Free Carolina Heart by Virginia Kantra

his ball cap before dismissing Max as of no importance.
“Come on,”
he’d said to Cynthie, jerking his chin toward the door.
“Out back. I got us a bottle of Jack.”
    She had tossed her head.
“I’m not done here, Doug.”
    “Yeah, you are.”
He’d snapped his fingers at her, like she was his dog.
    Something inside Max went hard and bright.
“Don’t talk to her like that
.”
    Doug’s head lowered like a bull’s.
“Who’s gonna stop me, dingbatter? You?”
    “Dingbatter”
—the island term for idiot outsiders. One of Doug’s buddies guffawed.
    “Quit it, Doug,”
Cynthie said.
    “You shut your mouth
.
”
    Max’s hands clenched.
“I said, don’t talk to her like that.”
    He’d stood then, the room tilting around him. But before he found his feet, before he saw it coming, Doug swung. His fist plowed into Max’s face.
    And Max went down in an explosion of pain and beer.
    “Max?” Cynthie’s voice, soft and urgent. “Are you okay?”
    He blinked, recalled to the present. “Fine. You stopped your boyfriend from kicking my ass.”
    “He should never have hit you. You weren’t doing anything.”
    “I wanted to,” Max admitted. “I had a crush on you.”
    “That’s . . .”
    “Please don’t say ‘sweet.’”
    Her smile broke. “All right, I won’t. But Max . . . I’m not that girl anymore.”
    “I don’t want that girl,” he said. “I want you.”
    Then. Now. Always.
    Cynthie tilted her head against the back of the seat to look at him, her eyes wide and gleaming. A smile curled her mouth. “So what are you doing over there?”
    Max went still. “Exactly how much have you had to drink?”
    She held up two fingers, her eyes laughing at him. “I said you were nice.”
    “I just don’t want you to regret this.”
    “The only thing I’m going to regret is if you don’t kiss me right now.”
    A jolt of arousal shot straight through him. He looked at her smiling and glowing in the dim light, her sleepy eyes and mussed-up hair and pretty, naked feet. “I can do that,” he said and reached for her.
    *   *   *
    CYNTHIE moistened her lips in anticipation as Max shifted on the leather seat, looming over her, caging her in his heat. He stretched one arm along the seat behind her and raised his other hand to cup her cheek. His scent wrapped around her, salt and laundry, sweat and grease. Max smells. Man smells. Her skin hummed.
    She parted her lips on a sigh, a barely audible invitation, and he lowered his head and kissed her, his breath warm, his touch light. He tasted like Max and very faintly of the beer they’d both been drinking. She swallowed, intoxicated by his nearness, by the fact that he was kissing her again.
At last.
His hand slid from her face to her throat, his fingers curling around the back of her neck, his touch warm and coaxing. They kissed and kissed, deeper, wetter kisses, until she gasped and his breath rasped in the darkness, in and out. Oh, God, she wanted . . . she wanted . . .
    “Come here,” he said, his hands sliding from her waist to her hips, tugging her closer, dragging her deeper, pulling her into the dark. She gave herself up to the urging of his hands and her heart and climbed onto his lap, straddling his thighs, loving the feel of him, hot and solid against her.
    He broke their kiss. “Cynthie . . .”
    She twined her arms around his neck, answering without words, buoyant with confidence and desire. She was ready for this, ready to take this next step with him. She kissed the corner of his eye, where the skin was soft and fine, and the hollow under his ear, where his pulse beat fast and strong. Her heart overflowed with tenderness.
    His hands moved, sliding up her thighs, encountering bare skin. No panties. He jolted and groaned her name against her mouth.
    “Yes,” she said. To this, to him, to everything.
    She unbuttoned the first button of his shirt and then the second, exposing the line of his collarbone, the beginning of