Fade Into You (5 page)

Clearly, we were not talking about water here, and both of us knew it.

He joined me on the couch, handing me a bottle of plain water.

“So,” he said, “you want to talk. Let’s talk.”

I sipped the cool water, trying to figure out what I was going to say.

“I’ll go first,” he said, saving me. “Let’s just get this out in the open. We’re attracted to each other. We’re both single—”

“Are we?” I interrupted.

“I certainly am. Have I misjudged your situation?”

I shook my head. “No, you haven’t.”

“Good. So what’s stopping you?”

I put the water bottle on the table and crossed my legs. “I don’t do…this. I don’t just randomly hook up with guys just because they’re hot.”

Max’s face was taken over by a smile. “So you think I’m hot.”

My head dropped. “Yes. Yes, I think you’re hot, okay? Happy?”

He sipped his White Russian. “Happy? Yeah. I could be happier, though.”

“Listen, what I’m saying is that it’s going to take more than a few scripted lines and smooth moves to get in my pants.”

“Actually, you’re wearing a skirt. But that’s just a technicality.”

I liked his sense of humor and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“And, for the record,” he continued, “I haven’t scripted any lines for this.”

“Okay, I’ll take your word for it.”

He settled back on the couch more, closer to me. I smelled his wonderful manly scent again and almost asked him what he was wearing, but decided not to.

Instead, I said, “I’m not interested in a casting couch romp.”

He threw his head back and laughed. When he looked back at me he said, “Neither am I, Olivia. In fact, I haven’t heard of a casting couch ‘romp’ as you put it in my entire career in this town.”

“No?”

He shook his head. “It’s a thing of the past. At least, I think it is.”

“You have your choice of women, I’m sure. Speaking of which, when I was leaving Las Vegas Sunday morning, I saw you with a blonde woman just outside the restaurant.”

He cocked his head to the side. “Ah, yes. She was trying to sell me something.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet she was.” I reached for my water bottle.

“She wasn’t a prostitute. She works for the corporation that owns that hotel and casino and another one down the strip. She was trying to get me to buy another penthouse.”

“
Another
?”

He nodded. “I have one in the hotel where we were.”

Jesus. If he’d brought me up to his penthouse, I wouldn’t have made it out of there without giving him what he wanted. I was close enough that night to wanting it that it would have been damn near a sure thing.

“So,” I said, “are you going to get another one?”

Max frowned. “I can’t see needing two in Vegas.”

“Good point.”

“Thank you.” He smirked and sipped his drink. “Let’s get back to the casting couch…”

“Let’s not. What I need to get back to is work.”

It would have been the perfect time to stand up, ask for the contract, and be on my way. But Max’s hand was suddenly resting on my leg. I looked down and saw him turn his hand over, palm up, and he rubbed my knee with the back of his index finger.

I watched him do that for a few seconds, marveling at how that slight touch sent a shock of excitement up my leg. My chest felt heavy, and I felt my nipples puckering.

“You want this as much as I do,” he said. “I see it in the way you look at me.”

I turned my head to look at him and in a flash his face met mine, his lips taking mine. My mouth opened and his tongue took the invitation without hesitation. There was no stopping him, and at that point, I didn’t have any desire to stop anything he was doing.

He controlled the kiss, heated and slick, taking the lead with his sensual licks along my tongue.

Max pulled away from my face for a moment. “You’re not saying no.”

“I haven’t said yes, either.”

“Let me try to make you say it.”

His mouth took mine again.

Max’s hand slid up my thigh slowly. My heart rate increased in anticipation. One finger slipped under the elastic of the leg hole in my panties, and I felt the tip of his fingers brush against my wet folds.

“Oh, God,” I said into his mouth.

“That’s almost a yes.”

He kept teasing me with the tip of his finger, softly going a little farther each time, but not near my clit.

I took a handful of his hair and squeezed. It was thick, yet soft, and my grabbing it seemed to stir even more passion in him.

“We don’t need to take this off,” he said, tugging my shirt up. “But I have to see these.”

Max unclasped my bra, pushing it aside, exposing my breasts.

“God, Olivia…” His voice trailed off as he lowered his head and sealed his lips around my nipple. I watched the tip of his tongue tweaking it, as his hand squeezed and plumped up my other breast.

He took the other nipple into his mouth. They were both getting tighter now, due to his attention, and also as the cool air rushed across the wetness he left behind.

My skirt was riding up my hips. Max hooked his thumb into the waistband of my panties and started pulling them down my legs.

I looked down and saw that they’d come off one leg, but were now dangling from my other ankle. Max guided that leg up to the arm of the couch, pulling my other one over his lap, and I was spread wide and open for him.

I’d never felt so vulnerable to a man before. But then I’d never been with a man who took control like this, either.

“You haven’t said yes yet, Olivia.”

“Isn’t this position enough?”

He grinned. “Say it.”

His hand had crept back up my thigh. His fingers curled around the underside, leaving his thumb hovering just over me.

I looked at him. “Yes.”

I tilted my head back against the couch in reaction to his thumb making contact with my clit. He massaged it in slow circles, giving it more pressure, then less, then more again.

I was looking straight up at the ceiling when I felt his mouth on my neck. His tongue traced little circles, and then he’d suck a little.

The way he was working my clit was perfect, and I could have come just like that, but it wasn’t enough for Max. He moved his hand and slipped one finger inside me, turning it as he let it slide in and out in short strokes.

“You’re so open to me,” he said.

That voice had been enough to get me wet before, but the effect was a thousandfold with his fingers in motion on me, and
in
me.

“God, Olivia, you’re more than I bargained for.”

I was thinking the same thing about him. My mind was focusing on his hand, though, as he slipped a second finger in.

“Oh, yes, please,” I said.

“Tell me what you like.”

“That. Right..th-th-there….oh, God….”

With my leg over his lap, I could feel his hard cock through his pants. I wanted to touch it. I wanted to make him feel as good as he was making me feel.

My hips bucked to meet his stroking fingers. I was holding nothing back.

I looked at Max. He was looking down between my legs so I looked down, too. If my legs had been spread any wider, they would have been perilously close to the cramping point. But there was no pain. It was all pleasure coming from Max’s skilled hand.

The way he fingered me was better than any sex I’d ever had.

My breath hitched in my throat and I gasped.

I wondered if they door was locked, and then thought that if someone walked in I wouldn’t have cared. This was too damn good.

I started moving the leg that was draped over his lap. Max’s cock strained against his jeans. I don’t know how he maintained the self-control to keep it there—he could have had his pants down in seconds and fucked me.

“I’m going to make you come, Olivia. This is all about you.”

There was my answer as to why he kept his pants on.
This is all about you
. I’d never had a guy say that to me. Such an idea had probably never crossed the minds of the guys I’d been with.

“Are you ready to come for me?”

“Yes. Yes.”

His mouth pressed to mine, deliciously powerful and possessive. He lowered his head and flattened his tongue over my nipple, then took it between his tongue and his upper teeth—a sensation of softness combined with just the slightest sharp edge.

His fingers picked up the pace, and the flat of his palm pressed against my clit. Perfect.

Max said, “You see how hot it could be? You and me?”

I was at the point where verbal responses were nearly impossible. At least coherent ones were. I made some kind of noise that was close to a squeak. Where did that come from? Max had drawn it out of me, somehow.

“Our sex will be so good. I could make you come a hundred different ways.”

After this performance—was he auditioning?—I didn’t doubt that he could.

“I want to see your eyes when you come, Olivia.”

I’d had my head tilted back again, and when I moved and looked at him, his mouth was slightly open.

“You feel how hard you got me?”

I nodded, pressing my leg down and feeling his erection. I had an image of it ripping right through his jeans.

“It’s going to be inside you soon, and you’ll return the pleasure I’m giving you now.”

“Max. Please….I want to….”

“Want to what? Want to come? Want to make me come?”

“All—all of it,” I stammered.

A wicked smile grew on the edges of his mouth. “Not yet. Not all of it. This is all you right now.”

“Oh, God, yes. I’m gonna…”

My words trailed off as he brought me to orgasm. My hips thrust against his hand. His two fingers were right on the spot I always found with my own fingers. A spot most guys never found, but Max had zeroed in on it with seemingly no effort.

“Look at me,” he said.

I did what he said, and his eyes had the look of someone who’d just completed a major conquest.

He knew he had me. He knew I’d given in. It was the most turned-on I’d ever been and I hadn’t held back one bit. There was an intensity to making myself vulnerable to him that I hadn’t expected. It was easier than I’d thought it would have been, and the payoff was beyond my wildest expectation.

Max’s face was close to mine, so close that our foreheads were touching. He looked deep into my eyes as the fog of the orgasm lifted from me and I slowly faded back into reality.

Max was hooking my bra again, and pulling my shirt back down to cover me. He moved off the couch and knelt on the floor, lifted the ankle that still held onto my panties, and looped them over my other ankle. I moved my hips to accommodate him as he pulled them up my legs to my waist. After straightening my skirt, he sat beside me once again.

I was thinking how unique it was that he made sure I was dressed again, covered, and not having to feel uncomfortable after the moment for vulnerability had passed.

“Thank you,” I said.

He kissed my forehead, then my cheek, and then gave me a long, slow, sweet kiss on the lips.

I wanted to stay, but I needed to go. “I have to get back to work.”

“Right. Wouldn’t want Kevin to wonder what was going on.” He smiled. “I’ll get the contract.”

I went and stood by his office doors while he got the envelope. When he handed it to me, I started to take it, but he held on and tugged on it.

I looked up at him. He had a playful smile on his face.

“Thanks for coming to get this, Ms. Rowland.”

“It was nice to see you again, Mr. Dalton.”

He let go of the large envelope. I held it close to my chest. I was waiting for a goodbye, maybe a little peck of a kiss on the cheek. Instead, he leaned in, kissed my ear and said, “Next time we won’t be rushed, and I’m going to take my time fucking you.”

I swallowed hard. The bluntness in his tone was shocking, and almost surely would have made me laugh if it had come out of any other man’s mouth. But the truth is, I was aroused by it.

He reached for the door handle, but before he opened it I said, “When exactly is next time?”

Damnit.
There was a note of desperation in my question that I hadn’t intended to be there.

He looked up as though he were trying to find the answer. “I think I’ll let it be a surprise.”

SIX

“That sure took a long time,” Kevin said as I walked into the office.

“Sorry.”

I tried not to make eye contact with him, even though I knew it would only make it seem even more like I was hiding something.

“Well?” he said. “What happened?”

“With what?”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Why?”

He squinted a little and looked at me sideways. “You don’t look okay. You look…different. Is something wrong?”

I’d heard of “just-fucked hair” before but was there such a thing as “just-finger-fucked hair”? Was that what he was referring to? Or maybe I was just so nervous about being found out that it showed on my face. Either way, I didn’t want him to elaborate.

“Everything’s fine, Kevin. I got the contract.” I reached into my bag to get the envelope. “And then after I left, I needed to stop somewhere and take care of something.”

He looked like he didn’t believe me.

I lowered my voice and added, “Personal stuff.” I made a kind of embarrassed looking face for effect, and it appeared as though he bought the story.

“Ah, sorry,” he said.

I shook my head. “No worries.” I handed the envelope to Kevin.

He opened it, took out the contract and quickly scanned it. “Do you have any idea what these papers mean? This is huge for me.” He looked at it again with extreme pride on his face.

“I’m so happy for you.”

He looked up from the papers. “Happy for
us
. You’re part of the team here. I couldn’t have done this without your help.”

It saddened me to hear that. For one thing, it was a humble thing for him to say, and that wasn’t something you came across very often in Hollywood. And secondly, while I knew it was true that I’d done a lot to help him land the role for Jacqueline, I’d also done a lot to put Kevin’s business in jeopardy.