“Nice clothes, fancy place,” I say. “Are you rich, Doc?”
Something skitters across his face before he tucks it neatly away.
“Not much has changed in my wardrobe the last few years,” he offers wryly. “And this place looks fancier than it costs. I don’t have a ton of cash, but my family does, yeah.”
Why am I surprised? I knew he had an expensive education. It just never occurred to me that there was as much distance between our backgrounds as there apparently is.
“My father disowned me.” His voice and eyes grow sober, and I want to hug him. “I know that sounds like an old-fashioned word, but fathers cutting their sons out of wills apparently never goes out of style. I’m not just cut off from what he would leave when he dies, but from who he is his while he’s alive. Cut off from him.”
I take a few steps closer, reach up to push back the hair that has fallen into his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I don’t need his money,” Maxim says sharply. “I had a little of my own. I get by.”
It’s glaringly obvious to me that his father’s money is the least of what Maxim misses. I suspect he misses the man himself, though he may not want to admit it.
“If this is what you call getting by,” I say teasingly and with an admiring look around the foyer and up the stairs, “I’d hate to see balling.”
We both laugh and some of the tension tightening his shoulders dissipates.
“It’s just a rental for the month between finishing my doctorate and leaving for Antarctica next week.”
The reminder drains my laughter. I’m leaving soon, too.
“We should make this week count,” I say.
“We should.” He steps close, linking our fingers at our sides and bending to take my lips in a leisurely kiss, languid and at odds with the energy humming around him. One could be fooled into thinking he was domesticated. Am I the only one who sees the wild wolf?
“My room’s upstairs,” he says, walking us backward toward the steps.
I nod and follow him up, holding his hand loosely. In his bedroom, the ceilings soar high, and the hardwood floors gleam beneath my bare feet when I slip off my shoes. Gilded threads run through the wallpaper and the bed is huge and covered with fine linen.
“This room is beautiful, Maxim.”
“I can’t take much credit for it. Rental came fully furnished. Are we going to talk interior decoration all night, or are we ready to pluck this flower you keep telling me about?”
I chuckle, as I know he meant me to. He’s being charming, deliberately relaxing me. It only makes me want him more. I want his hands and mouth on me, but I can’t bring myself to say the words. So I show him.
Not releasing his gaze, I tug at the thin row of buttons descending the green silk blouse tucked into my slacks. His nostrils flare in an otherwise unmoved face. I shrug one shoulder, liberating the sleeve to fall down my arm. I reach for the delicate front clasp holding the cups of my bra together, but he stops me. I glance from the long, tanned fingers against my skin up to his face.
“I thought virgins were supposed to be all scared and trembly.” His laugh is rough, but his hands are tender and his eyes scorch me everywhere.
“Not this one. There’s power in choosing your own path, and I’ve waited until I found someone I was sure I wanted to be with my first time. This is what I want, Doc. I’ve never felt more in control.”
What looks like doubt marks the handsome face. “You’ve been honest with me, Nix. So open, and everything you’ve shared makes me respect you even more.” He brushes a thumb over my mouth. “Makes me want you even more. You’re exactly who I thought you were.”
A chuckle rasps between our lips when he kisses me.
“Even better than I thought you were, actually. I don’t take any of it for granted, so I need to say something, and I hope it doesn’t ruin this.”
“Okay.”
“I can’t afford attachments. Next week, I’m off to Antarctica. Then to South America. I have no plans of settling down or committing and—”
“I get it.” I steel my heart and suffocate anything soft and vulnerable. I keep my voice steady. “You’re saying this is just sex.”
He melds our glances together, brings my knuckle up to his lips, and shakes his head. “No, it’ll be more than that. I already know with you, it will feel like more.” That same bright ambition, hot as passion, or maybe merely a trick of the light, flashes through his eyes. “That’s what will make it so hard to walk away at the end of the week, but what I’m saying is that I will. I’ll walk away and I won’t look back.”
He passes his big hand in the air, sketching an imaginary line between our bodies. “I can’t do this right now.”
My laugh comes like forced air through a vent, quick and hard and cool. “I’m not expecting a proposal. You think because I haven’t had sex before I’ll be an emotional wreck next week when we go our separate ways?”
“No, I’m not that arrogant.” His lips twist in a show of self-mockery. “Okay, I am actually pretty arrogant, but no. I just want you to know this will mean something to me, but I can’t allow it to be—”
“Neither can I.” I reach up and sink my fingers into the thick hair at his neck. “I get a week with someone I’m crazy attracted to, respect very much, and will remember fondly as the first man I ever fucked.”
I keep my voice deliberately even and neutral, and strip away all the emotion. I stomp on all the possibilities that feel like unopened buds ready to sprout. I show him only my desire and willingness to have him as he comes.
“And that’s enough?” He scans my face, searching for a lie, the truth, weakness—I don’t know what. “A week, our time together, going our separate ways at the end—it’s enough?”
I honestly don’t know. What do I say? That after only a taste, I already crave him? That I have no idea how my body, my heart will respond to the kind of connection even just conversation and a few kisses have evoked? I don’t know what I will feel at the end of the week, but I know I want this, so I tell him exactly what he needs to hear.
“It’s enough.”
He doesn’t move, so I do, tipping up to press my mouth to his. At first he just watches me kiss him, eyelids lowered, lips closed, like he’s still not sure we should. I lick into the seam of his mouth, and he groans my name, his eyes closing. That sound vibrates through my lips and to my core—to the seat of my need and want and curiosity. I want to understand this physical mystery I’ve eschewed all my life, and I want it with him. If the price is ultimately heartbreak, my eyes are wide open.
I cover his hand with mine and coax it up to my breast, press myself deeper into his palm. He squeezes and slides a thumb under the bra to tease my nipple. My breath stutters and my eyes close. He runs his hand up my shoulder and under the silk bra strap, persuading it down my arm. Under his touch, the bra’s clasp snaps free, baring me to him. I’m proud of my body, not because it’s a certain size or because I’m fit, but because it’s what I have to offer him. I chose this man, chose this time. In a world where so many of us don’t get to choose, I cherish that. It’s my right, but that doesn’t mean I take it for granted. Not when I’ve seen so many stripped of that choice. Not when I’ve seen so many who regretted their first time.