4. Max
CHAPTER FOUR
Max
“Let me help you get cleaned up. Poor Lila’s always been such a klutz.” Candi reaches toward the freckles of frosting on my bare chest with a wad of paper towels, her lips tipping into a satisfied smirk.
Liar. My fox snarled inside my skull.
Although neither of us can prove she’s the cause of Lila’s ungraceful tumble, there’s a feeling in my gut that tells me she’s completely to blame. And not only because I swear I saw pink sparks of magick before Lila’s fall.
I catch Candi’s wrist before she makes contact with my chest. The paper towels hover inches from my pec where a smear of buttercream warms against my skin.
“I’ve got it,” I say, my voice coming out flat. “Thanks for your help.”
“But you’re absolutely covered.” Her gaze drifts down my chest, lingering on the waistband of my shorts. “I feel just terrible about Lila’s little accident. Maybe if I’d walked in first—
“Like you said, it was an accident. Right?” I ask, releasing her wrist.
Her gaze narrows, eyes flashing with malice before she bats her long lashes up at me and pushes her glossed lips into a pout. “Right.”
Liarrrrrr. My fox growls again. Too bad we’d both been too busy watching Lila walk through my front door to know for sure.
And then the skirt. Her dress had flipped up when she got on all fours, revealing the soft backs of her thighs and the band of neon yellow cotton around her hips that fit snugly between the thick swells of her—
Don’t think about it.
“Max, I’m doing my best to be neighborly, but perhaps now is not a good time,” Candi says, tone soft and wounded around the edges.
“Yeah, Candi, this is…” I shake my head and run my hand through my hair. My thoughts are all over the place.
Get it together.
Yeah, like you’re helping.
“I’m sorry. I’ve got it, Candi. Really. You should go before something else happens and you’re stuck here cleaning the whole place.”
“I don’t mind.” She bites her lower lip, and unlike when Lila did it, I have to swallow back a grimace.
Luckily, something in my expression must tell her I’m not in the mood.
“I’ll just—” She thrusts the paper towels in my direction. “Leave these with you.”
“Thanks.” I smile, though my heart isn’t in it.
“Max.” She pauses at the threshold, one hand on the doorframe. “Lila’s very sweet, but she’s not really your type.”
Get her out. Her scent is everywhere.
“I don’t have a type.”
“Everyone has a type. I can tell yours is more refined. Far from the kind of girl who faceplants into questionably made baked goods.”
“Thanks, Candi.” Jaw clenched, I shut the door behind her as she sashays down the walkway.
My fox is right. Candi’s perfume hangs in the air, cloyingly sweet and floral in a way that reminds me of Gran’s Bunco group. It’s everywhere except the one patch of floor where Lila had been, where her buttery, sugary, lemony makes my chest tighten.
Cake, three tiers of it—or what used to be three tiers—is spread across my entryway like a frosting smeared crime scene. And in the center of it all, the indentation where her body had landed.
A neon yellow thong. My fox observes.
“I’m not thinking about that.”
Nope, not at all thinking about how she’d looked back at me with those wide blue eyes and realized exactly what I was seeing.
And the blush. Jesus. The blush had started at her collarbones and spread like spilled wine, staining her throat, her cheeks, the tips of her ears.
She ran from us. Let’s chase her.
“Yeah,” I scoff. “I can imagine how well that would go over.”
Using the paper towels, cleaning solution, and trash bag Candi brought in from the kitchen, I crouch down and make short work of wiping up the cake.
All the while, my fox presses against the inside of my skin. She made that cake for us.
“A welcome present,” I mutter.
My finger sinks into a smear of buttercream caught on the outside of the trash bag. I lift it to my face, examining the texture. It’s silky. Not a bit of graininess. I wonder if she manually whipped it, worked up a sweat—
Taste it.
I shake away the thought and spritz a bit of cleaning solution in the air to mask Candi’s lingering scent. I’d forgotten about the frosting on my skin until I catch my reflection in the hallway mirror on the way to the trash can.
You’re going to waste all that yummy frosting?
“I’m going to shower.”
I toss the bag into the trash and walk to the bathroom, fox pacing beneath my skin.
The water takes only a minute to heat up, and steam begins to fill the space as I step under the stream. Sugar dissolved and swirls down the drain in pale ribbons. There’s a thick dollop of frosting still on my chest, and the sight of it makes my chest constrict.
She made it for us.
God, he’s one track right now, but I can’t deny the restless heat burning through me.
I swipe my finger through it and bring my it to my mouth.
It’s sweet and complex with browned butter, a hint of salt, and real vanilla bean. But underneath is a taste that raises every hair on my body.
Lila.
Sugar and butter and lemon.
My dick throbs.
More.
And who am I to deny my inner beast?
There’s more frosting on my stomach. I scoop it up with two fingers and push them into my mouth.
The sound I make is pure animal.
Lila is in my mouth, on my tongue, sliding down my throat, but it’s not enough, not nearly enough.
I brace one forearm against the wet tile.
Water beats my back as I close my eyes and give in to envisioning her bent over on her hands and knees, her sundress rucked up around her hips, that highlighter yellow thong stretched between the fullest, roundest ass cheeks I’ve ever seen.
I’d watched as a smear of buttercream slid down the back of her thigh and—
Fuck.
My hand finds my dick where I’m already so hard it aches, the head slick and flushed. I stroke once, twice, picturing her there on my floor. Picturing her looking back at me over her shoulder with her mouth open in an O of surprise.
If I’d moved forward, if I’d put my hands on those hips, if I’d pressed my thumbs into those soft curves—would she have let me?
Rough and fast, I pump into my fist, the water and melted sugar making everything slick.
Lila on my floor.
Lila in my bed.
Lila bent over the kitchen counter.
Lila in my shower, her golden hair dark with water, her skin pink from the heat, the vanilla scent of her amplified by steam until I can’t breathe without tasting her.
She’d be soft. Softer than buttercream. Her thighs would dimple under my fingers. Her belly would quiver when I put my mouth on her clit. She’d be loud. I know she would. She seems like someone who wouldn’t stay quiet, who’d gasp and whimper and say my name in that creamy voice of hers.
I flatten my palm against the tile, hips thrusting into my grip, and the mental image shifts.
Lila on her hands and knees but this time I’m behind her. This time I’m pulling those panties aside. This time I’m sinking into her and feeling her clench around me, hot and wet and absolutely perfect—
The orgasm hits me like a fist to the spine.
I groan, my forehead pressed to the tile, and come in thick pulses against the shower wall while my fox howls in satisfaction.
Mine, he growls from deep within my chest. The primitive part of me that has fur and claws and instincts that don’t give a damn about social niceties.
Mine. He repeats as if I need a reminder.
I don’t. I can’t go another day without thinking about her, much less another hour, another minute.
I’m sick, and Lila Hart is the only cure.