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.

But it had been different with Max. It was only because of the way he’d looked at her on the couch and again on the way up the stairs that she’d done it at all. She couldn’t remember anyone ever looking at her like that—with awe and excitement, like he’d unwrapped a present he’d wanted for years. When they got to the top of the stairs and he was still looking at her like that, she had to pull his pants off; she couldn’t help herself.

They tumbled together into his bed and turned to look at each other, both with big grins on their faces. It felt strange and impossible and completely right that she was here with him.

He pulled her against his chest, and they lay there for a while together. It had been a long time since she was this happy, this comfortable, lying like this in a man’s arms. She hadn’t realized how much she missed this feeling.

Or maybe she felt that way now because she was with Max. Maybe she just missed every moment she hadn’t spent with him.

She trailed her hand over his springy dark chest hair and then back down. He laughed and flipped her over before she could get where she was going.

“I’m going to need a little more recovery time than that, you know. I’m thirty-nine, after all.”

She smiled up at him.

“I think I remember you saying something a few minutes ago about what we were going to do in here—Senator Powell, do you fulfill your campaign promises?”

He hooked his thumbs around her panties, and with one quick tug, they were off her body and thrown across the room.

“Absolutely I do,” he said. Then he slid down her body and proceeded to make her come so hard she was gasping for air.

When she had—sort of—recovered, she reached down for that excellent dick again.

“Ahhh, here we are,” she said as her hand closed around it.

“Here we are indeed.” He kissed her greedily, like he couldn’t get enough of her. Dear God, she felt like she was being tricked, like she was in a dream. Not just how good they were together in bed—that was a delight, of course. But the way he looked at her, the way he touched her, the way he treated her, was like nothing she’d ever experienced. Like he felt lucky to be with her. She could get addicted to this.

“Hold on one second.” He let go of her and rolled over to the other side of his bed. He opened a drawer of his nightstand and then fumbled with a box. She sat up with a grin.

“New box?” she asked.

He looked sideways at her and shrugged.

“I bought it after our first date. My old ones had all expired, and I was . . . well, I was hopeful.”

She dropped back down onto the bed while he pulled a condom out of the box. After that night, she thought he hadn’t been interested in her at all, and meanwhile he was out there buying condoms with her in mind. This was one of the few times she was very happy to have been wrong.

It took him only a few seconds to get the condom out of the box and on.

“I like the way you watch me do that,” he said.

She ran her hands up and down his chest, his back, and let them come to rest on his butt.

“I liked the way you watched me, too,” she said.

Suddenly, there was no time for talking, just kissing, and touching, and stroking, and sucking. At long last, he slid between her legs, then paused and looked down at her.

“Please,” she asked.

He pushed inside her, and she gasped.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked.

To the contrary.

“No, no, it just felt so good.”

He grinned.

“Thank God.”

And then he did the same thing again, but harder, and again, and again. Her gasps and his moans were the only sounds in the room. It felt so good, she wanted this to go on forever; it felt too good, so good she almost couldn’t handle it. Then he reached his hand down between them to touch her in exactly the place he knew she wanted to be touched, and she pressed her mouth into his shoulder so she wouldn’t scream. He went faster and faster, and then collapsed on top of her.

“Holy shit,” he said as he rolled to the side and pulled her against him.

“Mmmhmm,” was all she could respond. After a few seconds, she looked up at him.

“If all hikes end like that, I wish I’d gotten into hiking years ago,” she said.

He laughed and then gave her a look that made her dizzy.

“You make me so happy, Olivia Monroe,” he said, right before he kissed her again.