Forbidden Pleasure

by Taryn Leigh Taylor

  Her name on his lips stopped her.

  She turned, and her blood iced over as Max joined her by the door, with the manila envelope in his hand.

  It was all she could do not to jump back from it. Knock it to the ground. Set it on fire.

  “You forgot your stuff,” he said, holding it out to her.

  Her fingers trembled as she accepted it.

  “I’ll see you later,” he promised, dropping a kiss on her forehead, one final intimacy before he pulled the frosted door of his office open and they reentered the real world.

  Max strode toward the elevator. Emma headed for her desk. She hugged the offensive envelope against her chest, the pressure of it over her heart her penance for all the decisions she’d made that led her here. But even through the guilt and shame, she could still feel the press of his lips against her skin.

  * * *

  Emma spent most of the afternoon staring blindly at her computer monitor as she tried, and failed, to make it past the first page of her summary report detailing the results of the latest SecurePay focus group.

  As promised, Max’s driver was outside waiting for her when she finally gave up and called it a night. On a whim, she asked him to stop at a grocery store before taking her back to the hotel.

  The sadness that swamped her as she picked up ingredients and kitchen supplies should have been her first clue that her plan to fill the time until Max got home was not her best. But her sudden need to connect to her mother was undeniable, so she persevered despite her misgivings, and between her memory and a hastily googled recipe, she gathered what she needed.

  Seeing Charles today had churned up all the feelings Emma had been pushing down for so long. The way he’d exploited her mother’s illness, the abuse he’d heaped on Max, her own powerlessness to go back and rectify either of those injustices, had splintered the wall inside of her—the one that let her pretend that she was okay most of the time.

  Without it, all that grief, all the stress of her mother’s passing was seeping up through the cracks and pooling too near the surface for Emma’s peace of mind. Maybe that was part of the reason she needed this connection with her mother right now so desperately.

  Her mother had always been happiest when she was baking, but it didn’t take long for Emma to remember that her own fond memories of the kitchen were more about being with her mom than the act itself.

  Now, surveying the wreckage of oozing honey, spilled flour and dirty dishes, misshapen cookies baking in the oven behind her, Emma felt stupid for even attempting it. For entertaining fanciful notions of domesticity while she waited for Max to come home. Like some idyllic 1950s propaganda.

  Emma resented the tear trickling down her cheek. She was such a mess, wishing for fanciful things that could never be.

  This quest to make new memories was ridiculous. That wasn’t how life worked. You didn’t get to just wipe the slate clean and start over. You didn’t get to rewrite history.

  No matter how many incredible new experiences she had, it wouldn’t change the fact that her mother was gone, and she would never meet Max. The lovely, vivacious Ana Petrović-Mathison she’d grown up with was already too far gone by the time she’d gotten the job at Whitfield Industries to remember Emma’s stories about her handsome boss from week to week.

  She couldn’t just erase the fact that she’d doomed any chance of something real with Max before she’d even gotten the chance to know him. When he found out what she’d done... And the fact that she’d done it for Charles made it so much worse.

  The scent of burning cookies startled her out of her dark musings, and in that moment, with smoke seeping from the oven, Emma realized that she’d failed to buy any oven mitts. By the time she’d dashed to the bathroom to grab a towel and proceeded to burn the hell out of it trying to get the cookies out of the oven without her hand meeting the same fate, her attempt at Croatian gingerbread had gone from overdone to unsalvageable.

  It was only made worse by the lack of cooling racks—another item that had slipped her mind at the store—so she set the cookie sheet on the stove top with a defeated sigh, letting the bottoms of her medenjaci cookies finish blackening without any further attempt to rescue them. She’d just have to wait until they were cool before erasing the evidence of her failure by throwing them in the trash.

  Emma wiped the tear tracks from her face and got to work. She disposed of the ruined towel before stacking the dirty bowls and measuring cups in the fancy undermount sink.

  That made the kitchen look slightly less like a disaster zone, she decided. Her life, on the other hand...

  What did she honestly think was going to happen here? The only reason she was still in LA was because Max was trying to save his company.

  He’d blackmailed her.

  She’d betrayed him.

  They’d had spectacular sex.

  That wasn’t the start of a relationship. It was a recipe for disaster.

  Distracted by her bleak thoughts, Emma grabbed the cookie sheet in her quest to clean up, yelping as it singed her skin. It fell from her hand, tumbling onto the marble floor with a loud, tinny rattle, scattering burned cookie carcasses across the gleaming tiles.

  Emma sucked the tip of her stinging thumb into her mouth, so she could soothe it with her tongue while she surveyed the carnage.

  Shit.

  Shaking her head, she turned back to the sink to run her tender skin under the cold water.

  A brusque knock on the door stole her attention a moment later.

  “Emma? What’s going on in there? Are you okay?”

  Max.

  Her heart perked up at the realization he was back.

  Stupid heart.

  “Emma, open up.”

  “I’m coming.” She flipped off the tap, wiping wet fingers on her jeans as she hurried toward the sound of his voice. She fumbled with the code she had to punch into the fancy lock, but it only took her two tries before she got the door open.

  He had a hand braced on either side of the jamb, and the concern on his face when he met her gaze tore a little hole in her heart. The kind that let feelings seep out.

  “I heard a bang. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, that was...me,” she finished lamely, thumbing vaguely behind her.

  He let out a breath—relief?—and pushed back from the wall. “What are you doing?”

  She moved so he could step inside. “What does it look like?”

  He glanced around the disaster zone. “If I knew, I wouldn’t waste either of our time asking.”

  Emma wilted as she closed the door. “I wanted to make the cookies my mom used to make for me. I wanted to have the memory of making cookies, damn it.”

  “That’s very—” he took in the mess she’d made of the kitchen “—domestic of you.”

  She sent him a flat look and walked back to the scene of her crimes against dessert. “You could help instead of just standing there.”

  “I don’t bake,” he said, but he followed her into the kitchen.

  “Not even when you were a kid?”

  Max shook his head. “My mother was more of a fully catered event kind of a woman.”

  “Well, my mom was a great cook.” She was vaguely aware she’d told him something similar the other night, but she was too busy battling the sudden helplessness trying to take control of her tear ducts to come up with anything else. “Shouldn’t this be in my DNA or something? Why am I not better at this?”

  He stepped forward, reaching toward her cheek.

  Emma parried with a step back, bumping her hip against the counter. “What are you doing?” She didn’t want to want his kindness right now. Her bruised heart couldn’t stand it.

  “You have flour on your cheek. Now, stand still.”

  His fingers were gentle against her jaw as he swiped his thumb against her
cheekbone.

  Emma bit her lip. Tears swam in her eyes when she finally lifted them to meet Max’s gaze, but she did her best to blink them back.

  “Cookie baking is harder than it looks.”

  “I have no doubt.” He looked at her for a long time, eyes boring into hers. As though he was searching for an answer. “Okay,” he said finally.

  “Okay what?”

  “I’ll help.”

  Emma sucked in her breath as his big hands closed around her hips. He lifted her easily onto the counter, stepped between her legs. She would never get used to having him close. To the way her body softened when he was near.

  “How is this helping?” she asked as he leaned in, his breath hot against her neck.

  “I’m distracting you.”

  And she’d be damned if it wasn’t working. She couldn’t help the tiny moan that escaped as he trailed kisses up her neck.

  It was erotically reminiscent of the first time Max had touched her, running his hands over her skin while she was balanced on the edge of a flat surface, her legs locked around his hips as he set her body on fire—had that really happened only a few days ago? It felt like a lifetime.

  “You’re getting flour on your suit,” she scolded, even as she pressed her flour-marked T-shirt against his chest and wrapped her arms around his neck. He smelled delicious, clean and masculine and nothing like baking, which was everything she could’ve asked for just then.

  “I have other suits.” He slid her hips to the edge of the counter, before lifting her off it completely. “And I was going to take this one off anyway.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  EMMA TIGHTENED HER legs around him, and the evidence of his desire sent a spear of longing straight through her. She wanted him, like always, but tonight she needed him, too. Needed what he could give her. Needed how he made her feel.

  He walked them to the bedroom, and she gloried in the strength of him beneath her hands, all shifting muscles and leashed power wrapped in a bespoke suit. She was a slave to the thrill she got from touching him, tasting him. She’d thought it was the illicitness, the taboo of bedding her boss, and maybe at the beginning it had been. Or maybe that had never been it at all. Maybe it had always been him.

  Brilliant. Gorgeous. A force to be reckoned with.

  Max.

  She couldn’t pinpoint the moment he’d become so important to her. The first time she’d stayed late at the office without an ounce of resentment? The first time she’d earned one of his hard-won nods of approval for her work? The first inadvertent brush of his hand against hers? The first taste of his lips?

  Maybe none of those. Maybe all of them.

  Max stopped beside the bed, lowering her slowly until her toes touched the ground, allowing them both to savor the sinuous slide of her body against his. A pale imitation of skin on skin, but a delectable tease of what was to come.

  With soft kisses and restless hands, they began tugging at each other’s clothes, unfastening buttons and undoing zippers. Emma couldn’t get enough. Undressing Max was like unwrapping a present. The sight of his body never failed to ratchet up her need. She couldn’t help but lean forward and press a kiss to his pec, just above his heart, even as he sent her jeans sliding down her hips.

  When they were finally naked, Max pulled her close, walking her backward until the mattress brushed the backs of her thighs. Unlike their previous sexual encounters, there was a gravitas to this one that Emma couldn’t deny. There was still the pure, unadulterated want that she was used to whenever she touched him, but this was deeper, somehow, less frenzied. As though their passion had matured into something more potent.

  He followed her onto the bed, and he was so beautiful, all hard planes and sinewy muscles, his jungle cat grace in evidence again as he moved over her. Their legs tangled together as he ran a hand along her skin, from her hip, up her side until he palmed her breast.

  And suddenly, time slowed down.

  Tonight, there were none of the dirty words, no words at all, just the soundtrack of their mingled breaths, of her heart beating steady and true.

  Sweet kisses and lingering caresses. A slow worship of each other’s bodies.

  She twined her fingers in his hair as his mouth paid homage to her breast. Each flick of his tongue against her nipple launching a spear of pleasure straight to her core. She shuddered as he traced her areola with the tip of his tongue, then kissed his way to her other breast to accord it the same decadent treatment.

  For the first time in a long time, she felt like herself again. Like a woman who could handle things. The realization surprised her, since not ten minutes ago she’d been on the verge of sobbing, cookies spilled across the floor, failing so spectacularly at her task that she’d been ready to give up.

  She wanted to devour him, but when she tried to pull him up so she could get her mouth on his, he shook his head.

  “Not yet,” he told her, in response to her mewl of frustration when he stayed put. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to do, and I’m not going to let you distract me with that pretty mouth of yours until I’m finished.”

  He slid a little farther down her body, pressing a promissory kiss just above her belly button, and another beneath it. Emma’s muscles tensed with anticipation, her fingers curling preemptively against the mattress.

  Max settled himself between her legs, and she had to bend her knees to accommodate the breadth of his shoulders. The low throb of greed drummed at the apex of her thighs. She wanted everything he was poised to give her, and she shifted restlessly beneath him, wishing he’d just get on with it already. Not until she felt his breath against the wet heat of her did she realize that she’d closed her eyes. With conscious effort, she forced them open, and the second she did, he lowered his head and licked straight up the center of her.

  Stars exploded through her body and she raked her fingernails against the bedspread as her back arched with the sharpness of her need.

  Her muscles grew drowsy with pleasure as he shifted his technique, teasing her with only the tip of his tongue, dragging her to the brink before retreating, only to start the process over again. Driving her wild with the electric touch of his mouth and the delicious scrape of his five o’clock shadow against her inner thighs.

  The orgasm building inside her was different from the ones before. This one rolled along her nerve endings, slow but powerful, and just out of reach.

  She reached for him, burying her fingers in his wavy black hair, with half a mind to push him away because she wasn’t sure she could endure another second on the edge of this precipice, and half a mind to hold him right where he was forever and ever.

  Before she could decide, his tongue was replaced with the gentle suction of his lips against her clit as his finger sank deep inside her, and the dual sensation of soft and hard, push and pull, sent her climax rushing through her like waves breaking across her skin, and she gasped as she let herself drown in the sweet perfection of it.

  He crawled back up her body, lying on his side next to her. She rolled to face him, and the intensity in his amber gaze made her feel like he’d branded her, claimed her. Made her doubt that anyone else in the world could make her feel like he had.

  Emma trembled at the thought.

  “I’ve been dreaming about that since we met.” He reached over and pushed a strand of hair off her cheek.

  Max Whitfield. Slayer of words. “Liar.” Her heart flipped happily as she made the accusation.

  “Well, I’ve been dreaming about it more since we met naked.”

  “I’m happy to make your dream a reality anytime,” she teased, pushing up onto her elbow.

  She leaned close and breathed in his warmth, nuzzling his jaw, pressing her lips to the pulse at the base of his neck.

  It was heaven to have her mouth on his skin, to be able to touch him when she wante
d. How she wanted.

  Emma caught his bottom lip between her teeth, then kissed him slow, deep, wet. He groaned as he shifted onto his back, and she liked knowing he was as desperate as she was for the culmination of the lust that overtook her whenever he was within arm’s reach. She was so turned on, she could barely breathe.

  “Jesus, you drive me crazy,” he muttered, pulling her on top of him and taking control of the kiss, working her mouth with an expertise that had them both panting and desperate in record time.

  With a speed and grace that shouldn’t have surprised her, Max rolled her onto her back and pushed inside her.

  His chest grazed her nipples with each stroke of his hips, and she marveled at the strength of him, the way the muscles in his shoulders and arms bulged with effort as he held himself over her, staring into her eyes as he plunged deep, driving her closer and closer to the edge.

  And just when she couldn’t stand it anymore, Max increased the pressure, lowering himself so that their bodies were flush, pushing her into the mattress as he caught her mouth with his. Her body detonated again under the weight of him, sending shockwave after shockwave radiating through her, leaving her helpless to do anything but hold him close as he joined her in ecstasy.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “I CAN FEEL you thinking,” he teased, and Emma snuggled more fully against him. He stroked the pad of his thumb against her arm, and it was one of those perfect moments that Emma had been searching for. She was in the middle of a memory right now, and part of her wanted to hold on to it, not blow it up like she was about to do. But the other part of her knew that she might never get this opportunity again, and so she took a chance.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  He angled his chin down so their eyes met. “Why do I get the feeling you’re going to, regardless of my answer?”

  Her smile was guilty, and he chuckled, the sound of it reverberating through his chest. He pressed a kiss against her hair. “Go ahead.”

  “Kaylee said something about you not taking a salary?”

  He went eerily still, just for a moment, withdrawing as though what she’d said was an affront. “It’s nothing.”