Page 90 of Duke, Actually

A cushion from the bed came sailing at his head, because Seb was still his brother.

Suddenly Torkel was at his side, his hand on the doorknob. Max wasn’t sure how it was possible for such a large man to move so quickly and gracefully. “I think you’d better go now, Lord Laudon.”

“And I think you’d better start calling me—”

The door shut in his face.

“Max.”

He turned.

The feeling he’d had all night, of not fitting properly in his skin, went away, completely and all at once. It was as if he’d dropped back into his body, like hebelongedin his body in some elemental way, like the wholepointof his body was that it was the vehicle he used to interact with Daniela Martinez.

She was standing at the far end of the dimly lit corridor.

He found himself at a loss for words, which was unprecedented when it came to her. There were always words between them, so many words, whispered into phones late at night or, when he was very lucky, into the space between them as they sat side by side on a beach or in a car queued up at the McDonald’s drive-through.

She looked at him with a small smile that was half-fond, half-mystified. Perhaps she was facing a word shortage of her own.

They didn’t need words, it turned out. They could just stand there and stare at each other, smile like idiots and not ask a single question or consult a single list. That feeling from earlier, that the foundation on which he’d built his life was shifting, went away. He was sturdy and new and strong, standing on solid ground. He held out a hand.

She started toward him, and when she reached him and put her hand in his, he picked her up and twirled her around like they were in a goddamn movie. As the twirl wound down, she hiked her dress up and out of the way and wrapped her legs around his waist. He used a foot to kick open the door he’d left ajar. Someone had come in and turned down the bed and switched on the small bedside lamp. He walked straight to the bed and lowered her onto her back.

She pulled him down with her. For a moment, they stared at each other, their faces mere inches apart.

“Hi,” she whispered, startling the hell out of him.

“Hi,” he rasped back.

She smiled, and he thought his heart might break in two. But in a good way. For once.

And then, finally, finally, after all these hours, after all these months, they kissed each other.

Chapter Twenty

It had been a long time since Dani had had a first time with someone, but she remembered that it was usually a bit awkward. Intentions were muddy, heads tilted the wrong way, nerves impeded.

With guys before Vince, and with Vince, too, in the early days, she used to fret about what it all meant. Are we a couple now? What happens next?

There was none of that with Max. And although she’d been momentarily freaked out when he’d cornered her with his “You looked at me first” possessive growling, it had only taken her a moment to understand that yes, she had looked at him first, and yes, she was going to sleep with him, and maybe even, yes, she had discarded all those Tinder guys because theyweren’thim. He knew about all her junk, and she knew about all of his. They were best friends. Nothing was going to change.

Except they were going to have some really hot sex.

They were completely in sync. So in sync that by the time shetold herself to lift her head to kiss him, he was already kissing her. They were kissing each other.

His lips were soft but merciless as they moved over hers, and she met him. They were kissing each other like they knew how, like they’d been doing this for years. They did know how, she supposed. The way to kiss Maximillian von Hansburg was to hold nothing back, to extract the maximum amount of pleasure from the experience. She let her jaw slacken even as she continued to kiss him. He groaned, and she felt the slow, sensual incursion of his tongue in her mouth. Nothing had ever made her feel this way, languorous and frantic at the same time. He’d been holding himself on his forearms above her, but he shifted his weight to one arm and clamped a hand on her jaw, as if he wanted to make sure she wasn’t going anywhere. It made her laugh. She was never going anywhere. She was going to die here, kissing Max, and die happily.

Her laugh came out like a moan, though, and he swallowed it.

She wrapped her legs around his waist, as she had outside in the corridor, but this time they were horizonal. She wanted him on her, the full weight of him. So she pulled, hard, and he groaned again and let his lower body fall even as he kept working her mouth without interruption, stroking his tongue against hers. Her dress was already bunched up, so the maneuver had the effect of shoving his pelvis against her mound. She was wearing only the smallest, sheerest pair of panties beneath her dress because she was morally opposed to Spanx and anything else would have shown through, and his baron-pants had buttons in front. She whimpered involuntarily. The contact had been a bit painful,but mostly because she’d been unprepared for it. She could tell, though, that underneath the shock of contact, there was something else, something liquid and warm and wonderful.

He must have heard only pain. He was off her in an instant, sitting back on his heels and frowning down at her underwear. He frowned some more, more deeply, as if they offended him. Before she could puzzle it out, his hand was on her. Not in a sexual way necessarily, more like he was putting pressure on a wound. He rested his entire palm, warm and large, on the front of her panties, obscuring them from view entirely. She liked the look of his hand on her like that, the presumption of it.

She wanted to do the same to him, but all she could reach, given that he was, unintentionally or not, pinning her to the bed, was his torso. So she did it with her voice. Issued an order. “Take them off.”

He smiled and pulled them down as she lifted her hips. He returned his hand to the same spot. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

“You didn’t hurt me.”

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