Broken (9 page)

“You want civilized?” Smiling dangerously, Max said, “I’ll show you civilized.”

Cassidy was in bed, sound asleep when the sound of someone leaning on the doorbell woke her. “Who on earth?”

Rising quickly, she pulled on a robe and hurried to the door before the racket woke Zoe. After flipping on the porch light and glancing through the peephole, she unlocked and opened the wood door. “Max, what happened to you?”

He had a black eye, a busted lip, the bridge of his nose was swollen, and if she wasn’t mistaken, crooked. There was blood on his shirt and his hair was wild. She pushed open the storm door and the smell of liquor hit her nostrils. “Are you drunk?”

“I wish to hell I was,” he said as he entered the house.

Cassidy closed and locked the door. Flipping on the living room light, she turned to confront him, demanding, “Have you been fighting?”

“Just showing Nicco some brotherly love,” he said caustically. Max headed for the kitchen sink and reached for her paper towels. Wetting one of them, he wiped at the drying blood on his face.

She took the paper from him and pushed him toward a chair. “Sit and don’t move.”

Going into her bathroom, she took out her medicine kit, returned to the kitchen, and set it on the table. “Let me see.”

Max angled his head toward the overhead light. She spent time surveying the damage to his handsome-as-sin face and got busy cleaning the cuts and bruises. “You want to tell me what this is about, or should I guess?”

“You know what this is about.
Ow
! That stings!” He jerked his face away from the antiseptic and scowled at her.

“Don’t be a baby.” She gripped his chin and held him still so she could finish.

“Is this how you talk to your patients, Dr. Brannon?” he muttered.

“My patients have better sense than to brawl,” she snapped.

“Don’t worry. Nicco’s face looks much worse,” he said with evident satisfaction.

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?” she asked, astonished.

“It does me,” he said grimly.

Shaking her head, Cassidy decided to leave the issue of the fight alone. “I can’t believe you drove all this way when you’ve been drinking.”

Max sighed. “It was one drink. Believe me, I’ve had more. I’m not even close to my limit.”

Disturbed, she gazed into his stormy blue eyes still full of so much emotion.

“After you went back to Phillip, I hit the bottle pretty hard. The drinking only got worse when I believed you chose him over me. It was the only way I could cope,” he confessed.

Cassidy closed her eyes, pain and guilt swamping her. “Max…”

“Tonight’s the first drink I’ve had since I saw you last month, and it was only one.” He spread his legs, wrapped an arm around her hips, and pulled her to stand between his thighs. “Now that I have you and Zoe, I don’t need alcohol.”

“No one
needs
alcohol. Do you know the damage it does to your body?” She continued to lecture him on the perils of hard liquor as she dabbed antibiotic cream on his face.

“You’re absolutely right,” he agreed when she wound down and was putting everything in the medicine kit.

Cassidy had the feeling he was humoring her. Something about the amused glint his eyes.

Abruptly, Max’s mood changed. He buried his forehead between her breasts and his arms, which were around her hips, constricted to the point of pain. She could feel the waves of misery coming off him.

“Oh, Max,” she said softly.

She stroked his dark silky hair, so much like their daughter’s, as compassion overwhelmed her. Cassidy knew how he felt. She remembered how hurt she’d been when her mother had sided with Phillip about their divorce, even after she’d explained about his multiple infidelities.

“
Are you sure you’re doing everything you should be as a wife
?” her mother had asked.

 Even now the memory stung, though they’d made their peace with one another. Nothing like almost losing your only child to make an obstinate woman like her mother see reason, Cassidy reflected.

Max and his family were extremely close. She thought of the love and affection so abundantly displayed the day Max had taken her to meet them. Remembered his pride in showing her off to his family and their corresponding lackluster welcome. Unlike Max, she’d known his mother was vehemently against their being together. She hadn’t known Nicco felt the same. Had, in fact, believed Nicco to be the only member of Max’s family who genuinely liked her and was rooting for her and Max’s relationship to work. His betrayal cut most of all.

She hugged Max and simply held him, offering him the comfort he needed. As for herself, well, Cassidy didn’t know how she felt. Yes they’d lied, but she was sure it hadn’t been done maliciously. His mother, a very devout Catholic, had been worried about her son’s soul. Who knows? Maybe Nicco had too.

Regardless, it was water under the bridge now. They couldn’t go into the past and change anything, and if there was a part of her that felt she and Zoe had been cheated because of their actions? Well, sometimes life sucked. You took your lumps and moved on.

Cassidy didn’t know how long they embraced. Holding Max soothed an ache she’d carried within her for far too long.

Finally he lifted his head. “How could they do that to me, to us?”

She gazed into his bruised and battered face. Though she wanted to rail and spew bitterness at his family, that’s not what he needed from her. “I’m sure they had their reasons. They love you, Max. I’m sure their intent wasn’t to hurt you.”

His damp eyes went so hard they glittered like diamonds. “Not hurt me? Losing you almost demolished me. If you and Zoe had died…” He shuddered.

“But we didn’t. We’re here and doing well. We can’t change the past. All we can do is go forward.” She meant Max could go forward in his relationship with his daughter.

Max apparently had other ideas. He stood and kissed her. It had to be painful with the side of his mouth tender and swollen. If so, he didn’t show any indication. His kiss was hungry, devouring, and lit a flame inside that quickly grew into a flash fire.

So long. It had been so long since she’d been held and touched as a woman, or treated as a lover. So long since she’d been with a man who knew her body as passionately as this one did. At that point, her brain shut down and lust took over.

Max shoved her robe off her shoulders and the satin slithered to the floor. Changing angles, he slanted his mouth and took the kiss deeper. Cassidy tasted the smoky tang of aged bourbon along with the underlying addictive flavor of the man himself. He groaned into her mouth when his roaming hands encountered bare skin beneath her nightie.

In short order, Cassidy found herself naked and seated on top of the cool kitchen table. Max’s hands and mouth were everywhere. She couldn’t catch her breath.

“I can’t wait. It’s been too long. I need you,” he said, his voice hoarse. Determined hands spread wide her thighs, and he was there. The hot, smooth knob of him sought entrance to tender muscles that hadn’t cradled a man in two years.

Their gazes met and held as he pushed in, stopped, retreated, and forged forth again. “You’re so tight.”

“I haven’t…there’s been…nobody since you,” she managed to gasp out.

Fierce satisfaction filled his face right before he slammed home. Cassidy only had a second to catch her breath and try to adjust to the invasion. Then Max moved, slowly building in speed and intensity until he was hammering into her. Only his hard grip on her hips kept her from sliding across the slick surface of the table.

How could she have forgotten the effect this man had on her senses? Cassidy was tossed into the whirlwind that was Max. There was no up or down. All she could do was hold on for the ride. She dug her nails into the ridged muscles of his back and wrapped her legs around his trim waist. The position allowed him to slide infinitely deeper.

Cassidy gasped. Max groaned.

The storm, when it broke, was a fury of flash lightening and booming thunder. The bolt jolted her body so that she bowed up beneath him, eyes wide open but blind. A scream of shocked ecstasy trapped in her throat.

Max gave a male shout of triumph and stiffened above her. The minute pulsing of his hips and shaft triggered another, more intense climax in Cassidy. This one brought tears to her eyes.

Afterwards, she cried. She couldn’t help it. The tears wouldn’t stop. Great wracking sobs shook her body. She was mortified, but embarrassed or not, she couldn’t turn off the flow.

Max gathered her up and sat in the chair with her straddling his lap, still impaled on his erection. “It’s all right, honey. I’m here now. Let it all out,” he crooned.

Having no other choice, Cassidy gave up and cried out all the anger, pain, the fear and the worry. When it was all over, and she lay limped and drained against him with only the occasional, shuddering hiccup, Max picked her up, carried her into the bedroom, and made slow love to her again.