Postcards From…Verses Brides Babies And Billionaires. Rebecca Winters

I brought it home for,” he said.

      “Stop being so damn noble.” The bed frame protested with a rusty groan as she unfolded it flat. “I’ve slept in far worse places, believe me.”

      She tugged the duvet from his arms.

      “Go to bed. You’ve spent the whole day thinking about everyone else. Get some sleep.”

      He stared at her. If only she knew that from the moment she’d arrived on his doorstep she’d dominated his thoughts, pushing almost everything and everyone else aside.

      The realization made him turn away. Maddy was a friend in need. That was all. His days of obsessing over her were in the past.

      “Fine, you win. I’ll see you in the morning,” he said over his shoulder.

      “Night, Max.”

      Upstairs, he stripped to his boxer-briefs and slid into bed. The sheets were still warm from her body. He lay on his side, staring at the wall. He could hear her moving around downstairs, making the bed up. Then there was nothing but silence.

      If he hadn’t brought the bed home, she’d be beside him right now, the sound of her breathing soft in the darkness.

      He rolled onto his belly and fisted his hand beneath the pillow.

      Getting the camp bed had absolutely been the smart thing to do. He just wished like hell he didn’t regret doing it quite so much.

       FORGET ABOUT what you saw. Go out there, take your clothes off, start working. Max is waiting for you.

      Maddy reached for the bathroom door handle for the third time that morning, and for the third time she hesitated.

      She’d spoken to Max yesterday. Argued over the camp bed last night, in fact. So it wasn’t as though this was their first meeting post-shower scene. There was absolutely no reason for her to be loitering in the bathroom. Hadn’t she decided this wasn’t going to be an issue between them, that she was going to push the memory of what she’d seen into the very darkest corner of her mind and ignore it?

      “Idiot.”

      She pushed the door open and marched into the apartment. Her stomach dipped as she stopped in front of Max. He was sitting on his stool opening a new box of charcoals, his head bent over the task. She watched the muscles work in his forearms, the way his deft fingers teased the packaging open. Instantly she flashed to an image from yesterday: Max’s arms rigid with tension, his biceps flexing as his fist slid up and down his erection.

      He glanced up, a frown on his face. Almost as though he’d somehow guessed what she’d been thinking.

      “I forgot to ask. How did you get on with the specialists yesterday?”

      She blinked stupidly at how normal the question was. While she agonized over the illicit glimpse she’d inadvertently gotten into his sex life, it was business-as-usual for Max. He didn’t know what she’d seen. He never would.

      “Really well. I spoke to Anna yesterday and she texted me first thing this morning. She got me an appointment next week with her specialist, Dr. Rambeau.”

      “That’s great news.”

      “He hasn’t got a huge reputation, but both Anna and Jean-Pierre swear by him. Now I just have to contact Dr. Hanson and get my records sent over.” Frankly, she’d rather chew glass but it was something that had to be done.

      “Not looking forward to it?” His gray eyes were sympathetic.

      “Asking for a second opinion is a slap in the face, no matter how you look at it. He’s not going to be gracious about it,” she said. And, rational or not, she was angry with Dr. Hanson. Both he and Andrew had given up on her before she’d had a chance to prove herself. The last thing she wanted was talk to either one of them.

      “Want me to do it for you?”

      “Yeah. But I’m not going to let you. You know, Monsieur Laurent, I’m beginning to think you have a bit of a Sir Galahad complex. You’re always primed to ride to my rescue at the drop of a hat.”

      He made a dismissive noise.

      “What do you call trying to sleep on the camp bed last night?”

      He looked caught out.

      “Exactly. You’re too gallant for your own good.”

      “Humph.”

      “What?”

      “My sister said something similar the other day.”

      “Well, then, it must be true.”

      He smiled, and she smiled back, and for a long moment they enjoyed the camaraderie.

       See? This is normal. Just like old times, B.S.S. Before Shower Scene.

      Then he looked at his watch.

      “Guess we’d better get started, huh?” she said.

      That quickly, she was nervous again.

      “Guess so. Unless you need to do something else today?”

      “No. Nothing else.” Unfortunately.

      She reached for the sash on the robe. This was her way of repaying Max for his hospitality. It was the least she could do for him.

      She let the robe slide down her arms.

      Like yesterday, he was busy organizing his pencils when she looked at him. She turned her feet out and pulled in her belly and squared her shoulders.

      “Okay, I’m ready when you are,” she said.

      He barely glanced up. It struck her again how commonplace this must be for him. She was simply another model, another body. Which made it even more stupid and pointless to feel so self-conscious and uncertain.

      “Let’s start with fourth position, en pointe,” he said.

      She moved smoothly into the pose, concentrating fiercely on achieving perfect form and posture. Anything to stop herself from thinking about the fact that she was standing naked in front of Max, and that yesterday he’d been so hard and—

       Enough!

      She gritted her teeth and arched her back a little more. He began to sketch. She kept her mind busy reviewing the choreography for the production of Giselle she’d been rehearsing before Dr. Hanson ended her career. After ten minutes, Max asked for a second pose, then a third, each of which she held for close to fifteen minutes as he worked. Nearly an hour later, he paused to flick through his sketch pad. She stretched out her calf muscles and surreptitiously massaged her bad knee.

      “Do you feel up to something more dynamic?” he asked.

      His gaze was on her knee. He’d caught her rubbing it. She turned her feet out and stood tall.

      “Whatever you’ve got.”

      “I don’t want to aggravate your injury.”

      “You won’t. It’s healing. Work is good for it,” she said. “I have to start building my strength up again.”

      He looked doubtful. Self-consciousness forgotten, she rose up en pointe and began a series of battements, her feet flashing as she flicked one pointed foot in front of the other in a rapid, beating movement, her arms held in a graceful curve at midchest height.

      “Okay, okay. Point taken,” he said, shaking his head.

      “What were you thinking of?”

      “Do you remember the season of La Sylphide we did right before I left the company? There was that series of fouetté rond de jambe tournants toward the end of the last act.”

      She tried to recall the choreography he was referring to. It had been a long time ago and there had been many, many sequences since.