Page 40 of Tangled Hearts

He pulled me onto his lap, wrapping an arm around my waist, cupping my face and deepening the kiss until my entire body strummed with desire. I needed Max.

“Max, please,” I begged.

“What do you need, Sol?”

“You, I need you,” I whimpered, in between kisses.

He kissed me for another few minutes.

“I want this with every cell of my being but… can we wait?” The vulnerability in his eyes was heartwarming.

“Of course. I’d never push you to do something you aren’t comfortable with,” I said quickly.

“It’s not about being comfortable, Sol.” He smirked. “Call me old fashioned, but when we were growing up, you courted a woman before you slept together. I want you to know that I’m all in, and that there hasn’t been a day in the last two hundred years that I haven’t stopped yearning for you.”

“Max,” I whispered. My throat grew tight with emotion.

“I don’t want you for just your body, and what you can give me.” He blushed. “I want every inch of you. The good and the bad. The happy and the sad. I want it all with you.”

He kissed me tenderly and my entire body buzzed with his attention.

“Have you?” I didn’t know how to go about asking if he was a virgin without blushing or feeling like I was being nosy.

“Have I what?” The small lift of his lips told me he knew what I was asking.

“You know, slept with someone,” I said, but whispered the word slept as if that made it any better.

“Have sex? Are you asking me if I’m a virgin, Sol?”

My cheeks grew red at his questions. I knew being embarrassed about sex was dumb because I had had plenty of sex at this point, but I had never talked about it when I wasn’t actually doing it.

“Come on, Max,” I said, knowing my face was as red as a tomato.

“I have, twice, but they weren’t memorable,” he said, as his own cheeks turned pink. “I was lonely, frustrated and I had gotten drunk. I regretted them as soon as they were over, and I wished I had waited for you.”

“Don’t, Max, don’t do that to yourself. We move forward today and when all this is over and we have our freedom, we won’t look back,” I said, pulling him closer for a kiss.

He deepened it for a moment, my body reacted instantly. I gave him one lingering kiss, before I moved off his lap and took a few steps away from him.

“Are you ok?” His tone was playful.

“Yup, great, peary,” I said, taking another step back.

“Peary?” He looked confused.

“I think she means peachy.”

I turned around to see Gray walking towards us.

“I think I like peary better,” I chuckled, even though peachy did sound better.

“Come on, Sunshine, I brought some food,” he said, holding his hand out to me. “I hope I brought enough food, but now I’m starting to think I didn’t.”

He looked over at Max and it felt like they had an understanding I wasn’t privy to.

“We’ll make do,” I said, holding out my hand for Max.

He got up with a smile and it eased my worries. I didn’t like seeing him sad and it seemed like his burden of the truth had been lifted off his shoulders. Now if they could just deal with my mother and Taylin, we could move on. A prickle of awareness danced along my skin, like I was being watched.

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