Page 31 of Stay Here Tonight
Lydia was quiet, something that Maxine had not anticipated. Perhaps she couldn’t believe it. Perhaps everything Maxine said was too farfetched and too likely to put everything on Penelope. Maxine would never claim to be a saint, though. She did and said things in that relationship she would regret for the rest of her life.I should have never pushed her. Not even in self-defense.Not merely the ammo she gave her ex for the courtroom, but that look in her eyes… that sheer, split-second shock of terror when she realized that Maxine would actually push back and not take her shit.
“A lot of things make sense now. Thank you for telling me.”
Maxine didn’t know how to respond to that.
“I knew you had been through a lot with her, but that gives me a bit more perspective. I had feared she was that off-kilter when she approached me in the bathroom, but… now I know not to antagonize her like that again.”
“I’m so sorry you’re wrapped up in this, Lydia.”
“Don’t be. If I wanted to, I could walk away.”
“So why don’t you? Let me give you some compensation for your time and trouble.”
Lydia grinned, her rouged cheeks threatening to pull Maxine forward and into deep, deep trouble of her own. “Because you said you wouldn’t let me. Now, unless you had too much champagne to drink at that party, I fully expect to see you hold up that end of the bargain should I try to simply walk away from this relationship.”
“What end of the bargain is that?”
Lydia placed her hand in the center of the seat. While she did not reach for Maxine’s, the intention – the invitation – was there. If Maxine wanted, she could take that hand and seal some sort of pact with this woman she half-heartedly called her girlfriend to keep the press happy. “The one where you promise not to let me go?”
Maxine barely remembered saying that. What she did remember was that intense feeling of possessiveness. Not the dangerous kind, but the kind that made a woman want to wrap her beloved in her arms and give her a million silent kisses of acknowledgment.If I let her walk away, will she go straight to another woman and date her?Someone she met at the fundraiser? Someone from her neighborhood? Rich girl? Poor girl? Someone from a completely different culture from the other side of the world? No matter what kind of woman popped into Maxine’s head, it heated her skin and filled her throat with a hard-to-swallow lump.
She couldn’t stand the thought of Lydia dancing with another woman, let alone dating.
I haven’t felt this way about a girl in a long time.Not since Penelope. Once upon a time, the thought of anyone, man or woman, kissing that supermodel bombshell would have sent Maxine into a fit of jealous rage. Oh, she would have kept it to herself. Let it stew inside of her until it boiled over and she had a breakdown. That was the kind of passion she kept locked away. The idea that a woman’s heart could truly belong to her and her alone.
Of course, she believed in things going the other way around too. Maxine only stood for serial monogamy when her heart wasn’t involved. That was how she could handle so many one-night stands that felt more like business contracts for carnal gratification than anything else. Once her heart was allowed to feelthings,however, Maxine loved with everything she had. While there was more to life than a romantic relationship, she liked to think they at least made up half her life. The life she built with that other woman.
She stared once more at Lydia’s hand, curled in uncertainty. Maxine leaned over, her arm snaking across the back of the limousine seat while the road passed softly beneath them.
“You want to demand a lot of me, don’t you, Ms. Kellerman?”
“I only demand what you’re willing to offer, Ms. Woodward.” How cute of Lydia to bat her eyelashes like that. Did she know what she was doing? What she walked into? Maxine’s world was not as simple as being wealthy and enjoying the privileges that came with it. Maxine had baggage. A lot of it. The kind of baggage her own therapist could barely unpack in their twice-a-week sessions. “No more than that. Tell me what you offer, okay?”
Maxine Woodward offered more than most woman could deal with. Oh, their fantasies said that what Maxine was occasionally into was more than acceptable. Until those fantasies came to light in the heat of the moment. Then their tunes changed from sweet melodies to disgusted nocturnes.
Lydia said something. Maybe she told Maxine to kiss her, for that’s certainly what Maxine heard. What if she hadn’t? What if she was reading into something she wasn’t prepared to digest? How long had it been since she kissed a woman like this, anyway? For once her lips were on Lydia’s, hand grabbing her arm and soft moans dipping against porcelain-white teeth, Maxine was liable to hear whatever she wanted. Right now she wanted to hear Lydia demand to be kissed.
She certainly kissed back.
Fuck me. This is so dangerous.Yet Maxine couldn’t hold back. Nor could she contain the excitement building within her. Lydia was so soft and suggestable to whatever Maxine wanted to do that it almost seemed too good to be true.No, no, she can’t really be like this. She can’t want me to give her what I want to give her.Nor could she be the woman Maxine had been hoping to find to fill the void in her heart. Perhaps what her therapist had said was true, after all – that when love came back into Maxine’s life, she wouldn’t see it coming.
Now was not the time to think about love, however. It was the time to think aboutlust.
“Mmf!” That was Lydia’s reaction once she was pushed against the seat, a hand shooting up beneath her skirt and another woman’s body crashing on top of hers.That’s pretty much how I feel too. Mmf.No room for talking when two women were in the throes of some serious making out in the back of a limousine. How many times had Maxine made out in the back of her own car? Too many times to count. Such a convenient way to heat things up between a night out and settling in at home or a hotel room. So important for a woman who didn’t care to have stragglers stay overnight. Get home, get wasted on pussy, and get on with life.
She briefly wondered what she would do with Lydia that night, beyond the sex.She’s not staying the night. She can’t. It’s not allowed.Who had made that rule, anyway? What part of Maxine’s broken baggage demanded she never enjoy a woman’s overnight company ever again? The one who thought about Penelope every time a woman got too close?
“You have such an astute memory, Ms. Kellerman.” Maxine curled her hand beneath Lydia’s chin, her other arm wrapped so tightly around the younger woman’s body that she would have to explicitly tell Maxine to back off to make that happen. She didn’t. Lydia’s eyes were on the verge of rolling back in her head, her red lips slightly parted and little moans escaping her mouth every time Maxine found a new way to touch her. Like slipping her fingers higher up those thighs and basking in another woman’s natural heat. “You were right. I have no intention of letting you go anywhere tonight.”
Her fingers cupped Lydia’s mound, rubbing against her cotton underwear while lips kissed a prominent collarbone.
“But…” Was Lydia going to tell her to stop? That she didn’t want to do this? That there was some asinine reason they couldn’t let themselves go to pleasure once more? “Your bodyguard. The driver!”
“Who?” Maxine was too enthralled with a certain someone’s malleable mound to give a fuck about what her employees thought of the boss getting up to some hanky-panky in the back. “Oh, God. Who cares? They can’t hear us back here unless I turn on the intercom. Now kiss me back, Lydia.”
How delightful that Lydia was willing to follow commands. Maxine knew why she was like that. She had known it from the moment Lydia let her lead on the dance floor a week ago.
Because she was the type of woman to defer to others. Lydia Kellerman would stand up for herself when necessary, but she was much more comfortable letting others take the lead, make decisions… and take charge during even the most carnal of moments.
