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.”
FOUR
I had a lot to prove to Max. Not in a personal way, but in a professional one. He had given me a ton of responsibility, trust, and indeed power at OliviMax, and I intended to exceed his expectations.
It was just as much proving something to myself. I knew it had taken a ton of guts to come all the way to L.A. to work in show business. While I didn’t have dreams as lofty as those of the countless aspiring actors out there, they were still my dreams and I wanted to realize them.
Max liked to call me his “dream girl.” I liked to think he gave me my dream job. And now that I had it, I wanted to make it happen in an even bigger way.
So, without becoming a taskmaster bitch of a manager, I found some middle ground between that and being a weak “yes girl” to the people I had to deal with.
I didn’t care if they knew I was the live-in girlfriend of Max Dalton. In fact, I felt no hesitation whatsoever about people knowing that about me and making my job easier. But one thing I didn’t do was play that card on my own. It spoke for itself, and as I learned more about the business and became better at my job, I would soon not have to rely on that at all — I’d be my own woman.
. . . . .
Being around him more and more, I noticed that Max kept a journal. He didn’t keep it on his laptop or iPad, but rather a leather-bound book. Once, when I asked him why he didn’t do it digitally and sync it up with his phone and laptop so he could add to it whenever he wanted no matter where he was, he said he still liked to write longhand sometimes. It was more personal, he told me, and since the journal was where he recorded his most personal thoughts, it was the perfect opportunity to uncap a pen and put real ink on paper.
Trust me, I was tempted to look in his journal at times, but I respected his space. Plus, Max was never one to keep his feelings from me, so I figured I knew everything anyway.
That is, until he started getting quiet just a few weeks before I would be leaving to go to Ohio for Christmas.
We were in his office at OliviMax, on a conference call with the agent who repped Troy McKenzie, the actor Max wanted for the leading role in the new film.
“He hasn’t read the script yet,” the agent said.
“It’s been two weeks,” Max said. “That’s more than enough time.”
“He’s been really busy.”