Oh, God.

Oh, God.

What had I done?

My body had gone haywire. I couldn’t breathe around the need and the firing jumble of emotions that were trying to break out of my skin.

All I knew was that it ended with Max.

Max, whom I’d wanted for so long. Max, who’d charged into the parking garage like an avenging angel with his black suit and glowing white shirt stuck to his flawless body.

For me.

He’d come for me.

He gripped the back of my hair, holding my head still as he stared into me as if he intended to ferret out the secrets in my brain. There were no secrets. Just this. Just him touching me and reminding me that I was still alive.

That I was fine.

That I was wanted.

That fire inside him. Those moments I’d seen at the restaurant were nothing compared to the man who was in front of me. Nothing at all.

He lowered those last few precious inches until his mouth was on mine. Not sweet, not tender, not even close to the elegant man who sat in my restaurant night after night.

No.

This was raw. He sucked the length of my tongue into his mouth like he owned it. Owned me.

The kiss was as dark as the parking garage we were in. The shaft of light from the overhead fixture didn’t illuminate him.

It framed the darkness until he was a chiseled set of angles. His dark eyes were hooded and shadowed with a glimmer of something more. Something I didn’t want to identify, just wanted to experience.

He pulled at the strap of my halter top until they both loosened and my breasts were bared to him. That light in his eyes, more candle flame than anything else, seemed to dance as he took me in.

The devil?

Or everything I never knew I wanted?

My nipples tightened. They were too sensitive. I shied away from his touch. Everything seemed too big, too much. He’d come for me. He’d saved me.

Now I was afraid that perhaps the real threat was here and now. The other man simply wanted my wallet, my money.

This man? He wanted so much more.

I wanted to give it to him. I wanted him to strip me bare and take everything—at least part of me did. The careful Georgia who had a plan, a schedule, and a set of rules—she was buried. I didn’t want any part of her tonight.

I threw my shoulders back and lifted my chin. A muscle in his jaw tensed and flexed with each clench of his teeth. That powerful jawline that was all angles and mystery.

And that little bit of something else.

That something else flooded my body and added a tiny bit of fear. It tightened my nipples and my clit pounded in reaction. I was so wet. Wetter than I’d ever been before. Even by my own hand in the dark nights with this man in my head.

This was more than a safe fantasy under the covers.

He peeled my halter top down until there was nothing between us except the night sounds, the kiss of humid air, and his eyes. With wide hands and elegant fingers, he slowly smoothed his thumbs over my ribs, under the heavy curve of my breasts until he lifted them, cupped them, gripped them.

He wasn’t gentle.

I didn’t want gentle. I’d had gentle and tentative all my life. He kept his gaze locked on mine as he lowered his mouth and covered my nipple. He sucked it into his mouth with force and ruthless aggression. Every single tingle of anticipation was no match for the reality of Maximus Chapel.

Elegance.

The perfect cut of his suit.

His modulated voice with just the hint of boarding school.

All of that should have come with a ruthless boardroom type who probably had controlled sex with beautiful women who were more plastic and ice than the real flesh and bone of a woman like me.

I was so wrong.

I closed my eyes as his suction edged into pain. But just before it did, he released me with a pop. My eyes flashed open. Those dark, intense eyes were on my breasts now. I couldn’t help but look down at the flush of blood that had turned my nipples dark red.

They throbbed with my heartbeat.

He took the other one with the same focus until I was nothing but that pinpoint of flesh. My nipple that he couldn’t stop tasting. The draw of his mouth echoed in the restless drumbeat of my clit, in the walls of my sex clenching for something that wasn’t there.

I needed him there.

“Is this still what you need?” His eyes were shuttered. The greed leaking from behind the black glass of his eyes. Here they weren’t a rich brown that I could drown in.

Here they were simply black as night.

He coasted his palms over the sensitized tips and gripped them, pushing them together so he could go from nipple to nipple with biting suction.

My breathing was beyond labored.

I felt like I’d run a 5K in two minutes.

Impossible.

Broken.

As if I was flying.

He’d barely touched me.

Was this the adrenaline talking? Or the man?

The chemistry of both that would leave me strung out like an addict?

Because surely this was more than any one person could survive.

I touched his face with a shaking hand. My thumb glided over his cheekbone and the hollow beneath it as he drew from me. “Max.”

His eyes went wild again. Dark pools dragging me under. He left my breasts and dragged me in so his mouth could take. There was no giving at this point. He just kept taking. Like he was leeching all of the danger and adrenaline out of me and using it to power up.

His hands raced down my sides to my thighs and beyond. He found the slit in my skirt and dragged it up, his short nails scraping up my skin with each inch he revealed. His mouth never wavered.

He never stopped.

My numbness dissipated.

I couldn’t stop feeling. Couldn’t stop this train if we’d had a fleet of cops behind us. We stumbled back to the concrete support beam and he knocked the breath out of me.

He crouched in front of me. I wasn’t prepared for this kind of action. The dress I wore required pantyhose that would smooth everything out. I tugged at his hair. “Max, I—”

The rip of nylon made me gasp. Evidently, that wasn’t a factor. He tore at them, peeling them away until my royal blue lace panties were his only barrier.

His breath was hot against my chilled flesh. Adrenaline had been replaced with the endorphin rush of this moment. My skin was a wash of goosebumps and sensitivity.

Things like this didn’t happen to me. I had safe sex after the prerequisite six or so dates that I felt was sufficient to think about a physical relationship.

I didn’t have sex in a parking garage with a man like Max Chapel.

Well, I hadn’t—but it was going to happen now.

It damn well better happen.

He pulled me away from the concrete. Were we going to go to his house now? I wasn’t sure what I’d do if I had that much time to think.

My thighs shook as he turned me around. The thrill shot up my body. His hands were rough and demanding as he urged my legs open. His thumbs made lazy circles at the back of my knees. So incredibly incongruous to how he’d touched me so far.

He curled his fingers around my ankles until they were as wide apart as he wanted. I wore heels. I always wore heels. Vanity, height, pure masochistic tendencies—whatever it was, I owned it. I loved them. Loved the way they make my legs look, how they made me walk.

They were the one feminine thing I could never skimp on.

But they also pushed my ass out.

God, I was on display to him.

How could he want me like this?

How could I want it so much?

The rough cement dug into my palms as I held on. More like supported myself. Every part of me shook in excitement and fear and reaction. I didn’t know which one was going to take over.

I’m not entirely sure I cared.

I just wanted this to go on and on.

His fingers trailed a lazy path up my ankles to the back of my knees. The nip of his teeth at the inside of my thigh made me jump. “Max.”

He growled against my skin. “Keep saying my name, Miss Barrows, and I’m going to lose it.”

The fact that he’d changed from Georgia to the more formal use of my surname made it worse somehow. It stole the familiar and made this even more removed from reality.

His nose brushed along my bare skin. He’d ripped my hose open until there was no part of me that he couldn’t reach. And now I couldn’t see what he was going to do. Staring at the stark gray of the support beam was worse than a blindfold. Half of an A had been part of some graffiti tag and was partially washed away.

And this man was crouched behind me with my ass on display.

How was this my life?

He pushed up my skirt and the damp air made me shiver. With each inch he revealed, he tore at the hose until it was a mere suggestion of black nylon. My legs were open and I was so freaking wet.

Had never been this wet.

I was embarrassed at the thought of him seeing just how turned on I’d become. The mugger had come at me. He’d demanded my bag and I’d been so stupid. Stupid enough that I could have been hurt on a far more dangerous level.

Seeing Max come for me.

Watching Max charge after the guy for me.

That fear paled in comparison to the wreckage that remained of my system right now. Max was standing behind me checking out my goods, for fuck’s sake.

How had this happened? And why did I want more of it?

What did that make me? A deviant?

Like those insane people who caused car crashes and fucked in their cars afterward because of the endorphins? Was I one of those people?

He nipped at the skin where my ass met my thigh. “You’re overthinking. I can feel it. Do you want me to stop?”

“No!”

God, I’d practically screamed that.

“No.” I changed my voice to a whisper. “No, Max.”

“Fuck.” He shoved my skirt higher and jerked my legs apart even farther so that it would stay up. There were no secrets. Every part of me was there for him.

Oh, God.

I heard the snick of something metal and then my panties fluttered down between my legs.

He’d cut them off.

How—oh, God.

His tongue swiped up from where my thighs met my sex, up to my slit. He opened me and there was nothing but his warm mouth and ridiculously skilled tongue. Heat flushed up my neck at the sounds of his erotic kisses and my wetness.

I was frozen from shock and the building pressure. Nothing was off-limits to him. He thrust inward with his tongue, dug his thumbs inside me to find every last fold and secret, then stroked the pads of his fingers over my clit until my legs shook.

The spraypainted A before me shimmered and disappeared into the inky darkness as my breaths grew shallow and my shoulders tensed. It wasn’t pleasure. It wasn’t anything like I’d ever experienced. It was so much more. So invasive and demanding. One thumb circled my clit, the other brushed through my folds and slipped inside in some sort of rhythm that I couldn’t follow, I could only capitulate to.

But it was his tongue that left me in shattered pieces. He drank me down like I was his favorite nectar, but he wouldn’t let me go over.

Wetter than ever, I quivered as insanity chased my every breath.

I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t breathe. His name was a chant in my head and I was so afraid it was actually my voice. That I was giving myself away that completely.

“Max, please.” He flicked his nail over my clit and my entire body shuddered. “Please.”

“I want you here. I like you here,” he said against my hip as he took a breather.

“I want you inside me.” He had to kill this ache inside me. The buzz from the soles of my feet to my clit pushed me to talk. I wouldn’t stay quiet and just take what he gave me. “Max. I need you inside me.”

He gripped my hips as he stood and loomed over me from behind. His mouth hovered at my ear, his breathing harsh, and his chest heaved against my naked back. I was more than half exposed and he was still in his suit.

I turned around in his arms, and my fingers trembled at his buckle. “This. I need this.” I unzipped him, groaning when his hold tightened. The velvety head of his cock brushed my wrist as I reached into his boxer briefs. Hard, hot, and sweet mercy, he was thick. The veins along the underside were a roadmap to the base of him.

He leaned down and caught my mouth. His chin and lips were smeared with me. Salty and indescribable was all I could come up with before my mind emptied. Our kiss was rough, and anything but romantic. He nipped and I reciprocated, he went for my neck and all I could do was hold on. He coasted up behind my ear and his low groan made me bold.

The head of his cock was wet. I used it to twist and stroke down his length and around his head. He dragged my hand away and hoisted me up into his arms and turned toward the car. I yelped and wrapped my legs around his hips for purchase.

His jet-colored eyes were so dark and that danger was lurking again. He pinned me against the side of the car. The muscle in his jaw jumped when I went for his pants. He braceleted my wrist and transferred my hand to the cool metal edge of the hood. He shrugged out of his suit jacket and tossed it behind me, then lifted me effortlessly and placed me on top of it.

I grabbed onto his arms. The muscles there were so ropey and solid.

God, what was I doing?

He flipped out his wallet beside us and attacked my neck, then breasts as he fumbled with the other hand.

Surely my eyes were rolling into the back of my head. The roughness of his evening scruff and his ruthless mouth left fire in its wake. “Multi-tasking?” I managed to ask.

“It’s what I do,” he said against my nipple before he rolled it into his mouth.

I wasn’t entirely sure I was going to survive this.

The crinkle of the condom wrapper seemed so loud all of a sudden. I looked around the garage, shocked to see it still empty. It felt like we’d been at each other forever. My sense of time and space had closed in until there was nothing but Max.

And now things felt so huge and my head throbbed as reality intruded. Then I looked down at the dark purple head of his cock and stopped him. “One last touch before you cover it.”

His irises were blown out, and shadows warred with the little shafts of light from above. Angles and darkness, madness and passion. We had gone from safe, polite small talk to this. My garments ripped, his mouth wet from mine, my thighs burning with stubble burn from his jawline. And my clit still pounded like he was the kick drum in my own personal song.

Constant.

Aware.

Necessary.

I swiped up the curved length to where his fingers hovered over the head with the condom. I closed my hand over his and pulled it down. Latex covered the tight skin, down over the engorged shaft, until he pulsed in my hand.

Did he know my pain?

His jawline certainly said so.

I brought my hand up to his face and watched him as he stepped forward into my sphere again. The madness returned, and the garage faded away. It was just me and Max.

This moment we’d been fighting to find through the shadows and the polite chitchat.

And God, I was afraid.

Afraid that it would be too good.