I don’t remember the rest of the trip to his hotel, or even the elevator ride to the penthouse where he was staying. But I remember him leading me into the huge grey slate bathroom with its shiny white sinks and oversize bath.
When my shoes came off, the slate was cool underfoot, so my body was reacting, but when the mirror showed makeup smeared down my face, I didn’t feel embarrassed. My emotions were stuck at the point where he’d said I’m in love with you, and the gentleness in his gaze and his touch reinforced that as he carefully wiped my face clean and untied my plait so he could run his fingers through my hair.
When that was accomplished, he said, “I want you naked.”
I nodded, but my hands were shaking and after he’d started running a bath, he helped me undress. I wanted him naked too, but when he started to kiss me, so sweetly—so achingly sweetly—I didn’t care about anything but the touch of his hands as they cupped my face and that kernel of happiness that had cracked open in my chest and was spreading warm love into every corner of my being.
“I love you,” he said again, as he’d had it bottled up for too long and wanted it out. “And if you completely wreck me…so be it. I want this.”
“I want this too,” I said simply, because I had no words for the way I felt. It was too overwhelming. So I tried to show him with my kiss and my touch, and we barely made it into the fragrant bath before he was holding me close and kissing me again with his hand sliding down my body, making me shiver with excitement.
But he didn’t rush. He took a flannel and wiped it over my body, lingering on my breasts, which he then leant down and licked softly, and then harder. I could see his cock bobbing out of the water, and I wanted it, but I also wanted to enjoy what he was doing to me, so I lay back in his arms and let his clever fingers and his very talented mouth bring me close to the edge.
Then he stopped and said, “I seriously need a condom and there aren’t any here.”
I opened my eyes, and was about to say, I don’t care about that, because I had a birth control implant, but he might be worried about STDs.
So I said, “Then it’s my turn to wash you,” and I took the flannel off him and squirmed around so he was still lying against the end of the bath and I was sitting between his legs. I could reach every part of him then, from his beautiful shoulders down those long muscular arms, across his broad chest—where I couldn’t help tweaking at those hard, flat nipples.
But when he made a sound of frustration I moved on, reaching over to wash his back and then encouraging him to lift his butt so I could stroke it and that made the groaning come back. Then I carefully caressed the family jewels as he called them, before moving on to that sizable dick that had been bobbing around right in front of me, eager for attention.
I wrapped it in the flannel and pumped…slowly.
“Fuck.” His eyes closed and his head fell back against the bath as his body rose through the water, pushing up into my hand. Then he made a growling sound deep in his chest. I squeezed harder as I pumped and he said, “Legs. Feet. Don’t you have to move on?”
His fingers tightened on the sides of the bath as if he was searching for self-control, but I was enjoying myself so I kept working his cock with that soft, wet flannel, wanting him to come right in front of me where I could control it, where I could watch the whole thing. “Maybe,” I said. “But one thing at a time.”
“Bruno is not a thing,” he breathed, his eyes still closed.
“Your cock is called Bruno?”
His fingers tightened. “Since I was small.”
“It’s not small anymore.” I slid the flannel away and replaced it with my mouth, loving the feel of that slippery, hard flesh under my control. When Max would have pulled away, I grabbed his butt to hold him still, and he groaned as I kept up the slippery rhythm with my mouth.
Then he stopped fighting me. His body went still and started to tremble, and as his lips came open I felt a surge of excitement like an emotional orgasm. It lit me up inside, so I was already thrilling, my heart already pounding as his ass went hard in my hands, every muscle clenched as the climax hit him and he bucked up against me, groaning from somewhere so deep it sounded like it had clawed its way up through his body.
And I was in heaven. I loved oral sex and the taste of him was so mind-blowingly arousing, I started to tremble as the shudders racked his body. But when it was over, I had to let him go, and as his butt sank through the water and his eyes came open, I said, “Bruno gets three Michelin stars for that meal.”
He said nothing for the longest time, just looked at me incredulously, then he laughed.
Because he got me.
Later in bed, when he’d shaved off his stubble so he wouldn’t give me beard rash in delicate places, and I’d shaved my own between-the-legs stubble, he made a meal out of my whole body, making me laugh as he rated the quality of my shanks and my ribs and my breasts which were slightly fatty but were apparently soft enough if they were tenderized—thankfully with his mouth.
I loved him nibbling on my thigh and telling me my drumsticks were too lean because I knew that’s exactly how he liked them. And when he’d worked his way around my body, giving a chef’s opinion, he found his way to the morsels which he didn’t bother to describe because he was too busy making me moan and squeal and shred sheets with my grasping fingers.
And when that was done and I was a puddle of my former self, completely sated and limp, he picked me up and took me into the living area of his suite where he lay me naked on the cool timber of a desk and said, “I never got to fuck you on your kitchen table and I’ve been fantasizing about that ever since.”
“Fuck away,” I said happily, draping my arms above my head as they had been that day. I wasn’t covered in baby pancakes and maple syrup this time, but I didn’t care. Despite the lethargy he’d caused, I watched him avidly as he strode over to a suitcase and bent over to pull out a toiletries bag.
His buns were…hard. Seriously. I wanted to bite them. And I adored the muscles of his thighs. I’d never thought of that being a sexy area before, but everything about Max turned me on. When he turned back, however, and I saw those abs…I was so looking forward to licking my way across them. I just hadn’t got there yet.
When he was back between my legs, I simply got off on him watching me, narrow eyed, as he slid a condom over that delectable cock which I’d promised to stop calling Bruno. Then he lifted my feet and pushed my knees back against my body, lifting my ass off the desk and lining me up for some serious penetration.
I was staring at his shoulders, loving the way the muscles bunched and moved beneath his smooth tanned skin when he slid into me, very far. My eyes opened wide and I gasped in a soft breath. “Whoa…”
He pressed my feet against his hot, hard chest and said “I didn’t fantasize about this being gentle. Just so you know.”
His gaze was roving over my body and I loved that, so I simply nodded, wondering how long I could hold out with him slamming into me hard. Then he grabbed my ass, his fingers biting in near my backdoor and I gasped again, figuring it wouldn’t be very long at all.
“So, luv,” he said and I dragged my attention back up to his face, trying to concentrate amid the mind-scrambling tingles and clutches that were going on in various parts of my body as he slid in and out, so deliciously slowly I wanted to scream.
He was looking at me as if he was waiting for the reply to a question, but I had nothing. I shook my head.
“You told me you loved me,” he said. “Love at first gripe, as I recall. Were you joking? Or was that just about sex?”
“Isn’t this about sex?”
Why was he talking? I wanted to come. And I knew it would be big.
His fingers tightened on my ass and my eyelids fluttered shut. Fuck that felt good. “Fritha,” he said, from what sounded like far away. “Do you…love me?”
The words were punctuated by thrusts and my eyes fluttered open again. “Right now?” I adored him.
<
br /> “At all?” he said. “Not just when I make you come.” He was frowning, but I could see he wasn’t cranky. Maybe exasperated. But I was losing my grip.
“Yes. No. Why are you asking?”
He started pumping faster and my eyes widened again as ripples of a building earthquake shuddered through my body. “Fuck.”
“So maybe this isn’t the best time…” he grunted. “…to talk about commitment.”
“Commitment?” I asked faintly. A disconcerting tingle ran up my spine, along with so much pleasure I couldn’t think. He was gripping and releasing my ass, like a cat making bread on a quilt, and I thought I would die. “Don’t stop that,” I commanded, feeling the tingles coalescing around the muscles that gripped his cock.
“I can’t stop,” he groaned, his voice harsher now, showing the strain of his restraint. Then he drove into me hard, and my body jerked. I scrabbled at the edge of the desk over my head to anchor myself, but it was starting to happen.
I think I pushed against him with my feet, but I couldn’t be sure because after a few eye-popping thrusts, he was pounding in earnest, so deep it was insane, and then everything surged and snapped and I let go of the table as the orgasm slammed through my body, erasing warmth and replacing it with liquid heat.
I was still shuddering as he pushed through my knees and grabbed up my body to pull it against him as he pounded into me, groaning my name. I clung to him for all I was worth, feeling his harsh breathing against my forehead and tasting his skin when I kissed his neck, and then up near his ear.
And then he was crushing me against him, groaning so loudly it vibrated through my chest, as if it was my groan, as if we were one person inside that jumble of shuddering arms and legs. The pleasure had been so much about the two of us, it seemed completely plausible in that moment of breathlessness, to imagine we shared a single heart.
Which was crazy.
Later on I would think it was crazy. But in that moment, I knew it was true. So I said what I’d always wanted to say, what I’d dreamt about saying ‘one day’ when the man of my dreams came along.
I pulled back in his arms, looked deep into those dazed, post-orgasm eyes and said, “Maxwell Banks, I not only love you, I want to fuck you forever. Will you be my forever fuck?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Yes,” he said immediately, although I could tell from his labored breathing and glazed eyes that he wasn’t quite back from bliss-land. But his hands were restless on my shoulders, sliding down my arms and back up before he said, “I want to marry you. Tomorrow if I can. At least then I can be sure you won’t fuck anyone else on our honeymoon. Will you?”
I tried not to be insulted.
“Say yes to marry,” he went on, “And then no to cheating.” He looked quite serious, as if he was negotiating with a television executive, when we were both naked and his cock was still rammed up inside me.
It was so ridiculous, I snorted a laugh which was accompanied by a blurt that I hadn’t expected.
He looked down at our joined bodies and said, “I couldn’t decipher that? Was it yes and no?”
Despite feeling mortified, I said, “It was a queef,” with as much dignity as I could muster. I’d never done that in bed with someone before, still I said, “A gentleman would ignore it.”
“Ignore what?” he replied straight faced.
“Anyway, it was your fault. You lifted my bum.”
“What was my fault?” He looked so sexy and innocent I wanted to wrap myself around him and never let go.
“You proposed.”
“I haven’t had an answer yet.” His frown was endearingly vulnerable. So endearing, I realized it was an easy jump from forever-fuck to married.
So I said, “Yes. And no to cheating, although why I have to—”
He kissed me. Hard. Passionate. Reckless even. And I kissed him for all I was worth, willing the kiss to be cement that would hold us together forever. But all too soon he was pulling back, thankfully smiling. “We’ll drive each other crazy for sure—”
“But there will be trust.” I gave him a meaningful glance. “I’m not marrying someone who wants to check my phone.”
He nodded solemnly, and I had a moment of realizing I was bossing Max Banks. Was I the only person on the planet to do that? Then he arched an eyebrow. “Just as soon as I have that ring on your finger—”
“Then you’ll trust me? But not now?”
“Of course now,” he said, but there was something happening behind his eyes that I hadn’t seen before. “You’re my fiancé, and if you want a ring, we can buy it today—”
“I’m going back to the hospital first thing in the morning.”
“The press might be there.”
And that stopped me in my tracks. It was one thing to imagine a life of sex and laughter with Max, and quite another to be trailing around the celebrity circus he worked in, fearing for my privacy and having my life exposed, most likely out of context.
He must have seen that fear on my face, because his own expression grew solemn. “You’re scared of the media, aren’t you?”
“Not scared.” But something. Adverse. Unwilling?
He nodded. “As hard as it will be for me to learn to let go of my jealousy, it’s going to be even harder for you to toughen up in front of cameras.” Then he frowned. “Maybe impossible.”
I shook my head. “I can do anything.” For love.
But did I want to? He’d chosen that life of media exposure. This was the point where I had to decide. In or out? And I couldn’t. It was happening too fast. I needed time to think.
His cock must have been shrinking, because he reached down to secure the condom before he pulled out of me, but it wasn’t the cold air on my body chilling me. It was the idea that my life might become like his, with bodyguards and intrusive cameras.
While Max went to the bathroom, I pondered a future with no naked dancing in the forest. No spontaneous…anything. And perhaps even restrictions on my interactions with the girls. That was a terrible thought.
My life would be ‘accountable’ and not to someone who loved me—accountable to journalists who would take every opportunity to ridicule me if they could. It felt suddenly so much like living with my father, I had to slide off the desk and wrap my arms around myself, as if that might protect me from the mud-slinging that could follow.
Whenever my father had tracked me down, I’d run away. Would I run away now from Max to avoid being slut-shamed by the media? Or was it time to stand up for myself, to care less what other people thought and just get on with my life?
With Max.
He seemed to take an age coming back, and by the time he stopped in front of me, my heart was pounding.
“It’s mid-afternoon in London,” he said. “I could call my mother to tell her we’re engaged.” There was a testing quality to his voice, and it didn’t reassure me in the slightest.
“Not yet.”
He crossed his arms. “Why not?”
I felt cornered, which was weird because I was a jump-off-the-cliff-and-work-things-out-on-the-way-down kind of girl. Still, I said, “Within hours of the Tyler Bennett debacle, you want to announce our engagement?”
Can I catch my breath first?
I wrapped my arms tighter around myself. For some reason I didn’t want to be open and vulnerable right now.
“Fritha?” He shook his head. “What’s happening? Are you having second thoughts?”
Already. I heard the word even though he didn’t say it out loud.
I pressed my lips together and shook my head.
“Talk to me,” he commanded.
So I blurted, “What’s the rush?”
“I’m in love with a beautiful woman. I want to put a ring on her finger to claim her before someone else does, and yes, it’s indecent haste, but I don’t care. I love you so much I’ve simply stopped caring what other people think.”
He stared at me for a moment while my heart caught up with that
. Then he said, “I want to sleep with you wrapped in my arms and I want your face to be the first thing I see every morning, because that makes me happy. I’m a selfish bastard. But you knew that.”
He was talking about the Max Banks on television. The Max Banks I knew was generous and giving, especially in bed.
But I still wasn’t saying anything so he demanded, “Do you love me?”
I nodded, “But my mother loves my father, so I know love doesn’t make you happy.”
What?
What’s this that you’ve dredged out of the ugly box?
Max frowned, as if he couldn’t comprehend, but my mind was caught up replaying those words on a loop, love doesn’t make you happy, as if someone else had said them and I should pay attention.
Logic would tell me that love was wonderful, but my heart knew better—it knew that love was a trap.
So I shook my head and backed up, bumping into the desk we’d fucked on, and it didn’t matter that I saw sympathy in Max’s eyes. I knew this thing between us wasn’t going to work, precisely because I did love him. He was the first man I’d truly loved, and that terrified me.
“It’s not true,” he said softly. “Your mother doesn’t love your father. She’s dependent on him. That’s different.”
I shook my head and my fingers clutched onto my shoulders.
He didn’t try to touch me and that was good. I probably looked like a bomb that was about to go off. When the silence had gone on too long he said, “This problem with the media isn’t about you feeling attacked, is it? It’s about you wanting me to protect you, because nobody ever has.”
“My girlfriends—”
“But not a man.”
Was that it?
A shiver ran over me and I clutched myself tighter, trying to hold in the anxiety that was rising off the scale. The more we talked, the more I wanted to curl into a ball and be unconscious.
“I’ve done this all wrong.” He nodded to himself. “I should have been smarter and had Traci with you all the time.”
I swallowed tightly and said, “I want to go to Rosie.” In fact, I wanted to go home to my cottage, but I wasn’t telling him that. I just needed to be alone.
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