Sometime in the middle of the night, we’d gotten up and showered; Max’s cum streaked across my breasts and belly at that point. I’d gone down on him in the shower, getting him hard and ready again, and he’d fucked me against the wall and then on the bathroom counter, finally finishing in my mouth as I knelt on the bedroom floor and swallowed his cum. He’d groaned with a sound that I knew I’d never stop hearing. His hand fisted in my hair as his cock throbbed and pulsed between my lips, and I’d wanted to keep going forever.
He’d beenvery, very careful not to come inside of me again, and I hadn’t had to ask why. He knows as well as I do that there’s a risk, no matter what, if we’re not using protection. Still, there’s not a single condom to be had in the house. I know very well that Max isn’t willing to take the step of asking security to bring some, an act that would be tantamount to admitting that he’s forsaking his vow of chastity, rather than waiting for his walls to be broken down again and again when he can’t resist the temptation any longer.
I’m not sure either of us could bear to make the switch, either, after feeling the heated pleasure of bare skin, Max filling me without anything between us.
Besides, it doesn’t matter,I think as I lie there, Max curled against my side as I look up at the ceiling. I won’t spend another night in this bed, or him in mine, most likely. This won’t happen again–or if it does, it will come after weeks of torment and pushing and pulling and Max doing his best to resist.
And I have to stop trying to supplant that.
Max’s arm is slung over my waist, holding me close to him as I sleep, and I have to look around the room, taking in all the small details to keep the tears filling my eyes from spilling over. I look at the shining wood floor covered in expensive rugs, the bare fireplace along the far wall, the intricately carved four-poster bed we’re lying in, and the soft light blue duvet covering us. I take in as much as I can, trying to think about anything but the inevitable moment when Max wakes up and the dream of last night ends.
I love you,I think as I look at him, resisting the urge to touch him, to run my fingers through his hair. Any touch might wake him up, and I don’t want that. I want to lay like this as long as possible, with his warmth sinking into my skin, imagining that this could be every morning instead of just this one.
All too soon, he stirs next to me, his eyes opening slowly, bright hazel in the glow of the morning light. In all of my fantasies, this would be the moment when he rolls over atop me, kissing me slowly, his morning-hard cock slipping into me, filling me up sweet and slow.
But that’s impossible, and I know it. Our conversation last night has been coming back to me in gut-wrenching bits and pieces since I woke up, and I’m determined to be the one to say something this morning, and not Max.
Which is why when he opens his mouth to speak, I push myself up, dislodging him a little as I speak first.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly, tugging the sheet up over my bare breasts and crossing my arms over it. “I pushed last night, even though I know I should have walked away. I did the things that I knew would make it impossible for you to turn me away. I know you well enough now to know those buttons, and I shouldn’t have–I feel like I manipulated you.”
My eyes burn with tears, but I stubbornly refuse to let them fall. I know Max was as much a part of last night as I was, that he could have said no as easily as I could have, thathe’dbeen the one who had come back and kissed me again after cleaning up the evidence of the first round–but I can’t help feeling that I’d played onhisfeelings, on his admission of what I did that made him feel so desperate with need.
“I know I crossed a line again,” I say softly. “I just wanted to stop you from hurting yourself–I hadn’t meant for us to sleep together again. I wanted it–but I didn’t mean for it to go in that direction. But once we started–”
Another wave of memory from last night comes back to me, of my fingers brushing against the welts on Max’s back as he’d thrust into me, his flinch of pain, and the way I’d kissed him then, trying to swallow his pain. When I’d knelt in front of him after the shower and swallowed something else, I’d kissed the welts on his sides and hips after, my hands stroking down his thighs.
I would have done anything to make him stop hurting.
“I’ve been pushing you, teasing you, even when I don’t mean to–and I know I need to make an effort to step back. I–” I suck in a breath, looking into Max’s deep hazel eyes, filled with an emotion I can’t quite read. “I love you, Max. Nothing about that has changed. But I love your friendship, too–I love having you in my life. And I realized this morning that maybe loving you means accepting that we can’t be together. I haven’t been listening to what you’re saying to me–and that’s not how you love someone.”
Silence hangs between us, thick and heavy, and a strange expression crosses Max’s face.
“I appreciate that,” he says finally, but something in the words sounds more hollow than I’d expected. I tell myself not to read into it as he sits up, the sheets pooling around his lean hips, and I force myself not to look down, not to stare at his muscled chest or the faint marks of my lips on his throat and my nails on his shoulders, the ridge under the sheets that tells me he’s at least half-hard from just having woken up.
Max runs a hand through his hair, breathing in deeply, as if he’s trying to center himself. “How are you feeling?” he asks abruptly, glancing at me. “Physically, I mean. Not that I’m not worried about how you’re feeling emotionally, but–”
“Sore,” I admit with a blush. “A little sore. But otherwise–fine. I think I’ve bounced back from being sick, if that’s what you’re asking.”
He nods. “It was. So–what do you think of breakfast and that horseback ride that I promised you?”
My breath catches in my throat at the idea of another whole day with Max, another day spent in the same happiness and laughter and fun that we always share when we’re together.This is why you said that to him,I remind myself.This is why you put a stop to it, this time, before he could say anything about how he’s fucked up again. So that you don’t lose everything.
“That sounds fun,” I say softly, smiling at him, and Max returns it, but there’s a tension in his face that I can read, even if I don’t think he means for me to. “Let’s do it.”
“Breakfast first,” Max says, reaching for my dress and handing it to me. “I’ll meet you downstairs in fifteen minutes or so.”
He turns his back to me, and that’s when it really sinks in–when it really hits me what I’ve done, thatthispart of our relationship has come to a shuddering stop again.He would have said it if you didn’t,I tell myself, but that doesn’t make it hurt less that I know Max is looking away so that he won’t see me naked, that he’s asking me to leave so that he can get dressed.
If we were a normal couple, that wouldn’t matter. But we aren’t, so it does.
“I’ll see you downstairs,” I say, as brightly as I can manage, throwing my sundress on and escaping to the stairs to head up to my own room.
I dress for horseback riding–jeans, a loose cotton t-shirt, and boots, pulling my hair up in a high ponytail–and try not to think about Max the next floor down, naked in his room, or wonder if he’s thinking the same thing about me.
It occurs to me, suddenly, that one day I might meet someone else. As far-fetched as that seems now, and as impossible as it seems that I could ever want or love anyone who isn’t Maximilian Agosti, the truth is that one day I very well could meet someone who, at the very least, makes me feel safe and happy enough to have the partnership and family I dream of.
How will I be friends with Max then?