Chapter Fifteen #2
For a moment, Bo stood there, missing her friend, as well as her friend’s advice, because for once, Bo would have to work something out on her own.
For once, she would have to make her own decision.
The thing was, in her heart of hearts, she already knew the answer to the problem she was puzzling out: she had to end it.
She didn’t want to be like Willa, caught in a perpetual cycle of hurt.
Willa was in too deep with Berg, and Bo knew she was on her way to being in too deep with Max.
Unlike Willa though, Bo could still get out.
She liked Max. She really did. She liked him, and she liked sleeping with him too.
She thought she could handle a relationship that was based purely on sex with him.
When they’d first started this, and she hadn’t known him as she did now, that seemed fine to her.
It would be an easy, no-strings arrangement with multiple orgasms provided by a man she was inexplicably attracted to. Simple.
It wasn’t so simple now though. Not when she was learning about Max and liking the things she learned.
Max had heart and intelligence, just as he had ethics and morals.
He was measured and witty and far too easy to talk to.
He was passionate and talented and there were hidden depths to him she wanted to explore.
She wanted him not just in her body but also in her soul and that was the trouble, wasn’t it?
She was letting him get too close. Letting him get too deep.
Suddenly, without a doubt, Bo knew that while Beethoven might have been deaf, there was no way in hell he’d stayed a virgin. Like Max, he was a passionate, talented and intense musician. There was no way that guy had trouble getting laid. None whatsoever.
There was nothing else for it, Bo decided.
She would have to end it. She felt slightly sick thinking about it, but she knew it wasn’t half as sick as she would feel when Max inevitably walked away, his conscience clear and needs temporarily sated.
He was going back to Berlin. He was going back to other women.
Bo needed to get out now while she still could. Before she got any more attached.
Resolved, she immediately left her summer house and headed up the path to the house, determined to end it now as kindly and cleanly as she could.
The sooner she ripped the Band-Aid off the better for them both.
She would let Max know plainly that she just wasn’t cut out for it.
That she couldn’t be the woman he needed.
She knocked on the door, but not for long.
Piano notes were ringing out in the air, the tune sad, almost mournful, and Bo listened for a moment, her stomach twisting with something that might have been longing but also encompassed sadness and regret.
She opened the door without hesitating, following the sound of the piano to Geoffrey’s study, where she stood for a moment in the doorway, watching Max play.
From here, she could see how animated his body became as his fingers moved rapidly across the keys.
His arms swept wide, while his back both arched and then hunched as the music needed it.
There was a sway to his body that was beautiful, and at one point he threw his head back, eyes closed, as though possessed by something unseen.
The sight of him stole both the breath and resolve from Bo’s body, and it was the music, the wretchedly wonderful music, that made her step forward, inching closer to both the piano and the man who played it so achingly well.
Max was feeling the music, entirely lost to it, his hands and body not his own, and all of a sudden, Bo knew — she just knew — she couldn’t end it. She wouldn’t even try.
This man might well break her heart, but she was going to let him.
When Max’s hands at last stilled, he glanced towards her. He didn’t move, and nor did she. He just stared at her, and she stared back.
“I thought you were going to bed,” Max finally remarked, his voice calm. There was a soft sheen of sweat on him, and Bo had a ridiculous desire to lick it from his skin.
Without saying a word, Bo took a deep breath, her hands going to her shirt, pulling it quietly over her head.
Max watched with an expressionless face, but something in his eyes stirred, and Bo took another deep breath, pulling down her jeans and then her underwear.
She tugged at the hair tie in her hair, shaking it free and letting her hair flow over her shoulders.
She stepped towards the piano again, positioning herself before Max, who shifted slightly to let her past. Folding her arms around Max’s neck, Bo sank into his lap, her legs wrapped around his waist so that they were locked together.
Max said nothing, his face as calm as always, but she felt the response of his body as he settled her against him.
It was awkward though. She’d thought having her hair free would be sexy, more alluring somehow, but instead it was in her face, and she paused, naked before him, debating on whether to move her hands so she could brush her hair away from her eyes.
Max seemed to read her thoughts however, taking her face in his hands and using his long, beautiful fingers to caress the hair from her skin, tucking it softly behind her ear.
“I thought you were going to bed,” he said again, and there was a new, more seductive timbre to his voice.
“I was,” she replied, moving his hands from her face to her breasts. “But then I remembered something.”
“What?” Max asked, brushing his fingers gently over her nipples so that they pebbled in his hands.
She smiled. “We forgot to fire Chekhov’s gun.”