In a Heartbeat (Heartbeat #1) (28 page)

After Beppe’s speech, Max spent all day thinking about it. He went home right after they had finished their coffee and surfed the TV channels aimlessly, thinking about Stella and what he needed to do.

In the end he decided Beppe was right – he was being a pussy. He was afraid to take more decisive steps with Stella, because he was afraid she’d just lock him out. He hadn’t wanted to lose her, even if it meant being her friend and nothing more.

Not anymore.

He’d talk to he tonight, catch her off guard and make her choose – be his or never see him again.

He was going all in.

Max waited until he was sure Lisa would be home from work to call her. She seemed glad to hear from him and he suggested he stopped by for a minute, because he wanted to see her and wouldn’t have much time next week. She said she missed him too and invited him over.

Deliberately Max took his time and it was past ten when he arrived at Lisa’s house. Niki was probably asleep and Lisa would be tired, too. Just as he’d planned.

*

Stella heard Lisa’s bedroom door open and close gently and in a few seconds there was a soft knock on her own door. Assuming it was her cousin, she automatically said ‘Come in’, without even getting up from the bed.

It wasn’t Lisa. It was Max. He walked in, closed the door behind him and, keeping his hands on the doorknob behind his back, stayed there. The only light in the room came from the bedside lamp, but it was enough for Stella to clearly see his face. He didn’t look good. His eyes were bloodshot and he had dark circles under them.

She got up and swung her legs over the bed, but didn’t move to go to him. It was safer that way.

“Max, you look awful. Is everything OK?” Stella asked, concerned.

“No.” He stared at her, and his usually sparkling eyes looked like bottomless pits of black in the dim light.

“What happened?” Stella didn’t move to go to him. She desperately wanted to because he looked in so much pain, but her intuition was screaming at her that she should stay where she was.

“You happened, Stella.
You
,” he said and slid down the door. He sat on the floor and put his head in his hands. Stella felt awful. She was the reason he was hurting so much. In her desire to protect him, she had caused him pain.

Fuck her intuition. She wanted to be near him, ease his pain if she could. Walking slowly across the room, she sat down in front of him, tucking her legs underneath her.

She didn’t say anything, because she couldn’t think of anything to say or ask. Max needed to talk, otherwise he wouldn’t have knocked on her door. So, she’d just let him be and take his time.

“I tried. I genuinely tried to be your friend,” he began in a few minutes, raising his eyes to meet hers. Up close they were still black. “I can’t do it anymore. I can’t be around you and not want to touch you, kiss you ...” His voice was hoarse and he stopped talking to run his hands through his hair. Stella said nothing. She couldn’t even if she’d wanted to, because her throat was completely closed off. “I tried to keep my distance – that’s why I haven’t been around for the past week. I didn’t want to be anywhere near you, and yet I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I wanted it all to stop. I went out the other night and got hammered. It didn’t work. I still thought about you. I couldn’t remember my own fucking address, but I thought about you.” He paused and the way he looked at her changed from desperation mixed with anger to warm, genuine concern. Stella wondered why when she noticed that a tear had rolled down her left cheek. She wiped it away quickly, determined not to cry anymore.

“Last night I hit rock bottom,” he continued after a few moments, determination showing in his eyes again. “I went to a club, had a few drinks, danced with a dozen girls and invited two of them over to my place.” His eyes never left hers when he said that. If he was hoping for a jealous reaction out of her, he got it. Stella felt the floor under her sway and then pure, undiluted jealousy enveloped her. It took all her inner strength not to jump at him and hit him until all that anger was out of her body. Instead, she remained silent. There had to be more to this than him just wanting to hurt her.

“I thought two hot girls would erase you from my mind, even for the night. I’ve always wanted to have a threesome with a brunette and a blond, and that’s how I chose those two. I’ve fantasised about looking down at my dick and seeing two differently coloured heads sucking on it.”

At that point Stella couldn’t take it anymore. Why was he doing this to her? The Max she knew wasn’t cruel, so who was this person in front of her?

She shot to her feet and turned away from him.

“Get out,” she said, as calmly as she could. She was not going to break down in front of him and give him the satisfaction of seeing how his words had affected her.

“I’m not finished,” he said, his voice coming from right behind her.

“I’m not going to sit here and listen to your sexual escapades. You can do whatever the hell you want as far as I’m concerned.”

“Really? Then why do you want me to get out?”

Stella turned around to face him.

“You can do whatever you want, but I don’t have to
listen
to it.”

“But you do. This concerns you.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Yeah, it does.” She opened her mouth to argue, but he cut her off. “Save your breath. I’m saying what I came here to say, whether you want to hear it or not.”

Stella closed her mouth, partly because she was afraid she might scream at him and draw Lisa’s attention and partly because she knew he was stubborn enough to continue talking without her consent. Mustering her most disapproving gaze, she fixed him with it and he continued.

“I had every man’s dream in my bedroom – two hot, horny girls, willing to do anything I asked. All night long. But instead of getting hard at the bare thought of it, all I could think about was how neither of those heads had the amazing caramel colour of your hair. Neither smelled, looked or felt like you. They were mere substitutes for what I really wanted. So, I asked them to leave before we’d even started, realising that
nothing
can get you out of my head.”

Stella didn’t expect that. Again, she didn’t know what to say. What did he expect? A pat on the shoulder?

“Good for you. Now, get out.” Dismissing him, she turned around and headed for the bed. She didn’t reach it because Max grabbed her waist and drew her to him. His hot breath was in her ear, his hard chest pressed on her back. And it wasn’t the only hard thing pressed on her back.

“You’ve ruined me, Stella. Your stubbornness has reached a new limit. You say you don’t want to be with me because you don’t want to hurt anyone and yet, by not being with me, you’ve hurt yourself, Lisa and me.”

He was right. Everyone had been well and happy before she had arrived and ruined everything. She’d hurt Max by refusing to be with him; she’d hurt Lisa because Max couldn’t stand to be around her anymore and stayed away; she’d hurt herself because she wanted him too much.

The hand that was holding her waist eased up and caressing her skin, turned her around to face him. His face had changed completely. He wasn’t the jerk that wanted her to suffer with him a minute ago. It was the Max she knew – gentle, caring, honest. He swept her hair out of her face behind her shoulders and gently touched her neck in the process. Stella couldn’t help it – she closed her eyes and shivered.

“I’ll have anything you’ll give me, baby. Anything. If you give me six weeks with you until you leave, I’ll take it. I don’t want to hear how what we’ve got is too intense for a summer fling. I don’t care.” Hearing him speak made Stella forget all the reasons she had denied herself to be with him.

Six weeks. That was all they had, but right now it seemed much better than nothing.

“We’ve wasted too much time already. Please,
tesoro
, I’ll beg if that’s what you want.”

Stella shook her head; she didn’t want him to beg. She dropped her eyes to his lips and licked her own. All she wanted was to taste him and to hell with all logic.

Max didn’t need another invitation. He crashed his mouth onto hers, sucking on her lower lip before he thrust his tongue in her mouth and she whimpered. With a groan, he separated their mouths to speak.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.” Stella nodded – she was so wound up in the moment that she didn’t trust herself to talk. “Are you sure?” Another nod. “Because if you’re not a hundred per cent positive you want to be with me, say it now. In about two seconds it’s going to be too late. Once I have you, I’m not letting go.”

“Six weeks. And then I’ll be gone.” Max nodded in agreement. “Promise me this won’t affect your relationship with Lisa.”

“I promise. We both know when this is going to end. No drama.”

“OK.”

Even before the K left her mouth, Max was already on her, kissing her, burrowing his hands in her hair and pushing her back on the bed. Stella couldn’t hold back any longer. She wanted him as much as he wanted her, and she was tired of fighting how she really felt.

Max laid her gently on the bed, his lips devouring hers with a passion she hadn’t felt with him before. Every other time he’d kissed her he’d been holding back, she realised. Stella responded equally, exploring his mouth with her tongue, sucking on it, biting his lower lip, then releasing it and kissing it again. Max moaned deep in his throat as he hooked his arm around her waist and lifted her with ease. He positioned her in the middle of the bed and paused at the edge to look at her.

His eyes were pure fire.

And Stella was the reason for it.

That single thought exploded in her heart like New Year’s Eve fireworks and burned any uncertainty away. There was no more heaviness on her chest, no more sorrow. All she could feel was Max’s eyes on her.

He stood up and took a step back. Panic must have shown on Stella’s face, because he smirked and said,

“Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.”

Grabbing the back of his T-shirt he pulled it over his head and tossed it on the floor. The muscles on his chest contracted with his every move and Stella was barely resisting going to him and touching every single part of him. Still wearing his teasing smirk, Max slowly unzipped his jeans and dragging them down his hips, stepped out of them. He was standing in front of her in only his black boxers, which left little to the imagination. Stella’s eyes didn’t know what to consume first – his tanned, perfect body; his wet, inviting lips; his blazing eyes; his tattoos.

Thinking of his tattoos, Stella remembered she still didn’t know what the one on his hip said, so she did something she’d been imagining doing ever since she first saw him on the beach.

Pushing herself off the bed, Stella crawled on her hands and knees towards him, holding his amused eyes with hers. When she reached him, slowly and deliberately, she tugged the waist of his boxer shorts down until the whole text was displayed. Then she stopped. The muscles on Max’s abs contracted and she saw chills erupt where she was touching him.

The tattoo said: ‘
Life’s a journey, not a destination’
. A quote from Aerosmith’s ‘Amazing’. A quote she loved and had told him so, even before she knew of his tattoo. Smiling, Stella dipped her head towards it and kissed it, dragging the tip of her tongue over the letters.

Max groaned and pulled her up, cupping her face with his hands. He kissed her fiercely, as Stella gently dragged her fingernails along his lickable abs.

*

“Your turn,” Max whispered in Stella’s ear as he nipped her earlobe. Taking this slowly was driving him insane.
She
was driving him insane. He had planned on teasing her a lot before they actually made love, but he wasn’t so sure now. When she licked his tattoo, it took all his inner strength not to throw her back on the bed and push into her. That was the single most erotic thing that had ever happened to him, and he’d been with more women that he could remember.

Grabbing the hem of her tank top, he pulled it up over her head. She wasn’t wearing a bra and was standing in front of him, just in her shorts, her hair spilled all over her shoulders and back, her eyes drinking him in and her whole body trembling with desire for him. Max had imagined that moment a lot of times, but the real thing was so much better than anything his mind could have ever created.

He dragged his fingers over her arms, her back, her chest, her stomach. Goose bumps appeared everywhere and her nipples hardened for him. He took one between his fingers, squeezing it gently, watching for her reaction. She gasped and her breath came out panting. Pulling her closer to him, Max kissed her gorgeous lips, then moved to slide his tongue along her neck, sucking on her skin until she moaned loudly and dug her nails into his back. They slid down to his waist and eased his boxers down, gliding them over his ass along the way.

“You read my mind,” he said, dipping his head down and taking one of her nipples in his mouth, while his hands were busy removing her shorts the same way she had removed his.

Max pulled Stella up until she was standing with her feet on the bed, her shorts round her ankles, and he had to look up to meet her eyes. Those big, grey eyes that glowed from within with such intense lust that Max had to bite his lip hard to regain his control. He slid his hands along her thighs, and she stepped out of the shorts and kicked them to the floor. Max did the same with his boxers, and her gaze burned his skin as she took in the sight of him completely naked. He pulled her to him, and Stella dipped her body down and met his lips as he circled her waist with both arms. Her legs wrapped around him and they fell on the bed. Stella giggled and Max brushed her cheek with his thumb, unable to move his eyes away from her.