His hand left my belly to cup my jaw and his face was soft when he whispered, “Baby.”

“I’m not kidding.”

“I know, that’s ‘cause it’s fresh. Coupla weeks, you’ll feel differently.”

I sighed and closed my eyes, saying, “I don’t know.”

I opened my eyes when I felt his mouth touch mine.

“I do,” he said when he lifted his head.

“Yes?”

“You gettin’ lost, gettin’ tied to that asshole, led you to me,” he grinned and his grin was arrogant. “So, yeah, coupla weeks, you’ll feel differently.”

My eyes narrowed on his grin before they went back to his. “You know, you’re not only annoying and domineering, you’re also arrogant.”

His mouth came back to mine and I saw his eyes were still smiling when he informed me, “Yeah, and you love it.”

“I forgot, you’re also impossible.”

His eyes started dancing a split second before he kissed me, not a touch of the lips, but deep and long and he was mostly on top of me when he was done with my mouth. My arms were also around him with one hand wrapped around the back of his neck and his kiss was so good, the weight of him felt so nice, I forgot to be peeved.

“This is nice,” I whispered.

“Yeah,” he whispered back and dipped his head, running his nose along my jaw.

I didn’t tell him but Max doing that made it even nicer.

“Max?” I called and his head came up.

“Right here, baby.”

“Why Shauna?”

The minute I said the words, I wished I could shove them back in my mouth. I didn’t even know why I said them. They just came out. We’d been “sparring”, as Max called it, we were good at that, it had become us and, after, he was being so sweet, I felt safe asking.

I knew as the darkness swept his face, I shouldn’t have asked.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked,” I muttered, fear rippling through my belly because I knew I’d done something wrong and I didn’t want him to go back to that other Max of yesterday afternoon. I decided to change the subject and tried to slide out from under him, offering, “I’ll go make coffee.”

His weight didn’t shift, in fact he gave me more of it, holding me in place and my eyes went to his.

“Why shouldn’t you ask?” he enquired.

“You obviously don’t want to talk about it,” I pointed out carefully.

“Maybe not, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask.”

“Well –”

“You’re naked in my bed, babe, you’re cookin’ in my kitchen, you’re movin’ to town, buyin’ a lawyer desk, all of that to take a gamble on me. Don’t you think you got a right to know?”

I did think I had a right to know, about a lot of things, about everything.

I didn’t tell him this. I just held onto my courage and his gaze.

Max got up on a forearm but didn’t shift the rest of his weight as his eyes went to my temple and the fingers of his other hand went there too, sifting into my hair. He slid them down, through the tendrils and then he started twirling a lock around his finger. I felt his touch and it felt lovely but I also watched his features, emotions drifting over them openly, too fast to read but most of them were not good. Then his eyes left the lock of hair even though his finger kept twisting it and they came to me.

“Long time ago, fifth, sixth grade, we had a posse. Bitsy, Brody, Shauna, Kami, Harry and me.”

“Harry?” I asked, surprised.

“Yeah.”

“Kami?”

“Yeah, kind of, mostly she tagged along, didn’t have many of her own friends.”

I didn’t find this surprising if what Max said about Kami being a bitch since forever was true.

“Not Curtis?” I queried.

“No.”

And not Anna? I thought but didn’t speak the question aloud.

“We were tight,” he continued, “did everything together for years, into high school. Stayed tight, school to school, even though Bitsy and Shauna were a year younger, Kami, two.”

I nodded, prompting him to go on as my hand slid around to rest on his chest.

“Kami broke off, findin’ her own friends but she always stayed close to Shauna. Brody and me made varsity our freshman year, Harry didn’t. That’s when Brody and me took on Curt, who was a year older but we lost close touch with Harry. He was around, we hung out but we were no longer tight.”

“Did Shauna stay close?”

“Yeah.”

“So she was your friend?”

He grinned. “I was in high school. High school boys do stupid shit around beautiful girls and, even though she was a conceited pain in the ass most of the time, she’s always been beautiful, even back then.”

I tried not to let the knifepoint of his words sink into my flesh but I didn’t succeed.

The night before he’d told me I was pretty not beautiful and, as all women knew, there was a big bloody difference.

“Duchess,” he said softly, obviously reading my expression, “doesn’t hold a candle.”

I forced a smile and tried to take us back to our earlier subject. “Go on.”

Max stayed on the current subject. “Babe, seriously.”

“So,” I steadfastly ignored him, “you were all friends.”

As usual, Max steadfastly stayed on target. “She’s beautiful but she’s cold. Great with her mouth when it’s on your cock. When she’s usin’ it for anything else, to kiss, speak or frown, which she uses it for most, not so good.”

“Max –”

“And she doesn’t let go when you fuck her, wants control, of you, of herself, of everything. The whole thing was an exercise in manipulation, her tryin’ to wrap you around her finger, catch you in her honey trap. But what she never got was, she’s wound up so tight, so intent on her scheme, she never let herself enjoy it and if she doesn’t, you can’t.”

My eyes caught his and I told him honestly, “I’m not sure I need this information.”

“Never,” Max said, again ignoring me. “Never did I walk into a room and see her dressed to go out and forget how to breathe like I did when I saw you before we went to The Rooster.” I felt my eyes grow wide at this admission and I, too, forgot how to breathe.

When I remembered I whispered, “Max –”

His thumb came up and slid back and forth along my temple. “Technical points at givin’ head, Shauna’s a ten. Artistic merit, zip.” His mouth came to mine and he muttered, “You, babe, you get into it and fuck,” his nose slid along mine and I watched his eyes get dark with good memories as he went on. “Watchin’ you suck my cock, could swear you like it better than me. Perfect fuckin’ scores.” He kissed me lightly and continued, “Fuckin’ her, she doesn’t even rank compared to you. Different league.”

As much as I didn’t want to admit it, this pleased me greatly.

“And she’s never, not once, not since fifth grade, made me laugh,” Max finished.

That pleased me even more.

“Okay, I’m better than Shauna,” I mumbled, feeling slightly shy and also self-conscious (even though I still felt very pleased), “moving on.”

“Yeah, we’ll move on when you promise never to get that look on your face again when I’m bein’ honest about her.”

“What look?” I asked, although even though I didn’t see it, I figured I knew.

“That look like I caught you off guard and shoved a knife in your gut.”

Oh dear. Could he really read me that well?

“Yeah, that’s what you looked like,” he said, like I’d spoken my unspoken question aloud and I felt my eyes get wide.

“That’s uncanny,” I blurted.

“Babe, don’t play poker,” he advised and then smiled before he finished, “ever.”

“Good advice,” I whispered.

His face grew warm and he bent his head, kissed my nose and whispered back, “Cute.” Then he rolled, wrapping his arms around and taking me with him so I was mostly on top.

I lifted up with an arm on his chest and an elbow in the bed and asked, “Are you going to finish your story?”

“Yeah,” he said on a sigh, “though not much to it. We graduated and Shauna went to CSU. She disappeared for a few years after that, got married to some rich, old guy from Aspen, divorced his ass and fleeced him for as much as she could though not as much as she wanted. She might be beautiful and he might have been old but he wasn’t dumb. She came back and has been livin’ on that payoff, lookin’ for her next one ever since.”

“Sounds like his payoff is dwindling.”

“Yeah, she’s fucked. She’s been workin’ Curt hard. One good thing about that will and those letters is that he knew it. She thought she was fuckin’ him but in the end, he took what he wanted and fucked her.”

“Literally and figuratively,” I noted.

“Yep.”

“And you?”

His head tilted on my pillow and he stated bluntly, “She’s gorgeous, she’s good with her mouth, she wanted in my bed, she worked at it, I let her in my bed. She played a game with me, hid a lot of who she was and I bought it. Right off the bat it wasn’t near as good as she made it seem like it was gonna be. Then it got worse. When gettin’ off wasn’t worth puttin’ up with her, I ended it.”

“You didn’t know she was also sleeping with Curtis?”

“That was part of gettin’ off not bein’ worth puttin’ up with her, when I found out she was playin’ me and Curt at the same time.”

“So you don’t like to share?” I asked and his arms, which were resting around me lightly, tightened.

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“Shauna, I didn’t give a fuck. Even when we were together it was casual. It’s casual, I don’t care.” His hand slid up my back bringing my torso close to his and I watched his eyes grow intense when he said, “It ain’t casual, Duchess, like us, no, I absolutely do not like to share.”

I bit my lip, liking his answer then I enquired, “So, if you didn’t mind –?”

Max cut me off, explaining, “It was Curt.”

“And you didn’t like Curt.”

“Nope, didn’t like him, didn’t like a woman sharin’ his bed and mine and didn’t like why she was doin’ it.”

“How long were you with her?”

“I work outta town most of the time so it lasted a year. Probably would have figured it out a lot sooner if I’d been around. Don’t know exactly but the time I was in town and with her probably was around a coupla months.”

“When did Harry enter the picture?”

“Awhile ago, some time after I scraped her off and she figured out she wasn’t gettin’ back in. A year ago, bit more.”

“How did they hook up?” I asked and Max’s face changed, his eyes grew distant.

“That’s the fuck of it,” he murmured.

“Sorry?”

His eyes focused and he looked at me. “Harry’s always had a thing for Bitsy, always. Never had a thing for Shauna. Surprised everyone when they got together.”

This was news, interesting news.

“Bitsy?”

“Yeah. The day she married Curt he got so loaded, he tore The Dog apart. Mick had to put him in a cell to keep an eye on him and dry him out.”

“Wow,” I breathed.

“Yeah,” Max said. “After Curt, Bitsy and Harry drifted apart, after she lost her legs, they became friends again, got close. Still are.”

My mother was right, this was the Rocky Mountain Peyton Place.

“So Kami was with Curt before he was with Bitsy and Harry has always had a crush on Bitsy –”

“No, honey, Kami was with Curt until Bitsy broke up with Harry. Brody and I stopped hangin’ with him in high school but that didn’t mean we weren’t still friends. We were. And Bitsy dated him through high school and after, until somethin’ happened, she broke it off and Curt wasted no time. He ended things with Kami and went after Bitsy.”

I blinked at him. “So, Harry and Bitsy were together?”

“Yeah, six, seven years, at least.”

“Oh my God.”

“Long time ago.”

“Motive for murder?”

Max burst out laughing and rolled again so we were on our sides but he came up with his elbow in the bed and his head in his hand and I moved to my back so I could look up at him.

“Harry wouldn’t hurt a fly, doesn’t have it in him. He’s never even been huntin’, doesn’t own a gun, far’s I know,” Max told me. “His folks left him a trust fund but he still opened his own lumber store, does all right for himself on top of that stash. And even if he would go after Curt, he’d never go after Bitsy, not even threaten it.”

“Oh.”

He grinned. “Though, few months, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him standin’ on her front step, carrying flowers.”

I liked this idea so I smiled.

Max’s eyes drifted over my face and then his head dipped close.

“That answer your question?” he asked quietly, I nodded and Max moved on to a different subject. “So what are we gonna do today?”