Max picked her up and pressed his nose into the crook of her neck. “Oh we’re going straight to titles.”
Julia laughed, hooking her legs around his hips and hugging him with her whole body. She was his, Max realized. His to take to dinner and buy flowers for and ask about her day. His to hold at night and kiss in the morning. Julia Bennett was his girlfriend. The thought made him dizzy.
“Want to go back to my house and talk about this?” Julia murmured against his neck. “Or maybe not talk at all?”
Though deeply tempted, Max shook his head. “I want to go back inside, drink bad wine, eat cheap steak and talk to everyone we work with.”
Julia’s eyebrows contracted. “You want to go back inside where all the people are? We haven’t even gone on a date yet. I’ll forgive you for not wanting the people to know about us right away.”
“Fuck the people,” Max said joyfully. “Fuck every last person who doesn’t think I’m the luckiest man alive to be with you.”
Julia’s smile was radiant.
“Then, when it’s late and everyone’s drunk and sloppy, I’m taking you back to my place, which has no packs of unregistered dogs, and screwing your brains out in my bed. How’s that sound?”
Julia blushed. “Pretty amazing.”
“Come on.” He tucked her arm under his. “Let’s give our colleagues something to talk about.”
As first dates went, theirs was pretty strange. For one thing, his boss was there, for another so was Henrietta. She kept shooting him covert looks, as though replaying his property office sex show over and over again in her mind. The vegetables were overcooked, the beef was undercooked, the wine was full of sediment and almost everyone stared at them, but Max couldn’t care less. Julia was happy, so he was happy. It was just like Bonnie said; having her next to him outweighed everything else. He’d been single for a year and everyone knew it. It was time to move on. He and Julia talked all through their abysmal meal, occasionally being drawn into the conversations around the table. When there was a brief interlude between courses Max took Julia’s hand and led her to the dancefloor, where they waltzed with slow, swaying steps with all the other couples.
“You’re so good at this,” Julia whispered in his ear. “All these charming, handsome-guy things.”
Max wondered if meth made people feel so goddamn high. If it did, he had a newfound respect for people who kicked the habit. They sat down for dessert and Max swapped his mousse for Julia’s orange cake, refusing to swap back even when he found a long red hair in his portion. The last course was dragging by and he grew impatient to leave. The pale silk of Julia’s dress clung to her breasts, reminding him he hadn’t sucked on her nipples for a week. That would be the first thing he did when he got her home; lap on those sensitive tips until they were red and swollen and she was writhing against his—
“Are you sure you don’t want some mousse?” Julia asked. “I feel bad about your hair-cake.”
“Nope, you can give me something else later.” He let his hand wander along her thigh, feeling the creamy skin beneath the silk. “What underwear have you got on?”
She licked her dessert spoon slowly. “None.”
Max dropped his fork. “We’re leaving.”
“Oh, are we?”
He kissed her cheek, hoping the gesture looked affectionate rather than what it was. Hungry. Domineering. “We are.”
Julia smiled guiltily. “Just let me go outside and call my sister. I need to tell her not to come pick me up.”
“I’ll come with you.”
They said goodbye to their inebriated colleagues, smirking at their good-natured ribbing, and walked outside. Julia ducked off to call Ashley and he rang Dean, informing him he needed to get his ass out of the house because he wasn’t having his first night in a bed with Julia ruined by a child-man watching movies in the other room.
Dean whooped loudly and threatened to stay and give him pointers until Max reminded him about the bed frame he’d ruined doing God-knows-what and he conceded to piss off.
Max was debating whether to snap off one of the nearby roses to give to Julia when she reappeared. “Everything’s fine with my sister. I think Ash was secretly rooting for you.”
“That’s a relief. It didn’t seem that way when she was threatening to have me torn apart by your dogs.”
“Have you seen our dogs? That was an empty threat. Although she did ask if you’d taken the ring off.”
Max pulled Julia into his arms. “Did you tell her I have?”
“I did.” Julia tilted her head up, her lips all but begging for a kiss. Max conceded and instantly his cock swelled against his fly. He groaned. “Baby, we really need to get out of here. Trust me, you can’t hide anything in these pants.”
“Fine, you clit tease.”
He growled as they both climbed into the car. He watched Julia pull her seat belt over her chest and was reminded irresistibly of restraints. Would Julia want to be tied down tonight? He could bring her to the brink and watch her thrash against the ropes, begging him for release…