Penthouse Suite (19 page)

“Now, do you understand, bossman? I’m going to sweeten up your life. And you’re going to sweeten up mine.”

A huge weight was lifted off his chest. The pain he’d been holding back seemed to rip away, and Max felt an incredible release as she reached for him. He no longer tried to hold back the spasms of ecstasy that sent tears of joy down his cheeks.

“Oh, Max,” Kate said, folding her arms around him, pulling his face against her breast, “don’t. I
love you. Everything will work out for us because we belong together. Dorothea was right, you know.”

She drew back, took his face in her hands, and studied him lovingly. “We both had to grow up, break out of our prisons. Your mother left you, and you were afraid to let yourself care about anybody else. You surrounded yourself with machines and committees.” Max felt the tears stop.

“But you, Kate. You managed to break away. After your mother died, you left. You’ve lived exactly the kind of life you wanted, a grand adventure. Why did it take me so long to see what I was doing?”

“Max, you’re wrong. I didn’t make my walls until after my mother died and I learned that my father had deserted us both. She loved him, but she wasn’t good enough to be his wife. I never wanted that to happen to me, so I set limits.”

“I don’t understand.” His hands tightened around Kate’s waist. He didn’t want to talk anymore. He wanted to bury himself inside her.

“I never stayed with one project long enough to complete the course—even my how-to classes. That implied commitment, and that’s what I didn’t want—until I met you.”

The depth of her honesty touched him. The one time she’d dropped her walls and allowed someone inside, she’d been betrayed. Caught up in his own insecurity, he’d railed at Kate. Once he’d seen her with Houston he’d gone cold with fear, fear that he’d already lost the woman he loved.

“Kate, I know that you didn’t betray me to Houston. Even before I went to the Showboat to tell you, I knew. I just didn’t know how to handle opening myself up to love.”

Kate laid her cheek against his chest. “I should
have taken the job you offered me, Max. I could have worked for you, but I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to give you up, and I knew that someday I’d have to go.”

“But you stayed on the Carnival Strip.”

“Yes. I couldn’t leave.”

“Can you live in the penthouse suite of La Casa del Sol, Kate?”

“My place in the sun? I’m not sure, Max. If that’s what you want, I’ll try. But I don’t know that I’ll ever be a sophisticated woman.”

“That’s fine. Because I don’t think you really want me to be a good old boy. I’ve tried, Kate. Joe’s tried to teach me. But I’m afraid that I’m totally inept.”

“Darling, Max. I promise you that there are some areas in which you are wonderfully talented.”

Kate pressed her lips to his throat. He gave out a low groan and pulled her to him, claiming her mouth with his lips. Their bodies came together, flesh pressing hungrily against flesh, creating a kaleidoscope of sensation. He cupped her bottom in his hands and lifted her, pulling his lips from her mouth and kissing her breasts with the passion of a man who’d lost all restraint.

As he captured her nipple with his lips, she felt as if she were melting. Her lower body shifted, taking the swollen evidence of his passion between her thighs. He didn’t enter her, and her maddening need was driving her into such a state that she let herself say what she’d never said before.

“Max, please. Love me, Max. I want you. I love you, Max Sorrenson. I love you …”

When he lifted her and took her words into his mouth, he caught her legs and fastened them
around his thighs. She was on fire as his hardness pulsated between their bodies.

She didn’t want him against her. She wanted him inside her. Still he held back, sliding up and down, seeking, probing. And then Max stepped over the side of the tub. As he shifted her body, she guided him into her, and he gasped.

His hands were holding her so that he plunged inside her with every step he took. She squeezed herself tight, trying to hold back the tide threatening to wash over her.

“Hold on, Kate. Not yet. I can’t walk and do this at the same time.”

“Too late, bossman.” Kate felt the first intense wave of pleasure rip through her as Max knelt on the bed. He held her against him, never allowing her to slide away as he lowered her.

Max watched her fling her head back and bite her lower lip in pure ecstasy. He’d never felt such intense joy. He’d never felt such exquisite pleasure in giving. And then the wave of heat that had taken hold of her body suddenly transferred itself to him, and all thought of prolonging the moment was swept away in a quivering release that seemed to meld their bodies together.

“Oh, Kate. I love you.”

Kate sighed deeply as she felt her body climax once again.

“Did you hear me?” Max repeated as he lay across her possessively.

“I’m afraid I was too busy hearing me,” Kate said softly. She’d heard him. But she didn’t know how to respond. Had he just been caught up in the splendor of the moment?

“Ah, Kate. You’ve bewitched me. You’ve turned me into a weak-kneed, bald-headed Samson, and
I’m caught up in your spell. What are we going to do?”

“Max, as long as the rest of you works, we’ll buy a wig.”

“I think we’re safe then,” he said with a grin. “If not, I have the best maintenance worker in the world right here in my arms. Do you think you can take care of my problem?”

She did, and he did—two more times.

It was late afternoon when the phone beside the bed rang.

“Damn,” Max said.

“I agree. I told Helen Stevens that we were not to be disturbed.” Kate was lying with her head on Max’s chest, her leg thrown across his lower body.

“You mean you knew when you came up here what was going to happen?”

“Yep.” She put her lips on his nipple and tugged gently.

“What would you have done if I hadn’t agreed?” He tightened his arms around her.

“Oh, you didn’t have a choice. You’d already taken my bait. I just had to reel you in.”

“You definitely do know the right kind of bait,” he agreed.

The phone rang again.

“Damn! That has to be my dear aunt. Nobody else would dare to intrude. I’d better answer it, or we’ll never …” Max gasped.

The phone rang again.

“Hello!”

Kate circled his nipple with her tongue.

Max moaned.

“Well, well, nephew. Am I interrupting anything? You sound a little strange.”

“Yes! You’re interrupting. What do you want?”

“Max, is everything all right, between you and Kate?”

“Kate? Ummmmmmmmm!”

“Ummmmmmmmm? That’s all I wanted to know.”

Later that evening he found Kate in the hot tub wearing the expression of a cherub.

“What are you doing in there?” he asked.

“Thinking naughty thoughts.”

“Need any help?” He stepped down into the churning water.

“What do you have in mind?”

“A grand adventure, Kate Weston. Will you marry me?”

“You really want to marry me?”

“Yes. Tonight, tomorrow. I want to be your husband. I want to father your children. I want to help you repair your car, paint a pole, install a—”

“Marriage is enough, Max.”

“You were right about me. I’ve been stuck up in my ivory tower, and I’ve missed out on so much of life. Maybe we’ll do what Dorothea did and go to sea. Do you think you could live on a shrimp boat, Kate?”

“Max, I’d live anywhere with you. I’ve packed my sophisticated dress and my coveralls. I’m ready to move into the penthouse suite. How many children did you have in mind?”

“Let’s have two or three. In fact, I’d love to have a freckle-faced, smart-talking little girl. Maybe we could get started with taking chances right now.” Max caught Kate in his arms. He leaned back against the faucet, turning the handle so that the
water came on full force. “This is one how-to class I’m going to enjoy.”

“Wouldn’t you rather move the class to the bedroom?” Kate reached behind Max, turned the knob, and watched in horror as it came off in her hand. “The handle, Max.”

Max kissed her. “Forget the handle, Kate.”

“But Max, we’re going to have a flood. Water is going everywhere. Aren’t you concerned?”

“Nope.” He kissed her again. “I love the stuff, every drop of it. Let it pour. After all, I have my own handy man—eh, woman—don’t I?”

“Indeed,” she whispered, “you do.”

“And I promise, I’ll let her get around to the job—in a week or two.”

Welcome to Loveswept!

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RUN WILD WITH ME
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HOT AND BOTHERED
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We also have a special treat from bestselling author Virna DePaul – the three novellas of her contemporary Red-Hot Cops series are available together in this eBook anthology:
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If you love romance … then you’re ready to be
Loveswept!

Gina Wachtel
Associate Publisher

P.S. Watch for these terrific Loveswept titles coming soon: In June, we’re excited about Ruthie Knox’s utterly fantastic
FLIRTING WITH DISASTER
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TRYING TO SCORE
, Linda Cajio’s superb
DOUBLE DEALING
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FOREVER DREAM
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TIL THE END OF TIME
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“Get out of my yard!” Ellen shouted.

The weasel-faced photographer ignored her, too busy snapping photos of the house next door to pay her any mind.

No surprise there. This was the fifth time in as many days that a man with a camera had violated her property lines. By now, she knew the drill.

They trespassed. She yelled. They pretended she didn’t exist. She called the police.

Ellen was thoroughly sick of it. She couldn’t carry on this way, watching from the safety of the side porch and clutching her glass of iced tea like an outraged southern belle.

It was all very well for Jamie to tell her to stay put and let the professionals deal with it. Her pop-star brother was safe at home in California, nursing his wounds. And anyway, this kind of attention was the lot he’d chosen in life. He’d decided to be a celebrity, and then he’d made the choice to get involved with Ellen’s neighbor, Carly. The consequences ought to be his to deal with.

Ellen hadn’t invited the paparazzi to descend. She’d made different choices, and they’d led her to college, law school, marriage, divorce, motherhood. They’d led her to this quiet cul-de-sac in Camelot, Ohio, surrounded by woods.

Her choices had also made her the kind of woman who couldn’t easily stand by as some skeevy guy crushed her plants and invaded Carly’s privacy for the umpteenth time since last Friday.

Enough
, she thought.
Enough
.

But until Weasel Face crushed the life out of her favorite hosta—her
mascot
hosta—with his giant brown boot, she didn’t actually intend to act on the thought.

Raised in Chicago, Ellen had grown up ignorant of perennials. When she first moved to Camelot, a new wife in a strange land, she did her best to adapt to the local ways of lawn-mowing and shade-garden cultivation, but during the three years her marriage lasted, she’d killed
every plant she put in the ground.