Copyright © 2024 by GroveltoHEA
I felt Max pressed tightly against the length of my back, every inch of his front touching every inch of my back.
"You OK?" he asked.
"Honestly, Max, I don't know if I'm ready for this."
"You are, Briony. You are. I'll take care of you. I promise it'll be good."
"Max, I really thought I could do this, but now...I'm just not sure. I'm having some serious second thoughts about doing this with you."
"Hey, hey, hey. If you don't want to do it, that's fine. We don't have to, but I think if you let yourself just be in the moment, you'll really enjoy it."
"Max --"
"It's up to you, Bri. You need to decide whether we take this next step. It's your call and I'm good either way. You can always say no, but if you say yes, once we get started, I won't be able to stop."
"I know, and I think that's what's scaring me. Committing to this."
"Briony, I don't want you to feel like I'm pressuring you, but you do need to decide pretty quick. Do you want to take that last step forward or do you want to step back?"
Wasn't that the question of the hour? Step forward or step back?
"You need to make a decision soon, though. Yes or no, Bri. It's up to you to decide, but the decision can't wait much longer."
Of course it was up to me. It had always been up to me and Max had made that clear as we worked through my bucket list of things I'd always wanted to do. I'd known what he was doing the minute he'd pulled up to the dance studio three months ago.
Next had followed horseback riding on the beach at sunset, with a beach bonfire after. We'd had s'mores while the waves rolled onto the shore and it'd been more than I'd imagined.
One weekend it was driving NASCAR cars on a race track -- Max had rented the facility for an hour so it could just be the two of us. By the end of our hour, I'd beaten Max's best time by two hundredths of a second, so I'd earned bragging rights, and I might have mentioned it to Max a time or two thousand, which he took good naturedly.
"That just means you're the getaway car driver when we do the bank heist that's on your bucket list," he said.
Another weekend, he'd taken me to a nearby romance writer convention, and I met some of my favorite smut authors. Max followed me around holding my swag and the books I bought as I fangirled, and he was solicited no less than eight times to appear on covers of romance novels. Some of the authors came out from behind their tables to take pictures with him and to give him their cards, asking him to please change his mind about modeling.
Two of my favorite authors, Cree Foster and Gracelyn Matthewson, were next to each other at their tables and got into a friendly war over Max.
"I'm telling you, some purple paint and he's my double-tongued alien lover," Gracelyn exclaimed. "Besides, I saw him first."
"Don't care. Just look at him -- he's totally perfect for my new Pipe Cleaners MC series I'm launching. Just...don't tell my husband because he volunteered and there's no way I want a bunch of women looking at Dom so I told him I was going with one of those new cartoony covers."
"You should do it," I teased Max. "Show off your chest to all those adoring females."
His face suddenly closed up as if he were self-conscious, and then he forced a smile. "I'm not model material. I think one of the authors you mentioned is down the next aisle."
YOU ARE READING
The Rampage MC #4: Max and Briony
RomanceI was supposed to be protecting her. Instead, I left her to help my former girlfriend. And she was badly hurt on my watch. Now, she won't talk to me and I can't get to her for a year. I'll work the rest of my life to regain her trust, earn her forgi...
