The Romance Line (Love and Hockey Book 2)

Everly

Max cups the side of my face—but he doesn’t kiss me. He slides his thumb along my jawline, but doesn’t dip his mouth to mine. He steps closer, but still makes no move to capture a kiss.

I’m trapped in the tease of him. I back up against the railing, needing something to steady myself. He moves with me, still staring greedily at my mouth. Then my eyes. “You have no idea,” he mutters.

Those four words rocket through my bloodstream, like a supernova. I’m lit up, sparkling everywhere, and he hasn’t even put me out of my sweet misery.

“No idea what?” I ask, my voice feathery with need, with desire.

“How much I want you.”

I shiver from the confession. “How much?”

He doesn’t tell me. He shows me. He runs the pad of his thumb along my jaw, like he’s memorizing me. Finally, he drops his face closer, but not close enough. I’m caught in the anticipation. His warm breath is like silk over my skin. The vein in his neck pulses. Heat radiates off his strong body.

I close my eyes. It’s so much—his words, his touch, his need. I’m too shivery. Too aroused. I don’t even know what to hold onto. I’ve lost every shred of resistance, so I can’t hold onto that. But when I open my eyes, those blue irises of his are like flames. And I don’t want to hold onto a thing.

I want to let go.

He slides his thumb down to my chin, tilting up my face, like he’s finding the perfect position.

I’ve thought about kissing Max countless times, but I never pictured this . I never imagined he’d take his sweet time. I never expected him to slow burn a kiss.

But he’s killing me as he travels his thumb up to my mouth then runs it along my bottom lip. My breath catches and I whimper. Everything in me aches. “Just kiss me,” I murmur, a quiet demand.

He smiles like a cocky asshole. “Don’t worry. I know you want it.”

I roll my eyes. “Why do you have to ruin this by talk?—”

Then I’m gasping, shuddering when he cuts me off, his lips meeting mine at last. It’s the barest of kisses. He hardly touches me. Just dusts those full lips over mine.

But it’s enough for my knees to weaken. I curl my fingers around the collar of his shirt. My other hand seeks hold of him too, so I set my palm on his strong chest, drawing a sharp breath as I touch his firm muscles for the first time .

He’s so solid. So sturdy. And I need this strength so much.

Max holds my face in the most tender way as he gives me the softest kiss. His beard whisks across my skin. I can taste the hint of his raspberry-flavored lip balm.

I feel like I’m floating.

Like I’m melting too. I’m a liquid woman as Max Lambert delivers on his promise— he should devastate you with a kiss like he can’t fucking breathe if he doesn’t kiss you.

Max does just that. He devastates me with a kiss I never saw coming.

Because I imagined he’d kiss rough and hard. A little pushy. A lot of tongue. This kiss though? It’s soft and slow and mesmerizing.

It’s the opposite of my expectations yet it’s exceeding all of them.

He’s letting me feel every second of this moment. He’s getting to know my mouth. It’s intoxicating as he takes his time, deepening the kiss. I feel like I’m falling into this kiss, like he’s seducing me with a brush of his lips, a gentle stroke of his tongue, a confident hand holding my face.

It’s magic, wonderful and terrifying all at once, because one kiss and I’m addicted. I don’t want him to stop. I want him to take me apart.

I grip his collar more tightly, jerk him closer, and then I feel him.

All of him.

He presses his big frame against me, and the outline of his erection is like a whole new world—hard, insistent, hungry. His kisses build in intensity even as he lets go of my face and he explores my body. He slides one hand down to the neckline of my shirt, then over the soft fabric toward my belly, making me tremble. When he curls the other hand around my hip, the sound I let out is dangerously loud.

A warning bell.

I break the kiss, tip my forehead to the door. An invitation. We don’t need words. The second I open the entryway door, he’s saying yes by following me. I walk up the steps to the second floor, him behind me every step of the way, our desire pulsing in the air of my building.

I reach my place, unlock it, then drop my bag and phone on the table in a rush. I switch on one light in the living room, but I dim it. I don’t plan on taking off my shirt, but it’s easier if I don’t have to explain anything tonight. Sometimes, I don’t want to explain anything. It’ll be easier if this is mostly dark in case he accidentally sees my scars, or the ones on my left hip.

“I didn’t think you’d kiss like that,” I admit.

He shuts the door and moves me against the wall right next to it, staring down at me with those cool eyes. “You’ve thought about kissing me?”

An ungodly amount of times. No point pretending anything else now. “I have.”

“How did I kiss you? When you got off to me?”

A laugh bursts from me. “I didn’t say I got off to you.”

He shoots me a closed-mouth smile. “You didn’t have to say it.”

I roll my eyes. “Why do you even talk?”

He smiles wider as he cages me against the wall, then kisses a path up my neck, traveling to my ear. “Want to know why I kiss you like this?”

My breath comes surprisingly fast. “Yes,” I say, desperate. I’m dying for his answer.

“Because you need to be savored, Everly. Because I would never rush things with you. Because you are not a quickie.”

His words thrum through my whole body, making me tingle everywhere as I meet his gaze. “What am I?”

He pulls back and locks his gaze with mine, his eyes filled with what looks like raw honesty. “You’re a bad idea, and I still fucking want you so much.”

Reality slams into me. We should stop. We really should. But Max is leaning against the wall, resting on his forearm, looking down at me like I’m impossible to walk away from.

Say yes .

“This can’t happen again,” I say as much for him as for me.

“I know.”

“This is one time only.”

“It sure is.”

I’m done talking so I reach for his waist and jerk him against me. I take the lead, and I’m not patient like he is. I’m hungry. No—starving is more like it. I kiss him like a greedy girl. I grow hotter with each press of our lips, each graze of his hands. A pulse beats everywhere in me, most insistently between my thighs.

I can’t wait much longer for whatever is coming next. Ideally, me .

When he coasts his big palm down my thigh, I grab his hand and cover it with mine. We break the kiss, and his ice blue eyes turn to fire as I guide his hand under my skirt, then up my right thigh.

His mouth falls open on a groan. “You’re so fucking soft.”

I nibble on the corner of my lips, then feeling bold, I say, “And wet. ”

His groan is carnal as he glides his fingers across the damp panel of my lacy panties. “Soaked is more like it,” he says.

I smile and nod. Just for tonight, I’m done fighting this desire. The morning will be a different story but tomorrow will take care of itself. Right now, I desperately want him to take care of me. I want his fingers deep inside me. I want him to get me off. “You should make it up to me,” I say, a little demanding.

His eyebrows shoot up. “Make what up?”

“The way you ruined my date.”

“But I’m not sorry,” he says, refusing to back down on this count.

“I don’t need you to apologize,” I tell him. “I want something else. Something better than an apology.”

“Tell me,” he says, his gaze never breaking mine.

I take my time. Let the moment stretch, then say, “You talked a big game about how a date should go. Why don’t you show me?”

Like he’s hit all the jackpots in Vegas, he says, “This is how a date should end.” He seals his mouth onto mine and kisses me hard. Ruthlessly. A bossy man once more, owning my mouth with his merciless kiss as his fingers slide over the scrap of lace between my legs. His mouth is ferocious, devouring me as he tugs at the fabric, then pulls it aside.

The second he touches me, my body shouts with joy. I’ve needed this so much. Wanted this from him. I break the kiss, my head falling back against the wall. “Oh god,” I gasp.

His eyes are dark, and the muscles in his neck tense. “You’re so fucking soft and wet,” he says, praising me as he strokes my pussy. “You’re fucking perfect. ”

The compliments light me up, making my skin tingle.

He pushes up my skirt. For a second, I worry. But he’s too hungry to notice my hip and, of course, the light’s too low to see anything. I’m not in the mood for explanations.

Max doesn’t seem to be in the mood for anything except for chasing my pleasure. He grabs my thigh and hitches it up against his hip. Like that, he fingers me, with one leg wrapped around his hip. Pushing me against the wall, pinning me, and touching me.

He slows the kiss as he slides one finger inside me. My breath hitches, then turns into a raspy moan as he fills me with one finger, curling it just so. My stomach tightens.

“More,” I whisper, holding onto his shoulders as he touches me.

“Anything you want.”

He adds another finger, and I’m fuller, but not full enough. “More,” I urge.

He complies, fucking me with three fingers while teasing my clit with his thumb. Bright lights spark behind my eyelids. Electricity crackles over my skin. Pressure builds in me, the urgent need to come as he hunts down my release with his talented fingers, fucking me and crooking them just so till I’m at the tipping point, my world breaking into bliss as he sends me over the edge.

Before I can even catch my breath he eases out his fingers, lowers my leg to the floor, then drops to his knees. He bunches up my skirt all the way to my waist. I hold my breath, but the scars on my hip are the most faded, and he’d really have to be looking to see them. Right now, he’s doing . He tugs down my panties and slides them over one shoe, not even bothering to take them off all the way. They sit at one ankle.

“Need to taste you. Can’t fucking wait,” he mutters .

The need in his voice makes my legs shake. Makes me hotter, wetter.

“Please do it. Please.”

“I’ve been needing to eat you for so long,” he rasps as he flicks his tongue against my clit, groaning savagely from the first taste.

He’s on a mission and before I’ve stopped moaning from my first orgasm, he seals his mouth to me, then French kisses the fuck out of my pussy. I curl my hands around his skull, my fingers roping through his thick, wild mane of hair, my nails scraping him.

He growls as he eats me, his tongue stroking me deeply, passionately. Rocking into his face, I fuck his mouth, his beard, his lips with a wild abandon I haven’t felt in ages.

Or really, ever.

He grabs my ass, gripping my flesh tightly, tugging me impossibly closer, then thrusting his tongue deep inside me.

I scream from the sharp, hot spikes of pleasure. From the filthy delight of his tongue inside me. The grumpy goalie is tongue-fucking me against the wall as I grab his head tighter, pull him closer, and shamelessly chase a second orgasm on his face.

It comes out of nowhere. Slamming into me. Shattering me with a white-hot blur. I cry out, panting and murmuring for a good long time. I can’t see straight or even walk but the next thing I know, Max is scooping me up and carrying me through my living room, down the hall, and finding my bedroom. Gently, he sets me on my bed, takes off my shoes and presses a tender kiss to my forehead before he whispers, “That’s how you end a first date. ”

Then, he leaves.

I’m too sex-drunk to even think about what just happened. It’s not until twenty minutes later, when I’ve cleaned up and changed into sleep shorts and a cami, that I start the hunt for my wet panties.

But I can’t find them near the door. Or anywhere. Because…Max must have taken them.