Caroline.
He’d damn near burst into tears when she said she’d forgotten how happiness felt.
Holding the lip of his glass to his mouth, he watched while she took a tentative sip of hers. “Careful, Sweetheart. Not too much.”
He might as well have saved his breath. Because she rolled her eyes and then took a healthy gulp. But rather than fall immediately into a fit of coughing, she maintained her composure, even if her eyes watered and her flawless skin turned a delicate pink.
“Not your first time?”
“Not my first time.”
Max tossed back the entire contents of his and then solidly set the glass back onto his desk. “How else should we celebrate?”
And she laughed, not the joyous laughter he’d heard upstairs, but the disbelieving kind.
Her gaze locked with his and Maxwell knew exactly what she was thinking.
“You are, you know,” he told her. Beautiful.
“You don’t have to say that.” She wasn’t being coy. Max knew her well enough to realize that about her. Because, although this woman had shown great courage in coming to him for a job, and never doubted her writing abilities—or editing ones—she lacked confidence in herself as a woman.
“I don’t say things I don’t mean.” The force to touch her was stronger than gravity, and Max couldn’t help but move closer. “You’re the most beautiful woman I know.” The words surprised him, but he meant them. Yes, that delicate blush excited him, and he couldn’t stop looking at her cupid’s bow mouth, but he saw her whole person.
Max dropped his hands to her hips and backed up so he was partially sitting on his desk.
She stepped into the space between his legs and having her there felt as natural as breathing.
But it wasn’t enough. “Come here.” He drew her closer and she surprised him by carefully removing his spectacles and then, ever so deliberately, touching her mouth to his.
In that second, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’d never enjoy kissing a woman as much as this one—with or without the spice of scotch warming her tongue.
“Are you hungry?” she asked, making him laugh.
“Are you?” His mouth lingered over hers.
“There are some pastries left.” But she’d tilted her head back, allowing him to taste the underside of her chin, her chest, and one of his favorite places on a woman, the little dip in the curve where her shoulder met her neck. Her body trembled. Was she shaking?
She exhaled a little cry, her hands clutching his biceps, holding him close.
“Mmm…” Her throat vibrated beneath his tongue, bringing every cell of his body to life.
Specifically, the ones in his groin.
“We should probably—” Her voice hitched. “Make a plan to catch whoever’s been doing it. Oh, oh!”
Max tested the weight of one of her breasts. It fit his hand perfectly.
Perfect. Much more of this and he’d believe in fate.
Slim fingers clutched his head, her fingers tugging at the roots of his hair.
Did she realize how that affected him?
Max needed desperately to see her hair loose again, soft and flowing around her face like a silken veil.
They both ignored the sounds of pins dropping onto the floor. When he’d removed them all, he unwound the knot at the back of her head and combed it down, relishing the silken feel under his palm, around his fingers. Although her hair was mostly brown, a few burnished strands sparkled in the candlelight. “So beautiful.” For a newspaperman, he was showing an embarrassing lack of originality as far as his words were concerned.
But he didn’t want to think. He simply wanted to touch her, to be close to her. To know her taste, her scent—the sounds she made when she came.
