He raised his eyebrows. “Apparently the views are phenomenal.”
Dani grinned, thinking back to her early meetings with Max, when he would jokingly try to get in her pants. Time to turn the tables—except this time they both knew it wasn’t actually a joke. She attempted her best leer and said, “I can think of a view I’d rather see.”
He clapped his hands and shouted, “Marie! Leo! Time to go!”
Max had had a lot of sex in his life. He’d had sex with a lot of people he liked. In fact, he made a point to have sex only with people he liked. So he was accustomed to the way a mood could shift during sex, from serious and heated, say, to lighthearted and silly. There were lots of flavors of sex.
What he hadn’t experienced was the almost painful tenderness that nearly doubled him over as Dani came through the adjoining door and dropped her bathrobe—they had showered in their respective rooms after emerging from the mine covered with dust—and said, “All right. Time for some things that require condoms.”
She made a “bring it” motion with her fingers. She was trying to be funny. He should try to tip himself out of this uncharacteristically emotional state, to match her playful mood. He should laugh. Pick her up and drop her on the bed and tickle her.
He could not do those things. He couldn’t get over the fact that she was here. Naked and trusting and confident and glorious. She was so familiar to him, yet as the afternoon sun slanting in through the window painted stripes on her bare shoulders, she was also a complete and utter shock.
He couldn’t breathe properly. His hands came to his stomach, as though he needed to clutch his belly to keep his insides from spilling out. He had been standing when she came in, and somehow he’d ended up sitting on the edge of the bed. Perhaps his legs had given out without him noticing.
“Come here,” he said, and she did, unhesitatingly. She must have picked up on his mood. All traces of laughter disappeared from her face as she strode toward him. He was wearing a bathrobe, too, and he opened it just before she straddled his lap.
“Oh, god.” He was learning that with Dani, his body responded in two ways. There was the usual way, led by his dick, which had gotten so hard at the sight of her that it was almost painful. And when she settled herself on him, there was a sense of both relief and torment. But there was another pain, too, the tenderness from before, alchemized into something keen-edged and powerful. The first pain—sexual desire—was familiar. He knew how that worked. They would have sex, and he would find relief. The second pain, though, that bone-deep ache, made him a little frantic if he thought about it too hard. What if it never went away? What if he never caught his breath? What would happen when she went back to New York?
She slipped her hands under the lapels of his robe as she ground down on him, and he shoved away his spiraling thoughts. He cupped her face with both hands and brought her mouth down on his. Her hair was wet and cold as it hung like curtains on either side of his head. He lowered his head and began lavishing attention on her breasts, letting his hands slide down over her throat and collarbones, noting the hissing sound the stroke summoned from her. He let loose a shaky sigh when he reached her breasts. They were two perfect handfuls, and he kneaded them, reveling in the feel of those gorgeous brown peaks stiffening under his touch. When he lowered his mouth to one tight nipple, she moaned.
“Oh my god, Max,” she panted.
“Does this feel good?” he asked, switching to the other nipple.
“Yes,” she breathed, and she shifted on his lap. She was wet and warm, and his hips bucked up against her without the involvement of his conscious mind.
When he could no longer take it, when he felt he was in danger of coming without getting to use one of those condoms—without getting to be inside her, the prospect of which blew his goddamned mind—he fell backward. He pulled her with him, thinking of her saying yesterday that she found pleasure more easily when she was on top. Also thinking, as she fell with him, how very much he enjoyed looking up at her.
They kissed like that for a long while, sipping and nipping, their tongues tangling. The moans she was making were driving him wild; it sounded like she was drunk on pleasure, and he loved it. But when they started to shade into frustration, he tore his mouth from hers and said, “Condoms are on the nightstand.”
She looked down at him, blinking dumbly, then in the direction of the nightstand, then back at him. Her pupils were blown and her lips were red and puffy, and he never wanted to look at anyone or anything else again. He had done that. They had done that. Emotion was cresting inside him again, but he forced it down and made himself adopt a teasing tone when he said, “You know, should you find yourself wanting them.”
She wanted them. She slid off him, and he sent a silent, soothing assurance to his poor beleaguered dick. She’s coming back.
She did come back, but she was fumbling with the condom wrapper, so he took it from her and sheathed himself. He stayed on his back, and she looked at him inquisitively. He raised an eyebrow. She was in charge at this moment. She was always in charge when it came to him, whether or not she realized it.
She climbed on. And oh, had he ever felt something so good as Dani Martinez inching down his dick? She blew out a careful breath, and he joined her. She was tight and hot and . . . her. When she was fully seated, she went still, so still that the room was utterly, preternaturally silent. She was back in the path of those rays of light. One of them hit the side of her face and made a Rorschach blot of sunshine. She did not move. She did not breathe.
That twisting, tender feeling started in his chest again, coiling up like a snake rising, and he feared that if she didn’t stop staring at him like she could see inside him, the prickling sensation moving up through his throat might lead to tears. He opened his mouth and whispered a command. “Breathe.”
She did, and she moved, too. “Thank god,” he said, apparently out loud, but it didn’t seem to matter. She stayed upright, her hands planted on his chest and her hips rocking back and forth as she huffed out short breaths. She was still staring at him, but somehow the addition of movement and sound beat back the tidal wave of emotion threatening to overtake him. He clamped his hands onto her waist and tried to move in rhythm with her.
Her hair dripped on his chest.
“Oh my god, Max,” she said again. “Oh!” He let one of the hands that was on her waist slide around and down, and he burrowed his thumb between her folds.
Her eyes went even wider, and she looked for a moment as if she, too, was having trouble holding back tears. But it must have been a trick of the sunlight, because suddenly she smiled, although to say “she smiled” did not begin to capture what was happening on her face as she grinned in what looked like a mixture of disbelief and joy. As she started coming, she started laughing. He went back to gripping her waist with both hands—tighter this time—said, “Hold on,” and allowed himself to buck his hips up, big, almost violent pumps that had her gasping through her continuing laughter and what looked like her continuing orgasm. One, two, three, and with a groan, he was joining her.
Afterward, they stared at each other. He was stunned. Dazed. But when she started to pull away, he snapped out of it and held onto the condom so she could peel herself away.