She laughed out loud.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Chapter Nine

It took a great deal of self-control for Max not to drive back to his house like a bat out of hell. Only two things stopped him: (1) he did not want the headlines that would come if he was stopped for speeding; and (2) he was driving Olivia’s brand-new car, and if he did anything to risk it, she might murder him before he got the chance to have sex with her.

“I just want to be clear on this,” he said on the drive back to his house. “Are we, like, together together now?”

Even while driving, he could tell she was laughing at, not with, him.

“ ‘Together together?’ Is that some sort of official designation, Senator?”

He slid his hand onto her thigh and forced himself to keep his eyes on the road.

“You know what I mean.”

She put her hand on top of his.

“Yeah, I guess I do. And yeah, I guess we are. But . . .” She took a deep breath. “I’m not quite ready to publicly be senator Maxwell Stewart Powell’s girlfriend, if that’s okay. I mean, I at least have to get a haircut, and some new lipstick, before I have to be in paparazzi pictures.”

He laughed.

“I’m not famous enough for paparazzi pictures.” He turned his hand over and squeezed hers. “But I know what you mean; it’s early for all of that.”

She’d turned it into a joke, but he understood. They had really only just started; he didn’t want to invite the rest of the world into their relationship yet, either.

“Plus,” she went on, “your staff will probably freak out if they find out you’re dating someone who got arrested as a teenager.”

He laughed and touched her cheek.

“Number one, your records are sealed, no one has to know about that. And number two, I know at least three people on my staff who have been arrested much more recently, so they have no grounds to complain.”

They got to his house after a much longer drive than he wanted it to be. As soon as he closed the door behind them, he reached for Olivia.

He kissed her, and kissed her, and kissed her. All of the kisses he’d wanted to give her while they were on the hike, while she’d given him advice and confessed about her own anxieties, he gave her now, again and again and again.

And then, suddenly, kissing her wasn’t enough.

He took her hand and led her into his living room, and fell down with her on the couch while they laughed together. And then, finally, he reached for the bottom of her shirt, that T-shirt that was so snug, that shirt that had been driving him wild all day.

“I feel like I’ve been waiting forever for this,” she said.

He leaned forward to kiss her again, just for that.

“Good God, it’s been a nightmare,” he said.

She ran her fingers from his temple to his chin.

“This whole waiting thing was your idea, you know.”

He shook his head.

“Don’t remind me, especially right now. I feel like the stupidest person in Congress, and that’s saying something.”

He tugged off her shirt, and then sat back to stare.

“Holy shit, Olivia.”

She smiled wickedly at him.

“Hmmmm?”

He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“If I had known all day that you were wearing this underneath that shirt, I might have aborted the whole ‘hike’ idea and never even left the house.”

Her bra was the sexiest thing he’d seen in months, with the exception of the woman wearing it. It was hot-pink sheer lace, and he couldn’t decide if he wanted to rip it right off her body or to have her keep it on as long as possible.

“It’s not the kind of bra you’re supposed to wear on hikes, but I had to draw the line somewhere,” she said.

“My God, you’re amazing,” he said. He reached for her again, and let his thumbs dance over her dark nipples.

“Do you like that?” he asked.

Her eyes closed halfway, and she nodded.

“I like it a lot,” she said.

He kept touching her, sometimes gently, sometimes roughly, to see how she responded, what made her bite her lip, or moan, or toss her head back. After he felt like he’d driven them both to the breaking point, he sat up and pulled her pants off.

“You have matching panties?” he almost shouted.

She laughed out loud.

“Look, I wasn’t sure it was going to happen today, but a girl can hope, can’t she?”

He reached for her hands and pulled her upright.

“That’s it. The couch is all well and good for some things, but right now, I need you in my bed.”

She tossed her head—and her ass—as she walked ahead of him toward the stairs.

“And what do you propose to do while we’re in there, hmm?”

He walked behind her up the stairs and blessed his good fortune.

“Well,” he said as he joined her at the top of the stairs. “First, I’m going to rip those panties right off of you. Then I’m going to make you come so hard you’re gasping for air. And then I’m going to fuck you until neither of us can remember our names. Does that sound good to you?”

She reached for his fly and unzipped his pants.

“Mmm, that sounds excellent, but can I suggest a slight change in the agenda?”

She didn’t wait for his answer before she pulled his pants down.

“The thing is,” she said as she pushed his underwear to join his pants on the floor, “I’ve been waiting to see this for quite some time.” She wrapped her hand around his hard cock. “And, as I anticipated, it doesn’t disappoint. So, if you could just . . . give me a moment here.”

She pushed him against the wall, right outside his bedroom door, and sank to her knees. Then she looked up at him and smiled.

“Is that all right with you?”

He’d lost all ability to speak. The sight of her there, in that hot-as-hell lingerie, her lips less than an inch from his cock . . . he was surprised he was still standing.

But she was clearly waiting for some sort of signal from him, so finally he nodded. Seconds later, her tongue darted out of her mouth and licked the tip of his cock. He closed his eyes but immediately opened them again. He had to keep watching her.

First she licked him from the tip to the base, then she wrapped her hand around his cock and sucked him into her mouth.

Holy shit, she was so fucking good at this. He wanted to tell her that, he wanted to say something, but all he could do was stare at her and enjoy the hell out of this.

It felt so good—her lips around him, the friction of her hand and of her tongue, her other hand gripping his ass—he knew he wasn’t going to last long. He closed his eyes to try to hold himself together, but then he felt the scrape of her teeth against him, and he knew he was done.

He collapsed on the floor next to her after he came, and when he could open his eyes again, she was smiling down at him.

“We haven’t even made it to the bedroom yet,” he said.

She smiled again and reached for his hand to pull him up.

“I think it’s time, don’t you?”

Olivia couldn’t help herself from a little swagger as she pulled Max into his bedroom, both of them giggling like teenagers. He had clearly enjoyed the hell out of that blow job, but the weird thing was, she’d enjoyed giving it to him almost as much as he’d enjoyed getting it. She usually could take or leave giving blow jobs—men were often gross and smelly, they always tried to push your head in one direction or another, which just made you feel like a blow-up doll, and they were rarely appropriately appreciative, and instead just seemed to think of blow jobs as their due.