Following her, Max paused to look toward the square. “Are they going to have the holiday lights on for the rest of the year now?” he said.
“I don’t know. This is my first year here.” She came to his side. “It’s silly, but I love those lights. They’ve just forgotten to reset the timer after the fair, or whatever it was.”
“I’ve always enjoyed lights, the more the better,” Max said. “Every Christmas my parents’ home looks like Aladdin’s cave. I always look forward to seeing it. Roche likes all the glitter, too, but Kelly’s the tasteful one. He’d bring in a designer if Mom would put up with it.”
They were making conversation again. Tipping up his glass, Max took a long, cold swallow of wine. Could be that alcohol was a bad idea while he wasn’t exactly in control of all systems.
Annie took hold of his forearm and turned him toward her. “You’re a lot taller than me.”
“I do like my women to be observant.”
She isn’t my woman. Dumb remark.
“Be nice. And kneel down. You should be able to rest your arms on the windowsill and have a place for your glass, too.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I’m going to and I’m inviting you to join me—because you like holiday bling.”
Barefoot and fleet, she went around the room switching off lights. With the last one, she paused. “You aren’t afraid of the dark?”
Not until now. “I can handle it.”
She plunged the room into darkness and returned to him. In the glow from outside, her blouse turned brilliant, translucent white. When she knelt beside him only her face and neck cleared the sill.
Silent, they stared into the skeins of tiny colored lights swaying and bobbing in the trees. Annie sighed and he glanced at her. “Makes me nostalgic,” she said. “Not that we ever did much decorating, but I think I’m nostalgic for the feelings I got in the holidays. All we need now is snow.”
He laughed. “Dream on. But I know what you mean about nostalgia.”
She didn’t reply, but she took several sips of wine.
“Are you all right like that?” he asked. “Or is your back killing you?”
“I’m okay.”
Cautiously, he put an arm around her waist. “I’ll hold you up,” he said. “And don’t argue.”
Had anyone ever held her that way? With a warm, strong arm that made her feel…different?
For a long time they didn’t speak. A wind picked up and the lights danced. And she was dancing, Annie thought—with danger. Bobby’s angry face kept shoving itself into her mind. They’d met once since she left St. Martinville and that had been earlier today. Now he’d decided he was driven to force a new friendship. Funny to think about now, but they had been close friends once.
Max’s fingers spread at her waist and she almost arched her back.
“I came for one reason,” he said. “But I think I should tell you something else first in case you’d rather not be around me when I’m finished.”
“You couldn’t say anythin’ that would affect me like that.” But she was foolish to pursue what was happening between them. It couldn’t come to anything.
Max didn’t expect her to remain so understanding. “I’ve been involved in some nasty stuff, Annie. Believe me, this is going to be hard for you to take. It wasn’t my fault, but you only have my word for it. I should have told you about this weeks ago when it first looked like we enjoyed each other’s company.”
“Don’t tell me anything that will make you unhappy.” She stared at the black sky.
“It may make us both unhappy but I’ve got to take that chance. I’ve had two brushes with the law.” Max pressed his lips together and collected himself to go on. “The first time, my college girlfriend was murdered and I was accused, then cleared.”
He caught the glitter in her eyes when she turned to stare at him. “How awful. Who killed her?”
“They never found out.” What felt like a brick in his throat made it tough to swallow.
“I’m so sorry.” She rubbed his shoulder and rested her cheek there. “I wish I’d been around to support you.”
His eyes stung and he blinked. “Thank you.” Her breast was full and firm against his side. Staying focused mattered now, really mattered.
“I could have told them you would never do something like that,” she said.
A bitter taste entered his mouth. “Thank you.” He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Three years ago it happened again. My girlfriend was…someone killed her.”
H
er absolute stillness should be what he expected, but it turned his stomach and started a gut-twisting burn of anger at the same time.
Settle down. You don’t get to live a charmed life.
And he didn’t want to answer the questions Annie was bound to ask.
“I’d better leave,” he said.
“No.” Annie rubbed her fingertips over his back. “I know you and I trust you. You wouldn’t hurt anyone. Everythin’ that really matters to you is about helping folks.”
She wasn’t afraid of him. He’d told her the worst but she remained by his side. With her he could have a chance at happiness, at closing the door on the horrific times. But if they spent too much time together, Annie might get hurt.
“I wish everyone felt the way you do. Not that I blame people for being suspicious. If something happens once but it can’t be proved, sure you ought to get the benefit of the doubt. But the second time, even though you’re found innocent…Well, my faith would waver, too.” He held her tighter and she didn’t resist. If he wanted to tell her how she soothed his soul, he wouldn’t know how. Instead he nuzzled the side of her neck.
“Until Michele is found, you’re going to think it’s starting all over,” Annie said, and she sounded breathless.
She voiced his fears aloud and he only felt more desperate.
Max started to get up but Annie reacted without thinking. She slid her right hand around his neck and reached up to kiss his cheek. “Promise me we’re going to keep on bein’ friends.” His breath crossed her cheek and ear and she could still feel his mouth on her neck.
Turning away from the window, he pulled her against him, knee-to-knee, and held her.
Max’s body felt hard and he held her in a viselike grip, but a tremor rippled beneath his skin. Telling her about himself had cost him too much. He’d expected her to recoil from him and now that she hadn’t, he must be trying to convince himself she actually believed in him.
“You
are
my friend, aren’t you, Max?”
“You’ll never know how much I want to be,” he said. “I can’t do a thing to hurry it all up. The truth is, you shouldn’t trust a man you don’t really know—especially if you find out he’s been accused of killing two women.”
He was right, of course, but she was sure of how she felt about him, she’d seen him with his brothers and knew what they planned to do at Green Veil. Men like Max didn’t commit vicious crimes.
“Whatever you need, I’m here for you.” Annie meant every word. If she could, she would help him.
“Even if they find Michele dead?”
Annie’s heart tightened. She took his face in her hands and looked into his eyes. Even in the shadows, she saw his pain, and his determination. He had come here because he wanted to see her, and to tell her the truth about himself. The only reason he’d do that was because her opinion of him mattered. She touched his brow with her lips and stopped breathing.
Max cared about her. Why else would he tell her things any man would rather hide if he could? “I intend to keep on praying Michele will show up,” she said. “And I’ll never change my mind about you.”
“Something could change it,” he said. “You know it could. I…No, Annie, this isn’t fair.”
He kissed her cheek lightly, then the side of her neck, not so lightly—and for a long time. With his hands on her shoulders, he pulled away.
“Bad luck is no stranger to me,” she told him. “Sometimes I’ve thought it was the only kind of luck I’d ever get. But I got the job I’d always dreamed of at Pappy’s, and then I met you. I did think we were miles apart because you’re from a different world to mine—and you probably are. You’re really special.”
“So are you.” He shook her gently. “Don’t ever put yourself down to me. Annie, I should get back to Rosebank.”
“I don’t want you to.” She didn’t think before she told him. “I don’t have anywhere else to go, or anyone I want to be with—apart from you.”
He was quiet awhile but released her and stretched out on his back on the carpet. “I want to stay,” he said, one forearm over his eyes. “Don’t you think I like being here with you? Talking by holiday lights?” He laughed softly.
“Then stay and talk. You haven’t even finished your wine.”
“It isn’t wine I want.”
Annie sat beside him. She thought she knew exactly what he meant, exactly what he wanted. Slowly, she put a hand on his flat belly. His muscles contracted. She had her own secrets and the thought of revealing them to Max paralyzed her. How could she go where they were headed? She didn’t even know for sure how she would behave if he moved to make love to her. Collapse, turn wild and attack? There were reasons why she mustn’t take the risk. What she feared the most was repulsing him.
“I’ll be lonely if you go.” She believed it but she didn’t have to say it aloud.
Max covered her hand on his belly. “Women who’ve got close to me have ended up dead,” he said.
“I’ll get me a great big gun,” she said and gave a strained laugh. “An AK somethin’. Just you see, I won’t get messed with while I’m carrying one of those on my shoulder.”
He took her hand to his mouth and pressed his lips into her palm. “How come no man has snapped you up before now? You’re wonderful. Crazy, wonderful.”
The reason she was still alone and might remain that way was a subject she had sealed away long ago. But now she wanted, maybe needed to be with this man. She just didn’t know how to go about it without causing one of them grief.
Max drew her first finger into his mouth and pulled it slowly free.
She bent over him, kissed him, all but fell on him when he held the back of her head, ran his fingers through her hair. The languor was gone. His tongue and lips turned hard. The side to side movement of his face, the way he reached deep into her mouth while he turned her face to meet his demands, telegraphed his urgency and changed Annie. Sex didn’t have to bind two people together, but it had to leave a mark behind.
He cupped a breast, unsteadily passed his thumb back and forth beneath her nipple.
Mark me.
He wasn’t a child and neither was she. A man wasn’t completed by petting in the dark. And Annie would be unfinished until she found out what it was like to have Max Savage inside her.
All the reasons to stop, now, coiled in her mind, swelled, warned her like a siren that what happened next could put her back where she’d once been; on the bottom. She stuffed down the fear and pressed her breast against his hand. Air hissed through her teeth. She wanted his skin on hers—all over.
“Annie,” Max said. “We shouldn’t make this harder than it’s going to be anyway. But I need your help.”
“To do what?” Other women kissed men—because they wanted to.
“Back away from each other.” His words were strained. “Tell me to get out. Please.”
“If you wanted to, you would.”
“I don’t.” He turned his face away and took his hand from her. And he sat up, scrubbing at his face, raking his hair back. “I sound like a fool,” he muttered.
Pulling in little gasps through her parted lips, Annie tugged her blouse free of her jeans. She fumbled the buttons, undoing them as if learning the task for the first time. Urgency drove her, and so did the rhythmic smarting she felt inside.
Max looked at her, watched her fingers part the blouse. He could tell she was frightened but forcing herself to do this. He hated to see her suffer, but he couldn’t make himself intervene.
If things were different, this would be fantastic, a dream come true, and he would be the one pushing for more. Annie wasn’t pushing. She hungered for intimacy but he wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t sure if it mattered. But what he felt had just one description: Lust. Lust wrapped up in fear for Annie—and for himself.
“Help me,” Annie said. “Stop analyzing what’s happening, or might happen. Give in.” Her voice grew high and desperate.
“Damn.” He didn’t have what it took to refuse her. “You are sexy.”
She shed her blouse.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her.
Annie moved fast. She sat astride his hips, settled herself on top of his throbbing penis. And he sat there, supporting himself on locked arms.
“My turn,” she said. “You tell me to leave you alone.”
Sure.
“That isn’t going to happen.” She started unbuttoning his shirt. “Annie!”
“Annie!” she mimicked. “So push me away, or I’ll keep right on going.”
This was unbelievable. Where had this new wild woman come from?
“I get the message,” Annie said. He wondered if she knew her voice wobbled. She carried on until his shirt hung loose. “Now take it off.”
“You get one last chance to nix this,” he said. “When we come together, it shouldn’t be while—”
Her next kiss cut him off. She pushed his shoulders and he let her land him on his back again, their mouths still together. Annie sucked in his bottom lip, nibbled, let it go so she could explore the inside of his mouth again.
Then she pulled her lips from his and sat up on him once more, with the same result as before, the hardest working part of his anatomy hurt like hell and he loved it.
She unhooked her white bra and took it off. A sound came from her throat, like a click. Her full pale breasts took his mind apart. Annie pinched his nipples, tweaked them rapidly and while Max shuddered and responded, he looked at her breasts. They belonged against his hair-rough chest—pulling cries from her—and in his mouth where he would make her scream out her pleasure.
When she lowered herself over him, pressed against him, any light he’d thought shone on them, went out.
“Please don’t…don’t turn into something I dreamed up, and disappear,” he told her. “I’ve done that plenty of times before.”
“About me?”
He smiled. “Yes, about you.” His belly felt like fire. “In my mind I’ve made love to you in every way I could come up with. And I got one thing right—you want sex as much as I do. We’re not playing around here anymore.” With his hands around her waist, he lifted her, pulled her higher until her breasts hovered inches from his face. They swayed and he fought for some restraint.
He was losing the battle faster with every second.
Annie pushed her hands beneath his head and brought his mouth to a breast. He opened wide and sucked, used his tongue to flick her nipple until she writhed.
She collapsed on him and he shrugged his shoulders from the shirt. Annie pushed up and reached behind her. She lifted his penis, squeezed it again and again. He unzipped her jeans and pushed a hand inside.
Annie would make sure they remembered this night. But it had to be on her own terms. She pulled his hand out of her pants and shifted until she knelt over his thighs. He was so hard that unzipping his pants took determination.
Each time he tried to intervene, she slapped his hands away and worked his pants down. Not looking at him was impossible. He made a formidable bulge inside white undershorts. Annie rested her cheek there and her heart pounded, at the feel of him, and at the way he was helpless to stop the pulsing against her face.
Tentative at first, she settled a hand on one muscular thigh and inched her fingers inside a leg of the shorts until she met hair, and taut flesh. Holding him in her hand came naturally, even if she’d never done it before, never taken any initiative with a man.
She laughed, then kissed him through the shorts, made the fabric wet—with a lot of help from Max. Between her own legs, she was slick and hot. Annie wanted him to touch her there, but she was afraid to give him control.
He twisted beneath her and his much stronger hands took hold of hers and pulled them away.
Annie sprang to her feet. She backed slowly from him.
“Come here,” he said, getting to his haunches. His voice wasn’t uncertain anymore, and it wasn’t gentle.
Annie rushed into the dining room and faced his direction again. In here the drapes were closed and almost no hint of jolly lights punctured the darkness.
Max remained where he was, but only for moments, then he was on his feet and closing on her. The white shorts were gone.
She shivered, but her face pulsed with heat.
I’m mad.
Being mad was exactly what she wanted. Mad in his company.
He reached her and she flattened herself to the wall, spread her arms wide as if she could force herself through. “I’m going to make love to you,” he said. “Any objections?” He sounded strange. Whatever she said he intended to follow through.
With his legs braced apart, he anchored her hips, covered her. He tweaked at her and nipped. Her mouth, her earlobes, her shoulders. The sucking bites he landed on her shoulders would leave bruises.
Behind Annie’s eyelids she saw black, then blinding red. Sweat sprang out on her skin. Nothing was clear, or quiet. Singing, whining sounds invaded her brain.
All over her body, nerves quivered. She beat at Max, screamed at him but couldn’t hear her own words.
His mouth stole hers, worked hers until she forced her face aside. With one foot on the wall, she shoved at him and he moved off a few inches.