Pressing herself up against the long, leanly muscled body she’d been dreaming about for ages, she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her face into his throat. He smelled amazing and, needing to know if he tasted amazing as well, she took a little nibble.
He growled low in his throat at that and tipped her chin up. “Tell me you’re in this, Rory.”
If she was any more in, she’d be drowning. “I’m in this.”
He stared into her eyes for a beat as if searching for the truth in that statement, but she’d never been so honest with anyone in her life. “I want you, Max. I always have.”
That had a fierce light blazing from his intense eyes and then he claimed her mouth. She loved that he wasn’t gentle with her. She didn’t need or want that, and she moaned when he kissed her hard and hot and hungry all at once. And then he was busy divesting her of the rest of her clothing until she was bared to him. With a shaky breath he took her in, and when that made her shift uncomfortably, he caught her hands and bent to press his mouth to the throbbing pulse at the base of her neck, slowly working his way south.
“Soft,” he murmured. “So soft. Sweet too.”
She managed a laugh.
He lifted his head, eyes crinkled in amusement. “What?”
“No one’s ever called me sweet before.”
“Well, you do hide it well,” he said demurely, making her snort. He flicked a tongue across her nipple and then sucked it into his mouth, leaving her a trembling wreck. He moved south then, taking his sweet-ass time too, nipping her just beneath her belly button, her hip. “You’ll stop me if there’s anything you don’t like,” he said.
“At the moment, I’m more likely to beg you to keep going.”
He smiled. “Like the sound of that too.” His big hands urged her legs to part, and he lowered his head and rubbed his stubbly jaw against her inner thigh while she squirmed and wriggled.
He simply tightened his grip on her, holding her still while he turned his head and worked her other inner thigh, and then finally, finally he found a new target, the perfect spot, her holy grail spot . . . without so much as a road map or directions.
Before she could marvel over this, she was gone. Lost in wave after wave of sensation that robbed her of her senses while she burst apart at the seams.
When she surfaced back to reality, he’d located a condom from she had no idea where, but she was grateful. “Yes,” she said. “Please, yes.”
His gaze riveted on hers, his mouth curved as he kissed her. “Love the ‘please,’” he murmured, voice sexy, low and rough. “Feel free to give me more of that.”
She was laughing as he slid home but the laughter backed up in her throat, turning into a moan. Helplessly she arched into him, filled to bursting as he claimed her mouth again.
And then he began to move and claimed her body as well, taking her to a place she’d never been before. When they both fell apart, shuddering in each other’s arms, Rory couldn’t catch her breath, couldn’t get it together.
She didn’t have to. He held her for a long time after, rolling onto his back, taking her with him so that she was plastered all over him, a tangle of limbs. His arms remained tight around her, one hand gliding slowly up and down her back, occasionally stopping to squeeze her ass.
It made her smile and her heart sigh. She fell asleep like that, more content then she could ever remember feeling, thinking if only Christmas could end right here, it’d be perfect.
RORY opened her eyes to find Max standing over her with a steaming cup in his hand and a sexy, knowing smile on his face.
He’d spent the past few hours rocking her world and he damn well knew it. It’d been . . . amazing, but now she was short of sleep and felt like roadkill. Probably looked like it too.
But not Max. Nope, he had the nerve to look reenergized and perfect.
With a groan, Rory rolled over and planted her face in the pillow.
“Mmm,” he murmured huskily in her ear, clearly taking her new position as an invitation. “Later, if you’re really, really good.” And then he lightly smacked her ass. “Rise and shine, princess.”
She gave him a kick but missed by a mile because he had reflexes like a cat.
He merely laughed and set the steaming cup by the bed. “A real morning person, I see.”
“Anyone ever tell you that you’re more fun when you’re not talking?” she muttered, muffled by the pillow.
He laughed again, telling her that he was a morning person, which meant she might have to kill him.
“We’ve gotta go,” he said.
With a gasp, she sat right up, clutching the sheet to her chest. “It’s morning?”
“Almost. But I wanted to talk to you before we go.”
Oh boy. A talk. In her experience, nothing good ever came out of a talk, and she flopped back into her facedown position.
His hand was on her ass again, squeezing now. “Of course, there’re other ways to get your attention . . .”
Not before she at least brushed her teeth, there wasn’t. She rolled onto her back to tell him so but he was there, right there, leaning over her, easily taking control of the sheet, tugging it southward.
“Okay, okay, I’m listening!” she claimed, tightening her tenuous grip on it.
But the sheet still slid south, with Max watching from warm, sexy, hooded eyes as she was revealed to him inch by inch until the sheet rested just below her hips.
Leaving her bare-ass naked on the bed.
With a squeak, she reached for the covers, but with a grin, he held them out of her reach, heavy sexual intent in his gaze.
Carl, mistaking the commotion as fun time, jumped up with a bark.
“Sorry, buddy,” Max said. “She’s all mine.”
The words should’ve annoyed the hell out of Rory; instead they gave her a hot rush. All his . . .
Nudging the dog aside and dropping the sheet onto the floor, Max snatched Rory and pulled her in.
He was dressed. He smelled fresh and clean and his hair was wet.
The day had started without her.
“I don’t do talks while naked,” she managed, once again trying to reach for the covers.
Max leaned in a little further, taking hold of her wrists, sliding them up the bed, alongside of her head. “Let me offer an incentive.” He kissed her, starting with the lightest brush of lips against hers but working up both the pressure and the heat. When he finally pulled back, she wasn’t the only one trying to catch her breath. She’d forgotten her rush, and the fact that she hadn’t brushed her teeth; she forgot everything but him and had turned her wrists so that her hands clasped his hard enough for her nails to leave marks on him.
Straightening, he took a slow, deep breath and let it out, making her realize with some shock and a lot of female pride that he was just as affected as she. “I just wanted to make sure you understand my intentions,” he said. “And what I want.”
She snorted and rocked against a most impressive erection. “I think I know what you want.”
He didn’t smile. Not even a twitch of his lips. Instead, his eyes filled with something she couldn’t quite catch.
“What I want,” he said, “is significantly more than a road trip from hell and a quick relief of some fairly serious sexual tension.”