Heir's Affair

THIRTEEN

THIRTEEN

Okay, so she’d been wrong.

Tally paid the cab driver and dashed into Fitzpatrick’s to see Max there already at the bar, leaning over to talk to Trey as the other guys jeered him for his apparel. But when someone noticed her, they all called out and Max spun around to pin her under his disapproval.

She went to him, pouting her apology. The guys parted to let her move up close to him.

“Thought you stood me up,” Max said when she pulled the strap of her hobo bag over her head to dump it on the bar behind him.

“I went home to change,” she said, holding her hands out to present her ruched-bodice, strapless black dress with its micro-mini layered skirt.

“I like it,” he said.

Before he could touch her, Tally reached up to loosen his tie. He watched her with keen eyes as she opened the top few buttons of his shirt. “How’s that?”

He rubbed his throat like it had been constricted for days. “I can breathe again.”

Pushing his jacket from his shoulders, she laid it on the bar and whipped his tie from his collar to tie it around her bare neck as a choker. Just then Trey held up a drink.

Tally nodded and smiled. “Thanks, honey,” she called out.

Instead of reaching for the drink Trey had put on the bar, she took out Max’s cufflinks and shoved them into her bag before opening his shirt in one confident tug.

Everyone whooped and cheered, while Max grinned down at her. “What’s this?” he asked but let her take his shirt off to toss it over the bar.

She drew a fingernail down the center of his chest to his navel, but when he bowed to kiss her, she leaned away and grappled for her bag.

“You don’t fit in around here, honey,” she said, running her hands into his hair to mess it up again. “Let me give you a few tips.”

“Oh!”

Everyone else jeered, but they didn’t get the joke like Max did. The corner of his lips curled and the light in his eyes glowed brighter.

Yanking the plastic wrapped tee-shirt from her bag, she ripped the packaging open with her teeth and spat the wrapper away to pull the brand-new tee-shirt over his head.

“I grabbed it from the stock in the gym,” she said, feeding his arms through the sleeves and pulling it down over his torso. “I figured you’d be more comfortable with this.”

“And you would,” he said, wrapping her in his arms now that he looked more like her Max than he had all night.

“There you are,” she whispered, and he squeezed her a*s in both hands. “There’s my man. Where you been, handsome?”

“Hey, baby, miss me?”

The guys crowded in behind them and Robbie came close enough to speak in her ear. “Come play pool, MG,” he said.

The others pulled at her. She smiled at Max and shrugged as she retreated from him. Tally had told him they couldn’t be together, so they shouldn’t be canoodling anyway. This was a good distraction, one they needed.

A flare of hope made her wonder if maybe she could keep this even after they were no longer sleeping together. She’d come to enjoy Fitzpatrick’s and the guys in Max’s life. Beyond the Strettons, where even the staff was all dedicated to the family and their rules, she had no life. This felt like freedom, it was fun, and she didn’t want to give it up.

One of the guys brought her drink over. She finished it and got another while the current game of pool was going on. “You’ve never played before?” Andy asked.

The guys were all mulling around the table watching the game. Tally was in the corner where the waist-high tables, that were fixed to the wall, met. Andy was at her side, propped against them too.

“Nope,” she said, sipping her drink.

“Don’t worry,” he said, leaning in to whisper in her ear. “We’ll go easy on you. Doug sucks anyway.”

It felt weird when she realized his arm was behind her. While he wasn’t holding her, his limb was stretched across her back, his hand spread flat on the table top. Shrugging off her weird feeling, Tally kept watching the game. It was a good minute later that she felt his fingers brushing up and down her opposite arm. Yeah, his arm was around her now.

Luckily, she didn’t have to ask him what he was doing, because Robbie grabbed a cue off the guy who’d just lost and thrust it at her. “You’re up, MG,” he said and grabbed another cue. So her first opponent was a friend? That was good. “You want to break?”

One of the other guys was setting up the balls, and she shrugged. “Sure.”

“Just whack it hard,” Robbie said.

Everyone cheered her on. Their encouragement was inspiring, so she bent over the table and tried to figure out how to rest the cue on her fingers. Mark came over and helped her out, earning her a few jeers. Tally rolled her eyes in good humor and pulled back the cue, then… missed.

Everyone laughed. She stood up feeling like an i***t, but curtseyed, appreciating that everyone was having a good time, even if it was clear that this wasn’t going to be her game.

“Go again, MG. You’re doing good,” Mark said, and everyone cheered to encourage her.

“I’ll help you,” Andy said, coming up behind her. Tally felt uneasy about him standing so close but figured this was all in good fun. They were all friends and she wasn’t going to make a scene. Andy put a hand on her waist and another on her shoulder. “Bend over, darlin’.”

Okay, that weirded her out enough that she shuddered, but no one else seemed to be bothered by him helping her. Tally bent over, and he bent with her. She hated this; she felt pinned down, restricted, violated. He took a long time to show her how to line it up and then used his own hand at the back of the cue to follow through hard. When the shot was done, his other fingertips brushed the back of her thigh.

No, she couldn’t do this.

While everyone else was cheering the break, she stood up and went to her drink, noticing how close Andy stayed to her side. While still grinning, she leaned in to Ryan who was watching Robbie take his shot. No one seemed to notice that she’d gained a shadow who was currently trying to take her hand.

Finding Ryan’s ear, she whispered, “Get Max.” Ryan glanced at her, his smile faltering for half a beat when he read how serious she was and then he glanced past her to Andy who was smiling at the table, she leaned up to whisper again. “Discreetly.”

Ryan didn’t hesitate to put his drink down and disappear into the crowd. She didn’t want a confrontation, didn’t want to start a fight. Everyone was in a good mood and Tally wanted it to stay that way. Andy had just drunk too much and forgotten for a second that he was moseying into another guy’s territory. He wasn’t making a serious play or trying to be an asshole, he was just tipsy and caught up in the atmosphere.

Too soon it was time for her next shot. Everyone spouted their suggestions about which ball she should try to hit, but she was too aware of Andy who was staying glued to her to listen or make sense of them.

“That one,” Andy said and put a hand on her hip to line her up. He pushed her toward the table. “Bend over, darlin’.”

And then like the proverbial knight in shining armor, a second hand touched her hip and she looked over her shoulder to see Max edging Andy aside. “I’ve been in training for this position, buddy,” Max said, making everyone laugh.

She appreciated that he’d chosen to make a joke rather than to punch Andy in the face.

Yanking her hips, Max lined her a*s up with his pelvis and gave her a reassuring squeeze. Tally rocked into him, pushing back and squirming against his groin in appreciation for him coming to her call. Already she felt better, more relaxed, and could focus on the cue ball.

They bowed over the table and his breath warmed her cheek. “How am I doing?” she asked, turning her face toward his.

“You’re looking the wrong way,” he said and though the music probably hid their words, everyone was laughing at the couple’s exchange.

“Oopsy.”

Opening her mouth, Tally dragged her teeth over his cheekbone and he turned his face to kiss her ear. He ran his tongue around the shell, making her shiver. “Can I knock him out?” Max murmured.

Maybe he wasn’t as relaxed as she thought, but she arched her back, forcing her a*s deeper against the prominent ridge nestled against it.

“Oh, man, now they’re on the foreplay,” Robbie called out.

“This is gonna be a long game,” Mark said.

Max whispered a couple of tips into her ear, but she was too aware of him to really listen. He stayed wrapped around her to take the shot for her and sank three balls in a row this same way. They were both holding the cue when they stood up straight.

Tally kept herself against him, not only to conceal his b***r, but because she didn’t want any other guy to have an excuse to sneak into his place.

They backed away until Max was seated on a stool by the waist-high table with her between his legs. She twisted to look at him over her shoulder while Robbie considered his shot.

“I’m messing with your head,” she said, roiling in guilt. “I’m sending out mixed signals, telling you we can’t be together then asking you to rescue me.”

But he just blinked cool amusement at her and looked back at the pool table. “Obviously you didn’t hear what I said when we were dancing at that shindig,” he said. “I’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy and you’ll always be my girl.”

“What happened after I left?” she asked. “Was there a fight?”

“No, I didn’t say much.”

And he still wasn’t saying much. “Did Teddy ask you to move to the house?” she asked. He didn’t respond, he just rubbed his hands up and down her belly then up over her breasts. But Tally needed an answer. Curling her hand around his face, she drew it around to make him look at her. “Max, what did you say?”

“You told me to, didn’t you?”

When his eyes fell she felt his sorrow like he really didn’t want to be giving up his independence and she understood his grief. Leaving his old life behind would be difficult, and it would be hard for him to see the positives until he took the leap.

Turning in his arms, she coiled hers around his neck and pulled herself as close as she could, holding him to reassure him that he would be okay, that he’d done the right thing, that she appreciated him. He squeezed her so tight that her heart broke. He was using her for comfort, as an anchor, and she wished she could take his anxiety away.

His head moved down to urge hers aside until he could look her in the eye. “Give me this weekend,” he said, begging her with his intense gaze. “No talk of whether we’ll make it or not. I told him I’d move on Monday. So give me this weekend, baby… please.”

He’d be her Max all weekend, and it would be his last weekend in the life he knew; the only life he’d always known.

Nodding once, Tally was honored to be a part of his farewell.

His lips curled before he leaned forward to take her mouth. It had been a week since they’d kissed like this, more than a week, and she’d missed it so much. As she coiled her tongue around his and felt his hands drift down her back, she wondered how she’d go the whole rest of her life without feeling this.

After this weekend, he’d belong to Teddy Stretton and she’d be consigned to memory. Truth was, Tally needed this farewell as much as Max did.