FADE INTO ALWAYS.

by KATE DAWES.

ONE

Max called me a "dream girl."

What was I supposed to say after that? Nothing, I hope, because I couldn't have said anything at that moment even if I'd wanted to. There was no buildup to the crying outburst. It just happened suddenly.

Through my sobs I could hear him saying, "Let me come get you."

I managed to say "Okay," and he told me he was on his way.

I went to see if Krystal was around, to let her know Max was coming over and I was glad to find that she had gone out. I really wanted the place to myself rather than being locked up in my bedroom.

What was I going to say to him? What was he going to say to me? My mind raced with the possibilities. Should I tell him I was falling in love with him? Was it too much too soon, and would it scare him off?

I sat on the couch and flipped through the screenplay again. Reading the two main characters' dialogue was like listening to them. That's how good a writer Max was. And I could really understand why he loved it so much. He was born to do this.

There were some scenes throughout the writing that made me wonder if they were based on actual events or conversations, or if he'd made them up. If they were real, my heart would break for him. Even if they weren't, they had still come from his mind, and so somewhere deep in his psyche-or maybe not so deep-resided all this pain. But also an intense desire to douse the flames of his past and move on to something just as beautiful as he'd conjured up on the page.

For a split second I thought it might be Krystal at the door, but then I remembered giving Max a key several days ago. He'd refused at first, saying he felt like it breached some kind of personal s.p.a.ce that I was ent.i.tled to, and that he'd never just come and go as he pleased, but I told him that's what I wanted.

The door opened and as he was turning to close it, I stood from the couch and made my way over to him. Probably too quickly. Too eagerly eagerly is more like it. is more like it.

Max turned and took me in his arms. He tried to just hug me, but I forced my face to his and took his mouth hungrily. He met my advances with equal enthusiasm, and we stood there kissing for what must have been two minutes.

When things slowed down he said, "Let's sit. I want to tell you everything."

I shook my head. "No. Not now."

I grabbed his hand and started heading for the steps, up to my bedroom, where I closed the door behind us, stepped toward Max and pushed his chest, sending him falling backward onto the bed.

"No talking," I said, climbing up on the bed and straddling him.

I pulled his shirt up, revealing his stomach and chest, and licked-from his abs, upward, running my tongue around each of his nipples.

I slid one hand behind his back and beneath his belt, into his pants, cupping his a.s.s.

If he had any trouble with me taking such forceful charge, he wasn't showing the slightest bit of a clue.

I wanted to ravish him. Take him as mine. Have him the way he'd had me so many times.

Pressing myself into him, I felt him getting hard-my panties and his jeans were barriers, but still I felt the full effect of what I was doing to him. And as long as he kept letting me have my way with him, it wouldn't be long until there was nothing between us....

"These need to come off," I said, sitting up and unbuckling his belt. I moved off the bed, pulled his shoes off and yanked his pants down-along with his boxers. He was fully hard and I wasted no time moving back on top of him, pulling my panties off just before straddling him again.

I pressed my mouth to his and my tongue dove into his mouth. I rocked my hips, my wet p.u.s.s.y sliding along his rigid length. I got into a rhythm that could easily have made me come, and I kept going. Teasing him, gliding my warmth back and forth on him.

I sat up and pulled my shirt over my head, then unhooked my bra and tossed it aside. I leaned over his face, my b.r.e.a.s.t.s there for him to take.

And he did. Max's tongue touched one of my nipples and a shiver of excitement zapped through my body.

Max was sucking on my nipples, hard, switching back and forth. He pressed into my breast and I watched as my flesh enveloped his face. Sometimes I hated having big b.o.o.bs, but the way Max responded to them made all the annoyances somehow worth it.

He dropped his head back on the pillow. "I can't wait anymore."

I wanted to tease him longer, but the truth was that I couldn't wait anymore either.

I slid along his c.o.c.k until I felt the head notch against my opening. Max felt it, too, and moved his hips, pushing the head into me as I eased back and let it slide in.

"f.u.c.k, Olivia," Max hissed.

"That's what you're doing," I said. "You're f.u.c.king Olivia."

My words caused him to thrust upward, his c.o.c.k inside me to the hilt. I gyrated my hips around in circles, taking him in as deep and snug as I could get him.

I loved driving him crazy. Watching the way his eyes narrowed. The way he breathed with an open mouth. The way his nostrils flared. The way he arched his back and tilted his head back as he drove into me from below.

I sat straight up and felt him as deep as I'd ever felt him.

Max reached up with both hands and cupped my b.r.e.a.s.t.s in his hands, then tweaked my nipples simultaneously with his thumbs and fingertips.

I rocked back and forth on him, then moved my legs so I was squatting over him. Max put his hands under my thighs to give me some support...and I started bouncing on his c.o.c.k.

He looked down his body and watched me slide up and down on it. Watched himself disappearing inside me. Watch me taking his long shaft deep into my body.

He was gritting his teeth, and bearing them-animalistic-and I loved seeing the effect I was having on him.

"Slow down," he said hoa.r.s.ely.

"You gonna come?"

"Yes. Slow down," he said, his voice deeper, commanding.

But I didn't take his order. "You can't make me. It's my turn to control you. Just this once..."

And with that he threw his head back onto the pillow, thrust his hips up forcefully, and held them there.

I felt his s.e.m.e.n pumping into me. The hot slickness making my bouncing feel even better for me, and I felt the first quiver inside.

"Oh yeah," he groaned, feeling me clenching and milking him. "Come for me."

"I'm coming..."

TWO

"Jump in and ask me anything you want," Max said. "But let me start talking."

We were in the kitchen, sitting at the table, eating apple slices, and cheese on sesame crackers. It was pretty much all I had there, but it was a great late-night snack. Max, as usual, was famished after s.e.x. I had a gla.s.s of wine, and Max made himself a White Russian. I'd started keeping the ingredients there for him.

"Go ahead," I said.

He told me all about Liza Carrow and how he had come to have his picture snapped by the paparazzi the other day.

Yes, they dated a few years ago. No, it wasn't serious. It lasted a short time, and this was before she had landed the role on the soap opera.

I had a heavy, sinking feeling in my stomach as he told me this. Sure, I'd dated before Max and of course he'd dated before me. That was a given. But it was difficult listening to him talk about it now that my feelings for him were becoming so strong. For a few minutes I struggled to wipe my imagination clean of the images of Max f.u.c.king her.

Despite the turmoil in my stomach, I drank more wine, and a little more rapidly.

"I didn't love her," he said.

That's the kind of thing someone usually says when they're denying having the same feelings for someone else that they have for you. Was Max telling me something? If he was, I wished he'd just say it.

He continued: "But I won't say I didn't care about her. I still do."

Oh, G.o.d...

"But not in the same way that I used to," he went on. "When she called and asked if I would have lunch with her, she told me it was important, and that she really needed to talk to someone she could trust. She said she'd run out of options."

Max took a sip of his White Russian, then reached for another slice of apple.

"She wouldn't tell me over the phone. So I told her I'd meet her for lunch. We weren't there long. We actually only had our drinks and an appetizer. The picture you saw was us leaving after only being in there for maybe twenty minutes or so."

"Why so short?"

Max finished the last sip from his gla.s.s. "She told me she doesn't know who the father of the baby is."

"Wow."

"Yeah. Could be any one of four or five guys."

I had a piece of cheese in my mouth but managed to say, "Nice."

Max sighed and looked at me with a grin. His eyebrows rose a little on his forehead. It was the kind of look someone gives you like they're warning you: Here comes the crazy part. Here comes the crazy part.

"She asked me to say I'm the father."

"Oh, s.h.i.t."

"But I'm not."

I laughed. "Yeah, I kind of had that figured out already."

Max smiled. "I'm glad you decided to trust me. I told her no, of course." He poured more wine in my gla.s.s, and got up to fix himself another drink.

"She really thought you'd do it?"

"She's desperate," Max said.

Liza told him she didn't want to face the media scrutiny of not knowing who the father was. And she said there was no way she was going to start a tabloid frenzy by getting the guys she'd slept with to take paternity tests.

"So," Max said, "I told her it doesn't matter who the father is. If someone asks, she should just say it's private and she's never going to reveal it. That it's something she'll only discuss with her child when the time is right. Oh, and I told her she needed to deny it was me. Not that I'll be in the story for very long. It's really about her. I just got stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time, and someone happened to know we had dated at some point."

"But that was before she was famous, right?"

Max smiled. "You're so smart. That's one of the things I love about you. I know where you were going with that question, and yeah, I think she might have leaked the lie."

"What a b.i.t.c.h."

Max ate.

I sat there thinking not about what we were talking about, so much as what he'd just said: That's one of the things I love about you. That's one of the things I love about you. One of the things? What else was there? And did he love me? One of the things? What else was there? And did he love me?

THREE

Sunday morning, lying in bed, we talked in depth about the script. Max wanted to know what I really thought of it.

"I told you, I love it."

"You wouldn't change anything about it?"

I paused, and that was my downfall.

Max said, "Tell me. It's okay. I have a thick skin when it comes to my work."

"Well," I started, then trailed off...