“Max, you should’ve called earlier. Baby, I would’ve been there for you. You should never have gone through that alone.” Her soft lips touch my cheek.
“I know what you were talking about when you told me you were afraid of how I might treat our children and you were absolutely right. I could’ve helped her instead of hiding from her. No matter what all she’d done to me, she was a sick woman who needed help, and I turned my back like a coward. I swear to you, I’ll never do that to our kids, Lex.” I pull the engagement ring I gave her before out of my pocket and let her go and get down on one knee in front of her. With tear-filled eyes I look up at her to find her hands over her mouth.
“Alexis Mathews, would you please, please, please, forgive the stupid man I’ve been and marry the man I’ve become. My life won’t be the same if you’re not in it forever and always, baby?”
Alexis
Max kneels before me with the engagement ring in his shaking hands and I look down at the most beautiful man in the world and have to wonder if this is only because he’s lost the only person in this world who was blood to him and aches to have his own children so badly he’d come running to me to get them mere hours after his mother’s death. I’m a sure thing in his mind.
But is that all I want in my life is to be the wife of a billionaire and mother to his children?
Part 10 Secrets of Delight
Alexis
Golden rays fill my small apartment as Max kneels in front of me, my engagement ring in his hand and a question hangs in the air, ‘Will I marry him?’
As unorthodox as it is, I kneel down in front of him so we’re both in the same position. “I want to marry you, Max.” I stroke his cheek. “So much has happened and to tell you the truth the last time we were together I felt a terrible sense of pressure to get pregnant. I felt as though you couldn’t be happy if it was just you and I. I want a husband who loves me and if no children ever come along, it won’t mean the end of us, or that I have to live with a depressed man for the rest of my life.”
He blinks rapidly, but still holds out the ring. “You don’t want children anymore, Lex?”
With a shake of my head, I say, “I didn’t say that. I do want them, Max. I just don’t want to be with a man who makes that the most important thing in our relationship. I want us to be the most important part in the relationship. You and I should be able to be perfectly happy together alone. If children come, great, if not our lives can be great anyway. So what do you say to that? Can you be happy with me if we never have children, not that I’ll do anything to stop that, but just in case it never happens? Do you love me enough to be happy with just me?”
Max looks at me for what seems like an eternity. I find I’m happy to know he’s actually thinking about what I said, rather than giving me the answer he thinks I want. His hand is still holding the ring out so I’m taking that as a good sign.
Finally, his lips part. “Lexi, I want to be with you for the rest of my life. I want no other woman to sit next to me on the sofa as I watch television. I want no other woman in my bed, and I want no other woman to be in the rocking chair next to mine as we watch the sunset when we’re eighty years old. I only see you in my life. So the answer is, yes, I can be happy with just you if no children ever come to us.”
My heart pounds and my eyes fill with tears. “Then my answer to you is also a yes, Max. I’d love to be your wife, forever and always.”
My hand shakes as I hold it out for him to slide the ring on my finger where it’s felt the absence of it for far too long. He pulls me into his strong arms and hugs me tight. Then he pulls back and kisses me, soft and gently as our tears mingle on our cheeks.
Max pulls his lips from mine and takes his thumb and wipes my tears. “Can we go make love before I explode? I’ve missed you so damn much, all I can think about is getting you into bed.”
“You’re going to hate this, but no.” I say and I’m really unhappy that we can’t, but I have work to do. “I have to be at the studio in an hour to do a shoot with Marcos and Ross. It should take about four hours, then we can do that. You can come to the shoot, it’ll be fun.”
“Damn it, girl, quit that job. You don’t need to make money, I have plenty if you’ll recall,” he says with a smile and stands up, taking me with him.
I lean into him, loving how we fit together and part of me wants to make the call, but the other part of me knows it’ll hurt both, Marcos and Ross if I do. “I have to, for Marcos and Ross.” I look up at him. “I’ll only finish out this book cover contract and then I’ll quit, I promise.”
His dark green eyes move over every inch of my face. “I love you, I’ve waited this long, I can wait a few more hours.”
I give him a smile and kiss his cheek. “I love you, I knew you’d understand. Do you want to surprise Kate?”
He pulls me down to sit next to him on the sofa. “She knows I’m here. She’s the one who gave me your address.”
“Really?” I ask as I run my hand over his tight abs and wish I didn’t have to be anywhere else but right here. “Well, get her on the phone and tell her to go to the studio with Marcos so you can hang out with her while we take the pictures and you can play with their baby.”
“Hmm. Holding a baby, might be a bad idea,” he says with a slight frown.
I pull my head back to look him in the eyes. “Max, you have to face things, stop hiding from them. We lost a baby, but that doesn’t mean the world ended. Our friends have a child and we should want to get to know her. Kate is our little guardian angel anyway.” I lay my head on his broad chest. “To tell you the truth I’ve not allowed myself to even hold their baby. It’s time I moved on with life as well. You aren’t the only one who wishes that accident never happened.”
His lips touch the top of my head. “You’re right, let’s move on and start this thing all over again, for the last time. I’m not letting you go again and I hope you don’t let me go either.”
“Till death do us part, Max,” I say with a laugh, but I know I have to mean it this time.
Max
Darkness fills the small studio where I sit with Kate and hold her baby in front of me to block the view of Lexi sandwiched between Marcos and the way too hot for my fiancé, Ross. “This doesn’t bother you?” I ask Kate.
“No, it does bother me. I never come up here anymore. I’m only here for you, my prince.” Her sweet French accent makes me smile as I’ve missed hearing her small voice.
“Perhaps we should’ve hung out at your place until they finished. I had no idea of just how many damn pictures they had to take in all sorts of kinky positions to get just the right one.” I look at Lexi’s engagement ring on the middle of my pinky finger. “I can’t believe they wouldn’t let her leave the ring on. This is a lot to take, you know?”
She wiggles the gold chain she wears around her neck with Marcos’ wedding band on it. “Tell me, I wear Marcos’ ring around my neck while he does these pictures. The producer wants it to look like they really are some sexed up threesome. It’s disgusting and I’m from France where they invented this stuff!”
With a quick glance I see Lexi laid out on a red covered bed, no top on and a red, satin sheet is thrown over her, covering only her boobs and then its spread between her long, cream colored legs. She looks really hot, but then the damn guy, Ross, is placed strategically in a straddling position across her chest as if his monster sized dick, which is clad only in a nude G-string, is about to be put into her mouth.
I fight the urge to get up and kill everyone as her legs are spread apart and Marcos is placed in between them as if he’s about to go down on her. I look at Kate. “Okay, I’ve had all I can take. Let’s go to the food court until this is done.” I stand up and put baby, Celeste on my shoulder and grab her diaper bag.
Kate gets up and follows me. “It’s awful for you too? I’m glad I finally have someone to commiserate with. Marcos tells me I’m overly sensitive.”
As we make our way out, the ph
otographer, Devin, notices me and stops taking pictures. “Max, damn it man, where have you been?”
“I was sitting back there in the dark, trying not to kill anyone, but that’s quickly getting away from me so we’re going to be in the food court until this is over.”
He laughs. “No, I meant where have you been in the last several months, you dope.”
“It’s a long story and has a lot of ugly twists,” I say and hold the door open for Kate to walk out of.
“After the shoot let’s go for drinks, I want to catch up with you,” he says.
I give him a nod though all I want to do is leave here and get Lexi back to her tiny apartment and devour her. After she’s had a nice, long shower to rid her of Ross and Marcos germs that is.
Kate looks up at me as we walk down the corridor to the main walkway in the mall. “So, how about we look in at the jewelry stores and pick out a set of wedding bands for you and Lexi?”
“That’s a great idea and it’ll get the image of her in those terrible positions out of my head, I hope,” I say as we make our way to the first jewelry store.
Celeste begins to wiggle on my shoulder and I pull her back to give her the once over and see what’s bothering her. Her eyes are bright blue like Kate’s and her hair is nearly the same color as Marcos’. She’s a doll and I’m happy to say she’s not upsetting me one bit.
She’s gnawing at her hand, so I reach down into the side of her diaper bag and pull out the bottle that’s waiting there for her lunch. I cradle her in my arm and pop the nipple in her tiny mouth where she sucks at it hungrily. “Aww, was baby Celeste hungry?” I ask as though she’s going to answer me.
Kate laughs. “Marcos would’ve already handed her to me. He’s not comfortable handling her yet. I hope he’ll get better at it as she grows larger. He says she’s too tiny right now.”
“In the home I grew up in, there always seemed to be new babies coming in and moving out. They’d get adopted pretty quickly. Still we had a steady stream and our house parents made everyone help out. At one time, there were ten kids from three months to eighteen years old living at that house.”
“How did the house parents deal with that many children, Max?” Kate asks.
I shrug and say, “I can’t tell you. All I know is we all had chores and responsibilities to the other kids, and we were expected to uphold them and for some reason we all did. No questions, no griping, no arguing like you see kids do now days with their parents.”
Kate’s eyes light up as she spots a set of wedding rings. Her small, slender finger points at a couple of wedding bands, then she looks at my pinky finger where Lexi’s ring is. “That metal looks like the metal of her ring.”
The sales clerk makes her way to us. “Well, hello there. I see you’re looking at our most expensive set. May I see the ring, your fiancé is talking about?”
I hold up my finger. “This is it, but this isn’t my fiancé. This is my little guardian angel, and she’s helping me find a set of wedding rings to match the ring I gave my fiancé.”
Dollar signs light up the clerk’s eyes as she sees the engagement ring is indeed made out of rhodium. She licks her lips and says, “That is a very expensive engagement ring, sir. So I naturally assume you’d like wedding bands to match and this set right here is a gorgeous combination. Not too flashy, but obviously fabulous.”
I look at Kate. “What do you think?”
“Lexi will love them, I think. I know she wouldn’t want anything flashy and the engagement ring already has that one large diamond and the little ones around it. A nice, simple wedding band would accent it nicely and I do believe she’d love it. But should you wait for her to be sure of that, Max?”
I glance at the sales lady and she makes a frown. “I tell you what, sir, I can make you a fantastic deal if you want to buy them right now. If she doesn’t like them we can buy them back from you, but I’m almost positive she’ll love them.” She quickly pulls them out of the case and holds the smaller one up. “Can I see her engagement ring?”
My pinky I hold out and she takes the ring from my finger and holds it up to the other ring. “Look at that,” I say. “They’re the same size.”
The sales lady takes out the men’s ring and I move the baby to my other arm and hold her bottle with my chin as she slips the ring onto my ring finger and it fits perfectly. “Imagine that, both rings will fit you both perfectly, no need to wait for them to be fitted. That is fantastic, no?”
I look at Kate and smile. “It looks like she’s picked up your accent, angel.” The women both laugh and I look at the ring on my finger.
“I’ve waited a long time to see a wedding ring on this finger and I tell you what, I think this is just the one I could stand to look at for the rest of my life,” I say then look at the eagerly awaiting woman who chomps at the bit in front of me. “I’ll take them.”
She nearly jumps for joy as this has to be the highest commission piece in the whole jewelry store. “And to think I came in on my day off because the other saleslady called in sick.” The lady pulls the ring back off my finger and places Lexi’s engagement ring back on my pinky.
“Umm, Kate. I need to grab my wallet,” I say and gesture to the baby.
She takes her from me and the baby looks back at me like I just handed her off to a stranger. I smile as Kate frowns. “You’ve stolen her from me already, you handsome devil.”
I tickle the baby’s chin. “I’ll get you right back in just a minute, pumpkin.”
The sales lady smiles at me. “Do you have children?”
I shake my head. “Not yet, but I hope we have some soon.”
“You’re a natural,” she says. “I wish my son’s father was a quarter of the man you are. He took off a year ago and hasn’t been seen since. A real winner I picked.”
“A single mother you are then?” I ask.
She nods and places the rings in the black boxes and puts them in a bag. “Yeah, it’s not always easy to keep a roof over our heads or food on the table, but I manage. This commission will set me up pretty good for a while.”
The woman goes to run my credit card and I take the opportunity to look in my pocket and see how much cash I have. I’m not usually one to carry very much cash, but I did load up in hopes I could talk Lexi into running off to Vegas to get married, which I see now she won’t be able to do.
I find two, one thousand dollar bills and take them out and fold them together so they look like hundreds. As the woman comes back to me she hands me a pen and the paper to sign. Another bunch of papers she places in the bag as she explains, “These are your warranties and things. Plus I added the agreement to buy the rings back if you aren’t satisfied.”
“Thank you, I really appreciate your help. Um, what did you say your name was?” I ask as I hand her the paper back with the cash underneath it.
“My name is Pam, Pam Stevens, and it’s been a pleasure doing business with you Mr. Lane.”
“You too, Pam.” I pick up the bag and give her a smile then take the baby back from Kate and start to walk towards the food court.
“Oh, wait!” Pam calls out. “You accidentally put some cash with the receipt.”
With a wag of my finger I look back. “That’s for you, a tip for all your help, Pam. Have a great day.” I keep walking and notice Kate peeking back.
She laughs. “You should see her face, Max!”
“It made her happy?” I ask.
“She’s jumping up and down, so yeah it made her happy,” Kate says and wraps her small arms around me and gives me a hug. “You’re such a good man, my prince. I’m so glad I found you that day.”
“Me too, my angel. Me too.”
Alexis
Quiet chatter fills the large restaurant we all went to after the shoot. Devin, the photographer, has Max in a captivating conversation. I suppose it’s captivating as he’s monopolized Max’s attention nearly the whole time we’ve been here.
Ross sits on the other side of me,
something that had Max giving me the stink eye. I look across the table at Marcos as he handles his baby very awkwardly then hands her back to Kate who is looking a bit put out.
An arm runs around my shoulders, drawing my attention to Ross. “For a man who hasn’t seen you in quite some time, he certainly isn’t paying enough attention to you in my opinion anyway.”
I lean in to whisper, “Well that’s Devin’s diddly dang fault. He won’t quit bothering him about doing more modeling.”
Ross’s eyebrows raise. “So our little threesome could become a foursome?”
“You know I hate you to call us that,” I say as I smack at his chest.
He grabs my hand and holds it to his chest, running it down his abs and leaving it on his leg. “That’s what we are, baby. And a really hot one. Please don’t let this thing you have with this guy take that all away. There’s so much money to be made and we all look so good together. Plus I’ve had an offer for some work using only you and me.”
“Only the two of us?” I ask. “Why’s that and what type of work is it?”
He gives me a wink. “We’ll talk about it at another time. I want you all to myself when I tell you the details. I think you’ll be very happy with the amount of money I’m negotiating, but I don’t wish to rub it in Marcos’ face, you know?”
I nod and sit back, taking my hand off his leg. Ross has been a little free with touching me. I understand since we’ve been spending several hours a day in various lovemaking positions. But he has to stop or Max will get furious and I want us all to get along.
“Max doesn’t want me to continue modeling. He said he understands about the commitment I made for the book cover deal, but after that he thinks I should put this behind me. Once we’re married, which I think will be soon, all that money he has will be mine too, at least that’s what he said.” I sit back and look over at Max’s back.
Savage SEAL’s Virgin: A Submissives’ Secrets Novel Page 93