Home > Just One More Kiss - Based on the Motion Picture

Just One More Kiss - Based on the Motion Picture
Author: Faleena Hopkins

Chapter 1

 

 

ABBY

 

 

Why did I bring my cell phone into the bathroom? Our guests arrive in an hour. Max and I still have to set out food!

Wait.

Did we buy food?

Another text-beep skyrockets my stress-level and I yank open the shower curtain, shampoo sliding into my eyes as I blink to see what information my assistant needs that can’t wait. Peter is a wonderful assistant except the day before a launch.

I’m supposed to have stayed at the office until at least, you know, ten o’clock tonight, ensuring all fires are put out before morning arrives with its usual new set.

Putting out fires.

I hate that term.

Everyone knows not to use it around me.

Why did I just think it?

Shuddering at the memory it evokes, I stretch far to snatch my phone from the edge of the sink with one hand, pushing suds from my vision with the other, swearing loudly, “Shit!” as I realize both hands still have shampoo on them.

My fingers touch it, fail to grasp, slide around, and the phone flies off the sink’s ledge, falls to the tile with a hard crack and skitters to the farthest wall.

I see the shattered screen.

Horror contracts my face.

“No!!!”

“Abby?” My husband calls through the bathroom door. “Everything okay?”

“I dropped my phone! It’s broken!”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

I call back, “Not funny, Max,” eyes stinging, one leg reaching over the bathtub rim, so I can step out and grab my poor, shattered baby. But hesitating as more shampoo drips down into both eyes, further obscuring my vision because it stings like hell, I crane my head under scalding water to clear out the suds, leg still hooked, other one barely keeping me upright.

Our bathroom door opens, robe thwacking the back from the hook it hangs on, and I blink toward my husband whose broad shoulders and six-foot-tall height fills most doorframes handsomely. He’s in navy-blue slacks, matching socks — no shoes yet — strong fingers casually knotting a tie that matches, too, over a pale grey button up shirt — one of his best for the special occasion.

A lopsided grin appears, his black eyebrows twisting above amused ice-blue eyes that say I look absolutely ridiculous. “Abs, what are you doing?”

I retrieve my ambitious leg, nearly lose my balance as it slips on the tub’s rim. Standing upright, knees together, I shove my head into the water, faced away from him, to bide time so I can think of a witty comeback.

I got nothin’.

So I yank the shower curtain closed, and cover my laughter.

Max calmly slides it back open. “Hi there.”

From under insanely strong water pressure, since New York doesn’t lack for rain, I blink at him. I’m trying not to swallow a mouthful as I admit what all women know, “It’s not fair you get ready so much faster than I can.”

“Not fair, you’re right.” He makes an it’s-out-of-my-control expression, and glances to the phone, using his chin to point. “Was it worth it? All for the love of an inanimate object?”

I remind Max, “You’re just as addicted to your phone as I am!”

There’s no denying we’re tethered to the damn things for work, so he sighs, “Pity, that,” a phrase he got from his mother, a novelist who writes in the fantasy genre, and whose vocabulary randomly harkens back to days of yore as a side effect. It always makes me smile when it rubs off on Max. I’m lucky to have married a man who loves his parents, especially since my sister and I lost ours when we kids.

When Max and I were first dating, and he invited me to meet Henry and Alice, I told Lorna I would watch him like a hawk.

I said, “If he doesn’t value having both parents still in his life — the kind of people who care enough to want to meet his girlfriend this early in the game —then it’s over. I’m done with him!”

Ten years of marriage later, and I’m not going anywhere.

Max frowns toward my phone, “Let’s see what we’ve got,” mouth grim. He’s as ambitious as I am, and he knows it, only his work ends at 4:30 p.m. when the bell sounds on Wall Street. I don’t count the research he does after hours; it doesn’t compare with the omnipresent calls of my boss, my team, and my assistant.

Party or no party, I need that phone. We’ll have to run out and buy one if it doesn’t work.

Guests arrive soon.

The clock is ticking.

Rinsing out my hair I ask, “What time is it?!”

He doesn’t answer as dry socks negotiate soapy mini-puddles left from my phone’s suicide mission. Max bends, blue slacks pulling tight over his cute butt, which distracts me a moment as he rises to inspect the damage. “Uh oh.”

“It’s bad?”

“Charlotte gave birth to her spider-babies on your phone.”

I burst out laughing, “What?!”

He points to the obliterated screen then up to the heavens demonstrating, “A million webs flying away, breaking children’s hearts everywhere.” Max locks eyes with me, happy he made me laugh, and walks the phone back. He winces, “Damn!” lifting his sock and inspecting a dark spot as it spreads. “Hope that dries soon. I like these blue ones. Don’t wanna wear black socks tonight.”

I turn off the shower, wringing out my hair. “Why not? How about you toss in a black cat and I’ll walk under a ladder as you toss it to me.”

He smirks, “Right?” and hands my baby over. Our fingers brush and the zing reminds me it’s been too long since we’ve had sex. A week, I think. And we never go that long without it. But this campaign. And the party. And life!

No time for sex now, I frown while reading the string of texts Peter vomited.

Max turns to the mirror, perfecting his tie. “If your assistant was into women I’d be jealous.”

I mutter, “I know, right?” reading and scrolling and reading and scrolling some more.

Steam forces Max to wipe the mirror with his palm, craning his neck. “Abs? I’m thinking maybe no tie tonight. What do you think?”

“Um…” I glance up, blinking back to the present moment. “It’s our ten-year anniversary party.”

“Yeah?”

Tilting my head I hum in thought and smile, “Come here.”

He steps closer, snatches the phone from me, sets it on the sink’s edge like it weighs a ton, then walks up, his glance sliding down and back up my drenched, naked body as I grab his tie, pulling him in. He lifts an eyebrow, noting my wet hands, but makes no mention of them aloud. He’d rather see where this is going.

“How do you look without it,” I murmur, loosening the knot, goosebumps zipping across my skin as the energy between us shifts. Dripping eyelashes flicker up to find that Max’s smile is gone, eyes darkened in that way I love. He’s thinking of kissing me. That’s all I can think about now, too.

I slide off his tie, giving it a final tug, and put it around my neck, “Oh oops. Drenched now.” I reach for his top button, snap it open and lock eyes with him, a tiny smile tugging at my lips. “Hmm. You’re right. This is hotter.”

A grin flashes on him only to disappear as he leans in for that kiss, warm, possessive, and telling me how much he’d rather join me in a shower than do anything else right now.

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