Kate Hoffmann - The Sexy Devil

Angela shook her head. “We shouldn’t be giving each other gifts. It’s too soon.”

“It’s not really a gift,” Max said. “Just open it.”

She grabbed the envelope and slowly withdrew the airline ticket. “It’s a ticket,” she said. “Are you going somewhere?”

“I have to fly to Florida tomorrow and I was hoping you’d come with me. We could spend the weekend there. I could show you the city, then we could relax and have some fun.”

At first Max thought she’d accept, but slowly her expression changed. “We talked about this earlier. I-I can’t.”

“Why not? It’s just a couple days. I want to show you where I live.”

“I just can’t,” she said. She rolled off him, grabbing his T-shirt from the end of the bed and tugging it over her head. “I-I’m going to go get some orange juice. Do you want some?”

Max pushed up on his elbow. “Angela, wait.”

“I’ll be right back,” she said, forcing a smile.

He watched her walk out of the bedroom, then flopped back on the pillow. What was this all about? He thought she’d enjoy a little vacation. Since he had to be in Florida for a few days, why not take her along? There was something else at work here.

When she returned, Angela sat down at the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s a lovely…gift.”

“No, it’s not a gift. Jewelry is a gift. This is just me being selfish,” Max said. “I have to be away for a few days and I knew how much I’d miss you. I thought if you came along, I wouldn’t miss you so much.” He reached out and touched her arm. “Is that so bad?”

She shook her head. “Not really.” Angela took a sip of the orange juice. “But that’s your other life. Down there, you’re famous, you have girls and paparazzi trailing after you. I can’t compete with that life. It’s so…big. But here in Chicago, everything works.”

“Angela, I might have to go back to that life. It’s my job. What’s going to happen then?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ll deal with that when the time comes, I guess.”

“I want to know now,” he said.

“We’ve known each other for-how long?”

“Forty-eight hours,” he muttered.

She blinked in surprise. “Really. That’s all? I’ve had stomach viruses that have lasted longer than that. I’ve had headaches that have lasted-”

Max pressed a finger to her lips. “I get it. But you forget, we’ve spent nearly all that time together. If you were dating some other guy, you might have had dates that lasted for five hours max.”

“Yeah,” she said.

“Right. Well, we’ve had the equivalent of…” He tried to do the math in his head. Nine times five was forty-five so-

“Nine point six,” she said. “I’m good in math, too.”

“All right. We’ve been on the equivalent of 9.6 dates. Now, if you figure two dates a week, we’ve been dating for almost five weeks. Five weeks is not too early to take a trip together.”

“It’s too early for me,” she said.

Slowly, it became clear to Max what she was saying. “You don’t trust me,” he said. “Go ahead. Say it. You don’t trust me.”

“I don’t trust you,” she said. “And not because you’re not a great guy. I don’t trust you because I barely know you, Max. And I don’t trust myself. I don’t want to get hurt. I don’t want to see the wonderful life you lead in Florida. I don’t want to be reminded of the differences between us.”

Differences? Damn it, they’d grown up in the same hometown, attended the same schools. Their parents were friends. If she were going to use that as an excuse, then he’d have to call her on it. Or maybe that was the reason she’d kept a few secrets from him. After dating starlets and pop stars, what could he possibly find interesting about a hometown girl?

“Forty-eight hours,” she repeated. “That’s barely enough time to figure out how you like your coffee.”

“You know how I like my coffee,” he said.

“And it doesn’t help that we spend most of our time in bed. I know a lot about your body and about how you like to be touched. But I don’t know how you got that scar on your knee.”

“Bike accident when I was twelve,” he said.

“Or what you like to read,” she added.

“Mostly non-fiction.” He sighed. “All right. I get your point. So, let’s get to know each other right now.”

“I’m still not going to Florida with you,” she said.

“I know you’re stubborn,” Max said.

“Cautious,” she countered.

He bent close and kissed her. “And your lips are incredibly soft.”

“You’re getting off track again,” Angela warned.

Max cupped her breast in his hand. “And that your body seems to fit perfectly against mine. As if it were made for my touch.”

She sighed softly. “Why don’t we play a game? I’ll ask you a question-any question-and you have to answer. We each get ten questions and two passes.”

“Passes?”

“We can refuse to answer twice. I’ll start.”

“All right.” Max sat up and crossed his legs in front of him, then pulled a pillow over his lap. “Shoot.”

“How many women have you slept with?”

He laughed. “Really? You want to know? I’m not sure I ever counted, but it’s not as many as you’d think.”

“More than five hundred?”

“No,” Max said. God, his reputation must be a lot worse than he’d ever imagined. “Where did you hear I’d slept with five hundred women?”

“More than two hundred?”

“Absolutely not,” he said.

“More than one hundred?”

Max shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’ve had some long dry spells and I’ve had some short-term relationships. Maybe ninety.” He paused. “Jeez, even that sounds like a lot. But it’s really not. If you figure ten on average a year. And that’s since the beginning. A lot of what you hear in the press isn’t true. If it were, I’d be up in the thousands. How many questions was that for you-four?”

“No, just one.”

“Actually, it was four. One main question and three sub-questions.”

With an astonished laugh, she reached out and slapped him on the chest. “You don’t play fair.”

“My turn,” he said. “Same question.”

“None,” she replied.

“None?”

“That’s question two according to your rules. And my answer is none.”

“You’ve slept with me, so it has to be at least one.”

“Oh, but you’re a man. You said same question. So I answered the same question-how many women have I had sex with.”

He grabbed her and threw her down on the bed, stretching out on top of her. “Oh, so this is the way it’s going to be. You’re going to trick me. I might as well give up right now. You’re much too clever, Angela Weatherby.”

“All right, all right, no more tricks.”

For the next two hours, they talked, asking questions, laughing at answers, and learning more about each other than they needed to know. Max carefully avoided questions about her hometown and her high school and college education, waiting for her to volunteer that information herself. And though she had plenty of opportunity, she never once mentioned she’d known him in the past.

When it came time to ask his last question, Max paused. “I think I’m going to save it,” he said. “For what?”

“For later. For when I really want to know something.”

“I can always pass on it.”

“No, you can’t. You’ve had your two passes, remember?” Max pulled her into his arms and kissed her. “Now, can we please just stop talking and start getting down to business?”

She growled playfully, then grabbed his face and kissed him long and hard. “Max, if kissing is your business, then I think I’d like to invest.”