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.

Chapter Ten

Max poked his head into Kara’s office when he got in on Monday morning.

“Hey, do you have a minute to chat? I want to talk to you about something.”

Kara followed him into his office.

“Anything wrong, sir?”

He flicked the lights on and sat down behind his desk, coffee in hand. After . . . everything that had happened between him and Olivia after the hike, he ended up never sending that text to Kara, so he’d decided to wait to talk to her in person.

“No, no, nothing’s wrong, the opposite. I had an idea over the weekend. Well, actually, it wasn’t my idea—I was talking to a friend about the criminal justice reform bill and it was their idea.”

Not for the first time, he wanted to tell Kara about Olivia. Partly so he’d be able to actually give her credit for this idea, but also because Olivia was becoming a bigger and bigger part of his life, and it felt absurd that Kara didn’t know about her. Kara had been by his side for three years now—he either saw or talked to her almost every day, and the days they didn’t talk, they texted or emailed. She knew everything about him, almost. Except for this.

But no, he couldn’t tell her yet. It would be completely inappropriate for him to tell someone who worked for him about his new relationship. Besides, it wasn’t like this was the kind of thing they talked about; all he knew about her personal life was that she’d once brought her girlfriend to the office holiday party. He hoped he’d get to tell Kara about Olivia eventually, but that would be when he and Olivia were ready to go public, and they weren’t there yet. No matter how great things had been over the weekend (and they’d been really, phenomenally great)—that wasn’t in the plan for the immediate future.

“What was the idea, sir?” Kara asked.

Right, the idea.

“So I know you’ve been gently telling me for a while that the bill might not go anywhere. Well, my friend reminded me of something you and others here have also been trying to tell me: I can keep fighting for the bill, but I can do other things to help the cause of criminal justice reform. What if we had town halls in marginalized communities all around California—to find out what people most care about, to figure out other ways to help them, and so they know we’re listening to them and working for them, instead of just trying to fight a possibly losing battle? We might even try to get state legislators involved, see if we can change some California law in the process.”

Kara nodded slowly.

“Hmm. I like this idea, sir.” She flipped open her notebook and scrawled a few lines. “It’ll take a lot of work—from both the DC and local staffs, but I think everyone will be excited about it.”

Max rubbed his hands together. He couldn’t wait to tell Olivia this.