eyes, narrowed with passion. His strong jaw was clenched, and his mouth was moist from her kisses. “Looking at you makes me go all hot and hungry.” She leaned down and her breasts brushed his chest as she licked his earlobe. “It makes me want to nibble all your parts.”
In a flash, he reversed their position until she was once again on the bottom looking up at him. “Tonight, I nibble your parts.” He kissed her eyelids, her nose, and her jaw. “Starting right here.”
He kissed the sensitive skin in the hollow of her throat and worked his way down. He slid his hot open mouth down the top of her breast, and he licked the tip with his soft tongue. From deep within his chest, she heard his low groan of need and arousal. He sucked one of her hard pink nipples before he palmed the sides of her breasts and pressed his lips to her cleavage. Then he moved to place wet kisses down her stomach, past her navel, to low on her belly. He reached for the waistband of her thong, pulled it down her legs, and tossed it on the floor.
He made himself comfortable between her thighs, then gave her a big moist kiss just above her pubic hair. Hot little tingles spread outward across her flesh as if she’d been zapped with a white-hot current. His touch seemed different from the last time they’d made love. More personal. More possessive. She felt it deeper in her heart and in her soul. It swelled within her chest like a balloon, and she felt as if she might float away.
“Max,” she gasped, “you’re killing me.”
“Not yet.” He moved his lips to the inside of her thigh and shoved his hands beneath her behind. He lifted her to his gaze and simply looked at her. She didn’t think anyone without a doctor’s license had seen so much, and just when his up-close-and-personal scrutiny was beginning to embarrass Lola, he glanced up into her eyes and drew her to his lips. The immediate suction of his warm mouth stole her breath and she grasped the bedding in her fists.
He kissed between her thighs as he’d kissed the rest of her body, with passion and heat, drawing mindless sounds of pleasure from her throat and from his. She closed her eyes as feverish desire pulsed and beat just below her skin, out of control and curling her toes. Max might not know a lot about romance or relationships. He might not be quite as charming as he thought he was, but he knew a thing or two about how to please a woman.
He caressed her with his tongue, pressing into her slick flesh and drawing her into his mouth for a delicious kiss that nearly sent her over the edge. Repeatedly, he coaxed her to the point of orgasm, only to back off and place his open mouth on the inside of her thigh. Each time he took her higher, further, and just when she was about to come apart, he stopped.
When she opened her eyes, he was above her, reaching for his wallet on the bedside table. As if he’d had plenty of practice he tore open the condom and placed it over the head of his penis. He rolled it down the long shaft to the base, then he looked at her, fire and need and greed in his eyes, and she held up her arms for him. Placing one elbow by her shoulders, he kissed her mouth as he entered her body, plunging so fully, he pushed her up the bed. Again and again he delved into her, hard and deep, and she arched up to meet each thrust of his pumping hips. Her choppy breath matched his, over and over, until climax grabbed her in its hot grasp, and she couldn’t breathe at all. Wave after fiery wave rushed across her flesh as the walls of her body gripped and pulsed and tore a raw groan from the depths of his chest.
He cursed in Spanish and English and praised her in the same tortured breath. She clung to him, holding him close as he plunged into her one last time. He collapsed on top of her, and she held him to her. Held him to her heart, which seemed to beat just to love him.
Only after their breathing had returned to normal did Max pull out of her body and leave to use the adjoining bathroom. When he returned, a rectangle of light flooded through the open bathroom doorway and lit up the end of the bed. Max pulled back the quilt and she joined him beneath the sheets. They lay face-to-face and she ran her hand over his wide shoulders and chest. She’d never loved a man the way she loved Max. It felt as if all the love and happiness that had taken place in her life up to that moment had only been a prelude to this. She would not think about tomorrow. She would not ruin what they shared tonight by worrying about an uncertain future.
“Max? Did you mean it when you said you’re obsessed with me?”
He rolled onto his back and brought her with him. “Is this a trick question? Where if I say yes, you accuse me of being a sick bastard, but if I say no, you get hurt and offended?”
She laughed “No. I just always want us to be honest with each other.”
He lifted a brow. “How honest?”
“Completely.”
He pushed a curl of her hair behind her ear. “I’ve developed an obsession for the little throaty sounds you make when I’m loving you.”
“I make throaty sounds?”
“Yep, and I’ve a real fondness for the weight of your breasts in my hands.”
“Max?”
“Hmm?”
She wanted to ask him what
“A St. Christopher. It was my father’s. He gave it to me when I was eighteen.”
“Why eighteen?”
He grinned. “He thought I needed protection from wild women.”
“I might not be Catholic, but I do know that St. Christopher is the patron saint of travel.” She gently tugged on his chest hair. “Not of boys who need protection from wild women.”
“Ouch. Jesus, I think you pulled some out.” He held up her hand in front of his face.
“Don’t change the subject. Why did your father give it to you when you were eighteen?”
He kissed her knuckles. “Besides the clothes on his back, when my father left Cuba, it was all he brought with him. He’d obviously arrived safely, so he considered it lucky. When I joined the Navy, he gave it to me.”
“And you’ve certainly been lucky.”
He laughed against the back of her hand and tiny lines appeared in the corners of his eyes. “Very lucky.”
“I’m not talking about that kind of luck.”
“I am. Do you know what it’s like for a guy like me to be here? With you?”
“No, but I know what it’s like for a girl like me to be here with you.”
“Not the same. You’re so beautiful, and you could-”
She placed her finger over Max’s lips. “I want you.” She placed her hand to the side of his face and looked into his eyes. She loved him so much, it hurt. It just kept swelling in her chest, getting bigger, until she could no longer hold it in. “I love you, Max,” she said on a rush of air.
He stilled and looked at her for a long moment before he very clearly said, “No, you don’t.”
Although she hadn’t known what she expected him to say, that wasn’t it. “I don’t?”
“No. You’re just caught up in the afterglow.”
Incredulous at his response, she raised onto one elbow and stared down at him. “What?”
“It happens after mind-numbing sex. When you’re spent and not thinking clearly.”
“Has it happened to you?”
“No.”
She sat up and held the sheet to her breasts. “Let me see if I have this straight.” She paused for a moment to get her thoughts together because she didn’t want to misunderstand him. Just in case he wasn’t saying what it sounded like he was saying. “You think I said I love you because I’m suffering some sort of mind-numbing
He sat also and looked at her a bit warily, as if he feared she could go off on him at any second. “I think that might have something to do with it,” he said as if he’d been here before.
“Does this happen to you a lot?”
“What?”
“Women falling in love with you because… because…” She paused and pointed toward his middle. “Because you stun them with your wonder dick?” He was so delusional, and it was her curse that she loved him more than ever. It would be so much easier if she didn’t.
He hadn’t told her he loved her. Obsessed with her, yes. Loved her, no. Knowing how he truly felt angered her almost as much as it hurt. “You know,” she said, and threw the covers aside, “you’re extremely insulting. I tell you I love you, and you say I’m confused. Like I’m stupid and don’t know the difference between love and sex. I’m thirty
