CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
By the time Carrie and Max made it to breakfast it was actually midday. They ate, made small talk, and compared notes about the party the night before.
They didn’t talk about the sex and the tension between was beginning to build to an uncomfortable level. He’d tried to keep it low key and casual this morning but the moment to talk about what had happened had arrived. They couldn’t avoid it any longer.
The hard part of this entire situation was that Max wasn’t sure what he wanted out of all of this. He definitely wanted to make love to Carrie again. He’d never had such a physical connection to a woman before and it would be a shame to waste it.
But he cared about Carrie too. It wasn’t just her body he wanted; he liked spending time with her, even when they weren’t doing anything special. Hanging out with her was more fun than a Hollywood party with anyone else.
There was the question… Just how did he feel about her? Was he falling in love? He hoped not as he wasn’t sure he was ready for something that serious. Fuck, he’d just received his divorce papers this morning and here he was contemplating entering into another relationship with hardly a breath in between.
Max simply couldn’t let her walk out of his life or have things go back to the way they were between them. They’d crossed a line and things were different now. They’d been intimate. What was the saying? A person cannot unring a bell. It had happened and they needed to deal with the reality of their situation. They were more than friends but less than…lovers? No, they were certainly lovers. They weren’t in love. They weren’t looking to move in together, get married, and have several children all named after dead relatives.
They were definitely in like. Like-like. The variety of like that might become something. Someday. If they could survive the beginning part of a relationship which always seemed to be the part that tripped him up.
“So…” he said, needing to cut through the thick wall of tension between them. Could he convince her to take a chance on a casual dating “thing” that might be something at a future date? Maybe.
Take a chance on him. It was like betting on horse who had lost every race. One might think the animal would win one, if only by accident, but the odds weren’t in their favor.
“So…” she replied, her brows raised. Waiting for him to say something.
“I suppose we should talk about last night,” he said in a rush. Now that he was speaking the words seemed to want to run out of his mouth faster than his brain could process them. “We’re both adults here and neither of us was a virgin last night. I think we should simply speak honestly about what we want to happen from here. I hope you know that you can be open with me about any of your concerns regarding our future.”
Placing her fork on the corner of her empty plate, Carrie picked up her napkin and wiped off her hands, slowly and deliberately. She was stalling and that made Max’s nerves twice as bad. Sweat began to pool at the back of his neck and on his palms as he waited for her to respond.
“Well…I can say…openly and honestly…that for me last night was quite…pleasurable. I hope it was for you as well.”
“It was,” he assured her, nodding in encouragement for her to continue. “Fantastic. Brilliant. I don’t have the words to describe how good it was between us.”
The diarrhea of the mouth – caused by the strange expression on her face – continued and now he was on a roll and couldn’t stop.
“That’s why I think that we should give this a chance between us,” he explained, leaning forward as far as the table between them would allow. “Last night was too bloody good to turn our backs on it. Add in the fact that we get along well and we could have something quite enjoyable.”
Shoving a piece of toast in his mouth, he finally – mercifully – shut the hell up. Appearing too eager was going to turn her off completely. No woman wanted a desperate man in her bed.
I’m not desperate. There are plenty of women that want me.
Folding her hands on top of the table, she looked him straight in the eye. “So what exactly are you proposing here? Fuck buddies? Friends with benefits? Some sort of dating? A full-fledged relationship? Where is your mind at on this? And please be straight with me.”
Damn, this woman had a spine of solid steel and she didn’t take any crap. No wonder he liked and admired her. She was tough and strong and formidable.
Max cleared his throat and straightened in his chair. “Nothing so crass as fuck buddies. I care about you as a person, Carrie. I have a great deal of respect for you. But I’m also not in the place in my life where I’m ready for a serious relationship. I’m thinking that there must be something in between those two extremes that we can agree on.”
The corner of her mouth quirked up. “Is this a negotiation? Am I going to need my lawyer?”
Snickering, he shook his head. “Nothing so extreme. I think we can work this out ourselves, don’t you? What did you have in mind? If anything at all, of course. Perhaps last night was enough for you?”
That thought was too awful to contemplate and for a moment he panicked until she spoke again.
“As I said before, last night was incredible and I do want it to happen again.”
Whew. Okay, they’d decided they wanted to shag again. That was something, at least.
Her gaze skittered away and her cheeks turned pink. He felt some relief in that she seemed as embarrassed as he was by the whole subject. “I’ll be honest with you, Max. It is not my habit to have sex without some sort of commitment. Before you get all nervous, I’m not talking marriage or an engagement. I am talking physical fidelity. If we decide to continue sleeping together, I would ask that you not sleep with anyone else. I, of course, would do the same. We’re contracted to spend the next few months together in a dating situation and people who date often have sex, right? How about we just…date? Exclusively.”
Slowly exhaling, he felt his heart galloping against his ribs. Date. Exclusive. It was really what they already had, although they’d be doing it in private too, not just for the cameras. As for not sleeping with anyone else, she’d muddled his brain so thoroughly he couldn’t bring one woman to mind that he wanted to have sex with other than her.
Carrie wasn’t asking much of him and that kind of hurt. More than he’d expected. If she’d demanded a relationship, he didn’t know what he would have done though. Did he want her more than he was afraid? He wasn’t sure and she hadn’t pushed him for the answer.
“I can do that,” he answered quickly, not wanting her to think that her request was more than he could handle. “Date exclusively.”
She fiddled with the paper napkin. “So we sort of just go on as we are, but with the added element of dating for real. I mean, it’s not like we live together or anything. You have your place and I have mine. We won’t spend every moment in each other’s pocket.”
This conversation had turned out better than he’d ever dreamed it would. He got to have Carrie and some much needed space to breathe. It was the perfect solution.
He signaled the waitress for the bill. “We can reevaluate when the contract is over. See what we want to do then. You might be sick and tired of me after a few months.”
Although he couldn’t imagine ever being tired of Carrie. She fascinated him on so many levels, more than any woman before her.
Carrie stood, so it appeared that their discussion was over. “Who knows what the future will bring? Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to visit the ladies’ room. I’ll be right back.”
Max watched her as she walked away, his thoughts firmly on the woman who had shown so much patience and generosity. His future was up in the air but Carrie just might make him want to take a chance and share it with her.
If he didn’t fuck it all up first and drive her away.