CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“I’ve seen the Empire State Building before,” Max said as we stood on the sidewalk, looking up toward the top.
“From the main deck observatory?” I asked. “It is my duty as your official New York City tour guide to take you up there. I’ll lose my fake license if I don’t. Come on.”
“Isn’t it closed?”
It was well after midnight, so it was a good question. “It’s okay. I know a guy.”
“Of course you do,” he said with an amused grin.
We went into the lobby and were greeted by my friend Hollis. “Hey, Hollis!”
He whooped and then wrapped me into a big bear hug. We were little more than acquaintances if I was being honest, but our common geographical background had bonded us.
“How are you, Everly-darlin’?”
“I’m good.” He put me down and shook hands with Max as they introduced themselves.
“How did you two meet?” Max asked, and was it my imagination, or did I detect a tiny note of jealousy?
“At a corporate event where Hollis was working security,” I said. “I heard his accent and asked where he was from. He grew up about half an hour away from my hometown and so this made us instant friends. We’ve kept in touch.”
“I’m lucky that I get to call her a friend. Everly is the sweetest girl east of the Mississippi,” Hollis said, grinning at me.
“Don’t I know it,” Max said, his hand tightening around mine.
“Thank you for letting us in after hours,” I said to Hollis, telling the part of me that was thrilled by Max’s little display of possessiveness to knock it off.
It didn’t listen.
“My pleasure, Everly-darlin’.” He handed me a key and told me it would open the door to the observation deck.
“Thank you!”
Max and I went over to the elevator and I pushed the button for the eighty-sixth floor.
“Your accent’s back,” he said.
“Hollis brings it out in me.” The security guard’s accent was so thick that I couldn’t keep my own from emerging.
As the elevator climbed, I remembered earlier, when Max had told me he wanted to talk to me after the party. I wondered if he still did and what he would say. It concerned me because I knew that if we had The Talk, this would all end, and I wasn’t ready to lose him.
Max was such a good guy that once he knew that I had developed serious, real feelings for him, that would be it. He wouldn’t lead me on. And how could we continue to be just friends when I was head over heels for him? He would back off.
I didn’t ask about his dinner with Arabella, the other women in his phone, how he spent his evenings, or where he thought things might go between us. There was so much that I wanted to say, to know, but not at the expense of not having him in my life.
Which was cowardly—I knew that—but no one had ever accused me of too much bravery.
I tried to encourage myself. WWKD? Would she let this opportunity pass her by? Or would she seize the day? Maybe if I couldn’t speak the words, there was another way to let him know how I felt.
I unlocked the door and we walked out onto the deck. It was entirely enclosed, but we were very high up.
“This is a great view,” he said as he walked over to the edge of the deck, looking out into the night sky. He stood there for a moment before returning to where I had pressed myself against the wall. He laced his fingers through mine.
“A lot of television shows and movies have been filmed here,” I said as my heart rate increased, knowing what I was about to do. “On a clear day you can see six states.”
“You’re taking this tour-guide thing seriously. How are you doing with the height thing?”
“I’m okay because I’m with you.”
I saw the moment his expression shifted. The smile fell slowly off his face, replaced by a far more serious and intent one.
“Oh?”
Gulping, I nodded. “But the view and movie stuff is not all this deck is known for.”
Okay. This was it. Time to lay all my cards on the table.
“It’s apparently good luck to kiss someone here.”
The air solidified in my lungs while I waited for his reply.
A smile played at the edge of his lips and he looked extremely interested. “Really?”
“Uh-huh.” I wondered if he could feel my clammy anticipation, the fear that coursed through me as I worried that this was all going to turn out badly.
“Do you bring a lot of men up here to kiss?” Now he was teasing me.
“I haven’t kissed anyone since I moved to New York,” I confessed. It was an embarrassing revelation that I hadn’t intended to share with him, but given how ramped up I was, it slipped out.
“That’s too long to go without kissing someone.” He shifted his body closer to mine. “You should absolutely kiss somebody.”
“Any suggestions?” My mouth had gone completely dry and it was hard to talk.
“I’m not busy,” he said with a deceptively innocent shrug. “And if we kissed, then we wouldn’t tempt fate to give us bad luck.”
“Definitely,” I agreed.
“I need to ask you something first,” he said. He paused for three long heartbeats and then asked, “How do you feel when you’re with me?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer him. I felt so very many things when I was with him. Was he looking for something specific? I didn’t know.
So I finally settled on, “Safe.”
“That’s good,” he said as he smiled softly, somehow managing to move even closer to me. He reached up to trace the outlines of my face with his fingertips and my heart nearly exploded in my chest from anticipation. “But first ...”
He was still holding my right hand, and he turned me into a spin and then pulled me tight against his chest.
“What are you doing?”
“I wanted to make sure you had courage first from your Wonder Woman spin.”
Shaking my head, I said, “I never should have told you about that.”
“Probably not.” He grinned at me.
That spin had me feeling a bit disoriented, which was bad, given that I knew his kisses were going to make my balance situation worse.
“Everly.” He said my name reverently, like a prayer and a wish combined, and it disconnected my legs from my body so that I felt like I was floating. His eyes roamed over my face, and there was the look I’d been waiting for since the first night we’d met. Desire, lust, a promise that he was about to take me in his arms and kiss me senseless.
There was no mistaking it. I wasn’t imagining things or hallucinating.
It was very real.
A heaviness pressed against me, the type that came from sharing this sort of wanting gaze. My pulse beat slow and thick. Despite the fact that it was freezing outside, my body flushed and I was hot all over, like it was noon and the sun was beating down on me.
He nuzzled his nose against mine, frustratingly ghosting his lips over my mouth. I realized that he was giving me a chance to change my mind, even though I was the one who had orchestrated this entire thing.
I wasn’t going to change my mind. I wanted him to kiss me so badly my teeth ached.
He reached up to cup my face, and I noted that his hands seemed to be slightly trembling, as if he wanted this as badly as I did. His thumbs stroked my cheeks while he continued to keep his tantalizing lips just out of reach. He was bewitching my hormones and my soul.
I knew he was taking his time, drawing it out, and I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. My body voted for bad as it had waited far too long for this moment. He did not need to ratchet up the tension—I was about ready to burst from desperate longing.
“Do you want me to kiss you, Everly?” he asked, the words warm against my lips. I knew why he was asking. This was going to change things. If there was a friendship boundary line, we were about to irrevocably cross it.
“Yes, kiss me.” Three one-syllable words. And they were like a match that sparked a flame.
Because his mouth finally descended to mine and the first thing I thought was, Vella was wrong.
She had incorrectly surmised that because he was bad at dancing, he’d be bad at kissing, but I was personally discovering that she couldn’t have been further off. He had zero coordination or rhythm problems while he kissed me mindless.
His touch was warm and gentle. As far as first kisses went, it was pretty perfect. Like someone had scripted it, directed it, and Max was the award-winning actor who’d been hired solely for his on-screen kissing skills.
It was more than just a kiss. It was like an answer to every question I’d had since I’d met him.
His touch, his kiss, was soft and gentle. Perfect. He held me tight, like I was something precious and special to him. I’d never done drugs, never had the desire to. But if there was a drug that was like kissing him, I might have reconsidered my stance.
“Max,” I whispered, in complete awe. “You’re really good at this.”
I felt his mouth curl up in a smile against my sensitized lips, and then he moved to trace my jawline with the tip of his nose. “Why do you sound so surprised?”
“Vella thought you’d be bad at it. But I knew.”
“Knew what?” he breathed, pressing a delicate kiss to my jaw.
I sighed blissfully. “I knew it would be like this.”
“So did I,” he said before his lips devoured mine, creating shivers that moved in waves up and down my spine.
His kiss was more intense now, and I arched against him, a soft moan escaping from the back of my throat. I parted my lips as an invitation and he eagerly accepted, deepening the kiss. He ignited liquid fire in my stomach and it spread slowly to all of my limbs, burning as it went.
I felt his desire in his kiss. That he wanted me. It was undeniable.
It was also too much.
A still-functioning but frantic part of my brain warned me to protect myself. I didn’t want Max and me to be caught up in some fantasy, kissing on the Empire State Building in formal wear. I wanted him to kiss me because I was Everly, and for no other reason.
I pulled my head back slightly. He didn’t release his hold on me and took the opportunity to press heated kisses to my cheeks, the corners of my neck, the delicate parts of my earlobe.
“Why didn’t you kiss me before this?” I asked, aware of how breathless my voice sounded. “Is all of this because I wore some makeup? The dress?”
That got him to stop kissing me. He still held me close, our chests moving in unison, our hearts thundering against each other. “Is that what you think?”
I shrugged, not able to say the words.
He pressed a soft kiss to my lips and then immediately retreated. “That’s not why I kissed you. I kissed you because you finally let me. I would have kissed you every moment since we met if you’d let me.” He kissed me again, brief, fleeting, gentle.
“Why?”
He smiled and shook his head like it was a silly question. “Because you are sexy and desirable and it’s all I can do to keep my hands off of you.”
“Even the morning of the royal wedding?” I asked, remembering how terrible I’d looked then.
He grinned. “Especially the morning of the royal wedding.”
I didn’t believe him, but it didn’t matter. Even if he was saying this because he thought I wanted to hear it, I. Did. Not. Care.
I reached for him, pulling his mouth back to mine, and my stomach jumped when we collided against each other, hungry and wanting. It overwhelmed me, this sensation of my entire body being on fire, like somebody had replaced my bones with molten lava.
I’d predicted Mount Vesuvius and I had not been wrong.
It was so overwhelming, too much and not enough all at the same time. He seemed to sense what I was experiencing and quickly adapted to it. Like he could feel my hesitation and he backed off, gentling his kisses. But then when he intuited my need and enthusiasm for more, he deepened the kiss, engulfing my lips, moving against me in a way that had me panting and desperate for more.
This time he was the one who broke off the kiss, resting his forehead against mine. “I shouldn’t be doing this.”
My brain was so hazy and fuzzy I couldn’t understand him. Why shouldn’t he be doing it? I was very enthusiastically into it. Kissing him was the only thing I wanted.
The only thing that mattered.
“Yes, you should,” I insisted.
“No, you don’t understand—”
But I stole his words by kissing him hard and was rewarded with him groaning against my mouth, the sound reverberating deep in his chest. I showed him how much I’d been dreaming of this moment. I kissed him with all the longing I’d kept buried since we’d met.
He responded, flame calling to flame, burning hotter and higher until I thought I would melt away completely.
His fingers were in my hair, pressing against my scalp, down my neck and arms, creating prickly sensations everywhere he touched. His hand drifted down to my waist and pulled me against him. He turned me so that he could place me against the wall of the building, and I was grateful for the extra support.
Because this man kissing and holding me had caused me to lose touch with the parts of my brain that controlled speech and judgment.
Maybe it was the wine?
No, it wasn’t the wine. It was all Max.
“Everly?” It was like an alarm bell suddenly sounded; we weren’t alone. It took me a full ten seconds to realize that it hadn’t been Max who had spoken my name.
We broke apart, both of us breathing hard, our chests heaving. I was glad to know I wasn’t the only one affected this way.
I looked over Max’s shoulder and saw Hollis grinning at me. He was the one who had called my name. “I’m about to go off shift. Y’all need to call it a night.”
“We’ll be there in a second,” Max said, his voice sounding rough and tight. When he heard the door close, he turned his head toward me, taking in my face. “Are you good?”
Good? I was ecstatic. Euphoric. I was so far past good it wasn’t even funny.
“Yes.”
“We should go,” he said, then pressed one last kiss on the tip of my nose. It was so adorably sweet and intimate that I shivered again. How long had we been outside? It could have been anywhere from twenty minutes to twenty years. That kiss had somehow simultaneously lasted an eternity and was over far too soon.
He took me by the hand and we met Hollis just past the door. I returned the key and he locked the door and then we all rode the elevator down together. Hollis was speaking, but I couldn’t hear him.
My lips were tingling and I reached up to touch them with my fingertips, still in awe over what had just happened between Max and me. I caught him watching me and his expression told me that he wished his lips were doing the exploring instead of my fingers.
I caught my breath and his eyes were lidded, heavy. I could see him breathing faster. His cheek twitched like he was clenching his jaw tightly, barely containing himself.
“Here we are! Y’all have fun,” Hollis said when we returned to the first floor, and I heard the teasing in his tone.
“Thank you again,” I said, amazed at my ability to walk and speak at the same time.
“Y’all come back anytime!” he said cheerfully as he walked us through the lobby. “Good night!”
I think I returned his farewell, but I wasn’t sure. When Max and I got outside, I wondered what would happen now. I didn’t want to be separated from him and I knew he felt the same way.
He signaled for a cab and one came over to the curb. He opened the door for me and I got in, scooting over to make room for him. Where would we go now? I was both excited and a bit nervous about what would happen next.
But Max leaned his head in through the open door and told the cab driver my address and then said to me, “I have to get up early for my flight. We’ll talk soon.”
He closed the door, and the cab pulled away from the curb before I could respond.
What had just happened?