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  I slide my hand between our bodies and stroke her through the saturated fabric. Her whole body shudders, and I want to make her shudder more, to feel her muscles tighten around me as I slide my fingers inside her.

  I have to pull my mouth from hers so I can think straight.

  “Nix,” I say. Her lips are swollen and her eyes are hazy. I stroke her again, just so I can watch the pleasure move across her face. “Should we stop?”

  It will hurt like hell if she says yes, but someone needs to ask the question. I’d rather deal with my own blue balls than her regret.

  “Please,” she whispers.

  “Please . . .” I swallow. “Please stop or please touch you?”

  She lifts her hips off the ground and rubs against my hand. “Touch me.”

  Groaning, I yank her panties to the side. Her flesh is slick and smooth. My fingers slide over her clit and her head rolls to the side as her hips lift, leading my fingers to her center. I sink one inside. She’s so damn tight. All I can think about is getting inside her and feeling her squeeze my dick.

  Slow down, asshole.

  “Do you have a condom?” she asks.

  Oh, damn. Oh, fuck, fuck, damn.

  “I have one,” she says quickly. She wiggles out from under me and grabs her purse. The next thing I know, she’s ripping a condom from its package and I’m on my knees, watching her roll it on me.

  She steps out of her panties, then we’re on the floor again, Nix under me, her legs wrapped around me. Something somewhere in the back of my mind warns that this is all happening too fast, but her hands cup my ass, urging me inside, and I can’t deny her.

  I dip my head and press a kiss to the crook of her neck as I drive into her.

  “Yes,” she breathes. Her fingers curl and her nails bite into my hips, as if she’s afraid I’ll get away if she doesn’t hold me close. But I’m not going anywhere.

  At first, I let her set the pace, matching my strokes to hers, but soon I’m drowning in the sound of her moans and the heat of her sex squeezing my cock, and I lose my control.

  I drive hard and deep and fast and she’s right there with me, her head back, her back arched, her legs locked behind me.

  Suddenly, the pleasure’s too much. It’s been way too fucking long and she feels way too fucking good. I come hard and fast in an intense explosion of light and pleasure that leaves me panting into the crook of her neck. So that just happened.

  Ho. Lee. Shit.

  She strokes my hair as I catch my breath. “Thank you,” she murmurs. “You probably think I’m some crazy nympho who jumps men in her garage, but thanks for not letting that scare you off.”

  I rise onto my elbows so I can see her and make sure she’s kidding. Only there’s no humor on her face. She’s serious. “Why are you thanking me?”

  She bites her lip and cuts her eyes away from me. “Because that was . . . nice. Not that I expect it to happen again. We’re adults. I know it was a fluke and now we can move on.”

  What the hell? “Nix, look at me.” I don’t speak again until she obeys. “You’re killing me. It’s bad enough that I got off so fast I didn’t tend to you, but now you’re thanking me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “For a job I didn’t finish?”

  She blushes. “It’s not a problem. I’m . . . content.”

  For fuck’s sake. I lower my mouth to hers and kiss her before she can say anything else. I let the kiss go long and deep—the kind with roaming hands and muffled moans. When I pull back, her eyes are hazy again. Damn straight. “I can do better than content, sweetheart.”

  Two

  Max

  “You can go.” Nix pushes onto her elbows, and I’m forced to roll off her. “I’m totally cool with skipping the awkward part of”—she waves her hand between our bodies—“this.”

  Standing, I pull up my pants just so they don’t fall to my ankles, and I go to the trashcan by the door to deal with the condom.

  When I turn back to her, she’s off the floor, sliding her panties back up her legs. She smooths her skirt down with one hand and grabs her jacket off the floor with her other. The whole scene is so ridiculous that I laugh without meaning to.

  “What?”

  Stepping forward, I cup her face in my hands and rest my forehead on hers. She sighs, and her shoulders drop, as if the tension is no longer there to hold them up.

  “I will leave now,” I say softly, “if that’s what you want me to do. But if you’re only saying that because you think that’s what I want to hear, I’d rather stay.”

  “You would?” Honest to God, the woman looks shocked when she says it. “Why? For what?”

  I can’t help it. Another chuckle rumbles in my chest. “A few ideas come to mind, Doc.”

  “Like . . .?”

  I stroke her bottom lip with my thumb. “Like seeing your bedroom.”

  “You want to see the house?”

  My gaze slides down her body and over the tight curves never exposed to my eyes and barely explored by my hands. In our frantic rush toward the finish line, we never even got naked. A mistake I intend to remedy as soon as possible. “I want to see your bed,” I clarify. “Preferably with you in it. Preferably naked. Preferably while giving you a reason to thank me that I don’t find completely ego-crushing.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  I don’t have words for an argument, so I cut her off with my mouth, and again she kisses me like she needs me. Like I’m some sort of god. So I kiss her until she’s breathless and holding me close again, because I like doing that to her, and when I pull away, I fucking love the heat in her eyes.

  Her tongue darts out to taste the lip I just kissed. “Yeah, so my bedroom is this way.”

  She leads me into the house, through a mudroom area and into the kitchen, where she grabs a bottle of whiskey off the counter and a couple of glasses from the cabinet.

  I follow her past the dining room and into a large bedroom at the back of the house, and she goes straight to the dresser, sets down the glasses, fills them each halfway with whiskey, and hands one to me.

  “Cheers.” I take a sip, watching as she downs half of hers in two swallows. I cock a brow. “Nervous?”

  She nods. “Yeah.” She tips the glass back and drains it.

  “Slow down, gorgeous. I have plans for you that require you being sober.”

  “And naked?” she asks.

  I shrug. “No pressure, but I would enjoy naked.”

  She takes a deep breath then exhales. “Hoo-boy.”

  I take another sip of my whiskey and wait. I just fucked her on the floor of her garage, but she’s being skittish about me seeing her naked. Interesting.

  “Okay, so, I can’t do naked. I mean, I want to. I really want to. But I have some body issues and I’m not really comfortable with . . .” She turns toward the wall. “I’m sorry.”

  “Hey.” I turn her face so she’s looking at me. “I didn’t mean to push you.”

  “You didn’t. No. I . . .” She shakes her head and bites her lip as if to keep herself from saying more. Slowly, she lifts onto her toes and locks her hands behind my neck. Then she kisses me.

  I don’t understand what it is that she wants or what she’s afraid of, but I do understand this—our connection, our kiss, and how damn good it feels to hold someone again.

  * * *

  Nix

  God. This is a dream. No. It’s a nightmare-dream. One of those dreams that starts out horrifying—seeing Patrick’s reflection inside my house—and somehow miraculously transitions into something good. Something fantastic—Max kissing me and touching me, and letting me turn off my brain when I need to the most.

  Max kisses his way down my jaw and to my neck, and I shudder under him. Krystal was right. I should have shaved, but I’m not going to let a little leg stubble stop me from making the most of my night with Max.

  “Are you hungry?” he asks against my neck. “I’ll take you to dinner.”

&n
bsp; My brain takes longer than it should to piece those words together into meaningful sentences. “Dinner?”

  “Mmm,” he replies. His hand skims up my side and cups my breast, and I want to scream in frustration at all the layers between his thumb and my nipple. “Food, wine, talking.”

  I shake my head. “Talking?” Did I misunderstand his naked-in-the-bed speech? I want to slide my hand between our bodies to see if he’s hard again, but that seems implausible, and hoping he might be capable of the implausible seems rude. Instead, I press my hand against his bare chest and trail my fingertips from his sternum to the V-opening of his unbuttoned jeans.

  The feel of him under my fingers and the sound he makes when I touch him work together to make a combustible cocktail of dangerous need.

  How am I supposed to keep my head about me when he’s standing here with his eight-pack abs and broad shoulders?

  But that’s just it, isn’t it? I don’t want to keep my head. In fact, I’d like my brain to be as far removed from this experience as possible. He groans into my hair, then opens his mouth and nibbles along the juncture of my neck and shoulder. The sensation is more sharp than painful, but it sends electric currents of pleasure through me in a way I never could have imagined.

  “Dinner,” he murmurs. When I lean into his kiss and don’t reply, he says, “Or we could keep doing this.”

  “This,” I say. Please, this.

  Slowly, he backs me toward the bed and lowers me onto it. His eyes are hot and hungry, and he positions himself over me, a knee on each side of my hips.

  I don’t need to touch him to know he’s hard again. For me? God, this can’t be real.

  “No getting naked, right?” he asks.

  I lick my lips. Only if I can borrow someone else’s torso. “Right.”

  His eyes trail over me and he shakes his head. “I will never understand why women feel like they need to hide their bodies.” He traces the hollow of my collarbone then dips his fingers down into my shirt, exploring the tops of my breasts. “You’re gorgeous.”

  “Take off my skirt,” I whisper. I reach behind myself and unzip it.

  Max stands at the end of the bed and tugs it off my hips, his eyes all over my exposed legs and the most intimate part of me, currently covered by a pair of cotton panties with smiling yellow sunshines.

  Sitting up, I unbutton my shirt and peel it off but leave my thin tank and bra.

  He lowers me back against the bed and kisses my mouth, my neck, my collarbone, then down until he’s opening his mouth against my covered breast.

  His hand explores my thigh, my hip, the cotton band at the top of my panties. When his fingertips slip under my tank top, I press my hand over his, stopping it before it can move any higher.

  “Okay.” He removes his hand and lifts his head to study me, the question in his eyes.

  Please don’t ask.

  But instead of a question about what I’m hiding under my shirt, he brushes his knuckles between my thighs and whispers, “What about these?”

  I hook my thumbs into each side of my panties and tug them down, earning a grin from Max and his assistance dropping them to the floor.

  He pauses a moment, his gaze skimming over every inch of me, and my brain threatens to kick back on. It wants to analyze what I thought I saw earlier, dissect every millisecond, and question how I reacted. Should I have assumed Patrick was really here? Why would he come and then play shadow games? And if he was in my house, what did he want? So many questions threatening to send me into an anxious fit.

  But then Max parts my thighs and lowers his mouth to press between my legs. Then everything but the pleasure fizzles away.

  * * *

  Max

  Nix and I definitely have the post-coital awkwardness down to a tee.

  After I kissed her everywhere, we had sex again, this time slower and a little less crazed. Or at least I was a little less crazed. Nix fucks like she’s running from something, like she’s using sex to hide. I’m not complaining, but I am curious.

  I am naked, but she’s lying next to me in that damn tank top, staring at the ceiling and worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.

  Her phone buzzes from the other room. “I need to go check that.” She climbs out of bed, and I stay behind, enjoying the view of her bare ass. I don’t get the body image issues. My ex didn’t want to take her shirt off for a long time because she was embarrassed about her weight, but Nix is trim and toned, and it’s not like she was exactly self-conscious about the rest of her body.

  When she returns, she has my shirt from the garage and tosses it to me.

  “Who was that?” I ask, blatantly ignoring the shirt and her hint that it’s time for me to leave.

  “A text from Liz. Nothing important.” She sits on the edge of the bed and bites her lip. “Can we agree not to tell our friends about this?”

  I roll to my side and prop myself up on my elbow. “You mean I can’t show Will the video?”

  Her eyes widen and her jaw almost unhinges.

  “Oh, should I have told you about setting up the cameras?”

  She smacks me on the chest, and I laugh as I grab her hand and bring it to my lips.

  “I don’t make a habit of telling my friends the details of my sex life.” I kiss her knuckles but don’t release her hand.

  She stares at her hand in mine. “Good.”

  “At risk of you crushing my ego again, can I ask if there’s a reason you’re so worried about them knowing?”

  “I don’t want them to get ideas. You know the girls. They’ll think this is something more than it is.”

  And what is it? I have too much pride to ask that question. Hell, I don’t even know what I want it to be. I came over here looking for company at dinner, not a booty call. Not that I’m complaining. So I change the subject. “How do you feel about pizza?”

  “Strongly.” She smiles. She hasn’t done enough of that tonight, and I like seeing it.

  “Then how about I order one? Loaded?”

  “Everything but the little fish.”

  “My kind of girl.” I grab my phone and pull up the web browser to order online, and when I look back to her, she’s staring at me. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m sorry. You wanted to go to dinner, and I just thought you . . .” She shakes her head and wrinkles her nose. “You’re hungry. I’m sorry.”

  Chuckling, I roll out of bed and tug on my jeans. “Nix, as a medical professional, I would have guessed you’d know more about men.”

  “What do you mean?” She finds her panties on the floor, then pulls her hair into a tie. Too bad. I liked seeing the mess my hands made of it.

  “I mean on a guy’s hierarchy of needs, sex comes first. Always. Then pizza.”

  When she grabs a pair of jeans from her closet, I take them from her hands and drop my gaze to her legs. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather enjoy the view awhile longer.”

  She blushes. “Can I at least put on a shirt?”

  She’s already wearing a shirt, but I don’t say that. “Here,” I say, taking mine from the bed. “Wear mine.”

  “Why?”

  Good question. I’m not sure I want to explain that I want to see her in it, that I fucking love the idea of leaving it here and letting her sleep in it. Of her waking up tomorrow and thinking of me, my mouth between her legs. Fuck. It’s been too long since I’ve done this. “There’s something infinitely sexy about you walking around in my shirt,” I finally answer, because even if the truth makes me sound too eager, I’m not interested in playing games.

  Her pink cheeks make me want to kiss her again. Damn. I like this side of Nix. I want to see that embarrassment turn to arousal, but it’s getting late and I don’t want to give her more of a reason to think this was just some random hookup.

  We head to the kitchen, and when she opens her fridge, I’m surprised to see it stocked with beer instead of wine. “Good taste,” I murmur as I scan her selection of microbrews. I grab an IP
A for myself and turn to her. “Wouldn’t have guessed you to be a beer connoisseur. Who turned you on to that?”

  “Kent,” she says. Then she pales, as if she realizes she revealed more than she planned. “An old, um, boyfriend.”

  There’s a story there. But the bigger question is why I suddenly want to hear it so badly. Until tonight, I never thought about how much I don’t know about her. We have mutual friends, and as far as I can tell she spends the majority of her social hours going out with the Thompson sisters, but the drama is always theirs. No one ever talks about what’s going on with Nix. Is that because she lives a quiet life or a private one?

  “Is Kent still around?” I ask.

  “Nope. I’ll set the table.”

  Private. But why?

  She gathers paper plates and napkins and heads to the dining room, and the doorbell rings.

  “I’ll get it,” I call, pulling cash from my wallet. But when I open the door, I’m not looking at the pizza guy. It’s Liz Thompson. “You are not the pizza delivery guy.”

  She scans my bare chest and unbuttoned jeans. “No. I’m not.” She cranes her neck to see over my shoulder to the dining room, where Nix is setting the table in my T-shirt, then she gives me an arched eyebrow. “So, you and Nix?”

  So much for not telling our friends.

  “Um. I think I’d rather let her answer that?” I turn to Nix, who’s still oblivious to our company. “Lizzy’s here.”

  The silverware clatters from Nix’s hands and onto the table. “You didn’t text back,” Nix says.

  Liz’s eyes play ping-pong between us. “Something you two want to tell me?”

  “Do you want to answer that or do you want me to?” I ask Nix.

  “Just . . .” She starts toward us, then stops. “I need to get dressed.” She wags her finger at me as if it’s somehow my fault Liz showed up unannounced. “Don’t say a word.” Then she jogs back to the bedroom.