A throat cleared across the narrow table, and, looking up, Max found Luc studying him. It disconcerted the hell out of him to look into a face with so much family resemblance when the guy was still a virtual stranger.
His new half brother slanted him a look. “Your plans happen to include one of those naked chicks Jake and I didn’t quite get to see tonight?”
Max jerked his head back slightly in surprise. But he merely turned a look on Jake. “What the fuck, bro?”
“You can spare us ten minutes for a beer,” his brother replied in a tone that brooked no argument and hailed Sally. Then he shrugged. “Luc and I got tired of all the people out on the water when we rowed out to see the fireworks, so I took him to check out the inn from the canal. You know how pretty it is all lit up at night.”
He nodded, but thought grumpily,
Get on with it.
As though Jake could read his mind, he did. “We came across Jenny, Tash and Harper skinny-dipping off the float.”
“Which, nice as that inn is,” Luc said drily, “was a helluva lot more interesting.”
The waitress delivered a Ridgetop Red to the table without first taking his order, courtesy, no doubt, of Elise, the bartender, who was still jonesing over his upgraded taste in beer.
“No shit?” he demanded after Sally ascertained the other Bradshaw boys had everything they needed and left to answer another patron’s summons. “The three of them were Full Monty?” What red-blooded man’s spirits wouldn’t raise at the thought of naked women? “I would’ve paid to see that. Had to be one kick-ass peep show.”
“Or it would’ve been, if we could have seen something besides shoulders,” Luc said. “I’ve got excellent night vision, but that’s some seriously dark water.” Then he grinned. “You should have seen Jake, though, when his woman threatened to hop on the float and give me an eyeful if we didn’t go away. He all but screamed like a girl and rowed us away so fast we probably carved a permanent wake.”
Jake’s arm shot across the table, his fist punching Luc in the shoulder. “Screamed like a girl, my ass.” Then he laughed. “Okay, I’ve gotta admit that was pretty brilliant on her part. It didn’t even occur to me to call her bluff. I only knew that I’d have to rip Luc’s eyes out of his head and feed ’em to the fish if he saw her. And wouldn’t that put a crimp in this little family reunion?”
“Uncle Sam taught me to be real good with all manner of weapons,” Max said, deadpan. “So I could probably go you one better had the two of you actually seen Harper wearing nothing but her pretty skin.” Then he gave Jake a faint smile. “Still, it’s hard to beat a good eyeball ripping.”
Luc examined him. “I’ve gotta say, man, it’s a little chilling that I’m not a hundred percent sure if you’re bullshittin’ us or not.”
“He’s BSing you,” Jake said confidently.
“Or not,” Max added.
A ruckus broke out at a table down by the dartboard, and Max leaned out to see what was going on. He blew out an irritated breath. “Oh, for cri’sake,” he said, his mood spiraling downward once more. He slid out of the booth. “I’ve had it with Wade—it’s past time he got a clue that Mindy is good and married to Curt. Jesus, it’s been seven years—the woman’s never coming back to him.” He picked up his beer, knocked back half of it in one long chug, then dug some money out of his wallet and tossed it on the table. “I’ll see you guys later. I’m hauling his sorry ass to jail.”
“You’re off duty,” Jake said. “And this is Wade we’re talking about. You really think it’ll do any damn good?”
“I wish. If he had two brain cells to rub together, a night in lockup might drive the facts home—or at least make the man think.” He hitched a shoulder. “Unfortunately, I’m not all that sure he has more than one. Otherwise he might have gotten a clue when she filed the restraining order against him.”
“So why waste your time?”
“Because I’m hoping that having something concrete to concentrate on, if only for the length of time it takes me to book Wade for violating the terms of the no-contact order and get him settled in his cell, will help
me
work off this fucking mood before I try to catch up with Harper.”
“Ah.” Jake nodded. “Always a good plan, bro.
Always
a good plan.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
H
ARPER
’
S
GOOD
MOOD
carried over as she shared a bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé in the hot tub with Tasha and Jenny and continued when the inn’s guests returned from the fireworks display. They, too, were cheery, and she exchanged lighthearted conversation with them as she checked in the boats and counted heads. As soon as she made sure everyone had been accounted for, she raced back to her cottage.
That’s when she caught sight of herself in the bathroom mirror. It slammed a dent in her Saturday night.
“Holy crap.” She watched her reflection as her hands rose in an attempt to tame a truly scary case of wildly frizzing curls, swallowing hard at the total lack of success.
But darn it, she was feeling too good to let it destroy her great night. So, she showered the salt water out of her hair and off her skin. She dried off, moisturized all over, then changed into her tank top and jammie bottoms. She had barely finished applying a defrizzer and was running a pick through her curls when a knock sounded on the door.
She all but skipped over to answer it, smiling hugely when she pulled the door open and saw Max standing there. He’d already opened the screen door, and she jumped him, twining her arms around his strong neck and wrapping her legs around his waist. “Hey there, big boy.”
Big hands grasping her butt, he looked down at her. “Hey there, yourself,” he said, the creases between his dark eyebrows smoothing out. “You seem to be in high spirits.”
“I am! I am
ever
so happy! But what about you?” She ran her thumb over the now smooth skin between his brows. “You were frowning when I opened the door.”
“Yeah, I’ve been in kind of a funk this evening. But seeing you makes me feel a whole lot better. Tell me what’s got you so jacked.”
“Oh, Max, I had the most interesting night.” Tightening her thighs around him, she happily bounced her butt up and down.
“So I’ve heard.”
She quit bouncing and blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Word has it you, Jenny and Tash were skinny-dipping off the inn’s float.”
“Are you bamming me—people know about that already?” She frowned at him. “I mean, I know this town is gossip central, but even for Razor Bay that got out at warp speed.”
“It’s not widely known.” He kicked the door shut behind him and, with her still wrapped around him, crossed to drop into the chair by the couch. Rearranging several wayward curls, he said, “I had a quick beer with Jake and Luc.”
“Ahhhh.” She grinned and arranged her knees on either side of his hips. Then, praying Tasha hadn’t been wrong, she said hopefully, “They couldn’t see anything, you know.”
His mouth crooked up in a little one-sided smile of amusement. “That appeared to be Luc’s general grievance.”
She’d had no real reason to doubt Tasha’s assessment of the situation, yet she was relieved all the same to have it verified. And for some reason, hearing it reinforced her confidence regarding the subject she’d been wanting to bring up with Max. That in turn made her feel friendly.
Very
friendly.
She subtly gyrated on his lap.
“Yeah?” Those midnight eyebrows raising, he gripped her hips as his penis stiffened, lifting her to allow it a little space to straighten out beneath the fly of his jeans. Once it had, he pressed her back down so that the slippery seam of her satiny PJ bottoms aligned along every long, hard inch of his sex.
She exhaled a shuddery breath, already way past the need for foreplay. She was ready to dive straight into the main event. Max was the only man she’d ever been intimate with to make her feel this way. The only one who, with the slightest touch, could make her want him desperately. Her lips curving up, she subtly swiveled her hips.
Flattening his hands against the round swell of her butt to hold her in place, Max crunched up to plant a short, fierce kiss on her mouth. Resuming his lounge, he gazed at her through heavy-lidded eyes. “You look like a cat who found the back way into the creamery,” he said in a rough voice.
She put some purr into her
“Rrrr-ow,”
trying her best to sound like a real feline.
She wouldn’t have thought it possible, but the rigid hard-on she was gently sliding back and forth against grew even harder beneath her. Max’s eyes glowed with dark fire behind his narrowed lashes as he studied her.
“Take your top off,” he ordered.
The command in his voice made her clench deep inside. Crossing her hands at her waist, she grasped the tank top, tugged it out of the waistband of her PJ bottoms and peeled it inside out up her torso. Her elbows were jutted toward the ceiling, the top’s fabric pulled over her face and obscuring her vision, when Max’s mouth latched onto her nipple.
A desperate sound exploded from her throat, and he groaned in response. His lips released her, and he rose to his feet as she began to wrestle with her top in earnest.
“Easy,” he murmured, laughter lacing his deep voice. “I’ve got you, but you’re not hanging on in return, so you don’t wanna lean back too much. I’d hate for both of us to end up on the floor.” He strode across the room.
She finally got the stretchy chemise over her head and tossed it aside. She shot him a triumphant smile as she wrapped her arms back around his neck.
He stopped in his tracks. “Aw, man,” he said and the vibration of his deep voice against her sternum seemed to resonate along her spine from the nape of her neck to her tailbone. “I love your smile. I just. Plain. Love it.” Stamping his mouth over hers, he kissed her blind.
She kissed him back, writhing languorously against him.
When he finally raised his head, she stared in befuddlement into his eyes, loving the dense dark lashes that tangled together in the outer corners. It took her a moment to regain her power of speech. “Why did you stop?”
“Ladder,” he said, and flipped her up over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. “Hang on.”
She blinked, then clutched at his khaki shirt as he caught the rung of the ladder to the loft with one hand while the other splayed over the back of her thigh and began climbing. His warm, muscular forearm pressed the other thigh, securing her legs against his chest.
“Not exactly romantic, I know,” he said as he stepped into her bedroom and set her on her feet away from the drop in the floor. “But it’s hard to simultaneously sweep you off your feet and climb a ladder. And you know me, I’m all about safety.”
She laughed and flung herself back into his arms.
He caught her with a growl and lowered them both onto her unmade bed, laying her on her back and rolling onto his side to face her. He pushed up onto one forearm, and as he reached past her his chest briefly brushed her breasts in their navy-and-pink bra. He clicked on the nightstand lamp, and a second later he was back on his side, his head propped in his hand.
“Maybe the light’s not such a great idea.” She kicked the messy bedding aside. “Because, my secret’s out now. I’m kind of a slob.”
“Yeah, I don’t think this relationship has a prayer of surviving,” he said drily. “Neatness is a priority for me, you know.”
“That’s a shame,” she said. “Because our incompatibility means I probably shouldn’t do this.” Rolling onto her side as well, she mimicked his posture, then, reaching her free hand down, palmed his erection.
“Did I say priority?” he demanded. “Puzzling, I meant. I’m totally puzzled why anyone would give a damn about neatness.” He rocked his hips, pressing into her hand. “Now, me, I’ve always been drawn to the slobs.”
She snorted. “Of course you have. That was
precisely
my impression when I saw the military corners and bounce-a-quarter-on-the-tightness of the bed linens at your place.” She shook her head. “Guys. You all will say anything to get your rocks off.”
“But we always genuinely mean it in the moment.”
Tickled as she was with his sense of humor, with his willingness to be silly, which she never in a gazillion years would have guessed he could be when they’d first met, she suddenly had a more urgent agenda. “Max?” she said softly.
He reached over and rearranged a curl that was dangling over her eye. “Yeah, baby?”
“Shut up and kiss me.”
“I can do that,” he breathed and rolled on top of her, pushing up on his forearms with the clear intention of sparing her his weight, an innate thoughtfulness she’d wager most people wouldn’t realize came naturally to him. Lowering his head, he opened his lips over hers, then, with soft suction, slowly dragged them closed. Opened them and dragged them closed, sipping at her mouth in a gentle, lush rhythm that sent her fingers digging into the hard muscles of his arms and her breath stuttering softly through her lips.
Time disappeared, and she had no idea how much passed before she ran her hand up the placket of his crisp uniform shirt to the first fastened button. It felt as if she had barely begun undoing them when her knuckles brushed the waistband of his jeans. Efficiently, she worked the shirttails free and slipped the last two buttons from their buttonholes. She spread the plackets apart, pushing the shirt off his shoulders and halfway down his arms, semirestraining him.
Independent of her brain, her hands developed a life of their own as they moved to slowly explore his upper body. They traveled from the hot, satin-smooth skin that stretched over the defined ridges of his abdomen to the more roughly textured cloud of hair on his chest. She flicked a fingernail over the tiny nail head nipple buried in the latter and smiled against his lips when goose bumps washed down his arms and he shivered.
He raised his head. “You find me amusing?”
“Not at all. I’m just fascinated at how responsive your nipples are.” She rubbed her thumb around his smooth, nickel-sized areola. “In my experience—”
which, okay, isn’t massive
“—most men’s aren’t.” She stroked her thumb across the unadorned nipple again. “Where’s your ring?”
One massive shoulder hitched. “Either on my dresser or on the bathroom counter.” Sliding half-off her, he reached out to rub his thumb against the point of her chin. It was such a platonic touch...yet one that tightened her nipples and made her press her thighs together against a renewed flood of sensation deep between her legs.
He stroked raspy fingertips down to the hollow of her throat, and from there lightly traced her collarbones, then zigzagged down her chest and climbed the rise of her left breast. Instead of paying attention to her achy nipple, however, his big-knuckled fingers moved to her diaphragm and from there to the stretchy elastic waistband of her pajama bottoms.
Abruptly, he pushed back to straddle her thighs. “Roll over.”
Her heart hit solidly against the wall of her chest, and when he widened his thighs on either side of her, she did as he bid. She’d barely turned onto her stomach when he slid her PJ bottoms over her butt and down her legs. She felt him move down to her feet and then off the bed entirely. Hands she couldn’t see tugged her lounge pants over her feet and discarded them.
His own pants rustled as he kicked them off and put on a condom, then he was back, his inner legs hard and warm against her outer thighs. His large hands spread over her cheeks, the pads of his fingers and palms scratchy against her smoother skin.
“I love your ass,” he said in a rough voice.
She craned her head to grin at him over her shoulder. “You’re the perfect guy, you know that? I’ve always considered my butt a little too big.”
“Are you crazy? You have
this—
” his hands stroked the fullness they encompassed “—and you wanna be one of those skinny-ass women?”
“See what I’m saying? Per-fect.”
His hands wrapped around her hips and tugged her up onto her knees. She pushed onto all fours, and Max leaned over her, his front pressing heat into her back.
“You’re the perfect one,” he murmured in her ear, the stubble on his chin catching on the curls near her temple. He bent his head and kissed the contour of her neck.
Her bones seemed to dissolve, and her upper body melted out from under him. Pressing her breasts into the sheet, she stretched her arms out, her fingers splayed against the pale yellow linens.
Her bottom was still raised, and Max reached between her legs. He sucked in a sharp breath. “Ah, sweetheart. You’re so wet.”
“I know. I’m so primed, Max. I want you. Now.”
“God, you really are the perfect woman.” And he slid into her, stretching her, filling her. He held himself deep for a moment, then began to move. Slowly retreating and sinking back in, he flattened the heels of his hands against the fullness of her cheeks, his fingers curled around her hips to hold her in place.
It only took a few strokes before she felt her climax begin to build. Pushing back against his steely sex with every thrust, she curled her fingers, gripping the sheets.
And heard herself whisper, “I love you, Max. God, I love you.”
A rough sound, more an exploding groan than actual words, escaped him, and his hands tightened on her. He seemed to lose all control, his hips picking up speed until he was pounding, pounding,
pounding
into her.
She came in an explosive, fiery rush, her inner sheath clamping down around his invading hardness as if trying to wring an equally explosive climax from him.
If that was indeed the plan, it worked. Max pulsated inside her, her name a gritty rasp from deep in his throat.
He didn’t collapse on her, but Harper felt the tension flow out of his body. The hands that had been gripping her hips so hard stroked them tenderly.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice. “Did I hurt you?”
“No, of course not. You made me feel... God. So wonderful.
Beautiful.
”
“You are wonderful. And beautiful beyond belief.” He pulled out of her, and she rolled over onto her back.
And wondered why he didn’t meet her gaze.
He dealt with the used condom, then came back to the bed. Sitting down next to her hip, he reached out to stroke her chest above the sheet she’d pulled up. Then he dropped his hand to the mattress. “Did you mean it? What you said? Or was that just sex talk?”