She beams at me “Okay, lemme try for a better answer. Hell, no.”
“That’s not better,” I whisper. She so loved punching my sandwich, and I love her for it.
“I don’t have an apology. Is that better?”
15
Never fixate on any one woman; you’re playing a numbers game.
~The Max Hilton Playbook: Ten Golden Rules for Landing the Hottest Girl in the Room
* * *
Mia
I should be angry. Max making me play lunch-cart girl in front of his models? What is that?
But being with him in this small space is putting my hormones into overdrive. Lighting my skin like electricity.
He slides his hand around the back of my neck. His fingers seem to tremble—there’s something so raw about him now. “Fuck,” he says raggedly.
My hands are sliding around the bulk of him. My hands are treating themselves to generous helpings of his cashmere suit coat, pulling him to me, rampaging across soft fabric and hard muscle He kisses me—furiously, passionately. He hauls me up to him, closer, harder. His chest is a flat plane against my breasts; his cock at the V of my legs a delicious presence.
“Fuck,” I say into our kiss.
I had this whole idea of not giving him the satisfaction of a reaction, but I’m failing at that.
“Mia,” he breathes, peppering hot kisses over my neck while I pant and melt some more. He’s a spy in the night, stealing over enemy lines, going deeper, winning me over.
My fingers have hit warm skin under his white shirt.
And I don’t want to stop. I want Max like there’s no tomorrow. Like there’s no chart on our wall that’s a service to all womankind.
He pulls away from the kiss and looks into my eyes. He looks furious and beautiful. Suddenly the elevator’s moving. Maybe another floor called it.
He lets out a shuddery breath and shoves a key into the panel and the elevator grinds to a halt.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“Nowhere,” he says, twisting my hair in his fist and pressing kisses onto my neck, and then he sucks in a small tag of skin and it bites. I think I’m going to have a hickey and I want that. I want him to mark me. “The elevator is officially going nowhere, does that work for you?”
“That’s the exact floor I wanted.”
I burrow my fingers under the belt of his trousers. Feverishly I pull his belt from the loops, big, dramatic motions that enhance the drama of our elevator tryst.
“Hey.” He catches my greedy hands and extracts them from his person, presses them back up against the cool panel, up over my head. All in one big hand of his.
With the other, he slides a knuckle over my cheekbone.
What is he doing? “What’s wrong, Mr. Roboto? Did your software for elevator quickies go offline?”
“That’s not what this is.” He dips his head and kisses my neck. “This is just for you.”
“Oh, that’s how you think it’s gonna be?”
“Just for you.” I gasp as he slides his hand slowly down my front, passing over one electrified nipple on his way to my pussy. He shoves my apron out of the way and his whole hand is between my legs, cupping and kneading me through the warm fabric.
“Omigod,” I breathe, “yeah.”
He’s on the move again. He found the hidden elastic waistband of my cat suit pants and pushes his hand in. I hiss as he makes contact with my wetness.
He keeps my hands pinned, like I might fly away.
“Like this?” he asks, rubbing a heavy finger across my swollen nub.
“Yes,” I breathe. My body hums in response to his confident strokes. Ratchets up with feeling. Everything is so surreal now, maybe I can fly.
But I wouldn’t want to right now. I wouldn’t want to leave his fingers and exactly what he is doing to me.
I groan as he slides a wide finger along my seam.
“Shhh,” he says. “Not a peep.”
So I’m silent, immobile, the opposite of how I usually go at sexytimes, but it’s good. Like the pressure’s off. It’s just me and him. And his perfect finger. His wise, all-knowing, all-rhythm-having finger, stoking my pleasure. I don’t want him to stop.
My eyes close. I’m in some delicious agony where Max is owning me and I’ll probably regret it but I don’t care. I’m a junkie who will give up her world for what his finger is doing.
He kisses me at an expert angle that feels like heaven, nipping my lip. I’m panting out words that don’t make a lot of sense unless you understand that every word I’m saying right now means more, which Max seems to fully understand at the moment. Because he gets me like that.
My orgasm sneaks up on me, sudden and unexpected, swelling through my body, my mind. My head lolls against the elevator panel.
He doesn’t have my hands pinned any more. When did that happen? He’s pushing a lock of hair out of my eyes, watching me come down. Like he’s absorbing my pleasure. It’s the opposite of everything that’s classic Max Hilton.
“Omigod,” I say.
He smiles his knowing smile. “Mia—”
“I think we went temporarily insane,” I say.
“Maybe we didn’t,” he says. “Maybe this is sane. Maybe this is how it’s supposed to be.”
My heart pounds. I want it to be true so bad, but I’m scared. Max has made a cottage industry out of lulling me into a false sense of security and then yanking the rug out from under me.
“Where are you going?” he rasps.
To the reality of us—that he got Meow Squad assigned to his building and requested me as delivery person with an agenda in mind. That he’s too good for me.
I try to tell myself that it’s maybe just fear, but then I look up at the elevator chandelier. Something about it is so familiar. What?
Then I remember it—the Instagram post. A woman against this very wall. A man’s hand planted on the panel next to her. That chandelier in the reflective area above her. The caption: This elevator has everything it needs except a well-stocked liquor cart.
I feel sick.
“Like I’m gonna be a notch on your elevator bar?” I push him away. “In your dreams, Max.”
“What?” he asks.
“Dreams. A thing that the mind imagines, but that will never be.”