Royal Pain (7 page)

***

By the following weekend, it was looking like they were going to burn through the Costco jumbo pack long before the designated eight weeks were up. Bronte felt like a rabbit on goddamned Animal Planet. And whatever great sex she thought she had been having with those
other
guys
was nothing more than some weak approximation of the real thing: namely, Great Sex with Max.

The other odd novelty was that all of this fucking did not seem to be distracting her from the rest of her life. In fact, she felt more focused at work, more inclined to cook a good meal, more likely to return the long overdue phone call to her mother. Just more adept at life in general.

She was downright competent.

Unlike the other times in her life when she had been consumed by the first blush of romance (when she had lost sleep, pined, swooned, missed deadlines at school or at work), this time around, she felt perfectly grounded.

Things were looking up. Maybe there was something to this casual sex after all.

By the third week, they were practically an old married couple. They weren’t living together, per se, but the fact that Max never spent the night at his own apartment anymore started to register somewhere in the back of Bronte’s mind.
Too
much
too
soon?
she wondered, only to dismiss the thought with the bittersweet reality that he was on his way home in five short weeks. It was partially devastating and wholly liberating. Not that Bronte wanted him to go—but as far as Transitional Men went, he was the cream of the crop.

Jump-started
me
sexually? Check.

Reminds
me
constantly
that
I
am
smart, funny, and luscious? Check.

No
pesky
emotional
hangover? Check, check, check.

By the end of week seven, Bronte was not feeling quite so jaunty about the entire arrangement. That said, she certainly was not moving to England, not that he was asking. And he certainly wasn’t staying in the United States, not that Bronte was asking. Who was she to ask that? Or vice versa?

And so it went, with all that glorious fucking and (she hated to admit) loving that Max and Bronte found themselves in the middle of week eight like two angry wolves on a windy hilltop.

Well, to be fair, he was being his normal, sweet self, while she was the one spoiling for a fight. Bronte had convinced herself that getting into some stupid breakup argument a few days before he left would be a hell of a lot easier than finding herself clutched on to his leg and being peeled off by airport security as he tried to board his plane at O’Hare.

He had just gotten home (uh, to Bronte’s apartment) after a long day of packing up and/or throwing away the bits and pieces of crap that had accumulated over the past five years in his modest apartment. Max had defended his dissertation two days before, and his mind was still a cluttered mass of fragmented phrases like “total endogeneity” and “aggregate risk,” and all he wanted to do was toss Bronte into bed and keep her there for the remaining six days until he was, quite reluctantly, going back to England. He had decided to tell her the truth about his family at some point that last week, but she’d turned so churlish these past few days, he kept putting it off. He needed her to be more understanding, not less, when he tried to explain why he had purposely not told her what was obviously going to be something of paramount importance to both of them.

Max had convinced himself it was probably too soon to propose marriage to Bronte before he left—the royal info was bad enough; he didn’t want to frighten her off altogether—but he wanted them to be moving toward that eventuality, one way or another. He could probably squeeze out a year or two more in the States before his parents flatly demanded he return to England, but more than that was highly unlikely. Eventually, Bronte would need to agree to move to the UK. He wanted to begin laying the groundwork gradually and then propose, but first things first: he couldn’t very well propose much of anything until Bronte knew what he was really proposing. Namely, a life as a duchess.

“Don’t do it, Bron, please,” he whispered in her ear as he came up behind her and began kissing her neck, nuzzling his way past all that delicious, long, brown hair and working his hands under her T-shirt and leisurely across her smooth abdomen.

“Don’t do what?” she simpered with false sweetness as she tilted her neck a bit and continued to stir the homemade sauce of fennel sausage and broccoli rabe she was making for the pasta.

“Don’t pick a fight so you can say this was all going to hell anyway.” More kisses on the nape of her neck. “Don’t do it. Don’t pretend this”—more kisses along her collarbone—“whatever we have going on here, is some eight-week fling that we can ignore after next week.” Hands now gliding effortlessly along the bottom of her bra, her breasts tightening, almost painfully, in anticipation. “That line of thinking, as you would say, has been a crock of shit,” whispered between kisses,“since sometime in the middle of week one.”

Bronte decided to turn down the stove and avoid further discussion right at the moment. What was the point of spoiling a festive romp with nay-saying and bitching about pesky concepts like
reality
and
the
future
for chrissake? She turned to face him, pressing her chest against his, feeling the consoling power of how hard he was against her and the instantaneous warmth that triggered in her.

She had to confess, to herself at least, that all of this everything-will-have-run-its-course business was turning out to be quite the—what was his phrase?—crock of shit. Shoving that thought aside, Bronte gave herself up to the rapidly overpowering desire that was coursing through her.

By the time she realized what was happening, they were on the floor of the living room, with Max having taken off Bronte’s shirt and bra. He was caressing her breasts and stomach while she lay there like a goddamned odalisque. He never seemed to tire of these small journeys across her body: just now he was trailing a finger along one rib and up toward the breast he was sucking, alternating the near-painful force with little conciliatory licks, which only made her want more of the near-pain, and so on.

She arched her back and flung her arms above her head, then collected herself, as much as possible given the circumstances, and brought her hands back down to his shoulders and maneuvered him onto his back, straddling him on all fours. She wanted to take him in every way imaginable.

She wanted to be so completely full, so
done
. There must be an end to the joy, mustn’t there? If she simply gorged herself on him for the next week, surely she must tire of him, mustn’t she?

It wasn’t even a coherent thought, but the joy the idea brought her must have shone in her eyes, and Max smiled up at her from the floor, as he fidgeted carelessly with her nipples. She swatted him away playfully, then stood for a moment to get her pants and underwear off, and pulled his pants off while she was up. He rid himself of his
More
Cowbell
T-shirt.

Staring down at his fabulously long, lean, hard body was, well, breathtaking. He had his hands clasped behind his head with a what-me-worry? expression that categorically erased any other thoughts from her mind. It was a simple moment. No psychological man-at-my-feet bullshit—just the opposite, really. She was about to make him a
very
happy man. She swung her long hair in front of one bare shoulder in a gesture she knew he adored and slowly prepared to take him.

He was so hard and ready she could not resist slowly kneeling down between his legs and looking up under hooded lids with a wicked smile. He rolled his eyes in a mute thank-you-Jesus and reached his hands down to push his strong fingers into her scalp. Massaging, stroking, guiding, fingers tracing the nape of her neck as her lips and tongue began savoring, always as if for the first time, she thought, the delectable joy of him in her mouth.

Those Catholic-girl hang-ups had died a very happy death in the past eight weeks. For some reason (okay, for many reasons), she had always steered clear of the Big Bad Blow Job. She had been amazed in college by how many women—intelligent friends of hers, no less—were more than happy to go down on a guy without thinking twice. Laughter rang through the corridors of Berkeley at Bronte’s expense when she confessed with drunken conviction she would much rather screw a guy than give him a blow job.

Much rather.

So it was all really an unexpected and very happy turn of events for everyone concerned when Max began to chip away at Bronte’s aversion. He had started by simply being naked all the time, or at least as much of the time as possible, because, as he rightly suspected, much of her reluctance stemmed from a girlish avoidance of “down there” that had naturally evolved into “I’m just not good at it.”

“After you get used to having it around, you know, you’ll want to get better acquainted,” Max had joked one morning, standing behind her, both of them stark-naked and fresh out of the shower, his warm, smooth cock nestling snugly against her backside. She couldn’t help reaching around to grab his ass to pull him even closer, massage a bit, then give him a quick spank. “Enough of that, Romeo. I am actually going to work this morning.”

“I know, I know. And I too am venturing afield. I only have three classes left and Dr. Hedges wants to go for lunch today. I’m not suggesting we pursue it now, just planting the idea, so to speak.” He turned and left the bathroom and, as she reached for her toothbrush, she felt the absence of his warmth almost as much as she had felt the presence of it.

Not good.

All of the sweet memories of the past few weeks were starting to splinter and crowd around her mind in a dreamlike montage: snippets of conversations, the feel of some part of his warm body coming into contact with her hip in the middle of the night, the feel of his tongue on her, the feel, as now, of him deep in her mouth. Deeper and deeper she wanted to take him. She wished she could open her throat even more, the possession of it, the thrill of his response, a response to
her
, a joy from
her
, the feel of his tension in one of her hands, her delicate touch, then firmer, wanting him to know how much it all mattered to her, how much she lov—

And then he arched and came in her mouth in the most crushing, salty, wet rush, as she sucked again, pressed harder into him with her hand and smiled to herself and to him. As she tenderly pulled away, she licked her lips for the mere pleasure of it and looked up at his utterly satisfied expression. Eyes half closed, mouth half open.

“So much for your prior concerns about that particular activity,” he joked in a husky, low voice. He pulled Bronte up along his body and began caressing her back as he relished the very languid feel of her long, graceful form draped down the length of his. He held her tenderly, almost cautiously, protectively, then started to let his hands wander down along her back, the sides of her hips, her thighs. He trailed his hands lazily around her body, stroking her, up and down and in, loving the shape of her ass.

“Mmmm,” she purred.

“Mmmm-hmmm,” he moaned in reply, giving her a good grab on one cheek, then resuming his gentle tracking. Farther down with one hand, now, then the other hand coming up her back to trace the outline of one shoulder blade. His other hand was perilously close now, then, “Oh, Max,” as one finger, then two began a slow, methodical rhythm against her slick opening.

She was so becalmed, like a blanket on him. She loved the relaxation, but her legs were starting to quiver, and she knew she couldn’t stay merely receptive much longer. Her upper thighs started to tense in an uncontrollable way, the heat and moisture in her building to an almost unbearable pitch.

“Oh, Bron, you are so wet, so ready, from having me in your mouth, so good…” His voice trailed off as his mouth captured hers in a plunging, maddening kiss and his fingers found the exact spot to trigger her response. She grabbed on to him, as if on to a raft, for dear life in a terrible storm, pulling away from his kiss and nearly sobbing into the crook of his neck, grabbing him with her teeth, her sweat and saliva—and perhaps tears—mingling with his salty, masculine scent.

She didn’t know how long they wallowed there, like castaways flung onto the middle of the living room floor. She opened her eyes and saw that the fading, early summer sun had turned to dusk, and the warm hues of gold and amber were reflected across the ivy-covered garden wall.

She wondered vaguely if the broccoli rabe had overcooked into bitterness by now and started unenthusiastically to peel herself off of Max when his phone trilled a bizarre, unfamiliar ringtone.

“Damn. That’s my mother,” Max ground out, as he scrambled awkwardly out from under her, fumbled into the pocket of his discarded jeans for his phone, and hit the talk button. “Hello, Mother… yes, I can hear you, but it’s not really a good time… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you while you were speaking. What’s happened? Are you all right?”

Abruptly, Max got up from the crouching position on the floor where he had recommenced petting Bronte’s arm in his initial belief that he’d be able to give his mother a call back later. He cradled the phone in the crook of his neck, pulled on his jeans distractedly, and moved out to the garden, leaving the French doors ajar so Bronte couldn’t
not
hear him.

“Just tell me… you’re not making any sense. Mother, put Devon on the phone, please. Hi, Dev. I couldn’t understand her. That’s not possible… oh, Jesus… where should I go? All right, I’ll be there in two hours. All right… okay, hang in there, Dev; I’ll be there as soon as I can. Can Mother come back to the phone? Mother? I am on my way. I will be there by morning… I know. Me too.”

Bronte had thrown on his oversized T-shirt and stood hesitantly, arms crossed, in the half-open doorway to the garden. Max stood stock-still with his back to her. Every inch of his body was so familiar to her now. Every nuance of every muscle along his spine, the beautiful curve of his hip, the wide shoulders, the turn of his upper arm, the warm, male smell of earth and faint bay rum that seemed to define him.