by Carol Rose
His eyes still locked on hers, Max reached into his pocket, extracted a money clip and gave a bill to the driver. “Keep the change.”
“Thanks.” The cab driver never turned around.
“Come in whenever you want to tomorrow,” Max stated, his hand on the door knob.
Her heart bruising itself as it beat hard against her breast bone, she impulsively put out a hand and caught his arm. As if magnetically drawn, his gaze dropped to where her hand rested pale against the dark fabric of his suit coat.
Swinging back up to meet her eyes, his black gaze held both a question and an almost startled invitation, the fierceness of it left Nicole struggling to breathe.
Yes, he wanted her…and she knew with all the certainty she could possess that he needed her as well. More than any of the young thugs in her classes…Max needed her.
Sliding her hand down his arm to grasp his, her gaze never wavered from his face. She knew what she was doing. Crazy, maybe. Probably stupid, but it seemed the only thing her heart would let her do.
Max paused, seeming to give her every chance to change her mind. When she didn’t draw back,
he opened the cab door and pulled her out of the car after him.
Silent with the racket of the city around them—the cab pulling away from the curb, someone down the street cursing and banging a trash can—they walked into the foyer of his building, hand-in-hand.
“Good evening, Mr. Tucker,” the doorman said, nodding at Nicole. He turned back to the desk to answer a ringing phone.
Moving past him to the elevators without speaking, they paused. With her hand in his, Nicole fancied she could feel his heart pounding along with hers. Once in the elevator, he made no move to draw her into his arms, but only stood looking at her, his dark gaze both guarded and velvety soft.
Despite the quiet mewing of her brain, she ignored her fading reservations. Had she ever heard Max admit to being effected by anyone, ever? Not until now, this moment with her.
The elevator hushed gently to a stop on his floor, the doors opening. Stepping out, they walked, still in silence, down the hall to his door.
Max let go of her hand long enough to find his key and unlock the door which he then pushed open. He stood looking at her, his face taut and waiting. Another decision moment for her, he seemed to telegraph. And yet there was hunger in his face and in the tense set of his mouth.
He seemed to want her to be sure of what she was doing, but having her go would leave him frustrated and aching. Knowing this was easy for Nicole. She shared the same urgent call of the flesh, the same tenuous connection of minds.
Taking his hand, she lifted it and placed a kiss in his palm. She heard his ragged breathing, felt the tension in his body. Stepping inside the apartment, she drew him in with her. Together, they crossed the hall and climbed the stairs, no words breaking the fragile agreement between them. Their footsteps muffled on the carpeted treads, they passed his writing seat on the landing, turned and climbed to his bedroom suite.
At the top of the stairs, Nicole stopped, letting him lead the way into his room. A loft with uncurtained windows across two walls, the room was huge and filled with little more than shadows. Only the ever-present lights of the city pierced the gloom. In the middle of the nearly-empty room, surrounded by what appeared to be stacks and stacks of books, was his bed on a raised platform, one step up from the rest of the room. Massive and rumpled, pillows tumbling to one side, the cushioned dais seemed to draw her forward.
Following her now, Max still said nothing.
But she saw vulnerability on his face. Wanting in its most naked, open sense. Was he aware of how momentous this decision was for her? Not for every man did she lay herself bare, but at this moment with him she felt so alive, so powerful, she was surprised not to be physically vibrating with it.
Placing her hands on his broad shoulders, she drew him to her, mouths meshing. Excitement sizzling along her nerves, Nicole pressed herself to him, her mouth open wide to his. She felt his arousal, not just his erection imprinting her, but the tension in his muscles, his body vividly hard against her. The scent of him, fresh, clean and hungry, filled her lungs.
As if she were tutoring his unloved soul, she cupped his face in her hands, her lips open to his plundering. The street light from the windows fell across them in chunks, harsh in its yellow angles, but absent of any glare.
Angling her head to gain better access, she explored the limits of his kiss, his tongue velvet against hers, his breath quick and rough as he held her to him. Overwhelmed with tenderness, Nicole wooed him, open-mouthed, open-hearted. He smelled good and felt better, his broad shoulders and powerful arms enticing her to snuggle closer. She wanted him wrapped around her, wanted the sensation of falling trustingly into his grip. As if she could soothe the wounded beast with her own yielding heart, she seduced him.
In the very fierceness of his thundering pulse and his dark, dark eyes, she felt his vulnerability. This troubled, brilliant, beautiful man needed her.
And with his arms, he held her; with his mouth he answered her every need. As if the shushing in her veins called to him, he cradled her near to his body, his head bent to her, his arms encircling her.
Feeling as powerful as one of the mythical sirens who had called sailors to their deaths on the rocks, Nicole slipped her hands down and loosened his tie. She wasn’t calling him to his death, but rather to a fulfillment she knew would be magical. Her mouth meeting his still in a wanton eroticism, her body ripening in his hold, she began slipping the buttons of his shirt loose until his chest was bare to her touch.
Her touch on his naked chest drew forth a growl from Max’s throat and his body seemed to actually heat beneath the palm of her hand. The texture of his skin, so firm and supple, the soft roughness of the hair on his chest, beguiled her.
Kissing him, kissing him still, she wrestled his shirt open and yanked it back over his shoulders, breaking his embrace from around her as his arms fell back. The suit jacket he still wore eventually gave beneath her demands, falling to the floor as she pushed the shirt back and down his arms. Stripping him bare, her hands greedy for the satin of his flesh, she eventually became conscious of his submissive restriction, his hands still captured by his buttoned shirt cuffs, his tie abandoned loose around his neck.
With Max’s mouth yet on hers, both taking and giving the most heated pleasure, she reveled in the freedom of sliding her palms over his naked arms. His muscles bunched beneath rippling flesh, he radiated burning hot under her touch. Vividly taut, his chest rose and fell with each harsh breath. She felt the flexing of his body, the total focus of his touch. Her own body echoed the trembling readiness she felt in him.
Over velvety smooth muscled planes, her fingers shivered, the pads of her fingertips registering him like she imagined an addict felt discovering heroin. Huddling ever closer to him, her mouth not leaving his, she slipped her hands behind his strong back, finding the path of his spine and dipping low until she reached his taut buttocks, cupping him, her fingers splayed.
Max went rigid in her arms, breaking their kiss as his head reared back. He gasped for air, his chest moving hard against her. Still his hands were imprisoned in his shirt cuffs. He stood submissive beneath her touch and she, unrepentant, cuddled closer, her mouth moving now over his neck, his collarbone, as her fingers gripped and stroked his buttocks. Hard against her, she felt his erection and, recklessly, she arched into him.
Then, his submission apparently at an end, he was struggling to free himself, yanking impatiently at his shirt sleeve buttons. Moving to assist him, she pulled his arm between their bodies and worked, unseeing in the dim light, to loosen the cuff. The shirt falling free on one side, Nicole reached to unbutton his other cuff.
Bent over the task, she was startled to feel his hand at her cheek, brushing back the fall of her hair, his fingers gentle along her jaw, tracing the edge of her ear. Trailing lower, he found the pulse at her neck, his touch sure. When she’d freed hi
s other hand from his shirt, she looked up into his face, her entire body craving him, her mind and soul entranced by the intentness in his gaze, the somber hunger in his eyes. Even in the dimly lit room, she could see the starkness in his gaze.
He stood in front of her, bare from the waist up, except for the loosened arrow of his tie, lying wantonly around his neck. Heart thumping in her chest, she reached out and took hold of his tie, slowly, slowly pulling him with her as she stepped backwards against the bed.
“Do you know,” he said in a conversational tone belied by his intent, brooding gaze. “Do you know your lips turn up at the corners even when you’re not smiling? As if some perpetual glow inside of you gives a smile to your every expression. Even when you’re bitching me out, there’s that mouth of yours, smiling at me.”
Nicole looked at him, aroused and uncertain, frightened of this between them and yet driven to take him inside her this night.
As she felt the raised bed behind her, he bent toward her again. “I like the taste of your smile, those lips, that mouth that keeps giving me such hell.”
Drugging, she thought muzzily, his kiss was filled with a chemical that left her hungry, whimpering for more of him. He seemed to find her smile, her mouth, her lips, just as addicting, because he kissed her again and again. Feeling the raw need in him, she gave him access, registering his hands in her hair, at the throbbing vein in her neck.
He lifted his mouth from hers, saying huskily, “You taste of vanilla and some sweet substance I’ve never known before.”
Looking up into his dark eyes, she drew a shaken breath. There were so many things he’d never known. Love, for instance. Who’d ever loved him out of his brooding silences or teased him into joining the rest of the world?
Coasting his forefinger over her bare arm, he said, “I think of nothing but the damndest clichés when I touch your skin. And they’re all wrong. Silk never felt as good as you.”
Standing before him, she saw herself reflected in his words, more beautiful than she’d ever felt. He was so complex, so convoluted and overwhelming. Undoubtedly, she should run out of this place before she was scorched by the fire inside him. Only she couldn’t. Somehow the sadness behind his cutting words had left her heart unguarded and she’d come to care for him far more than she should.
“Night after night,” he said, his voice low, “I’ve dreamt of you in this bed. I wake up in the early morning hours hard for you, aching.”
He needed her, and he wanted her, fiercely. Never in her life had she been so intensely desired. It was too much to resist, so she didn’t.
Scooting one heel strap down, and then the other, Nicole stepped out of her black sandals. She smiled up at him as she straightened, taking the hem of her knit dress in her hands. This moment was meant to be.
With one swift move, it was off over her head and she stood sandwiched between Max and his huge rumpled bed. She heard his swiftly in-drawn breath, felt his gaze roving avidly over her near-nakedness. Only a bra and panties stood between her and totally nudity.
Scooting up onto his big bed, she smiled at him. “Here I am, right where you wanted me.”
“Not quite,” he growled, reaching for her. His palms making contact with her thighs, he slid his hands up to her waist and pulled her toward the edge of the bed. For one weightless moment, lying flat on her back on the bed, she registered his strength.
And then he was touching her, his hands skillful and greedy, beautiful words pouring out of his mouth as he stood next to the bed.
“You have the longest legs,” he said drawing one up with a strong grip around her ankle. Standing next to the raised bed, he pressed his mouth at the inside of her foot. “Long and slender. I keep thinking of them wrapped around me while I drive into you. I’ve been hard for days.”
He was standing so close she could feel the brush of his bare chest against the back of her calf. His erection tantalizing against her bottom, he went on, “In my fantasies, I come into the room where you work and I see you sitting there in front of the computer, typing my words in. You sit leaning toward the keyboard sometimes and your hair falls forward off your beautiful neck. I’ve wanted to kiss you there.”
Trailing his hand along her inner leg from thigh to ankle, he sent shivers through Nicole, his words soft and lush in her ears. Max reached down, dragging a finger over her collar bone and down the valley between her breasts, sending a sizzle along her skin.
“Your breasts are beautiful. Perfectly full and round. They move ever so slightly when you walk. A tiny little bounce despite your bra. Pink nipples,” he murmured as he gazed down at her in her bra and panties, “so eagerly erect.”
Her one leg still resting upraised against his chest, he leaned forward a little, brushing his thumbs over her nipples where they pressed hard against her bra.
“I’ve often wondered what you would do if I walked up behind you while you worked and just gently cupped your breasts in my hands. I’d like to massage your nipples till you moan.”
A jolt went through her, the image adding fire to the pleasure from his touch where he stroked her.
“If you worked naked, I could walk in and fondle you whenever my thoughts of you made me hard. I could kneel between your knees and suckle your breasts. Then we could make love right there.” He paused, his breath hard. “You make me so hard, so crazy for you.”
Insane, she thought, the breath in her lungs expanding. She drove him out of his usual reality and made him insane.
“So pale,” he murmured, rocking his pelvis against her. “So beautiful. I need….”
Max pressed his open mouth against her leg in a soft, hot kiss, his fingers worrying the pebble of her nipple through the satin of her bra.
“God, I need you.” His hands shifting to her panties, he eased them off her hips and up, over her legs, left propped on his shoulders. “I need you so much.”
Lying on her back looking up at him, his short, dark hair soft where her foot lie against it, he seemed all-consuming, his eyes avid on her body, his hands sliding, smoothing, stroking over her flesh.
“So perfect,” he muttered, cupping her through her bra. His hands slid lower, bracketing her rib cage. “Such delicate bones, your skin so right under my hand. If a man didn’t believe in God, he would after seeing you.”
His words flooded over her like music to her heart. Aware of his erection pressing evocatively through his trousers, tempting against her naked bottom, she wriggled, aching to be filled.
Hot and damp against her inner leg, he kissed her as he drew a finger along her sensitive cleft.
“Ahhh.” The air deserted her lungs and she reached for him to draw him closer.
Almost immediately, his hands went to his belt, loosening it. With an economy of movement, he unzipped his pants, pausing only to take a condom from his pocket before he let them fall to the floor.
The tiny sound of paper tearing and a quick movement of his hands and he was there, pressing into her heat.
“God, you’re so tight. So hot,” he uttered in a strangled voice, his head thrown back as he eased himself into her, her ankles still resting on his shoulders.
Her muscles easing gloriously to accommodate him, she sighed, as he sank hilt-deep into her body. He paused, as if to gather himself, his breath harsh in the air between them. Lying dazed, impaled by his thick member, she trembled as ripples of pleasure rolled over her.
“So incredibly good,” he muttered, before slowly pulling back. “My God, Nicole. I’ve…never…felt anything…so good as…you around me.”
Bracketing his hands around her hips, he set a firm, steady rhythm and slowly drove Nicole out of her mind. Her hands clutching the sheets of the bed, she welcomed his every intrusion with soft cries, her body flooded with sensation. Filled with him, she could only submit to the fire raging through her body.
“Nicole,” Max muttered. “Oh, better. So much better…than anything….”
The tide rising within her, submerging thought
, with a roaring in her ears, she felt the explosion coming and gave herself over to it. The world disappearing into a vortex of hot, black, jagged pleasure, she felt Max swell inside her and heard his triumphant shout as a piercing cry was wrenched from her.
As if her soul tumbled within her, spinning and bouncing gloriously over the most powerful, sluicing sensation, she yielded to it, locked in Max’s arms.
* * *
It was still dark outside when the phone rang. Max tried to ignore the shrill sound, reveling in Nicole’s sensual nakedness all curled to him. Being tangled together like this with her breathtaking body felt so damned good. His whole body felt amazing.
Ring!
The pillows muffled the sound some, but, annoyed, Max found himself lifting his head to squint at the intrusive device on the small table next to the head of the bed.
Ring!
“Damn.” The clouds of sleep still curling through his brain, he reached for the receiver, pressing his thumb against the “talk” button.
“Hello?” Max said thickly. Who the hell would be calling his unlisted number at this hour of the morning.
“Hello.” It was a woman’s voice, completely strange to him.
“You have a wrong number,” he declared immediately, his thumb moving to disconnect the call.
“I’m calling for Nicole,” the woman’s voice said with a hint of a catch. “Is she there?”
“What?” he said, sitting up abruptly in bed, an unexplained feeling of dread puddling instantly in his gut.
Beside him, Nicole lifted her head, blinking as if to clear the sleep from her eyes. She whispered, “Who is it?”
His fingers tight around the receiver, he ignored her, the reality of what he’d done slamming into him as he came fully to his senses. He’d gone to that damned banquet and fucked things up with Pete even further. Then, to make matters worse, he’d gone and slept with Nicole, his muse. With the telephone receiver, clenched in his hand, already, hell was breaking loose.