Prologue #2
“Damn right you did,” Bo snapped at him. “More than that, you’ve been unspeakably rude to me all evening. You walked in on my shower, climbed in through my bedroom window and then accused me of sleeping with my employer. Didn’t anyone ever teach you social niceties? Manners of any sort?”
“Clearly not,” Max snapped back. “Look, I really didn’t think anyone would be here.
It was pretty much abandoned when I was a child and I spent a lot of time hiding in this room.
I need a place to stay tonight, and I came here by default.
I didn’t know you would be here. I didn’t know anyone would be here. ”
“Well, I am here.”
“So I see. Again, my mistake.”
His tone was petulant, his response short, and it occurred to Bo that while he’d acknowledged his mistakes, he hadn’t apologized for them. He probably never would, she realized. For a moment, Bo stared at him, completely at a loss of what to do or say next.
“What are you even doing here?” she finally asked. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“Let’s just say Geoffrey and I had a difference of opinion this evening,” Max replied, suddenly vague, before his face changed. “Look, I don’t want to disturb you any more than I already have. You said it yourself: it’s the middle of the night.”
Bo shifted uncomfortably. “You didn’t disturb me. Not really. I couldn’t sleep and . . . well, I was awake. You didn’t disturb me.”
He said nothing, looking at her for a long minute. “No wonder. It’s hot as hell here. Rip Van Winkle couldn’t sleep in this room.”
Bo shrugged, but as she did so, the strap of her vest fell over her arm and she saw Max’s eyes trail greedily over her skin.
It was unexpected, and she licked her lips as she pulled the strap back over her arm.
Suddenly, she was aware that she was in her bed clad only in a vest and her shorts and she blushed red, scrabbling at the sheets and pulling them around her quickly.
She looked back up, and swore she could see amusement in Max’s grey eyes. Smug bastard, she thought angrily.
“Could you, umm, turn around for a minute? I’m not wearing much. Let me just get some clothes on.”
Max gave her a long look. “You’re wearing more now than you were in the bathroom earlier,” he replied, but he turned around all the same, facing the wall.
“Look, don’t go to any trouble on my behalf.
If you could just loan me a pillow and a blanket, I’ll head back outside.
I can lay on the grass until the first trains start running. ”
Bo shrugged on a nearby T-shirt, before she sat up in her bed so that she was on her knees, regarding him curiously.
“You’d sleep on the grass?”
“I didn’t say sleep,” Max clarified. “But yes. I can’t get an Uber, and I can’t stay there.” He gestured towards the main house. “So, if I can’t stay in here, I’ll camp outside. Don’t worry, I’ve done it before. And then as soon as the first train runs, I’ll be out of here.”
“You’re leaving?”
“I’m sure as hell not staying.”
“But Geoffrey told me you were staying for a week.”
“Geoffrey was mistaken,” Max replied tightly. “I’m leaving in the morning, and I’m never coming back.”
“Never?”
“No. Not while Geoffrey lives and breathes and — look, as much fun as it is having this conversation while facing a panelled wall, can I turn around now?”
“Oh, umm, yes,” Bo replied, running a hand through her hair, feeling awkward again. “I’m decent now.”
He turned around, raising an eyebrow at her T-shirt. “Decent?” he asked sceptically. “You call bare-legged in a T-shirt decent?”
Bo blushed again. “What the hell? All the good bits are covered.”
He paused. “Good bits?”
“Well yes, my, umm . . .” Bo gestured down, before she stopped. What the fuck am I doing? This guy climbed into your room, remember? She took a deep breath. “You’re sure you just need a blanket? A pillow?”
“Yes.” He watched as she pulled at the duvet of her bed, which she’d kicked away earlier. “Don’t give me your own sheets,” he protested. “Just any old blanket will do.”
“I don’t have any others,” she replied easily, before throwing him one of her pillows, which he caught deftly between hands with long and surprisingly strong-looking fingers.
Bo stared at his hands for a moment, a sudden jolt of attraction running through her.
Fingers don’t have muscles, she reminded herself.
So why do his look like they’ve done years of CrossFit?
They’re so big they probably have their own rock-hard abs, biceps and an Instagram account with hashtags like #catchpillowsnotfeelings and #fingergymismylife.
She was so lost in thought about his fingers that she was caught off guard when he threw her pillow back at her. She didn’t have time or the wherewithal to catch it, so instead it caught her hard in the face, and she tumbled back down onto her bed.
“Ouch,” she complained, and in an instant he was next to her.
“Shit,” he muttered. “I thought you’d catch it.”
“How are you so strong?” she muttered back. “You don’t look like you—”
“Don’t look like I what?”
“Well, no offence, but you don’t look like you work out,” she replied, rubbing at her face, which smarted in slight pain.
“I don’t work out,” Max replied.
“No? You’ve got a strong arm.”
He made no reply, reaching down to rub at her cheek. “Sorry,” he said again, his voice soft, and something inside of Bo sparked with new and unexpected longing at the touch of his long fingers on her skin.
For a moment, she stopped to consider her options.
She didn’t really like this man, she didn’t know this man in fact, but all the same, her body decided it wanted him.
She hadn’t had sex in a while, all her desire having been packed away with the hurt and betrayal of her last relationship.
Her ex-boyfriend, Oliver, had cheated on her and Bo had been wandering in a kind of sexual desert since he left.
As she stared at Max now, she found herself somewhat flummoxed that it was him her body now suddenly sparked for.
Certainly, he wasn’t her usual type. His hair was that dark kind of blond that wavered somewhere between looking irresistibly golden or emphatically unwashed, worn a little too long so that it hung over his ears.
His face was wide, his eyes a simple grey and his mouth was a little too large for the face it inhabited.
He wasn’t the tall, hulking type she normally took to her bed.
He wasn’t the usual good-looking male poster boy she fell for. All the same . . .
All the same.
A decision somewhat made, Bo leaned into the hand that still traced her cheek. “I can’t sleep,” she said, emboldened by the lust that was currently coursing through her blood. “And you currently have nowhere else to go.”
Max, to his credit, appeared to recognize an invitation when he saw and heard one.
For a moment, he seemed to think, and Bo knew he was considering his options as much as she had considered hers.
He didn’t need to think for long though, thank God, and the hand that held her face became infinitely firmer.
His fingers were warm, his grip tight, and Bo couldn’t help the shudder of pleasure that rushed through her.
Max must have felt it too, because he laughed, soft and low and sultry.
“There’s still the option of the grass, sweetheart,” he murmured, a note of challenge in his tone, and she felt another rush of want go through her. Under her shirt and vest, her nipples suddenly ached, while her skin felt tight and hot.
Sweetheart? One simple and sarcastic endearment and you’re ready to roll over for him?
Bo lectured herself, but not for long. She could reflect on this new and unexpected addition to her list of turn-ons later.
Right now, Max was looking at her with a delicious expression of desire in his eyes, and she was curious to know how much further she could push him before his hands and mouth were on her body.
“True,” she returned, “the grass is all yours if you want it.”
His expression shifted, something new and alluring crossing his face. Without ceremony, he lowered himself onto her bed, the mattress sinking beneath the sudden addition of his weight.
“What about if I stayed here?” he asked her, his hand moving from her cheek to the bare skin of her leg. He stroked her calf thoughtfully, before his fingers moved to caress her inner thigh. “Is there anything here that could be all mine if I wanted it?”
She swallowed as her skin erupted with tiny goosebumps at his touch. “I have yesterday’s Szechuan in my fridge.”
He chuckled at that. “I do like spice.” He took hold of her hand, squeezing her fingers before interlocking them with his own. He brought them to his lips, kissing them, before releasing her hand once more. “But I think I’d like you more.”
Bo’s heart thumped wildly within her chest. Abruptly, she found herself fantasizing about running her fingers through his messy hair or kissing the heavy lids of his eyes.
She imagined being pinned down by Max, helpless as he took his fill of her body.
She imagined the feel of his arms around her, the weight of his body between her thighs.
She imagined all this in the three seconds it took for Max to pull his shirt over his head, throwing it to the floor beside them.
He then leaned over her, caging her body beneath his own.
“Are you sure?” she asked, turning her head and sighing as he bent down, running his lips along the curve of her collarbone. “It’s Szechuan. I’m pretty sure there are still some of the good bits left in it too. It’s not all sauce.”
At that, he pulled on the hem of her own shirt. “I thought you said you’d covered all the good bits?” There was a knowing grin on his face, and Bo coloured.
He’s enjoying this, she thought to herself. He’s taunting me . . . and I’m . . . I’m into it.
It was another revelation to her but she put it to the back of her mind to be turned over for further thought later.
Now was not the time to be psycho-analysing her sexual preferences.
Now was not the time for self-reflection or whipping out her phone to search for a Reddit thread about kink.
Not when Max was pulling her to a sitting position and stripping her shirt from her body, while she, doll-like, let him.
“You know, I don’t think I like you very much,” she remarked, even as he pushed her body back to the mattress, running a hand appreciatively over the mounds of her chest. She moaned, arching her back into his touch. “I don’t think I like you very much at all.”
Max didn’t even pause, tugging her vest down so that her breasts were revealed to him. His eyes roamed over her hungrily, and he gave her a languid shrug.
“Maybe not. But you’re still going to let me fuck you, right?”
He didn’t wait for a reply, bending down to suck a nipple into his mouth, and so rather than chastise him for his arrogance, rather than ejecting him from her room to sleep on the dry grass outside, she threaded her fingers into his hair and hugged his mouth to her.
“Mmm,” she mumbled incoherently, and Max, damn him, released her nipple with a wet pop.
“Right?” he asked again, looking her directly in the eye, and she realized, with an odd thrill, that he wasn’t going to let her get away without answering him.
For a moment she considered dragging the verbal sparring match out a little further. For a moment she thought about sitting up, pushing him away and playing the game for a few minutes more. Max, seemingly reading her hesitation, leaned back and away from her.
Inexplicably, she missed the feeling of his skin against hers.
Max reached down, taking hold of her right foot in both hands.
“Max, what are you—?” she started to ask him, before he silenced her question by kissing the delicate skin of her ankle.
“Women never cease to amaze me,” he said softly, his timbre low and seductive.
“You honestly think covering your body with a shirt hides the ‘good bits’ from me? What you don’t understand, sweetheart, is that the bits of you like this,” he kissed her ankle once more, “and this,” he added, his mouth moving up her calf, “are just as sexy and good to me as any other.”
“Max,” she whispered, unable to think of anything else to say.
“Your fingers, your eyes, your knees,” Max carried on, and now he kissed the skin of her inner thigh, “they’re all beautiful. Everything about you, to me, is good.”
She nodded mutely.
“So, maybe you don’t like me, but you’re still going to let me fuck you, right? Because a body like yours, with all of its good bits, deserves my attention. Right, sweetheart?”
She stared at him with wide eyes.
“Right?” he asked again.
This time, she didn’t hesitate. “Right,” she said. “You’re absolutely right.”