Page 24 of Sexy Bad Valentine

“No?” I undo the zip on my jeans and then work them down my hips. “What would you call it then?”

“Reformed maybe. Or a one woman kind of guy in need of hands on experience.”

“Pull my other leg.” I bundle up my jeans and hand them to him through the door. I’ve come across my fair share of guys who ping my radar. They’re usually the ones I end up sleeping with and wondering why I was so stupid to do so. Max shouldn’t be an exception, but he is, because I’ve slept with him and yet we’re still doing this dance. It’s worse in a way. I shouldn’t get my hopes up.

“You’ll see,” he says. “I’ll leave a pair of my sweats out here for when you get out of the shower. Be back shortly.”

***

“Are you crying?” he asks, tapping the sole of my foot with his finger.

“Nope.” I wipe under my eyes and try not to sniffle. This scene with the cat is so sad. How Holly can dump Cat in the pouring rain as though she doesn’t care is heartbreaking, and then she realizes that being alone and only having yourself to look after isn’t better. That they need each other. So she jumps out of the cab, desperately calling for the ginger tabby. It’s so touching.

“You look like you’re crying.” He tickles my foot again from where he’s resting against the headboard of his bed, which is where we ended up when we realized there was no hope for the Barclay chew toy he once called a couch. Halfway through the movie I got engrossed and ended up stretched out with my head propped in my hands at the foot of the bed.

“Nope. I don’t cry.” I don’t relate to the woman who thinks it’s better to be alone at all. My life is filled with people and pets; my bosses, Abby, Spot, Ducky, even Garrett’s brother’s cat. And I have friends. I just don’t have time to see them, so how could I possibly connect with Holly Golightly?

“I did. The first time I watched this movie. And the second. Possibly the third time as well.”

“Really?” I shift onto my side and rest my head on my elbow. I can’t imagine him getting teary at all. Mainly because it’s really weird to imagine a guy who is built like him crying. Those weeks when I was first hired to be Abby’s nanny, and Garrett stomped around completely miserable without Erin were strange enough. And secondly, Max is always joking, rarely serious, let alone emotional.

“Sure.” He shrugs, like it’s nothing to admit it. “But I was only a kid who had recently lost his parents. Everything made me cry. Hell, that Halloween, candy corn made me cry.”

“Candy corn makes everyone cry. Awful, disgusting candy,” I say, uncertain how else to respond. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I don’t know.” He plucks at the comforter, momentarily dropping his gaze. “It’s just really easy to talk to you.” When he lifts it again, the genuine warmth in his eyes makes my heart skip a beat. “I like that about you.”

I shouldn’t be here in his apartment. In his bedroom. Or on his bed. But it doesn’t matter how many times I tell myself that, I’m struggling to recall why it matters. “Max?”

“Evie?” He wiggles his eyebrows as he scrapes a hand from my ankle to midway up my calf.

“Do you have a lampshade I can wear as a hat?” I smile at him.

His grin grows so wide until he shines with it. Bouncing from the bed, he wanders out of the room. When he reappears, he’s holding a black lampshade with a dangling fringe, and two flutes of champagne.

I don’t know where he came from, or how I ended up here in this upper level apartment in Chicago with a man who is much more likely to break women’s hearts and pussies than anyone else I’ve ever met, but damn, is he gorgeous. Jumping up, I snatch the lampshade and pop it on my head. “Fred, darling?”

“Yes, Holly?” He swaggers into the room, climbing onto the bed with me. His mattress is spongey beneath our bare feet.

I twist so that I’m glancing at him over my shoulder, touch the brim of my lampshade hat and bat my eyelashes. “How do I look?”

“That hat really suits you.” He hands me a glass of champagne. “I have to say. I’m almost blown away.”

“Why, thank you, darling.” I sip the golden, bubbly liquid. It’s dry but sweet. “Have I told you how utterly happy I am right now? It’s quite divine.”

“Are you?” he asks in a very normal Max voice.

“Mmm-hmm.” At least right now, I am. I sip more champagne. The bubbles go straight to my brain. “We should throw a party, darling. It’ll be wild.”

“You’re wild,” he says huskily, his gaze dark and hungry while he takes the flute from my hand. “Completely and utterly wild.”

“Well, you know what they say, Fred?” I elegantly wind my arms around his neck, emulating Audrey Hepburn’s sheer grace, and failing miserably. Although none of that seems to matter as his hands land on my butt with a firm grip.

“What’s that, Holly?” His lips roam from my neck to my shoulder.

“You should never love a wild thing,” I whisper. “You’ll only end up looking at the sky.”

“Perhaps,” he agrees, pulling me down to the mattress and stripping me bare. “But damn it, what a beautiful view.”

“That it is.” I take the lampshade from my head and drop it off the side of the bed and onto the carpet as he spreads my legs and kneels between them. His palms are hot silk on my thighs, his focus on how he touches me heavenly. I bow off the bed with a hissed intake of breath as he finds my clit with his thumb.

“Just one thing,” he murmurs, catching my eye. “My name is not Fred.”

“Ohohoooh, Max.” I fall completely out of character as he drops his face to my pussy and uses his tongue on my girly bits. Christ, it feels amazing. I curl up around him, my hands knotted in his hair, holding him where I want him. My legs are over his shoulders, crossed at the ankles. It’s like all my birthdays have all come at once, then he flicks the tip of his tongue across my clit, and so do I.

I’m still panting as he crawls above me, holding one of my legs captive over his shoulder. Gripping my hip, he penetrates me. The angle makes it feel incredible, like he’s pushing and stroking all those hard to reach places that haven’t been touched in far too long. No cobwebs for this girl anymore. No sense of sanity either. He clouds my judgement with orgasms. One after the other. Takes his own only after I’m a gooey molten mess who can’t quite remember if she’s Holly or Fred. Or if she’s just plain crazy for thinking it might be okay to go on sleeping with him, seeing him, even if this warm and fuzzy feeling might actually be her internal douchebag alarm.

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