Chapter 38
Annalise
“So, now that you’re unemployed you can come and work with me,” Jen says as we sit across from one another underneath a sun umbrella, among the twinkling candle centerpieces and overlooking the Monte-Carlo Bay.
We’re at one of Jen’s favorite French restaurants to visit whenever she’s in town.
“I’m not unemployed.”
She deadpans, “Your brother fired you. Two weeks ago. And the last time I checked, you hadn’t gotten another job, so that means you’re unemployed.”
“When you put it like that,” I mumble before dipping the piece of Lebanese bread I just tore from the loaf between us into the garlic hummus and popping it into my mouth.
Travis and I have barely spoken since Lucky’s birthday, despite everyone from our parents, to Alyssia, Chloe, and Tristan trying to mediate between the two of us.
But the last thing I’m going to do is beg my brother for my job back. Or to speak to me.
“What if,” Jen starts, “this is an opportunity for you?”
“What kind of opportunity?”
“Don’t play dumb with me.”
I snicker despite the gloomy mood that’s hung over me the past two weeks.
“You didn’t want to remain your brother’s assistant for the rest of your life,” she says. “You want more, and I’m still trying to figure out why you won’t admit that to yourself.”
“There’s nothing to admit,” I counter. “Travis was in a bad spot a couple of years ago. He had a shitty assistant, and I had just left the firm. It was a no-brainer.”
“That was more than three years ago, and I know for a fact in that time, you could’ve found someone capable of handling your brother’s schedule.”
“You say that like I’m above an assistant. As if an assistant role isn’t an important job or viable career opportunity,” I say more firmly than intended.
She holds up her hands, pushing away from the table.
“You know that’s not what I mean. I’d be lost without my assistant, the same way I know your brother is lost without you right now. But you don’t have to be the one to fill that gap for him anymore. Not when you want different.”
“What? Like to be a sports agent?” I snort, half laughing.
“Yes, exactly. Like a sports agent. You and I both know you have what it takes,” she says, vehemently. “You’re in the perfect position to pivot into an agent for motorsport athletes.”
This isn’t anything she hasn’t already said to me, but for some reason it now seems more imminent. More like the most reasonable path, which makes nervousness and tension crawl through me like ants underneath my skin.
I stuff my mouth with another piece of bread and chew slowly while my mind races with all of the what-ifs.
What if I mess up an athlete’s career?
What if I fail at this like I did big law?
What if I do irreparable harm to the sport?
The questions might seem outsized and absurd, but they race through my mind as if they were an unavoidable truth.
“I thought you were on vacation?” I tell Jen. “Not another work trip.” I try to make a joke out of it, but she eyes me as if she knows what I’m doing.
“I’m hungry. We came out to enjoy good seafood, the bay, and each other.”
She holds up her hands, conceding. “Alright, I’ll drop it … for now. But I’m not giving up.”
I call our waiter over before she can go on about how this would be such a great opportunity and enlighten me on how the time to strike is now.
I refrain from telling her that mid-season would be the worst possible moment to try to take on the role.
But that thought only leads me to also concede how right now is a terrible time for a F1 driver to lose their assistant.
Right in the middle of the season.
I can’t help but wonder how Travis is faring. I’d already booked the majority of his travel from now through December. Amato handles the direct travel for races, but changes or extra trips due to sponsorship deals or anything else were mostly my wheelhouse.
Even as I push those questions to the back of my mind and focus on my time with one of my closest friends, I’m well aware that they’re still there. This is the longest time Travis and I have gone without speaking in our adulthood. It hurts, but I also know I’m not the one being irrational here.
“I’ll see you when you come to the States, right?” Jennifer asks as we approach her hotel.
“Yeah—” I stop because now I’m not so certain. I would’ve traveled to the States for the American races later this year, but now I don’t know if I’ll even be needed. “I’ll let you know,” I tell her.
She frowns but then shakes her head before pulling me into a hug.
“I know fighting with your brother is the last thing you wanted, but mark my words, this is actually going to be a good thing. At the very least, you’ll likely end up married to that very hot, half-Brazilian, half-British stud that’s head over heels in love with you.”
I laugh as we break apart from the hug. “Who said anything about marriage?”
She rolls her eyes. “I saw the way he looked at you at breakfast today. The man looked at you like you were the only car he wanted to drive.”
I bark out a laugh. “You’re ridiculous.”
After leaving Jennifer’s hotel, I feel lighter than I have in days. I also missed the hell out of Max, which is absurd since I saw him less than ten hours ago. It’s not like he’s out of town. But he leaves tomorrow for Spain, the final of their European races for the season.
Thus, I follow my heart and press the button to his floor in our building. I knock only once before Max pulls the door open.
“Why didn’t you use your key?”
It takes a beat for me to answer because I’m too preoccupied staring him up and down. He’s dressed in a pair of black and green plaid pajama bottoms. I ignore the question about the key that he gave me last week to his place, and what the implications of that are.
I press my hand to his six pack, pushing him back inside, and close the door behind me, locking it without looking. Max’s smirk is lethal and has the muscles of my most intimate space tightening.
Without a word, I keep my hand against his stomach, pushing him backward until he walks into his room. My handbag falls somewhere on the floor between the hallway and the bedroom.
“What is this?” he asks, the playful yet sexy note in his voice hardening my nipples.
I press him until the backs of his legs hit the bed, and even then, I push him harder until he tumbles onto it.
He doesn’t have time to bounce once before I straddle him, taking his lips with mine.
I groan against his mouth when his hand comes up, cupping the back of my head, holding me to him as if he’s afraid of me somehow getting away.
The desperation of his hold sends a thrill straight to my core, soaking my panties.
“Do you want to tell me what’s gotten into you?” he asks.
I shake my head before crawling down the length of his body, bringing his pajama bottoms with me. His cock is semi-hard already.
I stare at it, admiring its thickness and the veins that stretch just beneath the layer of skin.
It reminds me of the first time I saw the statue of David in Florence.
I marveled at how such intricate beauty could’ve been carved into something so unforgiving as stone.
It was the first time I realized how close to a higher being artists must be.
But, looking down at Max, I know that he was made by the source itself. This is the thought bounding through my mind as I lower my lips, kissing the tip of his dick.
“Fuck,” he grits out. “Baby. Princess,” he pants when I cover him with my mouth, taking him all of the way to the back of my throat.
Max isn’t small, and I’d been nervous about my gag reflex the first few times I’d taken him in my mouth. But he’s a challenge I’m eager to conquer.
I bob on him, using my saliva to get him nice and slippery before tonguing the rim of his cock. His body shudders beneath me, the hand in my hair tightening. He doesn’t pull, though. Nor does he force me down onto him, choking me.
Even when he’s on the verge of explosion, there’s care in his touch for me. Love in the way he pants out ‘princess’ and every curse that accompanies it.
He tells me he’s coming, but I already knew that from the tightness of his balls in my hand, and the way his entire body has just stiffened.
I don’t pull away.
I want to taste all of him while he empties into my mouth.
And I do.
I catch the spurts of come that emerge from the tip of his cock even as the most raging part of his orgasm has passed, licking him clean.
When I finally lift myself, I meet Max’s hooded gaze. He looks drunk, but not from alcohol. I’ve seen this look on his face many times over the past few months, but it never fails to elicit a sort of pride in me.
Knowing that I’m the one who sent him into a slight state of delirium is empowering in a way that I would never admit to anyone out loud.
“Ahh,” I screech when I find myself flat on my back, with Max hovering above me.
How he went from looking completely spent to eyes blazing with renewed energy is a mystery.
Especially, when he makes his way down my body, stripping me of the button-up top, floral skirt, and heels I wore out to dinner tonight.
In less than a minute, I’m naked save for the key pendant I’ve worn every day since the day he put it on me.
Max dives between my legs with the precision and expertise he’s channeled on the track this season. My back arches completely off of the bed, but he cups each side of my ass with his massive hands, holding me up to him like my pussy is the buffet he’s been waiting for all night.
He feasts on me with the same hunger and vigor that I took him into my mouth. My fingers dig into the sheets, ripping them from the corners of the bed. Our sounds—his wet and hungry, mine groaning in pleasure mixed with devilish curses—bounce off of the walls around us.
With Max’s mouth still firmly on me and my toes curling while the heels of my feet dig into his ass, I come. He doesn’t separate his mouth from me until a second orgasm winds its way through my channel.
After that, we’re both like animals. Or maybe just in love and hungry for one another.
What little bit of clothing remained on either of us gets torn away and discarded like yesterday’s trash.
Max has had time to recover, and my second orgasm barely passes before he’s over me, my legs wrapped around his hips as he thrusts inside of me.
“Shit,” I groan, twisting my face into the pillow.
Max covers the pendant that lays on my chest with his hand while holding on tightly to my hip with his other hand. We move in sync, thrusting, biting, touching, and searching each other’s bodies until exhaustion sets in.
By the time my third orgasm rolls around, Max’s second starts to overcome him. We rise together, clinging to one another, kissing and then panting while the storm rushes over us, threatening to take us under.
Somehow, we both emerge. Sweaty, breathless, and with scratches and marks that’ll likely turn into bruises, but all the more satisfied.
“Fuck, I love you,” he says against my lips.
His lips taste like salt from his sweat. I lick them clean.
“Love you, too.”
His eyes sparkle, despite his exhaustion.
He rolls our bodies over so that I’m laying on top of him. He’s still inside of me, and I have no inclination to change that.
“We didn’t use a condom,” he says after a few moments of us just watching one another.
“I know.”
It’s the first time we haven’t used a condom.
“I have an IUD,” I remind him.
Something shifts in his eyes, but he nods in understanding. We’ve already discussed health questions. We’ve both been tested and are free of STIs. I’m not ready to touch the other conversation.
We’re not ready to talk about babies.
Max pecks my lips and then runs his hand down the length of my back, over my ass, squeezing it.
“How was dinner?”