And then, as if she didn’t have a mind of her own, as if her body took over giving orders and making demands, she found herself straddling Maximo’s lap. He pushed the hem of her skirt up to expose her thighs, and she let him.
To hell with her heart. Her libido needed satisfaction, no matter how temporary.
A cool breeze drifted across her hot skin as he peeled the layers of clothing away. She returned the favor, exposing strong shoulders, a firm abdomen, and rock solid thighs. The more skin-to-skin contact they made, the more aggressive he became, until he thrust up inside her with a snarl of pleasure.
Knowing the house would be empty until tomorrow vanquished all Camryn’s inhibitions, allowing her to groan and grind and ride him as if they were the only two people left on earth. Her cries tangled with his growls and echoed across the balcony, along with other, more carnal noises: slapping skin, sharp gasps, the scrape of the chair over wood.
It was bliss. It was heaven.
He drove her to the point of climax and pushed her over the edge with a final deep thrust timed to a bite on her throat. Her cry of ecstasy escaped past the balcony and into the evening, followed by his primal groan of pleasure.
Camryn panted his name against the top of his shoulder and pressed little kisses to his sweaty skin. He held her tighter, gnawing gently at the delicate line of her collarbone.
“You’re noisy,” he rumbled, sounding pleased.
“You’re aggressive,” she countered, grinning into his flesh.
He laughed. Raspy, low, affected. “I don’t hear you complaining.”
She laughed, too. “No. No, Maximo, I’m certainly not complaining.”
“Do you want to sleep with me tonight?” he asked, pulling back far enough for her to see his eyes.
One night. One long night with Maximo Payne. Camryn gazed at him, still flushed from their tryst.
Before she could reply, a feminine voice drifted up from the patio below.
“Bow-chicka-boooow. Someone got lucky tonight!”
Seventeen
It was a mad scramble. Maximo cursed and helped Camryn to her feet, then stood up to snatch his clothes off the balcony floor. He banged his knee, scraped his thigh, and smashed his pinky toe in his effort to yank his jeans on. To a litany of “ohmygodohmygod” from Camryn, Max tugged his shirt over his head and jammed his feet into his unlaced boots.
“I thought you said no one would be here tonight?” Camryn hissed. She pulled up her skirt, which sat lopsided on her hips, and slid her arms through the sleeves of the cardigan.
She looked like she’d just spent an hour on the Tilt-A-Whirl.
Maximo thrust both hands back through his hair. “She’s not supposed to arrive until tomorrow. No one is.”
“My panties are missing!”
“What?”
“I can’t find my underwear. Did you throw them over the balcony?”
“I didn’t throw them anywhere.” He checked under the table and the chairs. The panties couldn’t have gotten far.
“Well, well, well. If it isn’t Maximo Payne—and guest,” a voice said from the balcony doorway.
Max straightened and shot a scathing look Aubrey Parker’s way. There was only one woman that sultry, come-hither voice belonged to. It was useless to pretend she hadn’t heard the goings on, not after she’d called up from below at such a timely interval.
“I thought you weren’t arriving until tomorrow,” he said, partially blocking Camryn with his body. He knew she was trying to make herself a bit more presentable. Not that it would do much good. He’d skewed her hair from its bun and left marks on her throat. Never mind the lusty sounds that had apparently travelled farther than either of them realized.
“I wasn’t. But then I thought I’d get here early in case anyone else did,” Aubrey said. She strolled onto the balcony with a Cheshire-catlike smile. Attired in a partly sheer black shirt and snug jeans that tapered to a spiked pair of designer heels, she looked dressed to kill.
Last year, just before his fourth blockbuster movie hit the big screen, Maximo had run into Aubrey at a Hollywood party. The type of gathering located in a mansion with private security and an unspoken rule that whatever happened behind closed doors, stayed behind closed doors. Aubrey had made little secret of her attraction to him but, because he’d been too untrusting and wary of high socialite life, he’d declined her advances. Skip ahead to now, when they’d been chosen to star together in a romantic thriller, and he wasn’t sure much had changed.
Not if her blatant once-over was anything to judge by.
“Aubrey, this is Camryn. Camryn, Aubrey.” Max jumped straight to introductions, hoping that he could still slip away with Camryn before it was too late.
Cam pushed another stray tendril of hair into a hasty bun she’d created and smiled at Aubrey. “Nice to meet you, Aubrey.”
Maximo glanced from one woman to the other. Camryn seemed flustered but coherent. Aubrey appeared to be assessing competition.
“Wait a minute. Aren’t you the reporter?” Aubrey asked. She stopped halfway to the table with an incredulous look at Camryn, then at Max. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I didn’t realize you’d taken to slumming in your off hours.”
Maximo curtailed an abrupt reply. Instead, he chose to meet Aubrey’s accusation head-on in a calmer, more controlled manner. “She’s here doing a series of interviews.”
“She’s obviously doing more than that,” Aubrey retorted.
“And it was every bit as good as you’ve probably imagined,” Camryn piped up from behind Max.
He was so surprised at Camryn’s quip that he nearly turned a shocked look her way. Aubrey’s shift from denigrating superiority to catty discord convinced him to keep his focus on her instead.
“We were just about to take our leave,” Max said, grinding his molars together. He reached back for Camryn’s hand. “We’ll see you on set.”
Aubrey’s eyes narrowed, her sudden ire directed at Camryn. She mumbled something that sounded vaguely threatening, but Maximo couldn’t pick apart the words. Once Camryn laced her fingers with his, he led her off the balcony and into the house.
Nothing like making his upcoming love scenes with Aubrey that much more awkward.
That insipid little witch. Camryn hadn’t liked Aubrey before tonight, and she liked her even less in person. She seriously wanted to demand the actress repeat herself so she could hear the venomous words more clearly, but Maximo hustled her inside before she could speak.
“She can be a little testy,” Max said as he guided Camryn through the upstairs living area.
“She’s a bitch.” Camryn refused to mince words. She didn’t really think about why Max led her along the upper hallway rather than down the staircase to her bedroom, not until he opened a door and led her into his suite. The room was grand, with a peaked ceiling, large stone fireplace, and an equally large bed against one wall.
Cam hardly noticed the minute details. She was still seeing red, still wanted to march back out to the balcony and confront Aubrey Parker.
“She’s my costar, unfortunately. I have to at least try to keep the peace so our chemistry on screen isn’t awkward.” Max stopped halfway into the room and tugged Cam closer by her hand.
If only she could lose herself in him again. But Camryn was too edgy from the exchange, too annoyed. She couldn’t sidle up to Max and resume where they’d left off. The interaction with Aubrey had the same effect as an ice-cold shower.
“I’m sorry, Maximo. I think I should probably head downstairs. There’s no way I can relax after that, and you deserve better than my foul mood tonight.” At least she was honest with him. Camryn locked gazes with Max, who seemed to take her change of heart in stride.
“I understand. Don’t allow her to rile you too much. She’ll just keep doing it if she thinks she’s getting under your skin.”
“As long as she keeps her unkind quips to herself, we’ll be just fine,” Camryn said. Belatedly, she realize
d what he’d said about chemistry. More than likely, Maximo was going to have a few romantic scenes with Ms. Parker.
Lovely.
She wondered if they had to kiss. Or pretend to have sex.
What did it matter anyway? It wasn’t as if she didn’t know Maximo already played the field. The acting was just that—acting. He clearly didn’t like Aubrey that much, though the thought did little to subdue her ire. She hoped she didn’t have to see them kissing on set.
“What does she have against journalists anyway? As far as I’ve ever seen, she’s not been exactly nice in her interviews. I mean, I get that it’s tedious. I just spent a week dodging photographers myself. But she takes diva to a whole new level.”
“I have no idea. I don’t know her all that well. We’ve run into each other at Hollywood functions a few times, but that’s it.” Max released Camryn’s hand and stepped to a side bar where he poured himself a glass of wine.
“And you probably had to do a reading with her for the part, right?” Camryn asked, irritated at the way things had turned out. Not that she’d actually entertained spending the entire night with Maximo, but she might have changed her mind had Aubrey not appeared on the scene.
“No, actually we didn’t. Martin asked me privately to take the role, and hired Aubrey after that. We haven’t rehearsed scenes together or anything yet, because that’s the way Martin prefers it.” Max leaned against the wall nearest the wet bar, watching her.
“I can’t tell if that’s a good or bad thing. I just hope the movie isn’t ruined for you after this.” She sincerely didn’t want his film to crash thanks to bad juju on the set with Aubrey.
“It’ll be fine. We’re both professionals, even if she doesn’t act it sometimes.” He sipped his wine.
“I’m glad to hear it.” Camryn reluctantly retreated to the door. She glanced back, remembering all too well how his mouth felt on hers, how his hands fit her hips. Watching him stand there, languid and leonine, brought a flush to her cheeks. Once again, she wished things had gone differently.
“I’ll see you tomorrow. Morning or afternoon?” she asked.
“Why don’t we have breakfast around nine? Unless you wind up jet-lagged and need a few more hours of sleep.”
“Nine it is.” Camryn paused, one hand on the doorknob. “Good night, Maximo.”
“If you change your mind, my door will be open all night.” He saluted her with his glass.
“You never know.” She winked, going for levity in what could become an awkward situation. Exiting his room, she rubbed her cheeks with her palms and headed downstairs. As she crossed the foyer, she suddenly remembered that she’d lost her panties somewhere on the balcony.
The timing couldn’t be more awful.
She hoped Aubrey didn’t find them. Or the director. How horrifying.
Jet-lagged or not, she wasn’t sure she would get a lick of sleep tonight.
Eighteen
Camryn woke with an urgent, startled feeling that she’d forgotten something important. There wasn’t time to be surprised that she’d gone out like a light within minutes of flopping on the bed, not with that ugly, niggling sensation that shouted at her to get up!
Still dressed in the skirt and shirt—the cardigan draped across the foot of the bed—Camryn hurried around the room to check her belongings. Suitcase, purse, phone, wallet, computer. It was all where it should be. No one had disturbed her things and nothing was missing.
What, then? She couldn’t rid herself of a sense of impending doom.
Lark hadn’t left any messages. Neither had Lenni. There wasn’t a note on the floor under her door from Max or a blinking light on the nightstand handset.
Something eluded her.
She remembered the missing panties, so that wasn’t it. That wasn’t the cause of her inner panic.
Cam tapped her finger on her lower lip. She had breakfast at nine with Max—in twenty minutes, as a matter of fact—but could not think of any other pressing appointments or calls she might be missing.
And then it hit her.
“No! I did not!” Aghast at herself, she ran to the door, yanked it open, and fled into the hallway. She didn’t care that she was barefoot or that a cluster of people standing in the foyer, coffee cups in hand, stared when she flew right by. Cam also didn’t care that her hair was a wreck or that she probably looked as if she’d just climbed out of bed.
She had, and that wasn’t her biggest problem.
Exiting onto the upstairs balcony, she dashed to the table she’d been sitting at with Max last night. Her gaze darted to the chair where they’d had incredible sex, then flitted to the tabletop.
There was her pad, her pen. Her camera.
The recorder, which she’d left on, was nowhere to be seen.
No, no, no.
That recorder had not only her and Max’s banter on it, but evidence of their little tryst. All her lusty cries—Camryn shut down that train of thought before she fainted dead away.
She checked beneath the table, under the chairs, and around the edge of the balcony. Cam searched behind three potted plants in case she’d kicked the recorder by accident.
Nothing.
The recorder wasn’t there.
With nowhere left to look, she fled indoors. Camryn hurried down the hallway to Maximo’s door and knocked three times. Knocked urgently, to enforce the idea that he needed to answer immediately.
The door opened. Maximo stood there, fresh out of the shower with his forelock hanging rakishly across his brow, attired in a pair of black jeans and light gray button-down. He had not bothered doing up the buttons yet, which left a swarthy strip of his chest and abdomen on display. She breathed in the subtle scent of his cologne and tried not to be distracted by how freaking handsome he looked.
“I need to speak to you. Now,” she said.
He looked her up and down, clearly puzzled. “Is everything all right?”
Camryn flattened a hand against his chest, pushed him back into the room, and nudged the door closed with her heel. She knew the only reason she was able to move Max at all was because he let her. If he hadn’t wanted to move, he wouldn’t have budged an inch.
She would thank him later.
“What’s going on?” he asked with a frown.
“Did you go back to the balcony and pick up the recorder? Last night or this morning?”
“No. Why?” His frown deepened.
“Oh my God.” Camryn pressed her palms against her flushed cheeks. Where was the thing? It couldn’t have gotten far.
Then she remembered who had been left on the balcony after she and Maximo had departed.
Aubrey.
No.
Surely the woman wouldn’t stoop so low?
“Your recorder’s missing?” Maximo asked.
“Yes, it’s missing. This is a disaster.” She paced past Max, considering the option of going straight to Aubrey’s room to confront the woman.
“I’m not sure I follow. Did you have other interviews on there or something?” Max asked.
“No, but I’d pressed record, thinking we were going to do our interview, and never turned it off.” Cam paused next to a chair and faced him.
When the reality of it struck, Maximo’s lips thinned. “Did you look—”
“I looked everywhere. It’s gone. The only other person out there last night was Aubrey. Unless some of those people in the foyer have been here a while and one of them found it earlier.” Cam wanted to sink through a hole in the floor. Just disappear until her recorder magically appeared without her lusty sexcapade on it. She had horrid visions of Lark contacting her with audio from every tabloid ever made, playing the Cam and Max Romp Song. Maybe the thief had found her panties, too, and would list the items as a twofer deal on eBay.
Second Secret Mistress Scores BIG!
She groaned.
“I’ll go look.” Max strode toward the door.
“It’s not there.”
Max left anyway.
Unable to face the foyer crowd again, she curled up on Maximo’s bed, legs folded beneath her, and started doing damage control in her head. She would have to call Lark first thing and confess so that Lark could keep a closer eye on the tabloids. And eBay. She needed to record some kind of rebuttal, an explanation—but what the heck would she say? How did one defend what was clearly the truth?
She was still figuring out how to handle social media should the recording get into the open when Max returned. In his hand were her notepad, pencil, and camera.
He shut the door, a thunderous expression on his face.
“Tell me again. What exactly is on the recorder?” he asked. It was more a command than a question.
“Us talking a little, then us . . . having sex.” Camryn gripped the bend of her knees with her fingers and watched Maximo start to pace the room. He only paused to set her belongings on a table.
Now he was mentally where she’d been for the last twenty minutes.
Now he got it.
“You recorded the whole thing?” he asked.
“I didn’t mean to. But we got distracted, and then I was on your lap, and then . . .”
Maximo broke into Italian, pacing and gesturing with one hand. The strident, clipped sentences sounded ominous.
“Exactly,” Camryn said. She had no idea which precise words he used, but the inflection told her well enough that they were on the same page.
“I should have been paying more attention,” he said, switching back to English.
“We got distracted. It happens.” How casual she sounded, she thought. Far from the inner panic welling up inside. “I really hope this doesn’t affect your . . . relationship with Raquel if it gets out.”
Maximo shot a bold look in her direction. “She’s not my lover. She’s my sister.”
Max hadn’t planned on divulging that bit of information until the final interview. Now it was out in the open, and he found he wasn’t one bit sorry. Too many people, for too long, had assumed he and Raquel were having an affair. Everyone liked to jump to the wrong conclusion before they knew the facts. His sister had wanted to make a go of acting on her own merit, without riding on his coattails, so he’d agreed to keep their sibling status under wraps until she found solid footing in Hollywood. But no matter how discreet they’d been, arriving and departing hotels at different times, the media had still caught on. It was hard to keep anything a secret when you were in the spotlight all the time.
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