Читать книгу Innocent 'til Proven Otherwise - Amy Andrews - Страница 8

BETWEEN the taxi, the lift and his apartment door, Ali was having second thoughts. ‘I don’t usually do this.’

Max paused, the key in his hand hovering near the lock. He could hear the tremor in her voice, see the way she wasn’t quite meeting his eye. It was curiously touching.

He dropped his hand. ‘If it’s any consolation, I don’t either.’

Ali glanced at him, surprised at the genuine note of sincerity in his voice.

‘There’s been no one since my wife left.’ He grimaced and corrected himself. ‘My ex-wife.’

Their eyes locked and held. She caught a glimpse of his unhappiness again, a swirl of misery in his open honest gaze.

‘We don’t have to do this,’ he murmured. ‘We can get in my car and I can take you home.’

His voice stroked her skin in all the right places and she could feel her nipples tighten. She could go home—he was obviously a gentleman. Or she could go through his door.

And feel like a woman again. Attractive, wanted, desired.

She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. ‘Does it make me a bad person if I want to stay?’

Max smiled. She was very, very cute—all puzzled and indecisive. Wanting to and yet not. They were close, so close and the mix of her perfume and almost maidenly hesitancy was a potent combination.

She was staring at his top button. He placed a finger beneath her chin and lifted her face until she was looking straight at him.

‘It makes you even more desirable,’ he said, his voice husky. And he followed it up with a swift hard kiss, catching her sigh as he pulled away.

Ali stumbled against him slightly, reaching for him as she reeled from his cataclysmic five-second, closed-mouthed lip-lock. How on earth would she survive anything more lingering?

Desirable. He’d said desirable.

She looked up at him shyly, heart hammering, aware suddenly that her hand had bunched up his shirt. She smoothed it automatically as he looked at her expectantly.

Waiting.

She cleared her throat, afraid he might well have kissed her voice away. ‘Wow.’

Max gave a half-smile. ‘Indeed.’ Her bow mouth was parted and she had a kind of stunned look on her face and he had to admit to wanting to see that look again.

Preferably with her clothes off.

‘There’s more where that came from,’ he murmured.

Ali responded to the gentle tease in his tone and his weary smile. It made her want to soothe his brow and let him get lost in her body at the same time.

She held her breath and jumped in. ‘Better open the door then.’

It might be crazy but maybe, tonight, crazy was just what she needed.

Max inclined his head before turning to put the key in the lock. He twisted it and shoved the door open. He glanced back at her and gestured for her to precede him.

Oh God, oh God, oh God.

This was really going to happen. Her pulse thrummed a little faster, her breath hitched a little higher. She took a step and faltered, her mind racing ahead, mentally preparing.

‘Wait.’

Max dropped his hand and raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes?’

‘What about … do you have condoms?’

She might be practically vibrating with sexual need but having already interrogated Kat it would be hypocritical to not take charge of her own situation. The doctor in her had seen too many women duped into having unprotected sex by men who were prepared to lie to them to get it.

She knew it was a lot harder to say no when you were almost at the point of no return.

Max blinked at the unexpected question. Did he? They hadn’t used condoms in their marriage … Wait, yes, he did. Pete had bought him a box shortly after Tori had left and shoved it in Max’s bedside-table drawer but not before he’d slipped two into Max’s wallet.

Neither supply had been touched.

Max leaned against the doorjamb and grinned at her suddenly fierce-looking face. ‘Yes. An entire box.’

Ali ignored the light teasing note in his voice. ‘Sexual health is no laughing matter.’

Max attempted a sombre nod. ‘I agree.’

Ali couldn’t stop the smile that tugged at her mouth. ‘I suppose you think I’m being ridiculous?’

Max shook his head. He pushed away from the doorjamb and held out his hand. ‘I think you’re cute. Very cute.’

‘Great, more with the cute,’ she grumbled.

But her pulse skipped madly and she didn’t hesitate a moment longer. The tingle as his fingers folded over hers streaked heat up her arm, confirming the rightness of it all.

Max stepped backwards, tugging her gently forward, over the threshold of his apartment. Then inside. Shutting the door with a careless shove, he shrugged out of his jacket and pulled off his tie, his gaze firmly fixed to her softly parted lips.

He crowded in close to her, backing her up until she bumped against the door. Her perfume seemed to thicken as the heat between them intensified. He could hear her breath shorten and knew his had followed suit. His whole body had tightened in anticipation.

Everything was tense.

Everything was hard.

Everywhere.

He placed a hand either side of her head and watched her watch him. Watched her olive eyes darken a shade or two as he picked up that errant curl, stretched it out and let it go.

It sprang back, flopping once again across her eye.

‘Cute curl,’ he said, dropping a kiss on her eyebrow, the curl brushing his lips.

He ran his index finger down the straight neat line of her nose to where it tilted up slightly at the end. ‘Cute nose.’ And he dropped a kiss there too.

He moved his palm down to cup her jaw, tracing the outline of her lips, feeling it right down to his groin as they parted on a soft whimper. ‘Very. Cute. Mouth,’ he whispered.

Ali waited for the inevitable kiss, practically drowning in a fog of desire. She felt as if he’d been stroking her insides instead of dropping chaste kisses, nibbling around her edges. And she needed more. It was as if he’d drugged her and she was craving that next hit.

Max took his time stroking her lips, sweeping his thumb across the glossy cushions. Her breath was warm against the pad of his thumb, the beat of her pulse was wild beneath his palm and her throat moved convulsively as she swallowed. Each sweep intensified his longing but he was determined to hold back.

He knew when he let go and kissed her, really kissed her, there would be no holding back.

No more gentle.

No more slowly.

No more easy.

It had been a long time. And his appetite was back.

Ali had reached screaming point. How could a simple brush to her mouth be felt everywhere? How could it bead her nipples to unbearable hardness? How could it undulate through muscles so deep inside she didn’t even know she had them until now? How could it pool liquid heat in places that it hadn’t even touched?

‘Cute, cute, cute,’ Max whispered.

Ali groaned. ‘Shut up and kiss me properly.’

And then she took matters into her own hands, standing on tippy-toes and dragging his face towards her, closing the maddening distance.

Max inhaled as their lips met, sucking in her heat and her breath and her sweet, sweet perfume and it was like rocket fuel through his already charged bloodstream.

He exploded.

He ground her against the door, pinning her with his mouth and his hands and his hard, hard body. Demanding entrance into her mouth with his tongue and sweeping inside like a conquering general. She tasted like rum and strawberries and his hunger intensified. Angling her head back, he plundered every moist morsel of it.

She moaned beneath his onslaught, clutched his shoulders, pulled him in deeper and he gave her more. His hands slid to her hips, gripping them hard then releasing only to grip them again, pulling her harder, closer, nearer each time. His erection strained against the maddening friction, getting harder, more demanding.

His lips left hers to explore all the soft, sweet places of her neck and she moaned again. He’d forgotten how soft women were. How they fitted to a man’s body, how they yielded against all the hard angles and planes and moulded just right.

Her fingernails dug into his back and she gasped, ‘Max,’ as he laved the frantic pulse in the hollow of her throat.

He claimed her mouth again revelling in her noises. He’d missed those mysterious womanly noises. The gasps and the whimpers. The little sighs and moans and the desperate, unintelligible urgings that came from deep inside when you hit a sweet spot and they did-not-want-you-to-stop.

She opened for him wide, matching the fervour of his mouth with her own and it was a very potent mix. Heady and sexual and dirty.

Good, dirty.

It had been a long, long time since he’d felt this good. Since he’d last kissed a woman he didn’t really know. And he’d been more than fine with that. He’d been happily married, perfectly content. But that was then and this was now and Ali was shifting against him with reckless abandon that felt good everywhere.

For the first time in a long time he felt good.

Everywhere.

And he was going to damn well take what was on offer.

Pete had been right. He did need this.

Ali could barely breathe from the lust slugging her system, thickening in her veins like molten lava, beading like liquid mercury. She was dizzy and light-headed but strangely heavy-limbed all at once.

His tongue was stroking against hers—prodding and probing and lapping against her mouth as if it had been crafted especially for him from the world’s sweetest chocolate. She could taste beer and opened to him to taste some more.

His hands were clamped on her hips, scorching his palm prints into her flesh like a brand and his groin was pressed so intimately against her she already knew what it was going to feel like to have him inside her.

She’d forgotten how great this was. How kisses could last for hours. How the taste of someone new could be so endlessly fascinating you just couldn’t stop. How the need to touch them, taste them, became an overriding imperative. How being intimate with a man could make you feel loose and yet tight in all the right spots.

She realised it was probably the first time in a year she’d gone this long without thinking about Tom.

If this was moving-on sex then she was a convert.

She thrust her hips against his hard belly again and rubbed herself against the even harder ridge that was driving her mad. She wanted to touch it. Feel its steel and its heat and its purpose. Wanted to touch all of him. To see him naked. To press her lips to every inch of his flesh.

To make him moan.

To make him come.

To make him beg for more.

‘I need to see you,’ Max groaned into her neck as he pulled her blouse out of the waistband of her skirt.

And she knew exactly how he felt. She wanted more. Needed more. More than passionate kisses and fully-clothed fumblings. She needed to see his flesh. Familiarise herself with his skin. Surround herself with the aroma of pure male animal. Inhale the very essence of him.

She followed suit, pulling his shirt-tails out of his trousers and fumbling like a two-year-old with his buttons as he licked heat along her collarbone. It rendered her fingers totally useless and her eyes rolled back as his tongue dipped lower, tracing the full curve of one breast.

How long had it been since a man had taken the time to seduce her so thoroughly? Tom had certainly never been this thorough. And those few teenage fumblings had been exciting at the time but had most definitely lacked the finesse that oozed from Max’s fingertips like some kind of sexual magician.

Or was that genius?

A fingertip whispered against her nipple and she almost fainted from the pleasure. She gripped his shirt for fear of falling and moaned her pleasure—again.

His half-opened shirt brought her back to her original mission and she tried again to divest him of it. But as his fingers continued to lightly tease her nipples, stoking her pleasure higher, she gave up the battle, grasped both sides of his shirt and ripped.

A button pinged on the door near their heads and it momentarily shocked them out of their haze. Ali, breathing hard, stared at his bare chest, stunned by both her handiwork and his pure male magnificence.

She blinked. ‘I’m … I’m sorry,’ she murmured.

Max, breathing even harder, looked down at his tattered shirt. ‘I have a dozen more,’ he said.

And reclaimed her mouth.

She speared the fingers of one hand into his hair, dragging his head closer as her other hand stroked his chest, his back, his belly. She felt his muscles contract in her wake and broke off the kiss to follow with her mouth. To put her lips where her fingers had been.

She kissed down his neck. Nibbled at his collarbone. Ran her nose across the rounded heat of a perfectly formed pectoral. And swiped her hot tongue across his disc-like nipple.

Ali was sure it sizzled but his loud groan obliterated the soft hiss.

Max could feel his control unravelling as she laved his chest with her tongue. It made him harder and hotter and hungrier than he’d ever been. He didn’t want her to stop but he needed more.

He pushed her back. Her face was flushed, her mouth moist from its ministrations and his breath hissed out. ‘I want to look at you,’ he half groaned, half growled.

Ali sucked in a breath at his guttural command. She was incapable of thinking never mind denying him. Everything felt good and him looking at her could only feel better.

She smiled at him through lust-laden lids. ‘Be my guest.’

Max made short work of the buttons on her blouse. Two glorious mounds of soft female flesh greeted him and he just stared for a few moments. She was wearing a see-through bra and he could clearly see her nipples scrunched like perfectly edible berries.

‘Max,’ she whispered, uncaring of the plea in her voice as she wantonly arched her back. Didn’t he know he couldn’t look at her as if he wanted to eat her without following through?

He ran both thumbs down the centre point of each breast, grazing the nipples as he went. Her breath hitched loudly and his erection surged at the strangled whimper that slid from her lips. He reached down into the deep valley between and unsnapped the front clasp. They sprang free—round and full, falling softly into a natural pendulum, the aroused nipples precisely centred.

He filled his hands with her and they spilled over his large palms. He squeezed, brushing his thumbs over the taut buds teasing him with their perfection.

‘Max,’ she moaned, clutching his head as he bent over them and created exquisite havoc with his tongue.

When he tugged a nipple deep into the heat of his mouth she bucked and cried out, her heel kicking at the door. And he got harder. He slid a hand behind her, between her shoulder blades, pressing her closer still, wanting to taste all of her, to devour all of her.

Her moans, her murmurs, her little strangled sobs were a powerful turn on and he wouldn’t stop teasing her until he’d wrung every single one from deep inside her. Tonight was about forgetting but it was also about remembering. He’d been good at this. And he wanted to be one man that Ali never forgot.

Ali was sure she was drooling. She certainly felt as if she was babbling incoherently. Her breasts had been an erogenous zone that Tom had never really paid attention to. Sure, he’d liked that she had them, that they looked good, that he was the envy of his friends. But he’d virtually ignored them when they’d been making love.

It was a revelation to be with a man who treated them with such reverence. Who was content to worship them as if they were the most perfect set of breasts that ever existed.

She could have been perfectly happily have him do this all night. In fact as his teeth grazed a sensitive peak and her belly contracted she was damn sure after a year of abstinence she could get off on this alone.

But she also needed to explore him. Was hungry to feel the hot, hard length of him. In her hand. Against her belly. Deep inside her.

Summoning the few functioning brain cells she had left, she reached for him. Her hand found her target instantly, thick and straining against the fabric of his trousers. She scraped her nails against him and he lifted his head from her breasts on a groan.

Max looked Ali in the eye as she squeezed him hard. ‘Oh, God,’ he panted, shutting his eyes at the erotic torture. Ali smiled at him, her face flushed, her olive eyes khaki with undiluted lust.

‘Don’t stop,’ he whispered and lowered his mouth to a peaked nipple and sucked on it hard.

Ali clutched harder, fumbling for the zipper, not wanting to stop but needing more access. Needing to feel the warm silky flesh covering all that hardness. Needing to feel all of him.

Max reared back bellowing loudly when her hand made its first contact. She palmed the length of him and his breath hissed out like a steam engine. She did it again and he moaned deep and low. And when she rolled her thumb across the spongy firmness of his head he cried out.

And then he kissed her. Deep and hard, his tongue thrusting in sync with the motion of his hips as her hands continued to grip him, encircle him.

‘I want you in me,’ she whispered against his mouth. ‘Now!’

Max needed no further encouragement. He reached for her skirt and rucked it up both sides, his hands sliding around to the cheeks of her backside, squeezing tight, urging her closer to him. His hands found the narrow strip of fabric sitting on each hip and figured she was wearing some kind of G-string.

He grabbed one side and yanked, snapping it as if it were dental floss. ‘Sorry,’ he murmured against her mouth with not one ounce of contrition.

Ali smiled. ‘I have a dozen more.’

And then his fingers were stroking her and Ali couldn’t have cared less if they were made out of spun gold and were the rarest knickers in the world.

‘Condom,’ Max said to her as he slid first one finger and then another into her tight moist heat.

‘Wallet,’ he directed and then claimed her nipple.

Ali’s knees buckled and she was grateful when he braced his legs against hers for support. Reluctant to let go of all his magnificent male hardness, she fumbled in his trouser pocket with her other hand. Locating his wallet was easy but getting it out and open while his fingers filled her and rubbed in just the right spot was a task almost beyond her. She could already feel a delicious tightening.

Max lifted his head. ‘Hurry,’ he growled and turned his attention to the other nipple.

There was no choice. She had to let him go. Still, her hands shook as she located the foil packet and then opened it. The steady rhythm of his fingers moving her inexorably closer to orgasm caused her to fumble as she attempted to roll it on.

‘Ali, for God’s sake,’ Max groaned into her neck.

‘I can’t … concentrate,’ she panted as a ripple undulated through her. ‘You … oh … dear God …’ she drew in a ragged breath ‘… that feels so good.’

Max smiled at her lust-drunk expression. It felt good to see that look, to know he’d put it there. ‘What, this?’ he asked, circling his fingers.

Ali gasped. ‘God, yes, please … stop. I’m never going to be able to put this damn thing on otherwise.’

Max acquiesced but kept his hand firmly in place. ‘That better?’

Ali shut her eyes as the ripples petered off. ‘Marginally.’ It was enough to accomplish her goal anyway and it was Max’s turn to pale as she created her own brand of havoc sheathing him slowly and thoroughly.

‘Ali,’ he warned, squeezing his eyes shut, ruthlessly suppressing the urge to rear like a rutting stallion.

It was Ali’s turn to smile but she heeded his warning nonetheless, completing the job posthaste. ‘Go,’ she said, leaning forward and kissing him full and hot and open. ‘Now!’

Max didn’t have to be asked twice. He slid his hand down her thigh and urged her leg up. He bent it at the knee and held it close to his waist as he pushed inside her in one easy movement.

Ali gasped, digging her fingers into his shoulder blade. ‘Yes.’

Max repeated the movement, sliding higher this time, her gasp mingling with his groan somewhere inside their heated kiss.

Max pushed again and again. The movement rocked her against the door and jiggled her breasts most enticingly. Too enticingly as he switched his attention from her mouth to her still-taut nipples.

Ali whimpered. The delicious push and pull of Max and the erotic swipe of his tongue were all-consuming. She burned, throbbed, ached, yearned. The pressure built and built, the ripples returned and her breathing grew shorter, harder, faster.

Max could feel the ripples too. The sensation started at his belly button and radiated down. Ali’s desperate little gasps and the thrum of his own blood strengthened it. His biceps trembled, his shoulders quivered as the sensation raced like a rogue electrical storm through every muscle group.

It finally came to rest down deep and low and grew, expanded, intensified.

‘Max!’ Ali gasped as her orgasm hit, clutching him close. ‘Max, Max, Max!’

He felt her tighten around him, her muscles undulating along his length, milking him, demanding his surrender. His blood tingled. His nerve endings tightened. And when she threw her head back against the door in a silent scream he yielded to the demands of both their bodies, joining her somewhere in the stratosphere, holding tight as starlight rained down on them.

Ali felt heavy as she bumped back down to earth. But curiously weightless. She shifted in Max’s arms, aware that he was essentially holding her up.

Max gripped her thigh, not wanting to move, not wanting to spoil a moment that would be with him until the day he died. ‘You okay?’ he asked.

Ali shook her head. She never knew sex could be completely mind-bending. How had she got to twenty-nine and not known that sex could be this good?

‘I doubt I’ll ever be okay again. I think I just touched the stars.’

Max smiled. It had been pretty incredible. He lifted his head from the hollow of her neck. ‘Pretty good for a fish, huh?’

Ali laughed as she traced her fingers through his stubble. ‘Please tell me you can do that again.’

Max chuckled. ‘I may need a moment.’ She laughed again, feeling light and loose and free of a year full of baggage—even if only for tonight. ‘It’d be such a shame not to put a few more of those condoms to good use. Don’t you think?’

Max kissed her neck. ‘Absolutely.’