Xander (Billionaire Racers Book 1)

by Marsh,Anne

  Swimming together goes better than I expected. Xander seems content to wait for me to make up my mind. For the longest time, we just float together looking up at the stars. We bicker amicably over the location of the Big Dipper and then make up stupid names for the billion other constellations we can’t name.

  Xander turns his head to look at me. “You would like some champagne?”

  “I should get out.” I’m slowly turning into a prune. Xander nods, lifts me out of the pool, and wraps me up in an enormous cotton towel. I wonder if he’s ever had a relationship where he’s not the one giving stuff.

  “Da. Sounds good.” He sets me on my feet, yanks on his jeans, and pads away into the house. Guess I merit personal butler service. While he plays fetch, I wander back into the bedroom. It’s gorgeous, which comes as no surprise. Xander’s decorator is top-notch and has brought to life a Moorish fantasy. I can hear the ocean, but there must be a dozen tiny fountains tucked away in his secret garden as well, and I can smell the jasmine here too.

  Xander thinks I’m here to seal a business deal. He has no clue how I feel about him, how I’ve always felt. I used to watch him when I was dating his stepbrother, hoping he’d look at me, just once, and see me. Sleeping with him now is the kind of mistake I’ve dreamed about. He’ll take care of the Petrov family and me. He won’t renege on our deal, and my dad will have the security he deserves. It’s just that… I want more.

  I want Xander, not the head of the Volkov family.

  Still thinking, I strip off the damp bikini and wrap his robe around myself. When I look in the mirror, my hair is a tangle of curls and waves. I look needy. Flushed. Greedy. My answer is staring back at me.

  Xander crosses the room in the mirror. He’s brought the champagne, and I’m sure it’s the best and most expensive champagne ever. I could probably buy a small sofa for what that bottle cost, and it’s so not what I want right now that I could cry.

  So it’s up to me to change that.

  He sets the bottle down and pops the cork with sure, confident movements. I get on the bed. When he turns around, two flutes in his hand, I’m ready for him.

  “Come here.”

  XANDER

  I can take orders in a good cause. I set the flutes down. Lily looks fucking hot in my robe, the heavy cotton slipping off her shoulder as she comes up on her knees. When I reach her, she touches me, running her hands down my chest with a soft hum of approval. She does not want my champagne—she wants me.

  Lily has one hand on my dick and the other on my heart. She can squeeze my dick all she wants—it is the other I am not so sure about. We have unfinished business between us, and sure I want to be inside her. That has made me feel guilty as fuck for years, but she is not that girl anymore. Her fingers find me through my jeans. Tighten. Trace the hard-on I have for her.

  Da. I fucking waited for this.

  For her.

  All these years I honestly thought there was no chance she would come back voluntarily. She was sixteen. Scared. I was the big, bad hitman who stepped in to save her ass and then extracted a price of his own. She whispered sorry when we got married, as if she believed I had been forced, when I had done everything I could to make ensure I stood there beside her. I was hers from the moment I laid eyes on her anyhow—she is simply collecting on that debt now.

  “Mine,” she whispers roughly and tries to wrap her fingers around my dick through the denim. That is not so easy to do, but I award her points for trying. My dick would like to note that she is all grown up now. She is no little girl. It is okay if we do this—we are married, for fuck’s sake, and this is what married people do.

  I cannot let her go.

  I have pretended all these years, pretended it is okay that she is not by my side. That instead she is off somewhere else, living and working and maybe starting a new life with some other guy who is nicer, sweeter, better family material. I married her, and I let her walk. I let them lock me up, and then I put as much distance between her and me as I could. She erased that space when she came to me in Miami, and now there is only three fucking inches between us. Those inches are nowhere near enough to stop me from touching her.

  She leans forward, almost toppling off the bed.

  “Oops,” she giggles.

  I love her laugh. I love hearing her happy.

  If she hits the floor, I will be there to catch her. To go down with her. This is 100 percent the truth.

  “Get in bed.” She has busy hands, my lovely Lily. Her fingers find me through the gaps between the buttons of my jeans. The soft butterfly stroke on my bare dick rocks me. It is not as if I am about to turn her down, not when she touches me way too fucking gently, and it turns out I do not mind soft and easy at all. Her face flushes, her lips parting as she stares at my dick. Her nipples form hard little peaks, and I need to get my mouth on her.

  Just got one thing to do first.

  “Tell me you are sure.” I cup her jaw, lifting her head so I can see her eyes. I am not taking chances with this. She leans into me with a husky moan.

  “Yes,” she says, and that is good enough. I push her robe open all the way and open up the best Christmas present ever. I have had a fantasy or fifty about peeling that little string bikini off her, but turns out that naked is even better. She is beautiful.

  “Yes,” she repeats and squeezes. Jesus. Christ. Her other hand discovers my balls through the worn denim of my jeans and it is as if she flips my go switch. I want her bad. I am not a nice guy. Nice gets you killed by the Russian mob, and I am a big fan of living. I like sex. I like it hard and rough, with me pounding all out into my partner. Orgasms for all absolutely, but I am not about poetry and candles and romantic shit. This house is as far as I go, and it is just a fucking set, a token effort at setting the mood and saying stuff I never feel.

  Tonight, I would like to learn how to be Mr. Right. She has said yes. Twice tonight and once six years ago when her daddy dragged my sorry-not-sorry ass in front of a justice of the peace. I step back, yank my jeans open, and shove them down my legs, beating all known records for speed undressing. It is not as if I can keep the woman of my dreams waiting. She has nefarious plans for my body, and I am honor-bound to help her out with those.

  Tonight, Lily Petrov is my Mrs. She’s mine.

  Or I am fucking hers.

  It is not as if there is a difference.

  Sliding an arm beneath her back, I take her down to the bed, and she issues me a goddamned handwritten invitation. Her legs circle my hips, the too-large robe sliding down her arms as she moans. Fuck me. How could I back off now? I want in, and she is not precisely asking me to go slow. So I settle in to enjoy my view and to find out if she tastes as good as she looks.

  I cage her head with my hands, my arms brushing the sides of her face. That goes in the feel-good column, but I should make sure. I lower my mouth to her throat and lick. Fuck, she tastes good. I pretend I am the one in control here as I brace myself over her and kiss her pretty throat. Find the spot where her pulse slams against her skin. She is so beautiful it hurts, and I am an ugly bastard. She is as gorgeous on the inside as she is on the outside, and yet she trusts me to get this right. No fucking pressure, da?

  I kiss her with everything I have, fisting her damp hair until my fingers are wound tight in the lush, slick strands. Holding on to her. Running my fingers through it to see if it feels as good as I think it does. I kiss her and kiss her, my hips pressing against hers until she’s moaning and pushing back hard.

  No mercy.

  She is spread for me and all mine.

  My fucking, wonderful, amazing wife.

  “Lily.” I must say her name, have to remind myself to suck in a breath of air because it is unbelievable she is here in my arms, wanting the same things I do. Her hands come up, grabbing my wrists, sliding over my palms until she is all tangled up with me too.

  She looks up at me, her mouth parted for my kiss, and I stand at the peak of the world’s tallest wave, about to go f
lying or free-falling. Maybe I slam down hard into the trough and the world goes crazy upside down. I have no idea what comes next, but it involves kissing. She arches toward me, her eyes drifting closed.

  “You’re the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.” That does not come out right. She is not a thing. She is the acme, the fastest wave, the smoothest current, the wind in my sails. My brain is not getting the words to my mouth, though, because she feels so good. If I keep her in bed for a week, maybe I can figure out how to tell her that.

  Her breasts are a handful I need to palm now, all soft, pale skin and the sweetest pair of nipples that beg for kisses. I run a finger over the white marks from her bikini top, circling the sensitive tips. She squirms, and guess what? That gets me going too. There is nothing she can do that I will not love. I am goddamned easy when it comes to my Lily. And since she is made to be worshipped, I get with the program. I cover her left tit with my mouth and suck hard.

  “Xander.” She fucking shrieks my name loud enough to be heard in Miami.

  I have imagined her like this thousands of time. I jerked off to those fantasies because I had to have some piece of her. The reality is so much better. Her long, blessedly bare legs tighten on my hips, her heels digging into my bare ass as she rocks against my dick. She is so wet that I slip through her folds.

  So I kiss her again because my wife deserves a reward. She kisses me right back, her fingers jerking at my hair and digging into my shoulders. My dick gets bigger too, with each mark she makes. I will wear her on my skin, and that is the best fucking trophy ever. I give, she takes, and then hallelujah, she returns my kiss with interest. I lick the soft seam of her mouth, nipping that lush lower lip that drives me crazy. She opens up. Christ. She goes all in, touching me back, her tongue meeting mine.

  I am not done with her tits. I cup her with my hand, feeling the satiny softness. She moans, her hands tracing the lines of my abdomen down, down, down until her fingers wrap around my dick in a fucking bull’s eye. Da. She grips my dick as if it is a handle, and she can lead me wherever she needs to go right now although I am hoping of course it is to the magic, happy land of Orgasm.

  I trace her pretty, pink nipples with my fingers. Soft, then harder. Her grip tightens on my dick with each pass I make. See? She makes me another invitation right there. She likes what I am doing. So I repeat the slow tease again and again. Teasing her. I can do this all night if it gets her where I need her to go. If it makes her happy. I am a giver like that, and while those are my fingers working her tight nipples, I am the one who is actually wrapped around her fingers.

  When I lean down and suck her into my mouth because I have to taste her, she is like the sweetest of cherries. Soft and vulnerable. Sweetly passionate. Lily is goddamned perfect. I switch, kissing my way over to her other breast because I need to taste all of her. She lets a moan rip, her heels digging harder into my ass. But I have her pinned wide and she has to ride out the sweet ache.

  I slide my hand down her stomach. My wife’s pussy is slick and hot and so, so wet. I need to lick her there. Need to make her scream my name because what we have got right now is so goddamned good. She thinks I do not know her, but I am learning what makes her gasp and shriek because it makes her feel good. That must count for something.

  I drive my fingers inside her. Fuck, that is even better.

  “Xander—” She bucks, taking me deeper.

  “Right here,” I promise and move my fingers.

  I circle my thumb and forefinger around her clit, plumping her, and she goes over the edge with another shriek. I feel the small pulses rippling through her pussy as she comes in a short, hard burst. This is better than any race or trophy. She stares up at me, dazed, as she comes undone, and I cannot stop looking back. She has me mesmerized, and I feel like the fucking king of the world. I did that for her. I will do it over and over too, make her come on my fingers and my mouth. Roll on a condom and try it all over again but inside her.

  LILY

  I’m one up in the orgasm race. Winner. I stare up at Xander, and I can’t form a single coherent thought. I should do something, say something, but all I can do is feel. Xander growls.

  “You keep looking at me like that, and you will never leave this bed.”

  He reaches into a drawer in the table beside the bed and then he’s got a condom in his hand and he’s rolling it down the biggest dick I’ve ever seen. Not that I’ve actually seen that many in person (my dick count still stands at precisely one because I’ve been married for the past six years), but I’ve got the Internet. And a really active imagination. His dick is thick and impressively long, and I need it inside me yesterday.

  He cradles my face with his big hands as he pushes into me.

  “I like that look on your face,” he says, and then he comes into me and he’s not stopping, and it’s been so long that I’m tight, my body stinging for a long minute as he works himself inside me.

  He stretches me, whispering words. I belong to him now. We’ve sealed our deal. He mixes Russian with English, and I don’t care. It’s not like I’m capable of thinking right now.

  Rock steady, he drives himself in and then out. My hips rise to meet his because my pussy doesn’t plan on letting him go any more than my mind or my heart does. He palms my hips, holding me in place as he moves deeper, opening me up until he’s all the way inside me and there’s no going back.

  Which is fine. I don’t want back.

  I intend to go forward. Xander’s all the future I want, and I tilt my hips up, taking him deeper. My knees hug his sweat-slicked back as he thrusts deeper, harder, my fingers digging into his shoulders as I anchor myself in him.

  He bottoms out, touching me as far as he can get inside me, and I shatter, crying out.

  I love you.

  God. Did I say that out loud? Scream it? His rhythm falters, and that’s a clue. I did. Love isn’t part of our deal.

  He doesn’t say anything.

  He just kisses me, cutting off my words with his gorgeous, wicked, too sexy mouth with his, and I let go. The words still hang in the air between us, but his lips make talking impossible. He pins me down, driving me over the edge again until there are no more barriers left between us and I don’t want them anyhow. I don’t care what I’ve said or how he feels. I don’t care that he’s not giving me the words back. Instead, he fucks me hard and with savage intensity, and it’s so good, so perfect that I come hard.

  I don’t believe in real-life princesses, knights in shining armor, or rescues delivered from horseback. I’ve certainly never believed in happily ever after. Xander, however, doesn’t demand, doesn’t ask questions I can’t answer. Instead, his strong, capable fingers gently explore my scalp, at odds with the hard, rough promise of his big fighter’s body, and I let go and fall asleep in his arms.

  7

  XANDER

  I do not like letting go of Lily to take care of business, but it is business that will make her safe so it is important. I slip out of our bed while she is still sleeping. The sun is just coming up now over the ocean, spilling the first light into our bedroom. I have learned more things about Lily. She likes to burrow her face into the pillow when she sleeps and she steals our covers. I like that she has something of the thief in her too. Maybe she will understand me better then.

  When I pad out into the living room, Liam and Jack look up expectantly. My bodyguards brought them up to the house earlier and I made them wait for me. I cannot bring myself to care. This win is all for Lily. It gives her what she wants, the price tag she has put on staying by my side.

  Jack tosses me a paper bag when I enter the room. “Brought you breakfast.”

  I set the bag on the table. I have a chef. I do not need whatever he has brought, although probably he means well. All I want now is his promise that he will look after my Lily if I cannot. I do not need his property or his cash—just his word. Even now I am thinking about her and what it felt like when she finally let me inside. She was slick and hot
, so tight I barely fit. I have never felt like that before. She is absolutely perfect.

  “Congratulations.” Liam sprawls on my couch, his booted feet on my coffee table. He is rude and I do not give a fuck. I would feel the same if he had won our race yesterday. “You win.”

  I do.

  “You will stop going after the Petrovs now. You will leave my Lily alone.” I tick off my points one by one. “You and your people will not so much as look at her face, da?”

  “Got it.” He scowls, though, looking unhappy. There is more at stake here than his family’s failed attempt to muscle in on Petrov territory. “No terrorizing the Petrov princess.”

  “I will kill you if you come after her.” I would regret the necessity, but I would do it.

  Liam looks completely unconcerned. “Do you know what her old man has been up to?”

  I shrug. Liam knows something that I do not, and he is enjoying his private knowledge. “He has been sick. He has not had time to get up to much.”

  Liam laughs. “He’s been making deals with Georgians. You really want them playing in our backyard?”

  No, I do not. They shoot first and ask questions never. Lily would never be safe if her father has made deals with the Georgian mafia. “I will take care of it.”

  “How?” Liam leans forward. “What pull do you have on him?”

  “I married his daughter,” I say.

  Liam waves his hand. “And he has never acknowledged you. No one knew about your ties to the Petrovs before you kissed your darling bride yesterday. Fuck, if I had known, I would have come straight to you and skipped the princess.”