Red-Hot Santa. Tori Carrington

took in the intoxicating expression of the woman under him thinking there was no way this could be his Max. Surely by now she should have batted him about the ears. Pushed him away and told him she was just joking.

      But it was Max, and he was about to lose it totally …

      Quick, what were the delay tactics he used to employ? Mentally disassembling his M-16 used to do the trick, but when he thought about his gun, all he could see was his thick shaft sinking into Max’s sweet flesh inch by inch.

      He grit his back teeth together and froze, his arms threatening to give out from under him where he held himself above her. Please don’t let her move, please don’t let her …

      She moved.

      Damn molten lava, he was going to lose it …

      He did.

      And there was absolutely no way he could disguise the fact that he did. The requisite groan, giveaway stiffness and telltale jerking filled out the picture, putting him solidly back in that truck cab.

      Only it wasn’t a Pearson twin he was with, it was Max.

      He collapsed against her, his face buried in the bedding over her shoulder, in a state of shock. Hell, she had to think him either a complete dork with no experience, or selfish beyond compare.

      He felt her hands on his back, then heard her quiet giggle in his ear.

      Jackson raised his brows as he slowly tested his arms and lifted himself back above her. Giggling? Max didn’t giggle.

      “Sorry,” he mumbled.

      Her smile was undeniable. “Don’t be. I’m flattered.”

      She rubbed her ankles against the back of his calves, causing her slick muscles to contract as she did so. “Now if you were drunk, it would be another story altogether.”

      Damn, but she was beautiful. The Max he knew, as well as the one he was coming—quiet literally—to know. Her sense of humor disarmed his horror at his quick draw … and her subtle shifting worked wonders on other areas of his anatomy.

      Testing himself, he slowly withdrew. But when she might have rolled out from under him, he replaced the condom and thrust back in to the hilt, satisfied at her gasp and the way she arched her back.

      He waited a moment for her to open her eyes. When she did, his grin was what greeted her.

      “What?” he asked, leaning in to kiss her. “You didn’t think that was all there was?”

      Her breasts trembled as he leaned in to take one of her pouty nipples into his mouth, then the other, swirling his tongue around the stiff nubs and then suckling them deeply, the control he was used to slipping gratefully back into place.

      Oh, yeah. Now he was back on track. He kissed Max breathless and then stroked her both inside and out. This time he fully planned to be thorough about bringing her to orgasm, again and again and again …

      5

      MAX WAS SORE in places she hadn’t known she had. But rather than frowning, she had to fight to keep from grinning. In the company of her mom and aunt, it wasn’t wise to look too cheerful. They’d know something was up for sure and wouldn’t stop until they uncovered what. And Max didn’t plan to say anything to anybody about last night. Criminy, she was having a hard time convincing herself it had really happened …

      It was midmorning and Jax had driven her home a few hours ago, well before her relatives had gotten out of bed so the story she told about Patience driving her home hadn’t sounded any alarms. That was a good thing, because in the years she’d been away from home her mom and aunt had become even nosier than they’d been before, grilling her for details on every aspect of her life … up to and including sex. It was a new approach that had left her slack-jawed on more than one occasion since she’d returned home five days ago.

      She sat at the old Formica kitchen table, running her fingertips over her extra large mug of coffee and staring through the window in the direction of the Savage farm. She couldn’t see it from where she was sitting, but she gazed toward it anyway, wondering if Jax was up yet and whether or not he’d left to return to the city.

      The old farmhouse Max grew up in had once belonged to her great-grandparents, who had built it plank by torturous plank (as her aunt told the story). Her aunt Theresa had inherited it twenty-five years ago, not without a little flack from family members, including Max’s mom. But Theresa had stood fast and laid claim to the house as her inheritance, seeing to the upkeep and leasing out the surrounding land to local farmers to help toward the upkeep. Some people in town said it had cost her her marriage, but Max knew better. Of course, it didn’t help that her cousins, Theresa’s two adult children, bought into the rumors. It was more than the distance between Aunt Theresa and Denver that kept them from seeing each other more than once a month.