy and a V&T is too plain when I’ve got a handsome man cooking me dinner.”

“Just make something, woman.”

I grinned at him the smile he sent back nearly buckled my knees. I loved when Max smiled, it took the years of pain and war from his face, leaving nothing but a handsome carefree man. “I have just the drink,” I told him with a smile and started gathering ingredients.

“You’re a great cook and a bartender, why?”

I shrugged even though I knew what he was really asking. “A delicious meal can only be enhanced by the right cocktail.” It was a flippant answer and I could hear his frustrated sigh behind me. “You know why.”

“Seriously? Because of that fucking scar?”

I finished squeezing the grapefruit and turned to him, pleading with him to understand. “Yes, because of the scar. You have no idea what it means to me that you’re not bothered by it, but everyone else is. It’s easier, for me, to avoid being made a freak show whenever I leave the house.”

He said nothing for a long time and though I felt a twinge of disappointment that he hadn’t immediately jumped to tell me I wasn’t a freak show, I appreciated that he didn’t lie just to make me feel better. “People are assholes.”

I grinned and reached for the rimming salt. “Yes, they are. Now you know my secret. Teddy forces me out once a week though I’m sure she’d love to get her way more, it’s just easier this way.” And cowardly, but sometimes you just had to be a coward.

“I want to take you out again, Jana. You’re beautiful and I want to show you a good time.”

“You have been showing me the best time, Max. And I’m not just talking about in the bedroom. Or on the counter,” I grinned, suddenly distracted by all the deliciously wicked sex I’d been having with the handsome biker. “The point is, we do have a good time. I don’t need fancy restaurants and I certainly don’t need to be pointed at and whispered about.”

“So the assholes win?”

“No, I do. They point and stare and then they get bored, but I don’t forget their words so easily. It’s not easy to finish a meal after that.” Or sleep, or eat for the next few days. “I’m sorry that’s not what you want to hear.”

The constant chopping had stopped and he let out a long, frustrated sigh. “It’s just, hell Jana, you deserve more than this.”

“Thanks, Max. It means a lot to hear you say that.” It did. No one in my life but Teddy had ever thought I deserved anything good. Certainly not Robert Sanborn, who thought I deserved whatever he wanted to give to me, or Karen, who’s betrayal had stung even more. “Are we done with this topic?”

“For now.”

I finished making the drinks and turned, stopping dead in my tracks at the sight before me. Max stood tall and capable, his jacket gone to reveal a tight gray tee that gave his eyes a more menacing glint that I found endlessly sexy. Each time he moved his muscles bunched and flexed, back muscles popping out as he stirred vegetables, brows dipped low as he carefully seasoned two thick filets of white fish. “I’ve never watched a man cook before. It’s kind of erotic.”

He froze, just his head swiveled to meet my gaze. “Dirty hands and raw fish turn you on?”

I licked my lips. “Watching your body move while you cook is totally turning me on. Cocktail?”

He nodded, a dark sexy twinkle lit his gaze as I walked the icy drink over to him. “Dirty hands,” he said when I handed him the drink.

“Of course.” Two could play this game. I hoped. The rim of the glass touched his lips and I tilted it, my gaze focused first on that plump bottom lip as it curved under the rim of the cup, the length of his neck and the way his Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed, was hypnotic. I couldn’t look away. It was completely erotic.

Max gripped my wrist with his food covered hands and I slowly moved the glass from his mouth. “Jana,” he growled in a hot, dark sound that shot straight to my pussy.

“What?” I licked my lips, staring at his.

“You’re killin’ me,” he groaned and pressed me against the fridge using nothing but his body, slamming his mouth against mine, a hot, swirling whirlwind of sensations shot through me. The cool stainless steel fridge against my back, the soft, slightly salty taste of his tongue, the feel of his big hand cupping my breast and pinching my nipple. But his mouth and his tongue, were his preferred torture instruments, slicking across my tongue in a tempting tornado that had my hands shooting out to him for purchase.

His cock grew hard behind his jeans and I wanted him. Right here and now, so I jumped into his arms, growling at the feel of his big hands gripping my ass. “Max.”

His hands slid under my shirt, cool and slightly slimy from the food. “Oh, shit,” he spat out and seconds later the smoke alarm sounded. “Fuck. See how you distract me?”

I grinned. “Little ol’ me?”

He shot me a look that made us both laugh. “You should probably get changed,” he said and I glanced down, bursting out with a loud laugh at the sight of his sticky, food covered hand prints all over my shirt and jeans.

“What a handsy chef you are,” I joked.

“What a tempting treat you are,” he shot back, gaze as hot as ever.

I swallowed feeling turned on beyond reason as an idea struck. “I’m going to turn that off,” I yelled over the increasing shrill tone of the alarm before I climbed on the counter and took it off the mount. “And I’m going to go get changed. Be back in a bit.”

“Take your time,” he groused. “I have to start over.”

“We could always order in,” I offered.

“No. Go change. I’m cooking dammit.”

I grinned and made my way to the shower with a smile I couldn’t erase. Being with Max was easy. He was honest, bluntly so, which meant I didn’t have to worry about what he said. The sex was unbelievable and I’m pretty sure I was addicted to his body. To him. Which meant a quick shower only made me want another set of hands all over my body. Max’s.

I lathered mounds of body butter all over my skin, spritzed perfume in my hair and all over before I headed downstairs. “How long until dinner,” I called out from the middle of the staircase.

“Half hour or so,” he called back sounding more relaxed than he had twenty minutes ago.

Perfect. I crept down the stairs and stood in the doorway, watching him move around the kitchen, so graceful and athletic. And for the moment, he was all mine. “Max.”

He turned and instantly his gaze was lit with fire. “Fuck, Jana.” He stalked to me, food all but forgotten.

“I hope you set the timer because I want you in me. Right now.”

“Where,” he growled a moment before he reached me, hands gripping my waist and pulling me close.

“Wherever you want me.”

He growled and picked me up, set me on the edge of the counter and buried his head between my legs. Licking and lapping until my thighs trembled with the pleasure trying to break free of my body. “I can’t get enough of you,” he growled, making my nipples harden to painful points.

“Good, because as much as I love the way you eat my pussy, I need your big cock pounding into me and I need it now.”

He reared back, shooting me a dark look as he quickly removed his pants and boxer briefs. In one quick move he had a condom on and he was lowering me onto his thick, hard length. “Fuck!”

He froze as I pulsed around him. “Max, move. Fuck me.”

He gripped my ass and turned, smacking my back against the wall but I didn’t care because he began to move hard and fast, short, hard strokes that plunged the depths of me until I couldn’t see or breathe anything that wasn’t Max. Over and over his cock slid in deep, punishing strokes that gave me more pleasure than I’d ever felt. His teeth sank into a breast and his hips took over with a mind of their own, moving as though powered by an engine and moments later I was shouting my pleasure into the quiet house, pulsing around him as he continued fucking me hard and fast.

“Yes, Max! More. Just like…that!” The final wave of orgasm pulled me under and took Max with it, my name a thunderous growl on this lips. “I feel like I should be cooking you dinner,” I told him breathlessly.

“Believe me, that was worth a week of dinners.”

I grinned, my heart feeling so full and my body so satisfied that I ignored the warning bells that were a distant clang in my mind. “Well, let’s see if I can bump that up to a month of dinners.”

He grinned and leaned forward just as the oven timer sounded. “Let’s pick this up for dessert.”

“I guess now I know why I made the fresh whipped cream.” His gaze darkened and I knew I was in trouble, but it was the best trouble of my life.

***

Over the next few weeks, Max and I settled into a comfortable routine. He spent his nights with me. Mostly. Every night, after we fell into an exhausted sleep after making love, he slipped out before the sun rose. I hated it mostly because I loved waking up with his big arms wrapped around me, but it’d been so long since that happened that I could barely remember it. It fell into the category of another thing I wouldn’t get to experience, and that just fucking sucked.

I understood Max’s desire to keep me safe, and his very genuine fears that he had about his nightmares and post-traumatic stress, but I still hated it. I hated feeling like my first relationship was a half relationship, or worse, a dirty little secret. Especially when I knew this wasn’t some illicit affair, he was my man. That was already something I didn’t think I’d ever have, yet here I was already wanting more. Being greedy.

And maybe I was being greedy, but the thing was that if I had to settle for less, I’d rather be alone.

But the biggest problem, I admitted to myself as I stared at the sushi menu I was using to avoid having a conversation with Teddy, was that after a month straight of seeing each other, dating and fucking, it made me feel cheap that he would just sneak out of my bed in the middle of the night. It felt like we were doing something wrong, or worse, like he thought we were doing something wrong. It felt even worse when combined with his surprise date last week. In a public place.

I hated it and it only made me angry since we’d talked about this before—more than once—and I made my feelings clear. But I bit my tongue, not wanting to rock the boat. Okay, and not wanting to give up the amazing physical benefits of my relationship with Max. But it really was becoming problematic, so I agreed to lunch at the new German themed Sushi Haus because I needed expert advice. “So tell me, oh wise one, what should I do?”

Teddy tapped her long, French manicured nails on the table, her eagle eyed gaze burning a hole through me. “Talk to Max. Tell him how you feel.”

Yeah, that was easy for Teddy to say. The woman never met a confrontation she didn’t face head on. “And if how I feel doesn’t matter?” Which, let’s be honest, was my biggest fear.

She shrugged delicate shoulders with a casual grace I envied. “Then you have to decide how important it is to you, and maybe how important he is.” Teddy sighed and I could feel her sympathy radiating off her. “I can’t tell you what to do Jana, but you deserve it all, the same as the rest of us. If he can’t give you what you need, maybe it’s time to move on.”

Move on. I couldn’t do that. Not only because I had no idea where to start a thing like that, but also because I was pretty sure that I was—or already had—fallen in love with the idiot. But, Teddy was right. I needed to figure out if I could accept everything. “What if I can’t accept it, can I try to change it?” That was the great thing about accounting, the numbers didn’t lie, but loopholes meant you could change things around until they looked how you wanted them to look.

Teddy arched a sculpted red brow, her beautiful face a study in skepticism. “Honey, we always think we can change them. We can’t.”

I nodded, waiting for the young waiter to drop off our food, as I thought about her words. I’d read tons of books and magazines on relationships, I overheard girls talk about changing men, but it was different with Max. He had PTSD, a real, diagnosed problem. PTSD could be treated with therapy and meds. And time. Avoidance wouldn’t do anything to fix it, and that’s what Max was doing. “Can I encourage him to attend more therapy?”

Teddy shook her head, obstinance written all over her expression. “No. Hell no, absolutely not.” She tilted her head my way and smiled. “Well you can suggest it, but if he shuts you down, then you have your answer. Don’t push.”

Well shit, that’s not at all what I wanted to hear. But, I suppose that meant it was just what I needed to hear. “Thanks, Teddy. I think I’ll take that cocktail now.”

“Sake,” she asked with a cheeky grin.

I glared at her. “A real drink, smart ass.” She laughed and I joined in, happy the ease with which we could go from serious topics to silly. “What’s new with you?”

Her face lit up the way it always did when she talked about work. Teddy saw men, dated them, but she never got involved. They never made her smile, other than in amusement at them, but it wasn’t the same. “With the wedding from hell behind me and bringing me more business, I’m feeling better. Especially with two newly rich reality stars who want lavish ‘Vegas, Baby’ weddings. They’re nice, down to earth and out of their depth. They are absolutely adorable, so I have nothing to complain about,” she said, sounding a tad pissed about that fact. “Oh, and someone recognized me at the Wynn.”

Uh oh, I knew Teddy hated when she was recognized from the decade she spent as one of the most sought after models in the world. People, complete strangers, were quick to tell her how pretty she still was as though somehow that was a compliment. And I knew how she seethed over her least favorite sentence in the English language. Too bad about the leg, but you’re still hot. “I’m sorry, Teddy. Was he nice, at least?” These days, that would be considered an improvement.

“It was a woman, actually. She had big dreams of being a model as a kid, just like me. But after seeing what happened to me, she decided to skip it altogether. She’s in town for some big conference as the keynote speaker.”

I laughed. “Your life is completely unbelievable. Let me guess, she invited you to attend?”

“If I want to,” she added reluctantly. “I might go. I mean, she dodged a bullet I ran towards at full speed, and she did it because of me. It feels like it balances out the shitty karma scale. Or something.”

I repeated her words with a smile. “Want to get out of here and have some real cocktails?”

“Do you even have to ask?” She was on her feet as she pulled cash from her purse and left it on the table. I did the same and left the tip before following her out, ignoring the few people who found my face more interesting than their lunch.

I drove us home as I always did, because driving allowed me to decide when I left anywhere. I needed that control and I didn’t give a damn how it looked to the outside world. I drove a little faster than necessary and kicked my shoes off the moment I stepped inside. My whole body relaxed and I was ready for a drink. “Gin, grapefruit and mint?”

“You had me at gin,” Teddy joked and kicked off her red stilettos before she dropped into a kitchen chair. “Have you thought anymore about that art show?”

“I have and I think I’m going to do it. But Moon wants a series of at least five and I’m working out an idea in my head.” I had the idea clearly defined but I wasn’t brave enough to ask the subjects, especially Teddy. “I’ll figure it out.”

“You always do, Jana.”

I smiled at Teddy’s words, but they stayed with me long after she’d gone. I always figured it out because I had to, there was no one else to figure it out for me.