Page 121 of Off Court Fix

“Fuck,” I mutter. “Sorry.”

Maxine is right and wrong at the same time. She’s right because I am looking at her like I need to memorize everything, but wrong about her disappearing. I’m the one who will likely disappear. It’s an easy thing to say to myself—I’m giving myself up forher.Maxine will go on to continue to play the game she was born to compete in, and I’ll take responsibility for my actions. And us? When we’re both on the other sides of the mountains we need to climb, I can only hope we’ll find each other.

And fuck, as if the idea of being charged with a felony and landing myself in prison doesn’t scare me enough, thinking of being away from Maxine is a nightmare. If my body didn’t crave her so intensely, if my hands didn’t itch to run across her body like a magnet searching for its counterpart, I’d walk away now and save us both the pain of this awful kind of anticipation—the one of goodbye.

But if it is as Maxine and others say—if addiction runs viciously through my veins—I’m going to keep feeding the beast with kisses and touches and the noises she makes that make me swell between her legs against the counter. The leggings she wears make it easy for me to slide her across the marble, closer, and I growl into her mouth, my kisses growing frantic when she whimpers.

I want to be slow, easy, every movement purposeful and meant for her. Because there’s no pleasure I’ve experienced like giving Maxine pleasure, like feeling her fall apart around me, a mess of scratching nails and spasms as my name leaves her lips like a final prayer.

My hands slide to her waistband, tugging unapologetically at the stretchy material. My fingers scratch at Maxine’s skin, tug her underwear too tightly, but I don’t care. I want nothing between us, no clothes, no secrets, no lies, just pure desire and need.

Maxine slips off the counter, gasping into my mouth. But I catch her.

“I got you,” I promise. “I’ve always got you.”

But do I? Have I always?

She pulls back, and the look on her face strangles my heart to the point that I can’t breathe. Maxine’s eyes are filled with missing and longing even though I’m right in front of her. It’s the entirety of this relationship in one look—it’s having each other behind closed doors and yearning for each other across a crowded room where we aren’t allowed to touch.

If I could go back, I would’ve done it differently. If I had known this beauty—this strong, sensitive woman—would be my undoing, I would’ve done night one differently. But hindsight, it’s a bitch, and I can’t take that look on Maxine’s face, how it bleedsplease don’t do this, please don’t gointo my skin with such force it leaves a scar. She’s silently pleading for me to deliver another option that covers it all. But we both know something has to drop. I won’t let it be Maxine.

I flip her over and push her to the countertop, again, with only lust and no apology and a fierce storm brewing inside me, an uncanny need to claim her again and again, to leave my mark, a piece of my heart and all my soul deep within her. There are no caresses in my touch, no soft, simple kisses. It’s raw, bordering on primal, clinging hands, teeth grazing skin.

But when Maxine whimpers my name, I come to a halt after flying 600 mph with my eyes clouded by desire and want and nothing of whatwereally need. And our need in the final hours before the unknown has to be soft and savored, absent of the brute force I’ve pinned her down with.

I pull back. “I’m sorry,” I say, tugging Maxine up and turning her to me.

I cup her cheek and lean my head to hers, whispering apologies against her trembling lips as remorse seeps out of me.

I’m sorry I dragged you into this mess.

I’m sorry I couldn’t do better—be better—for you.

I’m sorry there’s probably going to be a goodbye before there are enough hellos.

Maxine stops the shaking of my mouth with hers through a firm, strong kiss. I forget about the look on her face, the way her eyes pleaded. This time, I listen to what she says silently through the steady touch of her hands on my chest, the commanding movement of her lips, how much more grounded I am when they dance with mine.

I’ll wait for you.

The urge to claim Maxine is gone, but the need to be as one with her in our waning time is not.

I scoop Maxine into my arms, leggings still shackling her knees, and make my way to the couch to lay her down, taking the stretchy black fabric with me before I rise, tossing them to the floor. She props herself on her elbows, waiting and wanting. We shed the rest of our clothes quickly to get back together, to move together from head to toe—noses touching, lips grazing, legs rubbing—as we connect in the middle.

“I knew,” I pant, “I knew that first night you were special.”

Maxine’s fingernails dig into my back.

“So special.”

And even though I handled things wrong that first night, I certainly was right. She is special—Maxine is the type of woman that makes it all worth it. She’s worth losing sleep over. She’s worth the sneaking and hiding and lying. She’s worth the pain of separation we’ve gone through and the unknown of what’s to come.

There haven’t been big, flashy moments in our relationship, only quiet ones. And what has that shown me?

“You make my life better by just being in it,” I swear into her neck. “So much better.”

Maxine whimpers and pulls my face to hers. I repeat what I feel in my heart, what I’ve felt since the night we said both hello and goodbye, and every moment with her that leaves me wanting more constantly.

“Time with you will never be enough.”

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