Breaking the Billionaire's Rules(40)

“What?” I ask, rapt.

With the economical speed of a boxer, she punches her fist down into the sandwich.

The dull thump of a fist hitting a wad of meat and pastry resounds through the hush.

Gasps and exclamations rise up.

I stare at the sandwich in shock.

She’s smashed a crater into the middle of it. Bits of roast beef and swiss bulge out the sides of the misshapen croissant.

She straightens. She smiles at me. “There we go.”

My people watch me, aghast. The lunch-cart girl just smashed her fist into my sandwich. What will I do?

I bite back a smile. Pride is probably the wrong emotion here.

Lust is definitely the wrong emotion.

Everything falls away but her. She just doesn’t give a fuck—she never did. Even back in high school she was like that.

“Odd,” I say in the patrician tone that drives her insane. “I don’t recall ordering a panini.”

“My bad.” She smiles sweetly.

Everybody turns back to me, waiting for the famous Max Hilton retort. I always have something clever to say, but right now I don’t. There’s just me and Mia.

I just love her. I swallow. Did I really just have that thought?

“Anything else? No? Bon appetit.” She pushes her cart out.

I stand. “I’ll go see if everything’s…” I end the sentence with a mumble and get out of there. Nothing in that room is important anymore. I head out after her, down the hall. I round a corner just as her cart disappears into the elevator.

I slap my hand over the doors.

Her nostrils flare. “You think you’re all that. What with the models. Please.”

A grin splits my face. “And you think you can punch my sandwich?”

“Yes,” she breathes. “I think I can punch your sandwich.”

I’m in the elevator. I let the doors close behind me. “Do you have an apology for me?”

“No,” she says.

“What was that?” I cage her with my arms. Pure lust courses through my veins. “No? No apology? That won’t do.”

She beams at me “Okay, lemme try for a better answer. Hell, no.”

“That’s not better,” I whisper. She so loved punching my sandwich, and I love her for it.

“I don’t have an apology. Is that better?”





15




Never fixate on any one woman; you’re playing a numbers game.

~The Max Hilton Playbook: Ten Golden Rules for Landing the Hottest Girl in the Room





* * *



Mia

I should be angry. Max making me play lunch-cart girl in front of his models? What is that?

But being with him in this small space is putting my hormones into overdrive. Lighting my skin like electricity.

He slides his hand around the back of my neck. His fingers seem to tremble—there’s something so raw about him now. “Fuck,” he says raggedly.

My hands are sliding around the bulk of him. My hands are treating themselves to generous helpings of his cashmere suit coat, pulling him to me, rampaging across soft fabric and hard muscle He kisses me—furiously, passionately. He hauls me up to him, closer, harder. His chest is a flat plane against my breasts; his cock at the V of my legs a delicious presence.

“Fuck,” I say into our kiss.

I had this whole idea of not giving him the satisfaction of a reaction, but I’m failing at that.

“Mia,” he breathes, peppering hot kisses over my neck while I pant and melt some more. He’s a spy in the night, stealing over enemy lines, going deeper, winning me over.

My fingers have hit warm skin under his white shirt.

And I don’t want to stop. I want Max like there’s no tomorrow. Like there’s no chart on our wall that’s a service to all womankind.

He pulls away from the kiss and looks into my eyes. He looks furious and beautiful. Suddenly the elevator’s moving. Maybe another floor called it.

He lets out a shuddery breath and shoves a key into the panel and the elevator grinds to a halt.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“Nowhere,” he says, twisting my hair in his fist and pressing kisses onto my neck, and then he sucks in a small tag of skin and it bites. I think I’m going to have a hickey and I want that. I want him to mark me. “The elevator is officially going nowhere, does that work for you?”

“That’s the exact floor I wanted.”

I burrow my fingers under the belt of his trousers. Feverishly I pull his belt from the loops, big, dramatic motions that enhance the drama of our elevator tryst.

“Hey.” He catches my greedy hands and extracts them from his person, presses them back up against the cool panel, up over my head. All in one big hand of his.

With the other, he slides a knuckle over my cheekbone.

What is he doing? “What’s wrong, Mr. Roboto? Did your software for elevator quickies go offline?”

“That’s not what this is.” He dips his head and kisses my neck. “This is just for you.”

“Oh, that’s how you think it’s gonna be?”

“Just for you.” I gasp as he slides his hand slowly down my front, passing over one electrified nipple on his way to my pussy. He shoves my apron out of the way and his whole hand is between my legs, cupping and kneading me through the warm fabric.