Thursday Nights (The Charistown Series) (23 page)

“Thank you, Max. You have no idea how much time you saved me. Dinner is at my house tonight, and I still haven’t gotten the food.” She shoved the umbrella at Max and reached into the backseat of her car for a dry sweatshirt.

Max knew he shouldn’t—he knew it was a bad idea—but he still found himself asking it anyway. “Can I offer you some company while you do your food shopping?”

Janie looked confused but not totally opposed to the idea, so Max stupidly added, “As friends, of course.”

Max tried to ignore the stab of pain he saw in her eyes, as well as the stab he felt in his gut, when she answered both his question and his clarification.

“Of course.”

Like children, Max and Janie walked up and down the aisles of the market putting food into their carts and making fun of each other’s choices.

“Really, Max, Fruity Pebbles? What are you six years old?” Janie teased.

“Oh, okay, this is coming from the girl that has two boxes of fruit snacks and a bag of Circus Peanuts in her cart.” Max laughed. The tight coil in his stomach seemed to be loosening as they shopped and fell into familiar, friendly banter. This was
them––
easy, happy, comfortable.

He helped her decide on the menu for that night’s dinner, and then they split up to collect all of the necessary ingredients for the meal.

“Do you remember the time Lyla tried to make Chinese food for Sunday dinner?”

“Janie, I thought we agreed as a group to never ever discuss that meal again. My stomach still lurches every time I see Kung Pao chicken on a takeout menu.” Max gave an exaggerated shiver, sending the two of them into a small fit of laughter.

He reached over to swipe a package of crackers off the shelf, accidentally brushing against Janie’s side lightly. The contact sparked tiny licks of fire in the blood coursing through her veins. The quick pang of lust stopped her for the briefest of seconds.
He only wants to be your friend
, she reminded herself with a mental slap,
and you are moving on.

Max felt the contact of their skin in two waves: first as a hot rush, then as a hard punch to the gut. He watched her reaction from the corner of his eye.
Did she feel that?
Do I want her to?
He wanted her with everything he had, and that was the problem. He had
nothing
, nothing left to give her. Even he wasn’t so selfish as to claim her and then offer her nothing but the shell he had come to be.

“Ew, you like Greek yogurt?” Janie’s sexy voice brought Max out of his convoluted thoughts.

“Yes, snooty girl, I do. It’s good for you. I add protein powder to it and make shakes to drink after I work out.” Janie scrunched up her nose and muttered something unintelligible. “What did you say, sweetness? I didn’t catch that.” Max grinned.

“You know what, Max, you really don’t want to know,” she challenged. “It will make you never want to eat Greek yogurt ever again.”

Max stood close to Janie, her coconut-and-lime-scented body filling his nose. He leaned down and lifted her chin with his index finger and thumb to meet her cerulean eyes. “I want you to tell me what you said just now, Jane.”

Looking into the most beautiful emeralds she had ever seen, and feeling the profound loss of something that was never truly hers, she pulled in a breath and gave Max a sinister smile. “Okay, Max, but you asked for it…” She paused a beat, stretching out the drama. “The taste and texture of Greek yogurt reminds me of pussy. It’s all slightly sour and thick and…don’t you think?” With a huge grin and a little extra sway in her hips, Janie started to walk away, leaving a stone-still Max standing in the dairy aisle with a hard on.

“How would you know what that tastes like?” he asked, not recognizing the slightly higher-than-usual pitch of his own voice.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she shot back over her shoulder.

Fuck
, he thought to himself, placing the yogurt back on the shelf.

After they checked out at the market, Max helped Janie put her groceries into her trunk. The rain temporarily stopped, but according to the news, there was another thunderstorm headed in their direction.

“Dinner’s at five.” Staring pointedly in his eyes, she continued. “What’s done is done. I expect to see you, okay?”

Heat surged through his body when she pressed her soft lips to his unshaved cheek. “I’ll be there, Janie.”

He watched as she got into her little red Jetta and drove away.

Janie unpacked the groceries on autopilot. Yes, the eggs ended up temporarily in the pantry and the potato chips in the freezer, but in the end everything was where it needed to be.

“I handled that pretty darn well,” she thought out loud.

Janie…I’m so sorry...for so many things.
She could see the sincerity in his eyes and hear it in his voice when he’d said the words. He almost sounded like he was in pain, even.

“Good!” she said. “He should be sorry.”

But the truth was, once he’d apologized, she just wanted to move on. Max was so important to her, and their relationship even before they’d had sex was special. They had fun together, laughed together, even their silences were comfortable. Janie always knew that Max held back a large part of himself—he never even discussed any past relationships. She just always assumed one day he would open up, but that time didn’t come. Her heart ached at the realization that her mind came to:
I need more than he can give
.

With
more
in mind, she though back to her date with Owen.

“I’m really having fun with you tonight,” he’d said as they walked down Main Street. Charistown’s streets were lined with shops, some big-name stores and other small boutiques. They’d walked through town—holding hands, no less—as they compared student horror stories.

Owen didn’t even bristle when Janie asked what he called the typical first-date question.

“Well,” Janie blushed after she uttered the words. “As cliché as it is, it’s a great question, Owen. I mean, you’re a great-looking, thirty-seven-year-old man. Why
aren’t
you married yet?”

“How about this…I have no crazy secrets or horribly tragic stories, but I would love to take you out again. Can we save the answer to that question for our second date?”

Janie smiled at the memory. Here was a man that needed just another date before sharing more of his past. Max had had
months
with Janie. Countless hours spent together and still he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—trust her enough with even the smallest parts of himself. Yet she couldn’t get Max and his damn walls out of her mind.
Foolish girl
, the voice in the back of her head whispered.

The chime of the doorbell made Janie look at the clock.
Who is here already?

Janie knew it wasn’t Lyla because she had called and said Kyle wanted to meet with her and talk, so it wasn’t her showing up at just three o’clock to help with dinner prep. And it couldn’t be anyone who actually wanted to eat unless they had serious time-telling issues.

Janie peered through the peephole and pulled in a breath.

“Hello there, stranger,” she said, attempting humor. But even to her own ears it sounded like lust. “Miss me already?”

The air crackled as Max strolled into Janie’s place like he owned it. But that’s how it was when Max was around—his presence was overpowering. At least for Janie.

Breathe in,breathe out
, she reminded herself.

Following him into the kitchen, Janie finally found her voice. “Seriously, Max, what are you doing here? Dinner isn’t for two hours.”

Max stopped walking but Janie hadn’t, so when their bodies collided, her chest to his broad back, breathing became an issue once more. When he turned around to face her, she inhaled deeply. His hair was still damp from his recent shower, and he smelled oh-so-delicious.

“Do I pass inspection, ma’am?” he asked with a full smile.

She hadn’t realized she had been staring.
Whoops.
Embarrassed, Janie poked him in the hard abdominals and walked past.

“Jane, I was on the phone with Lyla—thanks for telling me she moved, by the way,” he said sarcastically. “When Kyle showed up at her place. She said she wasn’t coming over to help you because she, and I quote, ‘had to hear this asshole out.’ So, I figured you could use some help, and here I am.”

“You could have called, Max,” Janie offered, trying to sound put out.

“And you would’ve told me no. So I decided just to show up. So, tell me want you want me to do.”

What Janie wanted from Max he wasn’t willing to give her—she wanted him to open up. She wanted honesty. She wanted his love. She wanted his body.

Instead she said, “How about if you start cutting vegetables for the salad?”

As if Max could read the many other things that crossed her mind before her verbalized request, he just stared at her. Their eyes locked in an embrace that neither one wanted to sever.

“Janie…” Max’s voice sounded strained, needy.

“Max, tell me,” Janie asked stepping away from him to give herself some physical distance. “Please. Let me help you get through whatever’s haunting you. We were friends first, so let me be your friend. I can see that it’s hurting you. Let me in. You can trust me.”

Without realizing it, she had inched closer to him during her plea. Her hand now rested on his forearm. Electrical currents were pulsing up her arms and zinging through her body. With forced gentleness, she removed her hand from his skin, praying that he couldn’t see the panic and lust that was encompassing her every thought. She fought the need to comfort him and the desire to make him forget every woman that came before her.

Her touch had felt warm and smooth, like fine silk draping his skin, but when she removed her fingers, white-hot heat surged straight to his heart.
If she only knew the effect she had on you
, his mind screamed,
she would never let you go
.

You’re being a selfish ass
. The other side of his mind fought back.
Let her go
!

Ignoring his body in favor of his mind, Max’s mouth began to move. “I wish I could, Janie. I know that it sounds cliché…Christ, it even hurts to say it out loud, but honest to God, I couldn’t mean this more…it’s not you, it’s me.”

Flinching at the brush off, she shrugged her shoulders. “Okay, Max, whatever you want. Like I said, I just want to be your friend. Now, be a good sous chef and finish the salad and then pound the chicken breast for the chicken parmesan. I’m gonna take a quick shower before everyone gets here.”

Max knew Janie well enough to know his words hurt her. She looked physically pained every time he shut her out. While he wasn’t lying when he said the problem wasn’t her, it left a fresh scar on his heart every time he saw the ache he inflicted flash through her eyes. The need to see her face was overwhelming. He had to look in her aqua eyes and make her understand that he wasn’t worth her time or her heart.

The bathroom door was all that stood between them. He lifted his hand to the doorknob, wanting so badly to open it and go to her.

He could envision her beautiful, naked body through the steam coming from the shower, the water trickling down her soft skin. Stripping himself down and sliding into the shower behind her. His large hands moving around her narrow waist, grazing over her ribcage and trailing up until he caressed her breasts. His thumb and forefinger rolling her nipples as he leans into her neck and drags his tongue up the long column until he reaches her jaw. Slowly turning her around, the water pounding at her back, he bends forward and begins a slow assault using his lips, his tongue, and his teeth. Her nipples pebble between his fingers, and a slow husky moan bubbles up from her throat, giving voice to her approval of his touch. She whimpers when he moves one hand from her breast and slowly lets it travel down her belly over her pubic bone. She runs her own hand up along his jaw and into his wet blond hair, pulling his head closer to her neck just as he strokes the hard nub between her thighs. She moans when he uses the pad of his finger to fondle her clit, and he can feel her body start to tremble and tighten. He’s not ready to let her come because that would mean he’d be letting her go, so he sinks first one finger, and then two, into her moist heat and begins a slow rhythm in and out of her cunt. “Oh, Max. Oh my God.” Her body is shaking, and her pussy is creaming on his fingers as he’s licking her neck, her jaw, and finally her lips. As he continues to fuck her with his fingers, he uses his thumb to rub her clit, finally bringing her over the edge. He can feel the walls of her sex milking his fingers as he whispers his apology and his love into her ear.