Royal Pain by Megan Mulry Read Free Book Online Page B

more about me? Or where I grew up? Or my favorite movies? Or how many brothers and sisters I have…”
    “No. I mean, yes, of course, eventually, that would all be splendid information, but for now, no. I am not particularly interested in any of that. All of you is sitting right here. I know what you like to read, after all. And that other information is just, well, as Martin Amis would say, the information.”
    “Nicely put. I could not agree more. I mean, gentle rains and all that sound delightful m’lord, but why bother?”
    Max winced for a split second, then grabbed Bronte’s hand and leaned across the narrow table for a kiss. The first kiss he had been anticipating for the past four hours, the past six weeks. The kiss he could no longer delay. His tongue trailed tentatively across the seam of her inviting lips, then ventured into the warm welcome of her luscious mouth.
    Bronte simply gave in. Her eyelids became unaccountably heavy and she emitted an unconscious mewl of pleasure. He tenderly withdrew a few inches, his eyes clouded over with desire, barely able to focus.
    Bronte whispered his name, “Max.” An invitation. A new statement of fact.
    The moment hung there: weightless, timeless. Bronte brought her tongue to the corner of her mouth, to relive the feel of his in that same spot only seconds before. Max leaned back into his seat and put the palms of both of his strong, beautiful hands flat onto the table.
    “We should probably go, Bron.”
    “Where?”
    “Somewhere with a bed?”
    “Okay.”
    Max smiled and pressed on. “I was just kidding about the bed part. Well, sort of; I mean, maybe we should start on a couch and work our way up. I think you might live in this neighborhood…”
    Bronte replied dreamily, “You’re right. I think I might.”
    “Shall we go there? Or would you rather hop in a cab and go to my place in Hyde Park?”
    The tiny, piercing voice of the savvy single woman in her balked at the idea of having some guy she’d never really met into her apartment, let alone diving into bed with him after a few hours hanging out on the near west side of Chicago. She tried to rationalize that she’d kind of known him for six weeks, or six Saturdays, as it were. Maybe it wasn’t so slutty and tawdry after all.
    The other, visceral, gut-knowing part of her accepted the fact that she was going to attack him one way or the other, and it might as well be at her place right around the corner rather than his grad-student studio apartment twenty minutes away.
    What was the best way to run a three-minute security check on a guy to make sure he was not an axe murderer?
    “You’re worried I’m an axe murderer?”
    Bronte looked at him askance. “That’s a worry.”
    “What? That I might be an axe murderer?”
    “No. That you can answer my unasked questions… I’ll have to work on cloaking my pedestrian thoughts a little more thoroughly.”
    “Not at all. I will tease them out of you one way or another. Might as well stick to Plan A: Brutal Honesty.”
    “Okay, then yes, it did just, for a split second, cross my mind that all of your sexy, British wonderfulness might be a fabulous ruse and you are really a homeless vagrant, come to seduce me.”
    “Let’s see. That very last part is true by the way.” Max ruminated, theatrical index finger tapping one cheek. “References? A dance card? Letters of credit? I’ve got it: a mutual friend! Isn’t there some damn thing about six degrees of separation? Surely, between the two of us, we know someone in common—someone who can vouch for us to one another. Do you know anyone in the economics department at the University of Chicago?”
    “Alas, Milton Friedman and I have lost touch. Chicago is probably going to be a dead end, since I know about seven people here—six of whom I work with and one of whom I never wish to lay eyes on again. What about New York City advertising agencies?”
    “Sorry, no. Not that I can think of. Where did you go