“Probably.”
“Everyone’s going to talk.”
“Let them.” The elevator dinged. I carried her down the hallway, still kissing her. I opened the door and carried her inside, slamming it shut behind us with my foot. The lock clicked into place.
Only then did I set her down. I looked down at her, this woman who’d turned my carefully controlled world upside down with one impulsive kiss.
“Last chance to change your mind, Frankie.”
She reached up, her fingers tangling in my hair, and pulled my mouth down to hers. “Shut up and take me to bed, Max.”
I didn’t need to be told twice.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Frankie
The door to the suite clicked shut, and the world outside — the wedding, the family, the fake smiles — vanished.
I realized there was nothing fake happening between us now.
Max didn’t wait. His suit jacket was gone in a second, his tie ripped away and tossed aside.
“Strip,” he rasped. It wasn’t a question. It was a command. “Everything, Frankie. I want to see what I’ve been starving for.”
My fingers were shaking so hard I could barely find the zipper of my dress. I was the girl with no filter, the girl who could talk a man through a plumbing emergency without batting an eye, but right now, I felt completely out of my depth. I’d had boyfriends, sure, but none of them had ever looked at me the way Max was looking at me right now.
“Max, I...” I started, but my voice broke. “I don’t... I’m not sure what to do. I’ve never had someone look at me like...”
“Like you’re everything?” He stepped toward me, now wearing only his dark dress pants. His hands moved mine out of the way, pulling the zipper down with one smooth, heavy slide, the sound echoing in the quiet room.
The dress landed on the floor in a heap of dark fabric. I stood there in my black lace bra and panties, exposed, my curves onfull display. But Max didn’t move away. His hands settled on the sides of my waist. Hot, hard, calloused.
His mouth found mine, our tongues tangling as he kissed me. I needed that. The show of possession. He scooped me up, his arms like iron bands, and tossed me onto the bed. I landed with a soft bounce. Before I could even catch my breath, he was there. He shed the rest of his clothes with a focused efficiency and then he was over me.
“I don’t know where to put my hands,” I whispered, my voice a broken thread. “I feel like a mess. I don’t know what to do.”
“You don’t do anything,” he commanded, his mouth grazing the sensitive skin of my neck. “You just feel. You let me take care of the rest.”
He moved down my body, his mouth leaving a trail of fire across my skin. He didn’t rush. He kissed his way down the swell of my breasts, over the soft curve of my stomach, his stubble a delicious, rough contrast to my skin. When his hands reached my thighs, he hooked his thumbs into the lace of my panties and peeled them down my legs, tossing them aside. I felt the cool air for only a second before Max was there, kneeling between my legs, his hands pushing my knees wide. He pressed hot, wet kisses along my inner thighs, moving higher and higher.
“Max,” I panted, my fingers tangling in the sheets because I didn’t know where else to put them.
He didn’t answer. He settled on the bed, his broad shoulders splaying me open even more and licked a slow, heavy path straight up my center, from the very base to the aching, throbbing heart of me. I let out a sharp scream, my body arching off the bed. It was too much. It wasn’t enough.
He did it again, his tongue rough and demanding, tasting every bit of the desire I’d been holding back. While his mouth devoured me, he reached down and drove two fingers deep inside.
I choked on a sob, his fingers moving in a relentless rhythm that hit a spot I didn’t even know I had. The friction of his tongue against my clit and the pressure of his fingers inside me was a sensory overload.
“Max! Oh, Max, please!”
“Stay with me, Frankie,” he growled, his voice muffled against my skin. “I want to feel every bit of this.”
He didn’t slow down. If anything, he got more intense, his tongue working me over until I was a sobbing, writhing mess. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe. There was only the heat of his mouth and the stretch of his fingers.
My body suddenly went taut. My toes curled, my thighs shaking against his broad shoulders as the pressure built to a breaking point. I felt it coming — a violent, bone-deep explosion.
“Max! I’m... I’m—”
