“I didn’t think,” he explained. “Just reacted.”
He told Haley that it hadn’t even occurred to him not to help. Hadn’t occurred to him to stop and round up Luke and the other guys first. For a swimmer in trouble, even a five-second delay could mean the difference between coming out of the ocean with a good story, and coming out for your own funeral. He grabbed a couple of buoys, hopped on an open WaveRunner, and powered through the water.
It felt like hours, but he’d gotten to them in less than a minute. His immediate assessment told him there were four people—two adults and two teenagers, and their small rowboat had overturned.
That section of water was known as The Vortex, and it was completely off-limits, even to boaters. It was even more dangerous than the rough waters out past the cliffs, because unlike the choppy sea out there, The Vortex gave no warning.
“The water there looks so calm and smooth, but the undertow is killer,” he said. “You get caught up in that shit, it’ll suck you in, spit you out ten miles down shore before anyone even knows you’re gone.”
Max pinched the bridge of his nose. “This family… I don’t know how they got in past the ropes and buoys, but they did. None of them had lifejackets. I learned later they’d been out there about twenty minutes by the time I arrived.”
“Oh my God,” Haley said. “In March? They must’ve been practically hypothermic.”
Max remembered their blue lips, the pruned skin. Chattering teeth. The man was treading water, his arm looped around one of the kids, but they were tiring fast. The woman was clinging to the side of the boat, the other kid holding onto her shoulders, all of them pale as death.
“I tossed the buoys to the parents, then took the kids, got them propped up on the WaveRunner. It was this huge relief, like, okay, they’re all safe for now. A little cold, a little shocked, but they’ll survive. But then I swam back to the mother, and the look she gave me… it was pure fear. Desperate, horrible fear.”
Haley gasped, and Max shivered beside her, the memory of the woman’s words still chilling him to the core.
“‘My nephew,’ she said, pointing to a spot in the water about ten, fifteen feet away. ‘He’s only ten.’ There was another fucking kid in the water somewhere. Luke—he’d just arrived. He was getting the father out. I didn’t wait another second, just dove under, swimming toward where the woman had pointed.”
That current was killer. Max had felt like he was swimming in wet cement, with both hands tied behind his back, weights strapped to his chest. He fought it, though. Fought until his muscles burned and his heart threatened to bang out of his chest. There was a moment—a half a second, really—where he thought he saw the kid. Thought he felt the touch of soft hair, cold fingers. Max reached out, pushing himself to his absolute limit, but there was nothing there but seaweed and salt. The water churned endlessly, pushing and pulling, spinning Max in a dozen directions. Soon he couldn’t tell up from down, and his lungs burned for oxygen. He thought he saw the way out, and kicked hard toward the surface, only to come up inside the overturned boat. It was submerged by then, full of water. Max was trapped, confused, desperate for breath.
“There was a moment when I thought, well, this is it. This was your whole life, and now it’s… it’s over. But Luke… fucking Luke. He dove under that boat, yanked my ass out of there just before I blacked out.”
By then, the other lifeguards had arrived on scene, and the family had been taken to shore, where the ambulances were waiting. Max didn’t get to tell them he’d failed; they were already en route to the hospital by the time he got to shore.
“We had teams out there all night. Divers, Coast Guard.” Max shook his head, emotion choking his voice. “The boy… Andy Folson… his body washed up a few miles down the shore. They found him the next day.”
Thunder crashed through the night, rattling the windows, and Max fought off a shiver.
He wasn’t present when they’d told the family the news, when Andy’s parents were flown in from their home in San Francisco—the kid had been vacationing with his aunt and uncle, something they did together every summer for years. He didn’t know how anyone had found the words to tell them that their child had died. That Max had been first on the scene, but hadn’t been able to save him. That he wasn’t on duty at the time. That he’d been drinking.
Now, there was a lawsuit pending. Max couldn’t blame them. They were right—he should’ve been able to save him. And maybe he would have, if anything about that day—those few hours leading up to that crucial moment—had been different.
That was the ghost he carried. The thing that would haunt him until his death.
He closed his eyes, all out of words. He’d told her the story, beginning to end. He’d gotten it all out, and now he had to brace for the pity. The platitudes. The well-meaning apologies.
Max opened his eyes, chanced a look at Haley. Tears streaked her face, her eyes wide with shock.
But she didn’t say anything. Didn’t play the “yeah, but” broken record: yeah, but look how many lives you saved. Yeah, but you didn’t have that much to drink. Yeah, but if you’d waited to get Luke first, the whole family could’ve died. Yeah but yeah but yeah but… it was all bullshit, that game, and Max was grateful that she seemed to realize it, too.
No, Haley Scott had listened to that whole terrible story, all his demons, and in the end, she didn’t say a word.
She just slid her arms around him, pulled him to her chest, and held him.
The storm still raged outside, the tide surging forward, rain slamming into the house, but inside they were warm. Together. Untouched by all of it. Haley pressed her palm to his heart. Max covered her fingers with his hand, holding her in place. She was so much smaller than him, but in so many ways, a hell of a lot stronger, even if she didn’t realize it.
Fierce as fuck.
She tilted her face up to look at him, and then, without warning, she pressed her mouth to his, her lips warm and soft, and god damn that kiss was like being resuscitated, his soul brought back from the bottom of the blackest fucking ocean imaginable.
Chapter Sixteen
“This is it,” Haley said. “This is how the apocalypse starts.”
The rain lashed the windows, pounding furiously on the roof like it was desperate to find a way in. The wind howled, the ocean swelled, lightning split the sky, thunder shook the ground, and for a minute it seemed as if the whole world really was about to end.
But there in Max’s cottage, wrapped up in his strong arms, his kisses both tender and passionate, Haley had never felt so safe. So protected.
So needed.
They’d been curled up together on the couch for hours, just kissing, just holding each other, just being together, watching the storm. But now Max rose up off the couch and stretched.
“Well, if we’ve only got a few hours left to live,” he said, holding his hand out to help her up, “we should probably make the most of it.”
He led her into his bedroom at the back of the cottage, a small, cozy room with huge bay windows on two of the four walls. The others were covered with maps. She was curious about them, but not enough to ask questions—not with Max behind her, already working on that zipper. It took some doing, but he finally got it, revealing her body slowly, tooth by tooth, her skin prickling with goose bumps as he brushed his bare knuckles down her spine.
“I’ve been waiting all night for you to do that,” she said, letting the dress fall to the floor.
“Me, too.” He’d been wearing sweatpants when she’d arrived, shirtless, but now he was naked again, his perfect cock hard and ready.
She stripped off the last of her undergarments, and Max slid his hands into her hair, pulling her close, capturing her mouth in a deep, sensual kiss that flooded her body with tingling heat. His hard length pressed against her belly, insistent, eager, and still he focused on her mouth, her chin, her neck, his every kiss seared into her skin like a memory she’d cherish forever.
> Tangled together, hot and gasping for breath, they finally tumbled into Max’s bed. He climbed on top of her, pinning her wrists above her head as he took control of her pleasure.
Thunder shook the foundations, wind howling so hard through the thin walls it made the maps flutter, but Haley was safe. Warm. In that moment, the tide could’ve risen up and washed the whole house out to sea, and Haley would still be there, pinned beneath Max’s strong, powerful body, oblivious to everything but the taste of his mouth, the feel of his breath on her face, the aching need pulsing between her thighs.
Max kissed her mouth, her collarbone, her chest. He kissed her nipple, grazing it with his teeth, flicking it with his tongue, then moving to the other, drawing it between his lips, sucking her hard. She cried out, arching her body off the bed, desperate for closer contact, for more of him, all of him.
She wanted him inside her—needed him there, thrusting into her, filling her completely—but Max was already sliding down the length of her body.
“Max!” she gasped, reaching for him, desperate to bring him back, desperate for the sucking, the kissing, the weight of him against her body.
But he had other plans.
“What did I tell you that first night?” he asked, voice heavy with lust. “Your boyfriend loves eating pussy.”
He kissed her stomach, his strong hands gripping her thighs, urging them apart. He licked her hip bone, his tongue tracing a slow, hot pattern down to her inner thigh, then back up again, his stubble scratching the sensitive skin. Haley was out of her mind with pleasure, every sensation rippling through her body as Max relentlessly kissed and sucked and licked, teasing her with his tongue, his lips, his teeth, devouring every bit of her.
He kissed her throbbing clit, swirling his tongue as she threaded her hands into his thick, silky hair, tugging him closer, giving into pure, carnal pleasure as Max thrust his tongue inside her. With his fingers, he teased her clit, soft as powder, then harder, increasing the pressure as his tongue slid in and out, bringing her to the precipice. Her legs began to tremble, and Max went deeper, harder, moaning against her flesh as she writhed beneath him.
This time, there was no warning, no tightening of muscles, no slowly gathering heat. All at once, the orgasm slammed into her body, tearing through her like fire as she screamed out his name in pleasure, again and again and again until it was the only word she knew.
She was still coming down from the high when he finally rolled on the condom and slid inside her, and holy hell, it felt so good, so right, so impossibly perfect, Haley wanted to cry. Their stolen moments in the restaurant supply closet had been hot as hell, but nothing could have prepared her for this—the raw, unfiltered intimacy. The intensity of his eyes as they fell into each other’s gaze, their bodies melting together, breath mingling, face to face, heartbeat to heartbeat as Max filled her, over and over.
Part of her—a big part that scared her and excited her at the same time—wished she didn’t have to leave him tomorrow. That they could press the pause button on reality, go on pretending for a little longer. A few days. A month. Hang out on the beach together, watch the storms roll in, kiss, make more of this intense, passionate love… God, so much more,
But that was ridiculous. There was no pause button on reality.
There was only right now.
So when Max thrust deep inside her one last time, unleashing a growl that rattled her bones, sending them both over the edge, Haley fisted her hands in his hair, pulled him to her mouth, and kissed him ferociously as her body trembled with wave after wave of pure, intoxicating pleasure.
Chapter Seventeen
The morning after the world was supposed to end, the sun rose on a calm sea, and Max sat up in bed, watching the most beautiful girl he’d ever known sit at the end of his bed, naked, trying to tie her messy sex-hair into a bun.
They’d been up all night, kissing, touching, tasting, holding each other close as the storm pummeled the beach. Max was delirious from lack of sleep, from the booze, from everything they’d done and said and felt. Now, the early morning sun filtered in through the window, casting Haley in a soft, warm glow, and it all felt like a fucking dream.
“What are you doing?” she asked, looking at him over her bare shoulder.
Her smile was so sweet, so unguarded, it broke his fucking heart all over again. He wanted to remember her just like that.
Memorizing every damn freckle on your face…
Last summer, Haley Scott would’ve been his dream girl: gorgeous, funny as hell, smart, amazing chemistry, and the best part—totally opposed to anything more than a weekend fling.
Max never imagined he’d live to see the day where the “totally opposed” part would tear him up inside, his brain scrambling to find a loophole. But she’d been clear on that point from the start, and he wasn’t about to chase after a lost cause.
Luke had been right, anyway. Shit timing. Max had no room for a relationship in his life. Last night was a wakeup call. He had to clean up his act. Get his shit together. Get some damn counseling—real counseling—and put his life back together, regardless of what happened with the lawsuit.
Three days ago, he didn’t think getting his shit together would even be possible. But Haley had come into his life like last night’s storm, twisting him all around and upside down, a force of inexplicable chaos that left only calm in its wake. Even if he couldn’t keep her the way he wanted to, he’d always keep that part of her. The part that had kicked down his bullshit walls and woke his ass up. Made him realize it was still possible to feel. Made him grateful he was still alive, no matter how many times he’d wished otherwise these last couple months.
“Hey,” she said, crawling back to him. She tucked her legs underneath her, kneeling on the bed next to him, her fingers tracing a pattern on the hard ridges of his abdomen. She was still naked, her gorgeous breasts filling the space between them. “Where’d you go just then?”
He wanted to tell her, let it all out. Wasn’t that what everyone had been on him to do? Share his feelings? Talk about shit?
But with Haley, there wasn’t a point. Last night, maybe. But not today. It wouldn’t change anything between them.
So he went for the safe spot, the place he knew well. The line. The innuendo. The flirty game he could always win because in that game, he made the damn rules.
“Where I always go when I see you naked.”
“Mmm. Can I come?”
“I think that can be arranged.”
Haley straddled him, and he slid his hands over the soft, full mounds of her ass, pulling her against him. He was hard again—God, always hard for this woman—and she was so hot and soft and wet, her eyelids already fluttering closed as he rolled on the condom and positioned himself at her entrance.
She moaned softly, rising up on her knees, then sinking down on his cock for the last time.
After they showered and Haley changed back into her Grimace dress, Max offered to make breakfast, but Haley couldn’t stay. She had to get back to her rental cottage and change, and then there was the brunch—a small affair at her mother’s cottage for the remaining out-of-town guests. They both decided it was best if he didn’t attend. Max was grateful. He wanted to remember her here, in his home, in his arms.
After that, she’d be leaving Starfish Cove, heading back to her shop and her apartment and her life without Max.
That was the deal. Always had been.
He was the one trying to change the terms. Going completely fucking soft.
“Am I all zipped up?” she asked, showing Max her back.
He touched her neck, her shoulder blade, the soft skin of her back, memorizing every curve, every freckle.
“You’re good.”
“Thanks.” She turned to face him again, her smile a little sad.
“Tell you what,” he said, going for levity. If they didn’t laugh, he’d lose his shit completely, and he’d come too close to that too many times already. “Next time one of your sist
ers gets married, and you need a fake boyfriend? I’m your man.”
I’m your man… fuck, he wished those words were true. That they weren’t about to walk out that door with the woman who’d just changed his whole fucking life.
Haley stood on her tiptoes, pressing a kiss to his jaw. “You got yourself a deal, Max Killian.”
With nothing left to say, she turned toward the door, but Max called her name one more time—he needed to hear it. To taste it on his lips. “Haley Marie.”
“Hmm?” She turned back and watched him, waiting, her smile soft and sweet and holy fuck if he didn’t do something right fucking now, in three seconds she’d be gone.
Stay. Just fucking stay.
“Maybe… maybe I’ll run into you at El Gaucho’s sometime,” he said.
“I’d like that.” Haley smiled, but the look in her eyes was still sad and far away. She blew him a kiss, and then she turned away, opened the door, and disappeared.
Out of his house.
Out of his life.
Max dropped onto the couch, head in his hands.
No, the world hadn’t ended last night after all.
It just fucking felt like it.
Chapter Eighteen
“Max and I broke up.”
That’s what Haley had to tell everyone at brunch. They’d all noticed his absence last night, followed by Haley skipping out on the party early, and now she was showing up at brunch alone, last night’s mascara smudged under her eyes.
“What happened?” they all wanted to know.
She thought the lie would be easier. But now that she was here, hanging out on the beach in front of her mom’s cottage with the last remaining wedding guests, Haley wished she didn’t have to answer the question at all.
“Guess it just wasn’t meant to be.” Aunt Bev took a long drag on her cigarette, then ashed into the sand. When she spoke again, her voice was raspy. “Not surprised. I don’t think he’s the relationship type, Haley.”
Rescued by the Bad Boy (Bad Boys on Holiday Book 4) Page 8