When I finally unstuck myself from the spot on the floor where I seemed to be glued, staring after him in tingly disbelief, I went and took a shower. I stood under the warm water, staring at the tiled wall. I kept forgetting that I was in there to get clean. I went over and over what had happened in minute detail, reliving it obsessively. Max had come back for Sadie’s toy. I’d turned around quickly and bumped into his chest. A solid wall of muscle that felt like a literal brick wall. Startled, I’d almost stepped back. But Max had grabbed my arms. Maybe to steady me, maybe to keep me from pulling away. Then he’d kissed me, or I’d kissed him, but technically, he started it by gripping my arms and hauling me against him. That was a pretty clear want-you-now signal. Even a workaholic who was rusty at flirting could recognize that much.
In the shower, I couldn’t get him off my mind. Specifically, my body throbbed for him, a yearning and emptiness howling for satisfaction. I was rubbing foamy body wash across my skin with my mesh sponge when I noticed my nipples were super sensitive. I couldn’t resist stroking them, plucking at them while I let my mind drift back to Max and how it felt to have his mouth on mine. The plain truth of it was that I’d been thrilled. So happy that he clearly felt the same attraction for me, that he wanted me as fiercely as he kissed.
So I couldn’t really blame myself for sliding slick, soapy hands over my eager nipples and letting one hand trail down the curve of my stomach and nestle between my thighs. My soft strokes gave way to a full-blown fantasy.
Max knocks at my door, his hair messed up from raking his hands through it. “I couldn’t stay away,” he says, anguished. Then he reaches for me, pulls me into his arms right on my doorstep and kisses me, nearly bending me backward with the force of his passion. I invite him in, blushing, happy. I mean to say something nonchalant, offer him a drink, but we’re all over each other before I can get my thoughts together.
Wild, breathless kisses consume my senses as he backs me toward my bedroom. He strips my clothes off, and he’s between my legs, the rasp of that beard tantalizing my most sensitive parts. His hot, wet mouth is such a contrast to the luscious scrape of his beard as he licks and kisses me there, sucking my tender folds, lapping at them until he settles his mouth to the knot of nerves that seems to glow with furious arousal. The pressure and heat of his lips and tongue there send me spiraling into orgasm.
As Max surges up onto the bed above me, I don’t have time to catch my breath before he’s entering me, the penetration of his long, impressive erection making me shiver with want and nervousness. I haven’t had a man in so long, and never one so well-endowed. It’s intimidating and thrilling all at once. As soon as he thrusts inside me, my head goes back with a cry, fingers twisting in the sheets beneath me.
Overwhelmed, I grabbed the showerhead off its hook and turned it to pulsate. I parted my quivering thighs and used the force of the pulsating water on my aching clit to take me over the edge, my head tipped back against the shower wall, hot water streaming down me as I masturbated wantonly, fantasizing graphic sex acts with my boss. I moaned as I came, called out Max! Yes, Max!
When my heart stopped thundering so hard, I turned off the water, rehung the showerhead and toweled off. I refused to be ashamed of healthy sexual impulses, and Max had done nothing if not provoked those impulses to the very edge of human tolerance with that kiss. That kiss that set me aflame and sent me to apply my massaging showerhead to the part of my body that wanted him so desperately. Even though I’d come thoroughly, I was still dissatisfied. I didn’t want my hand and a stream of water. I wanted Max. His hands, his voice, his mouth, his cock. Most of all though, I knew I wanted his whole heart.
14
Max
A grown man, a business owner and parent, does not hide from his hired help. I wasn’t hiding from Rachel. I’m a goddamn lumberjack. I carved a new life for myself and my child from the wilderness of my land at the foot of the mountains, felled trees, built furniture with my bare hands. I was a man’s man, smart and capable, living off the land, in touch with the elements, master of all I surveyed. I didn’t hide. I just avoided her. Like any sensible man would do after violating his personal ethics and making out with the nanny. How the mighty had fallen—I’d become a sitcom cliché. In a moment of weakness, I’d succumbed to the attraction between us and regretted it.
I dodged out of the house as soon as I’d kissed Sadie goodbye in the mornings, and I took over from Rachel with barely a word in the evenings. “I’m sure Rachel
