Two Months and Three Days (Sinister Romance #1)

Chapter 1

When morning came, Maxim just wanted Clarissa to leave. He wanted to be alone. The feeling both surprised and upset him. He liked Clarissa and they had both enjoyed their unplanned escapade. Even now, as he watched her sleeping naked, stretched out across the wide bed, freely and shamelessly, he admired the beauty and softness of her long, graceful body.

Nevertheless, it wasn't enough for him to want her to stay.

Maxim wasn't afraid of being alone; he liked it. Lying on the sun-drenched floor feeling nothing wasn't such a bad thing, just breathing, listening to music, and waiting for what might happen next.

Maxim flipped over on his stomach and looked out of the large, panoramic window. For a while, he watched the large red dots, the double-decker buses, and the smaller black dots, the cabs that crawled through the streets of London City like funny little bugs, sometimes stopping, sometimes speeding up. There was neither logic nor meaning to this chaos, but it had a kind of hypnotic beauty that you could enjoy for hours.

The plane to Moscow doesn't leave until late in the evening, Maxim thought. I still have the entire day ahead.

It was too bad. Last night before falling asleep, Clarissa had whispered that she didn't expect anything from him. Still, Maxim knew that women never really meant it, even the most free-spirited of women.

"Hi handsome. How long have you been up?" Maxim turned his head when he heard her voice, slightly hoarse and derisive.

"I don't know. Did you sleep well?" he asked her gently. Clarissa shrugged her shoulders and leaned over the bed trying to get a better look at Maxim who was still lying on the floor.

"Isn't it hard down there?" she asked.

"I like it hard," Maxim said, clearly hinting. Clarissa's eyes lit up with fire.

"Mmm, I like it hard too. As if you didn't know." She arched her back like a cat, lifting her naked buttocks above the bed for Maxim to see, and gave him one of her special sassy smiles. Maxim licked his lips, unwittingly staring at her firm behind, raised provocatively and shamelessly, with a tiny alluring hollow between the cheeks.

"Aren't you afraid?" he asked in a slightly hoarse voice. Clarissa burst out laughing. She jumped out of bed onto the immaculate, expensive, warm wooden floor and crawled close to Maxim on all fours.

"I'm not the one who should be afraid." She laid down on her belly beside him, propping her head on her hands. "What are you looking at down there?"

"Nothing..." Maxim moved closer to Clarissa and slowly ran the palm of his hand over her back down towards the most tempting part. His hand covered her buttocks and then slid deeper between her legs. Maxim touched her vagina, moved his index finger to her clitoris and started massaging it gently without taking his eyes off Clarissa's face.

"Do you need to go in to the gallery today?" he asked quietly and laughed as Clarissa gave him a hazy look. She moaned in response.

"Is it really that bad?' Maxim pretended to frown.

"Oh." He removed his hand and Clarissa gave him a disappointed look.

"What?" he smiled. "You know, sweetheart, I barely got any sleep last night."

"You're kidding me," she groaned.

"I was drinking bourbon, looking over the negatives and thinking about a possible meeting with my father. I'm very tired," Maxim smiled without making a single move.

"So, you're tired? You poor thing!" Clarissa snapped at him, irritated. She sat up, stretching her legs forward and leaning her back against the robust glass window. Maxim pulled himself closer and spread her legs apart with his hands, as far as he could.

"I'm literally exhausted," he chuckled, enjoying the view. Clarissa's groin was well-groomed, with a thin strip of red hair and a birthmark just above the clitoris. She had a firm, tanned belly and perky breasts with a small tattoo by the shoulder just above them - a tiny she-wolf in an endless run towards the collarbone.

"Are we gonna fuck or are you going to make me cry first?!" Clarissa finally got angry with him and tried to close her legs, but Maxim wouldn't let her.

"It's a beautiful morning. What's the rush?" he muttered slowly, "unless you really do need to go to the gallery."

"To hell with the gallery!" Clarissa shouted. Maxim got up and helped her up. Her legs trembled from the strain. Maxim grabbed her from under her buttocks and easily lifted her up in the air. Her eyes turned towards Maxim's face. She stared at him without looking away. Her gaze scanned his high cheekbones and his tangled dark hair covering his ever-changing gray eyes. She admired the small drops of sweat on his forehead. His moves became sharper, his gaze firmer. He took her right there, standing with her back pressed against the glass. Clarissa wondered what might happen to them if the strong glass gave way, and her heart beat faster. She imagined two bodies entwined falling down into the London street below. The strong jerks of his member made her scream.

"You're the best," she whispered. "Do you know what I want?"

"I can't even begin to imagine," Maxim laughed and sharply penetrated her even deeper.

"I want there to be three of you . . . " Quiet, mirthful laughter filled the room.

Later, sitting on the edge of the marble bathtub, Maxim nonchalantly said that he wasn't planning to return to London any time soon.

"What do you mean?" Clarissa thought she had misheard him.

"Exactly what I said," Maxim shrugged his shoulders and touched the foam with his hand.

"Is this your way of telling me to leave?" Clarissa, who had been relaxing and enjoying the bath until this moment, suddenly turned pale. Maxim looked at her in surprise.

"I'm not telling you to leave," he said. "If I wanted you to leave, I would've just called you a cab. You know me."

Clarissa began frantically applying his shower gel, but then she angrily threw the sponge in the water and exclaimed, "Richard is right; women should stay away from you! He thinks you're ruining my life!"

"This is one of those rare cases when your boring brother is right," Maxim agreed, and Clarissa helplessly threw the foam at him.

"You don't want me to be happy."

"That's not true. I don't want myself to be happy," he said, handing Clarissa a big fluffy towel. "Happiness is for those who have never experienced pleasure. There is an eternal war between these two gods, and the first one only wins until the second shows up. And when it shows up from around the corner, with bared shoulders and lips swollen from all that kissing, happiness is put aside like a book that's open in the middle to be finished later when it's raining and there's nothing else to do."

"You sound as if happiness and pleasure were not the same thing."

"They are two very different things. Don't you see that? You amaze me," he shook his head.

Clarissa was silent for a moment, carefully eyeing something invisible on the white tiles of the immaculate bathroom.

"One day, you'll show up at my doorstep again in the middle of the night with that carefree look of yours, and I'll be married," she scoffed and then covered herself with the towel. Maxim came up to her and gently brushed her face with his palm.

"You think that would stop you?"

"Thank God I don't love you!" Clarissa threw up her hands, threw off the towel, and went back to the guest bedroom where she had left her things.

Maxim didn't go after her. Instead, he went into the large, empty kitchen and turned on the coffee maker. He took the milk out of the fridge. Clarissa loved vanilla latte.

Mentally, Maxim had already boarded the plane and taken a front-row seat in the business class cabin. Mentally, he had already gone to Moscow, and even further than Moscow into the ever-alluring and unpredictable mirage they call "tomorrow."