Chapter 57
Chapter Fifty-Seven
WAKING UP NEXT TO MAX
Celeste
My skull feels like it's been split open with a hatchet.
Sunlight stabs through the window, turning everything into a weapon against my senses.
Christ, even my hair follicles are screaming.
Last night's a blur after my sixth whiskey at Old Joe's.
Did I really take an Uber to Elody's place? I remember swiping her wallet while she was busy threatening to destroy Michael while she looked out the other window, not paying attention, and then memorizing the address. I’d been saving that information for some future confrontation.
Apparently, drunk-me decided last night was the night.
I freeze. There's someone beside me. Male. All I can see is dark hair against the pillow and bare shoulders tapering to a muscled back. The sheet barely covers his—I peek under—black boxer-briefs. For one impossible second, he reminds me of Max. But that's ridiculous. I must still be dreaming.
He turns to me with that lazy smile I've memorized, and for a moment I'm convinced I'm dreaming. He can't actually be here.
"Hey," he says, his voice barely above a whisper. "How are you feeling?"
Nope. Not dreaming. I shake my head, unable to form words as my chest constricts. The math is simple and brutal: if Max comes back to me, Elody releases that photo of Michael, and everything implodes.
"Um, good," I manage, pulse thundering so loudly I'm sure he can hear it. The familiar green of his eyes pulls at something deep inside me.
Michael. God, I've ghosted him too. And Mom. Three plus weeks of barely answering texts, screening calls. If Max and Michael have connected somehow... does that change things? No, Elody wouldn't hesitate to burn everything down—Max included—just to hurt me.
Unless... she actually cares about Max's feelings? She did keep our arrangement secret to protect him from humiliation. Maybe Max is her blind spot, the one and only person she cares about besides herself?
I catch myself. This desperate search for loopholes is pathetic.
His fingers brush my hair from my face—that tender gesture that always undid me—and those green eyes hold mine.
Everything in me wants to beg him to stay forever, but I can't. The equation remains unsolvable: Max plus me equals Michael's destruction.
I can't. If Max leaves Elody for me, she'll destroy his father. The price is too high. It just is.
He smiles as his fingers thread through my hair, his thumb grazing my cheekbone with an electricity that makes my skin burn.
His eyes bore into mine with such naked longing I have to tear my gaze away before I drown in them.
My chest constricts—sending him away again will shatter me into a thousand pieces, but I have no choice.
"You sure you're good?" he asks, voice husky. "Because you look—"
"Rode hard and put away wet?" I ask with a trembling smile.
"Your words." He laughs, the sound vibrating through me.
"Christ, last night was something else. You practically fell out of that Uber, screaming bloody murder. You were jabbing at Elody’s gate keypad like you were trying to punch through it, screaming something about telling the world about what a bitch she is.
Then you stood there, swaying in the wind, looking betrayed when the Uber vanished.
" He grips my chin, tilting my face up. "My Celeste. Gloriously unhinged."
I shake my head. The love of my life is in bed with me right now, and I should be ecstatic, but instead my skull is splitting open with panic about Michael while my stomach churns acid because of last night’s bender.
I'd give anything to surrender to this moment.
Max's fingers trace fire across my scalp, down my cheek, and his eyes—Christ, those eyes—burn into me with such raw devotion I have to look away before I combust.
"Um," I choke out. "What do you mean, upset when the Uber left? That's ridiculous. Ubers leave. That's literally their job—they drop you off and disappear. You can't just—" I'm babbling, desperate to fill the space between us with anything, words, noise, static, before he—
Too late. His mouth crashes against mine and everything explodes.
The hunger in his kiss devours me whole.
My body betrays me instantly, every nerve ending screaming his name as electricity arcs between us.
Six weeks of wanting him has built to this nuclear reaction.
My fingers dig into his shoulders, drawing blood.
I can't breathe. Don't want to. God, I love him until it hurts.
Until it tears me apart. And what would be so wrong if I just let him...
His hands claim me, possessing every inch they touch.
I'm down to just a tank top and underwear—my jeans, t-shirt, and Mickey Mouse socks from last night vanished sometime while I was drunk and passed out, I know not how.
The heat between us is unbearable, scorching through the thin cotton separating our bodies.
Max lays next to me me in nothing but boxer briefs, the outline of his arousal impossible to ignore.
My body aches for him with a desperation that makes me dizzy.
I need him inside me, stretching me, filling the emptiness that's consuming me from within.
When his fingers slide beneath the elastic and find my clit, I arch violently off the bed.
My vision blurs as he works against my flesh, each stroke sending electric shocks up my spine until I'm gasping, clawing at his shoulders, drowning in sensation.
My body ignites under his touch—electric, relentless.
His mouth claims my breasts before descending, a scorching trail down my stomach.
When his tongue finds my clit, I fracture instantly, his name torn from my throat as pleasure detonates through every nerve.
I'm still convulsing when he devours me with savage hunger, like a man rescued from starvation who's discovered a feast he might never taste again.
The pleasure builds impossibly higher, crashing through me in violent waves that leave me gasping, begging.
His fingers stretch me open, reaching places that make my vision blur.
I scream so violently I feel something primal break loose inside me, the sound reverberating through the house like thunder.
His tongue blazes a trail up my stomach, leaving me gasping.
When his mouth claims my breasts again, I arch against him, desperate for more.
Then he drives into me with such force I cry out—not from pain but from a pleasure so intense it borders on unbearable.
His kiss devours me completely as he moves with relentless rhythm, each thrust deeper than the last, until the world fractures into blinding white light and I'm falling, drowning, burning alive all at once.
God, I never want this to end. My entire body is electrified, dissolving at his touch, as he drives into me with a force that steals the air from my lungs.
I'm drowning in him. Our mouths crash together, desperate and hungry, as my spine bows against the sheets, fingernails digging half-moons into his shoulders.
The world narrows to this bed, this moment, this man.
Then his voice, raw and broken with need, scrapes against my ear: "Celeste, I love you.
I'm in love with you." The words brand themselves onto my soul.
The words are an incision—irrevocable, stunning in their vulnerability.
I feel them cut through me, burning away every layer of disbelief and defense.
For one terrifying, beautiful moment, I cannot breathe.
Then I whisper the three words I never thought I'd say to him. "I love you too."