Chapter 30
CHAPTER 30
ALISON
“ D o you know where Max is?” I asked Jimmy just before leaving the elevator on the penthouse suite floor.
“I don’t, Miss Battaglia.”
“If you see him, can you please tell him I need to speak with him?” He nodded in confirmation, and I backed into the room.
What exactly I wanted to talk about was beyond me. It was strange how he evaporated into thin air, especially after giving me that speech about not trusting Vincenzo and keeping my eyes open. He wouldn’t have left if there was imminent danger, right? His fucking actions just weren’t matching his words.
I took off my clothes, purposely forgoing my silk pajamas as I slipped under the covers, expecting Max to walk in any minute now and catch me lying here almost naked. I knew this game would only hurt me more, but when his clarity was fogged by lust, his guard was down, and that’s the only moment I’d get honest answers instead of vague riddles and half-truths .
I waited for hours until my eyes couldn’t take it anymore, and I fell asleep.
My dreams were a replay of the night. The way I saw Max’s jealousy jerk him forward as Vincenzo kissed me. The way Vincenzo’s grin spread wide and proud, gloating as if he’d won the prize of the century. No, it was more than that. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was the glee of successful vengeance.
But why?
Fragile man-egos fighting to own the girl?
I’ve seen Max in his mafioso skin. I’ve seen him withstand torture without spewing a single sound. I’ve seen him accept death rather than ratting me out to my family. Granted, that was over three years ago, but why had I lost the privilege of being worthy?
I saw it in that instinctive reaction that he wanted to pull me away from Vincenzo’s arms. So why didn’t he? Why did he choose to leave instead and abandon me?
“Why don’t you fight for me?”
“I am. This is me fighting for you.” That baritone, smooth voice pierced my dreams, and for a moment, I thought I’d actually heard him.
It wasn’t until his warm fingers danced across my cheek, pulling my hair back from my face, that I realized I hadn’t dreamed it. Max was really here, lying behind me, scooping my cold body into his warm embrace.
“You’re here.”
“Where else would I be?” This time it didn’t feel like he was talking about duty or his job. But I couldn’t rely on my brain anymore because my heart had muddied those waters until they were murky and filled with hope where it had no business being.
“I thought you said you’d sleep on the couch. ”
“Not when you’re calling to me like this. Am I supposed to think this wasn’t you laying an unavoidable trap?” His hand dropped to my hip, caressing my naked thigh up and down, igniting my skin with a million goosebumps.
“It’s hot.”
“Yes, you are. And a bad liar, too.”
Against my better judgment, I looked back, my eyes clashing with his. Only, where I thought I’d see lust and rapture, there was nothing but pain. Those blue eyes of his had never seemed so dull. So faded. So… dead.
“What happened? Where did you go?” I asked, trying to turn around to fully face him, but Max held me in place, his arm wrapping around my waist and pulling me further into him.
My back was completely fused to his front while Max’s nose buried deep into my hair until his lips were grazing my skull. The utter nerve of this man. Why he thought he had the right to snuggle with me as if we were long-time lovers was beyond me and, frankly, quite insulting, too, after everything he’d done.
“To seek advice.” He finally replied.
“From a bottle of booze?” I clipped. He’d been drinking, I was sure. Even though the smell of liquor wasn’t too strong, the lack of his normal restraint and distance told me he’d tipped more than he should have.
“From a grave. But potato, potahto.”
“What?” The surprise in my voice came subtitled with my body jerking and turning around to finally face him.
Max’s eyes were closed. Not shut tight. Just slightly closed, his eyebrows pinched in the middle as if his suffering was a living being, haunting him behind his closed lids. The expression on his face tore my heart into tiny pieces. There was so much more than pain in those lines, and I fought the urge to kiss them all away until his hard features were back. I preferred those. Even that one face I hated. The one that played with my feelings and pushed me away.
“What happened? Why are you so broken?” I dared to ask, my palm slowly cupping his cheek.
“Can I just hold you? I just… I just need you so fucking much right now.”
My heart skipped a few beats, tripping over itself until it found its rhythm again, only much faster than before.
Instead of answering, I placed a chaste and lingering kiss on his cheek and turned back around, encasing myself into him like the perfect piece to his puzzle.
Max took a long breath of relief as soon as I was cocooned back in his arms. His fingers tangled with mine in a grip that told me that, in this moment, I was the anchor that moored his sanity.
I felt him as hard as a rock despite the desolation, and as an instinct, pressed myself against him even more. Without a word, Max adjusted my hip, pulling me further up, my ass perked out and aligned with his crotch.
The next thing I felt was the warm, velvet skin of his cock brushing against me and the wet trail of precum it left on the back of my thigh. With a foreign, slow pace, Max pushed my underwear aside, placed his cock at my entrance, and carefully slipped into me.
It was so controlled, so gentle that I felt myself stretching with each inch.
I bit on my bottom lip, suppressing the half gasp, half moan that threatened to escape while Max remained as unfazed as before. His breath was just as steady, his body hard and tense, just as it was when I first woke up.
As if he’d been made for me, Max buried himself comfortably inside me with no resistance, his fingers coming back to tangle in mine.
There was no movement. No thrusting. No dirty talk.
Just a natural connection that slowly had him relaxing his rigid body in a moment of peace that I think I needed just as much as he did. But that peace that settled our bodies into one another didn’t reach my heart.
There was no way it could. Because that part of me was imploding with the fear of what came after this.
He’d break me, and still, I couldn’t find it in me to move.
“Home.” I think he whispered after a while, but I could have imagined it since I’d been falling in and out of sleep.
Max was still hard, the fullness between my legs bringing a smile to my face and an ache to my heart.
Why can’t he fight for me?