She made the mistake of looking across the room at Max’s brothers. Gio stood in stoic silence with Julia, Nick had Rena in his arms, and Luke was off to one side, but all three of the brothers were sadly watching Max leave. By the expressions on their faces, Tara was certain they wanted to be there for each other, it was as if they didn’t know how to be, as if they’d tried to reach each other before and, having failed, were unsure of how to try again. None of them seemed overly surprised to see Tara with Max. She warned herself not to read any importance into that.
“We should say goodbye,” Tara said softly.
Especially since, for me, at least, this really is goodbye.
“I’m leaving. You do as you please,” Max said harshly. He stepped away from her and finished buttoning his coat.
Tara looked into his dark-as-night eyes, past the angry indifference, and appealed to the man she believed was hiding within. “What are you afraid they’ll say, Max?”
“I’m not afraid. I’m done.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t give a shit what you do or don’t believe.”
Tara took a deep breath. The more she pushed, the more she risked him walking away from her just as he was prepared to walk away from his brothers, but she couldn’t help herself. She had to try. “I don’t believe that either,” Tara said stubbornly. “Look at your brothers. I don’t know what you see, but I see three men who can’t figure out how to ask you to stay.”
“They don’t need me any more than I need them.” He turned away and took a step toward the door. “Now, are you coming?”
Tara stepped in front of him.
Maddy, look what you’ve done to me. I’m as bad as you. I can’t let this drop, even if it costs me a night in Max’s arms.
“I can’t sleep with you tonight.”
His cheeks reddened, and his jaw tightened. “Excuse me?”
Tara planted her feet and told herself doing the right thing was worth the risk of killing whatever feelings Max had for her.
“I could never sleep with a man I didn’t respect.”
With a mixture of desire and anger in his eyes, Max rumbled, “No part of tonight was about
respecting
each other.” He stopped and rubbed a hand over his forehead as if fighting a headache. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Do yourself a favor, and stay the hell away from me tonight.”
Although his comment stung, Tara knew he was lashing out because he was afraid, and that made Tara even more determined to help him. She told herself it didn’t mean she had feelings for him. She’d never been able to walk away from someone she thought she could help. That was why she’d originally started tracking unfaithful husbands for her friends, and it was what she enjoyed about her New Holmes agency. She helped people in need. And Max and his brothers, regardless of how wealthy they were, were clearly falling apart. Tara looked Max in the eye and spoke from her heart. “I will, if you promise me something.”
His expression was unreadable. “And what is that?”
“Go say goodbye to your brothers. And when you do, really look at Gio’s face. He’s tired. He’s sad. I’ve spent a lot time with your family lately, Max. He’s dealing with more than he’s willing to tell anyone. He needs you. If you can do that and still leave, I won’t say another word.”
Max frowned down at her. “What else is Gio dealing with?”
Tara smiled up at him gently
.
“You’ll never know if you walk away.”
Max looked over his shoulder at his brother and sighed audibly. “Shit.”
***
Max took one of Tara’s arms in his hand and pulled her close to him. “You’re coming with me.” His comment was completely out of character for him. Max was a loner. He’d built his financial empire without anyone’s help, well . . . besides the start-up money he inherited from Grandfather Stanfield’s trust fund. For as long as he could remember, even in school, he’d always chosen to fight his own battles. And when it came to weathering his family’s tsunamis of drama, he withdrew from them—alone.
Tara gave him another sweet smile. Max swore and looked away, but he didn’t let her arm go. He’d come back to New York because he’d wanted to see her. He was still there because, after having her once, all he could think about was having her again. He should have whisked her out of the party as soon as he’d seen her.
Despite what he’d said about being willing to leave without her, he knew he wouldn’t have. Even with everything else going on in his life, there was something about Tara he couldn’t resist and didn’t want to, not even when she asked him to do the exact opposite of what he knew he should do.
As they approached Gio, Max looked his brother over with a critical eye. Gio was thinner, and there were circles beneath his eyes. His fiancée was holding his hand and looking up at him with a worried expression on her face. Was it possible Tara was right? Was Gio upset about more than what was presently going on with their mother?
Getting involved was guaranteed to turn out badly. It always did. If there was one thing he could count on with his family, it was that.
Nothing had changed.
Or had it?
A year ago, Nick would have already been drunk and fighting with Gio. Instead he was standing beside him with Rena still tucked against his side. Max expected him to say something sarcastic about his return, but he didn’t. He nodded at Max in approval.
Luke, the one who normally acted as peacemaker in their family, was standing off to one side, as silent as the other two. Max had told himself his brothers would fare perfectly fine without him that evening, but Tara was right—they each looked lost in their own way.
Not knowing what to say, Max went to stand beside Luke, dragging Tara along with him. Together they silently watched as the last of the guests left.
Julia was the first to break the silence. “How about I make some coffee?”
Gio leaned down and kissed her forehead. “I’d love some.”
Rena stepped away from Nick and said, “I’ll help you.” Then she looked across to Tara. “Would you like to join us?”
Tara hesitated. She looked up at Max with a clear question in her eyes.
Will you be here when I get back?
Max nodded curtly, and Tara walked off with the other two women, apparently satisfied with his answer. A long painful silence dragged on. Max had told himself he wouldn’t be drawn back into the emotional roller coaster that was his family. He’d sworn that, after trying to reconcile with his brothers at Stephan’s wedding only to come home to the fighting and accusations that had followed, he was finally done.
Still, when he looked at his brothers through Tara’s eyes, he felt that old familiar yearning. It was sad to have three brothers and not feel close to any of them. He thought back to how Gio had come to his hotel and said he loved him. Max would bet his fortune Luke had put him up to it, but he’d still said it. And why? So Max would attend his family dinner? All three of his brothers had gone to great lengths to make sure Max was here.
Max notoriously skipped family events. He hadn’t come home for Nick’s engagement party with the Andrades. Tonight he regretted not being there for Nick, but at the time he’d felt perfectly justified choosing sanity over that gathering. There wasn’t much he liked about himself when he was around his family.
What kind of son doesn’t want to rush to the sickbed of his mother? The same kind who cynically wonders if she paid off her doctor to call simply out of spite because Gio hadn’t invited her.
Patrice Stanfield always had an agenda.
What was tonight about?
Max asked himself how the evening might have ended if their mother hadn’t collapsed. What had Patrice hoped to prevent from happening? Max cleared his throat. Without looking at Gio, Max asked, “Gio, do you have a wedding date?”
Gio shook his head. “No.”
“As long as it’s not the same day as Nick’s, my schedule is flexible,” Max said, his voice carefully neutral.
Gio nodded slowly. His eyes misted, but he didn’t say anything.
Nick stepped over and gave Max a playful pat on the back. “I’m proud of you, little brother.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Max said, but he softened his words with a half-smile.
Luke interjected, “Does this mean you’ve all changed your mind about going to see Mother with me?”
“No,” Max, Nick, and Gio said in unison.
Between gritted teeth Gio said, “I didn’t invite her because I didn’t want her to ruin tonight. If she actually did collapse again, why wouldn’t she want us to go see her? Why have her doctor call and tell us not to come? It seems a bit staged to me.”
Nick looked across to Luke. “I have to agree with him. Did anyone tell her about this dinner?”
Luke made a face. “Maddy, probably.”
Gio rubbed one of his temples. “That’s all it would take.”
Luke clearly refused to believe his mother was capable of that level of deception. “Mother may exaggerate her illness to get sympathy, but do you really think she would sabotage tonight?”
Nick grabbed one of Luke’s arms and gave it a shake. “Luke, wake up. None of us thinks she’s really all that sick. If she were she’d let you see her medical records. Why won’t she? And why won’t her doctor tell you anything of substance? What will it take, Saint Luke, for you to see that Mother would go to any length to hurt us when she’s not getting what she wants? She tried to buy off Julia. She threatened Rena. I don’t know why she can’t be happy for any of us, but her pattern is clear. Yes, she is very capable of this level of vindictiveness.”
Gio added quietly, “Luke, it took me a long time to see Mother for who she really is, but I agree with Nick.”
Luke took a step back and shook his head. “I can’t see her that way. I’m sorry. I’m sure a lot of that was a misunderstanding we can clear up with her later, when she feels better.”
Nick looked skyward and raised his hands as if requesting help from above. “She’s never going to feel better because she’s not really sick.”
Luke held firm to his opinion. “I can neither agree with you nor deny what you’re saying if I can’t see her.”
Nick countered, “I doubt seeing her would help you. When it comes to Mother, Luke, you see what you want to see and nothing else.”
“This is why I hate coming home. Nothing ever changes,” Max said, then regretted being that honest. They had had similar conversations a hundred times before. He didn’t want to fight that night.
All four fell back into a long and heavy silence.
Nick let out an audible sigh. “That’s not true. Mother didn’t win tonight. We’re all still here, Max.”
With that the four of them fell back into silence and waited for the women to return.
Tara secured her seatbelt and waited for Max to start the car engine. The air inside the car was cold enough she could see her breath, but she wasn’t going to mention it. They had stayed an hour after the rest of the guests had gone, and she was still trying to figure out what that meant as far as where she and Max stood—and how their night would end.
Max hadn’t said much to her as they’d ridden down the elevator to the garage. He and his brothers had seemed to come to a sort of truce, but Tara couldn’t say Max was in a good mood.
She wasn’t feeling that jovial herself. Tara was still feeling guilty about how easily Julia and Rena had welcomed her into their group. They had both said how grateful they were to her for convincing Max to stay and seemed genuinely happy she was with Max.
Tara didn’t have the heart to tell them what she and Max had was nothing like the relationships they were both in. It wasn’t something she enjoyed reminding herself of, but she had to. It would be too easy to forget what Max had said the first time she’d met him. He didn’t do relationships. They weren’t dating. They were having what Brigitte would describe as healthy, consensual, casual sex. No expectations. No promises.
Wishing things were different didn’t change the facts. Not when it came to Maddy’s family, and not when it came to Max.
None of this was ever meant to be anything more than temporary. I was supposed to get in, get info, and get paid. And, having failed at that, I was going to give in to my wild side for a night and make some memories to carry me through until I found a real relationship.
No wonder Brigitte doesn’t stick around to talk to her leftovers. Casual sex sucks when you start caring about the other person. When, no matter what you try to tell yourself, you realize just sex isn’t what you want.
I can’t sleep with Max again.
Tara sneaked a long look at Max. He was staring straight ahead at the road, shifting the gears forcefully, and looking like he was a million miles away from her in his head.
It doesn’t look like I’ll have to come up with an excuse not to. I’d say that ship has sailed. He probably can’t wait to drop me off at my apartment. Oh, wait—I should tell him I can’t go back there.
It was only then that Tara noted they weren’t headed toward Murray Hill. “Where are we going, Max?”
“To the airport.”
“Of course,” Tara said automatically, then repeated his answer in her head. “Why?”
“I have something I want to show you.”
“Okay,” Tara said slowly while her mind raced with possibilities of what that might be. “I’m just going to throw this out there, but most people ask if someone wants to fly away somewhere with them before driving off to the airport.”
He pulled to the side of the street and turned in his seat to look at her. His eyes were burning with an emotion she couldn’t label. “Do you want me to take you home?”
Tara thought about what was going on in her apartment that evening and shook her head. She could ask Max to drop her off at a hotel, but the idea of being alone after everything that had happened was depressing. She couldn’t figure out Max’s mood or if flying her somewhere meant he was still planning a wild night of lovemaking. Just the thought of being with him again had Tara’s heart thudding wildly in her chest.
Didn’t I just tell myself I couldn’t do this?
“What are we doing, Max?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know,” he said harshly. Then he took her face between both of his and kissed her deeply, hotly, until both of them were shaking with need for each other. “Do you want to come with me or not?”
“Yes,” Tara whispered, keeping the first response that had come to her head to herself.
Oh, I want to come with you. Now. Later. As many times as we can manage to make that happen.
He turned away, shifted his car roughly, and pulled back into traffic as if nothing had happened. As if he hadn’t just set her whole world upside down with his kiss.
For the first five or so minutes Tara told herself the silence between them was exciting, it made him mysterious. Then she told herself he needed time to decompress after what was obviously an emotional evening for him, even if he tried to deny it.
Eventually Tara couldn’t handle the prolonged silence. She said, “I watched a history show once on how one major difference between the first Homo sapiens and the Neanderthals was the complexity of the language they used. It seems the ability to articulate thoughts into words is what gave us an advantage and might have played a large role in our survival as a species.”
Max glanced at her, his expression still unreadable. “Really?”
“Yes. To this day, people use words and phrases to express everything from how they feel to . . . oh, I don’t know . . . give others an idea of where they may be flying off to.”
“I like that you agreed to go with me without knowing,” he said.
Tara laced her fingers on her lap. “I thought you were all about the chase.”
A hint of a smile curled his lips. “I like that, too. I haven’t found anything about you, Tara, I don’t like. That’s never happened to me before.”
Is this where I should tell him I’ve been lying to everyone in his family, but it’s for a good reason? He knows Maddy. Maybe he’ll understand how persuasive she can be when she wants something. How she can talk everybody into doing things they normally wouldn’t do.
“Max, there is something I need to tell you.”
Max shifted his car roughly again. “I don’t want to talk tonight, Tara. I want to take you somewhere far away from here. I want to spend the whole night losing myself in that delicious body of yours. I want to hear you cry out my name as you come again and again. I don’t want to think about anything else but you and the pleasure we can bring each other. Can we do that?” He reached out, took her hand and laid it on his thigh, leaving his hand on hers for a moment. “Tara?”
I’ll probably regret this tomorrow, but . . .
“Yes.” Tara moved her hand up and down his thigh, loving how the front of his trousers instantly began to strain against his response to her touch. She would have said more, but she’d temporarily lost her ability to speak. In that moment, there was nothing she wanted to tell him, nothing she wanted to hear him say. She wanted to feel his lips on hers again, feel his hands impatiently removing her clothing to expose more skin for his hot mouth to explore.
They didn’t speak as they drove, but they did communicate. She moved her hands over him, growing bolder with each caress. He shifted in his seat to allow her better access. She began to stroke him through the material of his trousers, enjoying the length and width of him, and remembering how good he’d felt inside her. She’d never felt sexier, and his face was flushed with excitement.
Tara released her seatbelt and turned in her seat. She kissed his neck and unbuttoned the front of his shirt, running her hands feverishly over his muscular chest and abs. She couldn’t get enough of him. The feel of him, taste of him. His masculine scent sent shivers down her back as she remembered how he’d felt as he’d pounded into her, filling her more completely than she’d ever experienced. She wanted that again, but also whatever she could have as he drove.
She unzipped his pants and pushed the top of his boxer briefs down, freeing his rock-hard shaft. There had been no time the first time they’d made love to fully appreciate it. If dicks had beauty pageants, his would have won a crown for its circumcised perfection. Long and thick. Straight and proud. It begged to be worshipped, and Tara was more than willing to accept the challenge.
She caressed his balls with one hand while supporting herself with her other. She ran her tongue from base to tip and back again. She circled him with her tongue then took an inch of him in her mouth, withdrew, and licked the sides of him again. He sucked in a breath and dug his hand into her hair.
Tara had never considered herself particularly good at giving a man oral sex, nor had she ever thought it was that wonderful. It was something she did because men liked it, not because she did. She normally thought about her technique while she did it, wondered how long the man would last. Sometimes she made a mental to-do list for the next day. It wasn’t like that with Max. There was no thinking. No second-guessing if she was doing it well. She and Max connected naturally, each out of their mind with desire for the other.
“I have to shift,” Max said in a strangled voice as he slowed for a stoplight. He put his hand in the space beneath Tara and changed gears.
As the car came to a stop, momentum threw Tara off balance. She pulled back, then half fell forward onto him, taking him more deeply down her throat than she meant to. She gagged once, then gagged again.
He pulled her off his lap by the back of her shirt.
Shocked from how close she’d come to emptying her stomach on him, she blurted, “Oh, my God, I almost . . . I almost—”
Humor and desire battled in those heavenly dark eyes. “I know.”
Embarrassed, Tara sat back in her seat, redid her seatbelt and closed her eyes. The sound of Max zipping up did nothing to make Tara feel better. The car jumped forward. Tara kept her eyes firmly shut. She was hoping if she did it long enough she could somehow teleport herself somewhere less mortifying.
“Tara,” Max said softly, “we’re at the airport.”
Tara opened her eyes slowly. They had stopped near a private plane with a pilot standing beside it, ready to greet them. Max was in the process of rebuttoning his shirt and tucking it back into his trousers.
Tara was trying, unsuccessfully, to erase the last five minutes from her memory.
He turned toward her and put a hand beneath her chin, bringing her face around so she had no choice but to meet his eyes.
Tara’s eyes teared up. “I’m sure the women you normally sleep with don’t almost throw up down your pants.”
He looked like he wanted to, but had wisely decided not to, smile. “That’s true.” Tara tried to look away, but his hold on her chin tightened. “But none of them matter. I don’t want them, Tara. I want you. And I accept the risks involved in that.”
Tara shook her head slightly at his joke. “It’s not funny.”
“Not yet,” he said softly and kissed her lips. “Trust me, I’m literally aching to finish what you started, but don’t be embarrassed with me, Tara. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted another woman. Think about that instead of what almost happened.”
Desire began to curl through Tara again. She smiled. “Okay. But maybe we should wait until we’re not in a moving vehicle before I try that again.”
Max kissed her again, chuckling as he did. “I’m in full agreement on that one.”
***
The flight to Slater Island was much more enjoyable than Max imagined it would be. The pleasure of being taken deeply into Tara’s mouth, along with the near mishap that had followed, had been enough to shake Max out of the mood he’d fallen into after receiving news of his mother’s collapse.
Tara was unlike any woman he’d ever dated. She was naturally as funny as she was beautiful. She seemed equally amused by his sense of humor. They held hands and chatted easily for most of the near hour they were in the air.
“Do you have any phobias?” she asked.
“No,” he replied.
“You have to have one or two. I don’t like anything suspended in another substance. Like fruit in Jell-O. It doesn’t belong in there. It’s the horror film of food. That fruit is just trapped in there, for eternity, suspended in a thick, wiggling substance until someone devours it.” She cocked her head as she considered something. “I don’t know if that’s actually a phobia, but I don’t like it. I always think of a phobia as something that stops you from being able to function when you’re near it. I can sit across from a bowl of fruit and Jell-O and deal with it, I just don’t like it.”
Max chuckled at the image. “I don’t like frogs. My brothers used to think hiding them in my stuff was funny when we were kids. It never got old to them. I still always put my shoes on slowly because of what they used to hide there.”
“Frogs, huh? That’s weird.”
“Frogs are weird, but a fear of Jell-O is normal?” he asked with a smile, raising her hand to his mouth to playfully kiss it.
“Frogs are natural.”
“Jell-O is a child’s food. Not much could be further from scary.”
“Keep laughing and I’ll put Jell-O in your shoes, now that I know that’s how you develop a fear of things.”
Max threw back his head and laughed out loud, feeling the stress of the day fall away. “Try it and see what happens.” An image of her tied to his bed begging him to take her as he teased her mercilessly gave him an instant hard-on. He leaned down and growled in her ear. “Maybe you should.”
She’d heard and understood the huskiness in his voice. “Are you picturing punishing me for it?”
“I am,” he said, shifting in his seat as his dick continued to strain against his pants. “But you’d enjoy it every bit as much as I would.”
Tara blushed and looked away, but she smiled as she did. He thought he’d shocked her into silence, but a moment later she met his eyes and asked, “So, tell me.”
“What?”
“What you imagined doing that put a smile on your face.”
Max could barely think above the pounding of his blood through his veins. He pictured it again, but this time vivid images of how they would please each other flashed relentlessly in his head. “I would tie you to my bed and take my time learning your body. I’d bring you to the edge of an orgasm, then deny you a climax, letting the need inside you build and build until you’re begging me to fuck you.”
When her eyes met his they were burning with desire. “Describe how you’d do it,” she whispered.
Max was breathless as if he were free-falling from the plane. Each time he thought he knew Tara, she showed him another side of herself, and he discovered something new he liked about her. He tried to remain outwardly cool, even while he inwardly became as excited as a teenage boy about to have sex for the first time. Sex with other women had become routine. Repeated sex with the same woman had never held much appeal to Max. It was different with Tara. The first time he’d been with her had left him with a hunger he was sure would not be quickly appeased.