The Kingmaker (All the King's Men, #1)(20)

“What?” Kimba interjects, tearing her attention away from David, who is obviously into her. “When was this?”

“My senior year in high school.”

Maxim and I share a loaded look at my words. I’m not in high school anymore. The knowledge sits between us unspoken, but I know for sure he feels it, too. The tight space brims with it.

“Lennix was incredible,” Maxim says for everyone to hear, but his eyes are for only me. “I couldn’t believe she was just seventeen. She had that crowd eating from her hand.”

“You spoke?” Aya asks, her voice laced with disbelief. “I hate public speaking.”

“She was brilliant.” Maxim chuckles and takes a quick sip of the whiskey he ordered. “And then we got arrested.”

“Arrested?” Hans asks, delighted incredulity all over his distinctly Dutch features.

“Yup.” I nod and laugh. “We got tossed in the slammer, and you got bitten by a dog.”

“You got sprayed with tear gas.”

“You got propositioned.”

“By the wrong girl,” Maxim say softly, his eyes resting on me like a flame set to low. “But you were too young for me anyway. Then.”

All the banked heat and want that we couldn’t acknowledge before is unabashed in the look he gives me now. A silence falls on the table, punctuated with a few cleared throats and a giggle or two. We don’t care. We don’t look away. I have no frame of reference for the fluttering in my belly. For the tightening of my nipples. For the way I’m wet between my legs just because his thigh keeps brushing mine under the table. Just because he smells clean and masculine and fresh. Just because this close, I see the dark starburst at the center of his clear green eyes.

“Yes, well,” Vivienne says, tossing back her drink and gulping it all down at once, “it’s getting late, and we’re all tuckered out from jet lag. What do you say we call it a night, ladies?”

David and Kimba exchange numbers while everyone settles their tab and prepares to leave.

“Are you tired?” Maxim asks.

“No,” I answer quickly. “Not at all.”

“Where are you staying?”

I give him the name of the hostel, and he nods.

“I know where that is. I could walk you back if you want to stay and talk some more?”

“Hey, I’m gonna stay for a bit,” I tell my friends.

“What?” Vivienne and Kimba ask in unison, the same cautious look on both their faces.

“We just want to catch up some more,” Maxim offers, his voice pitched to I promise I’m harmless and won’t hurt your friend. “I’ll walk her home as soon as we’re done.”

“Sounds good,” Kimba says, eyeing him closely like she’s memorizing his face, which she probably is. “Okay.”

She bends to kiss my cheek and whispers in my ear, “Girl, get you some. If you say this one isn’t right, your ass is mine. That V-card? You better play it!”

We chuckle and I glance over her shoulder to find Maxim watching me with single-minded intent.

“I’ll see you when I get home,” I whisper back, not confirming, but I acknowledge at least to myself that meeting Maxim again feels like destiny; like fate set us up. I’d be a fool to ignore it, and for the first time, I think the V-card might actually come into play.





9





Maxim





God, I thought they’d never leave. Our friends spill into the street, leaving the faintest echo of their laughter and conversation behind. I can tell David’s into Kimba. I wish him luck, but I’m too preoccupied with a second chance I never thought I’d get. Can it be called a second chance when there was never a chance before?

I’m still, on some level, processing that the girl I was so drawn to four years ago is this even-more-beautiful-than-before woman here in Amsterdam, in my favorite brown bar, watching me with the same kind of stunned excitement buzzing through my body.

“Your friends are nice,” Lennix says, popping a triangle of gouda into her mouth.

“They’re not.” I laugh. “But they were on their best behavior tonight. They can fake it when pretty girls are involved.”

“The night definitely took a turn when you guys came around.” She smiles, pushing a chunk of straight black hair behind her ear. “It’s spring break and they’re looking for hook-ups, so your friends might get lucky. Well, not with Viv.”

“I hope not with you. I was kind of hoping I’d have you all to myself.”

She doesn’t laugh. Or smile even. She looks up from the cheese board and levels an intense stare at me.

“Is that what you want?” she asks, her voice more casual than her eyes. “A hook-up?”

If she’s asking if I want to fuck her, then of course. If she’s asking if that’s all it would be . . . who knows? Nothing ever felt typical where this girl was concerned. Not the way we met. Not the things I learned about her. Not the way her image, her voice, that throaty laugh would revisit me in the middle of a lecture or even while I was kissing someone else.

“I want to get to know you,” I tell her, answering and not answering as honestly as I can. “Tell me what’s been happening with you the last few years.”