I have to pick up the phone.
I try to stop my orgasm, but my body has other ideas, and the wave of pleasure hits me so intensely I actually cry out. I clamp my legs together, but that only makes it worse. I can't remember ever having an orgasm this intense by myself.
This is what just the thought of Max's hands and mouth on my body does to me.
I slide my finger across the phone to answer it and manages to gasp out "Just a second!" then drop the phone back on the bed and bury my face in the pillow to stifle the moan that's trying to escape my lips. My legs are tangled in Max's comforter, and I'm pressing my hand against myself as I ride out the rest of the orgasm and the sharp aftershocks that follow.
I realize belatedly that I should have put the phone on mute.
I take a shuddering breath and then roll back over, my heart pounding, and pick up the phone again.
"I'm here," I say, trying really hard to sound normal.
"Hadley?" His voice is smooth, low, but laced with an edge of concern. "What's wrong?"
I blush, even though he can't see me. "What? Nothing."
"Why are you out of breath?"
"It's nothing," I tell him, controlling my voice better now, but apparently not good enough.
"Switch to Face Time," Max tells me.
"No!" I blurt out, and then there's a silence. I can only imagine what he's thinking now.
"Max, I don't want to go to Face Time because I'm in your bed." I pause and he waits. Am I really going to tell him? The aftershocks of pleasure still crackle under my skin, urging me to say it. Tell him. I take a deep breath.
"I'm in your bed," I continue, lowering my voice almost to a whisper, "imagining what we'd be doing right now if you were here instead of . . . wherever you are."
My truth-telling is rewarded with a low, throaty chuckle.
"So what you're telling me is that I interrupted you making yourself come while thinking about me."
"You caught me in the middle of my climax, actually," I confess, feeling emboldened. Now that I've said it, I might as well say it all. I hear his breath catch, just barely, on the other end of the line.
"That's incredibly hot," Max says, and I'm blushing all over again. "You should have let me listen. Now tell me exactly what you were imagining when you came."
"No way. It's too embarrassing. I'm not going to tell you my sex fantasies."
"Not even when they're about me?"
"Especially not when they're about you."
"That's a shame, Hadley," he whispers in that low, smooth voice that makes me tingle. "Because my plan now is to make every one of those fantasies come true."
My brain thinks oh hell no but my body screams yes.
I close my eyes, desire simmering. The moment feels charged. "You know, Max, just because you fantasize about something doesn't mean you actually want to do it."
"Doesn't it?"
Now I'm tingling all over, because some of my fantasies were . . . a little out there, and the thought of actually doing them, with Max, is pretty intoxicating. But I'm not ready to admit that to him.
"No," I say, making my voice as decisive as I can.
I hear that low chuckle again. "Why don't you tell me one you think you don't want to come true, and let me decide whether to make it happen."
"Absolutely not," I say, my mind going immediately to something kinky that I would never do. At least, I don't think I'd ever do . . .
I can almost see him smiling through the phone. "Maybe we'll just start with the tamest one and work our way up. But Hadley?"
"Yes, Max?"
"You will tell me all of them."
I bite back a smile. "Maybe."
"As much as I'd like to continue this conversation right now, my plane is about to land. I'll call you later tonight."
"Have a good trip, Max," I tell him, then add, "Thank you for taking care of me last night."
"It was my pleasure," Max says, which is nice of him, although I seriously doubt that feeding, undressing, and putting a tipsy woman to bed is at the top of his list of things he'd like to do in this convenient apartment at the end of a long day.
He lowers his voice again. "Decide which one you're going to tell me when I call you tonight."
That sends another little thrill rippling through my body. If I get his meaning, he's planning on having phone sex with me tonight.
I just wish he could be here for the real thing.
It's only after we hang up the phone that I realize I forgot to ask him where he is, or when he'll be back.
***
Max wasn't kidding about stocking guest items in the towel closet. There's an entire shelf devoted to brand new toothbrushes, soaps, bubble bath, deodorant, even feminine hygiene products. I feel a little twist of jealousy when I wonder how many women have stayed over here with Max after an evening in his club downstairs.
Is this a regular thing for him?
I push the thought out of my mind. I just met the man yesterday, although at the moment it doesn't seem possible that my flight here from Philadelphia was only, what, 36 hours ago? So much has happened since I stepped onto that plane.
By the time Gabe knocks on the door to the apartment, I've treated myself to a luxurious bubble bath, and I'm dressed in the outfit from a trendy nearby boutique that someone dropped off outside the door. Today Gabe is wearing blue shorts - not navy blue but more of a gray tone, I guess - and a white t-shirt, with slip-on boat shoes. Although his muscles are still obvious under the shirt, he looks less like a bouncer and more like an executive who just goes to the gym a lot.
I'm trying to figure out what exactly he does for Max. Is he just security, or is he involved in some sort of criminal activities? I'm surprised when I ask him how long he's been in Miami and he tells me he grew up here, and he and Max were childhood friends.
Once I'm back "home" in my temporary condo, I text Martina, and seconds later she calls me. I fill her in on the fact that I spent the night with Max, but no, nothing happened.
"You do realize," Martina says, "that the fact that's he doesn't sexually assault drunk women doesn't mean he's not also a criminal."
"My whole career," I tell Martina, "is built on the principle that people are presumed innocent until proven guilty. So far I haven't seen any indication that Maxwell Bennett is anything other than a wealthy, successful businessman."
Except he has a gun hidden in his underwear drawer. I'm not sure why I don't mention that little piece of information to Martina, but I don't.
"Yeah, well, just don't be stupid about it."
"I won't," I promise, even though it's possible that boat has already sailed. Instead of staying as far away from Max as possible, I'm thinking about having phone sex with him tonight, something I'm also not mentioning to Martina.
It's clearly time to change the subject. I ask her about Tony, and she laughs and says she thinks Gabe scared him off with the whole protective routine and making sure the Uber driver had clear instructions to drop her off first and then take Tony home.
"To tell you the truth," she confides, "I'm kind of hot for Gabe. Did you see those muscles? You know, I thought he was just a bouncer, but it turns out he runs the security at the club."
I'm thinking that's probably not all Gabe does, but if I mention it, she'll just say it makes Max look more like some kind of crime boss and Gabe his right-hand henchman.
After our call ends, I go pick out an outfit to wear for my first day of work tomorrow and do a little more unpacking, but I'm distracted and really not in the mood to organize my closet.
Instead, I log onto my laptop and Google Maxwell Bennett.
Holy shit. The links go on forever, and it's not good. Arrests, convictions, allegations, corruption, kickbacks and shady backroom deals, racketeering, conspiracy to commit murder . . . no, wait, this can't be right. Some of this stuff is going back twenty, thirty years. And I realize that the Maxwell Bennett I'm reading about isn't Max. It's Max's father.
Max's father, who apparently right now is serving three consecutive life sentences in a federal prison.
I sink back in my chair. I thought Max told me his father was dead.
No. I'm thinking back now to our conversation on the plane, when he said the ring he was wearing belonged to his father. I assumed he meant his father had passed it down when he died, and Max didn't correct me.
In fact, his father passed the signet ring down to Max when he went to prison.
And now I'm wondering what else he passed down.
I read more closely now, looking for the Maxwell Bennett of this generation. He's all over the society pages, with stories about his philanthropic activities, photos of him at charity galas always with an attractive woman on his arm.
But never the same one.
There are stories about the club opening, of course, and before that some ribbon cutting and groundbreaking events with Max holding the ceremonial shovel on massive new commercial construction projects. He seems to have his hand – and his money – in a little bit of everything that's going on in Miami.
But when I dig deeper, I find articles with veiled accusations – apparently carefully worded to avoid liability for slander. There are photos showing Max with politicians who later articles reveal to be corrupt, some of them actually convicted and serving time. And there are reporters who are making the connection.
There are rumors about an executive at a corporation that was bidding against one of Max's companies for a city contract who mysteriously disappeared. It doesn't actually say Max had anything to do with it, but the implication is clear.
So who is Max Bennett? The successful businessman and entrepreneur he presents himself as to the world? Or is he a more polished and smarter version of his infamous crime boss father, and Max just hasn't gotten caught yet?
What am I supposed to say when Max calls me tonight? I can't just say by the way Max, are you the head of a Miami crime syndicate?
I remind myself again that this is all conjecture. You can't judge a person just because of who their father is. It's obvious from the coverage of the charitable events and articles about some of Max's business deals, that he's made an effort to distance himself from his father's reputation.
Oh, really? It's that little voice inside my head again, asking questions that won't seem to go away. Why does Max have a gun in the apartment he doesn't even live in? What exactly is Gabe's job, because it seems to be more than just club security.
I realize suddenly that I've spent hours scouring the Internet and going down this rabbit hole of news articles, and I'm still not any closer to understanding who Max is. I remind myself that it's not too late to just walk away. I came to Miami for reasons that have nothing to do with a sexy stranger who owns one of Miami's hottest clubs and might also be a dangerous criminal. This thing with Max could make everything so much more complicated.
Worst yet, it could compromise my ethics and damage my career.
But dammit, I'm tired of always doing the right thing. Always being the good girl, the studious daughter who never made trouble, all because I couldn't bear to cause my father any more pain.
Skipping the parties in college to study and get better grades so I could get into a better law school and become a better lawyer. Taking the low-paying public defender's job in Philadelphia because I wanted to make a difference. Dating safe, dependable men who never satisfied me and could easily be replaced by other safe, dependable men, so that no one would distract me from working the long hours needed to advance my career.
Never doing anything simply because I wanted to. Simply because it would be fun.
I'd been fine with that, absolutely fine. Even accepting the job offer from my estranged grandfather wasn't much of a risk. After all, my job in Philadelphia was still there, waiting for me.
Then a stranger on a plane kissed me, and for the first time in my life, I wanted something that wasn't part of the plan.
Just thinking about Max makes me feel alive in a way I never have before. I know getting tangled up with him is risky. Possibly even unsafe. But do I have to be so safe and practical all the time? Why don't I reach out and take what I really want for once in my life, when it's right there in front of me?
I close my eyes and imagine myself walking up to him in his club, completely sober. And when he takes me up to his apartment this time, things will turn out a lot differently.
His apartment. I literally smack myself in the head. Because thinking about his apartment makes me think about his bed. Not just what I did in his bed this morning. But the fact that I suddenly realize that I left something tangled in his sheets.
When the phone rings at ten o'clock I'm already in bed, but not asleep. And I pick up.
"Hadley. I didn't wake you up, did I?"
What is it about his voice that makes me feel like I've known him forever? I have to keep reminding myself that it's only been two days.
"No, I wasn't sleeping." I was waiting for your call.
"I know you have a big day tomorrow."
I haven't told him much about my new job. There hasn't been a chance to. The only thing he knows is that Hadley Jones is starting a new job tomorrow at Andrew Reese and Associates, elite Miami law firm.
And that I'll be heading up a brand new criminal law division for the firm.
"Yeah," I say. "I'm a little nervous about it."
"I have a question for you," Max says, "but we'll get to that later." His voice is low, seductive.
"Later?"
"I think you have something you want to share with me first?"
"Um . . ." This is harder than I thought. Can I really make myself that vulnerable to him and share one of my secret fantasies? Especially when I'm not even sure I know who he is yet?
"I want to hear right now, Hadley," he says, his voice taking on the confident tone of a man who says what he wants and expects to get it.
"Tell me what you were thinking about this morning when I called and caught you having an orgasm. In my bed."