He steps closer and wraps his fingers around mine. “Eden ... I’m sorry.”
I give him a faltering smile. “Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I’m still sorry it happened to you.”
I look down at my purse and fiddle with the line of pearls around the edge. “Even after he left us all high and dry, Mom never stopped believing he just needed time to ‘find himself’ or whatever. Sometimes when he needed money, he’d come back for a few days. He’d bring flowers and chocolates and tell Mom he loved her, and she’d take him back every time.”
I look at Max with a bitter smile. “He was a lying sack of shit. Why the hell would she do that?”
He nods like he understands only too well. “Sometimes, people stick with what they know, even if all they’ve known is misery.”
“The thing I’ll never understand is, even while Mom worked herself to the bone supporting two kids by herself, she never allowed us to say a bad word against him.” I shake my head. “I vowed I’d never be like her. In so many ways she was a strong woman, but when it came to my father, she was weak. He made her weak. That’s not going to happen to me.”
I see understanding in his eyes, and his posture falls, as if he’s discovered the hill he thought he’d been climbing with me is actually a mountain.
“Maybe that’s why you scare me,” I say. “In a lot of ways, you remind me of him. He was handsome like you. He had green eyes like you. He had a way of melting women with a glance like you.”
He cups my face and urges me to look into his eyes. “There’s one important difference between him and me.”
“Which is?”
“I have no idea how he treated you like you were invisible. When I’m with you, you’re all I see.”
He stares at me for a second before stepping forward and pressing his lips to my forehead. “You should get some rest. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
He gets one step away before I grab his hand to stop him. When he turns back with a perplexed expression, I step forward and stand on my toes to press my lips against his. For the longest second in human history, we freeze, lips conducting enough shared energy to detonate a supernova. I move first, releasing his lips and then moving in again. I press against his warmth, tasting his top lip and then the bottom. He doesn’t move and is still standing rigid when I pull back to see his face.
“Max?”
He stares at me, his jaw tight. “I promised you I wouldn’t.”
I grab his shirtfront and pull him forward. “For the love of God, Max ... I give you permission to kiss me.”
With those words, it’s like I’ve released a lion from its cage. He grabs my face with both hands and presses me back into the wall as he takes my lips. I groan and open my mouth to him, and I’ve never felt the kind of hunger that consumes me as his taste filters through all my senses. When his tongue slides softly against mine, it unleashes more sensation than I know how to handle. I drop my purse and grasp at him, all the areas I can reach; his arms and shoulders, the curve of his butt, his chest, the back of his neck. Every part of him feels incredible, and it all makes me ache for more.
When I slide my fingers into his hair and pull, he makes an animalistic sound before reaching around to grab my butt with both hands and pressing me tightly against him.
“God, Max …” He’s rock hard, and knowing it’s me who’s done that to him only makes me kiss him more passionately.
He moans against my tongue, his hands angling me exactly where he wants me as the unbelievable taste of him drives me insane. I grunt against the tidal wave of need that hits me. As crazy as my attraction to Max has been, nothing could prepare me for this feeling of pure insatiability. No matter how hard I try, there’s no way for me to get close enough, or kiss him deep enough, and the more I try, the dizzier I get.
I’ve never felt like this with any other man … nothing even remotely close to this. I’m not equipped to deal with it. The desperation is raw and relentless. He seems to feel it too because he grunts as he presses me against walls then pulls me away, only to push me to the opposite side, shoving me noisily against the dated wallpaper.
I knew kissing him would be something I could never come back from, and right now even my fear isn’t strong enough to ruin it. For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m wide awake and dreaming at the same time.
For long, hazy minutes we kiss each other like we’re afraid to stop. Like the world could come crashing down in a fiery apocalypse around us, and neither of us would notice.
In fact, neither of us does notice when Mrs. Levine from the apartment next door comes to see what all the commotion is about. It’s only when she clears her throat loudly that we pull back, both surprised by our elderly spectator.
“Eden,” Mrs. Levine says with a tight nod. She gives Max a long look up and down as he tidies himself up and runs his hand through his hair. “Man attached to Eden.”
I lean against the wall and try to calm the hell down as Max steps forward, who despite his best efforts, still looks the victim of an animal attack. His tie is half off, his shirt is untucked, and his hair is everywhere.
Still, he smiles at Mrs. Levine as if nothing has happened and holds out his hand. “Maxwell Riley, ma’am. Pleased to meet you.”
Mrs. Levine glares at him for two seconds before breaking into a toothless grin. Oh, man, I hate it when she doesn’t wear her dentures.
She puts her hand in his, and he gives it a gentle squeeze. Mrs. Levine bends sideways to look at me around his body. “Oh, Eden, he’s lovely.”
I smooth down my dress and give her an unsteady smile. He is lovely, but in the emotionally stunted world of Eden Tate, that doesn’t make all my trust issues pack up and leave. If anything, it makes them worse.
“Sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Levine,” I say with a wave. “It won’t happen again. Have a good night.”
She gives Max one more head-to-toe assessment before giggling under her breath and going back into her apartment.
Max turns back to me, looking as shell-shocked as I feel. Tonight, we’ve gone from romance, to arguing, to making out like demons in a public hallway, and those things combined with the fact I laid bare my pathetic childhood makes things become awkward again real fast.
After I open my apartment door and turn back to him, he steps forward, hesitantly. “Eden ... I –”
“I should go in. Goodnight, Max.” I can’t deal with any more emotional upheaval tonight, even if the concept of not kissing him again is physically painful.
For a moment, it looks as though he’s going to say something, but then he shoves his hands in his pockets and nods. “Goodnight, Eden.”
I close the door and then lean my head against the cool wood until his footsteps disappear down the hallway.