After Felix - Lily Morton Page 0,89
eyes search my face for a moment. Then, grabbing my hand, he pulls me quickly toward the conference room’s exit. We come to a stop in a deserted passageway that runs behind the lifts. Before I can catch my breath, he pulls me to him and kisses me fiercely, plunging his tongue into my mouth to twine around my own, one hand wrapped gently in my hair, his fingers scratching my scalp. When he pulls back, we’re both panting, and my cock throbs.
“Thank you,” he says hoarsely, resting his forehead against mine. “No one has ever said that to me.”
“Oh well, it’s nothing,” I say, trying to gather my dignity about me again.
“It’s everything because it came from you. No one sees me like you.”
His expression kills my usual go-to flippant comments. Instead, I nod and let him draw me out of the hotel and onto the streets of Venice. It’s cold now, and the biting wind carries a hint of rain. He keeps me close as he plunges down the narrow streets with the surety of a seasoned traveller.
He takes me to a small restaurant by the side of the Grand Canal where the owner greets him with hugs and kisses and a voluble explosion of Italian, which Max answers fluently. I stand to one side, feeling his hand resting possessively at my back. I suddenly realise that hand has been there most of the day. It’s a subtle gesture of ownership which should get my teeth up, but in actual fact just makes me want to nestle into him like a kitten. I feel like a snow globe that’s been shaken and now the scenery around me has taken on new shapes and a different atmosphere. I don’t know whether to be scared or ecstatic. The flip-flop in my belly says it’s a whirling mixture of the two.
Max steers me to a table by the water, and we seat ourselves. There’s a patio heater by the table, and I scoot close to it gratefully. Max grabs his jacket, and I protest as he offers it to me.
“Don’t be silly, Max. It’s freezing.”
He shakes his head and wraps it around my shoulders, and despite my protests, I nestle into the expensive fabric. It’s hot from his body and smells of him. When I look up, he’s watching me with a fond expression.
“That’s one of the principal things I remember about being with you,” he says casually, taking the menu from the waiter with a smile. “You were always freezing. When we lay in bed, your feet were like blocks of ice.”
“What an evocative memory,” I sniff. “What else do you recall? Heartburn and trapped wind?”
He starts to laugh but then sobers. “Oh, did you want to talk about us? I remember you said you wanted to talk.”
“Not about silly memories.”
“They’re not silly,” he bursts out, suddenly agitated and totally unlike his usual self. He leans forward. “They’re all I have left of you, and if I want to remember cold feet, snark, and silly dares that made me laugh until my ribs hurt, then that’s what I’ll do. Along with the fact that I get hard every time I enter a bookshop which is a bit of a fucking inconvenience given my job.”
Without any warning, I burst into laughter. “You get hard in bookshops?”
His eyes dance with mirth. “Every. Single. Time.” Laughter dies away to be replaced with heat and a foreign emotion I try to pretend I haven’t seen. “You’ve ruined me,” he says in an almost conversational tone.
“Many men have said so,” I say, trying desperately to find the flippancy I seem to have lost lately.
“Don’t talk about your other men,” he snaps, agitated again.
“Oh, really?” Anger stirs in me. “You of all people have the nerve to say that to me? Max of a billion beds. You’re a fucking dog in the manger, Max.”
He leans forward, his gaze fierce. “I have every right. I’m the man who’s in—”
“Max!”
His shouted name breaks into his tumble of words, and I sit back, my heart hammering madly. What was he going to say?
“Motherfucker,” Max mutters, craning his neck to see who’s calling him.
“What were you going to say?” I ask desperately.
He stiffens. “Ivo.”
“Oh my God, please tell me you haven’t just got our fucking names mixed up, Max,” I hiss, absolute white-hot rage searing through me. “Because so help me, that’s the last fucking straw.”
“No,” he interjects, looking panicked. “Ivo and Henry are here.”
“What?” I spin around and see