The Boss's Proposal, page 11
The thirty-five miles to Portland passed in a sort of desperate blur. Max leaned over from her seat, nibbling kisses along Dylan’s jaw, opening the top button of his shirt so that she could slip her hand inside. He tipped his head a bit toward hers, pressing his mouth to hers while keeping one eye on the road.
How had she managed to wait so long? How had she managed to fool herself into thinking that she wasn’t desperate for this, desperate for him? Days had gone by while she’d delayed. Now, the passage of each second felt excruciating.
Just when she thought she could stand it no longer, Dylan pulled up before her building. He put the car in Park.
“God, I’m glad we—” Max began.
And he cut off the stream of words, dragging her to him for a voracious kiss that sent need sprinting through her. Max had thought of the devil the first time she’d seen Dylan Reynolds. Oh, but sin had never felt this good. It was like being on the Tilt-A-Whirl in the carnival, going around and around in every direction so fast that concepts like up and down and even reality had no meaning. She’d always loved those rides, not screaming but laughing at the sheer confusion of sensation.
It was nothing compared to what she felt now. His mouth overwhelmed, he ran his hands everywhere over her body, sliding his palms over her bare legs, making her moan. Making her ache.
Making her want.
Finally, he released her. “I’ve been waiting half an hour for that,” he growled.
“Then let’s not wait anymore.”
But they stopped at the entrance to her building to kiss, and stopped again in the lobby. They lost long minutes outside her front door to the seduction of lip and tongue, the slip of hand. “We’re wasting time,” Dylan murmured against her skin.
“Are we?” Max dragged his shirt out of his waistband so that she could run her hands up his back.
They didn’t bother with the ritual of a drink, they didn’t bother stopping at the living room couch. They had only one objective, both of them, as they headed for the stairs.
There would be time to go slow, Dylan thought, but not when the need hammered at him, not when the hunger was this sharp. He pressed her against the wall at the base of the stairs, running his lips down her throat, sliding up that short, short skirt to feel her warm and soft underneath. Only when he felt his body tighten could he make himself release her.
Because he knew there was more.
Her bedroom took up the whole loft, an acre of soft carpet to cross before the bed—the bed—the place he ached to have them both. Impatient, he swung her up into his arms and strode across the room to lay her down on the duvet. She came up instantly onto her knees, reaching for him.
“I was thinking all night that you were a little overdressed,” he said, running his hands down over her hips and then bringing them back up, sliding them under that stretchy tank top to find her curves. His reward was her gasp, as she threw her head back, giving him access to her throat.
Her scent filled his senses as he kissed his way across the fragile line of her collarbone and down toward the vee between her breasts. He stroked the satiny smooth skin of her waist, the sleek muscles of her back. It wasn’t enough, though. He wasn’t sure anything could be.
Impatiently, he brought his hands back down to gather the edge of her shirt and drag it off over her head. Underneath, he found warm bare skin and a lacy concoction that managed to look both innocently white and indecently transparent. It did nothing to satisfy the furious hunger that gnawed at him, just tantalized, tormented. He needed Max, all of her and nothing else.
Had she ever known this kind of furious demand? Max wondered desperately. Had she ever felt this kind of pounding need? He wasn’t gentle and she didn’t want him to be. She wanted to be ravished. She wanted to feel his hunger. His hands ran over her body, hard, almost punishing, and everywhere they touched she felt on fire. She ripped open his shirt, dragging it off his shoulders so that she could run her hands through the springy hair on his chest. When he peeled back the white lace cups of her bra, she caught a breath at the feel of the cool air against her and cried out as his hands slid up to cover her.
Then he was laying her down on the bed, leaning over her to drag off her skirt and the lace she wore beneath. He moved away long enough to strip off the rest of his clothing and then he was against her, on her, the feel of his bare skin against hers making her moan with pleasure.
He followed his hands with his mouth, running his tongue down over her chest, lingering on her breasts, tracing the flat of her belly.
His mouth was hot on her, pressing against the tender inside of her thigh. She felt the warm trail of his tongue on the soft skin. And then he found her, pressing his mouth on her, holding her down until her body bucked against him. And he drove her hard, dragging moans from her, making her quake with every slick caress until she tensed and tightened, shuddered. And then she was flinging her hands out to grip the sheets, her body arching off the mattress as the climax burst through her, one shock wave followed by another, and another.
Dylan moved up to lie next to her, taking her mouth as possessively as he had her core, feeling a sharp tug of arousal at the sporadic shudders that still ran through her body. “I’ve been waiting for that,” he murmured against her lips.
Max brought a hand up to his shoulder to press him flat on the mattress. “Not nearly as much as I have,” she said, rising over him. “And not nearly as much as I’ve been waiting for this.”
And she was avid and agile, moving against him, her hands not satisfying but tantalizing, making him want, making him ache for her in a way he’d never known.
She bent over him, dragging her hair over his torso, the silky strands slipping over the skin of his chest, his belly, and lower, until she bent down and tasted him, lingering there as he groaned, every atom of him focusing on her touch, that tease, that slick, hot caress. He groaned with her, tangling his hands in her hair, letting her take him closer and closer to the edge. Until he clutched her shoulders and dragged her up the bed. “No,” he gasped.
“Now,” she countered and moved up over his body to take him inside in a single swift motion that had him whipping his head back against the pillow. She bent over him, her hands on his shoulders, leaning down to press her mouth to his. He put his hands on her hips and she let him set the rhythm until he pulled her against him, turning them over as one so that she lay below him. And finally, as he’d wanted to for days upon days, he could feel her underneath him and bury himself in her.
And she was soft and strong and lithe, moving against him, driving him nearly over the edge with each tilt of her hips, each stroke of her hands. She made love with him the same way she lived, fearless, confident, throwing all of herself into it, matching him every step of the way. The same way she would always match him, he realized. But it was the look in her eyes, the naked need, that aroused him most of all.
He’d thought of a tornado the first time they kissed and now they rode the whirlwind together, the passion roaring through them.
Max laughed exultantly, raising her arms over her head and then draping them around his neck, sliding them down his back to feel the taut muscles flexing under her hands as she urged him on and on. She felt the tension gathering within her, winding tighter and tighter, filling her with an almost painful sensation. The surge of his body brought her to the line between pleasure and pain. Then the next motion flung her past it, pleasure exploding through her out to her fingertips even as he groaned and spilled himself.
Chapter Nine
The buzz of the alarm jolted Max awake to see the morning light streaming in through the skylights.
Monday morning, to be exact.
“Good Lord.” She sat bolt upright, fueled by a jolt of adrenaline. Beside her, she heard a stream of curses from Dylan.
“What time is it?” he stopped long enough to ask.
“Six o’clock,” she told him.
“And we’ve got the design review at eight.” He was already out of bed, yanking on his shorts. “I’ve got time, barely.”
“What are you going to tell your parents?” She crossed to the closet door to grab her robe.
“Probably nothing, why?”
“Aren’t they going to wonder where you were all night?”
Dylan pulled on his shirt, searched for any remaining buttons and shrugged. “Maybe, I don’t know. They were supposed to get in pretty late themselves. Besides, I’ve been an adult for a while now and they don’t tend to worry too much.”
He sensed rather than saw her stiffen. “Sure, because they’re probably used to you staying out when you come to visit,” she said, belting on her robe.
He took two quick steps and pulled her up against him. “No, as a matter of fact, they’re not. This isn’t my usual MO when I’m here. What’s going on between the two of us is an exception…in a whole lot of ways.”
He fused his lips to hers and the passing of time, so crucial just an instant before, suddenly became irrelevant. Long seconds passed, lost in the contact of mouth to mouth, hand to body.
Any reasonable person would’ve thought that the time they’d spent making love the night before would have slaked their desire, Max thought, but it had done nothing to dull the need. His clever mouth dazzled her, dizzied her until work became a distant, unimportant thought and the only thing that mattered was feeling his skin under her hands.
With effort, Max pulled away. “If you’re going to get home, get cleaned up and back to the office in time for the meeting, you’d better go.”
“I could take a shower here,” he suggested.
Max’s lips twitched. “Are you serious?”
“You’re right.” He started down the stairs. “I’ll see you in the office in a little while.” He stopped, then bounded back up the stairs for one last kiss, licking her lower lip as though savoring some decadent dessert. “That’s got to last me all day,” he said and turned for the door.
Max was sitting in the main conference room with the rest of the architectural staff, studying the plans and renderings taped along one wall, when Dylan came into the meeting just a moment or two after eight. Hal, she noticed, gave him a long glance. Dylan didn’t look the least bit tired, not at all as though he’d spent most of the night before making love. She could still feel the ache between her thighs. Glancing down at her wrist, she saw a faint smudge of purple she knew had come from him.
And she felt the slow tightening in her belly.
Max took a deep breath. She’d known she was making a questionable decision in sleeping with Dylan in the first place. She hadn’t considered what it would be like to sit across from him in a meeting when just two hours before, they’d been lying naked together in bed. That was the whole reason she’d avoided work involvements, the whole reason she’d tried to avoid this one, the whole reason she should stop it in its tracks.
Except that deep down, some part of her was already calculating how soon she would be able to touch him again.
Hal stood with Leo Stein in front of the elevation view of the design Max and Dylan liked best. “This is the one they’ll go with,” Hal commented.
Next to him, Leo rubbed his chin. “It’s a good design. All of them are. I’m just a little worried about whether we have enough wow factor. We’re going to be presenting last, after the two hotshot firms. We need something that’s going to grab the committee’s attention.”
Dylan stirred. “What about a model?”
“A model?” Hal frowned. “Nobody does models anymore.”
“That’s exactly why it’ll work. Those other two groups are going to walk in with visualizations and animations like you wouldn’t believe. After a while you lose the effect. No matter how good our animations are—and, Eli, they are really good—by the time we come in, everybody on that committee is bound to be a little burned out.” He rose and began to pace as he talked. “People like having something to stand up and walk around and look at. Sure, it’s old-school, but so are Fischer and Sherwin. They’ll like it. No matter what we show them, I guarantee you they’ll be staring at the model.”
The room was quiet while everybody digested the idea. Leo was the first to break the silence. “It could work.”
“Neither you nor I have time to do a model, Leo,” Hal said in exasperation. “Outside the two of us, who here even knows how?”
Dylan turned to him. “I do.”
“So do I,” Max said. “I worked for an architect when I was in high school who was big on models.”
“There. That’s two of us,” Dylan said. “If we can get someone to hit an art supply store, we can get started on it today. Assuming you don’t mind working late, Max?”
She found herself fighting a grin. “Whatever it takes,” she said.
How did he manage it? Max wondered afterward as she headed back to her office. Every time she got by herself, she began thinking how absolutely crazy she was to even consider getting involved with him, let alone diving into a full-blown affair. But then she’d see him. He’d flash that smile, look at her with those eyes and the next moment it all seemed like the most natural thing in the world.
Vulcans, she decided, had nothing on Dylan Reynolds.
Her phone was ringing as she walked through the door and she hurried over to pick it up. “This is Max.”
“Is this Maxine McBain?” an unfamiliar voice asked.
“Max. What can I do for you?”
The person cleared her throat. “Uh, hi, Max. This is Susan Harding from Portland General. I don’t know if you remember me—”
“Of course I remember you,” Max cut in. “The redhead, right?”
Harding laughed. “Yeah, people usually remember the hair.”
“You’re the oncology nurse.” Max slid into her seat. “What can I do for you?”
“Do you remember how we talked at the commit tee meeting about what patients need and what that means for the design?”
Max wound the phone cord around her finger. “Absolutely. I thought you were dead-on then and I still do.”
“Well, I wonder if it might help you guys to maybe talk to some patients about what they want before you design the addition. I mean right now, you’re talking to us in the committee meeting but it seems like the focus of the discussion is about cost-cutting and things that work for the hospital. This would be a way to see the actual people.” She paused. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s a phenomenal idea,” Max told her, staring at the floor plan displayed on her computer screen. “How do we get started?”
“After you left, I talked with Paul Fischer and the head of nursing. It took some convincing, but I’ve gotten the okay for you guys to come in and see what the patients have to say.”
Max felt a little bubble of excitement rising in her chest. “Really?”
“I know it’s late in the process, but it took me some time to pull it off. Could you and your partner come by tomorrow for an hour to talk with them? I realize it’s short notice but this was the best that we could do.”
“Absolutely, we’ll be there,” Max said. “It’s exactly what we need. I can’t thank you enough for thinking of us.”
“If you give me those gardens or the family suites, that would be thanks enough,” Harding said.
Max bit her lip. “I’ll do my best,” she promised as she hung up.
She rose and hurried down to Dylan’s office. She could see him through the open door as she approached. He was staring down at plans on his worktable, eyes intent on the design. A sheaf of dark hair fell over his forehead. He wore an olive-colored linen shirt with the collar unbuttoned and the sleeves rolled up. It made his skin looked very dark. She remembered kissing his neck, pressing her lips to his shoulder. She remembered just how strong those hands of his were.
It was alarming how much of a fixture he’d become in her life in such a short time. She’d grown accustomed to his humor, to his smiles. She’d come to look forward to seeing him every day.
As though he’d heard her thoughts, Dylan glanced up to see her. The force of his gaze almost stopped her in her tracks. And she swallowed and walked forward to knock on his open door. “Got a minute?” she asked.
“Always,” he said.
She stepped into the office, very conscious of his gaze on her. It was different, somehow, now that they’d slept together. Before, his gaze had made her aware of her movements. Now, it made her aware of herself, of exactly how responsive his touch could make her.
And exactly how much having an affair with him could interfere with her job, she reminded herself.
“Do you have an hour tomorrow afternoon to go over to Portland General?” she asked him. “I just got a very interesting call from one of the nurses.”
Dylan wondered if she had any idea just how delicious she looked standing there in her slick little jacket and skirt, with those high heels that made her legs look like they went on forever. Of course, she also looked delicious in nothing at all and he was looking forward to seeing her that way as soon as possible. Making love with her the night before had been extraordinary; at least as pleasurable had been falling asleep with her in his arms.
He had a strong feeling that Max McBain was going to be a hard habit to break. Given that he was going to be leaving for Dubai in a week or two, that could prove a very big problem indeed. But there were things like telephones and airplanes. They could figure out a way to make it work if they wanted to, and he wanted to very much indeed.
“Come on in,” he said. “Tell me about your call.”
“You slept with him?” Glory asked Max.
They stood leaning on the fence around Glory’s pasture, watching the photographer BRS had hired to photograph some of her sculptures.
“Can I tell you how not surprised I am to hear that?” Glory continued.
Max frowned at her. “You could at least pre tend.”
“Okay, give me a minute, here.” Glory cleared her throat. “Wow,” she burst out, “you really slept with him?”
