by Alexa Hart
Ten minutes later and Max was opening his car door for me. I noticed that he too, seemed to have upgraded a bit in vehicles, as the black SUV was quite new and well-polished.
Stress levels might be high, but the business seems to be doing quite well.
I was happy for him and bothered by this thought simultaneously.
Pop had simply hugged me and smiled wistfully as I told him good-bye. Dario had grinned like an idiot and clapped both Max and I on the back – seeming almost excited by our outing.
They think this is something it’s not. They think this is us becoming us again. It makes them feel better about the impending loss we’re all facing.
I couldn’t help psycho-analyzing my family’s reactions. You couldn’t train for years and spend every day picking through peoples’ actions and words to help them face their thoughts and feelings, without having it spill over to life outside of the office.
I side-glanced at Max as he drove carefully through the snow packed streets. He was just so unbelievably attractive. The collar of his black wool peacoat was turned up to fend off the cold, and it just barely brushed against his jawline – that perfectly firm cut of strength and determination framing his gorgeous features.
We drove in near silence. I couldn’t help but remember how we had always – always – been holding hands when traveling together before. It didn’t matter who was driving or where we were going, we needed to touch. I wondered if he was thinking it too.
How could he not be?
The coffee shop we arrived at (in a grand total of about four minutes) was new to me, and on the south edge of the neighborhood. It had a very casual, modern feel, and Max found us a couple of mismatched and overstuffed lounge chairs in a back corner where privacy almost seemed to exist in spite of the open-floor seating plan. Our waitress swiftly wrote down our orders, but took enough time to gawk and giggle at Max as she did so. My eyes were internally rolling so hard they might have actually fallen out of my face by the time she left.
“Friendly,” I commented, smiling and trying very much to not be actually bothered by the flirtation.
Max raised his eyebrows. “Neighborhood girls. You know how it goes.” He shrugged and looked away from me, instantly uncomfortable for a reason I could not deduce.
“I do. I was one,” I replied, continuing to grin and hoping to reassure him that I was just playing around. He had every right to be flirted with – or to flirt – whenever and however he wanted.
“No. You weren’t.” And there was the intense gaze, boring into me with its sincerity and unhidden angst.
I felt a pang of sentiment, knowing he meant this as a compliment. Max had always told me I was too good for this place. Yet he had most definitely not been okay with letting me leave it.
“So, catch me up, Maximo. What adventures have you been on for the last six years?” I spoke the words and thought of how all the times that I had visited home, I had painstakingly avoided any run-in with him – unsure if I could handle it. Unsure if we could handle it. About three years into my new life in California, I had become so busy with my burgeoning psychology practice that it had just been easier to fly Pop and Dario out for visits. Easier on my schedule, and easier on my heart. Dario reluctantly sharing the long overdue news with me that Max was now a father may also have factored into my complete abandonment of trips home. A lot.
Of course, I could imagine Max as a father – and an amazing one at that. I just could not imagine him fathering a child with anyone but myself. It was ludicrous, and it was unfair, considering I had insisted on leaving him. But it still broke a certain part of my heart that had apparently made it through those first three years “sans Max” intact.
Max had a family.
“Catch you up,” he let out a small laugh, but it didn't seem entirely mirthful. Hunkering down in his chair, he was now staring at the floor and resting his colossal arms on his legs. He shook his head slightly, struggling. “Everything has changed. Nothing has changed. I have a son.” He paused then, raising his eyes to meet mine.
I nodded. “Dario told me. Well – he told me a few years ago. We don’t really talk about... him... you... I mean I’m so happy for you, Max, I am – I just – ” And I froze then, completely unsure of what exactly I felt concerning this subject.
“I know, Nat. It’s weird. All of this is weird. He’s awesome though. Four years old now. His name is Nicola – Nic. He’s a smart little guy,” Max spoke quickly, and I could hear the tenderness in his voice. It was different from anything I had ever heard from him. I instinctively knew that Nic was Max’s world – his joy.
I was nodding, still smiling, and trying so very hard to not ask the burning question that was radiating through my brain. And his mother?
Max solved that problem for me swiftly.
“It was one of those – God, just one of those things... I wasn’t even dating his mom. We hung out occasionally. Partied. Partied a lot. She was so pissed that I wouldn’t marry her after I found out about the pregnancy... She told me she was going to move to Jersey just to make it harder for me to see the baby. And she did.” He stopped then, as our waitress returned with two steaming cups and a generous helping of shameless come-ons.
My eye-rolls were external this time, and I didn’t bother trying to conceal them from her or Max. Wanting to know more, I started the conversation up right where it had stopped. “But you do see him. You’re close to him. I can tell.”
Hazel rays beamed at me, and Max seemed pleased now. “I do. And we are. Close, I mean. His mother had a bit of a cocaine habit that she picked up again when Nic was two. I’d been fighting for custody already – and just like that, she was in jail and I had Nic full time.” He paused, absently rubbing his temples, and I wondered exactly how much of an emotional toll that entire situation had taken on him. “She’s fine now. Still fuckin’ hates me, but she’s clean. She gets Nic on the weekends. Ma helps me handle him the rest of the time.”
I thought of Max’s mother, Elena, and couldn’t help but smile. Now there was one force of a woman. I had always considered myself beyond lucky to have somehow naturally been in her good graces. Many, if not all of the other young girls in her domain of vision, were not. I knew being a neighborhood kid, and even more-so a business kid, made a huge difference. I was one of “hers”. Her husband being so close to my father, and my being motherless from the age of ten also seemed to affect the situation in my favor. We had never discussed it, but I furthermore was nearly positive that she and my father had been in love at some point – maybe they still were. She had always treated me like a daughter. Max and I dating was something she had hoped for, long before it had happened.
“How is Elena?” I asked, missing her suddenly very much.
Max grinned. “She’s the same.”
We both laughed a little, and there was a long moment where we just looked at each other, deep in our own separate – or perhaps not-so-separate – thoughts.
“Are you seeing anyone?” Max suddenly blurted, looking directly at me and seemingly bracing for my answer.
I shook my head.
“I am,” he said, an apologetic tone smothering his words. “It’s not serious. We’re not together or anything. We just see each other sometimes...” Max trailed off in his confession, still studying my face and needing to know my response.
I knew I was supposed to hold my shit together, act like a big girl, and be happy for him – or at least indifferent. But I was struggling to even look at him, let alone show the slightest hint of a pleasant expression.
“Oh,” I finally replied flatly, eyes dead-locked on the floor.
“You might know her,” he added.
My entire body tensed, and I realized my ears were ringing.
“Oh,” I said again.
“Lucy Costa? She went to school with us, but I think she was in Dar – ”
“Lucia Costa?” I burst out in disbelief, no longer frozen and no longer avoiding Max’s eyes.
<
br /> “Yeah... I mean, it’s not serious or anything,” Max looked very uncomfortable as he spoke – like he was terrified he may have just ruined something unknown and... priceless.
“That girl hated me. She was always so mean to everyone! Jesus, Max. Lucia Costa?” I was speaking loudly, and I knew it. We were receiving more than a little attention, but I just didn’t care.
Max with that fucking girl... Max FUCKING that girl!
I felt sick.
Max smirked half-heartedly. “Well she’s still kind of a bitch, if it makes you feel any better.” The remark took me off guard and I almost laughed. He put a hand on my knee – gently – and leaned closer to me. “You’ve been gone, Nat. Not just kind of gone. Totally GONE. No one has ever been – " his voice faltered, “No one has ever been close to... But you didn’t think I would just... I mean that’s not fair, is it?”
I tried to clear my head and regain my composure. His hand was burning a proverbial print into my leg, and some stubborn part of me – the part that knew without a doubt that Max could never love anyone the way he had loved me – wanted to punish him for even trying.
YOU LEFT HIM.
“It’s fine, Max,” I offered finally.
But he knew that it wasn’t.
“Let’s get out of here, Nat. Let’s go for a walk or something. I’ll drive us to the park.” He was standing, tugging at my hand now with his own. I had the very clear realization that I would go anywhere that hand led me right now.
Another less than five-minute drive ensued. I could not look at him and had developed a sudden, acute lack of ability to put my thoughts into spoken word. I felt him glancing at me often, and willed myself to keep staring out the window at the neighborhood passing by.
Parked in the lot, Max attempted to lighten the mood.
“Not exactly walking weather, huh, West Coast?”
It was snowing now, and I let myself be mesmerized by the giant white flakes hitting the windshield and forming a soft white curtain between us and the world.
“We’ve ran in worse,” I offered blankly, which was very true.
“Natalia?” Max was putting a hand to my face, turning me towards him.
We locked gazes, and I felt waves of electricity flooding through my body.
You can’t stop this now.
And then he was kissing me – strong, soft lips and his effortlessly commanding tongue overtook any protest I may have tried to make. Max’s fingers were entwining through my hair and there was an urgency – a need – between us that was suddenly all-consuming. He was on top of me in seconds, laying my seat back and pulling layers of clothing off of his body amidst hungry, passionate kisses that covered my face and my neck. Then we were both ripping away my clothes. Max’s mouth found my breasts and he squeezed, clawed, licked, bit – like a ravenous animal finally given sustenance.
The sensation of this man devouring my body while his mountainous muscles flexed and stiffened all around me caused a drunken delirium to overtake my brain. I ran nails across the tattooed skin – remembering how each beautiful inch felt to my fingertips, moaning as he spread my legs wide and dove into me with a thick, throbbing shaft and plunged mercilessly deep. His teeth pulled angrily at my earlobe, and the panting, growing ecstasy of his breathing made me wild. I braced my legs against the dashboard and thirstily met each thrust with my own counterattack – feeling every collision with mounting pleasure and emitting happy cries as I began to come deliciously – vibrating with pleasure.
Max seemed to lose his mind at the sounds of my climax and suddenly the thrusting intensified to animalistic ramming – faster and harder –
Oh God, so fucking deep –
He was releasing – coming and coming and coming – letting out a howl of rapture and agonizing euphoria, and I tightened around him – relentlessly sucking out every last drop from his magnificent body.
Flaming hazel eyes met mine and I felt his massive chest rapidly heaving against my breasts as he struggled to regain his breath. In that brief, shining moment, we were Max and Nat again – and the last six years did not exist.
Chapter 6
Maximo
My forehead was pressed into Natalia’s neck, our bare bodies still melded together tightly. I didn’t want to pull out. I didn’t want to move ever again. I knew that once I was no longer in her, she could slip right through my fingers and I’d be unable to stop her.
Her breathing had relaxed, but she still held me tightly to her, running those tiny fingers across my back, and tracing the tattoos she knew all too well. I wondered if she could tell that there had been several additions in the last six years that she did not know at all.
I kissed her neck softly, grinning silently at the bite marks now rising on her pale skin. I had always done that – marked her, in a sense. The whole neighborhood had known she was mine, but I felt the need to scream it every single day in any way possible.
My sweet Natalia...
“I still love you,” I spoke softly into her ear, running a hand down the curve of her breast and then letting it rest in the slope of her naked waist.
I felt her body tense, and heard her heart beating faster.
“I still love you, Max,” she returned, sounding like she was on the verge of tears.
It wasn’t enough to fix the last six years, but it was enough to make this moment everything that we both needed it to be.
It was pure.
And then it was over. I had never been more confident that splurging for the oversize model SUV was worth it. But even with the extra space – clothing retrieval was an awkward bitch of a task. If ripping our clothes off had been a challenge, putting them back on was nearly mission impossible.
Nat was giggling like a teenager by the time we were resettled in our separate seats, clothed and proper. I had missed that sound so much. I had missed every single thing about her.
“Come home with me,” I said suddenly, unable to fathom the thought of letting her go again.
Her face grew serious, and she stared at me with conflicted sapphires. “Max... I don’t really think that’s a good idea...”
I put my hand on her cheek, feeling a strong, primal need to keep her with me. “Please, Nat... Just one night...”
Her face hardened then, and she gently pulled my hand away. “Do you really think Lucy would be okay with that? I feel like she wouldn’t.”
I sighed then, knowing I had already fucked this up. I had just wanted to be honest – no bullshit, no lies, no hiding things. Natalia deserved that. And Lucy... we had good times – laughs, sex, whatever... What I felt for Lucy wasn’t anything close to what I had always felt for Nat. I didn’t love Lucy, and she knew it. Natalia had to know that too.
“None of that matters, Nat. You know that. She’s not you. And you’re here. For fuck’s sake, you’re actually here,” I knew I was pleading now – shamelessly. There was a sense of déjà vu to the conversation that made me angry and sick simultaneously.
“She’s not me. But she’s a person. A person you are seeing. I don’t want to be in the middle of that, Max,” Natalia returned, frustration growing in her voice. She turned away from me and put a hand to her forehead. “There’s a lot of things I don’t want to be a part of. We both know that.” She paused. “This was a mistake.”
I was furious then, knowing she damn well knew that what had just taken place was anything but a mistake. It was us. It was the way things were supposed to be – the way they had always been.
But the business – that's what she was referring to now. I didn’t have the energy to even begin arguing about it. I hated it too. How exactly did I defend something that had cost me Natalia and my own peace of mind? How did I even begin to explain to her the things that had taken place and who I was expected to be now? How did I explain the person everyone now believed I truly was?
She would hear about it all soon enough, anyway. That’s how it worked in the neighborhood. And then things would be ruined even more irr
eparably than they already were.
I had fought so hard to keep Natalia six years ago. But she had left anyway. And she was still gone.
“I’ll take you home, Nat,” I said quietly, putting my hands to the wheel and surrendering without protest.
“Okay,” she agreed – but I heard the tone of surprise in her voice. She had expected a fight.
And if I had thought in a million years that I could have changed her mind, I would have fought until I died. I loved this woman. I loved only this woman.
But Natalia Angelone had decided certain things long ago that all the love in the world couldn’t undo.
I offered to walk her in, but Nat declined that as well. We hugged – hugged – like we hadn’t been fucking like rabid animals twenty minutes before. I waited until she was safely inside – old habits die hard. She didn’t turn to wave one last time the way she always had before. She simply disappeared into her house.
And now it was time to deal with my other problem. Lucia had been blowing my phone up the entire day. The calls became more frequent as the hours passed, and the texts were progressively angrier.
I knew ignoring her was a dick move. I just wasn’t sure I could even hold a conversation with her right now. She would want to come over. She’d demand to know where I’d been, why I hadn’t responded, etc. It would be an intense confrontation, and though I normally was a pretty confrontational person – Lucy Costa was a whole other level of scary.
That was part of her appeal. There was never a dull moment with Lucy. She was spontaneous and wild – if not a little immature – but overall, fun. I had fun with her. It distracted me. When I was with her, I didn’t worry about the business. I didn’t see Frank’s face every five seconds. I didn’t stress about Nic’s crazy mother.
And it was the closest I ever came to not missing Natalia.