Burn Down the Night (Everything I Left Unsaid #3)- Molly O'Keefe Page 0,97

at this point. Beyond thought.

This time he braced himself and I fucked myself against him. Long, smooth strokes, no power, just depth. My hands made fists against the wall and his hands bit harder into my hips. But what I was doing was far from enough.

“Please,” I begged. “Please, Max.”

“Yeah,” he breathed. “Let’s do this.”

And it was on.

He grabbed leverage where he could. My hips, my hair. I held on to the doorframe of the kitchen. And he pounded into me. The slap of his skin was loud against mine. We were wet and sweating and I kept screaming until he put his hand over my mouth, yanking me up into his body.

I didn’t like that, it made the pressure all wrong and I shook off his hand, my body against the wall again.

“You gotta be quiet, Joan.”

“Fuck you, Max.”

That made him laugh and I wasn’t expecting it but he smacked my ass. Nothing playful. Real. Hard enough to leave a stinging hand print against my skin.

I gasped and rocked into him.

“Of course you like that,” he murmured and did it again. And then once more. Until finally I was mindless and rocking against him. Fucking him as hard as he was fucking me. And it was game over. I slipped my hand from the wall to between my legs where I barely had to touch my clit before I was blissfully, radically coming apart.

Everything was obliterated. The sun, the sky, the landscape. Every fear I had. Every hope. All of it vanished in the wild seething storm of my orgasm. Nothing mattered but this completely overwhelming pleasure.

Gratefully, I gave myself up to it. Shuddering where he had me. Crying, where he couldn’t see me.

“Joan—?”

“So good,” I breathed, and it was enough like permission that he grabbed my hips and fucked me in short shallow strokes, his breathing ragged. I had only enough wherewithal to brace myself, my body still pulsing and sighing with pleasure.

“Yes!” he cried. “Yes. Fuck, God—”

I reached beneath my body to where he was driving into me, just to feel us together like this. I touched his balls and he shook so much, that on the next thrust I grabbed them and he shoved into me so hard my head nearly hit the wall.

“Joan,” he cried, jerking into me while I stroked his balls until he was done. When he twitched I knew it was over. Too sensitive.

I felt exactly the same way.

Slowly, I eased forward as he eased back until he was out of me and we were suddenly back to being ourselves. Separate.

“Jesus,” he sighed, and all but staggered into the kitchen to get rid of the condom.

Utterly replete and boneless, I rearranged my clothes, covering myself up as I made my way to the love seat, where I collapsed.

He came to stand in the doorway of the kitchen, watching me with his unreadable eyes. I had a boyfriend once ask if he hurt me, which only seemed to prove how little he’d been paying attention. And I wasn’t interested in some big heart to heart with Max. He’d seen what I needed at that cocktail party and he’d given it to me.

Which only seemed to prove how much he had been paying attention.

Don’t trust me. Don’t like me. Don’t…care.

Fully clothed and a room away from him, I felt more than naked under his gaze. I felt like he’d fucked at the cracks and seams and pulled me apart so he could see all the things I kept hidden. And now they were all over the room. Scattered across the floor, splashed over the walls. My father issues and my mother issues. My guilt and my fear and regret. My insecurity. My belief deep down that everything everyone ever said about me was true—I wasn’t any good.

And he saw it all. I know he did.

He opened his mouth and I braced myself for him to say something nice, I prepared myself to start a fight in the face of his kindness. Or to burst into tears. Or to ask him to stay with me. To help me, even if that wasn’t the best thing for him. Because I wasn’t sure I could do all of this on my own.

And maybe he saw that, too, because all he said was: “Want to go get a beer?”

Chapter 25

Max

We went across the street to the Conch Republic, a busy restaurant on the main drag. It reminded me of every other restaurant in Florida, with its fishing net