Usually during this type of call, if I was there at all, I didn’t say much, if anything. But this time I did, seeing how frustrated Max was.
“Listen,” I said to the agent, “Forty-eight hours. That’s plenty of time for Troy to read the script. The offer’s on the table and we’re not going to sit around and wait for him to pick up the pages. Give us a yes or no within two days or he’ll never get another offer from us. Ever.”
I could feel my pulse pounding in my neck. I was so worked up, not just out of anger or frustration, but at the thrill of using the power Max had given me for this job.
I looked up at Max, whose eyes were wide, and I watched a grin slowly overtake his face. He leaned forward, closer to the phone and said, “Gotta go, Ben. Talk to you in two days.” Max ended the call.
We were sitting on the couch. Max was holding a script, and I was sitting next to him. When the call from Ben had come in, I had been flipping through some headshots of various people we were thinking about auditioning for supporting roles for the new film.
I looked at Max. “Surprised?”
“That’s part of it.” He put his script to the side, took the photos from my hand and put them on the coffee table. Then pulled me closer to him, turning me onto my back and lowering me so he was cradling me in his arms. He bent his head down and gave me a long kiss. “The way you walk around here, the way you were on the phone just now,” he said, “like you own this damn town.”
I felt my face start to blush. “I’m sorry — ”
He put a finger over my lips. “No.” He shook his head. “It’s fucking hot.”
A smile grew across my face. “Yeah?”
“Oh, yeah.” He kissed me again, and his left hand slipped under the hem of my shirt, up my stomach, and pushed my bra up over my left breast. He rolled and tugged my nipple as his tongue swept through my mouth.
I watched his face as he pulled away from my lips. His eyes moved down my body, to where his hand was under my blouse, then he looked at my legs, then back up to my eyes. “If I could keep you like this forever, I would. Of course, I’d have to rearrange your position so I could have my way with you.”
“You can already do that.”
My breath hitched in my throat as he played a little rougher with my nipple, something I absolutely loved — the gentle touch of his soft writer’s fingertips, contrasted by a pinch of an ache as he squeezed harder, then back to the tender rolling.
Max said, “I know I can do that, but not like I want to. I want to be inside you 24/7, Liv, never letting you go. I crave you.”
My heart beat faster and I had to take a deep breath. Hearing words like that from the man I loved made me want to shut off the world. And, truthfully, I don’t think I’d care if I ever laid eyes on another human being for the rest of my life.
“I can’t have you like that,” he continued, “and it kills me.”
Something occurred to me and I needed to ask him. It wasn’t the best time, but there really was no good time to do it. “How much of this has to do with that night?”
His jaw clenched and I could see the muscles in his face tighten. He didn’t say anything.
“I know you don’t want to keep talking about it and God knows I don’t either, but, really….if you — ”
“I don’t know,” he said, cutting me off mid-sentence. “I see you differently now.”
I squirmed as he increased the pressure on my nipple. “How so?”
“You like that.” He grinned.
I nodded.
“Good.” He shifted to the other breast, and went back to the slow, easy rolling motion, giving some much desired attention to my other nipple. “The way you are here, at work, this professional side of you — ”
“Yeah,” I laughed, “real professional, lying here getting fondled by my boss.”
Max just smiled. “We talked about that.”
Several weeks ago I had made a joke about him harassing me at work, saying I’d actually like that. Max knew where I was coming from, but at the same time made it very clear that nothing would be going on in the office when other people were present, and he drew a very bright line there.
I whimpered as he drew my nipple to a hard peak.
“So,” he said, “I didn’t think it was possible, but I find myself even more attracted to you now.”
“Because of how I am here?”
He nodded. “You’re so in control. It makes me want you to give up that control to me. Or, actually, I’d rather take it from you.”
I was getting wet listening to his words, and I could feel him growing harder underneath me.
Max didn’t have even the slightest bit of modesty when it came to sex. He knew what he wanted. He would tell me what he wanted. He would tell me how I made him feel with my body. But I knew he was talking about something different.
And he explained: “I can’t protect you from the world. I can’t own you around the clock. But I can make you safe most of the time, and I can make your gorgeous body all mine. Make you come when I want. Have you make me come whenever I want.”
It sounded a lot like how our relationship had been from the start, but there was something different about what he was saying, something he was implying but, unlike his usual directness, he wasn’t telling me right away.
“Yeah?” was what I said, my way of asking him to explain.
He leaned down and kissed me on the mouth, letting his tongue trace around the edges of my lips. “You’ll see….”
“So you’re not going to tell me?”
He shook his head. “I want to have fun with this. You’ll enjoy it. Trust me.”
FIVE
I didn’t have to wait long to find out what he had in store for me. It reminded me of the way he told me months ago, shortly after first meeting him, that the next time we saw each other he would make it a surprise. And did he ever.
After leaving our offices that day a little early, we went home to get ready to have some friends over for a cookout.
These were Max’s friends who he hadn’t spent much time with over the last several months, and I had encouraged him to get in touch with them. He’d been spending nearly all of his free time with me, first nursing me back to health, then getting into the swing of the new production company.
I didn’t want him to keep doing that at the expense of not spending time with his friends. Plus, I hadn’t met anyone socially since moving to LA and I was eager to have something like that in my life as well.