she snapped. “Because you’re not going to do anything.” It was an order, not an observation. “Except to lay down on your side and drop off to sleep—now.”
The dulcet tones were certainly missing. He laughed. “You’re going to make one hell of a mother someday, you know that?”
She took offense at his tone. It was her heart’s longing to have children. And to give them all the love she’d never had, the love she’d been storing up all these years.
“Yeah, I will. And let me worry about that, you just get some shut-eye. Now. Or I’ll leave without you.” The threat slipped out before she could think to stop it. She didn’t ordinarily overplay her hand. She told herself it was because she was tired.
“You can’t. I have the only set of keys.”
Max held them up for her benefit. Then, he made an elaborate show of pushing them down deep into his front pocket. He knew she wouldn’t attempt to go digging there while he was asleep.
She looked at where he’d tucked the keys. Her mouth curved wryly. She knew exactly what he was thinking. “Aren’t you afraid of sustaining permanent injury if you should roll over during the night?”
He laid down on the bed. “I’ll risk it.”
Cara was acutely conscious of the way the mattress had dipped down, acutely conscious of the man laying less than two feet away from her.
“Does that mean you don’t trust me?” she asked flippantly.
His eyes met hers. “No more than you trust me.”
Something tightened within her. She inclined her head. “Fair enough.”
Lying back down, she realized that he’d propped himself up on his side and was looking at her. A jittery feeling snaked its way through her body. And then Max moved closer to her until the top of his torso was almost directly over her. Her heart began to hammer harder than she was happy about, the beat keeping abreast of the throbbing in her pulse.
She needed him back in his space, not invading hers. “Unless you’re looking to pick bullets out of your teeth, Ryker, I’d back off right now if I were you.”
Max heard the slight thread of tension in her voice, felt the crackle of electricity between them. “You need to relax, Rivers.”
The jerk was being condescending, as if he could read what was in her mind. How could he? She couldn’t even read what was in her mind right now. Except that she didn’t want him so close to her. “And you need to back off, Ryker. Now.”
He didn’t move a single muscle. “Is that a challenge?”
Was she going to have to fight him off after all? Every muscle in her body tensed. “If that’s what it takes to get you back on your side.”
She had pretty eyes, Max thought. Even when they darkened. He’d never been partial to blue-gray before. “You know, as a young boy, I could never resist a challenge. My mother said I was a constant source of worry for her.”
His mother used to despair, he remembered fondly, that he would die an early death, led there by his own recklessness. Instead she had been the one to die too early, through no fault of her own.
“At least you had a mother,” Cara heard herself murmuring, her voice hardly audible above the rushing noise in her ears.
She knew she should push him away, knew that all it would really take would be one quick turn and a well-placed flexing of her knee and any impromptu moves on his part would be summarily terminated.
But curiosity got the better of her. Curiosity and a strange physical pull that crept out of nowhere and presented itself to her with his name on it. Desire unfolded within her like a deck of cards being fanned out before a magic trick took place.
“You have a death wish.” Her lips practically touched his as she uttered the declaration.
“Maybe.”
And maybe he just had an insatiable thirst to discover what it felt like to kiss her. An insatiable thirst that wouldn’t be quenched until he found out on his own what her lips tasted like.
And then he wasn’t speaking any longer and neither was she.
Contact occurred and the air around them suddenly became even warmer than it already was, its edges singeing the instant their lips met.
He gathered her to him. Or perhaps she pulled him in toward her. The logistics weren’t clear. They overlapped. All that mattered was that they occurred.
He tasted of something dark and sweet and compelling. She felt like she was a dried flower getting its first taste of summer rain with the promise of more lingering in the air.
Cara wound her arms around his neck, telling herself she was anchored in reality so it was all right if, just for the moment, she lost herself in this sensation. Purely for reasons of edification. A woman always had to know exactly what she was up against.
Max felt Cara’s heart hammering against his chest as he drew her still closer against him, felt the heat of her body infiltrate his.
Or maybe that was his heart suddenly going into double-time. He couldn’t tell. He’d done this simply on a whim, because he couldn’t resist certain challenges, just as he’d told her. But once he’d thrown his hat in the ring, he found himself being sucked in completely as he reached to retrieve it.
If he’d had socks on, she would have knocked them off. Or at least curled them.
What he was entirely certain of was that Cara Rivers had created this itch, an itch so intense, it was almost impossible to scratch.
Or to bury.
But he knew he had to. Business and this kind of thing really didn’t mix.
More’s the pity.
Okay, time was up. It was time to come up for air, Cara’s brain pleaded, before it became completely oxygen deficient.
With more than a little effort, Cara finally managed to wedge her hands against his chest. She pushed with all her might, which, to her surprise, had decreased considerably. Still, she did manage to create a very small space between them.
She could only pray she didn’t sound as breathless as she felt. “Curiosity satisfied?”
She certainly didn’t pull any punches, Max thought. A smile curved his mouth. He ran the back of his knuckles slowly along the silky skin of her face and watched her eyes widen before she got better control over herself.
“Not in the least. Whetted, actually.”
“Too bad,” Cara said, finding a ribbon of strength to tap into. She pushed him back even farther, then struggled up into a sitting position. “Because that’s all she wrote.”
Intrigued, Max drew his thumb along her bottom lip, allowing his mind to wander a little further. Watching her veiled reaction in her eyes. There was a complete untapped vein of sensuality right before him.
“I
