There was no room for breath. His tongue thrust against her tongue. His mouth slanted hotly on hers. A simmer built inside her as his hands buried in her hair, tipping her head back, angling her for his ravaging mouth.
She whimpered, lost, completely at his mercy as he backed her up until she collided with the desk. Something rattled and fell to the floor with a thud. She had a fleeting hope that it wasn’t the ink well, and then she did not care. A stampeding herd of llamas could have charged through the room and she wouldn’t have stopped kissing Max for a single moment of it.
He loosened his grip for a split second to grab her by the waist and heft her on top of the desk. Then his hands came back for her face, fingers both hard and tender, burrowing through her hair again, scattering pins.
Another thing she didn’t care about. She didn’t care about having to explain her fallen hair or missing pins. She only cared about his mouth on hers . . . about the deepening ache between her legs that needed assuaging.
He nudged her knees apart and wedged his hips between her thighs, the fabric of her skirts bunching between them. She clutched his waist, her fingers digging deep through fabric to flesh and bone underneath.
His mouth devoured her until she turned into a boneless mass on top of the desk. She slid her hands up, clutching his shoulders, arms, wrists, straining against him, diving headlong into the kiss.
“Aurelia,” he gasped into her mouth. “I can’t stop this anymore. I can’t not want you.” He sounded aggrieved about it, pained and frustrated.
“Then don’t,” she heard herself utter back into his mouth. She wanted him to want her. To surrender to the undeniable heat flaring between them. Consequences be damned. She’d worry about that later.
She reveled in this man who was so wrecked for want of her. She never thought it could happen. She never thought she could want him like she did before.
He took one of her hands that wrapped around his wrist and dragged it down between them, placing her palm roughly over the bulge of his manhood. A ragged breath swelled her chest.
“Feel what you do to me. How much I want you, Aurelia.”
The core of her throbbed in response. The hard rod pressing against her fingers was because of her.
“I—I want to feel it,” she choked against the brand of his searing lips.
His eyes gleamed down at her, never breaking contact even as he opened his breeches and freed his erection. He very deliberately closed her smaller fingers around him, watching her hotly. “Like this,” he instructed, showing her what to do, what he liked.
He shook as she stroked him, dropping his forehead against hers. She felt empowered. Holding him in her hand and feeling him shudder with his breath hot on her lips . . . it was the most decadent thing she had ever done. She felt wild and free.
“Oh,” she breathed. “It’s like silk.” Her womanhood tightened almost painfully as she slid her fingers up and down the hard length of him. “It’s big.”
“I’m hard and hurting and it’s all because of you,” he accused against her mouth.
She laughed brokenly and wiggled closer on top of the desk, her stocking-clad knees high on his hips.
“I hurt, too,” she confessed. Desire pumped through her, pushing her far past any sense of propriety. She guided him between her legs and rubbed the tip of him against her drawers, gasping at this first contact. Shielded by only a layer of cotton, moisture rushed between her legs.
He choked her name, but she didn’t stop. She angled her hips and stroked him along her opening. It was a cruel tease, and a broken sob ripped from her throat, as much torment for her as it was for him. If possible, he grew bigger in her hand, and she felt the first stirrings of alarm.