‘Max?’ Sophie clung to Max’s shoulders, dazed by the depth of the passion that had sprung up so quickly between them.
She felt weak too, at the feel of the proof of that passion pressing so intimately against her between her parted thighs. She also felt achingly aroused by the warmth of Max’s hand caressing the naked flesh of her back beneath her blouse as his lips continued to explore and taste her throat, and then lower.
Quite when he had unfastened the front of her blouse Sophie had no idea, only becoming aware that he had done so as one of his hands moved beneath the smooth cup of her bra and she felt the warmth of his lips exploring the bared tops of her breasts.
Max raised his head to look down at her breasts with eyes of deep, dark green. ‘This is beautiful,’ he murmured admiringly as both his hands now cupped her beneath the red satin and lace of her bra. ‘Do your panties match?’ he enquired gruffly as the soft pads of his thumbs stroked unerringly across the pouting fullness of her aroused nipples, pressed noticeably against the satin material. ‘Sophie?’ he encouraged huskily as she made no reply.
Sophie moistened the dryness of her lips with the tip of her tongue before answering him. ‘Yes. I—But it’s a thong, not panties.’
His gaze flickered sharply up to meet hers. ‘A thong?’ he repeated in a strained voice.
Sophie nodded, knowing her cheeks were the same fiery shade of red. ‘My mother told me that a woman can wear whatever she wants on the outside and still feel feminine and desirable if she’s wearing sexy underwear underneath.’
Max raised dark brows. ‘Your mother told you this?’
She smiled slightly. ‘Yes.’
Max nodded. ‘She was right.’ He groaned, just imagining Sophie wearing only that red thong.
A tiny scrap of material that would barely cover the fiery red curls between Sophie’s thighs at the front, and separate the firm and naked globes of her bottom at the back. Buttocks that he wanted to cup as he pushed that skimpy satin aside and thrust inside her—
‘What the—?’ Max bit out an expletive as he now heard the door to his apartment opening and the sound of voices out in the hallway.
Only three people, besides himself, knew the security combination for entering his apartment. Sally would be safely in Canada by now. Sophie was half naked in his arms. Which only left—
Oh, hell!
MAX PUT ALL thoughts of red satin thongs, and making love to Sophie, completely from his mind as he stepped back abruptly to pull the two sides of her blouse together, covering the fullness of her breasts. Hidden from temptation!
‘You might want to button up,’ he advised grimly as he turned away and strode towards the kitchen doorway, the sound of the voices in the hallway growing louder. As evidence that his unexpected visitors were on their way to the kitchen in search of him?
Something Max wanted to avoid, at least until Sophie had had the chance to refasten her blouse and straighten her appearance.
‘Who …?’
‘I suggest you do it now!’ Max grated forcefully as he stepped out of the kitchen without so much as a backwards glance.
Sophie was too bewildered to immediately do as Max instructed. Although the sudden burst of happy laughter in the hallway, and raised excited voices, finally spurred her into action. She hastily got down from the table and refastened her blouse with fingers that shook slightly.
There was nothing she could do about her flushed cheeks, over-bright eyes or her slightly swollen and sensitive lips, but she picked up the black velvet band from the floor before pulling the wildness of her loosened curls back up into the confines of a ponytail.
Only just in time too, as a woman appeared in the doorway. A tall and beautiful woman with silky dark hair, shoulder-length, and eyes that sparkled a deep, warm green. Her patrician features more than a little familiar.
A woman who could only be Max’s sister, Janice.
The woman and her daughter, who weren’t expected to arrive until tomorrow.
Janice gave a warm smile. ‘I’m sure my brother will introduce the two of us once he’s managed to extricate himself from my husband and overenthusiastic daughter,’ she drawled affectionately.
Sophie frowned at the mention of Janice’s husband.
Wasn’t it because his sister and her husband were having marital problems that Janice and Amy were joining Max in England for Christmas?
‘Is that …?’ Janice stepped further into the kitchen, very slender and elegant in a thick cream cable-knit sweater and black fitted jeans. ‘My goodness, it is gingerbread,’ she murmured wonderingly as she looked down at the biscuits on the cooling tray on top of the kitchen table.
‘Janice …’
‘Max, there are gingerbread angels and snowmen!’ She turned excitedly to her brother as he spoke to her from the kitchen doorway, a little girl held securely in his arms. A beautiful little girl, who bore such a likeness to her uncle she could only be Amy. ‘I’d forgotten just how evocative smells can be.’ Janice gave a shake of her head as tears now glistened in her eyes. ‘Max, do you remember—?’
‘Yes,’ he grated harshly.
Warningly, it seemed to Sophie.
Not that she had dared look at him again after that first glance, his expression grimly unapproachable, the green of his eyes as chilling as an Arctic wind.
‘I haven’t smelt gingerbread like this in years,’ Janice continued softly, completely undaunted—or simply unaware?—of her brother’s lack of warmth. ‘Not since the Christmas Mum and Dad died. Can you believe it’s been sixteen years, Max?’ she added sadly.
‘Yes,’ he rasped harshly.
Sophie looked sharply across the room at Max. She had thought the loss of her mother six months ago was bad enough, but his parents had both died at Christmas sixteen years ago? At the same time? Which surely must mean that their deaths couldn’t have been due to illness or natural causes?
Which also explained why Max had said he hadn’t smelt gingerbread baking ‘in a long time’? And the reason he had looked so grim when he’d arrived home earlier and smelt it in his apartment.
Could his parents’ deaths also be the reason that Max usually chose not to celebrate Christmas?
It would certainly explain his aversion to anything to do with the festive season.
As it explained why he chose to go skiing every year rather than join in any of the Christmas festivities.
And why he didn’t possess so much as a single Christmas decoration, let alone a tree.
And the fact that he’d had to ask Sally to have ‘Christmas delivered’ to his apartment.
Perhaps Max wasn’t such a bah humbug, after all, and it was more the case of the festive season holding such sad memories for him that he preferred to avoid everything to do with it?
Sophie felt slightly guilty now for judging him without knowing all the facts. If he had just explained—
But of course Max wouldn’t explain himself to her. Why should he? She had been employed by him, and was being paid by him, to ‘deliver Christmas’ to his apartment, and then only because of the expected arrival of his sister and niece. Of course Max wouldn’t feel a need to explain himself to someone whom he considered merely