“Sit down. Stop looking at me like I’m about to sever your contract...” Max began tetchily. Uma sank down into a chair set in front of his desk. Her silence was ominous. She was never silent. Uma never missed an opportunity to have the last word.

Except this time. “We need to talk, Uma. There are some things I have to set on the table that may not be easy for you to hear - but they must be said. I would like you give me the courtesy of hearing me out before you launch into one of your streams of consciousness rants and jump to the wrong conclusion...”

Naturally, Uma launched into a stream of consciousness. “...Max, I appreciate you’re trying to spare my feelings but I would prefer it if you would just bloody well come out and say it. Just tell me, Max. You don’t need to try and find a way to make it feel better. Because it won’t feel better, no matter how you tell me. I’d prefer no bullshit, please. Spit it straight out in as few words as possible. I can’t stand any more long drawn out scenes. I had enough melodramas with Cullen to last a lifetime. At least that’s one smile I can wipe off his smug Irish face, anyway. He thinks he’s going to name you in the divorce...? What for? Being my shitty ex-boss? They’ll laugh him out of court...”

Max Skinner set down his glasses on the sleek glass surface of his ultra-modern desk -and rubbed at his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. He sighed. “I asked you to listen, Uma. However, if you want it straight, I’ll give it to you straight. Are you sitting comfortably?”

Uma nodded meekly, her hands slipping beneath her thighs to prevent her wringing them, biting her nails or doing anything else that would show her nervousness. She took a deep breath.

“Then, I’ll begin. I did see Fanny whilst I was in France. She turned up quite unexpectedly one night to La Siroque. I had no idea she was even in the area. We talked...”

“...Talked?” Uma broke in and then closed her mouth as Max fixed her a disapproving glare.

“Yes, we talked,” he replied authoritatively.

“About ...what?” Her words might have been brief but her tone was laced with sarcasm.

“...About us. I mean, about Fanny and me.” Max answered, without sparing her feelings in the slightest.  “She told me what she had been doing in the time since we broke up and I briefly told her what I’d been up to...”

“Did you mention me?”

“No.”

Uma blushed, looking down at her lap, biting on her lip. He thought he caught the sheen of tears building in her eyes, but nevertheless breezed on.

“She told me she was getting married to her football-playing fiancé. In June. We talked about why we broke up. She apologised for not trusting me back then...”

“What do you mean?” Uma asked. “I thought she left you for this other bloke?”

Max blew air out slowly. “There was a bit more to it than that. At the time, she thought I’d been unfaithful with Sophie LeSaint...”

“Sophie LeSaint? The plot thickens! I bloody knew it! I knew that bloody woman was something to do with it! Did you shag her?”

Max winced at her blunt accusation. He was not the only one laying it all out straight it would seem. “No, I did not.”

“So, you were not unfaithful with Sophie LeSaint? Is that what you’re saying?” Uma retorted, refusing to let Max wriggle out with a half truth. He marvelled at her unerring grasp of the worst side of human nature.

“Well...I wouldn’t quite go so far as to say that either...” Max added obliquely. “I will admit there was some intimate contact between us of an erotic nature but not anything that could legally be defined as sexual intercourse...”

Uma gave him one of her withering gazes. “Don’t even try that Clinton crap on with me, mate...”

He gave up euphemisms. “...We fooled around, okay? But I never meant it to be any more than that. LeSaint was pissed off because I wouldn’t install her as queen of le manoir, so she told Fanny I’d been a naughty boy and Fanny got the huff and walked out. Unfortunately, Thierry – that’s the boyfriend – happened to hove back into town about the same time, thus scooping Fanny back up. She tells me now that she realises I was largely innocent of all charges – in fact it was she herself who actually betrayed us in the end...”

“...Well, how perfectly wonderful that you finally sorted out that unfortunate misunderstanding ...Jolly good show, Maxie...” Uma added tartly.

“You’re beginning to sound like me,” Max replied sardonically.

Uma shuddered. “Heaven forfend...! I have always tried to avoid being a fuckwit...!” she said tartly. “So, after this pleasant little ‘sorting things out’ session when you each maturely took responsibility for your own particular bad behaviour – what then? Did you shake hands? Kiss and make up, more like...” she muttered sourly.

“She went home.”

“Ah, it was morning already by the time you finished being grown ups?”

“No, it was round about twelve thirty at night, actually. Fanny went back to her hotel room and I climbed the stairs to my cold little bed. Alone. I knew you would jump to conclusions!” he accused.

“Pardon me for daring to put two and two together and make four...!” Uma shouted back belligerently.

“Don’t be so creatively melodramatic! Save your flights of fancy for your appalling prose. I haven’t finished yet. When Fanny and I parted, we arranged to meet for lunch the next day in Avignon...”

“Avignon! Why Avignon?” Uma interjected as though the name ‘Avignon’ itself implied some secret code for shameful acts of infidelity.

Max made a dismissive gesture. “I had to buy a new phone. I told you – remember?”

Uma was not convinced. “Oh no, sunshine...You met in Avignon so no one would recognise you. Just in case you decided to have a bit of afternoon delight with Mlle Cheval. Pardon me, Chenal. If you did it in Bonnieux, everyone in Provence would know by teatime...”

Max stood up, ran a hand down his face and walked around the desk to face her, hands on his hips. “Okay. You’re right. I was considering getting a room. In fact, to be perfectly honest, I was considering getting a room all the morning, throughout the drive down, and during the entire lunch so much so that I barely ate a bloody mouthful because all I could think of was shagging her...All I could think of was what would happen between us after lunch...” He laid it on thick and then pulled back, pacing up and down, his back turned, feeling rather ashamed now it had been said.

There was a total silence in the room. Uma forgot to breathe, aware of nothing else but that any second now the moment would arrive and she would find herself surplus to Mr. Skinner’s requirements. He would sell up and go back to France, to Fanny, La Siroque and his former life as a vigneron in Luberon...

Max stopped too, no longer even striding back and forth, staring down at the floor instead as if searching there for what to say next. He opened his mouth a few times goldfish-like to go on but each time closed it again. Until: “I’ve done this before, you know? I’ve tried to tell the truth with no embellishments before. Only once, I’ll admit. Prior to that I will freely confess, I was the king of embellished versions of the truth. Economic versions of la verité, you might say...  Anyway, when I told Fanny the truth back then, it was an unmitigated disaster. She naturally did that woman thing and presumed that my story – as bad as it was – must be an euphemistic male version, thus reality had to be a great deal worse - so added her own dirt enough to hang me - and then proceeded to do just that...So, that is why I am trying to make you see that what I am saying now, is actually what happened – not some sanitised version made up by yours truly as a ‘Get-out-of-bloody-jail free’ card – if I’d wanted one of those I would have lied about ever meeting up with Fanny in the first damn place - so don’t bloody well read anything else into it...!” he bellowed.

Uma jumped to her feet, screaming back. “Read anything else into it? This is bloody well bad enough, you barrrrstard!”

“I know. That’s my point actually...” Max retorted, surprisingly humble. “Okay, here goes. The unvarnished truth. So, there I was planning how I was going to go about seducing Fanny once lunch was over, sure that if I did, she would drop Thierry like the over-muscled pea brain he is and throw herself back into my waiting arms. But how to do it? Ask her outright? Suggest it in some subtle roundabout way? Throw a room key down on the table? Make a delicate pass under the cloth...? There was obviously a protocol required... ”

Uma blinked a few times but, to be fair, said nothing, even pursing her lips together as if to force herself not to reply.

“...I was deep in my dilemma, when the waiter set down the dessert. Subsequent to that, I ate it, finished the excellent coffee, paid the bill and walked her to her car. There we kissed on both cheeks, wished each other a good life and went our separate ways...And that is exactly what happened...”

Max stopped and held his hands out, as if to say, believe that or not.

Uma did not appear to be buying this story. “Are you telling me nothing happened? That you’ve told me this long-winded load of crap because... nothing happened?”

“Why the aggressive tone? I would have thought that was good news,” Max observed dryly.

“If I believed it.”

“I knew you wouldn’t,” he said, almost to himself. “Women are incapable of hearing the words spoken, particularly if they happen to differ from their preferred negative assumptions about men...”

“I lived five years with Cullen Murphy, sweetie. After that, the very word ‘man’ equals negativity. And I doubt many of your former girlfriends would disagree much with me either. Okay, let me recap, just to show I was listening. You’ve just told me that you spent an entire day fantasising having sex with Fanny Chenal – and then you say: ‘...but in the end, I didn’t...? Max, it makes no sense! Even you can do better that that, surely? Even bloody Cullen would have put more effort into his excuse. I’m not a complete fool...!”

“It makes complete sense. Or it would have done if you were there...Don’t you see it has to be the truth! I’m a very clever man. I lie better than Hitler...Of course I could have made up a better story if it wasn’t the truth! Its innate pathetic implausibility is how you know it must be true...!”

“What? Are you trying some City-type double bluff on me, Skinner? Because I am not falling for that, either, no matter how bloody clever you are...! I know already you’re a pathological liar, biologically incapable of telling the truth...”

He blew out air sharply in exasperation. “It was the dessert that did it, you idiot! After I ate the dessert, I had an epiphany of epic proportions! Can’t you see that? Suddenly I saw the truth clearly set before me....”

“In a dessert plate? You ate dessert and had an epiphany? Are you insane? What did you see? A blob of chocolate chip ice cream that looked like the Virgin Mary?”

Max pulled up a chair and indicated for Uma to sit back down. She did, but with a wary expression on her face as if preparing herself at any minute to go on the attack, not allowing her guard down for a single moment. He took her hand. She stared at his as if his touch was something unspeakable.

“Dessert was an amazing concoction of chocolate, hazelnuts and raspberries. The waiter set it down before me. I was quite hungry, having merely played with the first two courses, so I considered it – and you know what came into my head? The very first thing I thought of when I saw it was: ‘Uma would bloody chew my ear off for eating this. She’d whine about my gut and my sweet tooth and about how I would kill myself with my appalling dietary habits...’ I tasted it anyway, feeling like a very naughty schoolboy who has stolen something out of the larder at home.  And it was absolutely delicious. Then, I had another revelation. A second thought came into my head: ‘I wish Uma was here to taste this...she would die for it...You see, I know how much you love raspberries and chocolate together – and hazelnuts...’” He stopped dead, his voice suddenly trailing away softly.

“I don’t understand,” Uma began, but something in the quiet and hesitant tone of her voice suggested she did have more than an inkling of where this was leading. She was simply unable to believe that what he seemed to be saying could possibly be true. He would have to lay it all out more clearly than that for her to be sure.

“You ever read ‘Remembrance of Times Past’?” Max asked her, apparently sweeping wide off the mark.

Uma frowned, not able to see the connection. “That boring old Proust thingy? Yeah, I read it back at school years ago. Can’t remember much about it though. Just that this bloke called Charles Swann saw a plate of madeleines at some tea party and it brought back memories he’d forgotten he had...”

Max smiled. “That’s about all I remembered as well! English grammar school education, eh? Best in the world for giving you the gist of everything and the skinny on nothing! But essentially what happened after I had finished that dessert was like Charlie Swann in reverse. You see, Uma, Luberon is one of the most beautiful places on earth. But it isn’t just beautiful. It is steeped in such a unique aura, cloaked in an intoxicating magic of its own, bathed in an incomparable light like no other place, bearing the fragrance of lavender on the warm dusty winds...It exerts a kind of power of memory second to none. When I returned after Henry’s death, Luberon and La Siroque brought back memories I had long forgotten, and through them, I learned something very important about myself that I had been in danger of losing forever. This recent time when I went back, the same process appeared to be happening again. The lure of the place began to work on me anew, recalling the story of back then when I had walked out on my life in London and found peace and love in this wonderful place...”

“I can understand that. Truly I can, Max. I saw your film. What happened there was wonderful. You were so happy. So sure. So in love. So fulfilled for the first time in years...! I do understand, Max! Just tell me the truth now and I wouldn’t even blame you! I know I’ve said sarky things about Fanny but that was because I’m jealous of her. She’s all the things I will never be. I really liked her in the film. She was perfect for you. And you loved her so very much. I would never blame you for finding your way back there and reclaiming that peace you had with her...”

“NO!” he exclaimed. “No! That’s the point! Uma, sweetheart...You can’t go back! I could never be young Maximilian learning at his Uncle Henry’s knee anymore. I was now a man and it behoved me to behave like one instead of the little shit who grew up to be an even bigger shit...Fanny was part of the process of teaching me to find myself and what I wanted in life. So was La Siroque. So was Christie and Francis and Ludivine and...Of course, I could have lived out my days happily there! But, it was not to be. I misbehaved. She misbehaved. We threw it away with that unerring instinct most adults have for destroying the gifts we are given! Time passed. I went back. The old feelings came again – but they were not to be trusted. Longing for the past is not the same as wanting to be there again. You can’t be. It’s gone. It no longer exists. Impossible to re-create. The past is nothing but an imperfect memory, for you forget what made it cease to be the idyll your memory shapes of it...”

Maximilian Skinner was not a man normally given to poetry or imaginative flights of fancy. This was probably about as allegorical as he was ever going to get. Uma could see he needed help at this point so, for the first time since his outburst, ventured a comment.

“Are you saying that the reason you felt inclined to slip back into some relationship with Fanny was mostly based on the pull of a powerful nostalgia for a time in your life when you had been happy and things had seemed simpler? But all it took for you to snap out of it was a dessert, a thought of me - and you realised things had in fact changed forever...?”

Max nodded. “When Fanny appeared again, I forgot you in an instant. All I could see was her. That suggested to me that maybe my feelings for you were not deep enough. But I was wrong. The lure of the place was what was blinding me to reality, as if I had fallen asleep and woken in some enchanted dream like in a fairy tale. All it took was a pretty spiffy little dessert to snap me out of it and return me back to you and the present. Memories are magical things without which we could not survive; they are what made us who we are. But it is the present and the future that show us what we are meant to become. If we let a memory alone guide us, then we would hold ourselves back from ever reaching for the moon...”

Max dropped to his knees from the chair, still holding her hand, staring up at her with that direct glassy green gaze of his. For once the sharp brusque cast was gone from his eyes, leaving only his little boy honesty, that adorable quality of his that he normally hid so well. “I wanted you to be there with me! More than I wanted to be there with her! The dessert triggered in me a sense of where I wished to be in the future, not where I had once been in the past. And the moment the floodgates were open, it all became so clear to me. Fanny was hesitating, too, now that she was back in Luberon, probably for much the same reason as I was. The weight of the past was heavy on her as well. But I love you too much ever to risk losing where I am today. Life has given me a second chance. I don't intend to let a moment of weakness take away what I have ever again...”

Uma made a noise, somewhere between a tweet and a squeak. Max looked at her. "Did you get all that?"

"Not sure. Possibly. I still need to run a few things by you just to be sure...So, you are not leaving me for Fanny?"

"No, I am not."

"You love me?"

"It would appear so...'" he replied with the hint of smugness returning.

"Why?" Uma threw back as if she was trying to catch him out on a quiz show.

He shrugged. "No idea. Something you do must be working on me. Obviously you're gorgeous. That helps. But then I always date gorgeous women. I rarely fall in love with them, however. Must be something to do with the added fact that you are completely insane - and I rather go for that in a girl. Plus, you are incredibly strong and brave and honest. I love strong women. I need a mother, you see. One who regularly smacks my bottom and puts me to bed without supper..."

"You're pathetic."

"I know. Good job my Mummy loves me, eh?" He grinned. Uma put her arms around his shoulders and buried her face against his neck, inhaling his maleness and the appealing fresh fragrance of his expensive cologne.

"I thought I'd lost you, Max. I never imagined I could compete with her. I don't even know why you came back...I thought I’d lost you and I simply couldn’t bear the pain. I’ve lost before. But this time felt indescribably worse..."

Max sat back on his haunches, his head tilted to one side. "Terry Thorne. If he walked in right now and said he forgave you and he wanted you back, what would you do?"

Uma pulled a rather appealing face. "Tell him he missed the boat...I’ve got a new guy now and he is the cat’s pyjamas.."

Max smiled. "The cat’s pyjamas? I knew it! I'm a man, you see. I don't suffer from such things as low self esteem or crises of confidence. I knew you would say that. Whereas you, being a woman, presumed that you were not good enough. Frankly it's why you women don’t rule the world, babes. In every other department girls are vastly superior..."

"You talk such crap."

"Don't I?" he grinned.

She stroked a wayward lock of hair back off his forehead,  caressing his stubble sensuously with her other hand. He closed his eyes and handed himself over to her gentle ministrations." Max, I want to have extremely passionate and unbridled sex with you.  Right now. You’re so sexy when you sit behind that desk acting all stern. I adore arrogance in a man, you know, almost as much as a large penis."

Max smiled sweetly, coyly self-satisfied, resembling a rather large tom cat. "How fortunate then that I excel in both categories! Passionate sex without the bridle - no problemo. Large cock guaranteed - I am a Skinner, for God’s sake - and furthermore as I am bloody randy after weeks of abstinence fuelled by lust and my active fantasy life, I think we better hop to that part of the bargain, pronto...”

But, despite his cocky and light-hearted style, Max’s eyes again gave him away. He stood up, pulled her gently to her feet and then placed his large hands on either side of her tiny face, pausing awhile to stare adoringly into her eyes, his thumbs massaging her silky cheeks. “I do love you so very much, Uma...Please believe that, Whatever else I am, I will always be yours... I will take care of you and make sure no one ever hurts you again...”

“Oh Max! You’re so...so very...so absolutely...!” But she did not finish that thought, for he chose that moment to kiss her. They stood in the middle of his study and kissed like two hormonal teenagers re-discovering the taste of each other.

“Better than raspberries....and chocolate...” he murmured as he sampled her lips, his hands sliding down her narrow frame to cup her shapely buttocks and pull her closer towards him, rocking his hardness against her slender pubic bone. “Upstairs?” he whispered.

She laughed huskily into his ear. “Don’t care. Right here if you like...”

“Naughty girl,” he chided fondly as he picked her up in his arms. “I prefer soft sheets against naked skin to fumbling and hitting the edges of the desk at an inappropriate moment..or carpet burns...”

In the room, their clothes fell away with only a little help from each other. That’s the way it is when you know someone well; you’ve been here before and know how the other likes it almost without having to think. Max hooked his finger deftly around the thin strip of black silk, easing down her thongs, sliding them skilfully down her long legs with the confidence of a past master. She raised her legs and placed them on his shoulders to aid the final removal; Max scrunched up the scrap of fabric and raised it to his nose, sighing archly at her musky female fragrance. “Christ...now for dessert...!”

He kissed her briefly before trailing a path of wet kisses down her body, nuzzling at her breasts, and licking languidly around her navel until she moaned. He slid on down to her neat strip of soft dark hair, a lazy finger moving up and down, ruffling up the curls, dipping into her creamy wetness and popping into his mouth, smacking his lips. “A sensory delight without the calories...I do so love being a man...!”

“It’s not a patch on being a woman, mate...” Uma giggled as Max buried his head between her parted thighs. She didn’t say much else for a while other than utter untranslatable expressions of pleasure as Max demonstrated his lingual talents, bringing her to a shuddering climax and then holding her softly as she bucked and cried out. He didn’t wait any longer then to move over her, sliding easily in as she lay helpless and trembling, the groan she made as she took his whole length a delicious confirmation of his manhood.

Max set to work enjoying the escalating sensation of bringing himself closer and closer to completion and then holding off, tormenting himself with the utter joy of anticipation. In one of his lulls, she suddenly seemed to rouse from her orgasmic torpor, rolling him over to lie under her while she rode him like a lithe little sprite, pleasuring herself lewdly as he watched, struggling against his rising desire.

He touched her breast, marvelling at the perfection of her body. How did women keep that almost childlike softness and flawless skin while men roughened and coarsened with age? She ran her hands up the ample bulk of his upper body, shivering with delight at the feel of his hairy chest and the solid steel of his strong frame. He made her feel weak with longing. His cock deep within her seemed to be the pivot on which her whole world spun, keeping her grounded, holding her to him, making her safe while still imbuing her life with its own special danger.

Uma smiled lazily down at him; he smiled back up at her. Everything felt different now somehow. Before, they had been lovers, passionate but full of their own individual uncertainties about the future. Now, they were suddenly partners, safe within each other’s arms, with the sure knowledge that these exquisite moments would always now be theirs and theirs alone. Uma had an epiphany all of her own at that moment. Cullen could never have made her feel like this. Even in the best times, she had always known that exclusivity was an alien concept to him. Sex would always just be sex, never the intimate consummation of shared love.

Not that she thought it out that lucidly, of course. That would come later as she lay and dreamed about his touch and how he made her feel. For now, she was incapable of much other than hanging on as he tired of being passive, full of need to thrust and claim his prize. Rolling back, he eased her up onto the nest of pillows, thankfully sinking between her legs. She wrapped him tight, whispering secret promises in his ear as he dropped his head to her neck and sighed, raising his steady pace to a fever pitch until he came in a dizzying kaleidoscope of impressions and sensations, aware of little else but extreme joy and his ever-present tenderness not to hurt his precious love.

They lay there a long time in silence, listening to the beat of each other’s hearts, fingers interlaced. He settled back, half sitting against the headboard, she fitted into the space between his splayed legs. He held her tight, a sheet drawn up casually against their nakedness and the chill of the evening.

“I wish we could sleep together every night...” she observed, hinting that perhaps now was the time to stop the charade and let the world know they were in love.

“Nothing to stop that. I’d quite fancy sneaking into your room at the winery and shagging you behind General Maximus’ back...” Max chuckled. Uma knew he would get double pleasure out of such an escapade. He was such a shit, really.

She rolled over to lie across his chest. “Don’t be so childis! No, seriously, I think we should go public. This situation is crazy. Wade knows. He’s got some pictures of him and he’s been using Colin to circulate them. Ann asked me outright - and I lied. I told her they were photoshopped, that it was me and Maximus. I pointed out Colin was hardly a reliable witness. I hate all this lying, Max! One day it will all come out and she’ll be furious that I wasn’t honest with her...”

“He can’t prove anything. And by the time she finds out the truth, Wade will be discredited enough for her to understand your caution. I’ve not been neglecting all this while I was away, you know? Very much the contrary. I’ve got his bank accounts - a mate in British intelligence did a great job - and we pieced together some of his attempts at laundering cash. It’s woefully basic and easy to follow the money trail. I already have enough to bring in IRS and Fraud squad - not to mention criminal proceedings. If I turned this over now to the FBI, he’d be in Shit Creek without a paddle...or perhaps it would be truer to say Yuma Jail without a crowbar..”

Uma thought about his claims. “Then why don’t you? If you have enough to act now, why wait any longer? Shop him to the authorities, get him banged up and while he’s down for thirty years’ bird, we can come clean and explain why we acted as we did...”

Max smiled, tutting softly as he tipped her chin. “What happened to Uma the saviour of all Crowe men? I thought it was your job to make sure these guys coped in this new world in which they found themselves? Even I have reservations about going to the authorities. I mean, the bloke’s only just arrived from a time when a man had to make his own law to survive. I don’t want to destroy him. I just want to stop him from destroying us. He’s got to be restrained and re-educated. Neither are easy with a man like Wade who’s used to being the one taking the lead. If I can get a leverage over him and approach the rest of the men to assist, we might be able to clip his wings long enough to get him batting for the team instead of against it...”

“Max, that’s really sweet! I feel so ashamed of myself. I’ve let my dislike of him affect my judgement - but you’re right! We have to protect him to even if that means protecting him from himself! You’re so smart, Max. You should have been a general, you know? You could be such a great leader if you weren’t so self -centred...”

“I am leader of men, my darling. Women, too. Leaders have to be selfish and arrogant - or how else would they have the guts to take the initiative. I often think that had I been born in a different era, I might well have been a military man. Possibly even a train robber...”

She slapped him playfully. “You are so bigheaded....don’t you feel even the least inclination to humility?”

“None whatsoever,” he grinned. “Except to say that however bad I am, Wade is infinitely worse..”

Uma snuggled up to him. “I think Ann is sleeping with him.”

“Who?” Max murmured, already more distracted by his lover’s breasts than what she was saying.

“Wade, of course! Stay with it, Max! I think Ann is sleeping with Wade.”

“Really? How very droll,” he commented. “There’s you worrying over lying to Ann about me and all the while she’s shagging Wade behind your back? Have you asked her outright?”

Uma shook her head. “She pretends to hate his guts but I get this feeling there’s more to it than that. She calls him Ben for one...”

“....Oh, very damning evidence, love. That would really stand up in a court of law. I don’t mean to cast doubt on your theory but Ben does happen to be his name, babes...”

Uma was not impressed with his logic. “What’s that got to do with it? Does she call you Max? No way. She calls you Skinner with that disdainful way of hers as if you were an unpleasant smell or something. But Wade is ‘Ben’. Also, she speaks of you like you’re the devil incarnate and Wade like he is just a rather wayward irritation. Okay, I know you might have been a bastard towards her but you didn’t hold a bloody gun to her head and threaten to kill her! Ergo, she must be having an affair with him. That’s what I think, anyway,” Uma stated definitively.

Max shook his head. “Bloody women. So unreasonable. What would a woman like Ann see in a posturing outlaw like Wade?”

Uma rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling. “Well, it’s not that I don’t understand on one level. Wade is totally shaggable. I even contemplated it myself when he first strolled into town.”

That seemed to perplex Max even more. He turned onto his side, resting on his arm. “Really?  You fancied him? When you say shaggable, do you mean you’d consider picking him up for a night of rough or that you see potential there for a rather more passionate long-lasting affair?”

Uma thought that one over. “Obviously, rough plays a large part in a sexual interlude with a man like Wade, but he has got a certain something, you know? He sort of smoulders with that intense gaze. Makes your knickers wet. A girl knows he would be absolutely amazing between the sheets...But also that he’d be an interesting man to spend some time with. Actually Wade likes women. He was so sweet in the film to that woman in  the bar. And Alice was taken with him, you could see that. He respects women and treats them very well. It’s just me he can’t stand.  Call me the exception that proves the rule. But he really knows how to treat a woman...”

Max scoffed at that remark. “Bollocks! He knows how to be nice for as long as it takes him to get his train-robbing dick up the nearest willing skirt. He’s a man. We’re all nice when we want to get laid. Doesn’t make us decent human beings the rest of the time.”

“The rest of the time? Men want to get laid every bloody minute of the day, Max. When would be the time for them not to be nice?’

Max groaned. “Remind me never to get into a debate with you. You make my brain hurt. All I’m saying is, stop feeling so bad about Ann. You may have lied and deceived her but at least in your case it’s for altruistic reasons. What’s her excuse? She shacks up with a violent, psychotic   outlaw who is clearly out to make life very difficult for us all - and plays right into his game merely so she can have her fancy tickled? Very nice. If you ask me, she’s the one with the explaining to do. And now, can we stop talking about Ben Wade and Ann?”

Uma nodded. “But when are we going to be able to just be a couple Max?”

He burrowed his head between her breasts, sighing. “Soon. Let’s get this bloody divorce out of the way first. There’s no sense in playing into Wade’s hands - or Murphy’s either. I promise you as soon as you’re ‘free’ we’ll stop this cloak and dagger stuff and come out of the closet. Agreed?”

“Agreed! Let’s shake on it, eh?” Uma ran a hand down between them and grasped his already hard cock. “Mmmm... I like a man with a firm shake...”

“Love a woman with a good grip...!” he gasped as she tenderly ministered to him. 

“Max....?”

“Huh? Don’t stop...”

“I forgot what I was going to say...”

“Good...I’ve got something much better for you to do with those lips...”

“You’ve brought me back a slice of that raspberry dessert?” She almost jumped out of bed at the thought of it.

“Dessert? Are you crazy? That was not what I meant...Lips...Around this...! On the double...I did bring you a gift, though. However, it can wait. My manhood on the other hand cannot....”

She chuckled and slid down his body, groaning orgiastically. “Whatever you want, my Lord and Master...and as for you...you have carte blanche to do whatever you like to me. In fact, I insist...Bloody hell, Max...you are a big boy...! And I do so love big boys.....