2
she added quietly, almost as though she was talking to herself.
Her comment was candid, straightforward, and as blunt as his had been. Max didn’t think it was possible for his cock to get any stiffer, but it did. It was doing some major expansion underneath the denim of his jeans, straining the seams. They had never really flirted or engaged in sexual banter quite this blunt, and doing so now was making his whole body burn. “Go to sleep and behave yourself,”
he ordered, his cock twitching in disagreement with that idea.
“Okay. Promise you’ll stay?”
It nearly killed him that she even had to ask again, but considering how he had handled things in the past, he shouldn’t be surprised. “I promise.”
Max lay awake in the dark, listening to Mia’s breathing as it evened out and got deeper. Her body went completely pliant in his arms, and he willed himself to relax.
He thought he’d never fall asleep in his uncomfortable, cramped position, but he did. And it ended up being the most restful and peaceful slumber he’d had in a very long time.
“Aren’t you ever going to stop looking and buy something?”
Max commented with a smile in his voice, matching his stride to hers as they walked hand in hand around the mall. “You’ve been looking for over an hour.”
Mia had been out of the hospital for two days, wandering around their enormous home feeling lost and wondering what she really should be doing. She was a jewelry designer and she had a workshop at home, but Max had insisted she relax and not try to push herself to start working right away. Going into her workshop felt somehow “off”
to her, uncomfortable, so she wasn’t feeling creative anyway. There was very little for her to do except try to figure out exactly why she felt so differently, what had happened to cause the enormous black hole she felt stretching into a huge void in her past. Everything was the same, yet she was so very different. One moment it seemed as if her married life with Max had never been interrupted, but at other times, it seemed as if there was a huge gulf between the two of them, and she could truly feel how much time had passed, how much they had both changed.
She glanced up at Max and smiled back at him, her breath hitching as she looked at him, dressed casually in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, so masculine and so damn perfect that she wanted to just stand still and drink him in.
That’s one thing that hasn’t changed. I can still hardly breathe whenever I’m near him.
“Everything’s so expensive here,”
she answered, wondering when she’d begun worrying about prices.
“I think I can afford it,”
Max replied with a bark of laughter.
Mia sighed as she absorbed the sound of his laughter, something that had always made her heart skitter. Except now it seemed to make her pulse pound like a jackhammer. Somehow, every moment with Max was so much more intense now, more important. Not that her feelings for him hadn’t always been powerful, and she’d always known that her love for him was much fiercer than the way he felt about her. Oh, she knew he loved her, but Max was almost an obsession for her, a crazy love that she knew she’d never get over. Max was…well…he was Max, and he did nothing to extremes.
She shrugged as she answered him. “It just seems ridiculous to pay hundreds for a pair of jeans. Why?”
“Why, why, why? You’re still the most inquisitive female I’ve ever known and I think that’s still your favorite word.”
His eyes were covetous and adoring as they swept over her, amusement in their depths.
“It just doesn’t make sense,”
she said defensively, wondering if he disliked the changes in her personality. She didn’t know where some of them were coming from; she just felt…peculiar, like two different women in the same body.
Max stopped and nudged her to the side of the mall traffic. Her ass hit the wall gently as he asked curiously, “What happened to the woman who bought her clothing without even checking the price tag?”
He put one palm against the wall beside her head and tipped her chin up to look at him. “I’m wealthy, Mia. Incredibly wealthy. And for that matter, so are you. Your grandmother’s trust has done nothing but grow since you’ve been gone. You never touched a penny of it.”
Mia shook her head, confused. “I know that. I don’t know why I feel the way I do. I know how I used to feel, and it was me; it was who I was. Now I don’t know who I am anymore.”
She had to blink to keep the tears from falling, feeling hopeless, like she’d never find the woman who Max loved again. “I feel like I should pretend to be the way I was before because you loved me that way.”
“I. Still. Love. You,”
Max answered gruffly, the muscles in his jaw twitching and his eyes growing stormy. “Do you think I give a fuck about your shopping habits?”
Mia stared up at him, unable to tear her eyes away from his volatile expression. He looked raw and hungry, feral and dangerous. Fascinated, she watched his beautiful hazel eyes radiate with a fiery intensity she’d never seen before on the face of the man she loved. She might not feel like the woman Max had fallen in love with, but Max had changed too. She’d noticed the difference. Problem was, he was even hotter than he’d ever been.
“You dropped the f-bomb again,”
she babbled, unable to think of anything else to say. Her core flooded with heat. All she wanted was for him to touch her, the need almost unbearable. Max had always been an incredible, unselfish, tender lover, always bringing her to climax before he satisfied himself. But she’d never seen him like this: he was starving and she was the only prey he wanted to devour.
He leaned in closer, so close she could feel his heated breath on her cheek. “Does my cursing bother you?”
he asked in a low, husky voice against her ear, making her shiver.
“No,”
she answered honestly. Really, the way he said it made her whole body catch fire, and her mind wander to images of him not only saying the word, but doing it to her. He hadn’t touched her in a sexual way in the two days she’d been home, and she had been starting to think he didn’t desire her anymore, that her slimmer body, short hair, rougher appearance, and different personality turned him off.
“Good. Then I don’t give a fuck,”
he whispered against her lips before his mouth closed over hers with a force that made her gasp into his mouth as he took it.
Max didn’t kiss—he ravaged—and Mia moaned as his mouth conquered hers, winding her arms around his neck to stay on her feet as her knees turned to water and her whole body quivered. She speared her fingers through his short hair, engulfed in a passion so fierce that she wanted to wrap her legs around his waist and let him take her right here, right now. He was all barely-leashed masculine power and dominance, and she was more than willing to submit, to experience more of this raw and uninhibited Max.
One hand cradled the back of her head to keep it from slamming against the wall, while the other cupped her ass, yanking her core closer to his groin. His tongue was relentless, entering and retreating, mimicking the act that she so desperately wanted.
She whimpered as Max jerked his mouth from hers, his breath harsh and audible against her ear. “Shit. We’re in the middle of a goddamn mall and I’m ready to tear your clothes off and fuck you blind.”
And he didn’t sound happy about it.
“I didn’t think you wanted to anymore,”
Mia admitted softly, still stunned.
“Oh, I want to. You have no idea the things I want to do to you. I’m just not sure you’re ready for it. I told you I’ve changed, Mia. And I’m not sure I can control myself anymore.”
He yanked his head back and speared her with tortured eyes.
She ran her hand along his cheek, loving the abrasive texture of his five o’clock shadow against her fingers. “Then don’t.”
Sweet Jesus…if what had just happened was what was in store for her now, she’d take the raw and rough version of Max exactly the way he was, and she’d wallow in him. This was a man who could get down and dirty, and she wanted that more than she ever imagined she would. “I need you.”
Mia watched his face as he struggled with himself. She could sense his hesitation, but if the animalistic expression she saw was any indication, the desire to fuck her was winning.
He grabbed her hand and pulled her back into the mall foot traffic. “I’m losing it,”
he mumbled, leading her into a trendy, moderately priced store. “Find some stuff. Walk away, Mia, before I embarrass both of us,”
he ordered quietly but firmly as he let go of her hand and flopped into a chair near the door.
Mia knew he wanted distance, but she was reluctant to give it to him. She didn’t want him to gain control. What she really wanted was to explore this different Max, find out how hot he could really burn, but they were in a mall with a gazillion people around and he’d already embarrassed himself by kissing her breathless against a wall.
I wanted him so desperately that I didn’t care. I would let him take me anywhere he wanted because I forget everything when he kisses me.
Her face started to turn pink as she watched his security agents who had been following them seat themselves in other available chairs by the door.
Oh God, I forgot about them. I forgot about everybody. I was too consumed by Max.
No doubt the agents had probably turned their backs and shielded her and Max from view, but it was still a little mortifying to remember that they were being tailed—and watched—as she and Max were groping each other in a public mall.
And we’re trying to avoid media attention? Way to go, Mia. Excellent way to avoid detection. No wonder Max was trying to get a grip on himself.
Making her way to the casual clothing, Mia selected several pair of jeans and shirts, forcing herself not to look at the price tag this time. She needed to get some clothing that fit. Max hadn’t moved a thing in their house, and she still had her old clothes, but most of them were baggy, her body at least a size smaller. Frowning as she gathered what she wanted, she admitted to herself that she’d probably be able to wear them again in no time. Max was feeding her constantly, like he was trying to make up for some kind of deprivation. Obviously, she hadn’t been deprived. She was slender, but definitely not starving.
Max met her at the checkout, silently handing the clerk his platinum credit card, his mood unreadable.
Mia reached for her bags, but Max beat her to it after retrieving his card, grabbing the bags in one arm and taking her hand in his, squeezing it gently as they left the store.
“Are you upset about what happened? I know you hate undignified displays of affection in public,”
she asked curiously as they strolled toward the main entrance of the mall.
“Hell no, I’m not upset. I’m pissed off,”
he answered bluntly.
“Why?”
Mia asked, surprised. Max rarely got angry.
“Because I couldn’t finish what I started,”
he grumbled, but his tone was slightly amused. “You have no idea how close you just came to being fucked up against a wall by your desperate husband.”
“There was always the dressing room,”
she contemplated, teasing him now. Having Max want her this badly was like a potent aphrodisiac that made her body ache to have him inside her. Anyplace. Anywhere. Anytime.
Max shot her a disgruntled look as he held the exit door open for her to walk outside. “Now you tell me.”
“Would you have done it?”
she asked curiously, fascinated by her own husband’s desire for her.
“In a heartbeat, had I thought of it,”
he told her huskily, need radiating in his voice. Taking her hand in his, he started walking toward the car, his security following at a distance behind them.
“We couldn’t have done that anyway,”
Mia said regretfully. “Unless you’re carrying a condom in your pocket.”
Max shot her a perplexed gaze. “Why? We’ve never needed one before.”
Mia looked down at the pavement, shame burning her cheeks. “Because we don’t know what happened to me, Max. You have no idea what could have happened.”
“Are you afraid you were unfaithful?”
Max asked huskily and hesitantly.
“No,”
she murmured. “Whatever happened, I know myself, maybe better than I ever did before, and I never had thoughts about being with any other man but you. I love you the same way you love me. But we don’t know if I was abducted or…”
Mia had a hard time saying the last word, but she spit it out, “raped. I can’t put you at risk, Max. Not until I know for sure exactly what happened. I’ll see my doctor and get a check-up, but I need to regain my memory.”
Max tugged at her hand, stopping her beside his vehicle. “You will. Sweetheart, you know if something did happen, I’ll kill whoever did it. And it won’t make a bit of difference in how I feel about you. Tell me you know that.”
His eyes were pleading and tormented.
“If it happened, it wasn’t by choice,”
she said, her voice choked with emotion. “I love you, Max. So very much it hurts. It makes my skin crawl just thinking about being with anyone else.”
Max tipped her chin up to look at him, his eyes blazing with emotion. “You’ll be with me.”
“I can’t.”
God, her heart ached for him. I need to remember.
“I’ll empty every drugstore in Tampa and the surrounding area of their condom supply,”
he told her sincerely, giving her a lopsided grin that made her heart surge.
He was trying to take her mind off what she might have experienced, trying to draw her back into something happier…and it worked. Max was irresistible when he was playing with her, and it used to happen so seldom. She was mush in the face of his wicked grin. “Kind of ambitious, don’t you think?”
“Not at all,”
he told her arrogantly. “I’m thinking I might need more flown in from other cities.”
Oh God, she loved this man, and she loved the way he loved her now. Or the way he must have always loved her, but had never shown it until recently. “Thinking about finishing what we started in the mall?”
“Yeah. And then starting it all over again,”
he answered, his voice graveled, low, and sensually potent.
Remembering Max’s dominant, uncontrolled embrace, Mia blurted out, “Later. You can definitely finish it later.”
“Count on it,”
Max said, his tone low and dangerous.
Mia’s core clenched, her already damp panties getting wetter. Max had always been a man of his word. If he said something, he meant it. He might be different, but Mia knew that was one thing that would never change.
Thank God!
“I can’t find my wedding ring. I’ve searched everywhere,”
Mia murmured quietly as she and Max were eating supper that evening. Max had arranged dinner at home, Italian food from her favorite restaurant.
“You had to have been wearing it when you disappeared. It’s never been here,”
Max answered, looking up at her as he dropped the fork on his empty plate.
Mia could see the hurt look in his eyes, and it almost leveled her. Obviously he’d noticed it was missing, but he hadn’t said anything. “Why would I take it off if I was wearing it? I never took it off.”
“I know,”
he answered grimly. “I wondered about that myself.”
Frustrated, Mia dropped her napkin on her empty plate and reached for her glass of wine. She took a sip, trying desperately to remember what had happened, to conjure memories, any information about the past few years. As usual, she could see nothing but a blank space of time, as though she’d been sleeping through the last few years. “I can’t remember,”
she admitted softly, wanting desperately to know what had happened. She needed to know, and so did Max. Obviously the uncertainty was haunting both of them. “Tell me what happened after I disappeared. Were there ever any clues to where I went, what I did?”
“No,”
Max replied darkly. “The last thing you remember happened a week or two before you disappeared.”
He stopped and reached for his beer, taking a gulp before he continued, “I’m not even completely sure what day you vanished. I found your things on the beach the day I came home from an overnight business trip. It could have been the day I left or the following day. I came home late. I hated myself for ever leaving on that trip.”
He looked tormented, and she hated it. “Max, it wasn’t your fault. You were considering running for public office, and you had business out of town—”
“It was bullshit. All of it. I never wanted to be a politician, and I could have left most of the traveling to upper management. I was a goddamn coward, Mia. I took those trips to take a break from us.”
After downing the rest of his beer, he stood abruptly and went to the refrigerator for another one.
Mia felt her hand trembling as she reached for her wine, taking a healthy sip. He needed a break? Had he wanted out of their marriage? “Was I suffocating you because I loved you too much?”
It was a hard question to ask, but she needed to know. Max had been her whole world since they’d met, and maybe it was too much for him. She had a tendency to be a bit extreme in everything she did, while Max was exactly the opposite. Maybe he couldn’t bear her intensity for long periods of time, even though she’d really tried to tone it down for his sake, not wanting to scare him away.
Max twisted the top off his beer, laughing harshly as he tossed the cap in the trash. “It wasn’t you; it was me. I wanted to be smothered by you; I wanted to be the only man you saw, the only man who existed for you.”
“But Max, you were—”
“It wasn’t enough,”
he told her roughly as he slid into his chair again, piercing her with a possessive stare that Mia had never seen before. “The things I wanted weren’t right in my mind. My dad loved my mom and treated her with tenderness and devotion. Although I felt those things too, there was also this total obsession that I didn’t think was right, natural. You’re my wife, a woman who deserves my respect. I never wanted you to leave me. I didn’t want to scare you away by acting like a lunatic. The way I felt wasn’t rational. I wanted to kill any man who looked at you.”
Oh, God. He’d felt the same way she did, and he hadn’t been able to deal with it. The crazy love, the over-the-top desire to rip his clothes off and have wild, crazy sex until they were both so sated they couldn’t move. Her levelheaded Max, her sensible husband, her tender lover really felt the same savage emotions. He just hadn’t wanted her to know.
“So you’re really a closet dominant male?”
she asked, shivering as she watched his face, the turbulent emotions making the flecks of gold in his eyes glow as he stared at her as though he wanted to swallow her whole. Her core flooded with heat as she watched him struggle, secretly hoping the alpha would break free. Just once…she’d like to see Max totally lose control, not in a bad way, but in a very, very good way. It would make him more human, more real, and she welcomed it.
If that’s a part of Max I haven’t seen…bring it on!
“I think I’m beyond that, and I don’t think I’m in the closet anymore. And I’m still perfectly rational with everyone and everything except you. You’re the only woman who’s ever made me feel this way,”
he growled, his face damp with perspiration.
Mia tried to hide the longing that she was certain was showing on her face, wanting to do nothing except crawl into his lap and make him completely lose control. The feminine power she had over him was suddenly a heady, dizzying feeling. This man, who was her entire world, wanted her above all things, above any other woman on earth, and she knew she could make him lose it. But he had trusted her with his feelings, and she wasn’t going to use them against him when he was struggling, vulnerable. She loved him too much. What he’d been taught growing up by the parents he’d loved and the way he was feeling now were warring against each other.
Everything inside of her rejoiced, elated to know that he’d felt the same as she did, that his love was anything but lukewarm and tepid, controlled and sane. Now, it seemed almost ridiculous that they had both never fully revealed the intensity of their emotions for fear of losing the one they loved to the point of insanity. “You can be whoever you really are with me, Max. I’ll never stop loving you.”
“I think that’s the problem. I was never truly alive until I met you. I was the guy who never lost his temper, never let emotions get in the way of a business deal, and I was pretty much indifferent about everything. The only thing I wanted was to be a good son to my adoptive parents because they had given me so much. I guess I thought I needed to be in their image, act like a Hamilton, to make up for the fact that I wasn’t their blood child. I didn’t even know who I was,”
Max admitted.
“And do you know who you are now?”
Mia asked softly, loving him even more for being able to bare himself to her.
“Not completely,”
he said with a masculine sigh. “But I can guarantee you that I’m not indifferent, especially not when it comes to you. I know exactly how I feel about you. I always have. I just wasn’t sure you could handle it.”
“I can,”
she told him emphatically. Trying to give him a reprieve, she glanced away from him and asked calmly, “Tell me what happened after you found out I was missing.”
Max took a deep breath before he answered, “Obviously, there was an extensive search, but it only lasted about a week because there were no leads. After that, they were convinced you had either drowned or there was only one possible suspect if you were murdered. They weren’t really looking at other possibilities because nothing else made sense.”
“Who?”
she asked him, confused.
“Me,”
he answered, his voice low and hoarse. “A woman with no real enemies vanishes and can’t be found, the usual suspect is her husband.”
“Oh, God. Max, I’m so sorry.”
It had to have been awful for him, being suspected of murdering his own wife. “There was no motive, no reason to even suspect you.”
Max shrugged. “Crime of passion? Another woman? Another man? Money? Believe me…they checked every possibility, dug through every record to make sure I hadn’t done anything to you for any of those reasons. When they finally decided I wasn’t guilty, they assumed you had drowned. They said they didn’t suspect foul play. There was never a demand for ransom, no reason to believe you were abducted. There was no activity on any of your accounts. It was like you had just…vanished.”
Tears sprung to Mia’s eyes as she watched him trying so hard to impersonally state just the facts when he’d so obviously suffered. Had their positions been reversed, she wasn’t sure she could have come out of it still sane. “The media must have been horrible.”
“Luckily I was spared that part of it. They kept the investigation quiet. I cooperated, gave them whatever they wanted.”
Whatever she had done, Mia hated herself for putting Max through hell. He was a man with pride, a man of integrity, and being stripped of all that he was for the investigation had to have been devastating. Squeezing her eyes closed to prevent her tears from falling, she whispered softly, “I wish I could remember. I wish I knew why I did this to you.”
Max rose from his chair and scooped her up, sitting back down in her chair with her cradled in his lap. “Hey, don’t cry. You don’t know what your reason was or what happened. Don’t blame yourself. I survived. You’re here now. That’s all that matters to me.”
Opening her eyes, the tears falling down her cheeks, she asked him, “Why are you still wearing your ring? You must have given up hope, thought I was dead.”
She lifted his hand, running a finger over the platinum band and feeling lost without her own wedding ring. Sure…it was just an object, but it was a symbol of her love for Max, and she missed the heavy weight on her finger. Her wedding day had been the happiest day of her life, and the loss of her ring nearly killed her.
Spearing his hand into her hair, he tilted her head back as he told her roughly, “I never gave up hope. Right after you disappeared, I made a promise to you that I’d never give up. I couldn’t. In my heart, I never accepted that you were dead. I guess I thought that if you really were, I would feel it.”
A sob escaped Mia’s lips as she looked at Max’s earnest, fierce expression.
Why? What possible reason could I have had to put him through this?
She could remember their life together up until a week or so before she’d disappeared. Granted, they had both been hiding, afraid to reveal some parts of themselves. But they had loved each other, and there had never, not once, been any thoughts of betraying or leaving Max for any reason.
Clutching at his shirt, fisting handfuls of it as she cried, she managed to tell him in an anguished voice, “I want to remember. I have to know why.”
Max grasped both of her wrists and wrapped them around his neck. His actions were gentle, but his voice was stern. “Stop it, Mia. Stop doing this to yourself. You’ll remember and everything will be fine.”