Page 99 of Duke, Actually
Historically, Dani had enjoyed oral sex, but honestly, she’d never totally gotten the hype. It had never been at the top of her list. But there was something about the combination of Max’s mouth moving against her and the pressure from being on top. There wasalsosomething about the noises he was making. He was clearly enjoying himself.
She couldn’t keep herself from moving, and she couldn’t hold back the obscene-sounding moans that were slipping out, because dear god, she was writhing around on his face and she had never felt anything so good. She never wanted it to end, but it was going to, and soon.
“Oh my god, Max!” she cried as an orgasm started to overtake her. Absurdly, it felt like it started in her toes and moved up her legs in a wave, coming to a head at the juncture between her thighs, where his mouth met her, and just kept... exploding. She, not historically a screamer, screamed.
He chuckled, and the vibrations joined the aftershocks zinging through her core.
She lifted herself up onto her knees and looked down at him.His face was wet—and nearly split in two from the widest grin she’d ever seen on him.
She was struck by the astonishing thought that she had never felt this good before, and she didn’t mean just physically.
Max couldn’t sleep that night, which normally would be nothing new butwassort of new given that since he had been sharing a bed with Dani—or her dog—he’d been sleeping like a baby. Tonight, he had too many thoughts zipping through his brain. Around midnight, overwhelmed by them, he sneaked out of his room and went into the bathroom of Dani’s and called his brother. It was not lost on him that last time he’d made a covert phone call from a hotel bathroom, it had beentoDani.
“Remember how you said you didn’t want to hide anymore?” he said when his brother picked up.
“Hello to you, too. No, you didn’t wake me. How’s the honeymoon going?”
Seb was joking, but the time with Dani here—and in Riems—hadfelt like a honeymoon. Max had been free from the oversight of the wider world and completely wrapped up in Dani. Emotionally, before, but now physically, too. “You said you didn’t want to hide anymore,” Max pressed on. “And I said I’d help you. Which I meant,” he rushed to add.
“Yes. That came out a little melodramatically,” Seb said, “but the sentiment was genuine.”
“So you want to come out. To Mother and Father.”
“To everyone, I suppose. I don’t want to . . . live this way anymore.”
“Good,” Max said, perhaps a tad too urgently.
“Max? Are you all right?”
“I’m in love with Daniela Martinez,” he blurted, “and I don’t know what to do about it.”
There was a slight pause before Seb started laughing.
“I beg your pardon?” He was a sorry specimen, he realized, but he wasn’t sure he deserved mockery.
“I’m sorry,” Seb said. “I’m not laughing at you, or her. She’s amazing. Of course you’re in love with her. It’s the idea of you being in love withanyone. It’s so... not you.”
“Well, that’s my point,” Max plowed on. “I don’t think the me everyone knows reallyisme. Not anymore, anyway.”
“Ah.” Seb had shed all teasing from his tone. “So you don’t want to hide anymore, either. Is that what I’m hearing?”
Yes. That was exactly right. “What do I do, Seb?”
His brother didn’t answer right away. Max wondered if Seb, like him, was thinking about how profoundly the tables were turned with that question. It used to always be Max leading Seb. Clearing the way for him.
“Does she know how you feel?” Seb asked. “Does she feel the same?”
“No on both counts.”
“How do you know she doesn’t return your feelings?”
“Even if she does, she won’t let herself. It’s... complicated.”
“Ah. Too bad. Youarein need of a wife.”
Max chuckled. “Can you imagine if I went home and told Mother and Father that I was done with Lavinia and was marrying Dani?” He thought back to his grand exit from the wedding.
Seb turned serious. “You know, Max, you can marry whomever you want. They can’t prevent it. They can make life unpleasant for a while, but ultimately, they can’t do anything about it.”