Chapter 18
Daisy
Oh no. My heart thundered in my chest, the beats pounding regret into my veins. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.
Max had heard me come in, which meant I couldn’t turn around now and leave.
Oh my god, Daisy. What were you thinking?
The heat of embarrassment suffocated my senses.
If I didn’t answer him, he’d think something was wrong, so I had to say something.
My feet carried me to the bathroom door, instructing myself, Just apologize and tell him you’ll talk to him when he’s done.
Just apologize and leave.
“Max—”
“Fuck.” The pained curse derailed my words—derailed my thoughts—derailed me.
Not only did syllables collide in my throat, but for a split second, I forgot about the extra inches of baby belly sticking out my front. I moved too close, and my stomach bumped into the door, sending it swinging open.
“Oh no!” I scrambled to catch it. “I’m so sorry, Max. I—”
One single step into the bathroom was plenty far enough to reach the knob to pull the door closed again. Except when I reached for it, I saw him.
Max’s muscled shoulders cowed against the warm spray beating his back. His one hand was splayed, his long fingers flat to the shower wall at his side. The other flexed tight around his cock.
He stopped mid-pump, his ruddy flesh bulging from his grip, and his head lifted to me.
That gaze…it might as well have been the barrel of a gun I stared down the way Max had me in his sights.
Water dripped from the dark ends of his hair onto the angles of his face, making all of him glisten.
I’d always thought he’d looked fit before, but he dressed well, and sometimes, clothing concealed the details of what was underneath.
Now, I saw every delicious detail right down to the devastating size of his cock.
Good lord, how were there not women lined up around the block to spend a night with him?
“What are you doing here, Daisy?” Max forced the question through locked teeth, maintaining a surprising veneer of calm.
Like I hadn’t walked in on him jacking off.
Like I hadn’t walked in on him jacking off and thinking of me.
The thought hit me like an avalanche. Daisy. He’d said my name. Not because he’d heard me come into his room, but because he was fantasizing about me. Because he was masturbating to the thought of me.
My core clenched, flooding the lower part of me with the ache I thought I’d stifled earlier. It wasn’t that I didn’t know he desired me. I knew. But there was a difference between knowing it and having a front-row seat to the show.
“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—I should go,” I stammered, surprised by the fresh husk to my voice. Surprised even more when I didn’t move, when I didn’t even budge.
Somehow, I stayed rooted right to that spot, my eyes roaming over his well-proportioned body where the water jittered on the surface of his skin like the whole of him was electrified.
“Daisy,” Max growled, a hard exhale blowing droplets of water from his lips.
My eyes snapped to his, finding a different glint in them than I’d ever seen before.
Something wicked. Something predatory. He dropped his hand from the wall and straightened, but instead of dropping his other hand from…
that, Max instead started to roll his wrist again.
His forearm flexed, water coursing through the valleys cut between muscles and veins, and he pumped his cock at a leisurely pace. Daring me to keep watching.
I tried to swallow but couldn’t, my throat like a valve sealed tight. I tried to look away but couldn’t. He was so beautiful. So perfect. So hot.
“I should go,” I repeated, like it would spur my legs to move. It didn’t.
“Then go,” Max dared me out loud, his jaw pulsing with a hard beat like he might just lunge out of the shower and make me stay if I didn’t run.
My heart thrashed in my chest, wild and wanton. I said I was going to leave. He told me to. And all I did was stand there, eyes wide and mouth parted, like I was on some kind of life support, staring at him.
What do you want? What can I do? His questions and my own chose that moment to haunt me. To hit me at my weakest when there was nothing I could do except admit that I didn’t really want to leave. I wanted to stay. I wanted to watch him.
“Daisy, look at me.” Max’s command was even harsher than earlier, and though it made my head lift, it also made my knees go weak.
I didn’t just want to watch him. I wanted to touch him. My fingers curled into my dress, wanting to replace his hand with my own. And wanting to place his hands on me.
We stood, eyes locked for a long second. Long enough for his fist to drag a hard pump down his cock. Long enough for me to confirm that my underwear was soaked.
“Either you leave right now or you close that door behind you and obey everything I say.”
Pump.
Max was giving me a choice. I could still walk away from this.
From him. I could still retreat behind the ring on my finger and tell myself it was because Max deserved better.
It was the truth. But as I stood faced with the man who looked like a horny Poseidon ready to drag me into his deep, I couldn’t deny it was only part of the truth.
The other part? I was afraid to want more.
I was afraid to want more and lose it all.
But for the first time, my mind couldn’t overrule my body. Couldn’t overrule my heart. I’d lived out of fear for so long, and look where it had gotten me. Pregnant and abandoned by a fiancé I didn’t really love. I was tired of being afraid. For tonight, I wanted to be free.
Pump.
My fingers tightened on the doorknob, and then with deliberate slowness, I pulled the door toward me, at the last second, moving to the side so it could shut behind me.
Max’s nostrils flared when it clicked closed. Pump. He milked his cock as I released the knob and stepped toward him.
“Stop,” he ordered, and I stilled, worried I’d done something wrong. Sure of it when he peeled his hand off his length. Was this some kind of test? Had I made the wrong choice?
“Do you have underwear on, Daze?”
My uncertain thoughts scattered like dandelion seeds on a breeze. “Yes.”
“Take them off.”
It was only my breath that was unsteady as I gathered my dress in my hands at my sides, lifting it high enough to reach underneath and shimmy my thong over my hips. My heart pounded as the fabric fell to my ankles.
“Kick them over to me.”
My eyes snapped to Max, seeing that he’d stepped farther out of the water and planted his palms on either side of the glass door.
Part of me couldn’t believe what I was doing right now, stepping one foot out of my underwear and using my other foot to toss the sliver of fabric toward the door.
The other part couldn’t wait to hear what he’d make me do next.
As soon as my thong landed just on the other side of the glass, his gaze snapped to it like a red flag in front of a bull. Slowly, those sparkling eyes rose to mine.
“Those are some wet panties, Daze,” he drawled slowly. “Tell me why they’re so wet.”
My cheeks might’ve been the shade of a fire hydrant, but there was no embarrassment blocking my reply from coming out in a throaty, seductive tone. “Because of you.”
A feral sound escaped through Max’s tight lips. “Because you caught me jacking off in the shower?”
I nodded, like my staring wasn’t answer enough.
“Is this what you stayed for?” He ground out, dragging his hand back to his length, giving his cock a hard pump up and down as I watched. “To watch me come all over my hand?”
My breath caught. No, I wanted to say. I stayed because I wanted to do more than just watch him. I watched to touch and taste and feel and be consumed by him.
“You want to see what you do to me, don’t you?” He pressed, a gravelly edge to his voice. “You want to watch how I lose my fucking mind when I fantasize about you.”
I shifted my weight, feeling the slickness that now coated my thighs.
There was nothing that could’ve torn my gaze from him at that moment.
No sudden catastrophe. No ghostly apparition.
A dragon could’ve burst through the bathroom door that very second, breathing fire at me, and I wouldn’t have even noticed over his brazenness that scorched me from the inside out.
I thought I’d loved the thoughtful gentleman Max.
I’d fantasized about him as an equally thoughtful and patient lover.
Never in my wildest dreams had I pictured how that gentleman became a delicious caveman behind closed doors.
How his deference could morph into dominance.
And never could I have imagined just how much it would turn me on.
“Lift your dress and sit your sweet bare ass on the counter.” Max jerked his chin to the empty section of the vanity next to me.
My heart pounded in my ears, clamored for more of this electric desire, shocking and powerful.
I turned and reeled the fabric of my dress into my fists again.
Even though the room was filled with warm steam, it still felt cool when it hit the heat pooled between my thighs.
I swayed back, my sweet bare ass colliding with the edge of the counter.
Grabbing it, I worked myself up carefully onto the edge, my legs naturally drifting apart and my hand sliding to my stomach.
Max’s eyes flashed, and he jerked himself harder.
Faster. The wet slaps of flesh on flesh ricocheted around the small room, and all I could do was stare.
Admire. The symphony of his muscles inhaled and exhaled the tension of pleasure, their tautness defining every line from his forearms to his shoulders and then down to his chest, the bricks of his abs, and then the V at his hips that pointed my gaze lower.
For four years, I never let myself look too long at my boyfriend’s best friend. I’d felt the tingles, the pull when I did, so I stopped letting myself. I’d had a good reason for always looking away…I didn’t have a good reason anymore.