Scratch that. Second step.
The first step had been the wild sex they’d had last night.
That had worked out pretty well after all.
I can have casual sex. I’m just fine with it.
That only left one question and it was surely going to be discussed at breakfast.
Just what did Max want?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
By the time Carrie and Max made it to breakfast it was actually midday. They ate, made small talk, and compared notes about the party the night before.
They didn’t talk about the sex and the tension between was beginning to build to an uncomfortable level. He’d tried to keep it low key and casual this morning but the moment to talk about what had happened had arrived. They couldn’t avoid it any longer.
The hard part of this entire situation was that Max wasn’t sure what he wanted out of all of this. He definitely wanted to make love to Carrie again. He’d never had such a physical connection to a woman before and it would be a shame to waste it.
But he cared about Carrie too. It wasn’t just her body he wanted; he liked spending time with her, even when they weren’t doing anything special. Hanging out with her was more fun than a Hollywood party with anyone else.
There was the question… Just how did he feel about her? Was he falling in love? He hoped not as he wasn’t sure he was ready for something that serious. Fuck, he’d just received his divorce papers this morning and here he was contemplating entering into another relationship with hardly a breath in between.
Max simply couldn’t let her walk out of his life or have things go back to the way they were between them. They’d crossed a line and things were different now. They’d been intimate. What was the saying? A person cannot unring a bell. It had happened and they needed to deal with the reality of their situation. They were more than friends but less than…lovers? No, they were certainly lovers. They weren’t in love. They weren’t looking to move in together, get married, and have several children all named after dead relatives.
They were definitely in like. Like-like. The variety of like that might become something. Someday. If they could survive the beginning part of a relationship which always seemed to be the part that tripped him up.
“So…” he said, needing to cut through the thick wall of tension between them. Could he convince her to take a chance on a casual dating “thing” that might be something at a future date? Maybe.
Take a chance on him. It was like betting on horse who had lost every race. One might think the animal would win one, if only by accident, but the odds weren’t in their favor.
“So…” she replied, her brows raised. Waiting for him to say something.
“I suppose we should talk about last night,” he said in a rush. Now that he was speaking the words seemed to want to run out of his mouth faster than his brain could process them. “We’re both adults here and neither of us was a virgin last night. I think we should simply speak honestly about what we want to happen from here. I hope you know that you can be open with me about any of your concerns regarding our future.”
Placing her fork on the corner of her empty plate, Carrie picked up her napkin and wiped off her hands, slowly and deliberately. She was stalling and that made Max’s nerves twice as bad. Sweat began to pool at the back of his neck and on his palms as he waited for her to respond.
“Well…I can say…openly and honestly…that for me last night was quite…pleasurable. I hope it was for you as well.”
“It was,” he assured her, nodding in encouragement for her to continue. “Fantastic. Brilliant. I don’t have the words to describe how good it was between us.”
The diarrhea of the mouth – caused by the strange expression on her face – continued and now he was on a roll and couldn’t stop.
“That’s why I think that we should give this a chance between us,” he explained, leaning forward as far as the table between them would allow. “Last night was too bloody good to turn our backs on it. Add in the fact that we get along well and we could have something quite enjoyable.”
Shoving a piece of toast in his mouth, he finally – mercifully – shut the hell up. Appearing too eager was going to turn her off completely. No woman wanted a desperate man in her bed.
I’m not desperate. There are plenty of women that want me.
Folding her hands on top of the table, she looked him straight in the eye. “So what exactly are you proposing here? Fuck buddies? Friends with benefits? Some sort of dating? A full-fledged relationship? Where is your mind at on this? And please be straight with me.”
Damn, this woman had a spine of solid steel and she didn’t take any crap. No wonder he liked and admired her. She was tough and strong and formidable.
Max cleared his throat and straightened in his chair. “Nothing so crass as fuck buddies. I care about you as a person, Carrie. I have a great deal of respect for you. But I’m also not in the place in my life where I’m ready for a serious relationship. I’m thinking that there must be something in between those two extremes that we can agree on.”
The corner of her mouth quirked up. “Is this a negotiation? Am I going to need my lawyer?”
Snickering, he shook his head. “Nothing so extreme. I think we can work this out ourselves, don’t you? What did you have in mind? If anything at all, of course. Perhaps last night was enough for you?”
That thought was too awful to contemplate and for a moment he panicked until she spoke again.
“As I said before, last night was incredible and I do want it to happen again.”
Whew. Okay, they’d decided they wanted to shag again. That was something, at least.
Her gaze skittered away and her cheeks turned pink. He felt some relief in that she seemed as embarrassed as he was by the whole subject. “I’ll be honest with you, Max. It is not my habit to have sex without some sort of commitment. Before you get all nervous, I’m not talking marriage or an engagement. I am talking physical fidelity. If we decide to continue sleeping together, I would ask that you not sleep with anyone else. I, of course, would do the same. We’re contracted to spend the next few months together in a dating situation and people who date often have sex, right? How about we just…date? Exclusively.”
Slowly exhaling, he felt his heart galloping against his ribs. Date. Exclusive. It was really what they already had, although they’d be doing it in private too, not just for the cameras. As for not sleeping with anyone else, she’d muddled his brain so thoroughly he couldn’t bring one woman to mind that he wanted to have sex with other than her.
Carrie wasn’t asking much of him and that kind of hurt. More than he’d expected. If she’d demanded a relationship, he didn’t know what he would have done though. Did he want her more than he was afraid? He wasn’t sure and she hadn’t pushed him for the answer.
“I can do that,” he answered quickly, not wanting her to think that her request was more than he could handle. “Date exclusively.”
She fiddled with the paper napkin. “So we sort of just go on as we are, but with the added element of dating for real. I mean, it’s not like we live together or anything. You have your place and I have mine. We won’t spend every moment in each other’s pocket.”
This conversation had turned out better than he’d ever dreamed it would. He got to have Carrie and some much needed space to breathe. It was the perfect solution.
He signaled the waitress for the bill. “We can reevaluate when the contract is over. See what we want to do then. You might be sick and tired of me after a few months.”
Although he couldn’t imagine ever being tired of Carrie. She fascinated him on so many levels, more than any woman before her.
Carrie stood, so it appeared that their discussion was over. “Who knows what the future will bring? Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to visit the ladies’ room. I’ll be right back.”
Max watched her as she walked away, his thoughts firmly on the woman who had shown so much patience a
nd generosity. His future was up in the air but Carrie just might make him want to take a chance and share it with her.
If he didn’t fuck it all up first and drive her away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Carrie stared into the bathroom mirror and took several deep breaths, her face paler than usual. She’d known going into this discussion that it wasn’t going to end the way she wanted it to. She’d been hoping for more emotion from Max but while that might have been a possibility before he received those divorce papers…afterwards? No way was that going to happen. After the tenderness he’d shown her this morning in bed, he’d literally closed in on himself right before her eyes. That armor he’d first worn wasn’t back completely but he was frantically trying to build his shields back up, terrified of being used again.
Reevaluate when the contract was up.
Max had actually said that. The words had come out of his mouth and she’d heard them with her own ears. He wanted to reevaluate in a few months.
Like this was a trial period.
Or in actor terms…an audition.
She might get cast in the part of the woman in his life but she might not. There were, without a doubt, many other women who wouldn’t mind auditioning, some that might even be better for the part of his girlfriend than she was.
At least he’d agreed to be monogamous while they were together. That was a victory of sorts. If she couldn’t find the strength to walk away from him at least he wasn’t juggling her and a few other women. Carrie would be the only female in his life. For awhile, anyway.
After freshening her lip gloss, she straightened her shoulders and exited the bathroom. She wasn’t a shrinking violet who could blame this situation on someone else.
This was all her doing. She’d gone into last night with her eyes open, knowing that it had disaster written all over it. But here she was running at the brick wall full speed like a blooming idiot. Now that she was sleeping with Max the chances were high that she was going to fall in love with him, especially as their chemistry was beyond hot. She’d known this going in, had assumed she’d be hurt at the end of this…whatever it was. Bizarre, strange, weird relationship? Yep, that about covered it.
Was he worth it? Last night she’d certainly thought so but then she’d been so consumed by lust she would have rationalized sleeping with him in any way she could. That light at the end of a tunnel was a runaway train and she was going to become roadkill. But damn, she was going to have a good time first. Step out of her boring everyday life – her practical, mundane, organized little life. There was nothing wrong with wanting a little excitement, was there? After all, broken hearts happened every day and people survived. She had in the past.
This was pathetic, really. She’d played it safe for so long that she had to give herself a pep talk to date a guy when she knew the relationship wasn’t going anywhere. Most relationships didn’t go anywhere but if people just stayed home and watched Netflix the human race would die out.
Get out there, girl. Have some fun. Do something unexpected.
When she returned to the table, Max was paying the check and he looked up and smiled, the corners of his blue eyes crinkling. Why did that look so good on a man?
“Are you ready to go, love?” He glanced out the front window of the restaurant. “Looks like it’s starting to rain. Should we brave the elements or try to get a taxi?”
Carrie had quickly learned that finding a cab in London when it was raining was like finding the Holy Grail.
“I’m okay with getting rained on if you are.”
And she would have been too if the heavens hadn’t opened up a little less than a mile from Max’s place. The deluge pelted her skin and made it almost impossible to see in front of her face as everyone else on the sidewalk scurried about to get out of the rain. Max’s long legs were eating up the distance and she had to jog to be able to keep up with him. But the faster she went the more he sped up too, so it wasn’t long before she was flat out sprinting to stay next to him.
It was on the corner as they raced down the street that she went down like a ten-pound sack of potatoes. They’d crossed to the other side of the intersection and she’d raised her leg to step up on the curb but the sole of her drenched Chuck Taylors hit wrong somehow and her foot slid out from under her. She landed in an undignified sprawl, her legs thrown in different directions in a modified version of the splits. Her jeans were ripped at the knee on her sore left leg but it was her right that was going to be a bitch of a problem. Dagger-like pains shot up her calf from her ankle and Carrie felt the first prick of tears behind her eyes as she struggled to breathe and control the agony her jaunt in the rain had caused.
Max was at her side on his knees in an instant. “Are you hurt? Jesus, of course you are, I can see you’re in pain by the look on your face. Can you move?”
Taking a slow deep breath and not bothering to answer, Carrie grabbed onto Max’s hand as she gingerly slid her left leg from its awkward angle and out straight. With a huff of relief, she now had two legs both pointing in the same direction. It was progress.
As long as she didn’t move her right leg she was okay. She could bear the white hot pain radiating out from her ankle, down her foot and up her calf.
As long as I don’t move.
Of course that meant she had to just sit on her ass in the rain, soaked to the skin while she recovered. Then she’d die from pneumonia. It would probably take a few days to expire and a crowd might gather to wonder what in the hell she was doing. She could hear them talking now.
What’s that Yank doing sitting on her arse on the pavement? Crazy American.
The rain was still coming down in buckets so now they were both sopping wet, Max’s dark hair plastered to his skull.
“Carrie, love, can you stand up?”
His tone was anguished and clearly he was worried and upset. His skin was pasty – although probably not as pale as she was – and his lips were pressed together so tightly they’d disappeared into his face. The only color he had was his blue eyes that were dark with emotion.
She shook her head and pointed to her right ankle. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’ve sprained my ankle and I don’t think I can put any weight on it. I’m going to have to sit here until I die.”
A smile flickered and he squeezed her hand reassuringly. “You are not going to sit here until you die. I’m going to take you to the A and E to get that looked at. You may have broken something.”
Her dignity wasn’t looking too healthy right now either but that was something she’d lament later. Her biggest concern was how in the hell she was going to stand up.
Putting his hand on her shoulder, he used the other to push her sodden hair out of her eyes.
“Just stay here while I get us a taxi.”
What did he think she was going to do? Hop up and start breakdancing? Her gaze flickered to her ankle and then back at him. “That is the one thing I can actually do. Sit and don’t move.”
Carrie had no idea how he did it but within a few minutes, he’d procured a cab despite the odds against him. The rain had petered out to a drizzle but they were both completely waterlogged. She hoped the cabbie wasn’t fussy about his upholstery.
He knelt down again and gave her a reassuring smile that she knew was total bullshit because her ankle still felt like some asshole was stabbing it with knives and beating on it with a hammer.
“Okay, I’m going to lift you up and put you into the cab. I’ll be very careful but I apologize now if I jostle your foot. Put your arms around my neck, love.”
Apparently he’d lost the use of his common sense in the rainstorm. “You can’t lift me up and carry me. You’ll end up in traction and you won’t be able to take some award-winning role and it will be all my fault. Then when people talk about you they’ll say ‘He could have won an Oscar but he tried to carry that not so skinny American woman and injured himself. He’s never been the same’.”
Rivulets of water ra
n down his too handsome face as he threw back his head and laughed, his shoulders shaking with mirth. Dammit, this shit wasn’t funny.
“My sweet, nothing bad is going to happen to me and you are not too heavy. Now I’m going to lift you up and you are going to let me. The only way you’ll hurt me is if you fight me. Are you ready?”
Carrie had no other options other than sit there until she became a part of the pavement. Nodding, she wrapped her arms around his neck and tried to stay as still as possible. Without even a grunt of effort he easily lifted her from the sidewalk and strode over to the cab idling at the curb. All that physical training for the Thunder movies obviously paid off. Those muscles weren’t just for show.
Carefully he set her on the backseat and she inched her way toward the opposite door, keeping her right leg elevated. At one point it touched the edge of the seat and she sucked in a breath and whimpered as fresh pain stabbed at her limb.
“Fuckity fuck,” she muttered as softly as possible but Max heard her, stripping off his raincoat, wadding it into a ball, and making a nest – albeit a sodden one – under her leg to keep it elevated. Damn these British gentleman. They knew how to get a girl right in the feels.
“Now sit tight while we get to the A and E. Don’t you worry about a thing, love. I’ve got you.”
Boy, did he ever. Did Max have any idea how much?
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Luckily the doctors had given Carrie something for the pain, and whatever it was, it was strong as hell because she was smiling and chatting as if she hadn’t a stage two sprain of her ankle. It was immobilized in a boot with Velcro straps and she wasn’t supposed to put any weight on it for a few days. That particular fact didn’t appear to bother her at the moment but when the drugs wore off she was going to be upset about it. There was no way she could care for herself alone at Paige and Nate’s house.
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