The Boss's Proposal (10 page)

His mouth was hot on her, pressing against the tender inside of her thigh. She felt the warm trail of his tongue on the soft skin. And then he found her, pressing his mouth on her, holding her down until her body bucked against him. And he drove her hard, dragging moans from her, making her quake with every slick caress until she tensed and tightened, shuddered. And then she was flinging her hands out to grip the sheets, her body arching off the mattress as the climax burst through her, one shock wave followed by another, and another.

Dylan moved up to lie next to her, taking her mouth as possessively as he had her core, feeling a sharp tug of arousal at the sporadic shudders that still ran through her body. “I've been waiting for that,” he murmured against her lips.

Max brought a hand up to his shoulder to press
him flat on the mattress. “Not nearly as much as I have,” she said, rising over him. “And not nearly as much as I've been waiting for this.”

And she was avid and agile, moving against him, her hands not satisfying but tantalizing, making him want, making him ache for her in a way he'd never known.

She bent over him, dragging her hair over his torso, the silky strands slipping over the skin of his chest, his belly, and lower, until she bent down and tasted him, lingering there as he groaned, every atom of him focusing on her touch, that tease, that slick, hot caress. He groaned with her, tangling his hands in her hair, letting her take him closer and closer to the edge. Until he clutched her shoulders and dragged her up the bed. “No,” he gasped.

“Now,” she countered and moved up over his body to take him inside in a single swift motion that had him whipping his head back against the pillow. She bent over him, her hands on his shoulders, leaning down to press her mouth to his. He put his hands on her hips and she let him set the rhythm until he pulled her against him, turning them over as one so that she lay below him. And finally, as he'd wanted to for days upon days, he could feel her underneath him and bury himself in her.

And she was soft and strong and lithe, moving against him, driving him nearly over the edge with each tilt of her hips, each stroke of her hands. She made love with him the same way she lived, fearless,
confident, throwing all of herself into it, matching him every step of the way. The same way she would always match him, he realized. But it was the look in her eyes, the naked need, that aroused him most of all.

He'd thought of a tornado the first time they kissed and now they rode the whirlwind together, the passion roaring through them.

Max laughed exultantly, raising her arms over her head and then draping them around his neck, sliding them down his back to feel the taut muscles flexing under her hands as she urged him on and on. She felt the tension gathering within her, winding tighter and tighter, filling her with an almost painful sensation. The surge of his body brought her to the line between pleasure and pain. Then the next motion flung her past it, pleasure exploding through her out to her fingertips even as he groaned and spilled himself.

T
he buzz of the alarm jolted Max awake to see the morning light streaming in through the skylights.

Monday morning, to be exact.

“Good Lord.” She sat bolt upright, fueled by a jolt of adrenaline. Beside her, she heard a stream of curses from Dylan.

“What time is it?” he stopped long enough to ask.

“Six o'clock,” she told him.

“And we've got the design review at eight.” He was already out of bed, yanking on his shorts. “I've got time, barely.”

“What are you going to tell your parents?” She crossed to the closet door to grab her robe.

“Probably nothing, why?”

“Aren't they going to wonder where you were all night?”

Dylan pulled on his shirt, searched for any remaining buttons and shrugged. “Maybe, I don't know. They were supposed to get in pretty late themselves. Besides, I've been an adult for a while now and they don't tend to worry too much.”

He sensed rather than saw her stiffen. “Sure, because they're probably used to you staying out when you come to visit,” she said, belting on her robe.

He took two quick steps and pulled her up against him. “No, as a matter of fact, they're not. This isn't my usual MO when I'm here. What's going on between the two of us is an exception…in a whole lot of ways.”

He fused his lips to hers and the passing of time, so crucial just an instant before, suddenly became irrelevant. Long seconds passed, lost in the contact of mouth to mouth, hand to body.

Any reasonable person would've thought that the time they'd spent making love the night before would have slaked their desire, Max thought, but it had done nothing to dull the need. His clever mouth dazzled her, dizzied her until work became a distant, unimportant thought and the only thing that mattered was feeling his skin under her hands.

With effort, Max pulled away. “If you're going to get home, get cleaned up and back to the office in time for the meeting, you'd better go.”

“I could take a shower here,” he suggested.

Max's lips twitched. “Are you serious?”

“You're right.” He started down the stairs. “I'll see you in the office in a little while.” He stopped, then bounded back up the stairs for one last kiss, licking her lower lip as though savoring some decadent dessert. “That's got to last me all day,” he said and turned for the door.

 

Max was sitting in the main conference room with the rest of the architectural staff, studying the plans and renderings taped along one wall, when Dylan came into the meeting just a moment or two after eight. Hal, she noticed, gave him a long glance. Dylan didn't look the least bit tired, not at all as though he'd spent most of the night before making love. She could still feel the ache between her thighs. Glancing down at her wrist, she saw a faint smudge of purple she knew had come from him.

And she felt the slow tightening in her belly.

Max took a deep breath. She'd known she was making a questionable decision in sleeping with Dylan in the first place. She hadn't considered what it would be like to sit across from him in a meeting when just two hours before, they'd been lying naked together in bed. That was the whole reason she'd avoided work involvements, the whole reason she'd tried to avoid this one, the whole reason she should stop it in its tracks.

Except that deep down, some part of her was
already calculating how soon she would be able to touch him again.

Hal stood with Leo Stein in front of the elevation view of the design Max and Dylan liked best. “This is the one they'll go with,” Hal commented.

Next to him, Leo rubbed his chin. “It's a good design. All of them are. I'm just a little worried about whether we have enough wow factor. We're going to be presenting last, after the two hotshot firms. We need something that's going to grab the committee's attention.”

Dylan stirred. “What about a model?”

“A model?” Hal frowned. “Nobody does models anymore.”

“That's exactly why it'll work. Those other two groups are going to walk in with visualizations and animations like you wouldn't believe. After a while you lose the effect. No matter how good our animations are—and, Eli, they are really good—by the time we come in, everybody on that committee is bound to be a little burned out.” He rose and began to pace as he talked. “People like having something to stand up and walk around and look at. Sure, it's old-school, but so are Fischer and Sherwin. They'll like it. No matter what we show them, I guarantee you they'll be staring at the model.”

The room was quiet while everybody digested the idea. Leo was the first to break the silence. “It could work.”

“Neither you nor I have time to do a model, Leo,”
Hal said in exasperation. “Outside the two of us, who here even knows how?”

Dylan turned to him. “I do.”

“So do I,” Max said. “I worked for an architect when I was in high school who was big on models.”

“There. That's two of us,” Dylan said. “If we can get someone to hit an art supply store, we can get started on it today. Assuming you don't mind working late, Max?”

She found herself fighting a grin. “Whatever it takes,” she said.

 

How did he manage it? Max wondered afterward as she headed back to her office. Every time she got by herself, she began thinking how absolutely crazy she was to even consider getting involved with him, let alone diving into a full-blown affair. But then she'd see him. He'd flash that smile, look at her with those eyes and the next moment it all seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

Vulcans, she decided, had nothing on Dylan Reynolds.

Her phone was ringing as she walked through the door and she hurried over to pick it up. “This is Max.”

“Is this Maxine McBain?” an unfamiliar voice asked.

“Max. What can I do for you?”

The person cleared her throat. “Uh, hi, Max. This
is Susan Harding from Portland General. I don't know if you remember me—”

“Of course I remember you,” Max cut in. “The redhead, right?”

Harding laughed. “Yeah, people usually remember the hair.”

“You're the oncology nurse.” Max slid into her seat. “What can I do for you?”

“Do you remember how we talked at the commit tee meeting about what patients need and what that means for the design?”

Max wound the phone cord around her finger. “Absolutely. I thought you were dead-on then and I still do.”

“Well, I wonder if it might help you guys to maybe talk to some patients about what they want before you design the addition. I mean right now, you're talking to us in the committee meeting but it seems like the focus of the discussion is about cost-cutting and things that work for the hospital. This would be a way to see the actual people.” She paused. “What do you think?”

“I think it's a phenomenal idea,” Max told her, staring at the floor plan displayed on her computer screen. “How do we get started?”

“After you left, I talked with Paul Fischer and the head of nursing. It took some convincing, but I've gotten the okay for you guys to come in and see what the patients have to say.”

Max felt a little bubble of excitement rising in her chest. “Really?”

“I know it's late in the process, but it took me some time to pull it off. Could you and your partner come by tomorrow for an hour to talk with them? I realize it's short notice but this was the best that we could do.”

“Absolutely, we'll be there,” Max said. “It's exactly what we need. I can't thank you enough for thinking of us.”

“If you give me those gardens or the family suites, that would be thanks enough,” Harding said.

Max bit her lip. “I'll do my best,” she promised as she hung up.

She rose and hurried down to Dylan's office. She could see him through the open door as she approached. He was staring down at plans on his worktable, eyes intent on the design. A sheaf of dark hair fell over his forehead. He wore an olive-colored linen shirt with the collar unbuttoned and the sleeves rolled up. It made his skin looked very dark. She remembered kissing his neck, pressing her lips to his shoulder. She remembered just how strong those hands of his were.

It was alarming how much of a fixture he'd become in her life in such a short time. She'd grown accustomed to his humor, to his smiles. She'd come to look forward to seeing him every day.

As though he'd heard her thoughts, Dylan glanced up to see her. The force of his gaze almost stopped
her in her tracks. And she swallowed and walked forward to knock on his open door. “Got a minute?” she asked.

“Always,” he said.

She stepped into the office, very conscious of his gaze on her. It was different, somehow, now that they'd slept together. Before, his gaze had made her aware of her movements. Now, it made her aware of herself, of exactly how responsive his touch could make her.

And exactly how much having an affair with him could interfere with her job, she reminded herself.

“Do you have an hour tomorrow afternoon to go over to Portland General?” she asked him. “I just got a very interesting call from one of the nurses.”

Dylan wondered if she had any idea just how delicious she looked standing there in her slick little jacket and skirt, with those high heels that made her legs look like they went on forever. Of course, she also looked delicious in nothing at all and he was looking forward to seeing her that way as soon as possible. Making love with her the night before had been extraordinary; at least as pleasurable had been falling asleep with her in his arms.

He had a strong feeling that Max McBain was going to be a hard habit to break. Given that he was going to be leaving for Dubai in a week or two, that could prove a very big problem indeed. But there were things like telephones and airplanes. They could
figure out a way to make it work if they wanted to, and he wanted to very much indeed.

“Come on in,” he said. “Tell me about your call.”

 

“You slept with him?” Glory asked Max.

They stood leaning on the fence around Glory's pasture, watching the photographer BRS had hired to photograph some of her sculptures.

“Can I tell you how not surprised I am to hear that?” Glory continued.

Max frowned at her. “You could at least pre tend.”

“Okay, give me a minute, here.” Glory cleared her throat. “Wow,” she burst out, “you really slept with him?”

“A little louder, please,” Max hissed.

“I mean really,” Glory said more moderately, “you think I should be even a little surprised after the way you guys were practically swallowing each other's faces when you were here last?”

“We were not.”

Glory grinned. “Did you think it was just coincidence that you heard me making noise and coming out of the house after you broke apart? I timed it. I saw what was going on the minute you drove up. It was so obvious just watching you together what was going on.”

It hadn't been to her, Max thought. Perhaps she'd
just been so busy trying to avoid the truth that she'd managed to miss it entirely.

“Let's see, he's gorgeous, talented, funny, successful—” Glory glanced over at Max “—am I missing anything? What's the problem with getting involved with him?”

“Glory, come on. I work for him. I just spent all of last night having sex with my boss.”

Glory frowned. “Wait a minute. Dylan's running the proposal team now, right? Now, at the gala, you specifically told me Jeremy was not your boss, and Dylan took over for Jeremy, ergo, Dylan is not your boss,” she finished triumphantly.

“I report to him on the project, I work with him.” Max dragged her hands through her hair. “It's the same difference.”

In the field, the photographer knelt in front of the wave sculpture to snap a shot.

“I still don't see the problem,” Glory said. “I mean, so what, you're working together. It's completely short-term. He doesn't work for the company and he'll be gone before you can blink.” She looked at the expression on Max's face. “Oops.”

“No, it's true,” Max said, willing herself to believe it. “I mean, that's the good thing about the situation, right? It can't go anywhere. I've got a built-in failsafe.” That was what she'd told herself before she'd gone to bed with him; why didn't it help now?

“It seems to me that as long as the two of you are
professionals, there shouldn't be any problem with the whole work thing.” Glory climbed up to sit on the fence facing Max.

Max shook her head. “That's the problem. It doesn't matter how hard we work or whether being involved with each other affects anything. What matters is what people think.” She stepped up to the fence to rest her arms on it. “Architecture is a really tough profession for women. It's hard to get ahead. The minute anyone in the office finds out I've been sleeping around—especially with the boss's son—my credibility goes straight out the window, along with any authority I have. Especially when I'm working under him—”

“So to speak.” Glory grinned.

“That's exactly what I'm talking about,” Max flared. “I don't want to turn into an office punch line.” She knew how easily it could happen. She knew better and yet that hadn't stopped her. All it chad taken was that persuasive mouth and those talented hands and she'd turned to mush. “I tell myself I'm too smart, I tell myself I know better than to do this and then…”

“What?”

She shook her head. “And then he looks at me and touches me and suddenly none of that matters anymore. And it scares the hell out of me.”

“I think it sounds delish,” Glory said.

“Wait until it happens to you.”

Glory patted her shoulder. “I think you're getting spun up over nothing. I mean, you said yourself, he's going to be gone in what, a week? Two?”