He searched her eyes, then apparently satisfied with what he found there, snagged her phone to text himself and then handed it back. “Not taking any chances tonight.”
Maybe not, but she was.
Leaning close to her ear, he promised, “Later.”
Her skin tingled, and her pulse jumped. It took everything she had to nod instead of grabbing his hands and begging him for now, but somehow she managed. After waiting this long, what were a few more hours?
When she found her way back to her assigned table, Sean stood with a grin. Taking in her new dress, he gave her a curious look as he held her chair.
“Lovely, but dare I ask?”
Rolling her eyes, she shook her head. “Clumsy. I spilled a glass of champagne down my dress bumping into someone.” Then reminding herself Sean and Max went way back, she laughed. “Max. I bumped into Max.”
When Sean still stared at her like he didn’t understand, she clarified. “Your old roommate?”
Seeming to snap out of it, Sean leaned back in his chair. “No, sorry. It’s just that you have to be the least clumsy woman I know. For as long as I’ve known you, I would say you’ve never been anything but completely contained. It’s funny. You seem different to me, maybe for no other reason than you’re that Sarah.”
The sip of champagne she’d just taken threatened to come back up.
“That Sarah?” she managed weakly, wondering what exactly Sean knew about her. How she felt about it.
Before she could spin herself into too much of a wreck, Sean leaned back in his chair and cocked his signature crooked smile at her.
“Yeah. And I’m guessing maybe knowing I’m that Sean has you looking at me differently too.”
It was true.
Until she’d put the names together, she’d never seen Sean as anything but the most proper of bosses. She’d curbed her humor around him, keeping it well within the bounds of professionalism, and thought of his as a little stiff. When in truth? The guy knew how to wind down. In a major way.
She let out a quiet laugh. “Maybe a little.” Though it didn’t change how she felt about him professionally in the least. “So I guess I can stop worrying that you don’t know how to relax.”
Sean coughed into his hand, then raising his drink, flashed a wink with more mischief in it than she’d ever seen before. “Whatever you’ve heard, they’re lies. All lies.”
Shaking her head, she raised her own glass. “I hope not.”
An hour later, Sean made sure she had a room for a night before leaving to meet his father and one of the politicians in attendance for a private drink. Wandering back through the party, Sarah saw Max. He was standing by the head table, phone in hand, eyes locked on her.
A text came through.
Your office. Ten minutes.
She bit her lip, resting a hand over the low churn in her stomach. This was really going to happen.
Meeting his eyes again, she offered a single nod.
* * *
Parked behind her desk, fingers neatly positioned at asdf jkl;, Sarah stared at the light switch to the right of the door.
Even with the illumination from the hall, she had to look ridiculous sitting there in the semidarkness of her office. At her computer. Not standing in some seductive pose backlit by the city lights streaming in from her window while she sipped champagne. Why hadn’t she brought a flute with her?
This was definitely worse than the sterile fluorescent wash she’d thought would make her look cold and unapproachable. Pushing back from her desk, she flipped on the lights just as Max filled her doorway.
Jerking back, she felt her breath catch as he raised a hand and let out one of those gravelly low laughs. “Easy, just me.”
“Sorry,” she managed through a smile that felt dangerously close to slipping from her face. She was a wreck, and he looked like the Wikipedia graphic aid for “tuxedo fine” with his jacket slung over one shoulder, his bow tie hanging loose, and the top two studs open at his neck. “I was just—just—” She let out an anxious breath. “I was acting like a total fool, trying to decide whether I’d be setting the stage for seduction by leaving the lights off or if I’d look like some freak ready to jump out of the shadows at you.”
One thick brow tucked low, then Max stepped into her office. “Let’s see.”
Without taking his eyes off her, he reached for the switch and turned the lights off.
Sarah’s heart skipped a beat, but she was smiling, hope infusing every nervous breath, because he wasn’t looking at her like she was crazy. He was looking at her like he didn’t want to look away.
He flipped the lights back on, offering up another criminally sexy grin. “Hmm, lights on is way better.”
She didn’t know what to do with her arms. Her hands. “Why is that?”
He stepped closer, sliding his hand around the dip at her waist as he spoke into her ear. “Because it tells me I’m not just dreaming again.”
Ooh, was he ever smooth with that gruff sideways confession.
Because, again?
The idea that she’d made it into Max’s dreams was… Well, she didn’t really care if it was true or not. Either way, it was a damned effective aphrodisiac, and she was already leaning into that barely there space between them. Her knees going soft. Other places going hard.
He was good.
He was casual.
Only then he was brushing a few strands of hair behind her ear, his thick fingers so light that the touch sent chills cascading across her skin.
“Max,” she whispered as his thumb coasted across the sensitive skin of her bottom lip.
“Close up shop, Sarah. If I start this again before we’re in my room, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop.”
Her breath hitched. This was happening. Tonight.
Five minutes later, Max was sliding his key card over the sensor and stepping into his fifteenth-floor suite.
He’d kept a polite distance when they left her office, through the elevator ride, and as they walked the short distance down the hall to the room decorated in shades of slate and burnt orange. But as the door closed behind her with a distinctive snick, she felt that familiar sense of unease fighting for position beside her anticipation.
What was she supposed to do from there?
Walk straight through to the bedroom and start to strip?
Lie down on the bed and wait?
Were there signals and cues someone who’d done this before would know?
Was she about to make a terrible mistake?
The questions bombarding her came to an abrupt halt when Max stepped in close behind her. Smoothing his hand around her waist and across her belly, he pulled her to him so she could feel the heat of his big body from her shoulders all the way down the backs of her legs. And then the warm wash of his breath at her ear.
“We can talk, Sarah.” His hand curved around her hip, gently guiding her around so she faced him, so she was looking up into the eyes that had haunted her nights for years. His other hand slid into her hair, sending delicious shivers dancing across her skin as he tipped her head back. “We can have a drink.” His mouth lingered a breath above hers. So close that the absence of actual contact almost hurt. “But I can’t go another minute without this.”
And then that brutal space between them, the one filled with all the what-ifs Sarah had spent the last hour agonizing over was gone, replaced by his kiss and the potential of a night that would change her life.
His mouth moved over hers in a smooth glide, creating a soft friction that wound down to her toes and parted her lips on a quiet gasp. The way he made her feel. One kiss, and she was alive.
One kiss, and she was hungry.
One kiss, and it was like time had folded back on itself and they were in her apartment, drowning in the rising need between them.
Breaking away, she skimmed her palms up the hard muscles of his chest and whispered, “I don’t want to talk.”
Freeing the first stud from his shirt, she set it on the glass-topped console. “I don’t want a drink.”
A deep rumble sounded from low in Max’s chest as she repeated the process and pushed his shirt open with trembling hands.
“I want you.” She pressed her lips against the center of his chest, went to her toes and kissed the hollow of his neck. “I can’t wait another minute, Max.”
If she’d thought he would argue with her, she’d have been wrong.
The thin thread of control holding Max back snapped, and everything changed. His mouth came down on hers again, harder this time, like the hold at her waist and the grip on her hair.
Her heart skipped, nervous and excited.
He wasn’t being careful.
He wasn’t treating her like glass.
And it was incredible. Hot in a way that had her melting into him, clutching at his shoulders and hair to get more.
Arms wrapped around her, Max bowed her back as he took her, devouring her with his kiss. Consuming her.
“Max,” she gasped, when her mouth was no longer enough and he’d begun working his way down her throat, pulling at the tender skin with a hint of suction that had her angling away to offer him more.
He’d found the zipper of her dress and was easing the lace over her shoulders, following the newly exposed skin with his lips, his tongue.
“You’re beautiful,” he rumbled, kissing into her cleavage as the neckline gaped and the heavier overlayer fell to her elbows, leaving her only in the formfitting silky slip. “I didn’t think it was possible you could be more beautiful than you were in college, but you are.”
“My dress,” she whispered urgently. “Take it off me.” She didn’t want to lose this momentum.
Taking a step back, he slid the fabric down her arms and past her hips, where it pooled around her feet.
And then she was standing before him in nothing but her sheer lingerie and heels. She wanted to be confident, sexy. But suddenly she felt exposed. Nervous.
She’d wanted someone good her first time, but Max was out of her league. She wasn’t going to know what to do. What if Max walked away from her disappointed? Worse, what if he walked away furious because of her lies?
“Sarah?”
Oh no, he could see it. She was tensing up.
All that warm, gooey heat was beginning to cool.
But if she let this stop, would she ever have the courage to try again? Deep in her heart, she knew Max was the one man she trusted above all others. Her attraction to him was off the charts—even if that attraction was currently overshadowed by anxiety and more than a pinch of guilt.
She needed to do this.
He said her name again, a question in his eyes.
Straightening her shoulders, she aimed for confidence she wasn’t feeling. “Sorry, I just realized I didn’t send an email I meant to get out.”
Max didn’t move a muscle, but even in the low light of the suite, she could see the shock in his eyes. “Email.”
Oops! Okay, that was definitely the wrong thing to say.
Scrambling to regain her traction on the moment, she stepped out of the puddle of silk and lace, praying her knees would hold her, and walked over to where the living area opened into the bedroom with a half wall. She leaned back into it and cocked a knee while knitting her fingers tightly behind her.
It was the kind of provocative stance she’d seen in magazines and movies, one that pushed her bust out, while hiding the fact that she was desperately holding her own hands.
“I know, workaholic,” she offered with a self-deprecating laugh. “Mystery solved as to why no boyfriend, right?”
Max’s jaw bounced once, twice, as he stared at her.
“Sarah, are you nervous?”
Through three beats of her heart, she thought she might tell him. But if she did, he would stop, and she didn’t think she could take it. So shaking her head, she tossed another lie onto the pile.
“I…um… Sometimes when I have too much time to think, even in moments like this, my mind wanders to work, is all.” She swallowed and added an honest truth. “But I want to be with you.”
The hardness left his face, and he closed the distance between them. “So be with me.”
He kissed her again, this kiss falling somewhere between the last two. Not a taste. Not devouring. But a measured, concentrated seduction of her mouth that left her mindless.
Max pulled back again, keeping the distance between them when she tried to follow him. The look he gave her was scrutinizing but brief.
“Better?”
“Yes,” she answered breathlessly. And this time when she pushed to her toes, reaching for him, he met her halfway, giving her everything she was asking for. And more.
She moaned, opening wider to take his tongue, meeting it with her own.
His hands were coasting up and down her back, over her hips and up her abdomen to her breasts. She could feel Max pause. He moved to pull back, but this time she wasn’t going to let him go. Pressing herself to him, she threw her arms around his neck and, kissing him with everything she had, slid her knee up the side of his leg.
That did it.
He was back, returning her kiss with the same intensity and then upping it. His hand found the back of her thigh and slid over the bare skin until he’d cupped her hip and pulled her into exactly the kind of contact she was begging for.
He was big. Thick. Hard.
She knew that was generally considered a good thing, but she really didn’t want to speculate on what it would mean for her tonight.
Don’t think.
Just keep focused.
Eyes on the prize.
Pushing her fingers into his short hair, she ignored the voice in the back of her head, whispering that he was going to know. That whatever ember of affection had remained between them over the years would die the second he realized she was using him.
His arms tightened around her, and then she was whirling, her toes off the ground as Max carried her to the bed. Laying her back, he crawled on top of her. It was exactly where she wanted him to be. Only that delicious heat in her belly was gone, replaced by a guilty void.
Maybe this was a mistake.
“Sarah?” he asked, looking up from the neighborhood of her navel. She hadn’t even noticed.
Arching her back, she let out a little moan and whispered, “So good.”
Those thick, dark brows crashed together.
“Are you…thinking about work?”
“No. I swear.” It was the truth, but it didn’t matter. Because he knew something was up. “I don’t really like that.” She nodded toward her panties where she could only guess he’d been headed.
“You don’t?” he asked slowly, something in the way he was looking at her making her squirm.
“Come back up here.” Reaching for his head, she tried to urge him back.
He didn’t budge. “What do you like, Sarah?”
She swallowed at the edge she heard in his question. “Everything else.”
“Yeah?”
She nodded. Scrambled for something to say that would get them back on track. Something she’d read?
“I want you, Max. Inside me.” And that might have sounded a little more convincing if her voice hadn’t cracked. “Hard and fast. That’s how I like it.” And as terrifying as that prospect actually sounded, it was her best chance of Max not figuring out she’d lied to him.
He nodded, his jaw softening.
Yes.
Relief flooded through her.
Max dropped a kiss on her stomach, light and small, and then crawled up her body. His tuxedo pants were still buttoned, but his shirt hung
open, showing off all those bands and layers of solid-packed muscle. He was beautiful. A work of art.
The most handsome man she’d ever seen, and it was taking everything she had not to cringe away as he stopped above her. Slowly he lowered his head, turning so the next kiss he dropped was at her earlobe.
Then, quietly, he said, “Sarah, I really wanna be wrong about this, but I’m about ninety-five percent sure you don’t know what you like.”
Her breath froze in her lungs, her muscles involuntarily locking where they were.
Max retreated just far enough so he could meet her eyes. With a harsh breath, his head dropped. “How the hell are you still a virgin?”
Chapter 7
Max wasn’t sure what he was expecting next. A laugh, a denial so effortlessly convincing that hard and fast would be back on the table in the next thirty seconds. Short of that, an apology or tearful explanation, maybe? Certainly not the grumbled “Well, shit” rolling off Sarah’s sweet little tongue with the practiced ease of a roughneck. But that was what he got.
Her entire body slumped into the bed as she gave up the ruse, and she stuck out her bottom lip to blow a few dark strands from her eyes before meeting his. “Okay, fine. I’m still a virgin. Big deal.”
Big deal? When it was stated in that cool, businesslike tone, Max could almost believe it wasn’t. Maybe having her beneath him in this big bed after telling himself it would never happen was enough to make him want to believe it. But no way could he turn a blind eye to all the evidence suggesting otherwise.
“I’m thinking actually it kind of is.” A big enough deal that through twenty-eight years, a fiancé, and he didn’t want to think about how many opportunities, she still hadn’t done it.
But whatever the reason, he should probably get off her. Much as it pained him, he started backing down her body, trying not to look at the bounty laid out—somewhat stiffly—beneath him.
Only then Sarah’s brows pulled together, and she squirmed—totally not helping—until she had her arms between them, her fingers curling around the open sides of his shirt. “Wait, Max, please.”
It was the last word that got him. Had him stalling where he was, even when he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he should keep moving. Her warm brown eyes were searching his, soft and sweet. Vulnerable.