by Lori Foster
It was as if she hadn’t missed him at all.
“Well, well,” he murmured in his most sarcastic tone, “look what the cat dragged in.”
At the word “cat” Cleo’s ears lifted, her portly body trembled and she went bonkers. She snapped at the air and raced around the small bookstore, bumping into shelves and sticking her snarling nose into every small space, searching for the heinous feline creature.
Maddie frowned at Max. “Now look what you’ve done!” She rushed after Cleo, her white sandals clicking on the tile floor as she ran through a haphazard game of tag that had Maddie, too, bumping into bookcases before she finally got both hands anchored in Cleo’s collar. “Shh. Shh. It’s all right, Cleo. I promise, there aren’t any other creatures here except us.”
Cleo wasn’t about to trust anyone and so the game continued. Maddie got dragged several feet before she gave up and released Cleo’s collar, only to rush after the dog, explaining all the while.
Max sauntered off to the back room to get himself a cola. He was being ignored, so he figured no one would miss him. Let the two ladies have their fun. He’d ignore them right back.
He’d finished half the bottle of soda before Maddie again appeared in the doorway. The tight tee outlined her breasts and her long legs were displayed under an itty-bitty white cotton miniskirt.
She looked good enough to eat, he thought. Then in the next second, he got hard.
“What are you doing?”
Max shrugged, the epitome of a man without a care. He ruined the pose, though, by grumbling, “Not a damn thing, why?”
“My, my,” she said with raised eyebrows.
“Surly this morning, aren’t we?”
Surly? Surly! Max paused, thinking, Did real men act surly? Good grief, he didn’t think so.
He mentally shook himself and gathered together his lauded control.
“Sorry,” he uttered, once again sounding like himself, a man without a care, a man who excelled in deception. “I had a…late night.”
There, Miss Montgomery, he thought, work that over in your conniving little brain.
Yawning hugely, Maddie said, “Me, too.”
Max jerked to attention and demanded, “A late night doing what?”
“Working.”
“Oh.”
She gave him an impish grin. “What did you think I was doing?”
“Notching more bedposts?”
“And that would have bothered you?”
“Not in the least.”
Her smile was smug and he wanted to kiss it right off her face. No sooner did the thought enter his mind than he decided, why not?
Max stalked her, his intent gaze letting her know exactly what he wanted, and Maddie began backing up as she chuckled.
“Cleo finally settled down.” She giggled as she said it, and stopped abruptly when her back came up against the small cool refrigerator.
Max caged her in, flattening his hands on either side of her head. “She ran out of gas, that’s all. Cleo can raise a racket for hours until she literally flops down exhausted.”
“That exactly what she did! One second she was running around—”
Her words were swallowed up by his kiss. Damn, she tasted good. Too good. Even better than he’d remembered.
Max had almost forgotten how wonderful her soft mouth felt under his, how teasing her tongue could be, her delicious taste. “Mmm.”
He lifted his mouth from hers and pressed soft, biting kisses down her throat. “You like hickeys?”
Maddie, breathing roughly, rasped, “Hickeys?”
“Love bites.” He licked her throat. “Do you like them?”
“I…I don’t know.” Her hands clenched in his shirt, her hips pressed into his. “I don’t think I’ve ever had one.”
Max opened his mouth on her neck, right over her thrumming pulse, and sucked her skin gently against his teeth.
Maddie responded with a long, hungry groan.
Max made sure the mark would be low enough that she could cover it easily with her clothing, but she tasted so good he didn’t want to let her go. He kissed her throat again and again, then moved on to her jaw, her ear.
Maddie panted. “This is wonderful.”
She made him crazy. Max took her mouth hard in a voracious kiss, all the while his mind was churning. He knew he should hold back, knew he should set things straight with her. He couldn’t. Not right now.
“Ever had a nooner?”
Maddie slowly blinked open her heavy eyes. “A nooner?”
Max cupped her cheek and smoothed her skin with his thumb. She was so soft. “It’s afternoon. A great time to play.”
Her eyes widened. “Play, as in…?”
“Make whoopee. Here. Now.” He wanted her so badly, just getting the words out was an effort.
Maddie glanced around the tiny back room where unopened boxes crowded the floors and file cabinets were squeezed into the corners. One small square table held a coffeemaker and was surrounded by three mismatched chairs. The miniscule refrigerator hummed against her backside. Max could feel the teasing vibration through Maddie, their bodies were pressed so closely together.
Most importantly, though, was the open door leading into the rest of the bookstore. Any customer coming in might be able to see them if they got close to the door. Max saw the confusion, the scandalized excitement that darkened Maddie’s eyes.
She bit her lip. “Here?”
In one deft move, Max flattened her more securely to the refrigerator and pushed himself between her thighs. With a tilt of his head, he could see the front door, but no one coming in could see him unless they rounded the corner. Max knew she felt his erection, as well as the way his hands shook. But he didn’t care. All he cared about was hearing her soft enticing groans again as she came.
“Here,” he growled.
“Standing?”
“Standing. You offered this last time, remember? The only difference is that the fridge is nice and cool, and I swear, you’ll appreciate that in a minute.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to make you burn up.”
“Oh.” She touched his chest, looked around the room again. “I’m…I’m kind of wobbly,” she said worriedly.
Max smiled. “I won’t let you fall.” Hell, his muscles were so tense, so tight, he was more likely to break than bend.
Maddie licked her lips slowly while her eyes searched his. “What if someone catches us?”
Kissing the corner of her sweet mouth, Max whispered, “It’s an exciting thought, isn’t it? Doing the forbidden? Taking a risk? But the door has a bell, remember? We’ll know if anyone comes in.” With a touch of demand, he added, “Trust me.”
Her fingers gripped his upper arms, squeezing, caressing. “All right.”
Breathing hard, Max held her gaze as he caught the hem of her miniskirt and slowly raised it. Maddie moaned.
“We need to get rid of your panties,” he told her, knowing his words would work as foreplay, “so that I can touch you.”
Maddie closed her eyes.
“You want me to touch you, don’t you, Maddie? That’s why you’re here again.” He’d have rather believed she’d missed him, but he was a realist. Fingers on her thigh, he asked, “You missed this, didn’t you?”
She nodded, her chest heaving, her thighs trembling as Max ran his fingertips up and over her legs to her hips.
With no warning at all, he cupped her through the silky triangle of underwear.
“Why, Maddie Montgomery,” he said softly, “you’re already hot and wet.” Max moved his fingers over the damp silk, outlining her swollen folds, then higher, stroking her through the material. Maddie gasped.
“Mmm,” he said. “Right there, huh?”
She didn’t answer, so he paused, keeping one finger pressed teasingly to the ultrasensitive spot.
Maddie’s eyes opened and she stared at him, looking somewhat dazed. “Max?”
He loved hear
ing her say his name. “I want you to answer my question, Maddie.”
She swallowed, drew a steadying breath. “What question?”
Her rasping voice shook; Max liked that. “Is this where you want me to touch you?”
He flicked gently, then deeply, and Maddie’s hips jerked against him.
“Yes!”
“I want to see your breasts, Maddie.”
She stared at him.
“Show them to me.” This was Max’s favorite game, taking charge, making specific sexual demands. And after the week he’d been through, waiting for her, hoping she’d call, thinking she never would, he especially liked it.
And she especially deserved it.
Looking undecided about what to do, Maddie again bit her lip. It was an innocently sexual expression that turned him on even more.
Max quit stroking her, making his demand. “Show me your breasts, Maddie.”
She swallowed hard, then began inching up her shirt. She had on a barely there bra of matching hot pink, transparent and sexy as hell. Max bent toward her. “Keep the shirt out of my way.”
Her nipples were hard points against the thin material and Max closed his mouth around her hotly.
“Max!”
He tasted her other breast, leaving both nipples covered with damp clingy fabric. Leaning back to enjoy his handiwork, Max said, “Nice. Pretty.”
He didn’t want to take a chance on being interrupted, so he decided not to stall any longer. Maddie’s skirt was bunched around her waist, her T-shirt up under her chin. He slowly took a step back, and cautioned her, “Don’t move.”
She barely even breathed.
Nodding in approval, Max knelt down and pulled her panties to her knees.
The door chimed.
Maddie started to jerk away, but Max quickly rose and held her still. He covered her mouth with two fingers scented by her body. Against her ear, he said, “Don’t you move a single muscle, sweetheart. Do you understand me?”
Panicked, her eyes huge, Maddie mumbled against his fingers.
“Shh. Trust me.”
A heartbeat of silence passed while they stared at each other and the interruption he’d wanted to avoid became a real risk. Finally she nodded.
Just that quickly Max left the backroom, closing the door behind him. There was nothing he could do about his noticeable hard-on except hope the two female customers wouldn’t look at him closely until he got behind the counter.
They didn’t. They were too busy picking up their favorite romance novels. They discussed authors and new releases and made faces at the goofy clinch covers. In the short time he’d been filling in for Annie, Max had noticed that their biggest sellers were romances.
Luckily the customers didn’t wake Cleo, but they did give her horrified stares. She was stretched out on the floor beneath a table, snoring.
Max ignored the ladies’ aghast expressions and waited on them patiently. Maddie, he was certain, would have thought Cleo looked cute. She wouldn’t have regarded the dog with distaste, but rather with that small, endearing smile of hers.
Max could just picture her still standing against the old refrigerator, her legs open, her hands fisted in her shirt, breasts bare, panties around her knees. She looked so sexy, so sweet. So impatient.
He had to shake those thoughts away or he’d embarrass himself.
It was a good ten minutes before the store was once again empty. Max took a deep breath, flexed his hands and rolled his head to rid himself of the worst of his tension. In the corner, Cleo lay sprawled in boneless languor, the most relaxed she’d been since she’d slept at Maddie’s apartment. Since then, she’d been watching the doors, the windows, and Max knew she’d been waiting for Maddie.
Just as he had.
That sudden insight annoyed him enough that he quickly opened the back-room door and walked in.
Maddie was standing just as he’d left her.
Her tiny pink panties were still twisted around her knees and her nipples were still erect little points, telling Max that her thoughts hadn’t veered from the sexual at all. She may not have missed him, but she’d missed what he could do for her. And she had come back to him. He’d build on that. For Cleo’s sake.
Without a word, he knelt in front of her again. As if they hadn’t been interrupted at all, Max traced a path up her thigh and asked, “You ready for me, Maddie?”
Her stomach clenched. “Yes.”
Slowly, enthralled by the contrast of her moist pink flesh against his dark hand, Max inserted one finger inside her. Maddie didn’t look away. Her legs parted as far as the panties would allow, straining against the bonds.
“Do you want me to kiss you?”
“Yes.” Then, almost as an afterthought, “Please.”
She no longer hesitated at all in her answers. Max’s heart pounded hard, and his control was a thing of the past. Still with his finger inside her, gently probing, Max breathed in her musky scent, then opened his mouth over her in a voracious, consuming kiss meant to bring her desire to an acute edge.
Maddie’s breath left her in a harsh groan. Her hands settled on his head, her fingers inadvertently pulling at his hair.
He didn’t mind. He liked her unrestrained show of excitement.
Max brought her right to the edge, teasing, nibbling, kissing softly, then not so softly. He used his tongue in a never-ending, rasping stroke—then left her.
Quickly stripping her panties the rest of the way off, Max tucked them into his back pocket.
Max stroked her bare bottom as he explained, “Quickies are sometimes an elusive thing for women,” Max explained as he stroked her bare bottom. “They need more…preparation. More stimulation.”
How the hell he was stringing so many words together when all he could hear was the roar of his own racing heartbeat, Max wasn’t sure. Maddie neither wanted nor required explanations. But he wanted her enjoyment to be a foregone conclusion, and talking not only aroused her further, it helped to calm him so that he could see to her pleasure. He refused to take a chance on leaving her unsatisfied.
“You talk too much, Max.”
Max smiled at the crackle in her voice, the way she held herself so still and ready. Her back was pressed hard against the door of the fridge, her hips tilted outward, legs spread. Her little belly was so cute, so inviting.
He unzipped his jeans in a rush, then pushed them below his hips. “When I come into you now, the friction will be just right.”
He felt the heat of Maddie’s intense gaze, watching him as he rolled on the condom. She reached for him when he stepped between her widely spread thighs.
She held him tight when Max instructed, “Put your right leg around my waist. That’s it, a little higher. Now just… Umm. That’s right.” She was so wet, he sank easily into her. “Tilt your pelvis toward me more.”
Maddie anxiously followed his instructions. “This is fairly kinky, isn’t it?” she panted.
“Yeah.” He’d win her over yet, he thought. He’d make her insane with lust, make her understand that there was a special chemistry between them. Max kissed her again, and intent on making her hotter with words, he whispered, “What did you think about while I was with the customers, sweetheart?”
“You,” she whispered. “What you just did to me?”
“Yes?” Max could already feel his triumph. She’d wanted him to kiss her, to pleasure her.
“What about it?”
“I thought about…doing that to you.”
Max froze. His vision clouded.
Unconcerned with his reaction, Maddie persisted with her arousing admission. Her breath pumped in and out, making the words stilted, as she moved against him, pleasuring herself on his rigid body.
“I thought about being on my knees in front of you, of taking you into my mouth, tasting you and sucking on you the same way you—”
With a muffled shout, Max drove into her. He was a goner, coming even as he heard Maddie’s soft chuckle of success.
He let her laugh, because seconds later she was climaxing, her nails biting into his butt, his arms the only things keeping her upright.
It seemed as though they stood there for hours, propped against each other, both of them gasping for breath. And then the damn door chimed again and with a dark oath, Max pulled away from her.
Would nothing ever go as he planned with Maddie? Every time he intended to overwhelm her with sex, she managed to turn the tables on him. And now, instead of being able to discuss things with her, the store had suddenly become as busy as a bus station, repeatedly drawing him away. Max disposed of the condom, pulled up his jeans, and staggered on wobbling legs out to the counter.
Unfortunately, this customer was much more observant than the others had been. She took in his disheveled state, the heaviness of his eyes, and said with characteristic cheerfulness, “Why Max Sawyers, you reprobate. You’ve been fooling around in Annie’s bookstore!”
Lace McGee Sawyers, his sister-in-law, knew sexual satisfaction when she saw it. As a sex therapist, she was well acquainted with the subject.
Max looked at her, frowned, then said over his shoulder, “You might as well come on out, Maddie. It’s just Lace, and I know without asking that she’s not going anywhere without an introduction.”
“At least I got here after,” Lace said with a grin.
Max gave her his laziest look. “You’re good Lace, but not good enough to be sure of that.”
“Oh, I’m positive.” She laughed, then hugged him tight. “Because otherwise you’d be throwing me out!”
6
MADDIE WANTED to be a coward and hide, but more than that, she wanted to meet Lace McGee Sawyers. Lace was married to Annie’s oldest brother, Daniel, the doctor. She’d never met Daniel, but Annie assured her that he was every bit as hunky as Max, just in a different, more somber way.
She straightened her clothes the best she could, considering her panties were still in Max’s pocket. She could hardly believe what she’d just done; as far as memories went, that one was a keeper! But it was more than the sex, because Max was more. She would have enjoyed talking with him, asking how Cleo had been. She wanted to try to find out if he’d missed her at all because she’d definitely missed him.