Perfect Timing

by Brenda Jackson

  He returned her smile as he shook his head, “Not by a long shot. It’s just that I don’t think being out here in the open is an appropriate place for our first kiss. At least not the kind of kiss I want to give you.” He decided not to add he’d waited quite a number of years for this opportunity and when he got started he didn’t want to be interrupted until he had gotten his fill.

  “Oh.” Heat curled into Maxi’s stomach and made her cheeks feel flushed as she thought of just what kind of kiss that might be. She had admitted to herself earlier that day that she was more conscious of Christopher than she had been of any man in a long time; especially since Jason’s death. “Where do you suggest we go for privacy?” she asked although she knew the obvious. She hoped she wasn’t sounding overly anxious.

  “Our cabin. And I won’t take things any farther than you want me to, but I’ve got to kiss you, Maxi.”

  She nodded. She knew the feeling. And it was slowly overtaking her in a deep sensuous way. “All right.”

  As soon as the words left her mouth, Christopher quickly ushered her toward the first elevator they came to.

  As soon as Maxi and Christopher reached their cabin, he opened the door. Once inside and the door closed shut behind them, their gazes met. She watched his eyes darken as they slid dead center to her lips. She then felt a moment of caution that she was about to dive into unfamiliar waters.

  “Say it,” he murmured huskily, softly. “Say you want me to kiss you.”

  All sense of caution fled with his request. “I want you to kiss me, Christopher.” She spoke quietly. The words, echoing softly in the cabin. The desire to taste her was there in his eyes. She saw it. He was making no attempt to hide it.

  “I’m going to do more than just kiss you, Maxi,” Christopher warned, speaking with fierce emotion storming through every part of him. “I’m going to make love to your mouth. I want to give you ultimate pleasure from my kiss.” The grooves in his cheeks deepened and the huskiness in his voice increased. “Are you prepared for that?”

  Maxi inhaled deeply, not sure she was prepared for anything, especially something of the magnitude he was alluding to. What would be so different about his kiss than the ones she’d shared with Jason? They had been enjoyable but…ultimate pleasure? She didn’t have a clue what ultimate pleasure entailed but as she studied Christopher she had a feeling she was about to find out.

  He took a few steps toward her. Her breath caught when his arms slid around her. “Are you prepared for that?” he repeated softly, bring her closer against him.

  Maxi felt his heat and moved toward that heat. She wrapped her arms around his neck and met his hot fiery gaze. “Yes, I’m prepared for that,” she responded softly.

  He smiled. “Then hold on,” he whispered roughly before leaning down and slanting his mouth across hers, forging them together.

  She tasted his hunger, hot and sensuous, the moment their mouths met and the heat of it snared her, pulled her into sensations she’d never before experienced. His tongue filled her mouth completely, searching, exploring, as her mouth opened fully beneath his. He continued to probe the secret places of her mouth before capturing her tongue and mating it with his in a way she didn’t think possible, slow, deep, intense. Blood rushed fast and furiously through her veins, heightening all her senses.

  Maxi was fully aware she was kissing him back in a way that was downright greedy, scandalous. She could hear the sounds of his deep-gutted groans, which triggered soft little moans to quiver all the way in her throat, flooding desire through her bloodstream in a way that should have frightened her. The sound only blazed the fire within her that much hotter. She took in everything about him, the hardness of his body pressed against hers, the masculine scent of him, and the rich, hot taste of him that was making her tremble in his arms.

  Then he touched her backside and pulled her closer to the fit of him. She felt hard evidence of how much wanting and desire their kiss was generating. His hand moved expertly over her body caressing her, slowly, gently, and sensuously and making heat pool in one spot between her legs. As he continued to kiss her that particular spot became hotter and hotter. She felt alive in a way she had never felt before and now acknowledged that not even Jason had ever aroused her so thoroughly, so deeply.

  Breaking the kiss, Christopher lifted her and sat her on the dresser with her gown shoved up around her waist. His gaze met hers, gauging her response to what he’d just done, waiting for her to deny him the chance to continue, to take the intimacy of their kiss on a whole other level, letting her know the final decision was hers to make. And she made it when she leaned toward him, her lips inviting, welcoming. She placed her arms around his neck.

  That was all the sign he needed. He clamped his mouth back down on hers, immediately deepening their kiss. She felt him nudge her legs apart to stand between them, angling his body intimately between hers. She felt his hand move from her back to her thighs, stroking a trail toward her center. The sound of her panty hose being ripped in the seat, sent an electrical charge all the way from the top of her head to the soles of her feet. And when mere seconds later she felt his fingers cup her through her satin and lace panties, and stroke his thumb over her, she raised her hips off the dresser, automatically drawn to his hand. Her legs instinctively widened. He swallowed her groan as he continued to kiss her as his finger stroked every sane thought from her mind. She tried pulling her mouth away from his when she felt herself wanting to scream but he wouldn’t let her. It was as if their mouths were fused tight.

  A few blistering seconds later, she couldn’t take any more as smoldering heat overtook her. Her arms tightened around his neck when she felt her body explode in a thousand pieces. He absorbed into his mouth every moan of pleasure she made as his tongue continued to mate with hers, using the same rhythm his finger was using on her, draining her of everything.

  It was only when her body went limp did he release her mouth. She slowly opened her eyes and stared breathless at him. Bewildered. Disoriented. Overwhelmed. She continued to stare at him. Her eyes felt heavy, her mouth felt bruised and the womanly core of her felt…wet.

  The intense look Christopher was giving her did not try to mask the naked passion of desire still boiling inside him. He gently picked her up off the dresser and placed her on her feet and held her when he saw she had difficulty standing on her own. “You taste better than brandy,” he said thickly. “I could drink you up all night and still would not get enough. You’re one sexy woman, Maxine Chandler. You are well worth the wait.”

  Maxi blinked sluggishly, the sensations of what she’d felt still lingering. “The wait?”

  He met her gaze. “Yes. I’ve wanted to kiss you ever since that first day in school when we were in the first grade.” He smiled. “Not quite the way I just did since my mind hadn’t matured that far. But every year as I got older my fantasies got wilder. What you just got was a good seventeen years worth of them.”

  Maxi blinked again. Finding it hard to do so. “Seventeen years?”

  “Yes. Twelve years of school and five years after I left Savannah to rid you from my constant thoughts and heated dreams. It wasn’t until Mr. Thompson wrote and told me you were getting married that I stopped thinking about you. It didn’t seem right to continue having such intimate thoughts and dreams about another man’s future wife.”

  “You knew I had gotten engaged to Jason?”

  He hesitated briefly before answering. “Yes. Occasionally I would get a letter from Mr. Thompson. He kept me abreast of a number of things, especially about you. He knew how I felt about you.”

  Maxi’s head began spinning with everything Christopher was telling her. “Mr. Thompson? Our science teacher?” At Christopher’s nod she asked. “How?”

  Christopher smiled. “You know Mr. Thompson. Nothing got past him and it didn’t help matters when he found that letter.”

  “What letter?”

  “The letter I had written to you one day in class. Somehow it had
gotten mixed up with the work I had turned in to him. He gave it back to me the next day.”

  Maxi shook her head, trying to absorb everything Christopher was saying. “It’s hard to believe that you thought about me after you left Savannah.”

  “I thought about you all the time, Maxi.”

  She inhaled deeply. “B-but you didn’t even tell me goodbye when you left.”

  His hands moved up to cup her shoulders, bringing her closer to him. It was time to tell her why he hadn’t told her goodbye when he’d left town ten years ago. A part of him wondered why he had made that decision. Maybe it was because he needed to hear it for himself, to fully understand why he had kissed her the way he had tonight. Why even now he wanted to kiss her again, and why she got to him like no other woman could. “Leaving you behind in Savannah was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do,” he finally answered. “I couldn’t bring myself to tell you goodbye, Maxi, but for my survival I had to. I had cared too much for you back then and I knew it was headed nowhere.” He sighed. That kind of admission would be lethal in the hands of most of the women that he knew, but he wasn’t dealing with most women. He was dealing with a woman who was in a class by herself.

  For the longest time Maxi didn’t say anything. The sane part of her mind was telling her to let it rest, but she couldn’t. She had to let him know how she had felt back then, too. “And I probably cared just as much for you, and I thought it could go somewhere,” she said quietly, looking away.

  She gasped when Christopher immediately captured her chin in his hand and directed her eyes back to his. He looked stunned. “What are you saying?” he asked throatily, not taking his gaze off her. Emotions flashed in the hard set of his jaw and the darkness of his eyes as he looked at her.

  Maxi swallowed, then gave in to a slow sigh. “I’m saying that I had cared deeply for you back then, too. The only person who knew how I felt was Mya.”

  “Mya?”

  “Yes.”

  Christopher nodded, releasing her chin and dropping his hands to his side. No wonder the woman had tried getting all into his business last night. He then studied Maxi’s face for the truth of her words. And he saw it, the naked truth shining in the softness of her brown eyes. “I didn’t know,” he finally whispered, slowly.

  “Yeah, and I didn’t know about how you felt either,” she said. “I wonder if things would have been different had we known.”

  He slowly shook his head. “I’m sure we would have gotten around to kissing a whole hell of a lot sooner, but I still would have left Savannah, Maxi. Not even you could have kept me there.” Because I had nothing to offer you then, he thought to himself.

  “I would not have tried. But I would have wanted for us to stay in touch, Christopher. I had loved you just that much.”

  His gaze met hers, shocked, then touched by her words. During that time he’d felt no one had loved him and that no one had wanted him. At no time while living in Savannah had he ever felt a sense of belonging. And the scandal involving his mother had made things worse. It was only after he’d left and met the Blackwells that he’d fully felt a deep sense of belonging. They had opened up their hearts and home and had made him a part of their family.

  He grazed Maxi’s cheek with his finger and felt heat settle in his stomach when her lips quivered from his touch. He pulled his hand back as the full impact of what they had both admitted hit him. Ten years ago, just as he had loved her, this beautiful woman had loved him too. Loved him, Christopher Chandler, who hadn’t had anything to offer her. A man who had been the town’s bad boy, their holy terror. Ten years that neither of them would ever be able to recapture.

  With supreme effort he took a step back. He needed to think. He needed to pull himself together. And he needed to curse the fate that had brought them together at the worst possible time, because things had changed. He had changed and so had his feelings. He wasn’t madly in love with her as before. He wasn’t madly in love with any woman. Those days were long gone. “I need to go out for a while.” Without saying anything else he turned and quickly left the room.

  For a few brief moments Maxi stood glued to the spot. She wondered how she and Christopher would handle things tomorrow now that they had stepped beyond what was normal behavior for cabinmates who weren’t supposed to be involved.

  Going into the bathroom, she undressed quickly, seeing evidence of the extent of what she and Christopher had shared when she removed her torn pantyhose and tossed them in the trash can. She sighed deeply. She had been on the cruise for only two days and already so much had happened to her. The thought that Christopher had cared something for her ten years ago had her entire body shivering. She inhaled deeply, determined to be in bed by the time he returned. She had a lot to think about but she didn’t want to do it tonight. Otherwise she would be forced to remember his busy fingers, cocksure tongue, and “lock-you-in” mouth.

  Less than thirty minutes later she was in bed feeling exhausted and feeling something she hadn’t felt in a long time. Satiated. There could be a lot said about sexual release, she thought as she drifted into sleep.

  Two hours later Christopher returned to find Maxi in bed asleep. He had walked the length of the entire ship, played the slot machines in the casino, and still hadn’t come to terms with what had happened between them tonight. He had brought her to a climax while kissing and touching her. She had been so responsive, so passionate, so tasty, and so utterly Maxi. She was a person who was totally honest in her giving, so expressive in her feelings. And when she had told him that she once cared deeply for him, that had been too much for him to handle.

  He looked across the cabin at her asleep in bed. It took every ounce of will power he had not to undress, cross the room, and slide into bed with her. He took a long, deep breath and rubbed at the tension knotting the back of his neck. It was his body’s warning sign whenever he’d gotten himself into something way too deep; and all he had to do was to glance across the room at Maxi’s angelic expression while she slept to know that he had. He forced his gaze away from her to take in the beauty of the ocean outside the porthole over her bed. He wasn’t a long-term relationship kind of man. Hell, he wasn’t a short-term relationship kind either. He was a hitter. He enjoyed scoring hits then making it home. Alone. The last thing he wanted or needed was to get seriously involved with a woman, even Maxine Chandler. Emotionally, he didn’t want it. Mentally, he couldn’t handle it. But physically, his body was aching for it.

  Even after all these years, he still wanted to stamp his claim all over her. He wanted her to be his in the most elemental and primal way. He knew what he was feeling wasn’t normal and that it didn’t make sense, but then he never had much sense where Maxi was concerned. He’d always been ruled by a deeper emotion than common sense.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “Hey, Mya, you got a minute?”

  Mya looked up from the breakfast buffet table at Maxi and smiled. “Sure.” She glanced around. “Where’s Christopher?”

  Maxi shrugged as she picked up a plate. “Beats me. He was gone when I woke up this morning.”

  Mya studied Maxi and smiled at the gloomy expression she wore. “What’s wrong? Didn’t he enjoy your walk around deck last night?” she teased.

  “I have no idea what he enjoyed.”

  Mya studied Maxi some more. Concern then clouded her eyes “You want to tell me what happened?”

  Maxi reached over and filled her plate with pancakes, eggs, and bacon. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

  “Oh, hell yes, I do!”

  Mya and Maxi looked at each other and burst out laughing. It was just like old times. “Yeah, Mrs. Rivers, I suppose you do,” Maxi said bringing her laughter under control. “It was foolish of me to forget just how nosy you are.”

  “And don’t forget I’m a person who likes details.”

  “Another one of your faults.” Maxi glanced around. “Where’s Garrett?”

  “A group of men recognized him and he
’s off somewhere signing autographs and talking football, so we’ll have a chance to chat privately. And like I said, Maxine Jeanae, I want details.”

  “Wow, after listening to you the last thing I need is hot coffee in my system,” Mya said, pushing her coffee cup aside. “What I need is something to cool me off. Just throw me in the ocean, will you. Girl, sounds like you might be headed for trouble.”

  They had found a table on the top deck to catch the morning breeze while they enjoyed breakfast overlooking the ocean. Maxi met Mya’s gaze. She’d told Mya about her and Christopher’s kiss but left out a lot of the details. It was something too private, too intimate to share even with Mya. “Trouble in what way?” she asked taking a sip of her coffee.

  “Now that you know how Christopher felt about you back then and he knows how you felt about him, there’s bound to be trouble.”

  Maxi raised her eyes heavenward. “You still haven’t said in what way, Mya.”

  “In the way of history repeating itself. I heard that feelings never die. They just get tucked away until it’s the perfect time for them to resurface.”

  “Well, you heard wrong. Christopher was ten years ago, Mya. He was before Jason and before Howard University.”

  “Umm, just be careful, Maxi. Kisses can lead to other things.”

  “Christopher would never force himself on me, Mya.”

  “No, but I wouldn’t put it past you to force yourself on him.”

  “Mya!”

  “Hey, wait, before you get your panties in a twist, just listen to what I’m saying. I’ve been doing the thang a lot longer than you have and it all started with kissing. You of all people know how it was for Garrett and me. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other after our first kiss. Don’t you remember how many times you had to cover for me with Gramma Twila? For you it will be a whole lot worse. Hell, Maxi, it’s been four years since you’ve been with a man!”