His End Game (MMG #1) (9 page)

I couldn’t help but feel insecure. I had never done this before so I didn’t know the rules. I just knew that he didn’t do relationships or date or… whatever.

He stopped packing his bag and paced over to the bed. When he got to me, he cupped my face in his hands and said, “My little sister had a nightmare. She woke up and, as usual, my deadbeat dad wasn’t there. She is scared and alone and I need to get home to her. If my dad shows back up, whether he is sober or not will determine if I can come back. I would not leave you for anything other than this, okay?”

“Let me come with you,” I blurted.

Where did that come from
?

His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You want to come with me?”

I nodded.

“You want to come to my house to help me take care of my twelve year old little sister?”

I nodded again.

Both of his eyebrows shot up. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” I said. “I know nothing about you really. I didn’t even know you had a sister.”

“My life is really messed up, Ellison. Nobody but Kurt and my boss, Benny, know anything about me and even they don’t know the half of it.”

“Whose life isn’t a mess, Max?”

I mean, really…Mine sure was
.

After staring at me for a minute he said, “Okay, pack up quickly and let’s go.” I promptly leaped off the bed, got dressed, packed up my things, wrote a note to everyone and ran out the door to catch up with him.

I found out on the car ride to his house that Max liked really loud music… especially classic rock. Every time I tried to turn down the radio to ask a question, he just smiled and cranked it back up. I liked loud music too, but not when I was attempting to carry on a conversation with someone.

Why is he shutting me out
?

Max lived in a small one story house on the South side of Charlotte. In fact, he only lived about a mile away from me. It seemed there was quite a lot about Max McLellan that I didn’t know. Shifting into park, he jumped out of the truck and rushed into the house. Grabbing both of our bags, I hesitantly followed behind.

It turned out that Sarah was the spitting image of Max. She too had black hair and greenish blue eyes.

Wow, if she is this lovely now, she is going to blow minds later
.

I looked around and couldn’t help but notice the sparsely worn furniture, the lack of any photographs and the clutter. The décor was very dark, very masculine and was seriously lacking a woman’s touch. This made me think back to my earlier conversations with him. He had mentioned his dad and sister, but never his mother.

Max was great with Sarah. He had her in his lap and was gently stroking her hair while whispering to her. I knew that I was getting a view of him that no one else had. Gone was the dominant controlling Max. In its place was the sweet loving brother. I liked this side of him and liked even more that he trusted me enough to let me see it.

“Ellison, this is my little sister Sarah. Sarah, meet Ellison.”

“I’m twelve, Max,” she said, looking over her shoulder at him.”

“Sorry,” he said. “Ellison, this is my very mature younger sister, Sarah,” he straight faced.

“Hi Sarah,” I smiled, “Nice to meet you.”

Her eyes bugged. “Max, is she your girlfriend?”

“Something like that,” Max mumbled.

“Really?” She asked, as if she didn’t believe that he could land a girlfriend.

“Yes, really,” he smiled. “We’re here now honey, so it’s time for you to go to bed.”

“My room is the first on the left, Ells. You can crash out if you want. I’m going to make sure Sarah is okay and I’ll be right in.”

I loved when he called me Ells. Feeling like I needed to say something, I lamely asked,

“Do you need any help? Ummm…and will your parents mind that I am here and… in your bed?” I whispered the last part and hoped that Sarah wouldn’t hear.

I could see his lips quirking. “Thanks gorgeous, I think I’ve got it handled and no, my dad won’t care. He probably won’t be back before we leave tomorrow.”

“Oh, okay.” I wanted to ask about his dad not coming home and where his mom was but didn’t think that this was the right time. “Night Sarah,” I said, smiling at her pretty face. She really did look just like Max.

“Night Ellison,” she replied.

“Oh, please call me Ellie. All my friends do and I can tell that you and I are going to be great friends.”

She cut her eyes up at Max. “Why don’t you call her Ellie?”

“Because I don’t want to,” he said.

I left them in the living room debating about my name, grabbed my bag and made my way to Max’s bedroom.

While I waited on him to appear, I brushed my teeth, washed my face and scoped out his bedroom. He had an iPod dock, an old television and a picture of Sarah and him with a woman who looked exactly like them. I assumed this was their mother. Finally, I tired of snooping, threw on a t-shirt and crawled into his bed. I fell asleep thinking about how the bed smelled deliciously like him.

Leather and spices
.

I woke with something hard pressing against my back.

“Shhhhh,” I heard Max whisper behind me. “It’s just me.” I felt his hands pull off my shirt. He rolled his fingers on the band of my panties right before he slid them down my legs. Then, he put on a condom, cocked my leg over his hip and slowly pushed inside me from behind.

How will this work with him behind me
?

I felt his hand circle around to my stomach and, oh so slowly, start moving downwards. Using his hands on my hips for leverage, he pulled himself in deeper. I had my answer. It felt so crazy good that I couldn’t help but moan loudly.

“Shhh,” he warned, “my sister is in the room across the hall.”

Nodding, I let him know that I understood. He cocked my leg higher and began gliding back and forth.

Wanting more, I tilted my hips and pumped back into him as he pushed forward.

Growling, he dug one hand into my hip while sliding the other between my legs.

“Max,” I gasped.

“Fuck,” he whispered and let go of his control. His hips clashed with mine. Each stroke drove us higher and higher until we both blew apart.

“So fucking good,” he whispered. Pulling out, he rolled me over and kissed me, never once taking his eyes from my face.

Wrapping my arms around him, I buried my face in his neck and held on tight. I was afraid for him to see how deeply his words had affected me. At that moment nothing in the world could make me let him go…ever.

The next morning we heard Sarah get up. I wanted to laze around in bed all morning. There were so many questions and so many things to learn about each other. I wanted to know what all of this meant, but quickly Max got dressed and suggested that we take Sarah to breakfast to help distract her from the fact that their dad had stayed out all night, again.

How long has this been happening and where is their mother? Something tells me I’m not going to like the answer
.

Watching Max and Sarah together was fascinating. The closest I had come to having siblings was Piper and her brothers. They loved each other, but it was a different kind of love than Max demonstrated with Sarah. Piper’s brothers were playful, fun and sometimes mean, whereas Max was more protective and fatherly.

During breakfast Sarah mentioned their mother’s pancakes.

“I take it your parents are divorced?” I asked.

Max and Sarah glanced at each other for a second and then he said, “Our mom died five years ago.”

“Oh my gosh, I am so sorry.” I felt horrible.

“That’s okay,” he said, squeezing my hand, “you didn’t know.”

That would have made Sarah seven and Max thirteen
.

“How? I mean…”

“She had a brain aneurysm and died in her sleep.”

Shit
.

“Max,” I whispered, squeezing his hand.

“My dad has had a hard time of it since her death so basically it has been just the two of us. Dad pays for our food and
Sarah’s sitters and I take care of pretty much everything else. We get by.”

We get by
?

I thought I had it tough. For the first time in my life, I was thankful I had never known my parents. This way I wouldn’t know the pain of losing them. I could see the loss etched across Max and Sarah’s faces and wished that I could take it away.

From that weekend on Max and I spent every possible second with each other. He took me over to the garage where he worked and introduced me to his boss and good friend, Leroy Benny, otherwise known as Benny, as well as to all of his coworkers. It was apparent that Benny loved Max like a son. As a result, I couldn’t help but love Benny.

I missed having Piper around but talked to her regularly on the phone. Joss and I grew closer. She was a wonderful person with a big heart and I needed that in my life. The fact that Max and Kurt were best friends was just icing on the cake.

I learned that Max’s favorite color was blue, he loved his sister to pieces, was crazy loyal to his friends, incredibly dominating and that he considered me his girlfriend.

He considered me his girlfriend
.

I told Max pretty much everything there was to know about me other than the gory details about my childhood. I figured we had plenty of time for that.

We had been together for three weeks when we had our first big fight. I know that couples fight. Hell, Piper fought with every guy she ever dated. I, however, had never had the pleasure of this experience. So to say I handled it poorly is putting it mildly.

We were leaving Max’s house to take Sarah to the movies one evening when we ran across his dad. He was pulling in as we were walking out. Max had shared very little about his dad with me. I knew that he drank and was never there. When he was around, he slept a lot. I also knew that he could be kind of mean. Max’s aversion to talking about his dad bothered me. So, seeing him up close for the first time made me pause. I hoped that Max would stop and introduce us. For some reason, this just made him angry and caused him to practically frog march me the rest of the way to the car. He nodded his head to his dad as we drove away. I was confused and hurt by this.

Why didn’t he introduce me? Is he ashamed of me? Does his dad even know he has a girlfriend? Maybe he has more than one girlfriend and is afraid that his dad will call me by the wrong name…Oh God, he could call me Jennifer!

We were halfway down the street before I spoke up. “What
was
that, Max?” I asked, trying to get myself under control.

“
That
was my jerk of a dad.”

“Why didn’t you introduce me?”

“Because.”

“Because?”

“Yeah, Ellison, because,” he firmly stated.

“That’s all you’re going to say?”

“Yep.”

Now I was angry. I turned to the back seat and asked Sarah, “Do
you
know what that was about?” Smartly, she shrugged her shoulders and kept her mouth shut.

This infuriated Max. “Ellison,” he warned through clinched teeth, “Don’t pull Sarah into our shit.”

Is he for real
?

“Into what…
shit
, Max? Me wanting to know why you won’t introduce me to your dad, me thinking that you won’t introduce
me because I embarrass you, or me asking your sister to explain because you won’t?” I barely got the last one out.

Max said nothing….nope….not a word.

Normally, it took a lot to rile me up but his silent treatment infuriated me. My imagination was on hyper drive and I was seriously scaring myself. When he just sat there and ignored me, I was done. “Take me home,” I demanded.

“What?”

“I want to go home…
now.”

“You have got to be shitting me!” he snapped.

I was about to completely lose control and didn’t want his sister to see my melt down. I didn’t understand what had just happened and wasn’t really sure that I wanted to. Whatever was going on made me sick inside and I wanted away from it. “Take me home, please?” I pleaded.

Max must have heard the tears in my voice because suddenly he slammed on the brakes, turned the car around and headed back in the direction of my house.

“Is this what you want?” he asked, stopping in front of my house.

Yes, no…I don’t know
.

Instead of answering, I just stared out my window.

Like me, silence evidently did not sit well with Max. “I don’t owe you shit, Ellison,” he said through clinched teeth. “I tell you things about me on
my
terms not because
you
decide you need to know. My family is
my
business and I’ll introduce you if and when
I
choose, not you. Are we clear?”

“Crystal,” I said. Then, before saying anything else, I opened my door, slammed it behind me and took off for my house.

I was determined not to cry in front of Max and was almost to my front door when I felt his hand on my arm. “What the fuck?” he growled.

“Let me go,” I tearfully said, averting my eyes. “I can’t do this with you Max, not right now, maybe not at all.” I ripped my hand away from his, charged through the door and slammed it in his face. I watched through the curtains as he drove away. Ignoring my aunt’s questions, I stormed straight to my bedroom and turned off my cell. I lay on my bed, a sobbing pile of hurt and confusion.