Читать книгу Postcards From…Verses Brides Babies And Billionaires - Rebecca Winters - Страница 33

HE WAS GOING TO SAY NO. Maddy could tell by the way his eyes darkened and his jaw tensed.

She had no idea if she was the right model for what he wanted to do. But as soon as the idea popped into her head it had felt right. Especially given the realization she’d woken to this morning.

“Before you say no, hear me out,” she said. “I decided something this morning. I’m not going to take this forced retirement lying down. I’m going to get a second opinion—hell, a fifth and sixth if I need it. I’m going to keep doing my rehab work and I’m going to find a way to dance.” She said it like a challenge, daring him to disagree with her.

She’d given up too easily; the thought had been waiting for her, fully formed, when she opened her eyes and blinked at Max’s ceiling half an hour ago. Dr. Hanson was one doctor, and she’d allowed his opinion to count for more than it should. She wasn’t prepared to give up. Not yet. Not until she’d explored every avenue. Her future happiness depended on her efforts.

Only when Max nodded slowly did she release the breath she’d been holding. If he’d looked disbelieving—God, if he’d laughed—she wasn’t sure what she would have done.

“I think that’s a good idea,” he said.

She smiled.

“Thank you. I needed to hear you say that. The thing is, most of the top dance medicine gurus are here in Paris. I couldn’t be in a better place, even if I only came here because you were here. I’m going to call around today, try to get an appointment.”

“That might take a while. Months, even.”

“I know. I’m going to lean on some old colleagues to put in a word for me, see if I can’t jump the waiting list.”

“Stay here,” he said. “It’s no palace, but it’s a roof.”

She felt a rush of gratitude. The idea of staying with Max was infinitely preferable to twiddling her thumbs in a faceless hotel room for weeks while she gnawed her nails to the bone waiting for another specialist’s pronouncement. But she couldn’t mooch off him.

She said as much, and he made a rude noise.

“We’re friends, Maddy. It’s not mooching.”

“Look, it’s one thing to show up on your doorstep, drink your wine, eat your bread and crash in your bed for a night. But I can’t foist myself on you for weeks at a time. Not unless you let me help you in return. That’s why I offered to model for you. It would be a sort of barter—my body for your accommodation.”

“You don’t need to offer me a deal to stay here. You’re welcome anytime.”

“Thank you. But I can’t live here and not offer anything in return. I know you well enough to know you won’t accept money,” she said. His instant frown was more than enough to prove her point on that score. “And, let’s face it, my cooking skills aren’t exactly great. Please let me do something for you in return for your helping me out.”

“It’s a sweet offer, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. If you really want to help out, I’m sure we can think of something else you can do.”

She studied him, trying to understand his objection. He sounded so adamant, so immovable. Surely it would solve his problem as well as her own?

Or maybe he was just being polite. Maybe she was the last person he wanted to sketch.

“Is it because I don’t have the right body type? It sounded like you were looking for a dancer’s shape,” she asked.

“It’s not that.” He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, the picture of discomfort. “I don’t think it’ll work out, that’s all.”

He was over the conversation, she could tell, but she wanted to get to the bottom of this. She wanted to stay with him, but her pride wouldn’t let her accept his hospitality without some kind of quid pro quo in place.

“Do you think I’ll get fidgety, is that it? I promise I can stand still when I have to.”

“It’s not that.”

She fiddled with the hem of the T-shirt, disappointed. “Okay. If that’s the way you feel, I’ll find a hotel this afternoon.”

He looked annoyed. “Maddy. I said you could stay here, no strings. Don’t be stubborn.”

“I won’t leech off you. I want to help. You’re helping me, why can’t I return the favor?”

“I would have thought that was pretty obvious. You’ve seen my stuff.”

He gestured toward the row of statues. She glanced at them, then shook her head, baffled.

“Yeah. So?”

“My figures are all nudes, Maddy.”

She blinked, then looked at the figures again.

Right. They were all naked forms. Huh.

“Well, that’s no big deal, is it? It’s not like you haven’t seen me naked before. God, I think you know me better than my doctor after we did that season of Wild Swans together,” she said.

Created by an avante-garde Australian choreographer, the ballet had been modern, intimate and daring. She and Max had worn thin body stockings and little else. By the end of the performance, they’d been so in tune with one another it had been hard to work out where his sweat finished and hers began.

“This is different,” he said stubbornly.

She studied him closely and realized that color traced his cheekbones. He was embarrassed. Or self-conscious. Or maybe a bit of both.

“Max, you’re blushing,” she said. Mostly because she knew that nothing would get his back up faster. He might have changed, but not that much.

“No, I’m not.”

“You’re embarrassed at seeing me naked, aren’t you?” She found the thought highly amusing. Had he really become so conservative?

“I was thinking about your comfort, not mine.”

“Then there’s nothing to worry about. Because I’m perfectly comfortable taking my clothes off in front of you. You’re one of my oldest friends, for crying out loud. We used to live together, we’ve danced together. You even held my hair while I threw up after Peter’s birthday party that time. We have no secrets, Max,” she said.

He opened his mouth to object, but she waved a hand. “No. Not another word. You were planning to start this morning, yes?”

“Yes,” he said grudgingly.

“Great. Then I’ll have a shower and we’ll get started.”

She was still smiling when she closed the bathroom door on him.

Really, he was too cute. Worrying about her modesty. Totally wasted on her. Her body was the tool of her trade. She’d performed with dozens of male dancers throughout her career. Hands had caressed, gripped, slipped, pinched and God knows what else over the years. Standing naked in front of Max would be a piece of cake by comparison, and about as eventful for her as going to the supermarket was for other women.

It wasn’t until she was standing in front of him, about to bare all that the first stab of self-consciousness hit.

She hadn’t bothered dressing after her shower. She’d pulled on Max’s oversize bathrobe, laced up the scuffed pair of ballet slippers she carried in her dance bag and stepped back into the main apartment.

He’d set up a stool for himself alongside a small table filled with charcoals, pencils and Conté crayons. A space heater had been turned on to ensure she wasn’t too cold.

She took up position in front of him. Then she suddenly considered that maybe there was a difference between dancing intimately with someone while hundreds of people watched and standing completely naked in front of one man. Even if he was a friend.

Her fingers clenched around the tie on the bathrobe. Her stomach lurched with nerves.

She frowned, trying to work out why she was feeling…well, shy all of a sudden. She’d never been self-conscious about her body in her life. She knew she was in good shape, not an ounce of fat on her, her muscles lean and defined. Okay, she wasn’t exactly a knockout in the rack department, but that had never bothered her before. Big breasts would only have gotten in the way when she danced, and that had always been the most important concern in her life.

But this morning she found herself wishing that instead of her half handfuls she had a little bit more action going on up top. Lord only knew how many women Max had slept with. She’d hate for him to look at her and find her lacking. Unfeminine, even.

She sneaked a glance at the bronze figure she’d admired earlier. Bronze Lady definitely had breasts. A good B cup, maybe even a C. Most of the time, Maddy didn’t wear a bra at all. In fact, she had no idea what cup size she was these days. Which was something of a giveaway in and of itself.

Good grief, girl, get it together. Who cares if you have small breasts? Certainly not Max. You’re a dancer, with a dancer’s body. That’s what he’s looking for. Not tits and ass.

She forced her hands into action, unknotting the tie and almost throwing the robe open in her haste to get the moment of exposure over with.

She took a deep breath and made herself look up to make eye contact with Max. The sooner they normalized this situation, the better.

But he was busy with his supplies, selecting a pencil and sorting his charcoals into order.

Okay. Good. She had a few seconds to get her shit together without him watching her every move.

She slid the robe off her shoulders, letting it pool around her feet. The air was cool on her naked skin and she could feel her nipples tightening. She smoothed her hands down her hips and rolled her shoulders.

“Did you want my hair up or down?” she asked.

Max looked up at last. His gaze swept over her body. She couldn’t read a single emotion on his face and she fought the instinct to cover herself with her hands.

“Up. I need the line of your neck and shoulders,” he said. Then he returned his attention to his supplies.

She stared at him for a beat. Then she gathered the length of her hair and twisted it until it formed a loose knot on top of her head. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, as though she was waiting in the wings, ready to run onstage and perform.

What had she expected him to say or do at first sight of her naked body? Break into applause? Go slack-jawed with admiration? Spout poetry?

She couldn’t believe she was being so ridiculous. Juvenile, even.

When she focused on Max again, he was watching her, his expression still unreadable.

“How do you want me?” she asked.

He took a few seconds to answer.

“Let’s start with first position, and move on from there.”

She set her heels together and turned her feet out, joining her hands together in front of her and lifting them till they formed a gentle oval in front of her hips.

“Perfect,” he said quietly.

She kept her eyes fixed on a point on the far wall. She could hear the soft rasp of pencil on paper as he began to sketch.

Five minutes passed, then ten. The room grew warmer. She let her gaze drift toward him. He was bent over his sketch pad, his hand moving quickly across the page as he split his attention between her and what he was creating. She wanted to talk, to ask him something to dispel the uncomfortable awareness she was feeling, but he was so inwardly focused she knew conversation wouldn’t be welcome.

She forced herself to think of something else. Automatically her mind reverted to fretting over Andrew and her forced retirement from the company. There was no comfort to be found there, she knew. Instead, she started to make a mental list of her contacts in the various Paris-based ballets. She’d toured the country twice in her career and danced with several French soloists. Nadine, Jean-Pierre, Anna—they were just a few of the fellow dancers she could call on to ask for the favor of hooking her up with specialists. This afternoon, she would—

“Okay. Let’s try some variations,” Max said.

She blinked and let her body relax. “You’re the boss.”

“Third position this time,” he said, eyeing her body assessingly. His regard was slow, steady. “En pointe, for as long as you can hold it.”

“How long do you need?” she asked. She could hear the ego in her voice. He smiled.

“Not long,” he said.

He started sketching, then stopped. “Can you look up for me?”

She lifted her chin. He frowned.

“Try angling your head a little more to the left.”

She shifted. His frown deepened.

“It’s not quite right…”

He stood and moved toward her. She stiffened, quelling the odd urge to retreat. Almost as though she was afraid of him, of his touch. Which was crazy. This was Max, after all. Her friend.

She could feel the heat from his body as he stood in front of her, studying the angle of her head. With her hands raised high above her, her weight supported on her toes, she was as tightly strung as a bow. And very exposed.

He reached out and nudged her chin up with his finger. A little higher. A little more to the left.

“That’s good,” he said.

His gaze swept the rest of her body and she felt a quiver of awareness deep in the pit of her belly. That odd instinct to retreat hit her again.

Then he was turning away, striding back to his sketch pad.

She took a deep breath, then another.

“You okay? Warm enough?” he asked as he took up his pencil.

She realized her breasts had puckered again, her nipples once more begging for attention. She fought a wave of self-consciousness.

“I’m fine,” she said. “You just do your thing.”

He took her at her word. She heard the scratch of pencil on paper and closed her eyes briefly. She felt rattled, off balance.

She forced her gaze to the back wall, concentrating on a crack in the plaster.

This is Max, she reminded herself. Your friend. He held you while you slept last night. He’s always been there for you.

Slowly, by small degrees, she relaxed. There was no reason for her foolish awareness. Not with Max, of all people. He was like a brother to her. Always had been, always would be.

MAX TIGHTENED HIS GRIP on his pencil as he attempted to commit the curve of Maddy’s hip to paper. His gaze kept sliding from the subtle arc of her waist down the flat planes of her belly to the curls at the juncture of her thighs. A neat little patch, waxed into submission, just enough curls there to hint at the secrets they concealed.

His hard-on throbbed. He still couldn’t believe he’d let Maddy bulldoze him into this situation. But she’d been so determined to have her way. And he hadn’t been strong enough to resist the temptation she’d offered. Back in the days when they’d lived together, he’d sketched her. Lying on the couch, asleep. Dancing, the expression on her face full of joy. Laughing, her eyes closed, her head thrown back.

But this was what he’d always wanted—Maddy gloriously, utterly naked, her body his to capture, if not to touch.

Heat flooded him as he remembered the temptation of standing close to her as he angled her head into position. He’d wanted to touch her so badly. To run his hands down her back to cup her pert, firm butt. To shape the small mounds of her breasts. To slide his fingers between her thighs and make her gasp with need for him.

Man.

He had to get his head together. He forced himself to concentrate on the paper in front of him, on the fine lines his pencil was shaping on the page. Slowly, Maddy’s body emerged from the white. The taut readiness of her muscles. The discipline of her stance. The beauty of her features.

“Okay,” he finally said.

She dropped down onto her flat feet.

“How’s the knee?” he asked.

She frowned. “Fine. What next?”

She didn’t like being reminded of her weakness.

“Arabesque par terre,” he said.

Her frown deepened. “That’s not very dynamic. I can hold à la hauteur,” she said, referring to a pose where her back leg would be suspended in the air.

“I know. Show me an arabesque with your back leg on the ground first,” he said.

She looked as though she was going to argue for a couple of beats. Then she gracefully moved into a sweeping arabesque, balancing on one leg while the other stretched out behind her, finally coming to a rest on the ground on her pointed toe. Her whole body arched into the pose, one hand extended behind her, the other in a straight line ahead. She looked as though she was about to take flight, the epitome of potential.

“Beautiful,” he said involuntarily as he watched the play of muscles along her legs and torso.

Her breasts strained upward, and he could see her ribs expand and contract with every breath. Once again he was hopelessly torn between admiring her skill, wanting to capture her perfection on paper and needing to touch her so badly his groin was aching with it.

Start drawing, moron. It’s going to be like this all morning. The sooner the session is over, the sooner you can have your sanity back.

His pencil held in a death grip, Max started to sketch.

An hour later, he’d captured a dozen poses and sustained a hard-on for longer than he’d thought was humanly possible. No matter what he told himself, or how many times he lost himself in the discipline of translating what his eye saw through his hand onto the page, his animal need for Maddy hummed constantly in the background.

By the time he put down his pencil and shut his sketch pad, he was literally shaking with desire.

He wanted to cross the space that separated them and get his hands on her so intensely that his mouth was dry and his belly contracted. It almost hurt to breathe, he was holding himself so tightly in check, in case his body sprang into action without his say-so.

“We’re done?” Maddy said as she registered the slap of his sketchbook hitting the table.

“Yep.”

Desperate to minimize the temptation, he strode forward and scooped up his bathrobe from where it lay pooled at her feet.

“Here,” he said, holding the robe wide for her.

She turned her back and slid first one arm then the other into the sleeves. She reached up and tugged at the mass of hair knotted high on her head. Before he could pull away, it was tumbling down her back and over his hands. He stepped backward, but not before her scent surrounded him.

“I might grab a shower,” he said abruptly.

They’d only been working for three hours and he’d hardly broken a sweat, but he had to get away from her. And he had to do something about the tent pole in his jeans before she saw that her good friend was packing wood.

Embarrassing? Oui. Big-time.

“Okay,” she said. “I noticed a boulangerie on the corner yesterday. I could go get us some bread for lunch, maybe some quiche,” she said.

“Great idea,” he said, already heading for the bathroom. Her plan had the added advantage of getting her out of his apartment for five minutes. Long enough for him to get a grip on himself. He hoped.

The bathroom door safely closed behind him, Max shed his clothes and stared down at his straining boner. His body had a mind of its own where Maddy was concerned. No matter what he knew to be true—that it was never going to happen with her—his body had other ideas.

He twisted on the cold tap. Then he gritted his teeth and stepped beneath the spray.

Chill water hit him like a slap. He closed his eyes, willing his body into submission.

After a good minute, he glanced down at his resilient, determined hard-on, still standing proudly. Whoever heard of an erection so stubborn, so deeply committed to its cause that it could withstand the brutal effects of a cold shower?

His skin pebbled with gooseflesh, he finally gave up and twisted on the hot tap. There was more than one way to skin a cat, after all. Reaching for the soap, he lathered his palms until they were slippery and reached for his erection.

A few minutes, fast and furious, ought to take care of business—and hopefully keep his body under control for the rest of the day.

He closed his eyes and angled his face away from the spray. Hot water hit his chest and ran down his body in rivulets as he stroked his shaft.

Sensation washed through him and images filled his mind. The soft outline of Maddy’s breasts against his T-shirt. The curve of her butt pressed against his hard-on this morning. The dark, mysterious shadow between her thighs as she posed for him. The puckered pinkness of her nipples, tight from the cold.

He tried to force his thoughts away from Maddy, but for the life of him he couldn’t summon up an image of Marie-Helene or Jordan. Could barely remember their faces, let alone their bodies. He wanted Maddy. And, so help him, in the safe confines of the shower and his mind, he was going to have her.

He gave himself up to the fantasy. A dozen scenarios flitted across his imagination, but he settled on the one that best suited the moment.

He imagined Maddy entering the bathroom, wearing nothing but his robe. He could almost see her standing there, steam rising around her as she let the robe slide to the floor.

He groaned in the back of his throat as he imagined himself touching her at last, pulling her close, kissing her, plunging his tongue inside her mouth, his hands racing over her body.

Squeezing her breasts, teasing her nipples. Nudging a knee between her thighs. Sliding a hand into that tempting thatch of curls, then into her slick folds.

She’d be wet for him. So wet and ready that when he slicked a finger over her she’d twist and moan. He’d bend her over his arm and pull a nipple into his mouth, sucking and biting her. He’d keep stroking between her thighs, slicking over and over her until she begged him to give her what she needed.

Max’s fist worked up and down his shaft, his eyes tightly closed as he lost himself in the rising tide of his own desire.

He’d push Maddy against the tiles, cup her butt in his hands and lift her till he could slide inside her. She’d be so tight and wet. She’d grip him with her inner muscles and he’d start to pound into her. Deep, hard, relentless. His hardness to her wet softness. Her need meeting his.

He frowned as desire built within him and guilt warred with need. He knew he shouldn’t be eroticizing Maddy this way, that it would only make things more difficult, not less. But he was so close. Just this once, he promised himself. Just this once he’d indulge himself where Maddy was concerned.

His hand a blur, Max pushed himself toward the edge.

MADDY GRABBED HER PURSE and slung the strap over her shoulder. The bakery was just a few steps away on the corner, but she pulled on Max’s coat for the short walk. When she’d arrived last night, she’d had a taste of how bitterly cold a Parisian winter could be, and she didn’t need to learn the same lesson twice. She needed to shop for a coat of her own and a bunch of other stuff now that she’d decided to stay. The few tops and changes of underwear she’d thrown into her dance bag were barely good for a couple of days.

She was on her way out the door when the phone rang. She turned, eyeing it uncertainly for a beat, waiting for an unseen answering machine to pick it up. But the phone rang and rang. Finally she returned to the living space and picked up the receiver. If Max objected to her answering his phone, she’d find out soon enough.

“Max’s apartment,” she said.

There was a short, surprised silence before a woman spoke in accented English. “Is Max there? I need to speak to him.”

“Um, he’s in the shower. I can pass on a message,” Maddy suggested. She hoped like hell this wasn’t a girlfriend who would get the wrong idea about her and Max from the fact that she was in his apartment answering his phone.

“No. I need to speak to him now. Tell him it’s his sister. Tell him it’s about Eloise.”

There was an urgency in Charlotte’s voice that was undeniable.

“Give me a second, I’ll get him for you.”

Phone in hand, Maddy crossed to the bathroom door and tapped lightly.

“Max. It’s your sister. It sounds urgent,” she said through the door.

Nothing. She tapped on the door again.

“Max, I think your sister really needs you,” she said more loudly this time.

Still nothing. She could hear the splash of water on the other side of the door. She knew from experience how noisy Max’s stall could be with water pounding on the tiles and the plastic shower curtain.

She eased the door open, very aware of Charlotte waiting. Maddy hoped she wasn’t about to embarrass herself and Max by barging in on him. There was a shower curtain, after all. And since the shower was still going, there was no chance she’d catch Max drying off. So this wasn’t a total invasion of privacy.

She felt faintly stupid even worrying about catching him naked, given she’d just spent the past three hours posing in the buff for him. There was nothing he had that she hadn’t seen before, after all.

“Max,” she said as the door swung open.

The rest of what she’d been going to say got stuck somewhere between her lungs and her mouth as she saw that the shower curtain wasn’t fully pulled across and that she had a perfect view of Max standing under the water, erection in hand, a look of pleasurable pain on his face as he stroked himself toward fulfillment.

He was totally oblivious to everything except the matter in hand and she literally didn’t know what to do. Breathe. Retreat. Say something. Die on the spot.

She couldn’t take her eyes off him. Golden skin, covered in fine dark hair. A muscular body, bunched and flexed slightly forward as he neared his climax. Strong thighs. And a powerfullooking erection that jutted arrogantly from his body.

He groaned, a low sound that snapped her into focus. Heat rushed up her body, sending prickling tendrils beneath her armpits and the back of her neck before filling her face with warmth. Eyes glued to Max, she took a step backward, her shaking hand reaching for the door handle as she pulled it shut behind her.

Oh, boy.

Her knees were weak. She felt hot, as though she’d been rehearsing for hours. She fanned herself, then suddenly remembered the phone call.

The receiver was still in her left hand. She lifted it to her face.

“He won’t be a minute.” Her voice came out as a croak. “He’s just getting out of the shower.”

Then she counted to ten before knocking very, very loudly on the bathroom door. Opening it a crack, she hollered through the gap.

“Max, your sister is on the phone. It sounds important,” she said.

She left the phone on the kitchen table where he would be sure to find it and hightailed it toward the door.

Once she was outside she walked up the street and around the corner before she felt safe enough to stop.

She was shell-shocked. There was no other word for it. She’d caught Max touching himself, on the brink of having an orgasm, and she was blown away.

She leaned against the wall of a building and closed her eyes. Instantly she was in the bathroom again with Max naked and aroused, his hand sweeping up and down his shaft, his head thrown back, his whole body tense with anticipation.

God, he’d looked amazing. So…masculine. She huffed out a small, humorless laugh at how woefully inadequate her vocabulary was. Masculine didn’t even come close to describing how vital and overwhelmingly male he’d looked with his legs braced apart, his back against the wall, all that hardness in his hand.

No wonder they called him Rex.

The thought popped into her mind before she could censor it.

“Oh, God,” she said, pressing her hands against her burning face.

She should not be thinking about his generous schlong. Definitely she shouldn’t. It was wrong, wrong, wrong. He was her friend, her lovely, platonic friend who had danced with her, lived with her, laughed with her, cried with her.

And now she knew with absolute clarity how he looked naked. And not just undressed naked, either. She knew how he looked fully aroused, ready-to-go, big-and-proud naked. And she didn’t know what to do with her new knowledge.

“Max is my friend,” she said out loud.

An old man braving the cold to walk his dog gave her a curious glance as he passed by.

Great. She was a voyeur and a crazy, talking-to-herself-in-the-street person.

She pushed her frozen hands into her coat pockets and turned toward the boulangerie. Her French was rusty, but she managed to greet the woman behind the counter and buy half a dozen croissants and a baguette. The baguette was fresh from the oven and the paper bag it was wrapped in grew warm in her hand as she walked the short distance to Max’s front door.

She had no idea what to say to him. Or how she would look at him without breaking into a sweat.

She should have knocked louder. And closed her eyes or looked the other way when she opened the door. Better yet, she should have let his answering machine take the call.

She was going to have to simply pretend it had never happened. There was no other alternative. She certainly wasn’t about to tell Max what she’d seen—God forbid.

She knocked, then swallowed a lump of acute discomfort as she heard footsteps moving toward the door. Just like yesterday, except this time she wasn’t imagining her old dancing buddy on the other side. No. Now she was imagining a naked, rampant man with a huge—

“Hey. I was wondering what was taking you so long,” Max said as the door swung open.

He was fully dressed. Thank heaven for small mercies.

“There was a queue,” she fibbed.

“I have to go to my sister’s. She’s had some problems with her latest babysitter. I’m going to go hold her hand for a while,” he said. “I might be a while.”

“Okay.”

For some reason, she was having a lot of trouble keeping her attention fixed on Max’s face. Her gaze kept wanting to slide down his chest to his crotch. Like a criminal returning to the scene of the crime.

“I’ve left a spare key for you on the kitchen table. Feel free to use the phone, the Internet, whatever. And don’t wait for me if it gets to dinnertime and I’m not back.”

“Sure. Don’t worry about me. Your sister sounded really worried.”

He sighed. “Yeah. She gets worked up sometimes. Her husband travels a lot and she struggles with the kids on her own. I couldn’t help out as much as I wanted to when Père was still alive, but now it’s better.”

He was worried, distracted. She bet he was a great brother, despite his own assessment. She knew how great he’d been with her. No doubt he moved mountains for his sister. Which was why it was wrong, twisted, just plain freaky that she kept getting flashbacks to the shower scene as she looked at him. One second Max was standing decently clothed in front of her, her old friend looking platonically handsome and solid and reliable in faded denim and a chunky-knit sweater, and the next he was naked, gorgeous, hard as a rock and about to lose it.

“You’d better get going,” she said.

Like, right now. Before my head explodes from all the illicit images bouncing around inside it.

She stepped aside to clear the way to the door.

“I’ve got my cell phone with me. Call if you need anything,” he said.

He gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder as he passed. She found herself staring at his butt as he walked away, mesmerized by the perfection of his rounded, hard ass. A dancer’s ass, even though he’d long since retired. Wonder Butt, indeed.

She registered what she was doing and made a frustrated noise in the back of her throat as she shut the door behind him.

One look. Ten seconds, maximum, and she felt as though nothing would ever be the same again. Which was crazy. She and Max had known each other for more than ten years. One moment of full exposure couldn’t shift their friendship so profoundly.

Could it?

“No,” she said out loud, just to hear the certainty in her own voice.

Barely twenty minutes had passed since she walked into the bathroom. Of course she was feeling antsy and uncomfortable still. The image of Max all hot and bothered was etched large in her memory. But it would fade. Soon, it would even be funny.

She frowned.

Okay, maybe not soon. But definitely what she had seen would be amusing one day, rather than disturbing and unsettling in ways that she simply wasn’t prepared to examine.

She spent the rest of the day chasing up contact numbers for her dancing colleagues and making phone calls. Jean-Pierre and Anna both offered to contact their specialist, Dr. Rambeau. Apparently he was young but innovative and growing in reputation. She couldn’t get through to Nadine and left a message, crossing her fingers that she wasn’t out of town performing.

By midafternoon, Max still wasn’t home. Maddy did some Pilates and worked her way through a series of stretches and strength-building exercises. Darkness came early, and at six she rummaged through the few groceries on Max’s shelves and wound up having more pâté spread on bread for dinner. She switched on the TV afterward, but her French wasn’t strong enough to make much sense of anything. By nine she was tucked in Max’s bed, one ear cocked for the front door as she waited for him to come home.

She was wearing his T-shirt again, and his aftershave clung to the sheets. She shifted restlessly, feeling tense and edgy. No matter how hard she tried to distract herself, she kept thinking about what she’d seen.

She punched her pillow then rolled onto her back and glared at the ceiling. Why was seeing Max in such a revealing way so confronting for her? Yes, she’d walked in on an intensely personal, private moment, and if Max had seen her, they both would have been embarrassed. But he hadn’t. So there was no reason for her to feel so…itchy and scratchy. No reason at all.

She swore and rolled onto her stomach, burying her face in the pillow.

The truth was, a long time ago she’d made a decision to ignore any attraction she felt for Max in order to keep him as a friend. He’d been startlingly attractive as a young man, and like a lot of the women in the Danceworks company, she’d taken one look at him and felt the tug of desire.

But at nineteen years old, Maddy had already learned the hard way that men and ballet didn’t mix. No matter how much any man admired her skill, no matter how great the sex was, jealousy and resentment always drove a wedge between her and her lovers.

She’d been burning from the latest breakup with the most recent of her boyfriends when Max joined Danceworks, and as much as she was attracted to him, she’d seen the writing on the wall without even squinting. A few months of hot sex, fun and laughs. Then the demands would start. The sulking. The fights. The cold silences. Finally, the angry betrayal with another woman. Or—worse—the angry ultimatum. She’d been there, done that, and a few conversations with Max were enough to make her not want to go to the same ugly, sad place with him. He’d been so funny and smart and generous. She’d felt instantly comfortable with him, and she’d made a conscious decision not to let sex become a thing between them. He’d become her first and best male friend.

And now she’d caught a glimpse of the virile, sexual man behind her dear friend and she was afraid that she wouldn’t be able to forget it.

Because the real, stark, unadorned truth was that seeing Max in such a blatantly sexual situation had been a huge turnon. The unrestrained need in him, the intensity of his expression, the hard strength of his body—even now she felt a rush of damp heat between her thighs.

For the first time in over ten years of friendship, she was looking and thinking of Max as a potential lover and not as her friend.

And that scared the hell out of her.