Chapter 16 Max
MAX
It wasn’t long before I found myself back in Liam’s office, sinking into the dreaded chair, listening to time pass by me. My shoulders tensed with aggravation as the door creaked open. Sean strutted in.
Perfect.
A quick huff of air was forced out of his chest when he leaned on the back of the chair right next to mine. The room had enough space to accommodate at least a dozen people, but he had to choose the seat closest to me.
“Have ya enjoyed the party last weekend?” Sean persisted as usual. He flicked his gaze to the cigarette, a question forming in his eyes before his own addiction could fully take hold. Maybe, just maybe, if I indulged his vice, he’d shut up, and this excruciating wait wouldn’t feel like an eternity.
I met his stare with a flat expression and then tossed the pack onto the table between us without a word.
“Thanks,” he mumbled, the irritation momentarily forgotten as he focused on finding his lighter deep in his pocket. “Any idea how long we’re stuck here?”
I shrugged. “Beats me.”
“Do you kn—?”
“No.”
He had the habit of irritating me on a cellular level—a talent that felt more like a personal vendetta than a mere personality clash.
“What party?” I couldn’t help but let the curiosity eat away at me.
He laughed. It was as if he liked to irritate me.
“His daughter got engaged. Rose, I think,” Sean said, lighting the end of his cigarette.
My eyes slammed shut. Damn woman. She would never give me a break.
“Again?” I asked.
He laughed. “Surely, this is her last one.” He said it as if he believed it. He was either na?ve or stupid. I’d say he was both.
“Doubtful,” I muttered, the word thick with cynicism, a familiar coating on my tongue. It left a bitter aftertaste, but then again, most things associated with Rosalie did.
“You seem confident,” he said, raising an eyebrow in amusement.
Confident? No. I was certain. In the same way I was certain the sun would rise tomorrow.
“I’d bet on it,” I challenged. Why not? I was out fifty bucks—might as well try to win it back.
“Your confidence is intimidating,” he said with a grin. “Let’s say a grand then?”
Sean’s interest in Rosalie’s love life irritated me, but I couldn’t help but bargain.
“Sure.”
The bet was a win-win. Easy money, and maybe a little payback for the constant chaos the woman stirred up in my life. I dreaded my breaking point, and I knew it was near.
“Excuse me,” I muttered as I stepped out of the office. My fingers instinctively reached for my phone, swiping for her contact. I held the phone up to my ear.
It rang once.
Twice.
Voice mail.
It was going to take something stronger than my own will if I wanted to stay away from Rosalie. I needed something more to keep me in check, but I had nothing—not even the threat of death.
I spent the rest of the day fixing everything Sean had done to the cars. He’d messed everything up. He might as well have come into the garage with a sledgehammer—the end result would have been about the same. Every bolt he’d loosened, every wire he’d mismatched, just turned into more work for me.
My hands were coated in grease—a thick, black grime that seemed to seep into every nook and cranny despite my repeated attempts to wipe them clean with a rag—when the door creaked open, a flash of red creeping through the crack.
Rosalie.
“Oh,” she said with disappointment. “You’re not Sean.”
Sean was officially starting to grind on my patience.
Rosalie stood in the doorway for a moment and then hesitantly stepped inside. Her short skirt rode up her thigh when she took a step closer. Her figure-hugging shirt strained against her arms as she crossed them.
“I called.”
“I know,” she admitted with a smile. “I watched it ring.”
“You are a nightmare of a woman—do you know that?”
She laughed as she stepped closer to me, holding her weight on my shoulder as she leaned against the hood of the car. “Darn.” She pouted, her voice dripping with mock sincerity. “Just when I thought I was someone’s dream woman.”
She couldn’t help but dangle the ring in front of me as if she had something to prove.
I threw the rag down on the car. “Ah,” I drawled, the irritation morphing into something I couldn’t place. “I heard you ran through another. Since when?”
She twirled a strand of her hair around her slender fingers. “Oh, a little while ago.”
“Who is he?” I asked.
“Lucas.”
“Lucas,” I repeated for the sake of my memory. I would have to deal with him. “This is your third engagement. Do you have commitment issues, Rosalie?”
She couldn’t deny it. “Yes.”
“How old is he?”
“Late twenties.” She swallowed.
Keeping my mouth shut was the biggest challenge of them all.
Rosalie thrived on having the last word.
The only problem with that was I did too.
I constantly struggled to find the right words when communicating with her, grappling with the challenge of responding to her remarks, all while keeping my smart mouth out of her reach.
It was useless to even try.
“And you haven’t sworn off him yet?”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” she said, tilting her chin up.
“You’re right. You’re not exactly hard to get.” It tumbled out before I could stop it.
A lie.
“Didn’t your mother teach you how to talk to someone with manners?” Her hand moved, the ring on her finger catching the light for a brief, unwelcome moment.
“She tried,” I countered. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my baggy jeans to keep them off her. “Instead I got my father’s smart mouth.”
“Figures,” she scoffed, rolling her eyes.
My eyes narrowed on the ring. “How many carats?” I asked.
“Three,” she said hesitantly.
“Three? That’s insulting.”
“Not everyone cares about carats.”
“You do,” I said, looking her up and down. “You’re an expensive woman, remember? Can a man like Lucas even afford a woman like you?”
A part of her wanted to laugh—I could tell by the curve of her lips as they lifted. “I hope so.”
I chuckled, picking the rag up off the hood of the car. I continued to wipe down the tools before putting them back into the box Sean had cluttered. “He makes you happy?” I wondered.
She looked up at me, her smile faltering for a moment. Her lashes, thick and dark, fluttered with each blink. “Yes,” she said.
She was such a goddamn liar. Made me feel better about being one myself.
“Come on,” I said, tossing the rag down. “I know you’re gullible, but you’re not easy.”
“You know nothing about me,” she gritted.
She was a walking temptation I constantly wanted to act upon. My insidious desires burned in my gut, fixated on just one thing. That one thing was the woman sitting directly in front of me, on the hood of my car, with eyes that spoke a novel’s worth of words that remained unsaid.
“I know a few things,” I started, a smirk twisting my lips. “Like how you kiss.”
“I kissed you once. That doesn’t make you special, Max. I kiss lots of men.”
“Dead men.”
She hesitated for a moment, caught off-guard. Then she slowly traced the line of my forearms with her gaze. “Didn’t seem to work on you. You’re alive and well,” she said.
Rosalie stood from the hood. Her next step was deliberate. She landed merely an inch away from me, her chest brushing against mine. I wanted to back off. I tried desperately to hold onto my last bit of control.
“Perhaps I should try again.”
I glared at her. She wanted to kiss me again. It was as if she had to work herself through it each time. She couldn’t believe she found a man like me attractive. I was everything she hated.
Too dangerous.
Too mean.
Too grumpy.
But the woman couldn’t resist, could she?
“I thought you couldn’t stand me,” I murmured.
Her hand rested on my chest. “Right. I was going to drop you like a bad habit—I just forgot to.”
“Did you now? I’ll give you one last try. Take this chance seriously. I do not share.”
She didn’t respond, but her eyes held mine. Rosalie reached for my hand and pulled me closer to her. I couldn’t resist. I lifted her onto the hood of the car and pushed myself between her legs.
My mind screamed a warning. This was a bad idea. If I were to get caught with Rosalie like this, there was no doubt in my mind I’d get a bullet through my head. Like Ricky. Like Cillian.
The thought should’ve been enough to stop me, but it didn’t.
Instead it encouraged me.
I wanted something I couldn’t have, and all that did was make my dick hard.
God, I wanted to punish her for what she was doing to me.
The constant tests, the way she weaved through every thought—she was relentless. She’d burrowed herself into the corners of my mind, while I wanted to bury my face between her legs and do nothing but spend hours exploring the ways her body reacted to my touch.
“You don’t listen to me well,” I whispered against her cheek while my fingers dug into the skin of her exposed thighs.
A slow smile played on her lips out of the corner of my eye.
“No, I don’t,” she said carefully, right against my lips. I was so close to her I was stealing her breath.
I wanted to kiss her again. I’d led myself to believe I was strong enough to resist her, to stay true to my word, but Rosalie had proved me wrong.
She’d called me weak without bringing life to the words.
My hand trailed from her hip to her neck, leaving a track of car grime along her skin.
I grabbed onto her jaw, forcing her attention onto me.
My lips hovered above hers. It was the biggest tease of my life, and it burned in my stomach like acid.
It made me angry in a strange way, knowing my lips weren’t allowed to touch hers.
That felt like a crime considering how good it had felt to kiss her.
Then, with a deliberate breath, her lips crashed against mine.
God, I missed how soft they were. How sweet. I wondered if her pussy tasted the same.
I shouldn’t be thinking like that. In fact, I shouldn’t even be kissing her. What was I thinking? How did I always find myself in situations like this? And why couldn’t I seem to stop?
Instead of doing what I should’ve done—which was to step away and apologize for overstepping my boundaries—I started to kiss her neck, and that was one hell of a mistake. I was beginning to think maybe one hickey wouldn’t hurt.
She wrapped her fingers around my wrists, guiding them closer to her inner thigh. Much as I wanted to keep this going, I couldn’t.
“Max,” she pleaded. “Please don’t back away now. Touch me.”
I was never going to forget how that sounded. Her begging. Those few words would keep me up at night.
“My hands,” I replied, holding them out in front of her.
This—this—was karma.
She looked down, seeing that they were covered in car grease, and so were her legs.
“They’re a mess.”
She met my gaze again. “Kiss me instead.”
My eyes fell from hers, then to her lips, then further down, to her thighs. I knew what she meant.
“Kiss you where?” I asked, intrigued.
She lifted the hem of her skirt further up.
How could I deny her?
Just as I leaned in, a muffled shout echoed from the house.
“Rose!”
It came from the foyer, the voice muffled by the distance. Rosalie’s eyes darted toward the closed door. The voice belonged to Sean.
I’d had just about enough of him.
“Crap,” she muttered, hastily tugging her skirt back down. She reached out, gripping my arm as I helped her off the hood of the car. She quickly took a clean rag and started to wipe the oil stains off her thighs.
“I’m not finished with you yet,” I said, keeping her from running off to Sean. “This thing you have with Lucas? End it.”
“What? No, Max, I can’t do that. I can’t end my engagement just because you’re a good kisser.”
“Ah, is that all I’m good for?” Bitter amusement twisted my lips.
“This,” she stammered, gesturing vaguely between us. “This doesn’t mean anything.”
“The hell it doesn’t,” I began, my fingers wrapped around her arm, holding her still. Before I could stop myself, I demanded, “I was serious when I said I don’t share. Don’t kiss another man, Rosalie. I may not be as forgiving next time.”
“Rose! Let’s go!”
Then she was gone.