I’d be fine.
But for our last weekend together, I would be greedy. I wanted him all to myself, no distractions. I wanted more than just a few stolen hours in the dark—I wanted his days and his nights, his full attention, a taste of what it would be like to belong to him, to call him mine. I would gorge on him and on us until I was fully and utterly gratified.
Then I’d be able to let him go.
Like all my plans where Maxim was concerned, the get-my-fill vacation was not working.
“I never want to leave this place.” He looked out at the ocean from where we sat on the restaurant patio Saturday night. “The water, the warmth, the palm trees. It’s paradise.”
Maybe it was, but I couldn’t take my eyes off him. His skin burnished from the sun, his hair neatly styled but tousled by the breeze, the white dress shirt cuffed to show off strong wrists and beautiful hands. God, those hands and what they did to me. The way they moved over my body like molten gold, slow and sensuous and fiery hot. They could be gentle or rough, kind or cruel, tender or savage. They could tease and torture, stroke and sheath, bring me to my knees or send me soaring above clouds. I loved and hated their power over me. Last night I’d bound them with a belt, as if rendering them useless would lessen their effect, but somehow the sight of them restrained by the leather strap had only heightened it. Tonight he wore a watch with a leather band, and every time I looked at it, my pulse quickened. But I tried not to look because I hated thinking about time—it was moving too quickly. Every hour that elapsed brought us closer to Monday. Every minute that passed made it more difficult to keep my feelings buried. They were rising toward the surface like tar seeps from the ocean floor, thick and dark and threatening.
“Derek?”
I raised my eyes to his and realized he’d asked me a question I’d been too distracted to answer. “What?”
He smiled, and my pulse quickened. “Don’t you think it’s paradise?”
“Yes.” I picked up my wine glass and took a big drink.
“What was your favorite part?”
“Hmmm.” Walking into this room with you, because you were brave and reached for my hand and didn’t let go until we reached our table. It was the way I should have felt walking in somewhere with Carolyn…proud, grateful, happy. It was also the most openly affectionate we’d been all weekend, and I’d loved it—but this was a room full of strangers. Would I have felt the same in a room full of friends?
The answer was no, and I hated myself for it.
“I can’t choose,” I said.
The last twenty-four hours had been perfect. We hadn’t left each other’s sides once. We’d lain on the beach sharing stories about our childhoods. We’d gotten tipsy on overpriced drinks at the pool, laughing at my attempts to say things in Russian and his insane superstitions. We’d come back to the room, sunburned and sandy and half-drunk on mojitos and each other, falling into bed almost immediately. His skin had tasted like sun and ocean and salt and rum and everything warm and youthful and carefree. Afterward, we’d fallen asleep, wrapped in each other’s arms, and I’d prayed for time to stop and let us be like that forever—lost in our own little beach-flavored world where we belonged only to one another. Answered only to one another. Loved one another without shame.
“How’s your steak?” he asked.
“Good.” I put another bite in my mouth, barely tasting it.
“Mine, too. Although my favorite steak will always be the one you cooked for me the night we met.”
I returned his smile without feeling it.
“I remember sitting across from you and feeling like I wanted to stay up all night talking.”
I picked up my wine again.
“Derek.” Maxim’s tone was hesitant. “Is something wrong?”
Yes. I think I’m in love with you. “No.”
“You seem…a little quiet.”
Because I’m afraid if I start talking, I won’t stop. “Oh.”
He took a breath, moved some potatoes around on his plate. “I was wondering…”
Oh fuck.
“What Ellen said when you told her we were taking a trip together.”
My thighs unclenched. “Nothing much. She was envious but glad.”
“Oh.” He poked at his green beans. “She didn’t think it was odd, the two of us going away for the weekend?”
“Not that I noticed. I…I told her I had to look at some property over here and figured I’d take you along since you really wanted to see the ocean.”
“Ah. I see.” He looked a little downhearted about the lie. “Well, that’s good.”
Don’t do that, Maxim. Don’t be sad that we can’t be together. Don’t show me or tell me you care. I can’t handle it.
We finished dinner and dessert in relative silence, and went back to our room. As always, Maxim went right onto the balcony, as if the ocean drew him by some physical force. I followed, and we stood at the railing next to each other in the dark, listening to the crash of the waves and breathing the balmy night air.
“You let me hold your hand.” His words startled me.
“What?” I looked at him, but he kept his eyes on the water.
“Tonight. Walking through the restaurant. You let me hold your hand.”
I swallowed hard. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because…” I looked out over the ocean again, boundless and deep, and felt myself drowning. “Because I wanted to know what it would be like to be yours. To belong to you.”
It took him a moment to respond. “And what was it like?”
I closed my eyes, sinking fast. “Heaven. It was like heaven.”
“Derek, I—”
But I didn’t let him finish. I couldn’t. Instead I pulled him to me and crushed my mouth to his, clinging to him as if he could save me from the bottomless depths of my feelings. Somehow we made it into the room, where we pulled and shoved at clothing with fumbling hands, reluctant to break the kiss.
We fell upon the bed, twisted up in each other that way I loved, that made me feel so close to him, so completely understood. I wanted every part of him, wanted to climb inside his mind, get lost beneath his skin, reside in the hidden spaces between muscle and bone. And I wanted him inside me, wanted him to fill my body with his own, wanted to surrender to him in a way I’d never done before.
I groped blindly for the lube on the nightstand behind me, and he leaned over me to grab it. “Here,” he said, breathing hard as he handed it to me.
I gave it back. “No—you this time.”
He paused. “You want that?”
“Yes,” I said, reaching between us to take his cock in my hand. Fuck. He was big and thick and hard, and it was going to hurt. But I wanted it to. I wanted to suffer for him. My pain would be an unspoken gift, something honest I could offer up to him in place of the truths I couldn’t utter, the promises I couldn’t bring myself to make. “Please.”
He kissed me hard, turning me onto my back, pinning me beneath him. His voice was low in my ear. “I want to make this so good for you.”