Max gave her a pained smile. “You have no idea, do you? I thought you were the most incredible girl I’d ever met.”
“As if.”
“I mean it. You don’t know what it was like walking into that shitty lunchroom and seeing you standing there.”
Julia wanted to kill every single butterfly in her stomach. With a fork. “Do you think I’m an idiot?” she demanded. “I know good cop/bad cop when I see it. What’s next? You gonna pull out a phone book and belt me on the head with it?”
“That’s not what I’m doing!”
“Oh yeah? One minute you’re a dick, the next it’s all ‘Oh, Julia you’re so beautiful, tell me all your secrets’.”
Max snorted derisively.
“Laugh all you want. Iknowyou’re employing police interrogation techniques against me. And don’t even try to pull the whole ‘I’m not acting weird,you’reacting weird’ thing.”
“I just thought we should talk before things get out of hand.”
Julia’s adrenaline surged. “Before things get out of hand? You mean like before we get trapped on police property, drink a bunch of evidence and screw each other?”
Max’s expression darkened. “That’s not—”
“Let me ask you something. If you thought I was so damn amazing, whydidyou abandon me in a parking lot?”
Max’s chin rose. “You haven’t answered my questions. I don’t see why I should answer yours.”
“Classic backtracking.”
“How about you admit what happened between us was more than getting to third base against a tree?”
Julia stood up so fast her chair clattered to the ground. “I don’t have to admit jack.”
“Julia…”
“I’m serious. This weird inquest into my sex life is over. Have your man-pout somewhere else.”
Max stood as well. He was still shirtless and Julia felt an unwitting thrill spiral through her at the sight of all those hard slabs of muscle. He shouldn’t be allowed to question women without some kind of body armour.
“Julia. Sit down.” He was using the same stern voice that had reduced her to a quivering wreck the night before, another unfair advantage. She did what she’d always done when people intimidated her. She stuck out her tongue and flipped Max off for good measure.
Max growled angrily. “You are the most frustrating woman I’ve ever met.”
“Andyouthink because you’ve got a dick the size of Queensland you can act like atotal nutcaseand expect me to go along with it. Well, think again. I don’t know what Bonnie’s view on unlawful interrogation was, but it won’t work on me.”
Max’s lip curled. “You want me to show you what works on you?”
“You mean you might actually want to screw? Without me having to seduce you to within an inch of my pussy? Congratulations.” She applauded sarcastically.
“I know what you’re doing,” Max snarled. “You’re trying to distract me and it’s not going to work.”
Julia pulled her T-shirt over her head. “Is it getting hot in here?”
Max’s eyes became slits. “Put that back on.”
“No. And for the record, when we first hooked up, you weren’t nearly this much of a gutless wanke—”
Julia wasn’tquitesure how it happened but suddenly she and Max were locked together, kissing and panting and biting like a pair of wild dogs.
“You are gonna get it now, sweetheart,” Max grunted, seizing her nipples and massaging them roughly.