"Better get home to bed, mate," the pa.s.ser-by said, laughing.
"Yesh. Bed," Max said, laughing back. "Thash the righ" idea. Thash amorray!"
He held Cyn tightly. "Stay put," Max warned her quietly. "As long as he thinks we"re drunk and happy and we"re not going to be any trouble, we"re going to get away with this."
The man whistled again; when he"d moved on, Max swiftly restored order to Cyn"s clothes, and then to his own.
"I can"t believe we just..." Cyn choked. Her skin felt tight with embarra.s.sment. They"d been caught in the most compromising of situations. With her dress hiked up, his trousers undone, and their hands where they definitely shouldn"t have been in public!
"Lucky he said something when he did. Five seconds more, and all h.e.l.l would have broken loose around us and I wouldn"t have heard or known or cared," Max said. He bent to whisper in her ear. "Because I"d have been inside you. Where I still want to be, right now."
Oh, Lord. It was where she wanted him to be, too.
He kissed the tip of her nose. "I"m sorry. I..." His gaze held hers. Challenging. "I just wanted to kiss you. And I got carried away. Very carried away."
She wasn"t complaining. She"d wanted him to kiss her, too. And more. And she"d got just as carried away. She"d been the one to start undoing clothes, after all.
He looked as dazed as she felt. "I don"t normally do things like this," he said.
Like what? Almost having s.e.x in public? "Me, neither. But I was going to ring you," she admitted.
"Ring me?"
"Mmm. And ask you-" She stopped dead and colour scorched into her cheeks. If she told him what she"d wanted, she"d sound desperate. She needed to sort out the right words in her head, first.
He took her hand, drew it up to his lips and kissed each fingertip in turn. "Ask me what?"
Oh, Lord. She couldn"t think when he did that. When he sucked the tip of her middle finger and held her gaze, as if telling her where else he wanted to suck. Her nipples were so hard that they hurt, and there was a pulse beating rapidly between her thighs. Where he"d been touching her only seconds ago.
She wanted him. Now.
"I want you to..." To have an affair with me. An all-guns-blazing, mad, pa.s.sionate affair. Just so we can get this thing out of our systems and go back to normal.
But her mouth wasn"t working in sync with her mind. "I don"t do this sort of thing," she blurted out. "This isn"t me."
"Just you and your job. I know," he said. "I"m usually focused on mine, too-but I haven"t stopped thinking about you all week."
And if she"d had time to think about anything else other than work, this week-if she hadn"t just put the hours in until her mind was too numb to do anything than shut down the second she fell into bed-she wouldn"t have stopped thinking about him, either.
He was still holding her hand; he rubbed his thumb against her palm. "Those chocolates you sent me...I had all sorts of fantasies. About you. Eating chocolate off your skin," he said.
Every single one of her nerve-endings was aware of Max. And every single one of them reacted to the picture he"d just conjured up: herself, naked, and Max drizzling warm melted chocolate onto her skin, then licking it off until she was quivering with need. Until she begged him to enter her, fill her body and ease away the ache his mouth had created.
"We"re two of a kind," Max said. "Driven."
Yeah. She could buy that.
He traced the outline of her face with his forefinger. "I found myself sketching you, this week. On top of a blueprint I was working on. When I thought I was doodling on a piece of sc.r.a.p paper during a phone call." His breath hitched. "And I never, ever get distracted from my work."
"Neither do I. Until you."
"But you were at the party with Karl tonight."
"It was work." As far as she was concerned, anyway. "Not a date date," Cyn said. She bit her lip. "What are we going to do about this?"
"We"ve got a choice. Pretend it isn"t happening and try and make sure we never cross each other"s paths again...or see where it takes us."
See where it took them. Spontaneous. Cyn didn"t do spontaneous. She planned everything. Logic, order: she was safe with that. She knew where she was. Seeing where things took them...That was dangerous. It was like stepping onto marshy ground and hoping that luck would keep her to a solid path.
And she knew there was no such thing as luck. Just careful planning and hard work.
He cupped her face. "We just have to trust each other."
"I don"t want to get hurt." Her words blurted out from nowhere. But she knew where they"d come from: all the years she"d lain awake, hearing her mother crying over yet another man who"d let her down. Late at night, when Stacey had thought her daughter was asleep and wouldn"t know, but Cyn had known. Every single time. And her heart had ached for Stacey, the woman who wanted to be loved but had never found the right one for her.
So Cyn hadn"t even tried looking for The One. Because she knew he didn"t exist.
"I don"t want to get hurt, either," Max said quietly. His eyes looked tortured. "I can"t promise you anything, Cyn. I can"t promise commitment. I don"t know if I have it in me. I"ve been there...and I messed it up. Big time."
"You"re divorced?"
"No. But I was serious about someone. Serious enough to be engaged." He looked away. "I still feel bad about what happened, but it just wouldn"t have worked. I was too young. Gina and I didn"t want the same things-she wanted marriage, a country cottage, four kids and a menagerie, and I just wasn"t ready to settle down."
She remembered his earlier comment about people being unfaithful. "What did you do-leave her for someone else?"
He shook his head. "I couldn"t be that much of a sc.u.mbag."
"She left you for someone else?"
"No, I left her. But not for anyone else. It was for my job." He sighed. "We met at college. She was training to be a primary-school teacher. She was quiet and sweet and a little bit shy. I thought she was what I wanted. But I also thought we still had plenty of time, that we"d get our careers off the ground before we got married and started a family. She didn"t see it that way. Her biological clock was ticking, and mine wasn"t."
"That"s why you left her?"
Max nodded. "Gina hated that I spent so much time at work. She didn"t understand how I feel about my job, or that sometimes projects go haywire and I have to spend time fixing them."
It was the same with her job. Building architecture, systems architecture...They had a lot in common.
"We rowed about it all the time. She was sure it"d be all right once we were married, but as the weeks went by I knew it wouldn"t. She saw my job as a rival. And eventually I would have had to choose between them. If I chose her, I"d have to give up the only job I ever wanted to do. If I chose my job, I"d lose her. But we"d lost the magic anyway. It had got to the point where I saw her name on the screen of my mobile phone and I"d pretend I was in a meeting and ignore the call." He grimaced. "Which wasn"t fair to either of us. So I called it off."
"How far had you got with the wedding plans?"
"Pretty far," he admitted. "She"d bought her dress and ordered the flowers. She"d booked the horse and carriage. We"d even sent the invitations out." He swallowed hard. "I didn"t behave well. I should never have let it go that far. We should never even have got engaged. But I...I suppose I wanted to make everyone happy." He rubbed a hand across his eyes. "I tried to be the man everyone wanted me to be-a devoted husband for Gina, a son who was settled for my parents. Except it wasn"t me. When it came down to it, I couldn"t do it. Because it just wasn"t who I was. And I couldn"t spend my life living someone else"s dreams. Not at the expense of my own. I needed someone to share my dreams with me. Someone who had the same dreams."
"So you did the right thing before it was too late," Cyn said. "You could have gone ahead with the wedding and ended up another statistic. If you hadn"t given up your job, she"d have been unhappy; and if you had given it up, you"d have been unhappy. You would have ended up hating each other and forgetting about the good times."
"That"s what I said. But n.o.body else saw it that way. Everyone was so disappointed in me. They just saw me being selfish and racketing off to the bright lights of London." He shook his head. "It wasn"t that at all. It wasn"t the lights that drew me."
"It was the buildings. The chance to make a difference. To bring them back to life," she said softly.
"Yeah." His eyes were haunted. "I know now I definitely did the right thing for both of us-Gina"s happily married now, with her second baby on the way. But I still hurt her at the time. I hurt her badly, because I couldn"t commit. And I"ve kept all my relationships very light ever since. Nothing serious."
He was warning her. Giving her the chance to back off now. He"d tried commitment before, to someone who was very like Cyn-someone who was quiet and shy. And it had gone badly wrong. On the other hand, Gina had seen herself in compet.i.tion with Max"s job, whereas Cyn understood-because she felt the same way about her own job. Had the same dream: to be the best in her field.
He"d been honest with her. And it sounded as if he was as much in the dark as she was about where they were going. "Are you saying that maybe we should just walk away?" she asked.
"Too late," he said softly. "Because I think that"s already going to hurt too much. There"s something about you-something I can"t even begin to explain to myself, so I don"t have a chance in h.e.l.l of explaining it to you. It"s just..." He bent his head and brushed his lips lightly against hers. "Come on. Let"s walk to the station."
He didn"t let her hand go. And although in some respects it scared the h.e.l.l out of her, in others it felt good just to walk with him in silence. No pressure of conversation; just the two of them, hand in hand.
Would they become lovers tonight? Would they carry on where they"d left off on the Embankment? Her pulse speeded up. Would they take the risk and trust each other?
CHAPTER TWELVE.
BY THE time they reached the tube station, Max felt tense enough to grip marble with his bare hands and turn it to sand, though his fingers were laced very gently through Cyn"s. Because he couldn"t let her go tonight. He wanted her too much. Needed her.
G.o.d, her mouth was lush. Maybe one taste would clear his head. Just one.
Unable to help himself, he led her to a quieter, less brightly lit corner of the station, dragged her back into his arms, cradled the nape of her neck in one hand, and kissed her. Hard.
His other hand slid under her wrap. It was a shapeless piece of wool. So how come it turned him on so much? Probably because it made him think of unwrapping her, he acknowledged wryly. And the wrap was soft and warm, like her skin.
His hand drifted over the curve of her hip, then over her b.u.t.tocks. He adored her curves.
He broke the kiss to nuzzle her cheek. "I want you, Cyn," he whispered. "This is driving me crazy. I want to touch you. I want to taste you all over. I want to make love with you until neither of us can see straight-and then do it all over again." And again. He had a feeling he could easily become greedy, where Cynthia Reynolds was concerned. Insatiable. "There"s nothing I want more than to take you to bed, right now. I want to carry you up the stairs to my bed. I want to strip every inch of clothing from you and explore you until we"re both balancing right on the edge. And we"ll fall together." He brushed his mouth over hers again. "Come home with me."
"Max, I...I don"t do this sort of thing. I"m not a player."
"I know. But this thing between us...it"s not going to go away." He didn"t know why. He just had this feeling that she might be The One. The one he"d been looking for without even realising it. Though if he told her that he might scare her off for good. h.e.l.l, he was scaring himself even by thinking it!
So he fell back on honesty. "I don"t know what"s happening, either. It"s crazy. Scary, even. All I know is I don"t want to say goodnight to you. I don"t want to take you home and leave you on your doorstep. I want to be with you," he said, nuzzling her cheek. "And you make me feel things I didn"t think I"d ever feel. Tonight, I wanted to punch Karl Fiennes on the nose, beat my chest, haul you over my shoulder and carry you back to my cave."
"And you"d have ended up with a hernia, sore knuckles and an a.s.sault charge," she said dryly.
"The knuckles and police record would"ve been worth it. And I disagree about the hernia. You"re not that heavy." Just to prove it to her, he slid both hands under her b.u.t.tocks, lifted her and pressed her back against the wall.
Oh-h-h. Bad move. Too close to how they"d been on the Embankment. If they were both naked-or at least in the same state of semi-undress they"d been under the lamppost-all he"d have to do now was lower her, just a little. Tilt his hips, just a little. The tip of his p.e.n.i.s would just nudge her entrance. And then his body would slide into hers. She"d be wrapped round him, warm and wet and...
He couldn"t help a do-me-now-or-I"m-going-to-pa.s.s-out groan. And he couldn"t help tilting his hips, pressing against her. Through their clothes, he knew she"d feel how hard he was. How much he wanted her.
Her eyes were dark and deep, and he could drown in them.
"Max. We"re in a public place," she reminded him, sounding slightly shocked.
"I know. And we shouldn"t be doing this." He let her slide down his body. "Want to know something really bad?"
She quivered against him.
"If it hadn"t been for that pa.s.ser-by..."
"I know. We"d have had s.e.x. In public." Her voice sounded slightly husky.
"Worse than that, honey. It would"ve been unprotected s.e.x in public." And, even worse than that, he wasn"t exactly shocked by the thought. Because he wanted Cyn with no barriers. He wanted her so badly, it hurt. And he couldn"t remember ever feeling like this before.
Did The One exist?
And was Cyn that woman?
"Come home with me," he said again. "Let tomorrow take care of itself. Tonight it"s just you and me."
"Unprotected s.e.x."
She was shaking. With fear? "No, of course not. I"ll take care of you." He punctuated his words with kisses. "There"s nothing to worry about."
She said nothing, but her eyes were glittering. Unshed tears? Ah, h.e.l.l. He stroked her cheek. "I"m not going to hurt you, Cyn."
"I"m not a player," she said again. "I don"t do this sort of thing. I don"t have time for relationships." She swallowed. "I don"t do one-night stands, either."
"Technically, it isn"t one." He brushed the tip of his nose against hers. "Remember last Sunday morning?"
"Yes."
The word sounded like a sigh, a hiss of pleasure.
"That was the start. This is going to be more. Everything we couldn"t do then-and then some." He nibbled her lower lip. "Come home with me, Cyn." He held her close. "Stay with me tonight." His mouth brushed the sensitive spot by her ear. "Make love with me, honey. Let"s show each other how good it can be."
"Yes."
It took a few seconds to sink in. And then he went into meltdown.
She was going home with him.
He had no idea how they got through the ticket barrier. How they even got to the right platform. Because all he could think about was this amazing woman in his arms-and what was going to happen the second they walked through his front door.
When they got on the train, he pulled her onto his lap so she was cradled sideways in his arms. He wanted her close. He wanted to feel the warmth of her body against his. And besides, if he let her sit next to him, he had a feeling she"d go logical and sensible on him again. He didn"t want to take the risk. He wanted her with him, all the way. He wanted her to feel just as hot and bothered as he did.
"Max," she protested as he wrapped his arms round her waist and drew her even closer. "There are loads of empty seats."
"Mmm-hmm. I can see that." He tightened his arms round her. "But this is comfortable." Well, it was for him. "Put your arms round my neck and you won"t feel so off balance."
She wriggled on his lap, clearly embarra.s.sed. "I"m too heavy."
"No, you"re not." Was she really worried about the fact she wasn"t a stick insect? Well, he could do something about that. "There"s something I ought to tell you."