Page 15 of Tempting Max

I reach for the lever and push it open quickly to end the torture of having her body so close. “Okay, step back, I’m going to start it up, I don’t want any other disasters.”

“Yep,” she answers, and I can hear her shuffle away quickly.

Able to take a breath without her against me, I hit the button and it starts like a dream. The lights pop back on and the air conditioner roars back to life. Thank fucking God.

Gus lets out a little whoop and when I turn to look at her, she’s doing a little happy dance that jiggles her curves in all the right ways. Lust sears through me. I want to bury myself in her until she wiggles like that just for me.

I must make a horrible face, because her smile falls, and she stops dancing. “What? You don’t dance when something good happens?”

“I don’t dance at all,” I tell her, brushing by to make my way to the front where I can put space and a bar between our bodies.

I can’t even breathe until I’m ten feet away from her and only for a moment because she followed me. She plops herself down on a barstool, props her chin on her palms, and studies me with wide eyes. “Have you always been this grumpy?”

No. I mean, I’ve never been a chipper guy, but I used to be easy-going, I used to know how to enjoy myself. I used to relax, have fun, put my worries down for a while. But that man doesn’t even feel real anymore, that man is gone. Instead of going into my complicated personality changes, I just say, “I’m not grumpy, I’m serious.”

She lets out a laugh. “Liar, you are like this fascinating combination of Oscar the Grouch, Eeyore, Bruce Banner, with a little bit of Squidward thrown in for good measure.”

“I don’t know what Squidward is.”

“You’ve never seen SpongeBob?”

I cross my arms and stare her down. “Do I look like a man that watches something called SpongeBob?”

Her eyes trail along my body and I feel them starting fires across my skin wherever they land. “No,” she answers thoughtfully, “You definitely look like you spend all your time practicing your angry faces in a mirror before clean and jerking the weight of the world.”

I let out a sound that’s supposed to be a laugh, but I think I’ve forgotten how. “Fair enough.”

“I have a bet with Trace that you don’t even know how to smile.”

My cock comes to life as I recognize her tone of voice and body language as slightly flirtatious. I have to swallow a few times to keep from pitching a tent in my jeans. “I know how to smile.”

Gus narrows her emerald eyes and I’m taken with how gorgeous she is. Pale, alabaster skin, freckles for days, copper hair that I want to feel between my fingers. But it’s that daring quirk of her smile that has me breathless. “Prove it.”

It takes everything in me to stand my ground and not toss her over my shoulder, carry her to my cave, and have my way with her. “No.”

She shakes her head, slips off the stool and I watch, arms still crossed as she makes her way behind the counter. “It’s easy,” she says, stepping closer to me.

She places one of her hands at the corner of my mouth and pushes it up. “You just hold this here.” She puts her hand on the other side of my mouth and pushes that up. “And this here, and voila! Smile.”

It’s not until I meet her gaze that she realizes how close she is to me, how she’s pressed her entire body against mine. My breath disappears, her breath disappears, and suddenly it feels as if the universe has narrowed down to just the two of us in this two-foot space behind the bar.

Her fingers slip down from my mouth, into my beard and down across my neck and all I can think about is kissing her, how perfectly her curves fit against mine, how her fingers are working magic against my skin.

“Gus.” My voice sounds hoarse, thin, strained.

“I just…” her eyes fix on my lips and her fingers curl around the collar of my t-shirt.

Against my better judgment, I drop my arms from my chest. My hand lands at the curve of her waist and I tug her body slightly closer to mine. Inches are all that remain between my lips and hers. “You just what?”

She searches my eyes, “I just wanted…”

I feel her body strain closer to mine, I can read how she should yield to me.

She leans forward too, wetting her lips with her pink tongue as if she’s ready for me to claim them.

I lower my head even though I know it’s the last thing on earth I should do, even though I know it might destroy us both. I want her lips—Ineedher lips. Maybe then, this madness will end, and I’ll have some peace.

Just one kiss,I promise as I move closer still. I slide a hand up her satin-soft cheek, tilt her head and close the distance.

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