“Four. I saw four on my porch.” Fuck. My voice was trembling. That wasn’t the best way to convince him I was tough. “Two with cameras.”
He turned away from me and lowered his voice. “Don’t try to get her out. I don’t want her photographed. Stay here with her until they’re gone. I’ll lead them off.”
He ended the call, and I said, “I’ll be okay—”
But he cut right over me. “My bodyguards will be here in twenty minutes. They’ll assess the situation then.”
I nodded helplessly, wondering why he didn’t look like the Max I knew anymore. His posture, his tone of voice. Suddenly none of it was recognizable.
“Stay here,” he said. “They’ve probably moved off your land, but I’ll lock that window in any case.”
I nodded, but after he closed the bedroom door I remembered the tricky blind over that window, and how easily it fell on your head if you bumped it. So I went to the door and had it open a crack when I heard him say softly, “Sorry to wake you. I know it’s late there.”
England?
The gentleness in his voice stunned me, and that was quickly followed by the sick swirl of jealousy. Was this…Hilary?
“The bloody press have pounced,” he went on quietly. “They’ll be publishing rubbish tomorrow and I don’t want you reading it. Do you understand?”
I pressed a hand against the top of my chest, trying to hold in the hurt. How had I been stupid enough to sleep with him when I hadn’t asked if he was single? I always asked that. Even if he was Max Banks and I’d been dazzled, I still should have asked. That question was like condoms—a non-negotiable part of the process.
“No, I’m fine,” he said softly. “Don’t worry about me.”
I closed my eyes, wishing I could walk away, but I had to hear. It was a sick compulsion. Unfortunately, when he spoke again he must have moved because I heard only murmuring and even that felt like a stab. The concern in his tone was obvious. He liked her. Probably a lot.
I shut the door and went to sit on my bed which smelt of sex. That didn’t help.
The idea of being the other woman in some tabloid scandal was embarrassing, but in that moment I was more upset about the idea that he might change his mind about fucking me now. I’d been so happy to know he was coming back.
I also couldn’t remember any mention of a girlfriend on his television show. In fact, they’d usually portrayed him as an eligible bachelor. So Hilary must be new or—
He swung the door open and came back inside, his black shirt buttoned up and tucked into his black tailored trousers. He looked so scrumptious with that bad-boy stubble I just wanted to eat him up, until he said, “I think it’s best if we don’t see each other again. Like this.”
CHAPTER NINE
I stood up and moved away from the bed because that seemed appropriate, to get as far away from the scene of the crime as I could. Although, we had fucked in several rooms…
“So.” I swallowed, wondering if I was going to do something Louella wouldn’t approve of—like screech or throw things. “How is Hilary?”
“That’s not relevant.”
I blinked at his audacity. “Not relevant to us fucking?”
Who was he kidding?
He pressed his lips together and his mouth had never looked more prim. I suddenly wanted to slap it. Hard.
Then he raised that arrogant chin. “My private life is—”
“Oh spare me!” I turned away and felt anger bubbling up, and that was so much easier to deal with than tears. But when I was facing the dresser I could see him in the mirror, standing behind me, his gaze dropping to my legs. Jesus. Was he thinking about sex? Now?
I wanted to close my eyes, to take deep breaths, to count to ten, but instead I snapped, “Why did you have sex with me when you had Hilary back home—”
“My family shouldn’t have to—”
“Family!” Jesus. He was married. I could feel my heart slowing in shock, thudding heavily against my ribs. I’d just had sex with a married man. I shook my head not even able to look at him in the mirror. “It’s not my fault. I didn’t know.”
“Know what?” He sounded surprised. “That my mother might not want to read about—”
I spun to face him. “Your mother?”
A beat of silence ensued, during which he blinked, twice. “Hilary Banks,” he said, as if I should know.
I shook my head, telling my pulse to stand down because if it kept racing like it was I’d have an aneurism.
While he watched me, his face transformed from stiff and frowning to wary, with those beautifully dark, soulful eyes gazing into mine. “Did you think Hilary was my wife?”
I wrapped my arms around myself and stared back at him, willing the turmoil inside myself to ease. I’d gone off half-cocked—as usual—when there was nothing to get angsty about.
“Would you be angry with me if I was married?”
I nodded.
“So you care about the relationship status of the men you sleep with?”
Outrage rose and then fell abruptly as I realized that neither of us knew much about the other. So I simply said, “I’ve never slept with someone who was attached. I usually ask before we get to that point.”
His expression softened even more. “I’m glad.”
“You dazzled me,” I said in my own defense.
His smile was slow and, although I didn’t want it to, it turned me on. “How so?”
My cheeks were heating but I pushed past embarrassment to shrug. “You’ve got the whole fuckability thing down pat.”
“Fuckability.” He nodded. “High praise.”
“You know I like you.” So don’t rub my nose in it.
He just nodded. Then he said, “I’m not married. I’m not engaged. And I don’t have a girlfriend. I’ve been too busy working.”
So, was he a workaholic? “If you don’t have a girlfriend, how do you have sex?”
He walked across the room, stopping in front of me to wrap me in his arms, holding me against his chest so he could whisper into my ear. “I have sex…occasionally with the women who accompany me to functions.”
I was completely distracted by the scent of his skin with some subtle woodsy aftershave on it that smelt like sex against the window. But I struggled to keep up. “The busty blonds that your manager organizes?”
His body relaxed against mine and I wasn’t sure if that was in response to my curious tone, or whether he simply liked holding me. I sure as hell liked it. “Yes.” He shrugged. “It’s convenient. They have careers to protect as well, so there’s no kiss and tell.”
“But…they’re not your type.” I remembered him saying that.
He pulled back to look down into my eyes. “You are my type,” he said softly. “I didn’t know that until I met you, and it made me reckless. That was irresponsible.”
“But you promised—”
“I will come back to do the feature.”
“But you won’t fuck me?”
“I don’t think that’s wise. Now that the press have—”
“Okay.” I pushed back out of his arms, deprived and angry. “Then the celibacy month is no longer required.”
His fingers tightened on my shoulders and for a second his eyes flared with some agitation before he had himself under control. “Not technically, but—”
“You want your options open.” I raised an eyebrow, thinking I’ve got you over a barrel Mister. “You want me here waiting with my legs crossed on the off-chance that you’ll change your mind about me being a potential scandal.”
“I don’t want my mother embarrassed. She’s been through enough.”
“You’re really insulting me. You know that, don’t you?”
He dropped his hands. “It’s what I’m paid for.”
“And the worst of it is that you assume I’ll comply with your celibacy rule, because you’re Max Banks.”
It was his turn to raise a sardonic brow. “I don’t assume anything wh
en it comes to you—”
“Good.”
“But I hoped you might consider…” He gazed at me speculatively for a moment, and I could see his brain ticking behind his eyes. “…abstinence, which I will also adhere to,” he hurried to add. “And then, when we see each other again in a month…” He shrugged, as if that finished the sentence.
I crossed my arms. “So you’re withdrawing your promise to fuck me, but you still want me to hold up my side of the bargain?”
He thought about that for a moment, then nodded.
“And what’s to stop you re-negotiating this down the track?” I enquired sweetly. “What if you meet some busty blond in a week who takes your fancy, and you decide to—”
“Enough.” He held up a hand, and I could see he was on the edge of tipping over into the fiery Max Banks who made pastry chefs cry. “You are the most unpredictable woman I’ve ever met. And you’re accusing me of being changeable?”
“You like me being unpredictable.”
“It excites me. That’s a very different thing.” He was frowning, and I dropped my arms because I’d suddenly become aware of the heat between us. Out of nowhere, he was looking at me that way, noticing that my nipples were poking against my tee shirt, and I couldn’t help glancing at the bed beside us.
I swallowed down excitement. “When are the bodyguards coming?”
“Soon,” he snapped, and grabbed my arm, leading me away from the bed. “This whole affair is crazy.” He said it as if he was trying to convince me, but I’d known that from the start. “And I have no idea what the hell I’m doing!”
“Me either,” I admitted compliantly, because my urge to argue with him was quickly being replaced by an urge of a different kind.
“You are the only person in my adult life who I have let push me around. The only one.” He said it as if he was admitting an addiction. Hello, my name is Max, and I let Fritha Wynde push me around.
I knew I should be paying attention. He was ‘fessing up to things, but my hands wanted to stroke across his chest and when he pulled me up against it, his hands were restless on my shoulders.
I wound my arms around his neck and said, “Are you going to kiss me goodbye?”
He looked into my eyes from close range, his breaths ragged now. “I won’t know how to stop.”
So I kissed him softly and said, “They can put a hose on us,” then I licked across his lips and he groaned as he pulled me into him where that iron bar was waiting to press into my belly. At that point he took control of the kiss and I squirmed against him, messing up his damp hair, and wanting to fuck his brains out because he got me so goddamned hot.
Only…his phone rang.
A second later he was two steps away and I was wobbling, watching him raise the phone to his ear, looking as shaky as I felt.
“Hello?” he said huskily. He hadn’t even looked at the caller ID. “Thank you.” He put the phone back into his pocket. “They’re five minutes away. I think you should have a shower.”
I nodded, staring straight back into his eyes. “I smell like sex.”
A beat of silence throbbed in the room before he said, “I’ll watch you.” It wasn’t a question.
I snatched up my usual work uniform of loose pants and a tunic in earthy colors, and could feel him behind me as I hurried to the bathroom. He stayed a sensible few steps behind and I didn’t trust myself not to pounce on him either. We both had to be decent when the bodyguards arrived.
So I turned on the taps to get the shower warming, then I threw my tee shirt in the wicker linen hamper. Max stood inside the closed door, hands at his sides, watching my every move. It would have been easy to wind him up, but I told myself to be sensible. So I snatched up a hair tie and pulled my unruly curls into a bun, then I stepped into the shower and got wet, sluicing the water over my breasts and belly before I reached for the soap.
Max’s lips had parted and he was looking at me as if we were going to have sex, which made me ridiculously aroused. So it took an effort of willpower to soap myself up in a perfunctory manner: breasts, ass, arms, legs, leaving that shaved pussy until last because it would be super-sensitive.
But it was no use. My good intentions lasted right until I slid a soapy hand over that slippery mound and…I was too turned on. I had to give him a good long look at what he wouldn’t be fucking for the next month.
So I leant back against the shower wall, half in the spray, widening my stance and sliding my fingers up and down over my smooth vulva, teasing myself before I circled that swollen clitoris, my head falling back on a sigh as the pleasure swirled far too quickly, and threatened to spill.
His gaze travelled from my half-closed eyes to my rock hard nipples, and then down to where my fingers were sliding around soapily, working the pleasure until it burned, and in less than a minute I was teetering on the brink of…snap.
I shuddered against the tiles, my fingers clutching my mound as the hot release jerked through me and my hair came out of the bun and tumbled around my face. Somehow I managed to muffle my squeal—maybe the orgasm wasn’t as intense. It had certainly been fast, and that was all down to the way Max was looking at me, so hungry I could tell he was wishing it had been his mouth and not my hand.
When it was over he said, “Thank you,” and pushed himself off the door. “You’ve completely undone my carefully constructed plan about us going our separate ways.”
“Have I?” I straightened, and waited for him to step into the shower, or pull me out all wet and slippery, but he only put his hands into his pockets, drawing my attention to the sizable lump in the front of his pants.
If I kept looking at that, we’d be humping on the bathroom floor when the bodyguards arrived, so I turned away to wash off the soap, lingering on my breasts and thighs, and of course taking extra care to wash all the soap off my genitals. I figured all that touching would only make things worse for him, but that was too bad. I hadn’t liked his ‘plan’ in the first place.
When I turned back to reach for a towel, his eyes were closed and those delicious lips were pressed together.
I started drying myself and said casually, “So…I won’t see you for a month.”
His eyes came open and it was obvious I’d caught him mid-fantasy. His cheekbones were flushed and his eyes were volcanic. I had a moment of wondering if I was going to have to be the sensible one, when he said, “I think I may start having baths. I don’t trust myself to have a shower without thinking about that—”
“Without masturbating about that.”
He was breathing slowly in and out of his nose, his lips pressed tight, and for a second I wondered if I was pushing it too far. But dammit, I wanted to fuck him again. The last thing I wanted was for him to come back for the feature and hold me at arm’s length.
So I said, “Just tell me one thing,” and I pointed toward the front of the house where the reporters had been. “You’ve already got a bad boy image on your shows, and people are used to seeing you with a different girl on your arm at each function. Why does it matter if you’re caught fucking me? Does your mother imagine you’re a monk?”
“No—”
“Then is it because I’m Australian? A nobody?”
His pause in response to that went on for too long. Then he said, “I’m going to wait in the kitchen.”
I blinked at him in surprise. I’d thrown the nobody comment in to hear him dismiss it. But he walked out before I could call him on it. So I rushed to dress and brush my wayward hair into a ponytail. I could sort it at the shop.
Then I marched into the kitchen, prepared to call him on his bullshit attitudes, but when I arrived, he was leaning on the table with his back to me, shoulders slumped, and within a heartbeat, the fight went out of me, replaced by a surge of compassion.
You’re in trouble girl.
I really liked him. Far too much to hurt him for no good reason, so I came up behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist. “I’m sorry.” I rubbed my cheek
on his back. “I’m just feeling insecure.”
He straightened and turned, pulling me into a hug that felt so warm and sexy and delicious I wished time would stand still. He smelt amazing. But he kissed my forehead and let me go. “I’m sorry too. My life is complicated.”
He pulled out a chair and sat, so I deliberately sat across the table from him, so I couldn’t be distracted by how breathless I felt when I was within touching distance. The bodyguards would be arriving any second, and I knew I had to cool things down between us for the sake of respectability.
I also didn’t want things to finish awkwardly, so I said, “I’ve loved what we’ve had.”
He looked up from contemplating the scrubbed timber surface of my kitchen table and said, “Do you have someone in your life that you want to protect? Someone you’d…fight tigers for?”
The question had come out of the blue but I was happy to answer it. “Three someones, actually. Jill, Angela and Louella. My three girlfriends.”
He nodded, but he was frowning. “If there was something about being with me, that might break one of their hearts, would you end things right now?”
Okay, I can see where you’re going with this.
Still, I said, “Yes, of course. I love them that much,” because it was true. If they asked me to, I’d convince myself there were plenty of fish in the sea and tell Mr. Sexy Banks to fuck right off. And I may well regret that forever, or at least for a long time. But men come and go. Girlfriends are forever. I knew that to the depths of my soul.
“Then you have some idea of my dilemma.”
“Your mother—”
“Was cheated on, by my father, with our Australian nanny. My nanny.”
I tried to get my head around that. “So…you’re not allowed to fuck an Australian?”
He pressed his lips together, and at last he said, “You look like her.”
“Your mother?”
I was about to say Ew when he replied, “The nanny. In fact, now that I’ve had ten seconds to think about it, the resemblance is remarkable. Lean, red hair, freckles, free spirit.”
I wasn’t sure if this was creepy or not. “How old were you—”
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