Best Modern Romances Of The Year 2017. Maisey Yates

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СКАЧАТЬ ill because he wanted to handle that information personally. Andrew wanted Tia kept in the dark about everything: his business empire and her inheritance, his fears, his fiercely protective desire for her to marry Max. Regrettably, Andrew’s rules simply made Max’s role more difficult.

      For a heady split second, Tia assumed that Max was taking her into her bedroom for immoral purposes and in the mood she was in she was fully on board with that idea, but when he laid her down on the wide bed he started to straighten and pull back. It occurred to her then that he was actually physically putting her to bed like a misbehaving child and, outraged by that suspicion, she shot out a hand to grab his sleeve and pull him back to her.

      ‘Max!’ she censured sharply.

      Max jerked back another step and hit his head, a crushing blow on the ornate wooden strut of the four-poster bed frame. For an instant he literally saw stars and swayed and, seeing that, Tia succumbed to guilt and regret.

      Scrambling up on her knees, she grabbed his hand worriedly. ‘That was my fault. Are you all right? That was quite a thump you got.’

      ‘Sì...’ Max conceded, blinking rapidly in an effort to clear his fuzzy head and dismiss the pain while slowly turning to look down at her. Her blue eyes were so honest and anxious and the luscious mouth below them so perfectly plump and inviting that the ache at his groin almost made him groan out loud.

      ‘Sit down for a minute. You’ve gone very pale,’ Tia told him.

      ‘I don’t need to sit down.’ A shred of sanity remained in Max’s bemused brain and in it the bed loomed large as a trap of catastrophic proportions.

      ‘Sit down, for goodness’ sake.’ Wondering if he had concussion because he seemed dazed, Tia used her hand on his to yank him down on the mattress beside her. Rising to her knees, she reached up to feather her fingers gently through his tousled black hair to feel the faint swelling beneath. ‘We should go to the hospital.’

      ‘It’s only a bump, Tia,’ Max groaned, turning his head to look at her in wonderment because after the childhood he had endured bumps and bruises, including broken bones, were nothing new to him.

      ‘If I hadn’t been...messing around...’ Tia selected her wording with care, her conscience still twanging as she marvelled at her own misplaced and mistimed boldness ‘...it wouldn’t have happened.’

      And what was about to happen wouldn’t happen either, Max continued inwardly, absolutely enthralled by the upturned pink swell of her tantalising mouth and discovering too late that that was the true trap, not the bed, after all, because he leant down as if being drawn by invisible strings to touch his mouth to hers.

      And holy hell, she tasted like sweet juicy strawberries and the hot, spicy night air. Max fisted a hank of golden hair in one hand and he crushed her soft pillowy lips beneath his own with fervour, hunger leaping through him with unstoppable force.

      His tongue flicked against the sensitive roof of her mouth and delved deep and a massive ripple of seductive sensation slivered right through to Tia. Unlike Max earlier she had no doubts about what she was doing or what she was inviting. Max was, basically, the man of her dreams and when Tia wanted anything she threw her heart and her soul into getting it with a stubborn, steady-minded resolve that her grandfather would have recognised as his own. Max was kissing her again, which meant he wanted her as much as she wanted him. Of course, he had tried to put the breakers on this exact development, she acknowledged absently, loving that he hadn’t wanted to rush her into anything too soon, recognising what she saw as being an honourable streak in his character.

      But Tia made her mind up fast and she was eager to live the life she had been denied for so long, in fact, grab it with two greedy hands and run as fast as she could with it...

CHAPTER FOUR

      TIA SUCKED IN a great lungful of air as Max temporarily released her mouth. There was a golden glow of what she fully recognised as lust in his stunning eyes. It didn’t have to be love, she told herself, she wasn’t looking for love yet, was content with a dose of healthy normal lust. In the future, there would be plenty of time and opportunity for her to fall in love. But even so, nothing had ever felt so necessary as Max’s sensual mouth plundering hers and the sweet, sliding invasion of his tongue.

      Her body was all pulled taut and needy with responses that were new to her. Her breasts felt ridiculously sensitive, the tightly beaded tips pushing against the scratchy fabric of her top.

      ‘You should make me wait for this,’ Max growled soft and low, conflict in his hungry gaze as he perused her.

      Already flushed, Tia’s face burned at that unsought advice. ‘I can’t believe you’re saying that to me. I thought you wanted me.’

      ‘Doubt there’s a man in Rio who wouldn’t want you, bella mia,’ Max assured her helplessly. ‘But I also don’t want you to have any regrets.’

      ‘Why on earth would I regret this?’ Tia questioned, sitting lithely up to reclaim his drugging mouth again for herself, hands settling on his warm, wide shoulders, fingers flirting with the silky tips of his black hair. The buzz in her body wouldn’t let her stay still or act compliant.

      Max loosed the halter tie at the nape of her neck and found the soft pouting swell of her breasts with his hands, catching her nipples between thumb and finger to pluck at the swollen buds, pushing her back against the banked-up pillows as she writhed.

      The liquid heat at the heart of her went into a frenzy when he touched her breasts. She pressed her thighs together, head rolling back and shifting restively against the pillow as he released her reddened lips to close his to her straining nipples. The light was burning and her lashes flickered on a sudden view of Max’s dark head over her bare breasts. For an instant she went rigid, mortification threatening to claim her because she wasn’t accustomed to being even partially naked in front of anyone and the shock of that glimpse was extreme. Are you a woman or a mouse? a little voice asked at the back of her head, and the words bubbling on her tongue died there. She knew what she was doing, she did, she told herself, trembling as the heat between her thighs mounted with every tug of his mouth. How could anything that felt so good be wrong?

      Max rearranged her petite body on the bed the better to enjoy her. Her nipples were a delicate tea-rose pink, darkened by his attentions, and her breasts exquisitely shaped but bare handfuls to a man used to better-endowed women. Even so, Max was enthralled by her porcelain-pale skin and the satiny softness of it, even while he was deciding that while Teddy the dog might be a little on the porky side his owner was a little too thin and needed feeding up. He wrenched at the shorts and the thin material ripped, startling her, troubled blue eyes opening to belatedly recognise that he was still fully clothed.

      ‘Take your shirt off,’ she whispered.

      Charmed by that instruction, Max dealt her a slanting grin. ‘You wouldn’t think you were a first timer at this.’

      Forcing herself to keep her hands loose on the bedspread when self-consciousness prompted her to cover her breasts from his view, Tia watched him strip off his shirt.

      * * *

      ‘I’m a quick learner,’ she told him, her mouth watering as he exposed the coiled lines of muscle across his abdomen and flat stomach. The dampness at her core increased and she couldn’t drag her gaze from his lean, powerful body. His bronzed skin sheathed rippling muscles, a broad chest and narrow hips stretching down СКАЧАТЬ