“But—” She glanced at her boyfriend.
“Go on,” Lucas said. “He’ll keep you busy while I’m working. Hell, he can take my place with your family for a little while.” He dismissed Max, and his focus returned to his cell phone.
Either he wasn’t smart enough to realize Max was a threat or he just didn’t care, because he strode off, heading for the yard exit.
“What the hell are you doing with a dickhead like that?” Max couldn’t help but ask her.
Lucy spun around to face him, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “He’s in the middle of a big deal that’s stressful and—”
“Don’t make excuses for him.”
She folded her arms across her chest, and though she showed no cleavage, the movement pulled the silk material across her full breasts, revealing tight, perky nipples. Max’s cock shot to attention, and he shifted his stance to alleviate the sudden discomfort.
She caught his gaze and frowned. “Quit staring at my breasts, you pervert.” She followed that statement with a roll of her eyes.
He shook his head at her reaction. If he were at Paradis, the BDSM club he attended in Manhattan, he’d pull her over his knee and give her a good spanking. Another reason he’d stayed away from Lucy recently. In the years since his marriage, he’d discovered his tastes weren’t always purely vanilla. But as he’d watched Lucy mature, he’d sensed she’d suit him fine. Outside the bedroom, she gave him hell, but his gut told him that once he showed her how good they could be together, she’d submit nicely in the bedroom. Hell, if he had Lucy, he wouldn’t care about domination or submission. Those things had let him control something when the rest of his life felt out of control. All he really needed with Lucy was really good, hot sex.
He reached out and placed his hand beneath her chin, tipping her face until she met his gaze. “Admit it. You like the way I’m looking at you.”
She blinked in stunned surprise because he was changing the game. They’d always sparred… and steered clear of the underlying sexual tension that surrounded them, which often led to arguing over nothing. Not this time. He intended to confront that sexual tension head on.
“Come with me.” He grasped her wrist and tugged.
She resisted, then finally gave in, following him across the lawn and around the corner of the colonial-style house, where they could be alone. He stopped at a large cypress tree that probably predated construction and pulled her behind the trunk.
“Max, I don’t think this is a good idea.”
He spun her around until her back was against the trunk and stepped in close. Her delicious scent surrounded him, a mixture of peaches and something else. His gut twisted while his cock swelled even more.
For the first time, he wasn’t fighting what he felt for her, what he needed.
“I think this is the very best idea.”
Her cheeks flushed a healthy pink, her eyes bright with confusion. “I don’t understand.”
He reached up and sunk his hands into her hair, dislodging the staid up-do she wouldn’t be wearing if not for her asshole boyfriend, and tugged his fingers through the long strands.
“Max!”
She reached up to fix herself, but he caught her wrists in his hands and backed her farther into the tree, his body firmly nestled against her softness. His erection settled between her thighs, hot and hard, begging for relief and release. No way could she miss how much he wanted her.
She met his gaze, her eyes wide with surprise and darkening with desire.
“Answer my question, Lucy. What are you doing with that guy?”
“Oh my God. Lucas!” she said. Obviously she’d forgotten all about the man, and now she shifted in an attempt to get free.
Max held her firmly in place.
“I shouldn’t be here with you,” she said, but the heat in her eyes didn’t match her words.
“You should definitely be here with me. So you can feel us, then take a good look at that so-called relationship you’re in and do something about it.”
Lucy heard his words and tried to fight her body’s opposing response. Panicking, she tried once more to wriggle out of his grasp, but Max’s strong, hard body held her in place.
His sandalwood scent enveloped her and softened places in her body she barely acknowledged these days. Her nipples were tight and hard, poking through her silk blouse, and her sex pulsed with unaccustomed need. This was Max. And yes, she’d had a crush on him for years, but that was a long time ago, and she’d been forced to accept that he didn’t see her that way.
Hell, he’d married someone else when she was twenty-three and so available she’d have done anything to make him her own. His engagement had been a blow, one that had hit her already-bruised heart harder than she ever could have imagined. She’d lost her parents and built stupid forever dreams around Max Savage. He may not have known, but when he’d married someone else, Lucy had been devastated.