Beautiful Stranger (Beautiful Bastard 2)

Crap, Sara. That’s how most people do it.

I tugged at his hips, lifted to suck at his neck.

“Okay then.” Max moved back, reached between us, and slid inside with a low groan. Slowly, slowly, slowly he filled me. And then he covered my body with his, kissed his way up my neck, and pressed his lips against mine.

“Fucking brilliant,” he whispered. “Christ, there’s nothing like this.”

A strange desperation took over me. I had never felt his weight on me so fully, felt every bit of his bare skin, and it was a completely different type of possession. His shoulders were so broad, every muscle bunched and defined under my hands. Inside and over me, Max felt like his own planet.

He continued to kiss me as he moved, starting so slow, letting me feel every inch. “Someone could look over here. See you beneath me, thighs spread, your bare feet on my legs.” He lifted himself on his elbows, looked down at my br**sts. “Think they’d like to see these.”

I closed my eyes and arched my back so he could get a better look. God, there was such a strange safety with Max. He never made it seem weird, or wrong that I liked the idea of people watching us. It was as if he loved it just as much as I did, wanted to get caught, too.

“Think you want someone to watch you get f**ked sometime?” he asked, speeding up a little.

My honesty tumbled forward, breathless: “I like the idea of people seeing you like this with me.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t know that I wanted this before I met you.”

He fell over me, heavy and warm. “I’d give you anything you wanted. I love how you transform when I’m f**king you and watching. When I’m taking pictures, you lose your mysterious little shield and open up, like you’re finally breathing.”

I stretched under him, pulling him as close as I could, and looked up at the dark sky just as the first firework shot out over the river. The sound followed the light, and a deep boom shook the roof below my back.

More fireworks exploded in a flurry—stars and flames and lights so brilliant and close that it felt like the sky was on fire. The building under me vibrated, shaking my bones and ripping through my chest.

“Holy f**k,” he said laughing, and moved harder, jerking roughly, growing close. I knew his tells already so well. He was barely hanging on. The sound was almost deafening so near to the river, and the air grew heavy with sulfur, smoke, and light. He reached near my head, raised himself up on his knees, and pounded into me, snapping a picture of where we came together as the lights shone red and blue and green on my skin.

I took a deep breath and fell to pieces, crying out sharply, but my sound was lost in the thundering all around us.

Max drew a blanket from a pile and wrapped it around us both, perhaps less because it was cold and more because we were no longer performing for our imagined audience. We were simply sipping beer, holding hands, watching the fireworks.

“You said you haven’t made a commitment in a while, but is it weird to be monogamous with a sex buddy?” I asked, turning to watch his face.

He laughed and tilted his beer bottle to his lips. “No. I’m not such a wanker that I can’t be with one person if that’s what she wants.”

“ ‘What she wants’? You’d be okay if I was with other men?”

He shook his head and looked back to the river, where the smoke was just now starting to clear. “Don’t think so, actually.” He lifted his beer again, emptied it. “We didn’t use a condom tonight, if you recall. Couldn’t do that if you were with other men.”

He reached over to grab another beer and the blanket fell off his shoulders, revealing his bare back, each muscle tightly defined. I leaned forward and kissed my way up from the middle of his spine to his neck. “When was the last time you had a girlfriend? Was Cecily a girlfriend?”

“Not really.” He moved back beside me and cuddled under the blanket. “I’ve dated a couple of women exclusively since I moved here. But it’s been forever since I loved someone, if that’s what you mean.”

I nodded. “I guess that’s what I mean.”

“I had a serious girlfriend at uni for a bit. She went off with a mate of mine. Married him, actually. I was right pissed off at women for a bit after that. Now I just realize relationships are a lot of work, and energy, and time.” He took a sip, swallowed. “And I haven’t had a lot of that, trying to get the company up and running. I’m not opposed to the idea of having someone, but it’s hard to find a good fit in this city, strange as that sounds in a place with like eight million people.”

I felt absolutely nothing when he said this, no pang of hope that it would be me, no worry that Max was hoping to find someone else. For someone like me, who had, if anything, always felt more rather than less, it was jarring. The eeriest hollow sensation bloomed in my chest.

“I should probably go,” I said, stretching and letting the blanket fall away.

Max looked over my naked body before meeting my eyes. “Why’re you always in such a hurry to leave?”

“We don’t do overnights,” I reminded him.

“Not even on holidays? I could use a morning shag. We can use Mum’s guest room.”

“So call Will. He’s cute.”

“I would but he always insists on being big spoon. It’s awkward.” He paused. “Wait. You think Will is cute?”

I laughed, taking a final sip of beer and reaching for my clothes. “Yes, but you’re more my type.”

“Posh? Gifted in the penis department? Godlike?”

I looked over at him and laughed. “I was going to say you have the perfectly filthy mouth.”

His eyes darkened and he leaned to kiss me. “Stay over. Please, Petal. I want to f**k you in the morning when you’re all sleep-rumpled and drowsy.”

“I can’t, Max.”

He stared at me for a long beat and then looked away, raising his bottle to his lips, mumbling, “He really did a number on you,” around it.

I felt my smile fade. “It’s better when you don’t try to find meaning in a woman who wants sex to just be sex. Yes, Andy did a number on me but that isn’t why I don’t want to stay over.”

I looked at him for a moment before remembering to pull my smile back in place. “I can’t wait to see what you come up with next week.”

By the time I made it home, the high of being with Max had fizzled into a strange ache beneath my ribs. I tossed my keys and bag to the table in the hall and leaned back against the wall, looking into the inky darkness of my living room. My place was small but in the few short months I’d been in New York it had come to feel more like home to me than had the palatial home I’d shared with Andy for almost five years.