Page 26 of Contracted and Claimed By The Boss

She sobbed anyway and he kissed her, the kind of kiss that was drugging and overwhelming, that made her whole body shake—or maybe that was the emotion of the day, the intense, all-consuming gamut of feelings she’d run since waking up that morning. No, since the night before in his office, when they’d almost made love.

Max stood, then reached down and lifted Paige as though she weighed nothing, carrying her against his chest down the hallway, until they reached the door to his study and he shouldered it inwards. It felt like the easiest, most right thing in the world.

CHAPTER EIGHT

BEFORE LAUREN HE’D been a red-blooded male, a man in his early twenties with the world at his feet and the confidence that he could have pretty much whomever he wanted. He just had to snap his fingers and they were his.

He’d made love to women out of passion, desire, lust, always with the idea of sex being fun, not serious, never serious. Lauren had been one of those women. Meaningless and unimportant until she’d told him she was pregnant and he’d had a shockingly clarifying moment. He knew what their father’s rejection had done to Luca’s mother, and how Luca had never forgiven their father for his years of neglect. Max wasn’t going to let any child of his be born into the world thinking they weren’t fiercely loved and protected, even when that had meant marrying a woman he wasn’t sure he cared for at all. But he’d shelved those worries, because he and Lauren were going to be parents and nothing mattered more than doing the right thing by the tiny lifeform they’d created.

Lauren and he hadn’t really had much of a sex life.

While he’d found her attractive enough at first, the more he’d got to know her and the superficial values she held in life, the less he’d wanted her. But he’d consoled himself with the fact they could both still be good parents—she had adored Amanda—and he’d buried himself harder and harder into his work.

He’d once made love to women out of passion and need, but never like this. Never out of a complete jumble of emotions that was almost impossible to make sense of. There was lust, of course, and desire, the sort of white-hot passion that could melt a man’s bones, but there was also a wish to comfort and soothe, to promise Paige with his body that everything would be okay, even when he didn’t know for sure it would be. It was a gift he wanted her to have, a moment of pleasure and relief before her world cracked apart again, as surely it would when the book was released.

He kissed her until she was breathless and he undressed her as though she were some kind of precious artefact: gently, reverently, his hands running over her soft, still-sunburned skin so she pulled back from him, pressed a hand hard to his chest and said, ‘You’re not going to break me.’

Their eyes met and held and for no reason he could think of, he said, ‘I’m not going to break you.’ Maybe it was because she had been broken, he thought, and she deserved to know that he had no intention of being someone else in her life who hurt her.

Her skin was so soft and smooth. He worshipped her body, kissing her all over, tasting her, wishing they had days and days to explore each other, not only hours, as he parted her legs with his knee and moved his body over hers. ‘You’re sure?’

She bit down into her lip and nodded, eyes flashing with his, daring him to change his mind so he understood the same desperation he felt was pummelling her from the inside out.

‘God, yes, I’m sure,’ she groaned, tilting her back and lifting her hips in a desperate, hungry invitation for him.

He didn’t need to be told twice.

Moving quickly, he sheathed his length then hitched himself at the entrance to her sex, eyes holding hers, watching her as he sank into her slowly, her muscles squeezing around his length so he swore into the room between clenched teeth because she felt so inexplicably good, so damned tight and wet that he had to hold himself up on his arms and focus or he was half worried he’d lose it already.

‘I haven’t done this in a long time,’ he reminded her grimly, cursing that he hadn’t foreseen this and taken matters into his own hands this morning to relieve some of the pressure that had been building inside him since Paige Cooper had first walked into his life.

‘So you’ve said,’ she murmured, rocking her hips then latching her ankles behind his back, pulling him all the way in so he swore, dropped down, his heavy, hard body on top of her small, soft one, his voice a caress against her ear as he spoke words that were probably unintelligible—he had no concept of what he was saying, only that a spell was building around them and with each movement of his body, each answering shift of hers, the world was taking on a whole new shape. He pulsed with sensation, with the need to release, but there was determination too, a need for her to find her own release before he gave into his. With the willpower he was famed for, Max held on, watching Paige, feeling her body’s responses, her convulsing, her tightening around his length and her muscles’ responses as she fell apart in his arms, crying his name over and over in a way that was more beautiful than anything he’d ever heard.

He cursed inwardly, thanking every star in the heavens that he’d managed to hold on, moving once she’d quietened down, moving until her muted cries grew faster again and this time, when she exploded, he was right there with her, breath fast, chest moving rapidly, body shaking with the force of his release, of his pleasure, of his unmitigated euphoria.

Paige had needed to shower and have a quiet cup of tea before she felt as though she could face Amanda, but she knew then that she couldn’t put it off any longer. The music was still blaring so Paige gave only a cursory knock—which wouldn’t have been audible anyway—before opening the door.

Amanda was lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and, while she was no longer crying, her little face was tear-stained and blotchy.

At Paige’s entrance, she turned her head, bit down on her lip but didn’t look away.

‘Hi.’ Paige lifted a hand in the air.

Amanda sat up before grudgingly reaching for an iPad and pressing pause on the playlist.

‘I suppose you have some questions,’ Paige prompted gently, coming to sit on the edge of the bed, but far enough away from Amanda not to seem as though she was trying too hard.

Amanda shook her head.

‘Are you sure? Because if I was you, I’d be curious. I’d want to know why someone who’d been really famous once upon a time chose to be someone else now, why they chose to keep that secret.’

Silence.

And then, ‘Why did you?’

‘Well, the thing is, that whole movie-star thing really wasn’t what it was cracked up to be. In fact, I hated it. So as soon as I was old enough, I quit and started a new life.’

‘But you use a different name. It’s like you’re lying about who you are all the time.’

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