Page 18 of Tempting Max

All I’ve done since I fled Redpoint hours ago is wonder what would have happened if we had kissed. Would I have gone home? Would we have ended up going further? Did I imagine the need in his eyes, the hard cock pressed against my stomach?

Does Max want me too?

The sound of Sally snapping her fingers drags me out of my mental cage match.

“Where did you go?” She asks, concern creasing her pretty face. “You looked a million miles away.”

I smile as neutrally as I can and lie. “Just tired from being stuck at work so late. I think my brain just took a little disco nap.”

Sally chuckles and eases back in her chair. “I think this is the perfect place for that. Get your sleep, sweetie, you need it.”

I nod and ease back into the chair. The massage mechanism feels amazing, the nail tech is gentle, the music, the champagne, everything lends itself as the perfect way to unwind.

And I do for about fifteen gorgeous seconds, until the thought of Max’s lips on mine winds me right back up.

Fuck me.

12

MAX

“Idid not think it was possible for you to get any crankier than you already were,” Elliot quips as I stuff my gym equipment into my bag as if it murdered my family.

If I could do what I really wanted, I would be climbing, but that will have to wait for a day off. And until this Brewery is well and truly going strong, days off just aren’t on the table. I can, however, go to the gym and lift until I can’t feel my limbs anymore. Then maybe I’ll be too weak to beat myself up over last night.

I haven’t slept, I haven’t even had a moment’s peace since I watched her drive away from Redpoint. Not sure I deserve it after ignoring every promise I made myself about Gus.

And yet, I still can’t tell if the anger is because I nearly slipped up or that I didn’t actually get a taste of her.

I punch my gym shorts into my bag and grunt as I pull on my lifting sneakers. “Yeah, well, records are made to be broken, right?”

Elliot eyes me with suspicion from where he’s draped across the couch, completely relaxed as if nothing has ever bothered him and it makes me want to scream. I want that peace. I want it so badly I feel like I might explode. “I guess.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to come with?”

“When you’re in this mood? Nah. I’m safer here. I don’t need a fifty-pound dumbbell chucked at my head.”

I concede the point. “I’ll be back before open.”

“It’s ten, you gonna lift for hours?”

I haul my gym bag over my shoulder and grab my keys off the hook near the door. “Probably. They opened the new climbing wall too.”

“All right, see you later I guess.”

I storm out of the small house we share, climb into the old 4-Runner we all currently share, and drive it towards Paintbrush’s brand-new multi-level gym. Driving through the town helps ease a little of my fury. It’s such an adorable village—the brightly painted shops and restaurants nestled at the base of its namesake peak makes it seem like it could easily be straight out of a fairytale.

Quaint is a good word. But with a bursting feeling. Everywhere there are signs of growth, of improvement and I can’t lie, it feels pretty good to be in the middle of that buzz.

My shoulders have finally descended to their normal position by the time I arrive at the state-of-the-art gym and spa.

I check-in quickly, keep my head down so I don’t have to talk to anyone, fire up my lifting playlist, and shred my muscles for the next two hours while I try not to think of Gus.

I say try, because every time I look in the mirror, I see the skin she touched, I remember how her fingers curled possessively around my collar, how the hand hauling two-hundred-fifty pounds above my head sat at her waist and caressed her cheek.

By the time I’m done, I’m wasted. I can barely walk, much less workout, and my brain has turned to mush in the process.

I couldn’t even tell you my name by the time I slump into the sauna.

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