of her body, was enough to cause his body to throb achingly.
Max deepened the kiss hungrily, his tongue thrusting rhythmically into her heat, even as the hardness of his thighs pressed against and into the softness of her abdomen, causing him to groan as he enjoyed the friction against his own sensitised and engorged arousal.
His arms tightened about her as he felt the tentative lick of Sophie’s tongue against his own, a shy duelling that lit an even deeper fire beneath his already raging desire.
He couldn’t remember ever being this physically aroused, this quickly, by any other woman. He had no thought for anything but Sophie, being closer to Sophie, making love to Sophie. His hands lowered to cup beneath her bottom and he lifted her up onto the uncluttered end of the table before unfastening the Santa pinafore and removing it completely, dropping it to the tiled floor, before he stepped in between her parted thighs.
Max groaned, his lips travelling across her cheek, down the length of her throat as he instantly felt her heat, drawing him in, the hardness of his erection pressing against and into that heat between her thighs, his body pulsing as he arched harder against the friction caused by her jeans.
‘Max?’ Sophie clung to Max’s shoulders, dazed by the depth of the passion that had sprung up so quickly between them.
She felt weak too, at the feel of the proof of that passion pressing so intimately against her between her parted thighs. She also felt achingly aroused by the warmth of Max’s hand caressing the naked flesh of her back beneath her blouse as his lips continued to explore and taste her throat, and then lower.
Quite when he had unfastened the front of her blouse Sophie had no idea, only becoming aware that he had done so as one of his hands moved beneath the smooth cup of her bra and she felt the warmth of his lips exploring the bared tops of her breasts.
Max raised his head to look down at her breasts with eyes of deep, dark green. ‘This is beautiful,’ he murmured admiringly as both his hands now cupped her beneath the red satin and lace of her bra. ‘Do your panties match?’ he enquired gruffly as the soft pads of his thumbs stroked unerringly across the pouting fullness of her aroused nipples, pressed noticeably against the satin material. ‘Sophie?’ he encouraged huskily as she made no reply.
Sophie moistened the dryness of her lips with the tip of her tongue before answering him. ‘Yes. I—But it’s a thong, not panties.’
His gaze flickered sharply up to meet hers. ‘A thong?’ he repeated in a strained voice.
Sophie nodded, knowing her cheeks were the same fiery shade of red. ‘My mother told me that a woman can wear whatever she wants on the outside and still feel feminine and desirable if she’s wearing sexy underwear underneath.’
Max raised dark brows. ‘Your mother told you this?’
She smiled slightly. ‘Yes.’
Max nodded. ‘She was right.’ He groaned, just imagining Sophie wearing only that red thong.
A tiny scrap of material that would barely cover the fiery red curls between Sophie’s thighs at the front, and separate the firm and naked globes of her bottom at the back. Buttocks that he wanted to cup as he pushed that skimpy satin aside and thrust inside her—
‘What the—?’ Max bit out an expletive as he now heard the door to his apartment opening and the sound of voices out in the hallway.
Only three people, besides himself, knew the security combination for entering his apartment. Sally would be safely in Canada by now. Sophie was half naked in his arms. Which only left—
Oh, hell!
MAX PUT ALL thoughts of red satin thongs, and making love to Sophie, completely from his mind as he stepped back abruptly to pull the two sides of her blouse together, covering the fullness of her breasts. Hidden from temptation!
‘You might want to button up,’ he advised grimly as he turned away and strode towards the kitchen doorway, the sound of the voices in the hallway growing louder. As evidence that his unexpected visitors were on their way to the kitchen in search of him?
Something Max wanted to avoid, at least until Sophie had had the chance to refasten her blouse and straighten her appearance.
‘Who …?’
‘I suggest you do it now!’ Max grated forcefully as he stepped out of the kitchen without so much as a backwards glance.
Sophie was too bewildered to immediately do as Max instructed. Although the sudden burst of happy laughter in the hallway, and raised excited voices, finally spurred her into action. She hastily got down from the table and refastened her blouse with fingers that shook slightly.
There was nothing she could do about her flushed cheeks, over-bright eyes or her slightly swollen and sensitive lips, but she picked up the black velvet band from the floor before pulling the wildness of her loosened curls back up into the confines of a ponytail.
Only just in time too, as a woman appeared in the doorway. A tall and beautiful woman with silky dark hair, shoulder-length, and eyes that sparkled a deep, warm green. Her patrician features more than a little familiar.
A woman who could only be Max’s sister, Janice.
The woman and her daughter, who weren’t expected to arrive until tomorrow.
Janice gave a warm smile. ‘I’m sure my brother will introduce the two of us once he’s managed to extricate himself from my husband and overenthusiastic daughter,’ she drawled affectionately.
Sophie frowned at the mention of Janice’s husband.
Wasn’t it because his sister and her husband were having marital problems that Janice and Amy were joining Max in England for Christmas?
‘Is that …?’ Janice stepped further into the kitchen, very slender and elegant in a thick cream cable-knit sweater and black fitted jeans. ‘My goodness, it is gingerbread,’ she murmured wonderingly as she looked down at the biscuits on the cooling tray on top of the kitchen table.
‘Janice …’
‘Max, there are gingerbread angels and snowmen!’ She turned excitedly to her brother as he spoke to her from the kitchen doorway, a little girl held securely in his arms. A beautiful little girl, who bore such a likeness to her uncle she could only be Amy. ‘I’d forgotten just how evocative smells can be.’ Janice gave a shake of her head as tears now glistened in her eyes. ‘Max, do you remember—?’
‘Yes,’ he grated harshly.
Warningly, it seemed to Sophie.
Not that she had dared look at him again after that first glance, his expression grimly unapproachable, the green of his eyes as chilling as an Arctic wind.
‘I haven’t smelt gingerbread like this in years,’ Janice continued softly, completely undaunted—or simply unaware?—of her brother’s lack of warmth. ‘Not since the Christmas Mum and Dad died. Can you believe it’s been sixteen
