Beautifully Brutal (Southern Boy Mafia #1) by Nicole Edwards Read Free Book Online Page B

in security?”
    “Something like that,” she said with a cheeky grin.
    Little did Courtney Kogan know, but Max had an entire dossier devoted to her. He knew everything there was to know about her, from the last guy she’d dated and how long that had lasted, her blood type, the results of her last physical. He likely knew more about her than she did about herself, right down to the minute she was born and the fact that her mother had had an emergency C-section, three weeks prior to her due date, and her father had been on an op at the time, not making it home until Courtney was almost a full day old.
    In Max’s world, he knew better than to trust anyone. She might believe he was merely interested in her on a physical level—and that was true, he was—but Max was also attempting to keep her close. If she wanted information, he’d make sure she received it. But only the details he wanted her to have.
    “What about you?” she inquired. “Where’d you go to college?”
    “I didn’t,” he informed her.
    “You just worked your way up in the organization?”
    “Organization?” he asked, grinning. “What is it that you think I do?”
    “Land development,” she replied without missing a beat. “And one of your brothers is in the waste management business.”
    Well, she was right on those counts. That was the basis of his family’s business. At least from the outside looking in.
    “Don’t forget the nightclubs,” he offered.
    “Right. How could I have forgotten? Devil’s Playground, is it?”
    “That’s one of them,” he told her. There were several others in the Dallas area, along with one in Vegas and another in New York, but he didn’t bother to share that information. If she was curious, she’d ask.
    “So, like I said, you just worked your way up?”
    Max smirked. He liked that she thought she had the upper hand. He knew what information she had on him; some of it had actually been strategically planted. “It’s not difficult to move up in a world you were born into,” he told her. “But I suspect you’re familiar with the concept.”
    Courtney nodded, holding her wineglass close to her lips. “So you’re not just a businessman?” She took another sip of wine, and he watched her throat work as she swallowed. He wanted to put his lips on the slender column of her neck.
    “I never said that,” he answered quickly.
    “No, but you alluded to it.”
    “I never allude to anything, Courtney.”
    “No?”
    “No,” he assured her. “Direct is definitely my preferred approach.”
    Max noticed the challenge in her gaze, and it turned him on. The air crackled; electrical impulses made his heart rate speed up, his dick throb. His reaction to her wasn’t unheard of because, since the dawn of time, men had been attracted to beautiful women. But this… This was potent, powerful, impossible to ignore, and Max wasn’t interested in playing games. He wanted her, and he fully intended to show her what she was getting herself into by being with him, even if she thought she was the one interrogating him.
    He stood and held out his hand for her to take. When she placed her delicate fingers in his palm, he helped her to her feet. Taking the two wineglasses, he set them on the cabinet behind him, then turned to face her.
    Her eyes widened as he closed the distance between them, backing her up until her ass bumped the table.
    “As amused as I am by this conversation,” he told her with a slight grin, “I’m gonna kiss you now, Courtney.”
    He paused briefly to see if she would refute him, but she didn’t. When her gaze dropped to his mouth and she nodded her head ever so subtly, Max’s dick twitched, thickened.
    Cupping her face, he grazed her lips with his thumbs, forcing her mouth open as he leaned in. The way her breath hitched as his mouth hovered precariously close to hers only made his dick harder. She wanted him; there was no doubt about that. The powerful physical reaction they’d had to one