Lovers at Heart (The Bradens, Book One: Love in Bloom Series)

Chapter Seven, Lovers at Heart

Chapter Seven

TREAT COULD hardly believe he was sitting beside Max, the woman he’d been thinking about, dreaming about, pining over, for the past six months. Her kisses were sweeter than sugar and so warm they made him ache for her. He’d wanted to take her right there in the parking lot. He had to pull it together. She was not a one-night stand, and if his racing heart and flaming nerves were any indication, she was destined to be so much more than any woman he’d ever been with.

He was as nervous as a teenage boy readying to feel up a girl for the first time. What on earth was causing him to lose his edge? Nerves hadn’t been a part of his sex life since he was a kid, and all the talking in the world wasn’t helping the throbbing reminder in his pants, which only reinforced his nervousness.

“Max.” Just sitting beside her, touching her thigh, the way she looked at him with desire and embarrassment, all wrapped up into one, sped up his thrum of desire. “You’re so beautiful.”

She leaned in to kiss him, and he held her back gently. He needed to talk to her first. He had to apologize. Treat wasn’t a man who treated women poorly. The fact that he had hurt her had been weighing heavily on him. She’d blown him off when he’d apologized, and it was a half-ass apology anyway. He hadn’t taken the time to really apologize the way she deserved. He wanted—no, he needed—to explain things to her.

“Max, I want to talk to you first.”

She froze beneath his touch and closed her eyes. “It’s me. You don’t want me again, right?”

“What? No.”  He grabbed her wrist as she pushed herself from the couch. “Max, that’s not it at all. You’re misinterpreting my hesitation.” Why did he always have to sound so damned professional? Why couldn’t he pour out his emotions?

Her chest rose and fell with each breath as he watched anger reach her narrowing eyes. Damn it. She was misconstruing his intentions; he could see it. The hell with it. He’d explain it to her later. After. When she was too tired to run away or even think.

He pulled her down onto his lap and kissed her—hard—until he felt the tension in her body ease, and she leaned in to him. God, she feels good. He brought his hand to her waist, and she lifted her arm around his neck. He cupped her breast, caressing her through the filmy fabric of her dress, feeling her nipple harden beneath his touch. He needed her—all of her. She arched her neck, and he kissed the edge of her jaw, the dip between her chin, then took her neck into his mouth in a long, sensuous suck that felt like it might pull the come right out of him.

She moaned, urging him, pressing her chest into his hand. He pulled her dress to the side and took her breast into his mouth, sucking, licking, as she writhed on his lap, grinding herself into him. He moved to the other side, lapping at the crest of her breast before gently teasing her nipple with the tip of his tongue. She grabbed his hair and pulled his mouth harder around her, then lifted his head away from her delicious breast and looked at him with hunger.

“Bedroom?” she said in a heady voice.

He rose with her in his arms and walked through the open bedroom door. Her bedroom was exactly what he’d envisioned, just like the rest of her organized nest. She had a simple dresser, king-sized bed, and a nightstand, all neat and tidy. The only item out of place was a single black dress hanging at the entrance to her closet. She kept her room just as organized as he did, and that only deepened his attraction to her.

“May I?” he asked before lowering her to the bed.

“Please,” she answered.

He set her on the edge of the bed and removed his tie, setting it neatly on the dresser before unbuttoning his shirt.