Page 1148 of One More Kiss

“Which is why you should call me Max.”

Like hell that was going to happen. Not now that I knew.

Alan stepped up to him. “Thank you. Truly. And if you need any assistance with the tortoises, please reach out. I’d be more than happy to consult or nurse them back to health. Poor things.”

I couldn’t help but grin at that. Sure, I didn’t doubt his sincerity, but I also didn’t doubt he’d really love to get in with those tortoises again before they went to the sanctuary.

“We’ll keep you in mind. I should get back to things, file my reports. I’m sure agents will be around to talk to you at some point. But between you and me, I’m pretty sure you’re clean in this whole situation.”

“I’m pretty sure, too.” He shakes my hand, and then he actually hands Maxwell one of the key fobs. “To make things a little easier to get hold of us.”

“Appreciate that.” He pockets it, then turns, arm still around my shoulders, and leads me out and back downstairs. He only lets go once we get to the crate-packed hallway and we have to go single-file again.

We get back into his pickup, even though it’s a short jaunt back to the shop. As he turns the engine over, I sigh. “So Maxwell, thank you again.”

“It’s Max. And it’s my job.” He takes his sunglasses back off and fixes me with that gaze, pinning me straight through the belly with the imperiousness of it. “Do you need to go back to the shop, or can I take you home?” His gaze falters, and his face goes a little pink. “I mean, can I take you to your house. Where you live. For you to go there.”

It was the first real crack I’d seen in the stoic police officer persona, and the fact that it came from an accidental propositioning didn’t do anything to make me notice him less. I breathed in that citrus and cedar and rosemary as I filed my lungs to respond. “You can take me to my place. Or you can…take me home. Dealer’s choice.”

A tense, groaning breath eked out of his throat. Then he pulled out onto the road. “Where am I going?”

“Two blocks past the shop. Little apartment complex. There’s not much in the way of parking.”

“People don’t tend to slap parking violations on government vehicles. They’ll spend more time trying to figure out which department the EGW is than they will writing me a ticket.” I was pretty sure he was speeding, and I was also pretty sure he had one eye on me the whole time he was driving. That constant attention tethered into me, sending blood rushing downstairs, which I sincerely hoped was going to be put to good use. The tension in the cab of the pickup had grown as thick as the magic had up in Deena’s apartment, but maybe it was just him being embarrassed at his perceived slip, or him being annoyed at my flirtations.

He pulled up along the street and turned the engine off, then turned his full attention to me. And although his eyes were still intense as ever, they lose that harshness, no longer laser-sharp through me, but enveloping, the brightness and openness of the entire sky stretching above me.

His lips parted, and I only barely heard what he said through my own focus, watching his lips form the shapes, watching his jaw move and his eyes shine. “If you and I aren’t on the same page, that’s fine. But talking as me. Max. Maxwell. Not as an officer of Esoteric Game and Wildlife.” His gaze raked me up and down. “I’d really like to go upstairs, soundproof your apartment, and make you say my name.”

My brain short circuited around those words, and it took me a few seconds—or a minute or an hour, I really couldn’t estimate time properly in that stretch—to get back to a place where my tongue could actually move. “You’re interested?”

He reached across, closing the gap. He rested his hand on my cheek, then slid it downward. “Sharp cheekbones. The dimple in your chin. The little mole on your neck. These clavicles peeking out of your top, tempting me.” It was a lot to hear, a lot to deal with. The lower his hand slipped down my body, the harder my cock ached to be free. But he never relented, continuing to heap praise on me, unflinching. Unblinking. “The way your shirt rides up and flashes the waistband of your underwear when you stretch. That ass. Like, really, that ass.” Finally, his gaze shifted, pointing straight down toward my crotch, in case his meaning hadn’t yet been made entirely clear. “I don’t know what to expect there, but if it looks as good as the rest of you, I’d be very excited to find out.”

His fingers stopped just shy of actually grazing the fly of my jeans, and it was every iota of strength in me to keep from whimpering as he pulled his hand back. Instead, I channeled that energy forward. “I just did laundry. Sheets are clean.”

“That was primary concern.” He grinned, shoving dimples up into his cheeks. There was a breath of hesitation, then we moved in unison. He was definitely doing the “hiding a hard-on” walk, and I wouldn’t be at all shocked to find out I was, too. There was a strange energy, tying us together even in the openness of the parking lot. I couldn’t recall ever feeling tied to someone like this before sex. The attraction itself was magnetic, wouldn’t let us pull apart.

I led the way up, and once we were in the elevator, Maxwell turned toward me and finally closed the distance entirely, pinning my wrist up against the back wall, sliding his knee between my legs to graze against the insides of my thighs, and holding my face with his other hand. His lips parted and hungrily pressed to my neck, right over that mole he’d talked about, pressing hot and humid against my jugular. I couldn’t hold back the gasp and groan at the contact. My hands involuntarily raised up, pressing him tighter against me so I could feel his heartbeat, smell nothing but that bright, herbaceous scent surrounding him. The muscles of his back were tense and hard under my fingertips, and when I grazed against his ribs, his mouth shifted, pressing hard teeth against my throat.

The trip out of the elevator was a tangle of limbs and heat, and I hoped like hell I was trying to open my own apartment door and not Mrs. Chen’s across the hall. But fuck it if I was, she could clear her and the kids out and we’d fuck on her bed. I was too far gone to care about much of anything beyond the way Maxwell’s hard, hot body felt pressed against mine.

We crashed through, thankfully, my door. I flicked my fingers and closed the door as we tumbled onto the couch, then finally, his lips found mine, all the heat and pressure careening around and through me. I clawed desperately at his back, searching for the hem of his shirt until I finally caught it, then raked my fingers upward to pull it to his neck. The endless expanse of hot skin draws me in, and I press him against me as his fingers tangle into my hair, bunching it. He pulls, but it’s not painful. Not really. It’s a sharp point of connection. It’s not too harsh, but insistent, a reminder that we’re here. I’m with him. It’s real. Constantly present in the moment.

When he finally separates, it’s agony. He rips his shirt off over his head, displaying all that hard musculature, dark, pert nipples, a trail of downy hair leading from his navel down under his waistband.

Instead of pinning me back down, he reaches for the hem of my shirt and guides it upward, scraping his knuckles along my abdomen and chest in the process. When he brushes against my nipple, my back arches upward, forcing my crotch up against his. I feel the hardness and length through layers of denim, and it takes everything in my power to keep from ripping his pants off and going to town.

Maxwell’s fingers slid back downward, playing at the button of my jeans. I guess he wasn’t resisting the urge the way I was. He popped the button and unzipped in a single yank. I sighed in relief, now only held back by thin cotton. Instead of all the restraint of denim.

Maxwell slipped free of his own pants, taking his boxers off in the same movement. His cock sprung free, arcing up toward his navel. The head poked out of his foreskin, glistening with a sheen of precum.

He ground back against me, only the thin material of my trunks separating us from full skin-on-skin contact. His mouth locks over mine, and my breath is awash with citrus and rosemary and cedar. I grip his ass and squeeze the taut muscles, and he groans into my mouth, vibrating my tongue, my teeth.

He broke the kiss and slid upward until he was straddling my chest. I didn’t need a translator for that body language, and greedily leaned forward, taking the head of his cock into my mouth, then another inch, then another. I took as much as I could, but still left an inch of free skin at the base where I couldn’t suck back any farther. I kept my grip on his ass, holding him in place as I bobbed up and down, tasting the salt and musk of his precum as it washed across my tongue. Every time I went down, I breathed in the strongest of that citrus scent. It tingled and zipped through me, elevating everything. I could feel the wet patch forming on the front of my underwear as I got wetter and wetter.

On cue, it seemed, Maxwell slid his cock free from my lips and slid down. He hooked his fingers into the waistband of my underwear and pulled them down to my ankles, where I kicked them off. Fully free, the precum dripped off the tip of my cock and into my bush. At least it did for a minute.

Maxwell wrapped his lips around my cock and swallowed, sucking back hard. My head thrust backward, back arching even higher up, pushing so deep I felt his lips wrapped around the base of my shaft. But he didn’t complain or try to back off. If anything, he sucked back harder, bobbing his head up and down, running his tongue in spirals from the base to the tip and back down again. He didn’t have hair to pull, but I wrapped my fingers around the back of his neck, lacing them, feeling the muscles tense and relax with every tiny movement. Sweat beaded up beneath my fingers, slicking them so they could slide easily over his shoulders and down to his collarbones before making their way back up, pushing his head down farther.

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