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I instinctively close my eyes, my breath hitching. Then I feel his touch move, ghosting higher, finding the faint mark near my hairline. He’s so observant it’s frightening. I wait for the familiar sting of unease, the urge to hide, but it doesn’t come. I can’t help but want him to keep looking at me. Not as a victim, but as a woman.

I open my eyes. He’s staring at me with a hunger that makes my knees buckle.

“Fuck it,” he growls.

Max slams his mouth over mine in a kiss that feels like it’s been building for months. He presses me back against the door, his weight pinning me there, his hands finding my waist and pulling me flush against his hard body.

And I do mean hard. Everywhere.

I moan into his mouth, my fingers tangling in his hair, pulling him closer. He tastes of coffee and unbridled desire. The kiss turns predatory, frantic. He moves us away from the door, stumbling back until I’m pressed against the edge of the mahogany desk. His hands are all over me, groping my hips, sliding up to my ribs, before his mouth leaves mine to trail a path of fire down my neck with his tongue.

“Max,” I gasp, my head falling back.

His hands grip my ass tightly before drifting down my legs, pulling them so tightly around his hips I can feel his hard cock against my overheated center.

He kisses me once more, wild and frenzied. He feels as if he’s as hungry for me as I am for him. I shamelessly rock my pelvis against him. Max lets a moan escape as his tongue dances with mine. Clawing at his shoulders, I secretly beg for him to rip my panties off and bury himself inside me.

This is reckless. But there’s no doubt this is more than a two-year dry spell. I’m practically desperate for this man, I’m so wet. I didn’t know anything could feel like this. God, I’ve never wanted anything so much in my whole damn life.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The sound breaks through my lust like a gunshot.

“Max? You in there?” Gianni’s voice is muffled through the wood.

Max freezes. His forehead resting against mine. Both of us are gasping for air. My heart is hammering against my chest so loud Gianni can probably hear it through the door.

Gianni.

My boss.

21

MAX

“Max? You in there?” Gianni’s voice is like a bucket of ice water poured directly onto a raging inferno. The heat that was just consuming us evaporates into a cold panic.

I pull Cassidy down from the desk with a jolt, my hands clumsy as I attempt to straighten the clothes I was unconsciously trying to remove. My normally cool and collected persona has slipped. My hands shake as I try to help fix her hair. My pulse beats in a frantic rhythm against my ribs. It’s a physical manifestation of the internal scolding I’m giving myself. My control didn’t just slip, it ripped into shreds. How had we gone from working on phone data to this?

“Just a second!” I call out, my voice sounding like it’s been dragged over gravel. I rake my fingers through my hair, trying to tame the mess her hands made of it.

I open the door, and Gianni’s standing there with his brows pierced together in a knowing scowl. He looks at me, then over my shoulder at Cassidy, his expression flat.

“You good, man?” he asks, his tone suggesting he already knows the answer.

“I found it!” Cassidy chirps from behind me. I turn to see her holding up a glinting earring, a drama-worthy giggle bubbling out of her. “I can’t believe it managed to get all the way over there from the chair. It must’ve taken flight.”

Gianni smirks. He isn’t buying a second of this. He knows exactly what kind of “flight” was happening with us in here. It was nearly the mile high variety.

There is no “us,” you idiot!

This was a colossal error. A hot, mouthwatering, lust-induced mistake that I’m going to be replaying on a loop for a long time. But I can’t let a blunder like this happen again. It’s dangerous enough that I’ve allowed her into my hacker existence. I can’t put a bigger target on her back than she’s already got by adding Max’s weakness to my enemies’ pursuits. Especially if Vincenzo caught wind of anything between us and decided Cassidy was “my woman” and, like Luca and Matteo, fair game as the object of his wrath.

“Cassidy,” Gianni says, his eyes finally moving from mine. “You have a visitor.”

My muscles lock. I stand up taller, the professional mask slamming back into place. Visitor? I thought she was just a server. They don’t entertain men here. Do they? If it were her brother, Gianni would have just said Your brother is here. Right?

I glance at Cassidy and see an equally perplexed look on her face. Whether this is an unexpected visit or not, I need to use this opportunity to do the right thing. Keep this fucking professional between us.