Magnus took the room Max had been in before four unexpected houseguests arrived, and after making sure everyone seemed to be tucked in for the night, I sneaked out of the house.
The bus ran all hours, much to Max’s horror, and even though he or Kate gave me a lot of rides, I still depended on trusty public transportation for lots of things.
Like showing up at my fake fiancé’s-slash-love-interest’s office in the middle of the night.
I’d been to Max’s office in downtown Portland a couple of times, but never at night and certainly never for anything close to the reason I was showing up now. When the elevator doors chimed open, I stepped into a large, dark lobby. A reception desk, where Ezra could sometimes be found helping out, was parked in front of the elevator. There were a handful of offices running along the wall of windows, a large expanse of cubicles down the hall, a break room, a conference room, all of it.
Only a person or two might work there now, but Max had big plans for the future. His commercial development company was almost fully funded, but he’d need people to work it. He was ready for when that day came.
It seemed to me like an obscene waste of money for him to pay for this large of a space when he was the only employee of Sturm Industries, but I thought seeing this place and its potential motivated him.
Moving through the dark space, I headed for Max’s office in the corner. I wasn’t sure if he’d be happy to see me or not-so-much, since he’d left in such a hurry earlier, but I was planning on swaying his opinion in my favor.
The door to his office was closed even though he was alone, almost like he was trying to close out the world. I didn’t know, but I didn’t pause to rethink what I was doing. I just opened the door and stepped inside.
Like the rest of the offices, this room was dark too. The screens of his computer cast a glow across his face as he studied them, his forehead pinched in concentration.
“Nina?” His chair rolled back from his desk as he blinked to adjust his eyes to the dark I was shadowed in.
“Max.”
His screens dimmed some so I could just make him out. “What are you doing here?”
“Checking on you. You kind of left in one giant rush.”
He scrubbed his face before his head fell back against his chair. “I’m sorry. I just can’t be around Elena. I don’t trust myself not to say or do something that I would regret later.”
My brow peaked. “Because it’s not like you were saying anything tonight you might regret tomorrow?”
“Nothing I said to her I’ll regret tomorrow. Nothing.”
Leaving the door open, I moved inside his office. “Well, you’ll be happy to know I found a hotel for her to stay at tomorrow night and we made her an open-ended reservation until she can find more permanent housing.”
It was dark, but I didn’t miss the way his jaw clamped down. “You know this is all some big scheme she or my parents or all three of them are in on, right? The job, the hotel falling through, the nice act—it’s all meant to make us lower our defenses.”
I had to bite my tongue. Max had known Elena far longer than I had, but I considered myself a decent judge of character, and she didn’t seem like the plague incarnate. Maybe she had been, maybe part of that was still there, but I liked to judge a person based on who they were now instead of holding them to who they’d been before. She might have done some terrible things and hurt Max in a way that made my stomach curdle, but I wouldn’t give her as much credit and headspace as Max did.
I didn’t want to talk about Elena tonight. Or his family. Or their intentions.
I wanted something else.
I wanted him.
“I’m not here to talk about them, Max. Tonight, I just don’t give two fucks about any of those people camped out in my house right now.” I slid out of my jacket and dropped it on the floor. I still had on the same dress from earlier, and as I moved closer to his desk, I worked it up my body and over my head. It landed on the floor with my jacket. “I’m here to be with you.”
Max’s lips parted, his breathing accelerating as I moved closer, naked and unrepentant.
“You and me, we have unfinished business.” I came around the side of his desk, and he swiveled in his chair toward me. “And I’m not leaving here until we finish it.”
Pausing at the end of his desk, I slid up onto the edge of it, crossed my legs, and swung my feet from it. When he started shoving out of his chair, I raised my finger. “But first, I need to tell you something.”
Max was dressed in his suit again, but he was loosening his tie. “After.”
I stifled the smile forming. “Nice try. But now.”
Rising from his chair, he slid out of his jacket, pulling his tie out from beneath his collar. I had to look away to say what I needed to because watching the Max striptease was a little distracting.
“You remember that biography we each filled out?” I stopped. Maybe I should have waited to take my clothes off until after I’d said this. Especially now that he was half naked already. “Of course you do. You’re the one who put them together.” Clearing my throat, I stared out the window to keep my thoughts from getting away from me. “There was a reason I didn’t fill out that last section on our . . . sexual affairs.”
“Because you make it your job to make my life difficult?” Max was working his belt free, his voice low.
“Keeping to the point . . .” I shifted just a little farther down the desk from him. “You thought I didn’t answer those questions by leaving them blank when, in fact, those were my answers.”
Max’s zipper lowered. The sound of it sent chills down my back. “What, so you used invisible ink to write your answers? I’m not following, Nina. Let’s discuss this later.”
When his pants dropped, I swallowed and continued to stare out the window. If I looked at him, I would have no problem putting a pin in this conversation and getting to the whole reason I was here.
“No.” I gnawed at my lower lip. “My answers were left blank because I don’t have anything to fill in.”
Max was quiet for a moment. “Still not following.”
I sighed. How could someone who was able to forecast the stock market not be able to make sense of what I was spelling out?
“I left the answers blank because I don’t have any answers.”
He still wasn’t talking.
“Because I haven’t . . . done anything. With anyone.” My forehead creased as I waited for him to say something.
Max stood there, naked, silent. It was driving me mad trying to tell him what I was and him not getting it. Standing an arm’s length away from me, clothing free.
“Not following—”
“God, Max,” I roared, throwing my head back. “I’m a virgin.”
Silent again.
And more silence.
“Max?” My head turned hesitantly toward him.
He was staring at me, trying to hide his surprise, but it was still swimming in his eyes. “You’ve never?” His brow lifted. “With anyone?”
“Pretty sure that’s the definition of virgin.”
Max’s hand covered mine as he moved in front of me. He uncrossed my legs then pulled me to the edge of his desk. A breath escaped me as he settled into the space between my legs. “Then we’d better see to getting those blanks filled in.”
He slid me closer to the edge of the table, until I could feel him hard against me. My heart took off.
“But I thought you had something urgent that needed taken care of.” My gaze fell to his computer screens, where he’d clearly been busy with something. Like making buckets of money.
“I do.” His fingers moved up my legs. He smirked down at me when he felt the wetness on my inner thighs. “I’m taking care of it right now.”
His fingers kept moving up until they landed on their destination. My eyes closed as his thumb stroked me. “So that whole storming out and leaving for your office act earlier was just to get me alone, spread out on your desk,
beneath you?”
Like I’d reminded him of something, he leaned into me until I was laid out beneath him. My chest spilled out beneath his, my body cushioning all of his muscle and mass.
“I can’t get much by you.” He sank his teeth into my earlobe, keeping his thumb circling me.
My breaths were quick, raspy. “You leaving had nothing to do with your family camping out at the house?”
His fingers moved, circling lower. “What family?” His mouth moved lower, sucking down my neck.
“It had nothing to do with Elena?”
He nipped me when I said her name. “Elena who?”
My back arched into him, my hips tipping in welcome. “Max . . .”
“This has nothing to do with them, Nina.” His face lifted above where he’d been nuzzling my chest, his eyes on fire. “When I’m with you, like this, nothing else matters. I don’t care what my family’s scheming and I don’t care about what Elena did. I care about you.”
I couldn’t forget the way he’d looked earlier tonight. How undone he’d seemed. How lost. “There’s a lot coming at you all at once.” I bit back the moan rising in my throat when his finger slipped a little inside me. I wanted him so damn badly, but I had to make sure this was right. For him too. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
Max’s mouth found mine, teasing me with his tongue between sucking at my lips. “Instead of telling you how much this is what I want, how about I show you instead?”
My head bobbed when I felt his finger slide away, making room for him.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” His eyes were squeezed shut, like he was fighting some invisible battle, as more of him moved inside me.
“You won’t,” I breathed, my hips angling to meet him.
Then, at the last minute, I changed my mind. About the position at least.
Pivoting against him, I managed to get him on his back with my body above him on his desk.
“What are you doing?” He glanced up at me, not seeming to mind the change as his gaze dipped to my chest hanging above him.
“This is my first time.” I crawled farther up the desk with him. “Therefore I’m in charge.”
Once he was laid out below me, I scooted down his body until I was straddling his lap. Rocking my hips against him, I felt my wetness sliding along his shaft.
“No argument from me.” He groaned, his head falling back when I increased the friction of my pumps.
Reaching between us, I took him in my hand and fisted up and down a few times.
“God, Nina. Keep that up and I’ll be going off before I get inside you.”
I stroked him once more. “Well, we wouldn’t want that.” Lowering my hips, I stopped when I felt him at my opening. I circled him, teasing us both.
“Nina, I’m serious. Stop fucking around.”
I lifted my hips up and away, hearing his heavy steel slap against him. “Stop fucking around?”
The muscles of his neck shot to the surface. “No, don’t stop. Definitely, do not stop.”
Grinning at him, I rolled my hips until I could feel him in place again, then I drove down hard.
It was hard to tell who cried out louder—Max or me—but it was a good thing we were in this big office all alone and free to make as much noise as we wanted. I never realized I’d be such a noisy lover, but there was no way to stay quiet with a man buried deep inside me. Not when said man was Max Sturm, and he was gripping my hips, holding onto me like I was both his salvation and his demise.
“Are you okay?” His large hands braced tighter around my hips as I slowly pumped my hips above him.
“Yes,” I breathed, more in animal instinct than conditioned response.
“Do you hurt?”
My hands pressed into his stomach, using it to propel my movements. “So much it feels good.”
“Nina?” Max’s usual voice started to resurface.
I just shook my head and kept moving in a steady rhythm above him. “Don’t even think about it, Max. I’ve waited twenty-three years for this.”
His muscles were popping through his skin everywhere, his jaw tight and the veins running down his forearms looking ready to burst.
“Have you ever been with a virgin before?” I asked.
His hands were slowing my pace, controlling the motion of my hips. “I’ve never been with you. To me, that’s worth a million virgins.”
When I came down on him, I stayed there. I loved this feeling—having Max so deep inside me he felt like a part of me. “But not a million and one?”
A crooked smile moved into place. “I’ll let you know after.”
“Then I’d better give you something good to sway your vote.” Reaching behind me, I cupped his balls and gently squeezed them as I started to ride him again.
He made sounds I’d never heard come from him before. Sounds I’d never heard come from anyone before.
From the feel of him, he was ready. I wondered if he was fighting it off, wanting to wait for me. Not that he’d have long to wait because with the way he was pitching his hips into me, he was rubbing some place inside that was driving me up a wall each time he plunged back in.
“Fuck, that’s beautiful, Nina. Let’s see you come, baby. I want to watch it.”
Max shoved back on the desk again, trying to get his feet up so he could really thrust into me. In the process, his arms and head kind of sent a couple of his computer screens falling over the edge of his desk. They landed loudly, making a shattering noise as glass scattered across the floor.
“Shit,” I cursed, leaning over. I didn’t realize how dangerous sex could be. And damaging.
“Don’t worry about them.” Max pulled me back down, picking up right where we’d left off. “They’re computer screens. I don’t care. Just don’t stop.” When I started moving again, his head rolled back. “For fuck’s sake, don’t stop.”
In only a few more moments, he was tensing beneath me, so close I could feel his orgasm building up into his shaft.
“Where do you want me, Nina? Where do you want me to come?”
I stared at him, riding him closer to his orgasm. “Inside me,” I breathed. “Always inside me.”
“Fuck,” he growled, like my words were his undoing.
Feeling his orgasm spreading was my ruin. His thumb drifted back to my clit, stroking it until I was cursing my release with him, filling the silence with our passion. He didn’t stop pumping inside me until the last shudder of my orgasm had been pulled from my body, and even after that, he stayed buried deep inside.
I fell over him, my body blanketing his as we gave ourselves a moment to catch our breaths.
“I like that way.” I kissed his chest then tipped my chin, so I was looking up at him. He was already looking down at me, his hairline damp with sweat and his face flushed from his orgasm. “A lot. I think we can list that as my favorite position under that blank.” When I drew my thumb across his lips, he kissed it. “I guess we can also fill in a few more of those blanks. First lover: Max Sturm. Age lost virginity: An embarrassing twenty-three.”
His brows came together as he leaned up on his elbows. “There is nothing embarrassing about that.” He paused, looking like he was thinking. “I . . . nope, I can’t even try to sum up how I feel about being your first. That’s not embarrassing, Nina. That’s the damn best gift you could give a man like me. It’s priceless.” His lips pressed into my forehead as he combed my damp hair away from my face. “Just like you are.”
I let his words find their way into my heart, then I kissed him full on the mouth, climbing up his body until I felt him harden inside me again.
“So?” I whispered against his mouth. “What was your favorite position?” I paused long enough to circle my hips over him. His head fell back, thumping against the desk. “That one? It’s pretty great, right?”
When I rotated my hips again, Max’s hands gripped my hips as he sat up. “I’m more of a show than tell type of guy.”
He shoved
off the desk, holding me to him, before twisting around and letting my feet fall to the floor. His light eyes were burning, his need hard against my stomach. Kissing my forehead, he swiftly spun me around, pressed my chest onto his desk, and kicked my legs apart. His fingers were already spreading me open, as he fitted himself to me, before the surprised gasp escaped from my throat.
“Let’s see what you think of my favorite position.” His hands settled on my hips again, his fingers curling deep into my flesh. Then his hips moved against me, sliding inside inch by agonizing inch. When he could go no deeper, he held himself there, leaning over me and breathing outside of my ear. His hands came around below me, cupping my heavy breasts.
“God, Max,” I moaned, clenching around him.
A primitive growl echoed up from his chest. Then he took his stance behind me, holding my hips in place as he kept himself buried inside me. “My turn to be in charge now.”
As he slid out, my moan filled his office. It was consumed by a cry when he slammed back into me.
“And you will be shrieking Mister Sturm by the end of this.”
Something was wrong. Nina had been avoiding me all day and I’d be a fool not to know why. It was about last night. What happened between us. Multiple times.
She hadn’t seemed conflicted about any of it last night, but something was clearly upsetting her today. I guessed it had to do with the way we’d both come into this arrangement with the understanding it would be one way, and now, it had gone the opposite.
I guessed it also had something to do with what had happened to her as a child. Being left behind. First by her dad, then by her mom. Commitment was a touchy topic for Nina, and after the things we’d said and shared with each other, we’d both put ourselves in a place to get hurt.
This wasn’t just a business transaction we’d agreed to with a handshake—this had become a matter of the heart now too. Neither of us had planned on that.
Planned or not, I wanted this. Her. Us. The risk of being hurt was worth the reward that came from being with her.
“Will Nina be here for dinner?” Dad was manning the BBQ stationed on the porch, turning over enough bratwursts to feed the entire neighborhood.