Careful What You Kiss For (20 page)

He watched as she found her card key and passed it in front of the reader. A beep and the door opened. That fast, Max was out of the shadows and behind her as she went inside.

She whipped around, eyes wide with fright. She cut off the beginnings of a scream and pressed a hand to her heart. “Max,” she choked out. “What are you doing?”

“I need to talk to you.”

“And to do that, you had to sneak up and scare the life out of me? I thought you were somebody — bad.”

“Yeah, speaking of that.” Taking hold of her elbow, he steered her toward the elevator. “Ever heard of being aware of your surroundings? You’re all alone at this hour and your head’s in your purse, looking for something.”

The elevator doors opened and they stepped inside. Tensley jabbed at the button for the fourth floor. She had no right, in Max’s opinion, to have that pissed-off look on her face right now.

He leaned against the back wall. “Know how long it would take for someone to overtake you when you’re that distracted?”

She turned, hands on her hips. “Let me guess. You timed yourself.”

“Not me. Somebody else.”

“You were the only one there.”

He decided to ignore that. “Five point two seconds.”

“You made that up.”

He had, but that wasn’t the point. “I’m concerned about your safety.” The words came out sounding self-righteous, even to his ears. He looked away, giving the elevator a floor-to-ceiling professional scan while his peripheral vision did the same with her. She was a hell of a lot more enticing than the elevator. And most everything else.

The doors opened and she stepped out. “Then don’t hide in the bushes.”

“Trees,” he said, as if it made any difference. She was already well ahead of him on her way to her apartment. When it occurred to him she might shut the door on him once she got inside, he picked up the pace. He couldn’t figure out why she seemed so annoyed.

She turned the key in the lock.

“Can I come in?” he asked.

Her skeptical look compelled him to add, “It’s business. I want to know what you’ve found out.”

“I don’t know.” She narrowed her eyes, gazing at a spot over his shoulder. Then she shook her head. “It can’t be a good idea to let someone in who crawled out of the bushes and tried to overtake me. In five point two seconds.”

He moved forward and shut the door behind them. “Very funny.”

She flipped on a lamp and set her purse down on a table. “Only thinking about my safety.”

“I’m not just someone.”

The teasing light left her eye. “No,” she agreed, holding his gaze. “You’re not.”

Something inside his chest pulled tight. Damn, she was beautiful. And hard as he tried, he couldn’t get the picture of her naked body out of his mind. He hadn’t been that turned on since — High school. “So,” he announced, his no-bullshit cop voice practically bouncing off the walls, “what did you find out?”

She looked away from him, rubbing a hand across the back of her neck. “I tried my best, but don’t think I have a lot to report, yet.”

She looked so disappointed, he wanted to reassure her it was okay, that she didn’t have to have anything for him yet, but he wrenched himself back into police mode before that could go any further. “Then tell me what you do have to report.”

A look of surprise flitted across her face, probably at the gruffness of his tone.

“Okay. Well.” She took a deep breath and he had to fight like hell to keep his eyes off her chest.

“There’s a hallway in back and I’m pretty sure that’s where Gary’s office is. He keeps it locked.”

“Go on.”
Eyes up, dammit.

“One of the dancers told me tonight that you can’t go back there without being invited. When I asked how you get invited, she said you have to be someone who doesn’t ask questions.”

That’s not Tensley.

“That isn’t me,” she continued with a sigh. “But I did manage to get back there.”

At that, his dick and the rational side of his brain paused in their ongoing battle, lowering the boxing gloves. “You did?”

“Into the hallway, anyway. The door to his office was locked, so I went into the supply closet next door when I heard Gary coming. He was arguing with Razor.”

Max nodded. What did Tensley see in that guy, anyway? The only book he probably ever opened was a bathroom reader of fart jokes.

“Did you know Gary owns a hardware store?”

“A hardware — ? No.” Max shook his head.

“Razor apparently had the idea to attract more business by putting girls in bikinis in the store. It worked, but Gary was furious. Told him to stop doing it.”

“Interesting, given Gary’s line of work.” Max scrunched his forehead, trying to think of laws that would prohibit bikini-clad girls from being in, or working in, a hardware store. He couldn’t come up with any.

“That’s what I thought, especially when it sounds like the hardware business isn’t very good right now. I don’t know why you’d go to all the trouble of having a store if you’re not going to do whatever works to get customers in there.” She paused. “Maybe Gary has some sort of moral code about little kids or something.”

They answered that at exactly the same time.

“Nah.”

“Nah.”

“While they were arguing,” Tensley went on, “Gary told Razor he didn’t pay him to think, which I thought was a really terrible thing to say to the guy, especially when he’s your son, and then he asked him, did he want the cops to come sniffing around the place?” She stopped mid-sentence, her gaze on Max. Questioning.

His eyes riveted on her. “Gary has a hardware business — ”

“ — that he doesn’t want the police in,” she finished. “Razor said that sometimes there’s only one or two customers all day. That would make it pretty hard to turn a profit.”

“Could be a tax write-off. But that wouldn’t explain him not wanting the police to come around.” Max rubbed his chin, thinking about the men he’d seen slinking along the walls of the strip club. Men who didn’t belong there and didn’t want to be seen.
Shit. Would Gary be stupid enough to — ?
His pulse sped up. “He could be using the store for something else.”

Tensley’s eyes lit up. “You think?”

“I think.” His thoughts raced. If Gary had illegal activities going on, he could run the money through another business, like an innocent-looking hardware store. Or, the illegal activities were happening
at
the hardware store. Why else would he berate his son for doing anything that might attract the police?

Oh, fuck yes. He’d been right. This could be good. Before he’d even stopped to think about what he was doing, he’d grabbed Tensley and begun spinning her around the room. “Do you know what this means?”

“I — uh, it means something good?”

Why was she slipping out of his hands? He reached down lower and hoisted her up, holding on tight. “Hell, yes. Could definitely be.”

She laughed. No one laughed like Tensley did, with that half-gulp that kicked off a giggle and ended up in a sound of pure joy that shot straight to his heart and made him want to join in.

Instead, he leaned down to kiss her. Hard. On those full, soft, parted lips.

Tensley’s brain stopped functioning the second Max’s mouth met hers. A gang of butterflies took over her stomach as her heart leaped somewhere into the back of her throat, and she had the overwhelming sensation of falling, falling … . Over a cliff, a ledge … .

Or onto the floor. She hit it with a plop. “Ow,” she said faintly.

He made a deep, rumbling noise in the back of his throat that caused her heart to race and her knees to forget they were supposed to be holding her up.

“What have you got on, Crisco?” Without waiting for an answer, he picked her up.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, not caring where they were going or why. She wanted to entwine her fingers in his hair, breathe in the warm, musky scent of him, feel his heart thudding against hers, and have him bury that hot, moist, hard, thrusting cock in her —

Okay. So maybe she did care where they were going.

He kicked the door open with his foot. Actually kicked it.
So Scarlett and Rhett.
That much registered in Tensley’s mind before he laid her on the bed, his warm, sweet, achingly familiar mouth covering her cheeks, her mouth, and then her neck with kisses that sent shivers through her.

He drew back long enough to mumble, his breath half gone and his eyes heavy-lidded, words that sounded like, “ … bad idea.”

A bad idea. On so many levels. She could barely manage to nod before he closed in with the urgency of a man with his foot on the pedal of a race car, ready to roar into the night, tires squealing, at the flick of a flag.

The butterfly gang in her stomach threw on leathers and furiously flapped their tattooed wings in a show of tough fear.

Tensley waved the green flag by grabbing Max’s face between her hands and kissing him like she’d never kissed anyone before, including him. His whiskers scraped against her fingers as his tongue probed the depths of her mouth.

She tore off his jacket. Through the haze of lust wrapped around her brain, she heard a thump when the jacket hit the floor and sent up a vague hope it wasn’t his gun.

Max grabbed hold of the bottom of her shirt and she raised her arms so it would come off fast. When their gaze locked in again, she caught her breath at the darkening blue of his eyes. He peeled off his own shirt and she rose toward him, reaching between her breasts to unsnap her bra. Her new, bigger breasts spilled free in an invitation to be held, cupped, massaged. His hands were a man’s now, no longer a teenager’s.

And …
ohhhh-my-gawwwd
if they didn’t fit her boobs perfectly.

A ripple of pleasure went through her at the feel of his fingers, his mouth on her. “Max,” she whispered, right before his lips closed on hers again and his bare chest, muscles rippling beneath, pressed against her skin.

It felt so good, so right, so … she was falling again, tumbling over a cliff there was no turning back from. He was going to find out she was no longer a girl. That she was one hot hell of a lay … even if … she had to figure out how to be.

She wrapped her legs around him, holding on tight as he enfolded her in his arms. And then they were sliding, falling, into another universe.

Right off the bed and onto the floor. She landed on top of him. He grunted in surprise.

They pulled back to look at each other, the only sound their joint ragged breathing.

“We shouldn’t — ” He sat up, struggling to get the words out. “We can’t — do this.”

“I know.” Why was that again? She couldn’t think. She raked her hair back with her hand, arching her back. “Bad idea.”

“Really bad,” he murmured, shaking his head. He pulled her close, his breath caressing her face and his lips nearly touching hers. Her nipples brushed his and the thrill that shot through her set off tiny explosions powerful enough to bring down a substation.

His hands traveled down her back to grab her bottom. “Damn, Ten,” he said, his voice rough and laced with heat, “What
is
that all over you?”

Bad idea or not, sometimes you just had to go for it. She stood, peeling off her jeans and panties one leg at a time, her eyes never leaving his. “You. I want you all over me.” As simple as the words were, as much as they sounded like a line from a bad porn film, they came straight from a place inside her that had never been able to loosen Max Hunter’s grasp on her heart.

She’d always known it. And now he was going to know it, too.

She had a second of terror that he might turn away, that he might leave her standing over him. Naked and alone. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears.

He put a hand to the floor and slowly rose until he stood before her, so close she could feel the warmth of his skin radiating to hers. His index finger brushed the underside of her chin. In his eyes, she glimpsed the sliver of vulnerability, wrapped tight in a tough guy wrapper, that had first drawn her to him, all those years ago. It was the side of him he had refused to let anyone else see.

“This isn’t high school,” he said.

“Damn right it isn’t,” she whispered, rising to her tiptoes to kiss him, softly at first and then harder.

Max groaned and pulled her tight. She put both hands on his chest and pushed away, breathing hard. Waiting for her brain to send words, any words, to her mouth.

He waited, his eyes continuing to darken.

“Strip, Hunter.”

“So you’re giving orders now.”

“You’re … ” She jammed her hands on her hips and looked up, at the ceiling. “ … wasting time. I might change my mind.” Like there was
any
chance of that now.

“Wouldn’t want that.”

At the sound of his low, gravelly chuckle, her gaze shot back to him. He tugged at the waistband of his jeans and began unsnapping them, but he was moving agonizingly slow. At this rate,
he
might change his mind. She tried to help, but ran into trouble right away, given the strain on the denim.

One of his hands caught her by the wrist, while the other moved his jeans and underwear over and around his rock-hard penis to free it. He released her, stepped out of his clothing, and pulled her to him.

She couldn’t talk, couldn’t function, couldn’t think. Max. Her Max, his eyes half-closed in the same salacious haze that consumed her body from head to toe. She reached to take him in her hand, watching the pleasure play out on his face as she stroked him.

Then he whispered in her ear, “You’re up first, Ten.”

Before she could finish processing his words, he scooped her into his arms, brushed the comforter and pretty lacy pillows aside, and again laid her on the bed. “Am I gonna have to get the handcuffs to keep you from sliding away?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she answered, laying her hand on the back of his neck and wrapping her fingers in the familiar dark curls. She pressed her fingers down, urging him toward her. He came willingly, closing his mouth on hers and then moving down, along her chin, her neck and between her breasts.

“I was kind of hoping … ” She caught her breath as his tongue played with her nipples, coaxing them into hard points. “ … um … for that guy I used to know who … um … ” Max moved further down, his tongue circling her belly button, exploring her abdomen. “ … liked to break the rules instead of … um … following them — ” The last word disappeared in a soft squeal as he parted her legs and his tongue found its target.