Honey and Smoke (12 page)

“I … I
know
that you’re not right for me.” She shut her eyes, making an obvious and painful-looking effort to think clearly. When she looked at him again, tears shimmered on her lower lashes. “But you’re so wonderful. Why do you have to be so wonderful, you jackass?”

Her combination of regret and devotion nearly tore him apart. “I just can’t help myself,” he said grimly. He blew a long breath, trying to exhale his own confusion and self-rebuke.

It would be simple to sweep away the only obstacle that was keeping them apart. All he had to do was change his mind about marriage; all he had to do was tell her that someday, yes, he could imagine signing a formal document that pledged his life to another person. He wouldn’t even have to tell her that he wanted to pledge his life to
her
specifically. She’d be satisfied with just knowing that he wasn’t against marriage in general.

He started to say that he’d reconsidered, but his conscience burned the words before they could leave his throat. It was a lie. If he said that he’d changed his mind, he’d be lying to himself as well as to her. And she deserved better than that. He wanted her to have the best, or at least what her convictions told her was the best. He wanted her to be happy. He’d never wanted so badly to protect someone else’s ideals at the expense of his own needs.

Max twisted away from her, pulled his feet from the coffee table, and smiled sarcastically. Very damned noble, he told himself. Now suffer. He raked his hands through his hair and stared at the floor. Slowly she rearranged herself, holding the couch’s overstuffed upholstery for support, until she was seated as he was, facing forward, both feet firmly on the floor.

“I feel like a tease,” she whispered miserably. “It’s a first.”

“You were ready to go for broke, babe. That wasn’t teasing.”

“Then why do you have an evil, Jack Nicholson-playing-the-devil smile on your face?”

“Because I’m contemplating my life.”

“Don’t. It looks painful.”

“I should never have left the marines. The choices were simpler there.”

“What choices?”

“Exactly.”

He stood up, frustrated by a self-examination that led back to the same answer as always. He had lost the ability to take leaps of faith. Oh, he was flexible in the small ways, the everyday things, but he couldn’t buck the big issues. For two decades he’d had a front-row view of the world’s insanity, and he’d lost his vision of paradise forever. Happiness for him would have to be based on what he could see and hold find measure each day without questioning whether it would exist the day after.

Max pivoted toward her angrily. “ ‘Come into my guest
room, said the spider to the fly.’ ” He tried to ignore her sorrowful, yearning gaze. “In the morning you can load your hangover onto the barbecue bus and drive home. Will the mutant cat survive the night without you?”

After a second her expression became resigned. “Yes. She has lots of food and water, and a fresh kitty litter box.”

“Ah. What more could a creature want?” He smiled tightly, thinking of too many answers to that question as he looked down at her.

She staggered to her feet and listed sideways. Max caught her arm and drew her close. She raised her big silver eyes and nearly dissolved his restraint with a look of poignant affection. “I like chicken salad. Do you like chicken salad?”

“No. I ate canned chicken salad once in ’Nam and almost died from food poisoning.”

“Oh.”

“Are you trying to tell me that you’re still hungry? You ate two peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches and half a bag of potato chips.”

She blinked owlishly. “I like to read those big family-saga books where everybody plots against everybody else.”

“That’s nice,” he crooned. There was no point in aiming for logic in this conversation. She was endearing and sincere, but fading fast. “Come on and get in bed, and I’ll tell you a good-night story.”

“I’m just trying to find out what we have in common. What do you like to read?”

“Guerrilla Warfare Weekly,”
he joked.

She sputtered with laughter. “You like gorillas? We should visit Zoo Atlanta.”

“I read magazines and newspapers. Current affairs.”

Her eyes showed desperation. “How about this current affair?” She launched herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him wildly.

Max stepped back with a barely concealed groan.
“Dammit, we’ve already discussed this. You’re pie-eyed, so I forgive you.
But don’t push me too far
.”

“Maybe I don’t want to listen to my common sense anymore.” She clasped his shirtfront. “Maybe I’m so lonely that I can barely stand my own company. Maybe I think that I’ll go crazy if I don’t get you out of my system.
You have to do something, Maximilian
.”

The short fuse on his control burst into flame. “You asked for it,” he said angrily. He picked her up so swiftly that she yelped. Holding her tightly against his chest, he carried her through the living room and down a short hall, where he kicked open the door to the guest room.

“Max, Max, I’ll take a chance on being sorry in the morning,” she whispered raggedly as he crossed a room that still contained the pleasant, unassuming old furniture his father had left there. “I need you tonight.”

Cursing under his breath, a little hurt, he laid her on a double bed, then jerked the quilt and sheet from under her. The bed’s wooden frame creaked in rhythm with his movements. The darkness was thick, but when his fingers found the fastenings on her slacks, he moved with nimble speed. Within a few seconds he dragged the slacks over her legs and feet.

He threw the garment on the floor behind him and again found her with his hands. She gasped, not in surprise but in pleasure. Touching her made his head swim with desire; he gritted his teeth and stroked her through her panties, kneeling over her on the bed as he did.

The moans that cascaded from her throat were even more erotic because he couldn’t see her. He could only feel her, her body incredibly aroused as he slid his fingers under the panties and between her legs. She reached for him, frantically stroking his knees and the arm he braced beside her.

“Max, I want to kiss you,” she cried. “Don’t stay there. Please, don’t stay so far away. Lay down beside me.”

He shivered in agony and lay down, sighing as he
received the wild hunger of her mouth. Her body arched and trembled; he heard himself making hoarse sounds in the back of his throat because his intimate touching revealed the delicacy and strength of her passion, passion that he wouldn’t permit himself to sample in the way his body screamed for.

“Need you, want you,” she called out, and then she seemed to focus all her power as she burst into soft mewling sounds and went very still, shuddering. He felt her sweet delirium with his hand, and wretchedly bent his head to her shoulder.

She quieted, relaxing. Her hands rose in the darkness and cupped his head, stroking his hair and face while she made gentle, tired noises. “Max, oh, Max,” were the only coherent words she managed, and they were so filled with adoration that a knot rose in his throat.

“You’re sleepy,” he whispered, as if trying to hypnotize her.

“Max.” Her hands moved lovingly, stroking the heart out of him, making him want to forget honor and take her as quickly as he could undress himself.

He thought of her reaction in the morning, when all she would remember was a drunken coupling with a man she had tried very hard to avoid. Max pushed himself away and stood beside the bed, then grabbed blindly for the covers and pulled them over her. This way, at least, he would leave their friendship unharmed, with the possibility of real passion someday, shared not from groggy desperation but from a sober change of heart—hers.

“Max … why?” she asked sadly, but her voice was sluggish with fatigue.

He leaned over her and brushed tangled hair from her forehead, crooning husky sounds to her while she sighed with pleasure at his slow caress. “Good night, babe,” he whispered gruffly.

“Why?” she insisted, but even that brief word trailed off before she finished it.

He listened to her deep, even breathing. Then he placed a very light kiss on her mouth, whispering as he did, “Because, unfortunately for both of us, I love you.”

She knew that if she opened her eyes, reality would sneak into her brain and confirm what she remembered from the night before. Betty fought for a moment, then took a deep breath and banished sleep.

Her head throbbed. She lifted it from the pillow and squinted at a lovely old room filled with Victorian wicker. Thin white drapes on an eastern window let a narrow band of sunshine peek under their hem. Her gaze found her black slacks folded neatly across a chair. Her black leather flats sat beside it. From the way they gleamed. Max might have polished them.

Swallowing hard, she eased her head back on the pillow and covered her face with both hands. Max was the most incredible man in the world.

She dressed and ran her hands through her hair. Her combs were laid out on a claw-footed nightstand beside the bed. There was also a masculine-looking hairbrush, which must have been Max’s, a glass of water, and a bottle of aspirin. Written on a sheet of notebook paper in dark, verfiele script was a message.
Good morning. The bathroom is down the hall on the right
.

She dressed, made an attempt to neaten her hair, and swallowed two aspirin. When she stepped into the hallway, she halted, cocking her head toward the end that went to the living room and kitchen. She heard a pan rattle and smelled the aroma of food.

Betty hurried to the bathroom, shut the door, and leaned against it, trembling. When she finally looked at herself in the large square mirror over a pedestal sink, she saw the self-rebuke and anguish in her eyes.

She washed her face briskly while she talked to herself in a stern whisper. By the time she walked to the kitchen, she felt stronger, if not better.

Max stood with his back to the door. His kitchen was a neat, regimented place without frills, but appealing. The old white appliances and aged tile floor had a scrubbed look; a dining island in the center of the room was set with blue stoneware plates and white napkins.

Watching Max at the stove, Betty grasped the doorjamb. Her knees felt weak. He looked so strong, so sure of himself. From the straight, broad back to the tightly molded hips and long, solid legs, he was a man of physical as well as spiritual power. He was dressed in brown corduroy trousers and a white dress shirt. His rich brown hair reflected golden highlights in the sunshine from a window over the sink.

She gathered her resolve and tried to speak normally. “Good morning.”

He turned swiftly and looked at her. His expression was troubled but then lightened, though the change seemed to require effort. “Sleep well?”

“Yes, thank you.” The polite exchange had very little to do with the real dialogue. Questions hung in the air between them. The kitchen seemed unnaturally quiet and still, as if its energy had been absorbed by the tension.

Tears burned the back of her throat, and suddenly she knew that she couldn’t keep up the casual charade. She crossed the room swiftly, almost running, and grasped his hands.

Trembling and miserable, she looked up at him. “I used you and hurt you, and I’m so sorry.”

“If it feels this good getting used and hurt—”

“What you did was the most unselfish—”

“Believe me, if you could have read my self-serving thoughts—”

“I won’t ever throw myself at you again. I swear It.”

The conversation crashed to a dead stop. Surprise and dismay darkened his eyes. His brawny hands tightened carefully on hers. “If you’re trying not to hurt me, you just failed miserably.”

“Nothing has changed.” she told him wearily. “Except that now I know that I have less control over the situation than I thought.”

“But now you should also know that you can relax. That I won’t do anything to damage your feelings for me.”

“The last thing I want to do is hurt you. Or myself.”

“Good. Then we can—”

“I want you to do something for me that will be even more unselfish than what you did last night. I want you to do it because there’s no other way we can keep from teasing each other.” Tears sliding down her cheeks, she searched his eyes for a reaction.

“I’m listening,” he said warily.

“Find someone else. As soon as you can.”

Slowly he lifted her hands to the center of his chest. He held them there in a grip that was now more angry than caring. Against her palms she felt the fast, harsh beating of his heart. “You couldn’t hurt me any worse if you tried,” he said in a low, fierce tone.

“Do you think it was easy for me to say?” She shook her head wretchedly. “No.”

“Any suggestions as to who your replacement should be?” His voice was acid. “Can you recommend someone in town? Or do you just assume that I’m so undiscriminating that any reasonably attractive, reasonably intelligent woman will do?”

She pulled her hands away, then roughly wiped her face. “You need a woman who doesn’t want what I want.”

His arms dropped to his sides. He studied her coldly. “If you’re willing to give up what we have—what we
could
have—just because I won’t offer you the false security of a wedding license, then we don’t have as much going for us as I thought.”

“It’s not false security,” she whispered. “Not when two people believe in it.”

“I believe in you and me, together, each day, each night, making each other happy, sharing everything we have to share.”

“Except the future.”

“The future has no guarantees. Not just for marriage, but for anything. I’ve seen people shot, stabbed, blown up. They thought they had futures. They lived for their futures. They were wrong.”

Energy left her. Tired, despondent, she stared at him dully. “No more games. Max. Let’s stop pretending that either of us will compromise. Find someone else. I’m not going to let myself be alone with you again. It’s finished.”

“No, but the rules will be tougher from now on. Last night was your only reprieve. Next time don’t expect self-sacrifice on my part.”