by J. K. Coi
Baron’s hand dropped from the makeshift binding holding her arms. She flexed her hands open and closed to increase the flow of blood, the remains of her shirt falling unheeded to the floor.
With her hands free, she eagerly explored the hard planes of Baron’s super-ripped body as he continued to do wicked things to her breasts with his mouth.
The man sure did take the term “beefcake”to entirely new levels, she thought as she slid her hands down his sculpted back and beneath the waistband of his low-riding workout pants to squeeze his fine, tight ass.
He thrust into the curve of her hips, working his mouth from her breasts back up the column of her neck before stopping, waiting for…something from her.
She obeyed the silent command, turning her head to meet his gaze. With a growl of approval and a flash of heat in his eyes, Baron leaned closer and closed his teeth over the delicate tendon of her shoulder in a blatantly transparent display of aggressive possession.
Max loved it. Her body was humming, throbbing, so in tune with him that she responded to even the gentle tickle of his hair on the side of her neck, shivering as he raised goose bumps on her skin that went all the way down to her toes.
She could feel her newly formed vampire teeth lengthening in anticipation of putting them through his skin. The prospect was disturbing, but exciting at the same time, and she wasn’t quite sure how to handle it. She was still too uncertain about the whole vampire thing to be comfortable, even though Baron had already offered her his blood and seemed more than okay with the situation.
Max tamped the instinct down deep where she hoped it wouldn’t rise again to intrude. But Baron had other ideas.
His lips burned a trail up the column of her neck, nibbling on her skin as he went. “Delicious,” he rasped into her ear before biting the sensitive cartilage.
When he kissed her, his tongue probed deep, sweeping the inside of her mouth before he deliberately searched for the hard points of her incisors. She flinched as he ran his tongue along the sharp length of one, then the other, but he held her steady with his hand buried in the long hair at the base of her scalp.
Max started trembling, all of her senses ramping up—the sound of their breathing a cavernous echo in her ears, the taste of his kiss a sinful, moist sweetness, and the pounding of his heart a heavy, obvious thud against her own chest as she pressed her body ever closer. They all combined to torment her, not only with passion, but with the hunger that was getting steadily stronger.
“I like these new teeth of yours, Max.” He practically purred her name, sending shivering spikes of heat down her spine and into the warm, wet place between her thighs. She couldn’t help but spread her lips and bare her teeth to him with a short hiss, aware that they were throbbing in her mouth.
“Are you going to bite me again, baby? I almost came the last time, it was so good. I think this time I want you to do it with my cock buried deep inside you.”
“Oh God,” she muttered, closing her eyes tight and dropping her forehead into the curve of his shoulder. She was both horrified and horribly turned on by his admission, and didn’t know which was worse. “Just hurry up and fuck me.”
He laughed, a wholly male sound meant to torture and intimidate her. “Oh, no,” he taunted, tilting her face to his and waiting until she was forced to open her eyes or have him stand there staring at her for the rest of the night.
“There’s no hurrying between us, Max. I am going to fuck you. Be sure of that. I’m going to enjoy every minute of it too.” His eyes held arrogant promise and a smug determination that she didn’t doubt for a second. “You’re going to come twenty times in twenty ways, and it’s going to take… All. Night. Long.”
He punctuated each word with a hot, wet kiss. Kisses meant to make her beg for mercy, beg for more.
And she did.
Max melted, twining her arms around his neck because her wobbly legs were about to fail her, plastering her body as close to him as she could get. His hands were everywhere, smoothing up her spine, wrapping around her shoulders then back down to curve around the globes of her ass through the loose joggers she still wore. He curled one large hand under her knee and lifted her leg up, settling it high on his hip, then stroked his palm along the back of her thigh.
Max was equally involved in an in-depth exploration of Baron’s body, testing the width of his biceps under her fingers before tickling the rippling muscles of his abs just to see them twitch and bunch for her. She sighed and rubbed her cheek against the raspy stubble of his chin. The abrasion on her skin was rough and erotic and made her think about how it was going to feel to have his face buried between her legs.
For long moments they simply enjoyed touching, tasting, learning the contours of each other’s bodies. But soon their touches grew more frantic and urgent, their kisses more insistent and their breathing rapid. Hearts pounding in tandem, chest against chest.
Baron stepped back. With his eyes locked to hers he shucked first his pants, then the tight boxer briefs.
Max’s breathing hitched and her eyes widened. God, he was beautiful.
His answering grin was cocky and sure. The man definitely had no illusions about his effect on women—on her.
Baron’s heavy erection rose high and proud between them as he pulled her back into his embrace and hooked his thumbs into the drawstring waistband of her pants—which were really his pants of course—reinforcing just how big they were on her by how quickly he had them pooled at her ankles on the floor.
Max moved to step out of them, but he had already scooped her up in his arms, then just as quickly she was flat on her back, her body spread across the width of the bed. He held her down with a hand splayed wide across her belly and looked his fill.
“Baron, what are you doing?” She tried to rise, wanting to touch him. “I want to—”
“Hush. You’ll get your turn.” His voice was scratchy and hoarse, as if the words were hard to get out. “But I’m first.” He moved his big body on top of her—chest to chest, thigh to thigh—and Max groaned at the delicious heaviness. She arched her back and gripped the tight muscles of his arms in an attempt to get even closer. They bunched and flexed as he held himself over her.
When he kissed her—a wet, open-mouthed kiss that said he could easily have gobbled her up whole—Max nearly wept. She wanted more. So much more.
He stopped, but only to gaze into her eyes with a dark, unfathomable expression she was afraid to try to decipher.
“Baron,” she whispered with a small shake of her head, pleading with him not to say anything. Not now. She just wanted to feel. Not to talk or think—that would come later, along with the regrets.
Maybe he understood. He dropped his gaze to her mouth, swiping a thumb over her lips until she gently bit the tip then eagerly sucked it inside her mouth. She was careful to refrain from grazing him with her vampire teeth, even though the urge to do it was almost too strong to resist.
“I’m going to taste you now,” he promised her with a wicked smile. His husky voice had just as much of an effect on her as his kiss and his touch.
Lazily, he made his way down her body, dropping kisses and sharp little nips along her sensitized skin as if they had nothing but time, when in reality she was going to burst into flames in less than a minute.
“Your taste haunts me even after all this time, Max. I can’t wait to have your sweetness on my tongue again.”
He pushed her thighs wide, and if Max hadn’t already been so far gone she would have protested—or at least blushed—at being so exposed, so open to him. Vulnerable. This was Baron, after all, and she should be wary. But Max was way beyond that. Instead she spread her legs wider, practically begging him to come to her, take her.
She thought he would simply dive in, but true to his word, nothing about what Baron had planned for her was rushed.
He started with light, fleeting kisses along the soft, sensitive insides of her thighs, kisses that moved higher and higher but never quite r
eached the pulsing core of her.
Finally, with one finger, he traced the line of her slit, drawing out the silky cream that betrayed her readiness, her eagerness. “God, Max, you’re so fucking wet. I could take you now without any more play and you’d come with the first thrust of my dick, wouldn’t you?”
She groaned, her body singing. She squirmed beneath him and her breath caught when he slid one finger deep inside her.
“Wouldn’t you?” he repeated.
Her head twisted back and forth and her hips arched into his hand, urging him deeper. “Yes…God yes,” she whispered on the exhale.
He joined his finger with another, plunging them into her in a tantalizing rhythm. “Then come for me now, Max,” he ordered. “Do it. I want to see it.”
“Baron—” She knew she would do it. Just because he’d told her to. Her body was so ready, so primed. So eager to please and be pleased.
“Now, Max,” he said. “Scream through it. I want everything. I want to feel you and taste you and hear you coming.” He put his mouth on her, drawing her clit between his teeth, and she did scream. His fingers thrust, his tongue worked against her, in her, and she screamed as she came. Hard and fast, her body convulsing on waves and waves of ecstasy.
He worked her until he had drawn every last thrumming pulse out of her and then he was pulling himself back up her body. Even though her eyes were tightly closed, she could feel the weight of his stare. “Look at me.”
She shook her head. She didn’t want to open her eyes, wasn’t ready to face the challenge she knew he was throwing down. He grasped her thigh and pulled her leg over his shoulder so she was wide open and ready to receive him.
“Look. At. Me.”
She could feel him poised there at her entrance, rubbing himself in her juices. She rolled her hips in an attempt to entice him, but he wasn’t budging. He always had to have it his way.
She opened her eyes and drowned in his silvery depths, acknowledging the connection but refusing him the words.
He roared, a sound full of wild triumph and primal alpha satisfaction as he surged into her in one smooth stroke, filling her, his cock pushing so deep. She screamed again, digging her nails into his back and arching her hips, taking more, wanting everything he could give her.
Chapter Thirteen
Sliding into Max felt like coming home, finding heaven, and every other clichéd axiom that had ever been coined for what was simply the best feeling in the world.
He gritted his teeth against the overwhelming sensations—the pounding of his heart against his ribs, the throbbing of his cock thrusting into her slick, tight passage—knowing that if he didn’t stay in control, it was all going to be over way too soon.
My God. This was Max. Maxine.
Finally.
“Max.” His voice was rough, hoarse with desire and need. “I want your bite. I want your teeth in me while I’m fucking you.”
“Oh God, Baron,” she murmured against his mouth. She wet her lips, her eyes darting to his neck, to the pulse point thumping hard against his skin. She caught a short little breath, her teeth pulling on her bottom lip. He saw the flash of elongated incisor and his hips instinctively slammed into her harder, making her cry out.
“Are you sure?” He could tell the idea excited her just as much as it did him.
“Fuck yeah,” he assured her. He wanted this. Not only because it was sexy and kinky, and he liked that. But also because he wanted her to know there was nothing about her that he didn’t love, nothing about her that he couldn’t accept. He wanted her to share with him what she wouldn’t with any other man—hell, if he examined his motives under bright lights and with microscopic lenses, he’d have to admit that he wanted this act to tie them together so irrevocably she’d never be able to go to another man.
He was the one who could fulfill all her needs. He was the only one.
And wasn’t that ironic, coming from the same man who’d walked out on her and the life they could have had, without a word of explanation or even a goodbye.
Shit, he was screwed up.
But right now none of that mattered. All that mattered was Max and giving her what she needed. “Come on, baby,” he urged, hips pistoning hard. He was losing control fast, his body already tensing, his balls tightening, every nerve ending ready to explode.
Then she did it. He watched as her eyes glittered with passion and instinct, her lips pulling back and her already long incisors lengthening into deadlier points.
She looked absolutely magnificent. Beautiful, powerful, sexy as hell.
She’s mine.
The thought slipped through his subconscious before he could stifle it. Ah, hell.
He brought his hand to the back of her neck, guiding her to him, but was surprised when her lips settled not on his neck but over his chest, her teeth piercing him right over the heart.
That was it. He couldn’t hold on any longer.
“Max,” he cried, one hand fisted at her waist while the other was propped in the pillow by her head. He held himself over her as his hips surged into the snug cradle of her body. Faster. Harder. Over and over. And then he felt her teeth withdraw, felt her coming again, her sex pulling at him, drawing him deeper with every one of her tight convulsions. He soared over the edge, roaring his release.
Baron held himself still, their hips fused. He wondered what she would say if he kept her like this forever.
With a sigh, he pressed his forehead to hers before leaning back to brush several long, damp strands of hair from her flushed face. She looked him right in the eye as her tongue darted out to catch a small drop of blood from the corner of her mouth, and he shuddered, his body reflexively thrusting forward one more time, wrenching a groan from his lips. He kissed her lightly on the mouth. The spicy, coppery taste of his blood lingered on her lips.
“Woman,” he muttered, his breathing still ragged. “You are dangerous.”
She smiled. Damn, he loved her smile. It had been so long that he’d almost forgotten how just that small tilt of her lips could bring sunshine and music spilling into the room.
Reluctantly withdrawing from the warmth of her body, he shifted to lie by her side. “How come I never knew that you were a private investigator?” he asked suddenly.
She looked surprised. “Because you never asked?”
“Well, I’m asking now. So why did you become a PI?”
“Why do you want to know?”
Baron hadn’t actually meant to ask, but the question had come out and he found that he wanted to know as much about her as she would tell him.
He shrugged. He propped himself up on an elbow so that he could look at her and keep touching her. “I don’t know, but I always thought that you’d be a great teacher, or maybe a nurse. Someone who would spend a lot of time with people. You have a way with people. They gravitate to you.”
When Max self-consciously reached for the bed sheet, trying to pull it over their still sweaty bodies, he shook his head and yanked the smooth linen from her fingers, tossing it down to the foot of the bed. She sighed, glaring at him with mock aggravation, but snuggled deeper into the wall of his chest.
“I don’t think I have that kind of effect on people,” she denied, but continued when he would have interrupted to insist, “I guess I actually became a PI because of you.”
He was stunned, his hands pausing in their relaxed exploration of her nakedness. “Because of me? Why?”
“Well, both you and Jackson.” She laughed. “When I was eighteen, I caught you guys keeping secrets from me, and I made it the mission of my senior year to figure out what the hell was going on.”
This was news to him. “Uh, I don’t think I remember that. I’m pretty sure it was you and Jackson always getting up to shit and keeping secrets from me, not the other way around,” he chuckled. The two of them had constantly been concocting some wild scheme, and at the last moment trying to con Baron into being the muscle for their half-baked plans. Max would enlist his h
elp then conveniently fail to mention some key component or another, thereby making sure he was the one who ended up in hot water when things invariably went wrong.
“What do you mean?” Max’s voice was deceptively innocent. She knew very well what he meant.
“What do you think I mean? What about Chicago?” He twined a finger around a lock of her hair and tugged.
Her laughter—so pure and fresh—touched him, warmed the heart he had believed to be long dead. “Chicago? But that was a fabulous trip. We all had a blast.”
He snorted his disagreement. Of course she and Jackson had had a great time. They’d played cards in the backseat of the car while Baron had done the two hour drive. They’d watched movies in the hotel and laughed together while Baron tried not to notice that Max was wearing only a skimpy pair of boy’s boxers and a tank top to sleep in. They’d fallen into blissful dreams with the deep exhaustion of excitement spent, while Baron had lain stiffly beside his brother, the sound of Max’s soft breathing in the other double bed keeping him awake.
Baron still remembered just how easily they had suckered him into that one.
Because of his illness, Jackson hadn’t attended school all year. Instead, he’d had his lessons sent home with a tutor so he would still be able to get his GED with the rest of the class.
It had been two months before the fiasco of Max’s senior dance. Baron had been finishing his first year of college and was home early that Friday because their mom was going out of town on business for the weekend.
As soon as he’d walked in the door, Max had approached him with her liquid, solemn blue eyes—eyes he’d been avoiding for months—and asked if he would take them to Chicago, assuring him they both had permission to go if he would agree to drive.
In his defense, Baron hadn’t actually bought that line of bullshit. But she’d started in with a sob story about how Jackson was missing out on so much because of his illness, including the senior class trip to Chicago, and he really wanted to go to the Field Museum of Natural History. Suffice it to say, Baron hadn’t been able to say no to her.