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“I’ll empty every drugstore in Tampa and the surrounding area of their condom supply,” he told her sincerely, giving her a lopsided grin that made her heart surge.
He was trying to take her mind off what she might have experienced, trying to draw her back into something happier…and it worked. Max was irresistible when he was playing with her, and it used to happen so seldom. She was mush in the face of his wicked grin. “Kind of ambitious, don’t you think?”
“Not at all,” he told her arrogantly. “I’m thinking I might need more flown in from other cities.”
Oh God, she loved this man, and she loved the way he loved her now. Or the way he must have always loved her, but had never shown it until recently. “Thinking about finishing what we started in the mall?”
“Yeah. And then starting it all over again,” he answered, his voice graveled, low, and sensually potent.
Remembering Max’s dominant, uncontrolled embrace, Mia blurted out, “Later. You can definitely finish it later.”
“Count on it,” Max said, his tone low and dangerous.
Mia’s core clenched, her already damp panties getting wetter. Max had always been a man of his word. If he said something, he meant it. He might be different, but Mia knew that was one thing that would never change.
Thank God!
“I can’t find my wedding ring. I’ve searched everywhere,” Mia murmured quietly as she and Max were eating supper that evening. Max had arranged dinner at home, Italian food from her favorite restaurant.
“You had to have been wearing it when you disappeared. It’s never been here,” Max answered, looking up at her as he dropped the fork on his empty plate.
Mia could see the hurt look in his eyes, and it almost leveled her. Obviously he’d noticed it was missing, but he hadn’t said anything. “Why would I take it off if I was wearing it? I never took it off.”
“I know,” he answered grimly. “I wondered about that myself.”
Frustrated, Mia dropped her napkin on her empty plate and reached for her glass of wine. She took a sip, trying desperately to remember what had happened, to conjure memories, any information about the past few years. As usual, she could see nothing but a blank space of time, as though she’d been sleeping through the last few years. “I can’t remember,” she admitted softly, wanting desperately to know what had happened. She needed to know, and so did Max. Obviously the uncertainty was haunting both of them. “Tell me what happened after I disappeared. Were there ever any clues to where I went, what I did?”
“No,” Max replied darkly. “The last thing you remember happened a week or two before you disappeared.” He stopped and reached for his beer, taking a gulp before he continued, “I’m not even completely sure what day you vanished. I found your things on the beach the day I came home from an overnight business trip. It could have been the day I left or the following day. I came home late. I hated myself for ever leaving on that trip.”
He looked tormented, and she hated it. “Max, it wasn’t your fault. You were considering running for public office, and you had business out of town—”
“It was bullshit. All of it. I never wanted to be a politician, and I could have left most of the traveling to upper management. I was a goddamn coward, Mia. I took those trips to take a break from us.” After downing the rest of his beer, he stood abruptly and went to the refrigerator for another one.
Mia felt her hand trembling as she reached for her wine, taking a healthy sip. He needed a break? Had he wanted out of their marriage? “Was I suffocating you because I loved you too much?” It was a hard question to ask, but she needed to know. Max had been her whole world since they’d met, and maybe it was too much for him. She had a tendency to be a bit extreme in everything she did, while Max was exactly the opposite. Maybe he couldn’t bear her intensity for long periods of time, even though she’d really tried to tone it down for his sake, not wanting to scare him away.
Max twisted the top off his beer, laughing harshly as he tossed the cap in the trash. “It wasn’t you; it was me. I wanted to be smothered by you; I wanted to be the only man you saw, the only man who existed for you.”
“But Max, youwere—”
“It wasn’t enough,” he told her roughly as he slid into his chair again, piercing her with a possessive stare that Mia had never seen before. “The things I wanted weren’t right in my mind. My dad loved my mom and treated her with tenderness and devotion. Although I felt those things too, there was also this total obsession that I didn’t think was right, natural. You’re my wife, a woman who deserves my respect. I never wanted you to leave me. I didn’t want to scare you away by acting like a lunatic. The way I felt wasn’t rational. I wanted to kill any man who looked at you.”
Oh, God.He’d felt the same way she did, and he hadn’t been able to deal with it. The crazy love, the over-the-top desire to rip his clothes off and have wild, crazy sex until they were both so sated they couldn’t move. Her levelheaded Max, her sensible husband, her tender lover really felt the same savage emotions. He just hadn’t wanted her to know.
“So you’re really a closet dominant male?” she asked, shivering as she watched his face, the turbulent emotions making the flecks of gold in his eyes glow as he stared at her as though he wanted to swallow her whole. Her core flooded with heat as she watched him struggle, secretly hoping the alpha would break free. Just once…she’d like to see Max totally lose control, not in a bad way, but in a very, very good way. It would make him more human, more real, and she welcomed it.
If that’s a part of Max I haven’t seen…bring it on!
“I think I’m beyond that, and I don’t think I’m in the closet anymore. And I’m still perfectly rational with everyone and everything except you. You’re the only woman who’s ever made me feel this way,” he growled, his face damp with perspiration.
Mia tried to hide the longing that she was certain was showing on her face, wanting to do nothing except crawl into his lap and make him completely lose control. The feminine power she had over him was suddenly a heady, dizzying feeling. This man, who was her entire world, wanted her above all things, above any other woman on earth, and she knew she could make him lose it. But he had trusted her with his feelings, and she wasn’t going to use them against him when he was struggling, vulnerable. She loved him too much. What he’d been taught growing up by the parents he’d loved and the way he was feeling now were warring against each other.
Everything inside of her rejoiced, elated to know that he’d felt the same as she did, that his love was anything but lukewarm and tepid, controlled and sane. Now, it seemed almost ridiculous that they had both never fully revealed the intensity of their emotions for fear of losing the one they loved to the point of insanity. “You can be whoever you really are with me, Max. I’ll never stop loving you.”
“I think that’s the problem. I was never truly alive until I met you. I was the guy who never lost his temper, never let emotions get in the way of a business deal, and I was pretty much indifferent about everything. The only thing I wanted was to be a good son to my adoptive parents because they had given me so much. I guess I thought I needed to be in their image, act like a Hamilton, to make up for the fact that I wasn’t their blood child. I didn’t even know who I was,” Max admitted.
“And do you know who you are now?” Mia asked softly, loving him even more for being able to bare himself to her.
“Not completely,” he said with a masculine sigh. “But I can guarantee you that I’m not indifferent, especially not when it comes to you. I know exactly how I feel about you. I always have. I just wasn’t sure you could handle it.”