4. Chapter 4
Chapter four
M ax woke to the smell of coffee, and frying ham.
So, the little professor was up and around already.
His stomach growled, reminding him it had been a long time since dinner and he’d slept in later than normal. He’d been awake half the night fighting the urge to go find Danusia and finish what she’d started with her impromptu striptease.
He couldn’t get the image of her sexy, pale curves out of his mind and it’d haunted him right into his dreams too.
She might be average in height, but her legs looked long enough to wrap around his hips just right.
The matching sheer blue bra and panties she’d been wearing hadn’t left anything to the imagination either. Who would have thought the serious student would wear such sexy lingerie?
He knew her nipples were a deep raspberry red when excited and that while her breasts would be a generous handful, her nipples weren’t overly large. He would have so much fun teasing them to swollen hardness though.
Knowing her pubic curls were the exact same chocolate brown shade as the hair on her head only made him want to play down there and see how much darker they looked when wet with her excitement .
His morning hard-on liked the image so much it went from semi-hard to locked, loaded and ready. Shit.
Not what he needed right now.
And she wasn’t just sexy, she was sweet and hella smart.
And she’d made coffee. And ham. Which usually meant some kind of eggs as well. His stomach growled again at the thought. Of course there was no saying she’d made enough for him, not after the way he’d rejected her the night before. Running away like the scared little boy Maxwell Baker had never been.
Piss and damn .
She was sitting at the table, drinking a mug of that delicious smelling coffee when he made his way into the kitchen a few minutes later. She looked up and smiled, her expression nothing like what he expected from a woman he’d turned down the night before.
She nodded at a covered plate on the other side of the table. "Your breakfast. It’s a good thing you got up when you did. Eggs are just nasty cold."
"You made Eggs Benedict? For me? " Where was hers?
"Yep. I prefer fruit and yogurt for breakfast."
He looked pointedly at the empty spot but for her coffee in front of her at the table.
She shrugged. "I ate earlier. I never sleep very late when I drink the night before."
"Really?" He, as a rule, slept later and if he wasn’t careful, woke with a headache – even if he hadn’t drunk enough to get a hangover.
"Yeah, just another way my brain doesn’t work like other people’s."
He sat down, pulling the cover off his breakfast. "Looks perfect."
"I followed the recipe."
He caught himself on a chuckle. "That’s good, I guess."
She nodded .
He pulled his napkin form under the silverware to put in his lap and noticed a piece of paper under. It was blank except for the numbers one through five.
He looked up at Danusia. She had that look in her eyes again, the one that made him wary. "What’s this?"
"You said you had five reasons. I want to know what they are."
"Does it really matter?"
"It does to me."
"Telling you what they are isn’t going to change the fact that they exist."
"Refusing to tell me what they are isn’t going to change the fact I want you and you want me either."
Well, hell. "Roman didn’t tell me you were so stubborn."
"It sounds like he told you plenty, even if he didn’t tell you that, which he knows by the way. In case you were wondering." She sipped her coffee. "But, you know, it sounds like you and Roman have talked an awful lot about me."
"I guess." He went for casual, but he knew he’d been caught.
He could see it in her eyes.
She confirmed it with her next words. "I wouldn’t think my brother would talk about me much, not without prompting anyway."
"He’s proud of you."
"Still..." She gave him a look that dared him to deny asking about her.
He shrugged. "I was curious."
"Because you wanted me."
"You’re blunt."
"It’s the scientist in me. You’re changing the subject."
"Yes." To both. He did want her, and he really wanted to change the subject .
His control had never been so close to the edge. Scared the hell out of him and excited him beyond reason too. It was almost a better adrenaline rush than going on assignment.
Something in her grey gaze said she knew exactly what he’d meant by the yes. She nodded toward the paper with the numbers on it. "So, tell me why you can’t have me."
"I’m not writing it down."
"Afraid my brother will find it in the trash after you’re gone?"
It was a serious consideration. "Look, if you can’t live without knowing, I’ll tell you."
"Okay, so talk, but don’t let your breakfast get cold."
He started eating and thought about how to approach telling her his reasons. Should he start with the biggest one and try to circumvent the need for the conversation?
The stubborn tilt to her jaw said that wouldn’t work.
He decided to start with the reason he figured she’d consider the most valid. She’d already shown she didn’t consider the fact she was Roman’s baby sister any kind of roadblock. "I’m not in the market for a relationship."
"So?"
What the hell did she mean, so ? "You’re a forever kind of woman."
"Tell that to the other men I’ve had sex with." She shook her head, her expression nonplused. "I don’t think they got the memo."
"You’ve had sex?" Of course she’d had sex. She was twenty-four, but other than the striptease the night before, she came off as Pure Grade A innocent.
"My family might have sent me away from home when I was thirteen, but they didn’t send me to a nunnery."
"You had sex back then?" he asked, feeling queasy .
She grimaced. "No, of course not. I was still a kid, but I’ve been an adult for six years."
"So, you’ve had sex." He was still having trouble wrapping his mind around it.
"Yes. Not mind-blowing sex, or even good sex actually, but I have copulated with members of the opposite sex."
"How many?" Oh, shit. "Forget I asked that."
"Why? You wouldn’t want me to ask you the same thing?" she guessed.
He winced. "Something like that."
"You’re not a man-whore. If you were, you would have taken me up on my offer last night. Regardless of your reasons."
"You have a lot of faith in a man you barely know."
"You think you’re the only one who has asked Roman a few subtle questions?"
He wasn’t touching that one. "So, the stupid assholes you’ve had sex with before aside, you still deserve more than a night rolling in the sheets."
"You won’t have sex with me because I deserve a relationship?" she asked, sounding really confused and more than a little irritated.
And if that wasn’t too damn adorable, he didn’t know what was. Which was not the way he was supposed to be thinking.
"That’s one of the reasons, yes."
"Since I’m not expecting anything other than that mind-blowing sex I’ve only ever read about, that particular excuse is voided." She spoke with a firm certainty that showed she knew how to argue for what she needed.
More than that, she expected him to blow her mind ?
Who was he kidding? Blow her mind? If he got his hands on her, he wasn’t going to stop until she was past coherent and right into passing-out-from-pleasure mode.
"You can’t just void a reason because you don’t like it." He just wished he was as sure as he sounded.
"I can void an excuse that is directly linked to me and my feelings. You don’t get to make choices for me in that regard. No one does."
He could argue that he got to make choices about his own feelings, but that would be admitting he was experiencing emotions he didn’t usually. He’d rather drop the F-bomb during Sunday dinner at his mother’s when she had the pastor over.
"We don’t even live in the same state," he reminded her.
"It’s only a six hour drive, but I don’t even see how that excuse has any relevance since we both agree you aren’t looking for a relationship."
"You should be looking for a relationship."
"Who are you to tell me what I should be looking for?" There was that temper again, flaring in her voice and grey eyes snapping like molten metal. "If I want a break in the monotony of my own company, whatever the cost, don’t tell me not to go for it. Because what I deserve is a few lousy hours of not being alone."
She should have sounded desperate. Another woman saying it would have, but damned if he didn’t find himself agreeing with her instead of pitying her. The fact he was panting to touch her colored his views, he was sure.
Still, he shook his head. "I know you don’t think it matters, but Roman is your older brother and he’s not only my boss, but he’s my friend."
"He’s your boss?"
Shit. He never let stuff slip. "Yes. "
"Don’t look so discombobulated. I told you, I’m good at finding out what I want to."
"Is that what this is about? You’re trying to use me to find out more about your brother’s life?"
"I wouldn’t do that." She jumped up from the table and started wiping down the already clean countertops. "I don’t use people."
He knew that. He did. It just wasn’t in her nature. She was a sacrifice-to-not-upset-others kind of person.
He got up and went to her, laying one hand on her shoulder. "I believe you."
It wasn’t an apology, but he wasn’t great at those. Would it be enough?
She turned to face him, her grey eyes swirling with things he couldn’t decipher and some that he could. Desire. Pain. Loneliness.
"Your family has no clue, do they?" he asked her before he could stop himself.
She didn’t ask what about, she just shook her head.
"They think they did the best for you, sending you off to university at thirteen."
"I was mature for my age, it came from having a really facile brain and siblings that were so much older than me. I told them I didn’t need my mom to come with me. It wouldn’t have been fair to take her away from my dad. Baba would have come, but she didn’t move over from the old country until I’d been at university for two years already."
And her parents had believed Danusia when she told them she didn’t need them. She’d let them off the hook and they’d swum on happily in their local pond while she tried to find a place for herself in unfamiliar waters.
Unable to help himself touching her, he brushed her hair behind her ear. "You deserve so much more than I can give you."
"I’ ll take what I can get." Again, the words could have been desperate, but she said them with a calm certainty that blew him away.
He let his hands drop to her waist, his long fingers almost touching behind her back. "You’re so tiny."
"Please tell me that’s not one of the five excuses."
" Reasons . And no, it’s not." Though maybe it should be.
"Good."
"I joined the Marines right out of high school."
She tilted her head back so their gazes were locked. "If that’s one of your five, you’re going to have to explain why."
"I didn’t go to college."
"Right. So, no fancy degrees for you, huh?"
"Not a one."
"At the risk of sounding like a CD with a skip in it, does that really matter if you’re not looking for a long term relationship?"
"I guess not." It felt like it did with her though.
"But it bothers you."
"Some."
"Not everyone gets their education at a university."
"True."
"You’ve got life experience I can’t begin to match, does that make you think less of me?"
"No."
"Good."
"It’s not the same."
"Oh, I think it is. You read a lot too, don’t you?"
"Roman tell you that?"
"I guessed, but he confirmed it. I already know you’ve taught yourself to cook like a chef. Degree, or no degree, you’re a renaissance man, Max. And for the record? I’ve known more academics than most people. A university degree does not decree instant compatibility, nor does the lack of one mean two people cannot find and maintain common ground. You may not have my brain, but you’re a long way from stupid." She smiled up at him. "Unless you really refuse to take me up on my offer, then I’m going to revise my opinion of your IQ."
"Brat."
"Matej calls me that sometimes, but it sounds different coming from you."
"I sure as hell hope so." The temptation to kiss her was so strong, he had to step back.
Only his hands refused to let go, so the distance between them was limited and not real effective.
"Five," she said in a breathy voice that revealed he wasn’t the only one effected by their nearness. "You said there were five reasons and you’ve only given me four so far."
"You’re six years younger than me."
She gave him a considering look. "You know, for a man not in the market for a relationship, an awful lot of your excuses are based on your perception of long term compatibility."
He didn’t have an answer for that, or at least one that would make sense – to either of them.
"But six years? Really?" she went on, when he didn’t say anything to her observation. "Sixteen might worry me, twenty-six would give me some doubt, but six? Please. When we were teenagers, those six years would have mattered, but we’re both adults now and they just don’t."
"I’m thirty and I should have enough self-control to keep my hands off you."
"But you don’t?" she asked hopefully .
He found himself grinning as the inevitability of what was going to happen between them washed over him. "I don’t."
And if she wasn’t convinced by his reasons, he wasn’t going to hang onto them like a sulky child. She was right, this was just sex and if she wasn’t pushing for more, who was he to insist she should?
"Seriously?" she asked.
"Oh, yeah."
"Now?"
He shook his head. "You have work to do today."
"It’s the weekend, I can take some time off," she said suggestively.
"I’m teaching a class this morning. I need to be there in forty minutes, but I’ll be done by three," he said quickly when her face fell.
He would call in and cancel class, but he wanted her to have some time without him around to think about what he’d said and change her mind if she was going to.
"Hm...not feeling like working. Maybe I’ll get a massage."
"I guarantee you’ll get plenty of touching when I get back."
"That’s what I’m hoping, but to maximize the experience, I should work on getting relaxed." He couldn’t tell if she was joking, or not.
Scientists didn’t think like normal people. Roman might be more soldier than scientist now, but the man still proved the rule.
Then he realized why she was so tense. "The break-in threw you, didn’t it?"
"It scared me, yes."
He should have realized, but she’d done that thing with him that she clearly did with her family. Pretended to be okay when she was frightened and facing the unknown. He wasn’t going to fall for it again. "Why didn’t you go stay with family?"
"Everyone but Roman is in a fairly new relationship. They don’t need me horning in on their privacy. "
"And your parents."
"Would you go stay with your parents ?"
"Point taken." He loved his mom, but he preferred to get a hotel room when he went to visit her.
"So, three o’clock?"
"I’ll be here by three-thirty."
"Yum."
Laughing, he shook his head. "You’re sweet."
"You think?" She fluttered her lashes outrageously and he laughed again.
Giving into the urge that had been riding him since walking into the kitchen, he leaned down and gave her a brief, but thorough, kiss.
He ran his tongue along her lips to savor her flavor before pulling back. "A little taste of what’s to come."
She just nodded, her expression dazed.
Sex between them was definitely going to be mind-blowing.
He was whistling when he got in his car.