And she didn’t want to.
His fingers slid inside her, increasing the pressure that had started to build at her core.
“Max…” His name drifted out of her lips, the voice desperate and breathless, hardly recognizable as her own.
He lifted his head, his fingers still moving inside her. "You taste so fucking good, Abby. So fucking sweet.”
He closed his mouth around her clit, flicking it with his tongue while he sucked, the rhythm working with the penetration of his fingers to amplify the signal of her impending orgasm.
A few seconds later, the pressure shifted, the flat of his tongue coming down hard on the bursting pearl as his fingers picked up speed. The tension in her body skyrocketed, hovering at the breaking point for a split second, suspending her until she felt like she was levitating in the moment before shudders coursed through her body.
She was only vaguely aware of her cries in the room as she shook in his hands, grinding her pussy against his face, wanting to extend the pleasure rolling through her body, a runaway force she had no desire to stop.
He buried his face deeper into her, every inch of her pussy occupied by his fingers and mouth as he devoured her, extending her release until she was so overwhelmed with sensation — with the beauty of the release — that tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes.
She wasn’t aware of the orgasm ending. She was in another place, floating on the top of blue-green water, the red rock canyons of the desert rising on either side, nothing but the sounds of her breathing and the soft lap of water.
Something fluttered against her temple and she opened her eyes to find Max kissing the tears from her skin.
“Thank you,” he murmured. “You’re so beautiful. So lovely, so brave, so strong.” He spoke between kisses — to her forehead, her nose, across her cheeks. “I love you. You’re safe.”
She stroked his back with her fingers, let the emotion come, let the tears cleanse her of fear and shame. She was breathing. She was in her body. She was with Max.
And he was right — she was safe.
She wasn’t immediately aware of the desire reigniting in her stomach. It built slowly, like the roar of an incoming wave, the slow gathering of a strong wind. She moved her hips against his, drawing up her knee to feel his rigid shaft slide against her sensitive clit.
He covered her mouth with his, his tongue making slow but demanding sweeps as the brush of his cock stoked the fire of her pussy. Its proximity only highlighted the vacuum at her center, the yawning need opening up inside her, a demand only he could fill.
“I need you inside me, Max. Now.”
He pushed back on her knees until she was wide open for him.
She watched him through half-closed eyes as he ran his immense cock through her folds. She pushed down against him as he bypassed her opening, her body intuitively seeking the one thing it needed most.
She moaned as he rubbed his swollen crown against her clit, and he chuckled, mischief in his eyes as he watched her writhe.
“Tell me what you want, sweetheart.”
She opened her eyes to look at him. She wanted him to know how much she needed him. How much she loved him.
“I want you to fuck me, Max. I want you to fuck me hard.”
She was waiting for the penetration of his cock, waiting for him to pillage her, when he flipped her on top of him. The sudden perspective shift was disorienting — Max’s glorious body under her as she straddled him, her own view of the bed and room remarkably different.
“I have a better idea, sweetheart. You fuck me.”
Twenty-Two
She was even more magnificent on top of him, even more powerful. His cock was throbbing with the need for release, the smell of her sweet pussy still on his hands, the taste of her on his mouth.
He’d wanted nothing more than to fuck her into oblivion after she’d come against his mouth. He’d been almost blind with desire, his cock painfully engorged.
But something had shifted when she’d allowed him to taste her.
To really see her.
She’d given up something to him, had relinquished some of her hard-won control. He sensed that she might need some of it back, that being so completely overtaken by him might be frightening in spite of the physical pleasure.
He didn’t want it to come back to bite her later, didn’t want it to sneak up on her once the sensations of their lovemaking were dulled with hindsight.
He wanted to leave her with some control. To make sure she understood that he would never dominate her unless she wanted to be dominated. That while he might sometimes dominate her body, she could reclaim that control anytime she wanted.
And she would always dominate his heart. His soul.
She bent over him, her body like a sheet of silk as she took his head in her hands, her hair a waterfall around their faces. She kissed him slowly, and he ran his hands over the swell of her hips, up her back and into her hair.
He was lost in the heat of her kiss, the fire of her wet pussy sliding against his cock. He wrapped her hair around one hand, gave it a gentle tug.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, sweetheart,” he said against her mouth, “but I’m not sure I can take any more foreplay. I fucking need to be inside you.”
He felt the curve of her lips as she smiled. She took his lower lip between her teeth and bit down just hard enough to send a quiver of fiery lust to the tip of his cock.
He growled and grabbed her hips. “You’re not playing nice.”
She leaned back and looked down at him. “Who said I was nice?”
She positioned herself over his cock, then took him in her hands.
“Fuck, Abby…”
He was all too aware that the haven of her body was only inches away. That one swift, upward thrust would find him buried in the embrace of her pussy.
He swelled further, pressure building at the tip of his cock as she kept up a rhythmic pressure on his shaft.
He slipped a hand between their bodies, wanting to stroke the softness of her sex both to distract himself and in the hopes she would have mercy, if only for her own sake.
She swatted his hand away. “You said I was in control.”
He let loose a string of curse words, then felt the heat of her opening against his tip.
She hovered there for a few seconds before raking her nails lightly down his chest, then sank onto him all at once.
He groaned as her pussy swallowed his cock, her tight channel resisting as he tunneled through her, putting even more pressure on his already bursting shaft.
He thought she might wait, that her body might need time to stretch. She surprised him by moving almost immediately, grinding her hips against his, searching for the friction on her clit that he already knew she loved.
He held onto her hips and worked with her, moving in time to her rhythm, resting the urge to lift her off his cock just so he could feel the pleasure of driving back into her.
She was right: he’d relinquished control.
This was her show, and apparently, she knew what she wanted.
She used her hands to gain leverage, flattening her palms on his stomach and leaning back to increase his penetration. He looked down at their joined bodies and the orgasm sizzled in his body, the sight of his cock buried to the hilt, the hair around her mound wet with their desire, almost sending him over the edge.
She seemed to sense it, and she leaned over him to get more leverage on the bed. She lifted her body off his, forgoing the grind for more penetration as she sank back onto him.
It was an erotic impalement, his cock disappearing inside her again and again as she moved faster, her tunnel tightening around him as her pussy swelled with desire.
He was lost to their movements — the silky slide through her heat, the almost painful loss when he emerged from inside her, the split second of misery before she plunged onto him again.
She moved faster, her hips taking up a combination of the grind she’d enjo
yed when she’d first straddled him and the penetration that was bringing them both closer to release.
He watched her, head flung back, chest flushed, petal-pink nipples at the center of her full breasts, and knew he’d never seen anything more beautiful. Her lips were parted, her breath coming in short, shallow gasps. He felt the brush of her long hair on the top of his thighs as she arched her back.
“I’m going to come again, Max.”
She sounded surprised by her loss of control, by the relinquishing of it to the demands of her body.
To him.
“I’m going to come with you, beautiful.” He took up the rhythm, holding her hips in place as she disappeared into the oblivion of her impending release.
Their movements were frenzied, Max losing his own grip on reality.
“Fucking come for me, Abby,” he growled as he plunged upward into her.
She cried out, the contractions of her pussy pushing him over the brink as he came, his hot semen spilling into her as he drove into her again and again. He was a man possessed.
Possessed by her.
There was nothing but the welcome fire of her body, obliterating every vestige of his old self, creating a new one from the ashes of their union.
He was hers now.
Always.
She collapsed onto him, and he wrapped his arms around her and stroked her back while she caught her breath. He smoothed the damp hair back from her face, felt the whisper of her exhale against his bare chest when she spoke.
“I love you, Max. I love you.”
Twenty-Three
Sunlight was streaming into her bedroom when she woke the next morning. She lay there, her head against Max’s chest, and took in the morning light — the way it cast a shadow near the palm tree in the corner of the room, the way it lit the ceiling gold and suspended motes of dust like glitter.
It was all familiar, a vestige of her old life. Her old self.
It felt like it was moving away from her, like she was diving into the deep waters of the ocean. She didn’t know what swam below, didn’t know how deep the water was or even if she would remember to swim.
Panic surged inside her. It was daylight. There was nowhere to hide.
Nowhere to run.
She wasn’t sure she could do this, wasn’t sure she was equipped. Letting go of her physical hesitation was one thing — letting go of the emotional limitations that had been her friend, that had kept her safe, was something else.
Maybe she and Max had moved too fast. Maybe knowing someone as well as they knew each other was a detriment, not an advantage. Maybe the shine would wear off his feelings for her now that he’d conquered her, now that he’d breached the fortress of her body.
Her heart.
She would get up, take a page out of his playbook, make him breakfast and get him out the door so she could think.
Because she definitely couldn’t think with him there. Not with his naked body against hers under the sheet, her body loose after their long night of lovemaking, her sex sore in a way that somehow only made her want more.
This was the problem. She wasn’t thinking clearly. Her mind was a tangle of emotion — the war of wanting him and fearing him, of loving him and wanting to escape her love for him, a full-scale battle that would destroy her if she didn’t get some distance from it.
She started to slide away from him, trying not to disturb him. She was about halfway to the edge of the bed when his arm tightened, pulling her back against him.
She looked up to find him staring at her, his eyes surprisingly alert.
“Good morning, beautiful,” he said. “You’re not planning to run out on me, are you?”
“No,” she whispered. “Maybe.”
She was surprised when he smiled, a sleepy chuckle emerging from his mouth. “You can leave anytime you want, sweetheart. Or I can leave. But I was kind of hoping to take you to breakfast this time.”
She could hardly get the breath in and out of her body, let alone answer him.
He reached up and tucked her hair behind one ear. “It’s just you and me, Abby. How about we take this one step at a time?”
And now that she was looking at him, that he was looking at her that way, all their history, all their love, written plainly on his face, she suddenly wasn’t quite as scared.
She nodded and sank back into his arms. He pulled the covers up over her body.
“Abby the thief,” he whispered, kissing the top of her head.
“Thief?”
“Sneaking out in the morning,” he said softly. “Taking my heart.”
She smiled against his chest.
Twenty-Four
Max leaned against the bar in the casino and looked around, taking in the Moroccan lanterns casting soft light around the bar, the tapestries that hung from the walls, the richly patterned fabric that draped the windows.
The fact that he was in the Tangier at all was a testament to Abby. They’d gone out for lunch Saturday afternoon and had spent the rest of the day antiquing for her house. It had been silly and fun, Max trying to make her laugh by finding alternate uses for all the oddities they came across. Then they’d gone back to her place and it wasn’t silly anymore — although taking her in the kitchen was plenty of fun, his hunger for her matched by the urgency of her mouth and hands, the way she’d clutched his shoulders and screamed when he’d made her come with his mouth while she sat on the counter.
They’d made pasta for dinner, then watched a movie on the sofa before going to bed. She’d opened up to him a little more each time, both in the activities she would receive and the ones she tried, and he’d thought he’d died and gone to heaven when she took him in her mouth.
At first he couldn’t place the feeling of dread that dogged him all day Sunday, through two rounds of mini golf and an entire large pizza, half of which Abby ate herself, along with her share of wings and four garlic knots. Then he’d realized it was grief at the realization that the workweek meant he would be apart from Abby for more than fifteen minutes for the first time in two days.
And he didn’t want to be apart from her for longer than that.
She’d suggested he wait in the car while she run in to work to sign a last-minute check for a vendor who had been overlooked, but he found he didn’t want to be apart from her any longer than necessary.
Which was how he found himself inside Jason’s casino.
He had to hand it to the bastard — the place was impressive. In a city where it was getting increasingly difficult to add something new to the landscape, Jason had done it with the Tangier. It was more than the decor. Jason had made choices that were counter to traditional gaming theory, opting for the Playground model of placement, which encouraged players to have fun so they would stay longer, over the Gaming model, which had been designed to make gamblers lose track of time in dim light, under low ceilings, amid a warren of gaming tables that was purposefully maze-like.
The casino was hopping in spite of the fact that it was Sunday, the crowd at the bar boisterous as they watched a soccer game on four large-screen TVs.
He wondered whether dirty money had helped pay for the hotel or whether the criminal enterprise hadn’t come until later, wondered who would take over the casino when Jason went to prison and his assets were confiscated under the RICO Act?
Because Max was determined that Jason would be going to prison.
He’d been frustrated by his lack of progress during the last game, but now he knew the lay of the land. He’d already reserved a seat at the next game with the cars that remained from the initial inventory.
Nico hadn’t blinked when Max told Nico he’d lost forty-six cars, including eight Jags, seven Lamborghinis, ten Porsches, four Mercedes, three Ferraris, and fourteen BMWs. Max had turned over his own winnings, purposefully paltry given that he had no desire to actually purchase drugs, illegal weapons, or fake IDs.
And he definitely didn’t want to purchase a “Russian Rose”.
He’d been doubly glad for the weekend with Abby that kept him from thinking too hard about what would happen to the faceless woman now that none of the men in the game had won enough gold chips to claim the prize.
There was no guarantee that Max would have better luck getting ahold of Filippovic’s briefcase, but he liked his chances better now that he knew the rules of the game and the layout of the house.
He was prepared to be flexible, to keep his eyes open for anything other than the briefcase that might be incriminating. One thing led to another led to another in criminal investigations. One solid lead passed to the Feds through Nico could bring the whole operation tumbling down.
Max would do whatever he had to do to bring the mess to an end. He was eager to take Abby away, someplace with no flashing lights, no Jason Draper. Somewhere they could take long walks outside and fall asleep to the sound of the ocean crashing against a beach.
But first he had to finish this.
An arm slipped around his waist and Abby looked up at him with a smile.
“Ready?”
He bent his head to kiss her, surprised all over again by both the desire and emotion that overtook him when she molded her body to his. For a minute, they were enveloped in silence, the sounds of the casino receding until there was only the mingling of their breath, the sound of his heartbeat in his ears.
Or was that hers?
When he raised his head, a figure in the crowd caught his attention. He looked around, searching for the smooth head of dark hair, the straight shoulders and blue suit.
He could have sworn it was Jason.
But there were a lot of people — a wedding party moving through the casino, a drunken couple weaving their way around the tables, a group of men with lanyards, obviously part of some kind of conference.
“Everything okay?” Abby asked.
She’d been concerned about bringing him into the casino, not because of Jason, who kept odd hours on the weekends and usually stuck to his office, but because she knew the place had a lot of negative meaning for Max.
King of Sin: Las Vegas Syndicate Book One Page 15