“Don’t lie to me, Andie. You liked being kissed, very much.”

She shook her head but didn’t say anything to deny it.

“I think you want me to kiss you again now.”

She moved closer, unspeaking, staring up into his eyes.

“I think you want me to kiss you properly, with no one watching.”

“I—,” her tongue darted out, licked her lower lip. “So what?” She demanded, challenging him. “Maybe it’s just because we need to practice,” she added with a lift of one shoulder. “To be really convincing.”

He hadn’t been expecting that. Her agreement made it impossible to resist. He curled his hand around behind her head, drawing her face the rest of the way to his, his brain screaming at him the whole time that this was a stupid idea even as his body fired with intense need.

Her lips parted even before his touched them, her surrender complete. He wasn’t sure what he’d been intending. A quick kiss again? Or a proper kiss, as he’d said? This was neither. It was totally improper, a total demand for subjugation, a punishment, but for what, he couldn’t say, he knew only that he wanted to bend her completely to his will, to make her beg for him, to make her crave him as he craved her.

His tongue rolled over hers, as his lips pressed harder and his hand held her right where she was, just at the right angle to explore her fully, his body pressing to hers as the car hummed and drove through Manhattan. The kiss alone wasn’t enough. He reached for her legs, found the wool of her long dress, and ruched it up in his fist, pulling it higher and higher until he could feel bare skin, his fingers on her thighs moving slowly, his kiss overwhelming them both so she might not have noticed his hand. But then he reached the top of her thighs and the silk of her underpants, and she cried out as he brushed his fingertip against her sex, his name tearing from her lungs in a desperate call for more, for him, that he completely understood. Pushing aside the flimsy fabric, he teased her at first, just the lightest touch against her nerves, so she jumped, and he swallowed the hoarse words in his own mouth.

But then he pushed a finger inside of her, his own guttural cry spilling from his lips in response to her moist warmth. She was so goddamned wet, it was an aphrodisiac he hadn’t counted on; he felt some of his seed spilling in response to how turned on she was.

His kiss deepened, grew more urgent, harder, more demanding, as his finger worked inside of her, then another, moving in and out as he desperately wanted his cock to be doing, familiarizing himself with her body, her pressure points, with what drove her wild. Her hands clung to his shirt for dear life, holding onto him as though she might drown if he stopped what he was doing—and he had no intention of that. Suddenly, touching her wasn’t enough. Kissing her wasn’t enough.

He unbuckled her seatbelt first, then his own, arranging her on the seat so she was facing him, so he could get his head between her legs and bury himself there, his mouth taking over from his fingers, tasting her, his tongue flicking her, sucking on her, as his hands dove under her tight dress and up to her breasts, generous and so soft he knew his first suspicion was confirmed—they were real, delightfully real, and so supple he wanted to squeeze them for days.

“Max,” she cried out, panting, the car steamy, her hands in his hair, holding him where he was, and he understood; she was on the precipice of an orgasm, and desperately didn’t want him to stop. Didn’t she know? Wild horses wouldn’t drag him away.

Her whole body trembled as she exploded, fiercely, passionately overcome by the pleasure he’d given her, but he wasn’t done yet; he wanted more. A quick glance through the steamy windows showed that they were still a little way from her apartment. There was definitely time to do that to her again…

Andie’s legscould barely hold her upright, a fact she discovered only when she attempted to step out of the SUV and walk towards the bank of lifts. This washerhome; everything should have been infinitely familiar to her but there was something about what had just happened to her in the back of Max’s car that had changedeverything.It all looked so different now.

That was insane and absurd, but it didn’t change the fact that her body had just experienced the kind of pleasure she’d never known was possible.

It had started with a kiss. A stupid, stupid kiss.

To practice,she’d said, when she’d already known she was playing with live ammo, because he was so impossibly good at this, and she was so utterly inexperienced. He didn’t have any problems walking. His knees weren’t shaking like crazy.

He walked—sauntered, even—towards the lifts, hands in pockets, eyes focused straight ahead. As if he hadn’t just been buried between her legs, kissing her, commenting on how good she tasted. It was obscene.

Her cheeks must have been bright red, she thought, then confirmed that fact as she finally reached the lifts and saw her distorted reflection—just a shape, really, dressed in black, blonde hair and yes, a pink face. Great.

She didn’t look at him again, didn’t speak to him, even in the confines of the lift, when she found herself intimately aware of every part of him, his breath, his proximity, everything.

But once inside her apartment, she felt as though she had to say something.

She turned to face him, her heart leaped into her throat.

“It was nothing,” he said quietly, forestalling whatever comment she might have been about to make.

But that wasn’t true for Andie. “I’m not in the habit of doingthatwith men I don’t know,” she contradicted. “So it wasn’t nothing to me.”

His eyes narrowed. “So, you always care for the men you make love to?”

“We didn’t…that wasn’t…”

“You know what I mean. You don’t have meaningless sex?”

She stared at him, shocked. “Isn’t that an oxymoron?”

His laugh was the last thing she’d expected. “No,bella,it most definitely is not.”