Lovers at Heart (6 page)

Treat pulled out of the parking lot. “Where to, beautiful?”

Did he need to talk like that? Pulling her in with his seductive words and smooth voice? She could barely think, much less talk.

“Left at the light. I live in Allure.”

He nodded and headed out of town. The silence was deafening, and Max felt her confidence slipping away.
What would Kaylie do?
She reached over and turned on the radio, then moved her shoulders slowly to the beat.

Treat put his hand on hers and held on tight. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it.

“Max, I love the feel of your skin.”

Touch me. Pull over the truck and touch me
. She tried to keep her hand from trembling against his thigh, where he held it beneath his. What do you say when a man says that to you? She had so little experience with seduction and realized too late that she was way out of her league.

“Thank you?”
Ugh. Shoot me. Please shoot me
.

“Thank you.” He glanced over with a serious look, before turning his attention back to the road. “For giving me another chance.”

Max knew she didn’t have a chance in hell of turning him away. She wanted him more with every word he spoke. She guided him toward her apartment.

As he parked the truck, Max suddenly realized that she was taking Treat Braden to a one-bedroom apartment. The man owned resorts all over the world. She was dying inside, but there was no alternative. She couldn’t magically create a glamorous house for her to call her own.

“It’s nice here,” Treat said. He walked around and opened Max’s door for her.

She wished he’d stop being a gentleman already. It was too hard, waiting for the first kiss, the first touch. And now there he was in all his glory, standing beside her open door like a dream. Max swung her legs out and stepped onto the runner. He took her hands to help her down, and instead of stepping down, she leaned forward and settled her lips over his. His hands moved to her waist.
God, he tastes sweet
. His tongue explored her mouth slowly and sensuously. He drew her closer, until her body was against his. Without any thought, Max encircled her arms around his neck and pulled herself up, wrapping her legs around his waist.

He grasped her thighs and kicked the door closed.

She could have kissed him all night, right there under the streetlights, with her dress hiked up around her waist and a set of headlights coming right for them.
Headlights? Headlights!
Max pulled back, and sure enough, there was a car backing into the parking lot across from them.

“Oh gosh. We…I…”

He set her gently on the ground, without so much as a blush, then opened the truck door and grabbed her purse. “Perhaps we should go inside,” he said.

She hurried toward her third-floor apartment, hoping to avoid whoever had seen them in the parking lot—and to get back to kissing. At the door, she closed her eyes as she fiddled with the key, praying she could get through the night without making a fool out of herself. Being in a dark room at the party, with all those people, she could almost pretend she was in a movie. But here, about to enter her apartment, she was suddenly scared shitless. She turned her back on the closed door and said, “My apartment is small.”

“I like small.”

“It’s not glamorous. It’s…utilitarian.”

He put a hand on her waist. “I’m all about efficiency.”

The heat beneath his hand made her stop and catch her breath. “There’s nothing really fancy about it.” She swallowed hard as he put his other hand on her waist and moved in closer. His breath was sweet and warm. She licked her lips, dying to taste him again.

He moved his hand to her face, then lifted her chin and tilted her head back. “Fancy is overrated,” he said, covering her lips with his.

She dropped her keys and pulled him closer, thankful his hands were holding her up. Every stroke of his tongue made her melt a little further under his spell. She had never craved kissing anyone so much or enjoyed it for so long. She dug her hands beneath his thick hair and pulled him harder against her. His desire pressed against her middle, and a moan escaped her lips into his mouth.

She drew away, embarrassed. Max had never been a verbal lover. How could she be a verbal kisser? His eyes were so dark, so desirous. She reached for her keys and unlocked the door, feeling his heat behind her, driving her faster into the dark apartment.

Treat closed the door behind them, and she watched him taking in the secrets of her private living space. Surveying the small, tidy living room with one beige couch and an overstuffed chair, then skimming the bar that separated the cozy kitchen from the rest of the apartment.

“It’s small, I know, but—”

“It’s perfect,” he whispered.

Max had had only two males in her apartment before. And she was pretty sure the Cub Scout selling popcorn with his mother didn’t count. She had absolutely no idea what to do with a man like Treat in her apartment.

He must have sensed her nervousness, because he went to the bookshelves and brought the candles to the coffee table, and lit them with a silent smile. She didn’t think her heart could beat any faster than it was.

“Sit next to me,” he said as he took off his jacket and laid it neatly on the chair.

Max breathed a sigh of relief when he took control. She felt his presence like a torch beside her. Her nerves tensed with anticipation.

“Tell me something about yourself,” he said.

She had no idea what to say. She was too inexperienced to come up with a quick, sexy answer.

“I’ll start,” he offered. “My favorite place in the world, besides right here on your couch this very second, is Wellfleet, Massachusetts.”

“You travel all over the world and your favorite place is some Podunk town in Massachusetts?” She had to laugh, which, she had to admit, lessened the tightening of her nerves.

“Yeah, it is. I have a little house on the bay. It’s quiet, nice.”

He put his hand on her leg, stirring those nerves again.

“What gets your juices flowing?” she asked, immediately realizing she deserved the amorous look he was giving her. “I mean, outside of…this.”

“That’s easy. My work. I get such a thrill out of taking a resort from flat to finished, making it world-renowned. Even the negotiations are exciting to me. When I walk into a room and I know that the people on the other side of the table want something I’m not willing to give, just being able to turn it around is the biggest high I’ve found.”

“I see it in your eyes. Even now, they’re so alive. That’s how I feel about my job, too. It’s the same. I mean, not on the same scale, but the same thrill.”

He ran his finger down her cheek, and her entire body clenched with desire.

“What else?” he asked in a seductive voice.

I want to kiss you right this very second and never stop
. “I love sweets. Chocolate mostly. And I hate jelly.”
Jelly? I’m so lame
.
I’ll tell you anything—just kiss me already.

“Okay, no jelly.” He smiled, resting his hand on her thigh. “My favorite color is blue,” he said.

My favorite color is your hand on my body
. “Lavender,” she managed. “Favorite smell?”
This is not good. Smell? Kill me. Please just slit my throat and put me out of my misery.

He cupped the back of her head with his free hand and nuzzled into her neck. She closed her eyes against the shudder his warm breath sent through her.

“Toasted almond ice cream.”

“What?” It took her a minute to remember she’d asked him a question. “Ice cream has a smell?” A hazy, horny fog had enveloped her mind, spurred on by the stirrings between her thighs.

“A delicious one,” he said.

The way he said
delicious
made her lick her lips.

“Tell me something you love.” He moved so close she could taste his minty breath as he spoke.

She clung to the edge of the couch, sure that if she didn’t, she’d pounce on him like a lioness on her prey and devour him in ways that made her blush to think about.

“My favorite flowers are Knock Out roses.” She’d never seen them in person, only in pictures.

“Knock Out roses,” he whispered.

TREAT COULD hardly believe he was sitting beside Max, the woman he’d been thinking about, dreaming about, pining over, for the past six months. Her kisses were sweeter than sugar and so warm they made him ache for her. He’d wanted to take her right there in the parking lot. He had to pull it together. She was
not
a one-night stand, and if his racing heart and flaming nerves were any indication, she was destined to be so much more than any woman he’d ever been with.

He was as nervous as a teenage boy readying to feel up a girl for the first time. What on earth was causing him to lose his edge? Nerves hadn’t been a part of his sex life since he was a kid, and all the talking in the world wasn’t helping the throbbing reminder in his pants, which only reinforced his nervousness.

“Max.” Just sitting beside her, touching her thigh, the way she looked at him with desire and embarrassment, all wrapped up into one, sped up his thrum of desire. “You’re so beautiful.”

She leaned in to kiss him, and he held her back gently. He needed to talk to her first. He had to apologize. Treat wasn’t a man who treated women poorly. The fact that he had hurt her had been weighing heavily on him. She’d blown him off when he’d apologized, and it was a half-ass apology anyway. He hadn’t taken the time to really apologize the way she deserved. He wanted—no, he needed—to explain things to her.

“Max, I want to talk to you first.”

She froze beneath his touch and closed her eyes. “It’s me. You don’t want me again, right?”

“What? No.” He grabbed her wrist as she pushed herself from the couch. “Max, that’s not it at all. You’re misinterpreting my hesitation.” Why did he always have to sound so damned professional? Why couldn’t he pour out his emotions?

Her chest rose and fell with each breath as he watched anger reach her narrowing eyes. Damn it. She was misconstruing his intentions; he could see it.
The hell with it
. He’d explain it to her later. After. When she was too tired to run away or even think.

He pulled her down onto his lap and kissed her—hard—until he felt the tension in her body ease, and she leaned in to him.
God, she feels good
. He brought his hand to her waist, and she lifted her arm around his neck. He cupped her breast, caressing her through the filmy fabric of her dress, feeling her nipple harden beneath his touch. He needed her—all of her. She arched her neck, and he kissed the edge of her jaw, the dip between her chin, then took her neck into his mouth in a long, sensuous suck that felt like it might pull the come right out of him.

She moaned, urging him, pressing her chest into his hand. He pulled her dress to the side and took her breast into his mouth, sucking, licking, as she writhed on his lap, grinding herself into him. He moved to the other side, lapping at the crest of her breast before gently teasing her nipple with the tip of his tongue. She grabbed his hair and pulled his mouth harder around her, then lifted his head away from her delicious breast and looked at him with hunger.

“Bedroom?” she said in a heady voice.

He rose with her in his arms and walked through the open bedroom door. Her bedroom was exactly what he’d envisioned, just like the rest of her organized nest. She had a simple dresser, king-sized bed, and a nightstand, all neat and tidy. The only item out of place was a single black dress hanging at the entrance to her closet. She kept her room just as organized as he did, and that only deepened his attraction to her.

“May I?” he asked before lowering her to the bed.

“Please,” she answered.

He set her on the edge of the bed and removed his tie, setting it neatly on the dresser before unbuttoning his shirt.

Max reached for his pants, and he took her hand in his. “Not yet,” he whispered. He folded his shirt and set it beside his tie, then brought her to her feet and turned her around. Moonlight streamed through the window, illuminating her body as he unzipped her dress and dropped the straps from her shoulders to her forearms, trapping her arms beneath. He kissed the tender skin on the back of her neck until she tensed beneath his touch. Her skin was smooth and soft beneath his lips as he kissed along the curve of her back, sliding her dress down to her waist. She was more beautiful than any woman Treat had ever been with, and it took all of his resolve to take it slow, pushing past the intoxicated rush of the innocence that softened her sexuality. Her silky stomach arched into his hands as he ran his fingers up from behind and caressed her bare breasts. She gasped as he took her nipples between his index fingers and thumbs, teasing, squeezing, until they stood erect and she moaned in pleasure—and oh, what that moan did to him. He ran his tongue along the side of her slim, delicate neck, sucking gently, licking the tender spots.

He released his hold on her dress, and it dropped to the floor. He pressed his body against hers, chest to back, skin to skin, then ran his hands down her sides and gripped her hips. When she pressed in to him, he wanted nothing more than to taste her—all of her. He kissed his way down her back, to the sensitive skin just above her panties, then ran his finger beneath the strap of her lacy thong and followed it down the front, slipping it over her damp curls. Lightly teasing the hot and sensitive flesh between her legs made him swell with desire. He pressed himself against her at the same moment he slipped his finger inside of her, drawing out another sweet moan of pleasure.

She grabbed his wrist, pushing his hand deeper into her, and he bit in to the crest of her shoulder, cupping her breast with his free hand. God, he wanted to be inside her. She arched her neck against him, and he moved his other hand down between her legs, rubbing the sweet bundle of nerves with one hand while probing her deep and slow with the other. He felt her tightening around his fingers as she gasped in quick breaths. Her body throbbed and pulsed against him as she clenched his arms, rose up on her toes, and called for him in a husky, breathless voice.