Chapter 34
CHAPTER 34
Max
I didn’t think I would be able to keep my hands off her for too much longer. Especially when she was sitting opposite me looking like that. God, she was gorgeous. The candlelight made her almost ethereal. The warmth of the light brought out the color of her eyes and bathed her skin in a golden glow. I wanted to reach out and trace that color across her collarbone, up her neck, and then lick it off her lips. We’d been sitting in silence for the past five minutes since she’d come back from sending off her work to Sebastian. She’d sipped her glass of wine, staring at me over the top of the rim, and I’d sat back in my chair, legs crossed, watching her as if this was the greatest show on earth and she was the star attraction. I was also waiting for her to deliver her verdict on the kissing proposal. I didn’t know how much longer I could wait.
“You’re staring at me,” she said, breaking the silence. She put the glass down and slowly traced the rim of it with her fingers. Fuck, I wanted those fingers of hers to trace so many parts of my body.
“You look beautiful tonight—that’s why I’m staring.” She blushed instantly. “But you also look very fucking sexy too.” The color in her cheeks intensified. “That’s why I’m staring and finding something very, very hard to believe.”
“What?” she asked.
I uncrossed my legs and moved closer to the table again. “I cannot believe that you’re not having good sex.”
She laughed unexpectedly. “You’re just never going to let go of that one, are you?”
“Probably not,” I said. Her laugh stopped and the smile that she’d had on her face suddenly disappeared. I leaned closer, sensing a very strange shift in the mood. As if the weather agreed with me, a cool breeze raced past, tossing one of our napkins onto the floor. Neither of us moved to pick it up.
“You know, it’s so ironic that you are the one that keeps asking me that question, since you are the one that—” She stopped talking abruptly and pursed her lips together tightly.
“What?”
She shook her head. “I’m not going to say it.”
“Say what?”
She took a large sip of her wine. Very large.
“Say what, Ash?” Things had turned from playful to serious in a matter of seconds and I didn’t know why. “Ash?” I implored her to continue. I could tell we were on the verge of something big here. Something huge and unsaid. Something that clearly needed to be said. “I’ve told you everything. Every last awful embarrassing detail, but I get the sense there’s something you’re still not telling me.”
She looked at me and let out a loud, long breath. My entire body tensed with anticipation.
“Okay, so . . .” she started, then stopped. Took another sip of wine and then her words flew out. “Okay, so you know that night we had sex—or tried to have sex, at least—well, as it bloody well turns out, that was also the night that—”
She was cut off by the appearance of a very harried-looking ranger at our table, clutching a gun. “A leopard’s been spotted in the lodge, and as a precaution, we’re asking guests to go inside while we deal with it.”
“What?” Ash jerked her head at the guy.
“A leopard.”
“No, you’re joking.” She sounded panicked.
“I’m not. I’m going to need you both to come with me now,” the ranger said. I got up, but Ash seemed frozen to her chair.
“Come on, Ash. Let’s go.” I pulled her up by her arm and dragged her along as we followed behind the ranger. I’d been to lodges before when wild animals had walked through—it was always a risk when there was no fencing—that’s why all the rangers had guns and you weren’t allowed to walk around at night on your own. But I hadn’t been in a lodge when a leopard had walked through it.
“Thorns, mud, storms, snakes, leopards,” Ash mumbled softly to herself. “What the fuck?”
“This way,” the ranger said, swinging his gun as he walked. Suddenly, the bush to our right screamed to life as a large troupe of baboons came hurtling out of it, running across the path, sending Ash flying backwards. I tried to catch her as she fell, but the ranger pushed me out of the way too as a massive male baboon jumped into the middle of the path, barking for his troop to hurry up.
“The leopard must be close.” The ranger raised his gun and I tried to pull Ash towards me, without attracting the attention of the massive male baboon.
“Ow,” she moaned, grabbing the back of her neck as I pulled her.
“In here, quick.” The ranger opened a door I hadn’t seen before and pushed us both into a dark room, and then I heard the click of a lock and the ranger ran off, shouting.
“You okay?” I asked, scrambling in the dark, trying to find Ash.
“Are you kidding me?” Ash exclaimed loudly. “A leopard?” She winced again. “And my neck is seriously killing me. Where’s the light in this place?”
I felt around the walls, but couldn’t find it anywhere.
“Just when I thought things couldn’t get any more eventful, we are now locked in a dark room with a leopard prowling around outside.”
“I can’t find the lights,” I said.
“Cell-phone torches,” she said. I could hear her rummaging through her bag. I pulled mine from my pocket and flicked the torch light on. With both of our phones there was just enough light to see, and I could see that she was rubbing her neck as if in serious agony.
“You’re going to have to let me sort that out for you,” I said, glancing around. It looked like we were in some kind of cleaning closet, with cleaning products and mops and rags.
“We’re in a broom closet!” Her eyes widened. “I really don’t like this, at all.”
“It’s not ideal, I admit.” I looked down at my feet and did not tell Ash that I’d just seen a rather large lizard scuttle past. Her hands were on her neck, and she was trying to stretch it, with little luck.
“Turn round. Let me at least look at your neck and see if I can help you,” I said, putting my hands on her shoulders and turning her myself. I put my thumbs on her shoulders and started feeling around.
“There!” she screamed when I found the knot in her neck.
“God, that’s huge. How did you get that?” I asked, starting to work it in small circles.
I hadn’t expected her reaction: it started off small, a chuckle, but soon it escalated into almost full-blown hysteria.
I started laughing too, simply because it was contagious. “What are we laughing about?” I managed to ask. She was laughing so much it was hard to continue applying pressure to the knot.
“It’s just . . .” She tried to talk, but her laughter cut her off. “It’s just, you are . . .” It sounded as if tears were rolling down her face now.
“The suspense is killing me here,” I said, still trying to work the knot as she threw her head back to let out an even louder laugh.
“It’s . . . you . . . I . . .” She sucked in a large breath, gripping her sides as she did, trying to stop herself from laughing. “Okay, I’m okay now,” she said. “I think I just needed to get that out—it’s been building.”
“Glad it’s out now.” I pushed her head forwards and then massaged up her neck and into her hairline.
“Oh God, that feels good,” she said on a loud moan. “Even better than my physiotherapist.”
“What did you do to it?” I asked again.
“Well, it’s kind of a funny story, as you can tell.” She started laughing again, but this time it was brief, and ended in a melancholic-sounding sigh. “It’s the story of my life, really. And actually relates to what we were just talking about.”
“We were just talking about why you don’t have good sex.” I pulled her head back slowly, and began manipulating her neck, left and right. There was more movement there now and the knot seemed to be releasing.
“Exactly. And it’s alllll related. The reason my neck is like this is because when my last date tried to have sex with me, he dropped me on my head and I actually don’t blame that on him—I blame that entirely on you .” I let go of her head and turned her round to face me.
“A guy dropped you on the head during sex and that’s my fault?”
“Yes, because you cursed me,” she said softly.
“What? How?”
She giggled and slapped her hand over her mouth quickly. “Sorry, I’ll stop laughing, because this is serious. Okay, here goes . . . That night when we tried to have sex, I think something happened, because I have been sexually cursed ever since. I’ve been living under some weird bloody sexual curse for thirteen years and I think you, you , are the one who caused it.” She looked down at my pants. “With your cock! Your cock cursed me.” She laughed again and I was lost. I shook my head at her and raised my brows.
“See, the reason I have a sore neck, is because last week my date dropped me on my head while trying to, you know . . . fuck me. And prior to that I broke my finger when the bed fell on my hand, and then there was the time that I got stuck in a sex swing and the guy had to cut me out with a pair of scissors. Oh, and worst of all, the leather was so hard to get through that he had to call a friend to help, and not forgetting the time a guy ate an olive out of my belly button, or the time I was rushed to ER after being attacked by fire ants, or the time I went to hospital because my labia swelled to the size of a—”
“Stop.” I put my hand over her mouth. The last thing in the world I wanted to hear right now was coming out of her mouth. She pushed my fingers apart and continued.
“I have not had good sex, not once, or a good date that didn’t end very badly because of terrible sex, or terrible almost sex, or having sex that was marginally better than other sex, only to have the guy cry on you because he is not over his ex, in thirteen years, Max. Thirteen! ”
“What?” I removed my hand slowly from her mouth.
“Max, I have not had even vaguely mediocre sex since that night. In fact, I would welcome mediocre sex at this stage. I would probably welcome vaguely subpar sex, or sex that didn’t end with me in an emergency room. And as for orgasms . . . not one ! Not. One! Not even the start of one. In fact, I am very much convinced that orgasms during sex are a myth. Because I have tried very, very hard to have one. Believe me I have really, really, really—”
I cut her off. “Okay, I get it. You’ve tried.”
“The only orgasms I’ve had are all by my lonely little self and that’s because of you. You. ” She poked me in the chest. “That sex we tried to have all those years ago has set in motion this sexual curse that I have been living under for thirteen years!”
“You think I cursed you?” My head was spinning. I was vacillating between taking this really seriously, getting turned on when she talked about giving herself orgasms, and then pissed off, so pissed off, when she spoke about other men, which I knew was totally hypocritical, but I couldn’t help it anyway.
“Your penis fucking cursed me, Max! It’s been all downhill since that . . .” She pointed at my pants and wiggled her finger about. “So while you’ve been running around having the time of your life and making Belinda, or Bianca, or Brice, Moon and Star or whatever her name is come ten times, not to mention making a vet pass out from screaming orgasms in the pool, I’ve been giving CPR to a man that had a heart attack while having sex with me and being secretly happy he did because the sex was so bad that I would have given anything for it to end. And now it seems like your penis might be cursing me all over again—well, the proximity of your penis at least! Ever since meeting your penis again on that plane, I have been literally out of my mind, and the weirdest things have been happening.”
“How do you know about Star, the vet and Bianca?”
“I told you—I’ve heard the stories, Max. Everyone seems to know about Maximillian Adam and his amazing ability to make women squirt fountains and give them seventeen orgasms so they are not able to walk down the catwalk the next day!”
I laughed and she snapped her fingers at me.
“Hey, this is not funny!” she said seriously.
“Ash, you shouldn’t believe everything that you hear.”
“Well, obviously I know you can’t make a woman come just by looking at her.”
I paused for a moment and then couldn’t help my smile. “No, that one is actually true.”
“What?” She pushed me in the chest.
“What the hell was that for?”
“You made a woman come just by looking at her and I can’t even come when I have a guy trying to make me come for, like, a full hour—it was so fucking awful I had to fake one just to make him stop! Are you serious?”
“He clearly didn’t know what he was doing if he was at it for an hour,” I said, and smiled at her, which was clearly the wrong thing to do.
“You think this is funny?” she asked, her face awash with anger now. I wiped the smile off my face.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“You should be sorry, Max. You should be!”
“Okay, I am. What can I do to fix it?” I asked.
“Well, it’s not like we can flash back thirteen years and have mind-blowing sex with a million orgasms so that my sex life didn’t start out on such a wrong foot that it is eternally cursed and doomed. Or maybe it’s just me. I don’t know. Maybe I’m the one who’s terrible at sex and dating—”
“Stop it.” I took her by the hands and pulled her towards me, pressing her into my chest. “Don’t say that. You’re not. Trust me.”
“Trust you?” she asked, her voice soft and apprehensive.
I stared down at her. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I walked us backwards. It only took two steps until I had pinned her to the door. I pressed her back into it while I pressed myself to her. Her eyes widened as she looked up at me. Her mouth fell open, her chest began rising and falling as her breaths came out shallow and fast.
“I can’t go back and change what happened thirteen years ago.” I took her hands in mine, laced my fingers through them and then pushed her arms above her head, pinning our hands to the door. She gasped and gripped my fingers tighter.
“But I can do something else for you,” I said.
“What?” she whispered.
I brought my lips to hers but didn’t kiss her. “I can make you come so many times that you’ll beg me to stop.”