Sorry it took so long to get back here, but I rewrote the first part of the chapter three times, and then went back and added some stuff, all while writing a long one-shot fanfic for the new TV show, "Beauty and the Beast."
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Chapter 26
Breakfast in Bed
Liz and Max were both used to being up early, but his internal clock was set two hours ahead of hers as his mind and body were still on Central time. That didn’t make him wake up two whole hours before her, but he did wake to a still-dark world with her delicate, sleeping body curled against his.
The only light in the room was the dim, blue glow provided by the LED numbers of the alarm clock on her bedside table. Max shifted ever so slightly to take advantage of that light to look at the precious bundle he held in his arms.
Here in the still of the night she looks so small, so fragile, as simple and helpless as a child, he thought, as a fierce protectiveness welled up within him. Then his mind wandered back over their time together in Texas and even earlier that very night,
so very different from when she’s awake.
“Small, maybe,” he murmured to her before pressing a soft kiss against her forehead, “but intelligent, passionate, complicated, and strong are a
little closer to the mark, don’t you think?”
At that point, Max’s body took advantage of his wakefulness to inform him there was something he needed to take care of immediately, if not sooner. He spent the next half minute trying to disengage his body from hers and from the tangled bed sheets without waking her up. Hoping she wouldn’t miss not having his body next to hers, while at the same time hoping she
did, he held one finger aloft, lighting its tip like a candle to give him enough light to find the bathroom without banging his shins against half the furniture in the suite.
Once he was done with his business, he decided against the risk of waking her up as he tried to slip back into bed. He knew she was an early riser, but figured she could stand with a little more sleep, especially given how long they had been busy “getting busy” the night before. Keeping his finger alight, Max went looking for his clothes from the night before, deciding to save the fresh clothes from his suitcases for after his morning shower when a loud click from opening luggage wouldn’t risk waking her. His t-shirt and jeans were easy enough to locate, but the boxers took a minute to find as they were dangling from one corner of the headboard.
Figures, he smirked,
things did get a little frantic there for a while.
Not bothering with socks or shoes, he slipped out of her room. Unsure if any of her employees might already be at work, he quit using the flaming fingertip to light the way, but it didn’t take him long to find a light switch, and a minute later he was trudging into the kitchen to see what he could do about making breakfast for two. He was planning on rummaging through the kitchen’s refrigerators to see what he had to work with, but found the kitchen was already in use, as a blonde woman was busy with preparations for making what looked to be several breakfasts.
Not wanting to startle the woman, he stopped in the open doorway to the kitchen and cleared his throat. The woman paused just long enough to look up and register that he was someone new before she returned her eyes to her work, and said, “So you’re the new boyfriend.”
Max leaned against the doorjamb, and said, “Hi, I’m Max.”
Not looking up from where she was chopping onions and bell peppers, the woman replied, “Hi, Max, my name is Julia, and I’m pleased to meet you.”
“Hi, Julia, the pleasure’s all mine.”
Julia brought a couple cartons of eggs out to her work surface and started cracking them open and adding them to a large mixing bowl. “While it’s been nice to meet you, Max, I need to pay attention to what I’m doing. But while you’re here, what would you like to eat this morning?”
“Well…I had been hoping to make breakfast for two and serve it to Liz in bed, so if you have a tray table that’s big enough for that I would really appreciate it. I’m sure you know what she likes better than I do, so I won’t try to give you
her order, but for me – if you have them – I’d like slightly crisp bacon, scrambled eggs, link sausage, hash browns, toast…”
Julia paused and looked up at Max again. “So, basically, if I’ve got it, you’ll eat it.” It was more a statement of fact than a question, but the way she said it made him grin, and she found his grin to be every bit as enticing as his thickly muscled arms.
Some women have all the luck, she thought. “Miss Parker’s meal will be ready when yours is,” she continued, wishing she could see her boss’ reaction to breakfast in bed, “and I’ll add some extra bacon, because if I know her, she’ll be stealing off your plate.”
Fifteen minutes later, everything was ready, arranged on covered plates and bowls which were sitting on the shelves of a stainless steel dessert cart. Max had no idea how he was supposed to get this small feast up to Liz’s suite, but one of the guards who was walking through on a circuit of the house and grounds took the time to point out the elevator, which was sort of hidden around a corner on the far side of the great room.
Liz was awake by this time, and had been so for several minutes. Long enough, in fact, for her to have begun missing Max, pull on a plush robe, slide her feet into fuzzy powder blue slippers, and head downstairs. She had seen him at the kitchen entrance and was just about to call out to him when she saw the dessert cart being loaded down with breakfast foods. Realizing what was going on, she scampered back up to her bedroom, rid herself of the robe and slippers, and dove back into bed so she could pretend to be asleep and allow him to ‘surprise’ her. She had to wait a couple of minutes for him to find the elevator, but was rewarded by the sound of him pushing the cart into her suite. Leaning on her acting skills to pretend to be awakened by the squeaky cart, Liz rolled over, rubbed her eyes, and asked sleepily, “What are you d…breakfast in bed?” After that, it didn’t take any acting skill at all for her to be delighted by the thoughtful gesture.
“Sit up and lean forward a bit,” Max said briskly. When she complied, he fluffed up a couple of the pillows on her bed and folded them over before stuffing them behind her lower back and head respectively. “Okay, you can lean back now.”
As the top sheet and comforter fell to Liz’s waist, Max was knocked breathless by her artless combination of girl-next-door cuteness and sex goddess hotness. He took a few moments to drink in the sight of her, making no effort to hide the way he eyed her wildly tousled bedhead, luminous brown eyes, kissable lips, tanned skin, pert breasts, and flat tummy.
She, meanwhile, was looking into his eyes and found herself captivated by what she saw: a look that mixed equal parts lust and adoration.
Still, she thought,
fair is fair. As far as she was concerned, this Max being clothed thing was just going to have to stop. “Umm, Max?”
“Yes, Sweetcheeks?” he breathed heavily.
Liz blushed furiously when Max called her that, mostly because it was a brand new endearment he chosen for her last night upon seeing her naked for the first time. He had announced on the spot that she had the ‘sweetest cheeks’ he had ever seen. “You…naked…
now!” she choked out, as her index finger pointed out his unfair clothing advantage.
He wasted no time in fulfilling her demand. She watched avidly as his gray t-shirt slid up his chest and down his arms, leaving behind a stomach that redefined the term ‘washboard abs,’ and pecs and shoulders that were utterly divine. The t-shirt had barely hit the floor when he shoved his jeans and boxers down to his ankles and stepped out of them, revealing a pair of long, lean, well-defined thighs that framed a dangling muscle that was beginning to lengthen and stand at attention. “Better?” he asked.
“Much,” she replied, grinning from ear-to-ear.
He took the tray table off the cart and unfolded its legs before placing it across her lap, and then set about arranging things for her on the tray. As he peeked under the lid on each plate and dish to see what was in them, he asked, “Did you sleep well?”
“I did,” she replied, “once I finally managed to get to sleep.”
“You should have said something,” Max said, as he placed a plate of freshly sliced chunks of various fruits on the tray table.
“And what would disturbing your sleep have gotten me?” Liz asked, as she popped a juicy piece of pineapple in her mouth and gave him a questioning look.
“For most people, waking me just after I’d gotten to sleep would earn them a serious tongue-lashing, but for you?” He shifted a plate that carried a perfectly-toasted halved cinnamon raisin bagel over to her tray table and then looked at the ceiling in mock contemplation. “For
you, once I’d gotten my bearings, you would have received a nice, slow, gentle massage, until you drifted off into slumberland.”
“Or until I jumped your bones again,” she smirked.
“
Again? Jesus, Woman, you’re insatiable!”
“Well…you
did make me wait two whole months to get my hands on you,” Liz pointed out. “That led to one
Hell of a lot of pent up desire. And then there’s the fact that it only took me once to get addicted to” then she whispered, in case someone was waiting outside her door, “alien-induced orgasms.” She took a sip of her coffee and nibbled on her cinnamon-raisin bagel, and then said, in her normal voice once more, “I swear every orgasm last night seemed to go on forever and
ever. Seriously, if you could somehow manage to bottle that experience, you’d be the richest man on the planet by New Year’s Day.”
“I
told you about that back at the ranch, in fact, I promised you,” Max reminded her.
“That you did,” she agreed wholeheartedly. “And you kept that promise…three separate times. I don’t know if each orgasm was actually an hour, but it sure felt like it was.”
Once Max poured a cup of coffee for himself, he decided to stay off the bed to keep from upsetting the tray table, so he pulled a comfy-looking armchair over and sat by her side as they ate. When he uncovered his plates, there were fluffy scrambled eggs, lightly-crisped maple smoked bacon, link sausage, and hash browns that actually had a browned, nicely crispy texture on the outside.
Liz glanced at the meat on his fork, and mumbled, “That’s not
quite the kind of sausage I was hoping for this morning.”
Max stopped just before biting into a sausage link and looked at her with an incredulous look on his face before throwing his head back and laughing uproariously. “If you want,” he said, once his laughter slowed to a chuckle, “I can clear these dishes away. I just thought you might want to fuel up after last night’s exertions before we try to work our way through the
rest of the Kama Sutra. Also, I thought you might possibly be a little sore this morning.”
She placed a strawberry between her succulent lips and held it there, making vaguely obscene sucking noises before drawing it into her mouth and eating it. “Sore? Maybe, but I was hoping you might take care of that for me with your magic hands.”
Anyone listening would have assumed she meant a massage like the ones he had talked about earlier, but they both knew she meant his healing touch. He was more than willing to accommodate her request, but his stomach was seriously grumbling now that he had all of this freshly prepared food in front of him, so he said, “If you promise to not molest me until after we eat, I’ll heal you right now.”
“Fine, be that way,” she mock grumbled. “I guess you’d rather eat breakfast than me.”
Max choked on the same piece of sausage he had almost bitten into earlier. Once he’d cleared his airway, he said, “Just for that smartass remark, once I start eating you, I won’t stop until you beg me…and I do mean
beg.”
Liz shivered with anticipation, but offhandedly dismissed his threat, saying, “Promises, promises,” hoping it would serve to spur him on. Forcing herself to be content for the moment, she turned her attention to the bounty before her, and took a longer drink of her coffee.
“Your morning cook is a goddess,” Max declared, as he leaned in and touched her long enough to wash away any lingering soreness she was suffering. Then he looked over to see her staring at his food and salivating. Without either of them so much as speaking a single word, Max picked up half his bacon and placed it on her tray. “Aren’t you allowed bacon? God knows you ate it every day back on the ranch.”
“My nutritionist would go nuts if she saw any of this salty, super fatty breakfast meat on my plate, so normally Julia doesn’t fix any, for me or my staff.” Liz happily bit into her first strip of bacon and continued once she’d swallowed. “But with a guest here who loves the stuff…”
“…you had her buy some.”
“Of course! I wouldn’t want my baby to be deprived.”
“Your baby, huh?”
“Yeah,
my baby. Oh, one other thing: Julia’s not a ‘cook,’ she’s Luis’ assistant chef.”
“The difference between cook and assistant chef being…?” He wasn’t being obnoxious; he truly wanted to know.
“About three years at Le Cordon Bleu, as well as some practical experience in a few local restaurants.”
“I’ll definitely remember that.” As the two of them ate, Max asked, “Did your agent get those tickets for us?”
“For the rodeo?” she asked. She thought that’s what he had asked for, but it had been a couple of weeks ago and she couldn’t exactly remember. “The tickets are in an envelope in the top drawer of the desk in my office. Alex had them messengered over here the day after you asked for them.”
“Thanks, Liz,” Max said, “and I hope to get the chance to thank this Alex fellow, too, while I’m here. As for the event, it’s not a rodeo, it’s the PBR Tour.” Seeing a lack of comprehension on her face, he explained, “The Professional Bull Riders Tour. No bucking broncos, calf roping, or barrel racing, just men and bulls. It’s the toughest, manliest, most dangerous part of a regular rodeo, turned into its own event. While I might not normally think of taking a woman to something like this, after experiencing the way you got into being a cowgirl back on the ranch, I thought this was something you might want to see.
“Also,” he admitted, “once the event finals are over, there’s someone there I want you to meet.”
Feeling a trap closing in about her, Liz asked cautiously, “Who?”
“My brother Michael,” he said simply.
“Your
biological brother?” Max knew that by stressing the word ‘biological,’ she was asking if Michael was an alien like he himself. He’d told her about his family during the last two months, but had avoided any mention of their heritages, mostly because he didn’t know how safe their modes of communication were.
“As far as I know,” he said blandly.
“And he’s a cowboy like you?”
“Not exactly.” Max drank most of a cup of coffee and took a couple of bites of his eggs before they got cold before he continued. “While I chose to work on a ranch, he decided to use his skills on a bigger stage.”
“Why am I meeting
him first?”
Max picked up a couple of pieces of fruit off of the tray table and stuffed them into her mouth, which earned him a surprised giggle. “Because, of all my family members, Michael’s likely going to be the most pissed off that I told you about me, and by extension, about him. I figure if we can win him over, the rest of the family will be a piece of cake.”
“I wish you had
asked me if I want to do this.” Liz was more than a little annoyed Max had sprung this on her, and even worse, had done so at virtually the last minute. Deciding to let it go, for now at least, she thought,
At least with the event being on Friday night, it’ll give me a few days to steel myself for this. “The one thing about this I
don’t understand,” she said out loud, “is why you asked for three tickets instead of two.”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you? You told me a while ago that your friend Maria had been lusting over your photos of the cowboys on the ranch because she wanted to meet some
real men. Because of my connection to Michael, I probably know half the cowboys that will be riding each night, so I thought she might like a front row seat for all of the action, followed by a few introductions.”
Liz wasn’t sure. While Maria did like manly men, her personal tastes in entertainment tended toward music, art, and anything else creative. “I’ll call her and see if she wants to go. Thanks, though, for thinking of her. I appreciate it, whether she will or not.”