Max
I had to calm down. The fury running through me as we walked back from the chippy was making me a little insane. I knew I should be level-headed and gentle with Mia. The last thing she needed was an angry man on a rampage to kill her husband.
Husband.
Mia was married. The thought made me feel a little ill. I wished I could meet eighteen-year-old Mia, before that sadistic prick got his hands on her. Before she was ground down with gas-lighting and emotional abuse leading to actual violence. How could anyone hurt something so wonderful? What kind of monster wanted to take a bright teenager and grind them down into a shadow of themselves?
But I had this Mia with me now. Maybe she wasn’t as naïve and outgoing as she had been back then, but she hadn’t let him break her. She was strong, my Number Five. Strong and stubborn and funny and kind and beautiful, with an edge of insecurity and fear. But, given her strength, I knew she could fight her way through the latter two. She’d been coming out of herself more and more over the last few months. A wave of guilt hit me when I remembered what a judgemental, surly twat I’d been to her at first – she’d dealt with that when she didn’t even have a place to sleep, when she was still hurt. As we made our way into the house and I closed the door behind us a lump formed in my throat. For a moment it felt a little hard to breathe.
I stopped in the corridor and turned to Mia. Anger was battling with immense guilt and I couldn’t go any further without letting some of it out. What I was feeling must have reflected in my expression because Mia frowned as she looked up at me.
“Whoa. Max. Are you okay?”
“No,” I said in a tight voice. “No, I’m not okay, Mia. I’m very fucking far from okay, but that’s not your problem.”
“Wh-?”
“I am so sorry for how I treated you when you started working for me,” I told her and her frown deepened. “The only shitty, shitty excuse I have is that somewhere, deep down, I was drawn to you. Teddy’s mum had let him down for another visit and he was being the biggest shit in the world to me – testing me as it now turns out – and I was feeling like a bloody idiot for trusting Rebecca to come through. I didn’t want to be attracted to someone not much older than Teddy, or so I thought, someone who was hiding things. Someone I couldn’t trust. I’m afraid my trust had been broken so thoroughly by that stage that it changed me into someone I didn’t even recognise. I wish I could go back and have the curiosity and backbone to find out why you were so secretive. Maybe if I’d been a little less blind you wouldn’t have got sick. That’s on me. I accept the responsibility for that. If I’d come down from my high horse I would have seen how desperate you were.”
“Max, no. I–”
I moved into her space, facing her, took both of her hands in mine and leaned down to rest my forehead on hers.
“Let me take that, Mia,” I whispered. “Let me live with that guilt. It’s mine. I won’t have you letting me off the hook. I will never forgive myself for not helping you when I could.”
“You did help me, Max.” Mia reached up with her small hand to feel the stubble at my jaw. “That job saved my life. You saved my life when you found me that day. It’s not your fault I was in the situation I was in. It’s not even my fault – my counsellor has helped me see that. It’s his fault. I won’t let you take any of that blame, Max. I won’t.”
“Stubborn,” he muttered, pulling back a little to smile down at me. Max’s smiles close up were so magnetic, made his face so blindingly handsome, that I almost felt light headed. I blinked up at him for a couple of stunned seconds before going up on my tiptoes and pressing my lips to his. My body was on some sort of automatic pilot, driven by a Max-smile-induced hysteria. I felt as though I would die if I didn’t kiss him right now, if I couldn’t be closer to him. His face jerked a little in shock under my hands after my lips brushed his for the first time. He took a moment to study my expression before he dipped his head down and then he was kissing me.
One of his hands went to my waist and the other into my hair at the back of my head. My mouth opened under his and a low sound vibrated through his chest before he slid his hand up the back of my shirt to the skin of my back. The contact sent a shiver up my spine and suddenly I couldn’t seem to get close enough to him. A side of myself that I thought was lost forever surged to the fore. I needed this man. I was tired of waiting for him, tired of him treating me like I would break. I gave a small hop and wrapped my legs around his waist so that our mouths were more on a level. He pulled back a little to read my expression, concern cutting through the desire on his face. His pupils were so dilated that there was only a small rim of green around the outside and his jaw was clenched tight.
“Mia–”
I put my fingers to his mouth to cut off his words. “Don’t ask me if I’m okay,” I said softly. “Don’t treat me like I’m fragile. I know what I want. Let me have my autonomy back.”
His too-intelligent eyes glittered down at me and another low almost-growl came from deep inside his chest. Then he started moving. His long strides ate up the distance between the front door and the stairs, which he jogged with me still wrapped around his middle. The extra weight didn’t seem to bother him at all. I knew I was still too skinny, but I’d been working on my arse with regular chocolate consumption, so jogging up the stairs as if I weighed less than a feather was nothing to be sniffed at. He shouldered open a door at the top and then we were in Max’s bedroom.
Everything was white apart from the wooden frame of the bed and the industrial light fittings hanging from the ceiling. It smelt of washing powder with the subtle undertone of Max’s aftershave. Now that we were in the bedroom Max’s pace slowed. He walked to the bed and lowered me down onto the pristine white sheets, hovering over me, but not letting me take his full weight. A small furrow formed between his brows. I could see his mind whirring behind his eyes. He took a breath, and I knew he was going to ask again if I was okay.
I could understand his concern – I’d had panic attacks with him a few times now – but I just didn’t want to hear it, not like this. I didn’t want the reminder that I wasn’t quite normal. So instead of letting him speak I leaned up from the bed and closed my mouth over his, one of my hands going to the back of his neck and the other up, around and under his t-shirt to feel the tensed muscles of his back under the smooth skin.
He made another low sound in the back of his throat and gave me more of his weight, and, rather than feeling trapped, I revelled in it. I felt like it was somehow grounding me in the present – similar to the tapping but on a much larger scale. I could feel him hard against me, and my heart rate picked up, not with anxiety for once, but with a fierce, almost feral need that was burning through me. I rocked against him and tugged at the hem of his t-shirt. He pulled back a little so that he could yank up my shirt over my head in one swift movement and throw it to the side. He froze above me then, his eyes trailing over my torso. My underwear was the most expensive set of clothing I owned. When I left Nate, I only had nice underwear to take so I grabbed a load. It was the only trapping of my former life I’d kept hold of. And as Max’s eyes fixated on my intricate white lace bra and two slashes of colour appeared high on his cheekbones, I was very glad that I hadn’t chucked that as well.
“My God,” he breathed, one on his hands coming up to my neck, shaking slightly as it traced its way down to the skin below my collarbone until finally closing over my breast. “You’re so beautiful.”
My back arched and I pushed into his hand. A needy sound fell from my lips. It was like my body had taken complete control of the situation. Cautious, worried, scared Mia was no longer in charge. Desperate, hungry, Max-crazed Mia had taken her place and was pushing to get what she wanted. His chest was all hard planes of tanned skin with a dusting of hair across it down to his defined abs. Nate had taken care of his body, but he had nothing like the bulky musculature of Max. I swallowed as my fingers traced over his shoulder and down to the hair of his chest before skating the ridges of his abdomen to his belt buckle. One of his hands went down to cover mine at his belt and he stilled their attempts at removing it. That look was back on his face again as he searched mine. The questioning, concerned look that that was warring with the absolute raw need I could feel in the tension of his body, and see in the way his jaw muscles were ticking as he gritted his teeth.
“Please,” I whispered and he closed his eyes as the red on his cheekbones heightened. One of my hands came back up to rest flat over his heart. I could feel it hammering in his chest. His desire for me was like a tangible, thick presence in the room, boosting my confidence and hardening my resolve. “I need you, Max.”
As soon as they left my mouth those whispered words seemed to snap something in him. He fell forwards into me and kissed me more deeply and with renewed desperation. As he was kissing me his hands ran down my chest and then over my stomach to my jeans. He made quick work of the button fly and then finally he was where I needed him to be. I let out a muted scream as I moved with him. With him hovering over me and his skin against mine I started soaring. But I didn’t want to go there alone.
“No, Max,” I whispered and instantly he stilled, ready to pull back. “No, I mean, not without you. Please.”
He groaned and kissed me again, this time working his way down my neck to my breast as he pulled off my jeans and then his trousers before reaching for a condom in the bedside table. Once we were both naked and he was pressing against me he hesitated again. Both his hands came up and pushed my hair away from my face.
“Tell me you’re okay,” he whispered in my ear. This beautiful, strong man was shaking with need above me, but he had held himself back to check again that I was right here with him. That this was what I wanted to. I felt my eyes fill but I blinked the tears back as I nodded. Max must have seen the wet because he froze. Then I moved, arching against him. He let out a low growl and surged forward, and finally I was filled with Max. The overriding feeling was overwhelming relief, as if not connecting in this way with him had been causing a previously unacknowledged physical pain. And then the desperation set in, the acute need for more. I moved under him again, feeling the tightness of the muscles of his back as he held himself still. His jaw was clenched and he looked almost in pain.
“Are you okay?” he asked me and I almost burst out laughing.
“No, Max,” I said and he tensed even further. “I won’t be okay until you move.” He groaned as his mouth fell on mine and finally, finally he was moving inside me. I could feel the tension build low down in my stomach. We climbed together until his rhythm became erratic and desperate as he became impossibly harder. When I crested the wave and burst into a thousand pieces Max kept on moving, wrenching aftershocks from my body until he finally followed me over the edge. When I could register my surroundings again, Max was lying on his back and he’d pulled me over onto his chest. He was stroking my hair and every few seconds he would kiss my forehead, my hairline, my eyes, sometimes my lips, reverently – like he almost couldn’t believe that I was there with him. I slipped an arm around his waist and gave him a squeeze. In response he pulled me even tighter into his side. I felt as if I were floating on a cloud, as if nothing could touch me.
For the first time in years, I felt safe.
