Free Maximum Risk by Ruth Cardello Page A

Tara could list. She tossed the pillow aside, threw back the covers, and groaned when she saw she’d slept in the dress from the night before. So, stop thinking about what didn’t and what never should have almost happened.
    Barely looking around, Tara stumbled to the bathroom. Yesterday’s makeup was smeared down her cheeks. Her hair was in a wild tangle on her head. She looked exactly as she felt. She turned on the shower, quickly relieved herself, stripped naked, and stepped beneath the blissfully hot spray of the shower with a toothbrush in hand. She lathered, scrubbed, brushed, flossed, and lathered again until she felt less like the walking dead.
    She stepped out of the shower, toweled off her hair, and then secured another towel around her. If the sun was up, Dyson would already have left for work. Confident that she was alone, Tara sought coffee before clothing.
    She was halfway through the living room when she saw Max, in his dress shirt and trousers, lying on his back on her couch. She almost turned and fled, but he was still sleeping, and she was curious. She stepped closer, expecting him to stir, but he didn’t.
    She allowed herself the luxury of standing above him for a moment. He was handsome even in his sleep. His family had not only been blessed financially, but also genetically. He had a strong jaw most men would kill for. Classical high cheekbones. And, although they were closed at the moment, the most beautiful dark brown, almost black, eyes she’d ever seen.
    She remembered the photo Maddy had shown her of him with his brothers. It had been those eyes that had drawn her to him. When she’d met him in person she’d thought she’d been wrong. The arrogant, cocky man who had offered her a few hours in a hotel couldn’t have been the same sad man from the photo. Had she imagined a side of him that didn’t exist?
    Last night Max had been yet another man. Down to earth. Self-effacing. And surprisingly funny. It was difficult to reconcile her very different impressions of him.
    Which one was the real him, and why was he sleeping on her couch?
    Tara reached out to touch his cheek, but stopped herself. I should get dressed and ask whoever the hell he is today to leave. Doing anything else is asking for trouble.
    Her eyes dropped to the crotch of his pants and noted the size of his early morning boner. Impressively large trouble.
    She nearly screamed when his hand shot out and pulled her down onto him. Her towel opened, remaining across her back, but doing nothing to separate her exposed front from sliding intimately against him. His arousal nudged against her inner thigh. Tara shifted to move off him. He held her in place easily with a hand on her bare hip.
    “Good morning,” he said as if there was nothing unusual about waking up to her strewn across him.
    “Let me up,” she said, struggling to sit up. Her legs fell to either side of him, which put her directly on his rock-hard shaft. The material of his trousers was rough against her parted sex and she couldn’t deny how good it felt. She wanted to rub herself up and down along him. Her breasts bounced above him, nipples puckered with excitement.
    He placed a hand on her other hip and held her to him, moving his hips so the connection between them was its own caress. “Why deny what you want, Tara? You were brave enough to go this far. Why pull back now?”
    He continued to move his hips beneath her with mind-scrambling skill. Even while her breathing betrayed how excited she was becoming, Tara fought for control. “Go this far? I didn’t go anywhere. I didn’t even know you were here.”
    His hands loosened on her hips. “So you were innocently standing over me naked?” He raised one hand and cupped one of her breasts gently. “Sorry, my mistake.” He ran his hand down her side, across the top of her thigh and to her sex. Tara gasped as he dipped a finger between her folds and flicked expertly back and forth. “And this? Are you still wet