Page 24 of Awakening Anna

Pressing into his hand, Anna panted. “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”

“Then what do you want me to do now?” he asked, driving two fingers into her.

Anna pressed up on her elbows as she cried out. “Oh God. Just keep going. Whatever you do, don’t stop.” The pressure was building, and she spread her legs wider. “Give me what I want, Max. I need it.”

Scalding her body with hot kisses, he increased the pace between her legs. “Anything,” he said. “Anything for my Anna.”

* * *

By Sunday morning,all of Anna’s wildest dreams had been recreated in vivid detail. Around midnight, Max had opened a bottle of champagne, a gift from his publisher to celebrate once again hitting the list, and they’d made a late-night trip down to her place to retrieve the whipped cream.

When they’d emptied the bottle, they’d both been sticky, satisfied, and in desperate need of a shower. By the time they were clean again, the hot water was gone, the bathroom floor was soaked, and Anna was in danger of turning into a prune.

But with sunrise came stark reality. In a matter of hours, Max would walk out of her life. Without speaking of the inevitable, they parted with a kiss, Anna returning to her apartment to get ready. Without discussing it, they both knew she would drive him to the airport.

At noon, she pulled her sensible beige Camry into the short-term parking lot outside the departure doors. They’d said little on the thirty-minute drive, though Max had held her hand the whole way. As he lifted his suitcase out of her trunk, Anna watched a plane take off and grow smaller in the distance.

Max would be on one of those planes soon. And he’d be taking more than a fancy suitcase with him.

“You ready?” he said.

Anna nodded and walked beside him into the building. She stayed back as he checked the suitcase and received his boarding pass. With a black computer bag on his shoulder, he returned to her.

“Gate A,” he said, taking her hand again. “We can sit at the coffee shop upstairs until I have to go through security.”

A quick goodbye, like ripping off a Band-Aid, would have been the sensible thing to do. But Anna wasn’t feeling sensible.

“We can do that,” she said with a weak smile.

A minute later, they were seated at a table in the corner, but neither had ordered anything to drink. Max couldn’t take it through security anyway, and Anna simply wasn’t in the mood.

Determined to break the silence looming between them, she said, “You never did tell me what your book is about.”

Max stared out the window for several seconds before answering. “It’s about a girl whose parents are killed in a house fire, leaving her with no one but an eccentric aunt whom she’s never met. Her new guardian teaches her to read tarot cards and tea leaves, which makes her a bit of an outcast in her new school. Being new and different leaves her friendless and invisible.”

Anna’s heart went out to the fictional girl. “That sounds like a lonely life.”

“It is. But things get better.” Max entwined his fingers with Anna’s on the table. “To help her aunt with the bills, the girl takes a job at the local bookstore. It doesn't pay much, but she can borrow all the books she wants for free as long as she's careful with them. Since she loves books, it’s the perfect situation.”

“Where does the boy come in?” Anna asked.

“How do you know there's a boy?”

She shrugged. “Isn’t that how the story goes? The sad, lonely girl gets saved by the one boy who sees something in her that no else does.”

His grip tightened on her hand as he said, “That isn’t always how it goes, but in this case, you're right. The store owner has a son her age, and they spend hours together talking about books and dreams and staring at the stars. He teaches her about the planets, and she teaches him to dance.”

“And they fall in love and live happily ever after,” Anna interrupted. “You’re writing a romance novel.”

“Not exactly,” Max said. “They do fall in love, but they never get the chance to find that happy ending. The boy has cancer, something he keeps from her for a long time. He takes a turn for the worse during their senior year of high school and dies before graduation.”

Releasing Max's hand, Anna sat back and crossed her arms. “That's horrible. And after losing both of her parents already? How could you kill him like that? She deserves some happiness.”

“I didn't kill anyone,” Max said, laughing at her reaction. “And there's still a happy ending. The boy’s parents use their son's college money to send the girl to school. She blossoms, meets a great guy, and they live happily ever after.”

Slightly mollified, Anna leaned forward again. “Still, I don't see why the first boy has to die. If you're writing it, you can let him live.”

“In this case, I don’t have that power. The book is based on a true story, and the boy did die.”

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