There was none of that with Max. And although she’d been momentarily freaked out when he’d cornered her with his “You looked at me first” possessive growling, it had only taken her a moment to understand that yes, she had looked at him first, and yes, she was going to sleep with him, and maybe even, yes, she had discarded all those Tinder guys because they weren’t him. He knew about all her junk, and she knew about all of his. They were best friends. Nothing was going to change.

Except they were going to have some really hot sex.

They were completely in sync. So in sync that by the time she told herself to lift her head to kiss him, he was already kissing her. They were kissing each other.

His lips were soft but merciless as they moved over hers, and she met him. They were kissing each other like they knew how, like they’d been doing this for years. They did know how, she supposed. The way to kiss Maximillian von Hansburg was to hold nothing back, to extract the maximum amount of pleasure from the experience. She let her jaw slacken even as she continued to kiss him. He groaned, and she felt the slow, sensual incursion of his tongue in her mouth. Nothing had ever made her feel this way, languorous and frantic at the same time. He’d been holding himself on his forearms above her, but he shifted his weight to one arm and clamped a hand on her jaw, as if he wanted to make sure she wasn’t going anywhere. It made her laugh. She was never going anywhere. She was going to die here, kissing Max, and die happily.

Her laugh came out like a moan, though, and he swallowed it.

She wrapped her legs around his waist, as she had outside in the corridor, but this time they were horizonal. She wanted him on her, the full weight of him. So she pulled, hard, and he groaned again and let his lower body fall even as he kept working her mouth without interruption, stroking his tongue against hers. Her dress was already bunched up, so the maneuver had the effect of shoving his pelvis against her mound. She was wearing only the smallest, sheerest pair of panties beneath her dress because she was morally opposed to Spanx and anything else would have shown through, and his baron-pants had buttons in front. She whimpered involuntarily. The contact had been a bit painful, but mostly because she’d been unprepared for it. She could tell, though, that underneath the shock of contact, there was something else, something liquid and warm and wonderful.