Desperate to the Max (18 page)

“Is this because I used a Dodge Ram as a tool—”

He cut her off with a slash of his hand. “Were you thinking of me when you did it?”

“Like hell,” she shot back, not sure how to take what he’d asked, but needing to deny, deny, deny.

“You were.” For the first time she saw a spark of something in his eyes.

“Actually Cameron, not you, was the one who got me ... interested in Dodge trucks,” she answered back with bravado.

His nostrils flared. He looked down, then back up, his gaze raking her bare skin showing between the shirt lapels. “I’m here in the flesh, Max. He’s only with you in spirit.”

She’d lived with that truth for so long the words shouldn’t have hurt anymore. They did. She was willing to believe they hurt Witt, too.

His jaw worked around an apology, but those weren’t the words that came out of his mouth. “I’m a patient man, Max, but don’t push me too far.”

He paused a beat, eyes narrowing, the heat of his body touching her from a foot away. “Kiss me.”

Oh God. He switched on and off too fast. She couldn’t track his emotions. But Jesus God, she wanted to kiss him, really wanted to. Maybe she should. She looked from his lips, to his blue eyes almost black in the gloom, and back again. Maybe she could. “I can’t.”

A muscle twitched beneath his eye, then rested. “You mean you won’t.”

She rolled her lower lip between her teeth, let it pop back out, then opened her mouth to say—

“Screw it.” Witt grabbed her chin with his hand, his fingers along her jaw. “I’ll kiss you this time, but you damn well better kiss me back.”

Desire overrode his need to have her do it first. The knowledge was like a shot of power straight to her veins. She was mainlining now.

Kissing without using his tongue, just lips to lips, he tasted of coffee and donuts, sweet and rich. He smelled of musk aftershave, clean male sweat, and heady testosterone. Like summer rain on hot concrete. He took her face between his big hands, retreating to run his tongue over her bottom lip, then returned to kiss her again. She parted her lips, but he didn’t take possession the way she wanted him to. It was a promise that he’d go slow with her. It was a statement that one day soon the power would be his. It made her shiver right down to her bare feet. He pulled back, her face still firmly in his hands so that the only way to avoid his gaze was to close her eyes.

“What are we waiting for, Max?”

She wasn’t sure. Her hands had found their way to the muscles of his forearms.
Don’t let go. Ever
. A voice, Cameron’s, Bethany’s, her own? “What are
you
waiting for?” she asked softly, swallowing past the sudden lump in her throat.

“For
you
to make the choice. I want you, I care about you, and I’m asking for more than just sex. But you have to scale your own walls, Max. If I do it for you, the prize isn’t worth half as much. For either of us.”

“So you didn’t like kissing me?”

He gave a soft, throaty laugh, cupped the back of her head and, with a hand on her butt, pulled her flush against his erection. “What do you think?”

She licked her lips, watched him watch the movement, and thought of the last call, the Dodge Ram, her fantasies. “I think the sex part is what I do best. I’m not good at much else. I’m not good at sharing, I’m not good at letting a man take care of me, and I’m not good at caring.”

“Musta driven your husband crazy. How long’d he have to ask before you said yes?”

He’d dropped his pronouns again and started joking. At least she thought he was joking. It was a good sign. “Cameron never asked at all. He just told me what I wanted and took me along for the ride.”

Witt traced her cheekbones with rough fingers. Voice soft, eyes dark with something indefinable, he murmured, “Loved him a lot, didn’t you?”

Yes, she’d loved Cameron—he’d never given her a chance not to. Maybe that was why, when he was gone, she found herself in the same emotional desert she’d been in before he rescued her.

“Ask me to touch you.” There was so much more in his whispered words, so many things she was afraid he wanted that she could never ever give. Not again.

But maybe she could give him this one small thing. Keeping her gaze on his, she lifted his hand and put it to her breastbone. Warms fingers and the palm of his hand on her skin. She parted the lapels of her shirt so that they were flesh to flesh. Her heart thundered, and her blood raced in her ears.

His blue eyes blazed like the hottest part of the flame, but he didn’t say anything, nor move his hand from the spot she’d placed it. Dammit. She knew what he was thinking. He’d made this her show all the way.

She took his other hand and raised it, too, then guided him to cover her breasts beneath the shirt. Her nipples were hard and aching, and not because of the damn phone call.

A hard bead slipped between the fingers of his right hand, and he squeezed. His breath came a little faster now, and they were so close she could feel the rise in his trousers against her belly. She pressed against him. The lace of her panties rubbed the front of his pants.

He sighed, a soft exhalation of air, then closed his eyes and tipped his head back. She hadn’t said a word, but sometimes actions spoke louder than words.

When he looked at her again, there was nothing cold or unreadable in his expression. He slipped one arm behind her back, splaying his hand at the base of her spine, then pulled her hard against him. She threw her arms around his shoulders to keep her balance and held on as he rocked their bodies together.

“You’re gonna be the death of me, Max, I know it.” Voice rough, deep, she’d never heard quite that tone from him.

Then he eased away from her and slid down her body until his knees hit the floor.

“What are you doing?”

“What you’ve always wanted, going down on my knees for you.” Though his head was tipped up, her body blocked the light from his eyes. She hated not being able to see them.

“I never said I wanted that.”

“But you’re so damn good at cutting me down to size.”

Well. She was. “Get up.”

“I am up. Decided I like it down here.” He dipped his tongue in her belly button while his hands cupped her breasts.

She’d been on low simmer, but he’d turned the heat on high. His chin rested above her panty line. Then his fingers left her breasts and trailed down her sides to the elastic riding her hips. He slipped the lacy material down her thighs.

“Lift your foot,” his voice soft and low enough to send a tingle straight to her center. Her panties slid away to be tossed somewhere in the dark.

He palmed her. Oh my God. Her moisture dampened his flesh. She was naked except for her shirt while he still wore his jacket and tie. When he slipped a finger inside to touch her clitoris, she sucked in a breath at the contact and shut out everything else.

“Want me to stop?”

“You know damn well I don’t want you to stop.”

Sliding against her in all that wetness, he might have chuckled, but she was no longer sure exactly what she did or didn’t hear. Didn’t care either. She parted her lips and parted her legs. His big hand clamped down on her butt to hold her steady, but she still grabbed his shoulders. Kneaded them in rhythm to his stroke.

A soft breath chuffed between her lips, and she let her head fall back with the sheer pleasure of his touch. This was better than all the dreams and all the fantasies she’d had about him. Why had she waited so long?

Then he replaced his finger with his tongue, and she had to lie down before she fell down. The braid rug was scratchy and the floor hard, but Witt’s tongue was heaven on earth.

He sucked with just the right suction, licked with exactly the right pressure, and changed the tempo at precisely the right moment. Her body moved against his mouth, though he had her thighs pinned beneath his shoulders.

“Oh God, oh God, please don’t stop, please, c—“

He lifted his head. “Do not call me Cameron.” His teeth sounded a bit like he was crunching on rocks.

“I wasn’t going to,” she assured him.

“Yes, you were.”

For the life of her she couldn’t remember what the hell she’d been about to say.

“Where’s your husband right now?”

“I don’t know.”

“He’s not here?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Could we do the third degree later, Detective? I was just about to have an orgasm.”

“I know. But you’re not getting off until I do.” He crawled up her body until he flattened her against the carpet.

“What, you believe in simultaneous orgasms?”

“With you, yeah.”

“Get a grip.”

He grabbed her hand, pulled it between them, and curled her fingers around him through the material of his slacks. “You get a grip.”

Oh my. That would take one big grip. A huge one.

He rose to his feet, still fully clothed while she lay almost naked on the floor with her legs spread. A distinctly uncomfortable sensation. The last of her almost-there orgasm fled.

“Maybe we should forget this,” she said, rising to her elbows and closing her legs. “It wasn’t such a hot idea.”

Witt threw his jacket over the chair, kicked off his shoes, undid his tie, and started on his belt buckle. All the while he looked down at her. “Hottest idea I’ve had in a long time.”

“I thought the point was that it was supposed to be my idea.”

His shirt gone the way of the jacket, he stopped, his hand on his zipper. He had a very, very nice chest, gleaming in all that moonlight. “You wanna stop, Max?”

Darn. She and her big mouth. She could have let him do it, then said it was all his idea, and blamed him after it was over.

“Your choice,” he whispered, a deadly serious whisper that made her tremble and tingle at the same time. “Say stop, and we stop. Say go, and we’ll take each other to—”

He stopped. She couldn’t stand it. “Take each other where?”

It felt like they’d been sucked into a vacuum. Silence. Total. The longest and deepest she’d felt since ... since the crackle of chip bags and the shattering of salsa jars and the blast of the gun that killed Cameron fading into the stillness of the night.

Finally, Witt broke it. “To heaven, Max. Or hell. That’s your choice, too. But I’ll go there with you. I’ll go wherever you want. I can’t help myself.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Her chest hurt, her eyes watered, and taking a breath made her throat ache. Why the hell did he have to give her this kind of power? She was going to hurt him one day, hurt him badly. Max knew it, she hated it, but she didn’t know how to stop it. Why the hell couldn’t he figure that out and dump her?

The only thing she did know for sure was that today wasn’t that day.

She tugged on his pants leg. “You better make it heaven. Hell does
not
sound like a fun place. Now get down here because I’m getting cold.”

She hadn’t known he was holding his breath until he let it out in one long sigh. Then he unzipped his pants.

“Wait.”

“What?”

“Maybe you should leave your pants on and ... you know, do it with them unzipped.” The thought of him completely naked was the oddest thing. She’d dreamed of it, fantasized about it, but well, she’d never
seen
it.

He laughed. “No.” Then he slid his trousers and briefs off and tossed them aside. He missed the chair this time. “You, however, can keep the shirt so you don’t get rug burn on the way to heaven.”

She wasn’t listening. Her mouth dried up. The man was magnificent, all defined muscle, broad chest, and perfect skin that gleamed in the moonlight. She felt her eyes go wide as saucers. “Oh my God, that thing is huge.” A joke to relieve the knot of tension in her belly, it was nevertheless completely true.

“Compliments aren’t necessary. You get your orgasm no matter what.”

He tossed something. With a little plop, it landed on her belly. A condom packet. “How long have you been carrying this around?”

“Since the day I met you.”

“Hopeful, weren’t you?”

“Determined.” Then he came down beside her. She thought he’d reach for the condom immediately and get the trip underway. Instead, he slid his fingers into her hair and cupped the back of her neck.

“We’re not gonna fuck, Max. We’re gonna make love.”

“I know.” Not really.

“Say it then. Ask me to make love to you.”

“Make love to me,” she parroted.

“Make love to me,
Witt
.”

“Please make love to me, Witt.” There. She’d added
please
to make the phrasing slightly different from his. It’s all in the phrasing, you know.

He saw right through it, and his mouth quirked in the lightest of smiles. “You are a hard woman, Max Starr.”

Yeah. She’d never meant to be. “You know, it was you I was thinking about when I was talking on the phone.”

“Ride ’em cowboy?”

Ooh, he had been listening a while.

He grinned. “Knew it was me you were thinking about.”

Then he kissed her, his tongue parting her lips. She tasted herself in that kiss, and the intimacy both frightened her and called to her. She gave herself up to it and to the moment and the sweet suction of his mouth.

She turned to her side, and the condom slipped down between them. Then she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back. Open mouth, soft lips, eager tongue, gentle sigh. She caressed his calf with her foot. Crinkly leg hair tickled her flesh. He was all hard muscles and smooth skin. His nipples beaded against her breasts. He rolled to free his left arm from beneath them, and with one hand still locking her to his kiss, the other roamed her side, her torso, the underside of her breast. Smoothing a finger along her collar, he left her lips to suck on her throat, then sweep his tongue over the moist spot.

He nuzzled her ear. “You smell good and taste good.”

“So do you.”

Squeezing a butt cheek, he pulled her close, rotating his hips against her. He cupped her breast, molded it with his hand, then bent his head to her nipple.

She made a little noise as heat shot to the tips of her fingers and between her legs.