Her Best Friend's Brother (5 page)

CHAPTER NINE

Laying on the beach beside Max dressed in her skimpy bathing suit left her squirming on the lounge chairs provided by the hotel. But ever since snagging the spot, Max had attempted to continue their conversation about her fantasy. “I’m not telling you,” she said for the fifth time. “Yet,” she added, using the word he’d favored inside the suite.

She couldn’t tell what he was thinking behind the dark sunglasses he wore, but the tingling in her body made it clear he stared at her. Her body reacted to him in a way it had never responded to anyone else in her life. Some might say it was lust or desire. Carnality. But she knew differently. And while she sincerely hoped he meant what he said about the two of them getting married one day in the future, for now she was content just to be with him after all the years of loving him from a distance.

He settled his long, lean frame more comfortably in the lounger and laced his fingers behind his head as he regarded her. The pose was casual and one of contentment, but she had to admire the play of muscles and tendons and sun-kissed skin so elegantly sprawled out and on display in black swim trunks tied at his waist.

“As long as you know I’ll fulfill every fantasy you have,” he murmured, lowering his voice when an elderly couple strolled by hand-in-hand.

Chloe watched the couple shuffle along the boardwalk that wove through the various buildings and parallel to the beach. “Even that one,” she asked, sliding him a glance.

“Especially that one. I want to grow old with you,” Max said, his words matching those in her mind. “I want to know you so well we finish each other’s sentences, and spend our elder years rattling around a house playing with our grandchildren when we’re not traveling the world.”

Oh, now that
was
a nice fantasy. One she would very much like to share with him.

“But that means you have to say yes,” he added. “What’s holding you back, Chloe. The real reason.”

Chloe closed the book she wasn’t reading and swung her feet to the sand. Her breasts jiggled a bit with the move, and she wondered if Max noticed. “Honestly?”

She’d never confided the truth in anyone besides Em, who had been sworn to secrecy.

“Of course. I always want you to tell me the truth.”

She grabbed the bottle of sun
screen and began to apply it with vigorous motions. “My parents weren’t the perfect couple everyone thought they were. Oh, they told everyone who’d listen that they’d fallen in love at first sight. That their love was magical, like something from a movie. But the truth is behind closed doors they fought all the time, and the trip they were on when they were killed… They were going to a marriage seminar as a last ditch effort to work on things before filing for divorce.”

She smacked the flip-lid closed on the lotion and looked up to see Max staring at her, his lips parted.

“I had no idea.”

“No one could know. We had to keep up appearances.” She shrugged and flopped down on the lounger on her belly, desperately wanting to bury her face in her towel and let go of the tears stinging her eyes. “My father knew I was reaching my tolerance cap with them fighting all the time. I was starting to rebel. I stayed out past curfew, slacked off on my grades. If I’d known you were interested in me then, well, added to their marital issues they easily could’ve had a full-blown rebellion on their hands. Given the timing of our fathers’ talk with you, I’m sure it was my father’s attempt to avoid the drama of—”

“Chloe gone wild,” Max murmured.

She lowered her chin to her folded hands and nodded, forced a smile. “I want you, Max. I love being here with you. Being
with you
. But I can’t say yes.”

“You can. You aren’t your parents, Chloe. Just because they weren’t happy, that doesn’t mean we won’t be happy.”

“I know. But I have to be sure we’re together for the right reasons, and that once we’re home and back into the grind of work and life and everyday stresses, we won’t wake up and realize all we really have is years of pent up sexual attraction.” Max was silent a long time, but she could feel him staring at her from behind those glasses of his. “What? Please, say something.”

Max swung his feet to the sand and leaned towards her. He picked up the bo
ttle of sunscreen, but before flipping the cap, he plucked the ties of her bikini top loose and let them fall to her sides. He smoothed the cool, coconut-scented lotion on her back, massaging the tension from her shoulders.

“You’re mine,” he said, the words a rough, sexy rumble. “You gave yourself to me, Chloe. It meant everything to me that you waited so long and yet you gave yourself to me, but now that I know what you’ve been through, it means even more.”

His hand slid low on her back, his fingers dipping into the waistband of her suit bottom. She caught her breath at the feel of his touch, the sore muscles in her lower body clenching with anticipation. “I’m just telling you why I can’t say yes.”

He squirted more of the lotion into his palm and then smoothed it over her upper thigh, one then the other. Down her legs, back up again, his fingers repeatedly grazing the crease between.

She fisted her hands around her towel and struggled to control her breathing, desperately wanting Max to stroke a little deeper when his teasing fingers ignited the fire within her. He palmed her rear, his thumb smoothing lotion along her suit bottom while his fingers slipped beneath the material and into her suddenly wet warmth. “Oh.”

Max growled out a frustrated sound, rubbing his fingers against her clit with a little more force and speed.

“Max, stop,” she whimpered. The beach was mostly deserted this time of day as people headed inside for lunch and naps. She’d seen them leave in pairs and groups while she and Max had talked, but they were still in a public area. Still—

He slid a finger into her and she gasped, clenching around the digit in greedy pleasure. He stroked his thumb over her bum, atop her suit, as though fascinated by her anatomy, but in reality his finger—
fingers
— “Ma—” The climax tore through her in an instant and she broke off, biting her lip to stay quiet and still when she wanted to scream and part her legs wider, to lift against him so his fingers would thrust
deeper
and she could ride the feel of him.

Max must have understood her craving. He slid as deep as he could and ground his palm down, the act pinching her clit in indescribable pleasure.

She blinked and shuddered, struggling to control her ragged breathing and movements when her gaze locked on the man sitting in a deeply shaded spot behind them, across the boardwalk. The man from the balcony.

He
watched
them.

A final tremor ran the length of her body. From beneath her lashes she saw the man lift the glass in his hand in a silent toast, mouthing the word
beautiful.

Chloe buried her head in her towel and squeezed her thighs together to stem the need spiking within her once more, all at the thought of the man watching her while Max had teased her to climax. “Max… Can we go to the room?”

CHAPTER TEN

They made it as far as the hotel restroom that was a little out of the way and rarely used. Chloe had noticed it when they’d crossed the lobby and since she didn’t think she could make it all the way to their floor—nor could Max for that matter—she tugged him toward the restroom and discreetly shoved him inside. “I want to suck you.”

Growing up a good Christian girl, she hadn’t imagined herself ever uttering those words but God had made Eve to give Adam a companion, comfort, and she wanted to
comfort
Max. Now.

His hands trembled slightly as he yanked at the drawstring of his trunks, but the moment it was loose she helped him shove the material low. She dropped her beach towel on the floor to spare her knees and took his cock between her lips as though she’d die without it. In a sense, it felt that way. Max’s words on the beach about them not being her parents had gone a long way to reassure her about their relationship. And this— This was Max’s bonus for saying just the right thing.

“Chloe,
easy
.”

Max’s breath chugged in and out of his lungs, and she was aware of him watching her mouth him. He braced a hand against the wall behind her for support, using the other to keep her hair from obscuring his view.

“You act like you love doing that.”

She hollowed her jaws and slowly drew her lips up his length to the tip, flicking the ridge and the warm, salty wetness she found. “I do,” she whispered against the head, smiling when his cock jerked at the breath of air she released. “I want to make you feel as good as you make me.”

“Then come here. I want to come inside you.”

Max let her have one last tongue-lashing taste before he dragged her up and walked them both backward to the leather chair that faced a mirror on the far wall. He sat in the seat and stripped her bathing suit bottom off before using his hands on her hips to spin her around so that she sat with her back to his chest.

“Watch us, Chloe. Watch us.”

Her eyes widened at the view. Max had spread her legs apart, her thighs atop his, and she saw his cock straining toward her entry. Saw herself—open. Glistening. Ready for him. So very eager.

“Lift up,” Max ordered, his hand at the base of her back, guiding her so that he could slip a hand between them and position his cock perfectly. “Slowly. I want to feel every inch.”

So did she.

Her arms quivered with the strain of holding herself up and descending so slowly, and she decided she needed to lift more weights. If this was the pay-off, heavier weights and more cardio were a good investment.

She moaned when she felt Max sliding oh-so-slowly into her warmth, the visual fueling her desire as much as the sensation itself. When she’d seated herself completely, Max widened his legs, forcing her body down on him even more. She felt full and stretched and amazing, thanks to the pressure created by the position.

“What do we look like, sweetheart. Do you like us together.”

“
Yesss
.” She squeezed her inner thighs and moaned again, desperate to move but unable to because of Max’s hold on her hips. She began tightening around him in the only way she could, sucking Max’s hard, fabulous cock deep into her body.

“You are so— Ah, love. You’re incredible.”

Max was incredible. She wanted to experience everything with him. Every position. Every angle. Every possible way for a woman to love a man. “Please.
Move.
”

“Put your hands on my knees.”

She did as ordered, fumbling in her haste. It meant leaning forward a bit, but she kept her eyes glued to the mirror, to the beautiful, sensual sight of them making love. She’d never considered fornication as an art before, but now she understood. The play of the overhead light on her breasts, the soft, dazedly heated look on her face as Max plowed her lower body with his.

She could see his cock. Hard and thick and rigid, hungry for every pump of her hips, surging back up when she lifted herself off the long length, teasing her entry with the broader head because the sensation was just divine.

Chloe slowed her movements, concentrating on letting him enter her just enough, the ridge of his cock rubbing her inner walls and putting pressure on her clit in just the right way. Until every movement rocketed pleasure through her core, and she opened her mouth to draw in more air, her hands flexing on Max’s knees as she used his body for her own pleasure.

“I’m going to come,” Max said, moving his hand around her hip and down. He splayed two fingers, sliding them on either side of the nub of nerves. It was too much. She jerked and panted and ground down against his hand and his cock.

They moved as one, every pull of his cock out of her body followed by a hard, glorious thrust that increased the tension in her belly and thighs, carrying her higher and higher until she shattered. Her gasps and moans and the noise made by their flesh slamming together was drowned out by Max’s ragged breathing.

Her climax triggered his, and he groaned his release, spurting hot and silky inside her, filling her until she felt his semen dampening her inner thighs.

She collapsed backward against his chest, her head lolling on Max’s shoulder. He cuddled her against him for a time, until they both recovered their breath. Max gently separated their bodies and helped her stand. It wasn’t until she was on her feet and she saw Max lowering his head that she realized they had done everything but kiss.

Max corrected the slight, lightly brushing his lips over hers.