He pulls me down for a kiss then pulls back to study my face. “Just promise that if you leave today, you’re not going to freak out while you’re gone and second guess us.”
“I can promise I’ll try not to.” I give him a soft kiss and hope there are no freak-outs in my future, considering I’m an official member of the Love Cult. Right now I could write volumes of poetry about the tenderness of his eyes, the luscious curl of his lips, and the masculine perfection of his body. I’m so full of love for him, Eden from a month ago is in an alternate timeline rolling her eyes so hard, she glimpses brain.
As for Max, he just breathes deeply and stares at me, serene and vindicated. As usual, he can tell what I’m thinking, and he’s patting himself on the back for turning the hardened cynic into a lovesick fool.
“You hate how much you’re feeling for me, don’t you?” he asks, his smile spreading.
“God, so much! It was just never in my life plan to feel like this.”
“Same.” He traces his fingers around my face. “You disrupted my entire world, Eden Tate. I’m used to being the one in control. The one people fall in love with. I’m not supposed to fall in love.”
“Still, you must feel good that I fell for your antics hook, line, and sinker.”
He watches his hand as he runs it down my neck and onto my chest. “I didn’t have any antics with you, but I did go above and beyond what I’d usually do on dates. Everything was more real with you.”
“Because you were trying to kill the story?”
He frowns a little. “In part. I needed you to understand what I do and why I do it so you’d stop thinking I was an asshole, but more than that, I wanted you to see me. Know me. Do you think I can write a song for just anyone? Only for you, and only as Caleb.
I run my fingers through his hair, and when I graze my fingernails across his scalp, he hums his approval. “You couldn’t just be yourself?”
His smile falls. “No, because I’ve spent so many years trying to change the man I used to be, I had no clue who I was anymore.” He sits up, so now he’s the one looking down at me. “And yet, no matter what character I was playing, I always felt like a better person when I was with you. For so long I’ve felt like no one, and you made me feel like someone again. Someone who didn’t need to hide behind fake personalities to be a good man.”
He leans down and kisses me, and after several minutes of slow, passionate making out, things get way more heated than I have time for.
I push him off and laugh when he groans in disappointment.
“Eden, come on. I’m in pain, here.”
“Me, too. So you keep that giant dick in your pants until later, and by then Regina may have recovered enough to accommodate him again.”
He flips onto his back and covers himself with a pillow. “Damn, being this attracted to you is torture.”
I smile and climb out of bed. “Ditto.” I walk into the bathroom and turn on the shower. “So, want to meet up for dinner tonight? If we do, I’d like to go back to the hospital afterward. I feel guilty as hell I’ve had nearly a dozen orgasms instead of sitting by Nan’s side, but still ...” I glance out the door at him as I wait for the water to heat up. “We could hang out for a couple of hours.”
It’s ridiculous that after the amount of sex we’ve had, I still feel nervous asking him to dinner. My heart is hammering like I just invited the quarterback to prom.
He sits up and stares at me for a few seconds. The tiny silence that follows feels like a lifetime. My brain concocts dozens of reasons for his hesitation, and not one of them is good. Still, I hold my breath and wait for his reply.
“Eden, I’d love to, but tonight ... I’m working.”
“Oh. Working as in ...?”
“I have a date.”
My stomach turns to lead. “Right. But I thought you weren’t seeing clients while we were ... well ... whatever we’re doing.”
“I wasn’t, but I have bills that are past due. Plus, a few of my clients are having a hard time recently, and they could really use my support.”
I want to say that I’m sure none of their grandmothers is comatose, but that would be petty, not to mention unfair. He hasn’t worked for weeks because of me. I can’t begrudge him making a living, even if it does hurt to think of other women getting his affection.
“Of course. No problem at all.”
“We can see each other tomorrow night. I’ll take you to dinner.”
I smile. “Yeah, sure. Sounds great.”
“Eden ...”
I know he’s going to apologize, and I really don’t want him to. “Max, please don’t worry. I’m fine. You have bills to pay. I totally understand.”
I strip off before climbing into the shower. The water is too hot, but it feels good right now. I let it run over my skin as I try to release the tension in my muscles.
Realistically, I was prepared for this. I’ve always thought a relationship would contain some degree of disappointment and compromise. Max’s work is important to him, and rightly so, but that doesn’t make it easier to accept that if I go all-in with him, I’ll be a possibly unemployed journalist whose boyfriend services a large percentage of New York’s gorgeous socialites. I need to find a way to be okay with that.
When I turn around to wet my hair, I jump when I see a shadow on the other side of the shower curtain. I pull it aside to see Max there wearing a troubled expression.
“Dates are just work,” he says. “They don’t change how I feel about you.” He steps closer. “With everything coming out in the article, I don’t know how long this ride is going to last, and I need the money. I’m a college dropout buried under massive debt. I’m never going to be able to earn this much doing something else.”
“I know. And I don’t want you to quit. You’re amazing at what you do, and those ladies need you.”
“But it bothers you, doesn’t it?”
I turn off the water. When he hands me a towel, I step out and wrap it around me. “Max, if the thought of you romancing and kissing other women didn’t drive me insane with jealousy, then you should be concerned about the depth of my feelings.” I stretch up to kiss him. “Listen, I knew what you did for a living and fell in love with you anyway. I’ll figure out a way to deal with it, okay?”
He stares at me, unblinking for a full three seconds, and I wonder if I’ve just committed some sort of relationship taboo I wasn’t aware of.
“Max? Are you okay?”
He swallows and nods, and I see the muscles in his jaw working overtime. “Yeah, you just ...” He looks like he’s struggling to keep himself together. “You just told me you love me for the first time, and I thought I was prepared for it, but it turns out I’m really not.”
He pulls me into his arms and buries his face in my neck. “Say it again.”