the incredible sex, but the soul-baring connection they’d shared.
Then came her leaving. The ache that consumed him. His destructive anger.
Max broke off the kiss. Chest heaving, he surveyed the passion-dazed look in her azure eyes. Her high color. The flare of her nostrils as she scooped air into her lungs. He felt similarly depleted of oxygen. Surely that was the reason for his lightheadedness.
“That was a mistake,” he said, unable to let her go.
Rachel took matters into her own hands. She shifted her spine straight and pushed on his chest. His fingers ached as she slipped free.
“That’s supposed to be my line,” she said, tugging her jacket back into order.
He inclined his head. “Be my guest.”
Max retreated to the couch. Resettling his tie into a precise line down the front of his shirt, he laid his arm over the back of the couch and watched Rachel battle back from desire. She recovered faster than he’d hoped.
“That was a mistake.” Crossing her arms over her chest, she leveled a narrow look his way. “One that won’t be repeated.”
“You misunderstand me,” he said. “The mistake I referred to was letting the kiss happen here.”
“What do you mean here? There’s no place else it’s going to happen.”
He hit her with an are-you-kidding expression. “You’re crazy if you think this thing between us is going to die out on its own.”
“It will if you stop fanning the flames.”
He had to fight from smiling at her exasperated tone. “Impossible. You set me on fire every time I get within twenty feet of you.”
“I’m flattered.”
Was she really? Her tight lips told a different story. “Don’t be. I’m sure I get to you the same way.” He plowed on, not giving her time to voice the protests bubbling in her eyes. “It’s just a chemical reaction between us. Something ageless and undeniable. We can burn it out, but I don’t see it just fizzling out.”
“I really don’t have the energy for this,” she groused.
“Good. Stop fighting me and conserve your energy. I have a much better use for it.”
Her arms fell to her sides. “Max, please be reasonable.”
She’d stooped to pleading. He had her now.
“When have you ever known me to be reasonable?”
That wrung a grimace out of her. “Good point.” She inhaled slow and deep; by the time the breath left her body, she’d changed tactics. “What’d you have in mind?” she questioned, retreating into humor. “A quickie in the copy room?” Pulling out her smart phone, she plied it like a true techno geek. “My schedule clears a bit at three. I can give you twenty minutes.”
Max cursed. He should have anticipated she’d use humor to avoid a serious conversation. “I’ll need more than twenty minutes for what I have in mind.”
“You want more than twenty minutes,” she corrected him, letting her thick southern accent slide all over the words. “You probably don’t need more than …” She paused and peered at him from beneath her lashes. “Ten?”
Max rose from the couch and prowled her way. She turned her back as he stepped into her space. He loomed over her in order to peer at her phone’s screen. So, she wanted to mess with him. Two could play at this game. A minute quiver betrayed her reaction to his proximity. Tension drained from his body. The chemistry between them was textbook and undeniable. His palms itched to measure her waist, reacquaint themselves with her breasts.
“I wasn’t so much thinking of my needs as yours,” he said, his voice low and intimate. “I know how much you like it when I take my time.”
She sized him up with a sideways glance. “I thought this was the sort of thing you were trying to avoid doing with your assistant.”
Max shook his head. “I was trying to avoid losing my freedom in one of your matchmaking schemes.”
“You were trying to avoid marriage?” She slipped the phone back into its cradle at her waist. “Or falling in love?”
“Both.”
“Because they don’t always go hand in hand, you know.”
“I’m all too familiar with that truth.”
As she well knew. The four days they’d spent together hadn’t been limited to learning about each other physically. Max had shared his soul, as well. Whether because they’d been two strangers sharing a moment with no thought of a future, or because being with her had thawed places long numb, he’d told her everything about his childhood and the problems with his family, delving into emotions he had no idea lurked beneath his skin.
She’d been a damn good listener. Made it easy to be vulnerable. He’d felt safe with her. And she’d left him. Gone back to her husband.
What an idiot he’d been.
“I’ll go get Chuck Weaver on the phone,” she said, retreating from his office.
It wasn’t until he sat behind his desk and answered the call she put through that he realized she’d completely distracted him from getting answers about what sort of financial mess she was in.
By six o’clock, the offices and cubicles around Rachel were dead quiet. Executing a slow head roll to loosen her shoulder muscles, she gusted out a sigh and saved the spreadsheet she’d been working on for the last couple of hours. Max had asked her to analyze the operations budget for one of the companies Case Consolidated Holdings owned in Pensacola, Florida. The company had been struggling with profitability for the last five years, and Max wanted her to figure out where they could trim expenses.
Whether Max knew it or not, she was the perfect person to figure out how to cut the fat. Ever since she’d lost her father and taken on the responsibility of her sixteen-year-old sister, money had been tight. She’d learned how not just to pinch a penny, but to turn it inside out and scrape every last bit of value out of the thing.
She cast a glance toward Max’s office. Should she sneak out or say good-night? The kiss earlier had rattled her more than anything else she’d experienced in the last seven days and with Brody’s unexpected reappearance and outrageous demand, it had been a doozy of a week.
As if summoned by her thoughts, Max appeared in the doorway.
“Leaving?” His low question boomed into the silence.
“It’s six o’clock. We’re the only ones here.” She gulped as her words registered.
Pointing out to him that they were completely alone was probably not the brightest move after what happened between them today. The discovery
