Jessica Andersen - Under the Microscope

When he didn’t follow, she stopped and turned back. “Did I forget something?”

Snow feathered down between them, glowing orange in the sodium lights of the parking lot. The contrast made Max seem even larger and darker than he was, but rather than fear, the sight sent a bolt of warmth through Raine’s midsection, where it buzzed alongside chase-pumped adrenaline.

A slight smile touched his lips. “You trying to rescue me, partner?”

Something clicked in her chest, right beneath her heart, and suddenly it was so simple to cross to him, stand on her tiptoes and kiss him.

There was no withdrawal this time, only joy, and a feeling that now, finally, he needed something from her. Reassurance. Comfort.

Love.

They kissed as the snow coated the world around them and their bodies went from cold to warm.

That first moment of contact, of acceptance spun into endless minutes as he spanned her waist and slid his hands to the small of her back, then upward, trailing his fingertips over her ribs beneath the ratty brown jacket liner she still wore. She kissed him deeper, stroking her tongue across his, then mimicking the rhythm in the caress of her fingers on the hard planes of his chest.

She murmured his name. “Max.”

When they drew apart, they both knew it was only a temporary thing. And when they stopped at the desk, it was to rent a room with nearly the last of their cash.

One room. No discussion.

When the hotel room door closed behind them, Max dropped the bag of sodas and snacks they’d bought at the gift shop in the absence of room service. He held out a hand to Raine.

Heat suffused her body and she crossed to him, knowing it was time. Their time.

They kissed, meeting as equals. Needing each other equally.

He drew away to look down at her with eyes that were dark, and full of fire and promises. Then he released her and stepped away, keeping only her hand, which he raised to his lips. He pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “The first moment I saw you, I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.”

The words carried an unexpected punch that caught her beneath the heart and wouldn’t let go.

She’d been complimented before. She’d been romanced. But she’d never been thoroughly undone by either.

Not until now.

Until Max.

On another night, with another man, she might have returned the compliment, or slid into the slow tug of desire when he touched his lips to her knuckles a second time. But it was this night with this man.

The man she loved.

The realization was painless, comfortable, as though it had been at the edges of her brain for longer than just this week, waiting for her to figure it out, for them to figure it out and find a way to meet, not as rescued and rescuer, but as partners.

I love you, she thought. She didn’t say it aloud, not yet. But she stepped into him, basking in his warmth, in the warmth they created together as she lifted her hands to the buttons of his flannel shirt, which was worn and torn from the trials of the past few days, but still soft against her skin.

He froze, barely breathing as she eased the buttons free, until the shirt hung open, baring a narrow strip of taut male skin, lightly dusted with wiry hair.

Then she looked up at him. “When I knocked at your apartment Tuesday evening, I was thinking about Thriller, and about how I was going to convince you to help me. Then you opened the door, looking just like you do now, and I thought…” She trailed off, throat tightening with the huge emotion of it, clogging to the point that she almost couldn’t breathe.

She halfway expected him to go with a quip, with the easy, shared laughter that would defuse a situation that had suddenly grown far heavier than she’d expected, far more serious than she was prepared for. Instead, he took her hands and twined their fingers together. “What did you think?”

“That I’d been stupid.”

“To leave Boston?”

She shook her head. “No, to think that I’d forgotten you once I did.”

He looked at her for a long moment, perhaps wondering if that was enough when it felt like too much. Then, as though he’d seen an answer she hadn’t meant to give, he nodded once, released her hands and shrugged out of his shirt.

A small sound escaped from between Raine’s lips at the sight of his bare chest, at the feel of his naked skin beneath her palms.

He kissed her, holding nothing back. She could feel it in the possessive stroke of his hands, in the hard press of his body against hers, centered desire to desire. She could taste his growing impatience, feel the rising heat that met and mated with the rhythmic pound of her blood, the deep-seated pulse in her core.

She was wet for him, weeping for him, aching in places that were familiar yet not, as though her sensuality had awoken from a long, torpid hibernation and was hungry and ready to feed on sex, on Max.

Only Max.

She traced the hard planes of his chest with fingers that trembled with urgency, and maybe a touch of fear. The burgeoning emotions were bigger than she’d expected, huger than she was prepared to face, but there was no turning back now.

Max’s skin was a warm slick over hard muscles that coiled and relaxed beneath her touch as he drew her closer, or maybe that was her moving, she wasn’t sure. All she knew was that they were wrapped together, twined together until it was difficult to tell where he left off and she began.

She broke the kiss to lay claim to the skin at his throat, which was faintly abrasive with his growing beard, faintly salty with the events of the day. He hummed his approval and dropped his hands to the hem of her shirt, easing it up and over her head so smoothly she barely lost contact with him.

Then it was all contact. Skin to skin. Heartbeat to heartbeat.

He unsnapped her bra and cast it aside, then stepped back until they were facing each other across the hotel room. He looked like a god, clothed in jeans below and nothing above. The dull light of a single lamp softened the planes of his face, making him look less fierce. More approachable.

All but his eyes, which were fixed on her with an almost frightening intensity.

Raine looked down at herself, at her breasts and the smooth skin of her belly. On any other day she might have flushed and tried to cover herself. But now, with this man, she stood fast and grew warm under his inspection. Then, inwardly amazed at her own boldness, she touched the button at the waistband of her tailored slacks. “I’ve thought of us doing this, too many times to count.”

At the flare of heat in his eyes, modesty fled. She toed off her boots, unsnapped the pants and slid them down over her hips, hooking her bikinis on the way down.

Max’s eyes followed her every move. He didn’t seem to be breathing.

Raine wasn’t sure she was, either, wasn’t sure she needed to. Oxygen didn’t seem nearly as important as chasing the sensations that flowed through her body like lava.

Naked, she stood for a moment, letting him look his fill, reveling in the tension that crackled between them. It lasted a moment. Two. Then he let out a low, reverent oath, crossed the room and took her.

That was how it felt, as though she were being taken. He swept her off her feet and carried her to the bed in an action that should have seemed foolish, but instead jammed her heart into her throat with excitement and an edge of fear that he might let her fall.

Then she realized it didn’t matter.

She’d already fallen.

On that thought, on that hit of hot, wild desperation, she turned her lips into his neck and nipped the soft spot where his pulse pounded in time with hers. He murmured something-her name perhaps-and shifted her in his arms so he could take her lips with his, take her under again as they dropped to the bed, twined together.