Her eyes clenched shut, her teeth ground together, the heat of his mouth was so pleasurable. Her head fell back on his forearm as she arched into the wet, hot cavern, gripping his shirt for all it was worth from the dizzy need spiraling out of control.
Campbell’s hips ground against hers, the strain of the bulge at his zipper a delicious friction against the most intimate place on her body. The pop of the button on her jeans was almost an afterthought when she allowed her hazy, lust-filled mind to dwell on it.
Her heart raced right along with her brain. The fear of such an intimate encounter warred with the unbelievable desire to find satisfaction. When Campbell placed a hot palm against her belly, sliding down inside her jeans, nothing else mattered but his finger, nudging her clit, swollen and needy.
He stroked her, spreading her swollen lips, his mouth never leaving her breast, drawing her closer to fulfillment. White-hot lightning crackled along every nerve ending she owned, raw and waiting. Maxine’s breathing was choppy, ragged as she strained against his hand when he cupped her, slipping through the tangle of curls between her thighs, dragging his finger back and forth over her clit in delicious passes.
Shudders wracked her when she arched against him while she climbed higher, driven by the skill of his hand.
The small explosion she’d always related to climax was so much different with Campbell. It wasn’t small, and it was more like several bombs were detonated in her aching body. Relief was a crash of her hips against his hand, the buck of them a rapid gyration as she clung to him, almost begging him to never stop touching her.
She came hard and with a mewl of contentment that would have been a scream if her teeth weren’t clenched together. The wave after wave of sizzling hot flashes of electricity pulsing through her pulled a final gasp from her throat.
Boneless, she sank into him, fighting for oxygen, sweat beading her forehead.
That was also the moment reality sank in, too.
Oh, God. What had she done?
You flailed around on some rocks with a gorgeous man who gave you more than one orgasm, honey. That’s what you done.
Humiliation had become the cornerstone of her life, a basis for which to flog herself regularly. Why should her first almost-divorced orgasm, make that two and a half, be any different?
Bracketing her face with his hands, Campbell forced her to look at him. “Don’t freak out, Max.”
She let her eyes drift over his shoulder. Was he kidding? “I don’t know that I’ll be able to help it. I just . . . we just . . .”
His grin was lopsided and teasing. “Yeah, we did. Or more specifically, you did.”
More heat shot to her cheeks. Not only had she behaved like she hadn’t had sex in over a year—okay, so she hadn’t—but Campbell had derived not one ounce of pleasure from it. Yet, what should she say now that the mood had gone all awkward? Want me to return the favor?
“Stop,” he murmured an order against her flushed cheek, planting a kiss there.
“But—”
“No buts. I know you’re embarrassed. Don’t be.”
“You’re joking.”
“Not even a little.” He lifted himself enough to button her shirt for her. “No regrets for me.” With a quick hand, he zipped her pants up, too, smoothing the material of her shirt down over the waistband. “And don’t go where you’re going in your head. First of all, it’s a little too soon for you to commit to that level of intimacy. And trust me when I tell you, Campbell Barker wines and dines his ladies right—”
“Ladies?” she croaked.
He smiled, his blue eyes dancing. “It was a joke. When I make love to you, it won’t be on some rocks in the woods. Second, I don’t have a condom. Third, I got carried away. You’re pretty hot, Max Henderson,” he said with another teasing grin. “Here.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her to a sitting position, smoothing a finger over her dazed expression with the smile still curving his lips. “Catch your breath, but while you do it, don’t you dare be embarrassed. It’s not allowed. Just relax and we’ll talk some more.”
It took a moment for her to adjust to Campbell’s attitude. First of all, he didn’t appear at all disgruntled that he’d gained nothing from her but a backache.
Second of all, to put it tactfully, when Finley didn’t get what he thought he deserved from their lovemaking, he’d certainly never said it was okay. And their afterglow damned well didn’t include him wanting to talk. In fact, their scheduled Saturday night lovemaking had always ended with Finley, remote in hand, watching TV.
That Campbell didn’t want to throw her in his truck as fast as his legs could carry all one hundred and fifty pounds of her left her astounded.
Maxine was avoiding his eyes at all costs. Her embarrassment would be pretty damned cute if he wasn’t fully aware he’d jumped the gun. If she hadn’t stopped, he would have, only because he knew their time would come. Though he’d meant what he’d said. He wanted to make love to her in a place she felt safe.
He wanted Max to come to him willingly—on her terms. Now what he hoped to accomplish was simple: soothe her obvious guilt. All of it. The guilt she was nurturing because she felt selfishly indulged. The guilt she felt because she so clearly didn’t do things like this often—if ever.
Sitting shoulder to shoulder, Campbell nudged her. “So did you come here a lot in high school?”
The nod of her head was quick, though her eyes stayed on her feet. “Didn’t everybody? Did you used to come here in high school, too?”
“Yep. We did a lot of underage beer drinking here back in the day.”
“I can’t believe I never ran into you.”
He winked. “I think our social circles were separated by titles like ‘popular cheerleaders’ and ‘band geeks.’ ”
Max waved him off. “Please. I bet you have no idea who my friends were in high school.”
Oh, he’d beg to differ. There wasn’t a whole lot he didn’t know about Max, but revealing that just yet might be a date ender—so he backed off. “Either way, I think fate was holding off so we’d wait to meet under the right circumstances. You know, when I was hotter and you were in the middle of a nasty divorce.”
Completely missing his joke, those pretty green eyes of hers rolled upward, and her berry-glossed lips popped. “I’m not a big believer in fate.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“That’s so final. Seems to me a girl like you would believe in all that gushy romantic stuff.”
“I’m not a girl anymore,” Max made a point of reminding him. “And I’m so over the gushy romantic part of fantasies in my life.”
Campbell clucked his tongue. Bitter he got. Bitter he’d tasted. Bitter was another step toward healing. He hoped she hurried up and took that next step. “That’s too bad.”
Max’s hand went to her chin, cupping it. No longer embarrassed, her eyes said she had a burr in her saddle. Campbell understood that. If she could focus on something to pick a fight about, it took the focus off her self-flagellation. “I don’t think it’s bad at all. I think it’s realistic.”
That’s what all bitter people said. “Reality can have some gushy romances,” he insisted with a lighthearted grin, fighting to turn her sour expression around.
“That end in messy divorces,” she confirmed. “Just ask me.”
All righty. They were veering off in a direction he hadn’t planned on. They’d already done that once tonight, but she was making it difficult to get back on track.
Yet, she was right. He couldn’t argue. He wouldn’t even try. Okay, maybe he’d try. “Sometimes they do,” Campbell offered, petulance purposefully leaking into his tone. Someone had to defend happily ever after even if it was him—a semi-Neanderthal.
Resistance showed in the sudden stiffening of her posture. “I guess so” was her dismissive response as she stared into the rapid fall of night, still avoiding his eyes. Eyes that willed Max to look at him and believe.
Somet
hing that clearly wasn’t on tonight’s agenda.
Silence drew out between them with nothing but the sound of their breathing. Max was shutting down again. Her snippiness was a combination of her unsettling thoughts about what had happened between them, and a reminder to him that crushed dreams left you cynical.
The sun set in all its purple and red-hot glory. With it set his resignation. Tonight wasn’t ending quite the way he’d daydreamed it would on his lunch break over a pastrami on rye.
Shit.
Way to keep it light, Barker.
The drive back in the truck was quiet. Maxine was lost in her stupidity for throwing herself at Campbell like a sex-starved vixen and stomping all over an otherwise perfectly fine date by spewing her cynical view on relationships.
Though, it was honest. These days, she’d decided, for all future encounters, male or female, she and honesty were going to skip together through fields of wildflowers. Hand in hand. If she sounded just a little jaded about love and all its rocking horses and rainbows, forgive her. She was experiencing a major slump in her life.
Uh-huh, and while you slump, you’re latching on to your baggage like it’s a life raft. Go on and cling if you want your future to be riddled with whiny.
Campbell pulled his battered truck to a stop in her mother’s driveway, leaving the engine rumbling and dimming the lights. “So how long do you suppose you’ll hang on to your grudge against romance and the general benefits it reaps? What horrors do you suppose could befall you if you just let go and stopped clinging to your baggage?”
Part of her sudden rush of fury had to do with the fact that she was still feeling raw and exposed from their encounter. Some of her anger was because he’d pressed a hot button about her baggage. But a mere hour ago, she’d mentally agreed—she was clinging. Twenty years was a long time to let go of rote reactions, hurt, lies. Not to mention habits, routines, bizarre behaviors only a man and wife can create in an emotionally manipulative relationship.
But so what? She had a right to them. They were hers. Like small reminder trophies of where she’d been.
The other half of her, the half that hated disruption and conflict, felt like she’d just hurled an innocent puppy from a cliff for having the audacity to believe in something good—something everyone seemed to want. Something everyone joined eHarmony for.
Those were all good things to want. Respectable even. But did anyone ever really find it? Or did they just settle? Did they talk themselves into believing what they were stuck in had turned out to be exactly what they wanted all along?
Unfortunately, the shitty, cynical side of her decided it wanted to come out and play.
Maxine turned to face him, the lights of the dashboard making his handsome face far too appealing for the angry rant she was about to unload on him. Yet she had a need to hurt him for making her feel things she wasn’t ready to feel, to strike out and protect her vulnerability by creating discord.
Crossing her arms over her chest, her posture became defensive. “What do you know about an ugly divorce and the kind of baggage that leaves you with? You have a whole lot of presumptions going on, don’t you? But I’m here to tell you, you have no idea what it’s like to be dumped like so much trash and left with nothing but the clothes on your back, Campbell Barker! So you can just keep your analysis of where me and my baggage are to yourself!”
With a yank, she threw open the creaky passenger door and plowed to the ground with a slap of sandals on blacktop. Maxine stuck her head back in for one last parting shot. “Oh, and thanks for the coffee. It was a little too wimpy for my tastes, but the effort’s appreciated.”
A slam of the truck door later and she was stomping into her mother’s, shutting out Campbell and his assumptions with a final shove. Flopping back against the door, inside the dark interior of the kitchen, she huffed a sigh of utter aggravation before hurling her purse at the countertop.
No more dates. Definitely no more dates with men who wanted her to leave her baggage behind. Her baggage was what was going to make her stronger, tougher, smarter, if there was ever a next time round. Hanging on to it for just a little longer would serve as a not-so-subtle reminder that she was never going back to being owned by anyone again, but it also reminded her soul mates and soap opera romances were all bullshit.
Oh, and fuck fate.
Fate was for dreamers.
Something she most certainly was not.
Campbell flung open the door to his father’s with a little too much emphasis on “fling.” He had to grab it to keep it from slamming against the wall and waking his dad.
A light flicked on by Garner’s favorite recliner. “I see you went all half-cocked and put your pedal to the metal.” He shook a finger. “I warned ya, kiddo,” he said on a hearty chuckle.
Campbell ran a hand through his hair then let it drift to his tired eyes to give them a rub. “You did. I blew it.”
Garner’s head bobbed under the lamplight. “So I guess there was no smooch good night for you, eh, pal?”
His snort was derisive. He’d just as soon kiss those lips again as he would kiss an open, pus-filled wound.
Garner rose to make his way toward his bedroom. “Just because you’re mad right now, don’t try and talk yourself into thinkin’ you weren’t hoping your date would end with one either, bucko. You’d just be lying to yourself.” His dad slapped him on the back. “Night, son.”
“Night, Dad,” he muttered, flipping the light back off to brood in the dark.
The understanding he’d doled out all night long had limits, and Max’s hardcore pessimism had a way of making him forget all the promises he’d made to himself to sort out what was born out of resentment that would eventually fade, and what was unshakable resolve with her.
He was calling it tonight.
His patience had run out.
See if he ever kissed her again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Note from Maxine Cambridge to all ex-trophy wives: Everyone needs a good wake-up call once in a while. If you’ve smartened up and are now surrounding yourself with only honest people in your life, they’re not going to be afraid to give you hell, no matter the venue. Open your eyes. Better still, open your ears. Listen, learn. And pucker up, buttercup.
The light in the kitchen flipped on, shining bright in Maxine’s eyes. Mona went to the fridge, pulling out a gallon of milk. Her quilted baby blue bathrobe rustled when she reached into the lower cabinet for a container to warm her nightly milk in. “So that went well, eh, kiddo?” She busied herself pressing buttons on the microwave.
Fire burned the tips of her ears. “You were eavesdropping!” She didn’t have to ask, she knew. Her mother’s bedroom window was centered over the driveway, and now she was going to stick her nose in where it didn’t belong. She was going to get unwarranted advice from a woman who’d told her to let Campbell make her eyeballs warble—wobble, whatever.
“Catch more flies with honey than vinegar.”
“Maybe I don’t want to catch this particular fly,” she said, meaning every flippant syllable. Just because Campbell was all things handsome, brought her to unknown heights of passion, and was canine appealing to boot, didn’t mean he was appealing to her.
Mona snorted into another, higher cabinet, reaching for a coffee cup. “Right. Well, just in case you go hunting down some other fly one day, do yourself a favor. Lay off the ‘poor me I had a humdinger of a husband’ biz. It’s a real turnoff.” A plunk of ceramic later, her mother poured the milk into the coffee mug and sauntered out of the kitchen. “Night, Maxie,” she said with a smug smile, the billow of her bathrobe leaving a cloud of blue in her wake.
Maxine gritted her teeth, dropping to the kitchen chair. Lights around the cul-de-sac where her mother’s unit was situated dotted the landscaped front lawns of the neighbors. Festive gnomes, all the rage with the seniors, eyed her with disgust in all their gnome-ish wisdom. She sat and stared at them for a long time, her chest tight, her hands clenched.<
br />
She just wasn’t ready to date. That was all there was to it. Yet, riding on the back of Campbell’s dirt bike, her chest pressed to his damp back, had been liberating—dare she admit, fun. And okay, pretty arousing, seeing his jeans hug his thighs and his shirt cling to that harder-than-hard stomach.
Just his physical presence brought her such peculiar serenity as they’d ridden around the track he told her he’d made himself with a bulldozer. Despite her rant about his presumptions, there was no denying her definite attraction to him. He had the ability to turn her inner thermometer up while relaxing her mind. His hands and mouth on her were akin to nirvana.
But Campbell believed in things she could no longer cop to. So she’d just keep telling herself her vulnerabilities after that orgasm had nothing to do with finding an excuse to push him away. Any excuse it took to never again find herself so caught up, only to lose everything in the end. All of Len’s advice about sharing lives versus owning each other’s was bunk.
So it had all worked out for the best.
Yes. Definitely.
Yet . . . if it was so fine, then why, when she rose from the kitchen table to prepare for bed, did her stomach drop to her feet, and her heart chug with sluggish regret for her behavior?
Why did the sinking feeling that Campbell Barker would rather have his skin peeled off at high noon than ask the crazy, almost divorcée out on another date as long as he lived leave her bereft?
Len scrolled through her phone book on her cell, hitting Mona’s number. It was past time she at least told Maxine about Adam.
Fire lit her cheeks while she listened to the endless ring on the other end, trying to fend off the jitters in her stomach just thinking that man’s name. She just wanted to touch base with Maxine about him—to be sure he wasn’t someone she knew by way of Finley. Though, she’d probably leave out the part about naked and hotel rooms, tangled sheets, and booze.
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