Chapter Thirteen
Max pushed himself hard on the treadmill, the pounding of his feet, the cadence of his breathing, and the whir of the belt the only sounds in the silent gym. Usually his middle-of-the-night workouts were more about insomnia than anything. Tonight, the frustrations piling on sat front and center of his thoughts.
The case at work, boring as he found it, was dragging on much longer than it should. He’d dealt with cases like it before—tracing numbers through complicated accounting processes—but he’d never failed to deliver results in a timely, if not early, manner. When had he ever taken this long to decipher a case? Being able to use his head for numbers and his expertise to put a stop to crime was a fully satisfying career, one he could take pride in.
But instead of doing his damn job, he’d allowed himself to be distracted by his blown-to-shit schedule and the woman who’d invaded his head. He’d been off his routine ever since the night he met Gina. Now, it appeared to be costing him his reputation in the office. He should be worrying about his job, but all he could think about was his unrelenting need to use his spare key and climb into Gina’s bed and work up a sweat with her rather than in the apartment gym…
Max increased the speed on is treadmill, determined to outrun his demons. Namely, a brunette with big doe eyes and a huge heart who’d managed to wind herself into his life and into his very blood.
Like an addiction.
The door creaked, and he scowled. No one ever disturbed his middle of the night workout, and tonight he was in no fucking mood to share the space, that was for damn sure.
The air punched out of his lungs as recognition of his intruder’s identity slammed through him. Gina slipped into the room, sexy as hell. When did she ever not look sexy, even in that ridiculous elf costume? Now she wore a white tank top, thin enough for the darker pink of her areolas to show through like a shadow, and black booty shorts that clung to the curve of her gorgeous ass. An outfit more suitable for sleeping than exercise—one he could image peeling her out of in the middle of the night—but he couldn’t even peel his eyes from her right now.
Without a word, and by some miracle still running without falling on his ass, Max watched her, never breaking eye contact. Leaning back against the door, her hands behind her, she stared back. He caught the soft snick of the lock even over the constant whirring of his machine. Max gulped as blood rushed south, abandoning his brain and leaving his legs lethargic as he continued to run.
Was this his thank-you gift for organizing her tools and things? Hell, yeah!
Turning away, she pulled the blinds covering windows facing the hallway closed, giving him a fantastic view of her ass, so tight. Then she turned and walked toward him, hips and tits both swaying hypnotically. His dick was hard and eager, about to explode in anticipation of whatever she had in mind.
Max lost his concentration and his footing, nearly falling off the treadmill. Only quick reflexes had him grabbing the bar before he landed face down on the thing. The Super would toss them both out of the complex for sure if anyone caught them having sex in the gym…
For once in his life, he didn’t give two shits about the rules.
But, instead of stripping off her clothes like he was picturing, she reached over and yanked on the emergency chord, bringing his machine to a stop.
“Would you like to explain why you touched my things?” she demanded.
Her eyes glittered with anger, lips pressed together. How had he missed that?
Max had no fucking clue what to do with what was happening. She was here to yell at him in the middle of the night?
An answering anger surged past the initial shock, and he stepped down, getting right in her face. “I thought I was doing something nice. Apparently, your mother didn’t teach you appreciation.”
Max cringed inwardly. Even he knew the mother comment was a low blow.
Gina scowled. “Apparently your mother didn’t teach you to keep your control freak hands off other people’s stuff.”
For someone who’d been amused but accepting of his need for order up till now, the rose-colored glasses had certainly been stripped away. “I’m not a freak.”
She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t call you a freak. I called you a control freak.” She held up fingers, ticking off each item. “You wear the same five suits all the time. You get twitchy if anything in your apartment—or mine, apparently—is out of place. You have to have your coffee freshly ground at the optimal temperature for that type of bean, and I suspect you have it at scheduled times of the day. I doubt you’ve ever willingly tried anything new. You don’t bring women back to your place or you would’ve had condoms in your drawer and not just your jacket pocket. What would you call it?”
Shit, she had him nailed. The part of Max still fighting the attraction between them wanted to strike back. “You think you know me so well?”
Only he still couldn’t pull his eyes from her body, her nipples puckered so beautifully for him. Max clenched his jaw until it ached. He didn’t know if he wanted to walk away, fight it out, or fuck her.
…
The combination of anger and need written on Max’s face as clearly as a flashing neon billboard would’ve been comical if she wasn’t fighting her own potent mix of the same emotions. She was practically crawling out of her skin with pure, unadulterated need, but Gina was determined to see this through.
She tipped up her chin. “No, Max. That’s part of the point. You’re so focused on controlling everything, you don’t share any part of yourself.”
“I shared a whole lot of myself with you the other night, if I remember correctly.”
“That was just fucking, and you know it.”
But even as she said the words, she knew it had been way more for her. She wouldn’t be fighting for something merely physical. She was falling for Max. Hard.
Don’t give up, Cassie said.
Push his buttons, Sabrina said. Or at least she implied it with her hint about his middle-of-the-night workouts.
Anger with him may have brought her down here, but needing to find a way to get through to him was keeping her here.
His blue eyes smoldered at her. He hadn’t been able to drag his gaze away since she’d walked in. Hell, he’d hardly allowed himself to blink. Mr. In-Control was way out of control…for her.
She stepped close enough that he could touch her if he just leaned a little closer. “Don’t you want to find…a connection with someone?”
“No.”
Stubborn ass. “I don’t believe you.”
With their bodies mere inches apart, his fists clenched at his sides. “I’m an FBI agent,” he growled through clenched teeth, tossing the words at her like a challenge. “I’m trained to make you believe whatever I want you to believe.”
Gina jerked so abruptly, Max chuckled.
Not a nice chuckle, though. He’d slammed a wall down between them. “This started out as a fake relationship, and it got physical. That’s all it can be.”
Gina blinked, still trying to absorb what he’d just said. Only, there was something vulnerable in his gaze. He wanted her to believe him, believe that he was this closed off asshole, but she just didn’t. Time to call his bluff, because the connection they had when they made love was more than just physical, and she’d damn well prove that to him.
“Fine,” she said.
He paused. “Fine?”
She gave a casual shrug, the performance of a lifetime. “We stick to the deal we had, and if physical is still on the table, I’m game if you are.”
Before she could say or do anything else, Max’s expression shifted from closed off to sizzling. He swooped in to kiss her. Not long, slow kisses, but hard and urgent. All about proving a point. This was just physical. And she couldn’t deny that the chemistry between them was off the charts. Hell, her brain was fuzzy as her body took over, wanting everything he could give her.
With a groan, he dropped to his knees, pushing up her top to kiss her breasts.
Gentle urgency. She’d never experienced anything like it, but the attention he devoted to her breasts had Gina trembling, her breath panting out of her in bursts. Then he started kissing his way down her tummy, circling her bellybutton with his tongue and nipping at her hips.
Forget just sex. This went deeper between them, she knew it did. She’d show him the difference between fucking and connecting on a deeper level, and maybe tease them both at the same time.
Before he could go lower, she put her hands on his head, applying a small amount of pressure to stop him. Max glanced up, and she almost melted in a puddle at the heat in his eyes.
Gina cleared her throat. “You…” Her voice cracked, so she cleared her throat again. “You want to go further? I’m game, but I need more.”
The heat continued to blaze at her even as he scowled.
She ignored his frustration. And hers. “So, what do you do for the FBI? Are you some sort of assassin? Is that why you’re so meticulous?”
Max laughed—almost as if he couldn’t help himself—his expression lightening from a scowl to something much more dangerous to her heart, especially when his eyes still burned. “Don’t believe all the movies,” he said.
“Okay.”
“I’m a numbers guy—finance, like I said, but using those skills to investigate people doing bad things with money. Meticulous kind of comes with the job, and as you so bluntly pointed out, I’m uniquely qualified in that department.”
“So, James Bond with numbers.” Ha! She’d been right.
“Something like that,” he murmured, but his focus was on her body now.
He slipped her booty shorts and panties off, the Promised Land in sight. Her flesh fluttered as his warm breath teased the sensitive juncture of her thighs. Gina still managed to shove her screaming body’s needs aside. She slipped a hand between them, stopping him yet again when he was only a hair’s breadth from giving her what she was sure would be the hottest oral sex she’d ever had in her life.
“Tell me about your childhood.”
…
Max let his head fall forward, resting on her belly, and released a groan. She was killing him. But he’d given up trying to hold out.
“Not much to tell. My parents were high school sweethearts, like I said. Dad’s in finance as well, in the city. Given Dad’s job, he wasn’t around a ton, but tried to make it to games and important things. Mom stayed at home and raised us. Other than the matchmaking habit she can’t break, she’s wonderful. They both are.”
Max moved his hands up her legs, starting at her ankles, pausing at the sensitive spot behind her knees, enjoying the silky-smooth skin under his fingertips. But she held her hand in place.
Max scoured his brain for any other details he could share quickly that would satisfy Gina’s sudden insistence on getting to know him. “I was always good at math and good with money, like Dad.”
He trailed his hands up the outside of her thighs and around to the insides, her muscles trembling under his touch, where he put the slightest pressure, and grinned when she not only parted those long legs for him, but gasped, even though he didn’t touch her more. Yet. The sound sizzled down his spine and his cock jumped.
Her hand stayed firmly, frustratingly in place.
What else could he tell her?
“We got to keep any college money left over after school. I got lucky investing my remaining college fund, the markets were up, and that helped me buy this apartment.”
No way could he afford it on what the government paid him. They did adjust for cost of living in New York, but that wouldn’t have got him here.
Finally, Gina must’ve been satisfied, because she pulled her hand back.
Story over, he did what he’d been dying to do. He slid his fingers inside her, groaning at how wet she was for him. With colossal control, he managed to stop and caught her fevered gaze with his own.
“Is that enough info for now?” Teasing could go both ways.
“Yes,” she breathed.
Max grinned. With a groan he delved into her with his tongue, her subtle flavor bursting on his taste buds. Gina shuddered, and he smiled, then repeated the action, never lingering on that bundle of nerves, brushing across it enough to make her moan.
“Max, please,” she hissed, threading eager fingers through his hair to hold him to her.
At the request, or command, he swirled his tongue around, stroking her. At the same time, he pumped his fingers in a slow, sensuous imitation of what he’d shortly be doing with his cock.
She rocked her body, angling her hips for more with each pump, each swipe of his tongue. Her response drove his own need, had him aching for her to the point of pain. First, though, he’d give her this. Give them both this.
Her breath started to hitch in her throat with each gasp and whimper, and Max knew she was close. He increased the urgency, the speed.
The sounds coming from her were faster now, in time to his fingers.
He clamped his lips around her and sucked. Gina screamed his name as her inner muscles contracted around his seeking fingers. Her hands gripped his hair, pulling hard enough to hurt, but he didn’t give a damn. He continued to touch her as the orgasm crashed through her body, not stopping until he heard that sigh. The one that told him her body was spent.
Max caught Gina as her knees buckled and she collapsed over him. He gently laid her on the mat beside him, paused to grab his wallet and the condom inside, thankful he brought it, then joined her, kissing her lips and enjoying her smile. Then he shucked his shirt and shorts in record speed and sheathed himself. Still seated, he picked Gina up and cradled her for a minute, giving her body a chance to calm before he started all over.
She felt right in his arms.
After all that talk of this just being physical, he couldn’t deny the connection. Sharing things that only those closest to him, which pretty much meant just Drew and his family, ever got to know…he felt as though he was swimming in a rough ocean without a raft. Exposed and vulnerable, and not just physically.
Tension started creeping into his shoulders. What was he doing?
She nestled into him. “Thank you for trusting me enough to open up.”
Was the woman a mind reader? How had she known that’s what he was thinking? Worse, why did he suddenly feel like the rough seas calmed and he had a life raft now? Like she’d keep him from drowning.
Unable to remotely put his scrambled-up thoughts in any semblance of an order, he did the next best thing and listened to his clamoring body. His balls ached from want of release.
Without a word, he situated Gina so she was straddling his lap. The languor disappeared from her eyes, replaced by a need that washed over him and had him even harder. Positioning her above him, he gripped her hips and eased her down his body.
Gina tossed her head back with a low moan, thrusting her breasts forward. He sucked a berry-pink nipple into his mouth and tugged lightly on it with his teeth. But his dick demanded his fair share of attention, pulsing inside her with his need to release. Realizing he didn’t have enough leverage, Max flipped them so Gina lay on her back. He thrust into her body, reveling in every sensation overloading his body.
He could get addicted to her. Not just her body and how his responded—hell, how he craved her now—but he could get addicted to her in his life. Just her.
His life—with his schedule, and his plans, and his neat rows and columns—was crumbling around him because of this chaotic, unpredictable woman. No way would he ever have fucked a woman in this gym in the middle of the night and risked getting caught and losing his apartment.
Worse, his lack of control might be seriously screwing with his mind, but suddenly, he couldn’t help but wish this was his life.
That scared the hell out of him, more than any thought or action up to this point.