“What if I keep doing this until you agree to talk?” Max mumbled around her finger.
“Then you would be wasting your time.”
“Oh yeah?”
Julia gently tugged her finger from his mouth. “Please, dude. I’m dirty and hungry and the only good thing I have in my life right now is sex. All the stuff about ourpastand how we feel…can we just forget that for now? Embrace this imprisonment for the incredibly shitty holiday it is?”
Max was silent for a moment. “Okay, we can have a really shitty holiday together.”
Julia tried to ignore the warm, buttery feeling in her chest.
“Although youwillhave to take your top off,” he said, making an apologetic face. “I’m sorry, but that’s just the rules.”
“Whose rules?”
“King Max’s rules. I’ve declared myself the supreme leader of this room.”
“Oh yeah?”
“’Fraid so.” He tugged the bottom of his T-shirt. “Come on, get ’em out or your emperor will…raise taxes.”
“You’re an emperor now? That was fast,” Julia said, pulling the top over her head.
Max leered at her tits. “Your emperor is pleased.”
“Yeah, well, be careful. Word among the peasants is there’s going to be an uprising.”
Max cupped her left breast, stroking softly. “I’ll take my chances. God, your body’s perfect. I mean I’m a leg guy and you’ve got fucking amazing pins but your tits are amazing too. It just doesn’t seem fair. I haven’t been this wound up since I was fifteen.”
Julia blushed. “Thanks. You’re really…Thanks.”
“Not huge on compliments?”
“Just kind of shy.” She avoided his gaze. “You know I might not have time to start an uprising? We won’t be in here for much longer, just tonight and tomorrow and tomorrow night.”
“When you say it like that it sounds like fucking eternity.” Max circled a hand over her belly button. “What are you going to do first when we get out of here?”
“Have a bath. What about you?”
“I’m torn between drinking, showering, and pizza.”
“You’re such aguyyou might as well have said ‘scratching my balls and getting my prostate examined’.”
Max laughed and kissed the tip of her nose. “Is it weird that I find the gross things you say endearing?”
“Probably. Wait, I’m notgross.”
“No. But you are different.”
Julia narrowed her eyes. “Are you calling me a hipster again? Because Iwillstrangle you with a pair of high-waisted cords.”
“No, Ms. Paranoid, I’m not calling you a hipster—”
“Good.”
“I’m saying I’ve never met anyone like you. You’re…different.”
She pondered the open-ended statement. “Different like those tigers with blue eyes? Or different like people who dress up like stuffed animals and have orgies?”