Beautiful Beloved

by Christina Lauren

  Not to mention that the New York State driver’s license Max showed as proof of ID had a mailing address located less than ten minutes away. Whatever. I was going to fuck my husband; they could think whatever they want.

  “If possible we’d like a room in the most empty part of the hotel,” Max said. “We plan on being loud.”

  The clerk looked down at Max’s ID and blinked back up at him again, bored, before rolling his eyes and moving to swipe our card.

  Inside the elevator, Max pressed me against the far wall, pushing his hand into my hair. “Tell me what you want, sweet Sara,” he said, running his nose along my jaw. “This is your night, and I want to do every filthy thing in that devious little mind of yours.”

  “I want you,” I said. “Over me, behind me.”

  He hummed against my skin, and I felt every bit of anxiety melt away. He wasn’t overthinking. He wasn’t treating me like something he had to handle with kid gloves.

  “And?” he said.

  I tilted my head, looked up to see our reflections in the mirrored ceiling of the elevator. The sight of our bodies together—even clothed—sent a shiver down my spine.

  “I want your face between my legs,” I told him. “I want you wild.”

  He exhaled, and made the tiniest, neediest sound. “You know I love how you taste. Would I lick you, Petal?”

  Jesus. “Yes.”

  “Would I be greedy and suck, get my face covered in you? Or do you want me to take my time?”

  “All of it. Rough at first and then again, slower. Savoring,” I said, though who knew how much time we would actually get. I watched as Max pushed open the collar of my shirt to reveal the top swell of my breasts. I could easily imagine what we would look like from that angle: me naked on my back, legs spread shamelessly open with Max between them. I would see the flex of muscle as he devoured me, my fingers in his beautiful hair as I pulled and held him where I wanted. The flex of my toes as my orgasm moved up my body and out. As I screamed.

  The elevator stopped and Max reached for my hand, practically tugging me down the hall and toward our room. “All of it,” he said, slotting the key into the door. “I’ll give you fucking all of it.” The light glowed green as the lock clicked, and he pushed it open. Inside, it was my turn to push Max against the wall. I stood on my toes to reach his mouth, pressing my lips to his and not wasting any time as I opened his belt and began pulling his shirt from the waist of his pants. “I want to take pictures of you,” I said, and he pulled away just long enough to meet my eyes.

  “Of me?”

  I nodded and leaned in to suck on his bottom lip. “Of what you look like while you lick my . . . pussy.”

  Max groaned and let his head fall back against the door. “You have no idea what it does to hear you talk like that.” I wondered if maybe this would help. If what Chloe had said was true, maybe it would be easier for him to let go if I used him first.

  I trailed a hand over his navel and down to where he was hard and straining against the material of his pants. I gripped the shape of him, rubbing my thumb where I felt the head of his cock. “Oh, I think I have an idea of what it does to you.”

  Max began walking us backward, stopping just at the side of the bed. He pulled his phone from his pocket and pressed it into my hand. “Let’s pray that this stays quiet, and that it’s because Will has found his maternal instinct, and not because our child has suddenly learned that everyone will do precisely what she wants, and has enslaved them both.”

  I laughed, and set it on the bedside table.

  “So what will you do with those pictures, sweet Petal?” he said, opening the buttons on my shirt one by one, and letting it slip from my shoulders.

  “Look at them. Remember.”

  “When? At work?” he asked, and unfastened my bra, pulling the straps down my arms, and absently tossing it into a chair against the wall. “Maybe you’ll be in a meeting, everyone talking around you while you look down at your phone. They’ll think you’re looking at your calendar, maybe reading through an email. They’d never guess you’re looking at photos of me with my face between your legs. Of your clit pressed against my tongue.”

  “Oh God,” I said, his words mirroring exactly what I imagined doing. Max’s eyes moved over my face, down my neck and lower. My breasts tingled, my nipples hardening with the weight of his gaze on me. My skin felt too hot, the rest of my clothes constricting.

  “Would that get you wet, Petal?”

  I nodded, stripping Max of his shirt first, and then his pants, finding the head of his cock visible just above the waistband of his boxers. He was so hard, the tip already wet in the setting sunlight. I licked my lips, almost able to feel the weight of him in my mouth, hard and smooth against my tongue.

  “Take the rest off,” Max instructed, before he reached for the bedding, pulling it down the mattress to reveal crisp, white sheets. The pile of carefully stacked pillows fell to the side and he reached for one, setting it in the middle of the bed.

  I slipped out of my skirt and panties just in time for him to turn back to me and nod his approval. “Right here,” he said then, motioning to the pillow. “Want that pretty little cunt up where I can get to it.”

  Even now, after the club and marriage and a baby and all we’d done together, I felt my cheeks heat as I did what he asked and climbed on the bed, careful to keep the pillow directly under my hips. It propped me up and I felt open and exposed, my thighs spread and the air cool against my skin. I knew that if I touched myself I’d be slick and swollen, my clit sensitive to even the smallest touch.

  I kept my eyes trained on him as he stepped out of his boxers and climbed up on the bed, on his slow advance toward me. I reached out for him, wanting to feel him inside me and—

  His phone vibrated on the table. Fuck.

  I reached for it blindly, unable to look away from him and his perfect cock, the way it jutted out between us. I knocked over the alarm clock and what I assumed to be the room service menu, before I finally found what I was looking for, and held it out to him.

  “Sara,” Max said, and I had to tear my attention away from his body.

  “Yeah?”

  “The phone? You read it, yeah?” he said, and placed a hand on my knee, letting his palm smooth down my skin until it rested between my legs. “I’m a bit busy here, and unless the apartment is on fire or there’s something wrong with our baby, I don’t want to see a text from anyone right now. Just reply.”

  “Reply while you . . . ?” I trailed off, and he nodded.

  My throat felt dry and I had to focus on what I was doing, rather than the way Max ground the heel of his hand against my clit.

  “It’s Will,” I said, blinking down to the message. It was a close-up of Anna’s face, her nose scrunched up, and her lower lip turned down into a pout. The edge of a yellow polka-dot blanket curled up near her cheek, so I assumed she was still in her crib, asleep.

  What is this face? the text said.

  Has she been crying? I asked, momentarily distracted from Max’s fingers slipping over me.

  No. Just noises. Like a puppy or something? She’s ok, was just curious.

  Sometimes she fusses a little while she sleeps, I typed, and had to stop and regroup when I felt Max’s fingers replaced by puffs of warm breath. She usually settles herself back down! I think you’re good!

  That might have been a bit more enthusiastic than the situation warranted.

  I waited, but when it didn’t look like Will was going to respond again, I dropped the phone to the bed and groaned, throwing my head back. “Oh my God,” I said, tucking my hands into Max’s hair.

  “Yeah?” he murmured, and licked along me in long, slow strokes.

  “Fuck yes.”

  “Taste so fucking good, Petal,” he said, circling his tongue around my clit and murmuring the words right against me.

  I opened my legs wider and held him there, rocking my hips up to meet his mouth until I was practically fucking hi
s face. “More, Max,” I said, looking down at him. “And fingers?”

  Max did as I asked, and I felt as he slipped first one finger inside of me, and then a second. “The camera, Petal,” he said, and I remembered the phone sitting on the mattress next to me. Max pressed his mouth to me again, lips wrapped around my clit as he sucked and sucked, even humming. My hands shook as I aimed the camera at him, touching the screen with trembling fingers as I took photo after photo.

  Max made a little noise each time the camera clicked, and the thought that this was what was getting him off—that I would look at these later and think of him and this and his sounds—made it hard not to flip him over and fuck him right then.

  With two fingers pumping in and out of me, he turned his head, sucking and pressing kisses into the pale skin of my thigh, and me nearly screaming as the single day’s growth of beard brushed against my clit. It was so much. He looked up at me, eyes meeting mine as his tongue peeked out, and I moved to focus the camera again, to capture that moment, when another text flashed across the screen.

  How do you heat the milk? it read. Hanna says we do it under water but I told her we can do it in the microwave provided we use a digital thermometer and warm it to body temperature or 98.7 degrees. WHO’S RIGHT SARA

  It took me three attempts to finally type out a simple LISTEN TO HANNA before I threw the phone down and had to bite my forearm to keep from screaming.

  Max had pulled away a bit, concerned that something might be wrong, but I waved him off.

  “It’s fine it’s fine,” I said, embarrassingly breathless. “Don’tstopohgodplease. Keep,” I started, but had to lick my lips, and suck in another desperate lungful of air. “Keepgoingplease please please. I’m so close.”

  Max redoubled his efforts, licking and sucking my clit, and somewhere, through the fog of what was happening, I heard him groan, heard the sound of his hand working over his cock.

  “Oh God . . . are you?” I started, attempting to push myself up and look, but the phone went off again.

  I groaned in defeat, so close I could cry.

  She’s not taking it, it said. Are we sure she needs to eat this much? There’s no way an actual human could eat this much. When you figure in her size in comparison to how many ounces of fluid she consumes . . .

  “What the fuck does he want now?” Max said, and pushed himself up on his hands.

  “Anna won’t eat for him,” I started, and Max let his cheek fall to my hip. “Max, I’m beginning to think this isn’t going to work. I’m never going to have an orgasm and you’re going to have to adjust to a life of blue balls.”

  “Fuck that,” he said. “Give me five more minutes, I can do it, I swear.”

  But it was no use. I wanted him—God, did I want him—but now all I could think about was my tiny baby crying at home, hungry.

  We both lay there for a moment, trying to calm our breaths and . . . other things, before we got up.

  “We’ll get the hang of this, Petal,” Max said, climbing up my body so he could kiss my forehead. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”

  I went to reply to Will, to tell him we were on our way home, but instead stared in horror at my screen. Somehow, while juggling the camera and texts . . . holy shit, I texted Will a picture of Max’s head between my legs.

  “Oh . . . oh, my God,” I groaned, handing Max my phone so he could see what I’d done. “I should not be in charge of the camera anymore.”

  I rolled into the pillow with another groan as Max read Will’s reply and burst out laughing: Okay . . . that was unexpected but message received. Take your time. We’ll figure out the milk thing.

  Chapter Five

  Sara

  I’d seen photos of Niall Stella, so of course I was prepared for the resemblance between my brother-in-law and my husband—same lighter brown hair, same warm brown eyes, way too pretty to be fair—but what I wasn’t prepared for was the impact of having not one, but two Stella men standing in the doorway of our apartment.

  Niall let a black leather laptop bag slip from his shoulder, and straightened to his full height, before smiling widely at his brother.

  He was just as tall as Max, but a bit more on the slender side. Years of rugby had left Max with broader shoulders and arms and legs defined by ropes of thick muscle. Niall was definitely built, but leaner, the type of build with wide shoulders and narrow hips. A body designed to wear a suit.

  From the way he walked into the apartment, it was clear he was comfortable in his own skin, but he was quieter, missing that boisterous quality that seemed to seep into a room whenever Max entered it. In its place was a gentle confidence and a touch of vulnerability that made me want to push Max out of the way and hug Niall myself.

  Niall had been unable to come to the States for our small, last-minute wedding ceremony—he’d been in the middle of a divorce, a new job—but had promised to come as soon as he was able. I knew he and Max, being only ten months apart, were the closest of the siblings, and Max had been more excited for this visit than he’d wanted to let on.

  Max loved Will and Bennett—and there wasn’t a situation in which I could imagine him not doing whatever it took to help out his boys—but it had nothing on the embrace he gave his younger brother. The two men wrapped their arms around each other in an all-encompassing hug, and maybe it was the hormones talking but it’s possible the closed eyes and small smile on each of their faces might have left me a bit teary. Maybe.

  Max whispered something in Niall’s ear I couldn’t make out, before he clapped him on the back and pulled him inside. It was clear that Max had been even more worried about his brother than he realized.

  “It’s been too long,” Max said, reaching for Niall’s bag before closing the door.

  “Absolutely,” Niall said, and oh. Two British men under my roof. I didn’t stand a chance.

  I stepped out of the hallway and into the living room, and offered Niall a small wave when I caught his eye.

  “And you must be the lovely Sara,” he said, crossing the room to place a kiss on my cheek. “So lovely to finally meet you.”

  Niall was a great hugger, bending at the knees and wrapping his arms completely around me. When he pulled back to meet my eyes, I almost swooned.

  “I can see what has him so smitten,” Niall said.

  “Truer words were never spoken,” Max said.

  “I may need the two of you to cut down on the cute for a bit,” I said. “I’m not sure I can handle it.”

  “We’ll do our best, Petal,” Max said with a wink, and led Niall to the living room. “You look bloody fantastic. Divorce suits you.”

  Max had explained the circumstances behind Niall and Portia’s divorce, that they’d married when they were fresh out of high school, and been with only each other up until the previous summer, when they both decided it wasn’t working anymore. Max also told me that “not working anymore” was code for Portia was a beast.

  If Max’s comment bothered Niall at all, he didn’t show it. Instead, he sank back against the sofa and exhaled in what looked like his first real breath in a very long time.

  “You know I would never speak poorly of Portia,” Niall said, shaking his head with a smile, “but yes. I feel better than I have in years.”

  A small sound emanated from the baby monitor on the end table, and I stood, explaining that I’d go get the baby up from her nap.

  I could hear the men talking while I changed Anna’s diaper, hear the clink of their beer bottles and laughter, and I smiled down at my daughter.

  “Ready to go meet your uncle?” I whispered, and she cooed, smiling up at me and kicking her little sock-covered feet. I gathered her up and we made our way into the living room, and both men stopped. Max looked like the proudest daddy in the world, but Niall looked completely in awe.

  “She’s breathtaking,” Niall said, setting his bottle on the table and standing to meet me. “She’s absolutely bloody gorgeous, Sara. Well done.”

 
“She’s a beauty, yeah?” Max crossed the room to take her from me, kissing me on the forehead before sitting next to his brother.

  “Mum must be over the moon,” Niall said, running a finger along the edge of the blanket.

  “You’ve no idea,” Max said. “I’ll be at her flat not five minutes before she’s nicked her from me.”

  My heart swelled as I watched them together, and I took a few steps back and into the kitchen, leaving them alone while they caught up.

  Tired from a long day of travel, Niall excused himself for the night around the same time I tucked Annabel in her crib.

  With the apartment blissfully silent, I shut off lights and made a final check of the front door before finding Max in our room, folding tiny pink onesies and socks, and placing them in a basket on the bed. I lay down next to him and watched.

  “You’re pretty sexy when you’re domestic,” I told him, running a hand up the back of his thigh.

  “If you think this is hot, you should see me change a diaper.”

  “I have, actually; why do you think I married you? That and your accent. Oh and your giant penis.”

  “Too right,” he said, and bent to kiss me. “And I married you because you’re lovely and smart and sexy as hell. Not to mention the fact that you can take on the world.”

  “Taking on the world,” I said, folding a pair of socks. “Guess I’ll be going back to that soon enough.”

  Max set the basket aside and kneeled on the floor in front of me. “Are you not ready, Petal?”

  I picked up one of Anna’s little T-shirts, one that fit her only weeks ago and was now ready to be packed away. I barely remembered her in that shirt, and she had just outgrown it. What in the world would I miss when I was gone all day? And yet . . .

  “I am,” I said honestly. “I’m just having a hard time shutting out that guilty voice over wanting to go back to work.”