Page 41 of Surviving the Break
“Cut the shit, Ash. Who do I have to kill?”
I sighed. “Max—”
“Excellent—”
“Damon,” I said in warning.
“Fine. Can we take this to the kitchen? I need to make a shake.”
“Make it two.” We made our way there, and I hitched my hip against the counter while Damon moved around getting ingredients together. “I might have pushed Max too far. Hiding how I feel has never been a talent of mine. He has some hang-ups, so I’ve been trying to adjust accordingly. Looks like I pulled the curtain back too soon this morning.” While Max had been fighting his feelings for months, mine were growing. We were definitely at different ends of the spectrum. What he glimpsed this morning sent him scurrying into his shell.
“So now he’s running scared?” Damon asked, adding a scoop of protein into the blender.
“Yeah. I haven’t heard from him all day. We’ve been in constant contact ever since our date. My first reaction is to find him and make him talk. Probably not the best course of action right now.”
Damon added a banana and peanut butter to the mix, placed the lid on, and hit blend. Buying himself some time to run through his options for advice. “Sounds like he needs time to clear his head. Give him that. You don’t want him to feel suffocated or backed into a corner. Show some patience.” He poured our smoothies, taking a sip of his. “Remember when we were young, and you’d get so sick of my shit that you’d stop speaking to me for days?”
I took the glass he handed me. “Days? I would lock my window so you couldn’t get in, and you’d allow me twenty-four hours—at the most—before you were kicking in the front door.”
Damon smirked. The buzz cut made him look like the devil you couldn’t resist. “Give him twenty-four hours, then knock his fucking door down.”
IGOTa call from the clinic while at Damon’s. Trish came in complaining of severe stomach pains and bleeding, so the staff nurse’s assistant, Noell, rushed her to a neighboring hospital.
Trish was left in triage for over an hour. Noell’s frantic voice blared through the car speakers as I raced back to Chadwick. Apparently, the only obstetrician on call was with a patient, and Trish would have to wait. “Are you kidding me?” I’d shouted over the line. “There has to be someone there that can offer emergency intervention. Is the doctor in the middle of a delivery? If not, this should take priority!” I’d laid on the horn, and when the car ahead switched lanes, I pressed on the accelerator.
Downstate Memorial wasn’t known for their patient care or bedside manner, consistently receiving the lowest quarterly hospital safety grade. People didn’t work there because they cared about their jobs or the oath they took to do no harm. They clocked in and out simply for a paycheck. Patients were treated like numbers, something to be ticked off someone’s list, getting them one step closer to punching out early for the day. Unfortunately, when you have poor healthcare or no healthcare at all, Downstate Memorial was where you went.
Thankfully, it ended up being a case of false labor and dehydration. Trish had been overexerting herself in an effort to figure out her housing situation before the baby's arrival. I partly blamed myself for that. I’d need to work harder on coming up with a solution.
Getting out of the pool, I walked over, dripping wet, to the lounge chair to silence my ringing phone. The display lit up with five missed calls from Damon, all within the last hour. I shot him a text letting him know I was alive to avoid a visit from him tonight. I turned it off altogether before diving back into the water. I needed waking up in the middle of the night to not be an option.
ILURCHED UPRIGHT IN BED,panting excessively, sweat trailing down my face and neck. Disoriented, I tried to piece together what woke me. A nightmare, but I hadn’t made it to the part that always jolted me from sleep.
A calloused hand spread across my left shoulder. Moving swiftly, I pinned the intruder down by their wrists. The sheets tangled between our bodies. Our naked bodies. “Max?”
“Yeah. It’s me. Damon told me what happened. I didn’t want to wake you—”
I swallowed whatever he’d been about to say, kissing him with aggression, tearing at the sheets between us until I lay grinding on top of him, skin to skin. I hitched his right leg around my waist and shamelessly humped him so hard the bed shook. Mindless with lust—a side effect of the blood pumping through me unchecked from my recurring dream. Cock hard enough to hammer through steel. He tried to get air, but I couldn’t allow it, not even for a second. My behavior was reckless at best, but I had to satisfy my need to breed him.
A small part of my mind registered that Max had reached both hands between us, sliding his wet, warm palm up and down my cock, while opening himself with the other. My balls tugged up under me. I had to be inside him, now. I rolled him on top to straddle me. Finally able to catch his breath, he placed both fists into the mattress as he struggled for oxygen. “Fuck. I need to be balls-deep in you this second,” I said. Sitting up, I scooted us to the edge of the bed and planted my feet on the ground. With him astride me, knees digging into the mattress, I lined myself up with his middle and shoved him down onto my waiting erection.
“Ah...God,” Max shouted, sparking a ringing of bells in my ears.
The current angle wasn’t going to get the job done. I stood, taking him with me. He wrapped his legs around me and held on to my neck. Grabbing hold of his waist, I slammed him onto my dick repeatedly in rapid succession. Grunting like a wild, savage beast, saliva pooling at the corners of my mouth, I fucked him like I owned him. Like he was mine to do with what I damn well pleased. I snarled, taking his mouth again, biting his tongue until he flinched. I pulled away and screamed, bucking him down one last time. Coming so hard it leaked from him, pouring from his ass, splattering onto the wood floor.
Blinking, coming to my senses, I slunk down to the bed on trembling legs. “Max…” My voice was hoarse. I hugged him tight to me, rocking.
“It’s okay. I’ve got you,” he said.
He rubbed from my head to my back, his cock hard between us. Laying him on the bed, I said, “Let me take care of you.” I got between his legs.
“Wait,” he said.
But I couldn’t. Not until I was done with him.
17
MAX
