by Mia Dymond
“I would suggest you make sure he follows through. I’ll grant you an extension but I expect a rapid resolution. Do not disappoint me or the consequences will not suit you. I’ll be in touch.”
The following silence was a welcome sound. He was tired of dealing with this situation. If something didn’t change soon, he would have to resolve the situation himself.
CHAPTER FIVE
Lexi took the cooler and her towel from the back seat of her car and joined the rest of the group on the sand. The beach at Mourning Dove Harbour was her favorite. For a Friday, it wasn’t crowded for a change.
“Hey, guys. The volleyball net is free right now,” Annessa announced. “How about girls against guys?”
Maverick smirked. “Easy win for us.”
Lexi raised an eyebrow. “Oh, you think so? Come on, girls, let’s take ‘em down.” She didn’t fully understand why, but Maverick brought out her competitive spirit. And she really wanted to win this time.
Verity elbowed her. “Don’t worry. We always win.”
“You do?”
Annessa nodded. “We have a secret weapon.”
“What’s that?”
Vanessa grinned and slid her shorts down her legs. “Bikinis.”
“Ah, yes.” Lexi pulled her top over her head. “This is almost cheating.”
“No, it isn’t.” Annessa shook her head as she shimmied out of her clothes. “We’re just using our assets to our advantage.”
Lexi lined up with her friends on one side of the net; the guys took the other.
Dane held up the ball and looked at the other men. “Should we spot them five points?”
Travis chuckled. “They should spot us five points since we always lose.”
“Yet we keep coming back for more,” Maverick drawled. “Why is that?”
“The view.”
Lexi watched Dane serve the ball and Annessa jumped to spike it back to the opposite side.
“Heads up, Mav!” Travis shouted.
Maverick turned just in time to hit the ball back over the net.
They went back and forth; guys ahead, then girls. Before long, the score was 9-10 in the girls’ favor.
“How does the scoring work?” Lexi spiked the ball over the net and it hit the sand. Right in front of Casey’s feet.
Travis chuckled. “Way to go, Sheriff.”
Maverick answered Lexi’s question. “First team to 21 wins. But you have to win by two points.”
Verity served next. She hit the ball hard and sent it up and over the net. Dane returned it. The girls kept it up off the ground, hit it between them a few times, and then returned it back over the net.
By the time Annessa served the last ball with the score 20 to 19 in their favor, Lexi was hot and sweaty. She really hoped someone would miss the ball.
“Hey, Maverick,” she said across the net. “I’ll let you lather me up with sunscreen if you miss the next serve.”
“Aw, hell,” Travis mumbled. “You girls win.”
“Hang on, I didn’t agree to anything,” Maverick insisted.
“You will.” Casey grinned. “Hell, I would.”
Maverick gave her a smirk. “Okay, you win.”
“Yes, I do.” Lexi tilted her head to one side. “You need to cool off first?”
“Yeah, I’ll be back in a minute.”
Lexi watched all four men head for the ocean and dive headfirst into the waves. She followed the other women to the area where they’d laid out beach towels.
Verity waved a bottle of sunscreen. “Lather up, ladies. Well, all except Lexi.” She squirted a big dollop in each lady’s palm and then in her own.
Annessa smeared the lotion over her legs. “So Lexi, did you and Maverick bet on the game?”
Lexi attempted to glare at her friend in the bright sunlight. “No, we didn’t bet this time.”
“How come?”
“Lady Luck isn’t usually on my side,” she mumbled.
Her friend frowned. “Someone’s bag is ringing.”
Lexi rolled over and groaned. “That’s mine.”
“Don’t you ever take a day off?” Verity called after her as she sprinted across the sand.
“Look who’s talking.”
“It’s not my phone that’s ringing.”
Lexi checked the caller ID and sighed as she answered. “Hello, Dimitri. What can I do for you today?”
“I’m calling about the sale. My buyer is ready to pay top dollar. In fact, he raised his offer by ten more percent.”
“I haven’t had a chance to look over the contract yet.”
“What? Why not? This is a great deal. Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”
“I realize you know what you’re doing. But I won’t consider an offer until I’ve gone through the contract, word for word. And you know I’m skeptical anyway.”
“Be realistic, Lexi. It’s just dirt and grass.”
“Listen.” Lexi pinched the bridge of her nose, determined to avoid an argument. No way would she allow him to spoil a perfect day. “Give me until Saturday night to review it. Then we’ll talk.”
“Fine. But no later than that.”
She didn’t bother with a response before she disconnected and then jogged back to the group just in time to see the other couples brave the water and Maverick sprawl out on her towel.
“Squatter,” she teased as she sat beside him. “Scoot over.” Her body warmed even more when she nudged him with a hip.
He simply smirked and laid back with his hands behind his head, oblivious to how overheated her body was. “Where’s your sunscreen?”
She reached into her bag and handed him a bottle. He sat up and scooted close behind her.
She moved her hair and welcomed the cool lotion on her heated skin. “We need to talk about your decision to sell your house.”
His smooth hands did wonderful things to the surface of her skin as he continued to rub. “Oh yeah?”
She nodded. “It’s a big decision, Maverick.”
“Okay, we’ll talk.” He squeezed more lotion into his left hand and then snapped the strap of her bikini top. “At my house tonight.”
***
He resisted the urge to punch a hole in the wall as he paced the length of his hotel room and waited for his phone call to connect. This report wouldn’t set well and he had no idea how he could soften the blow. Better just to spit it out.
“Things are not looking good,” he spewed into the phone. “The target refuses to budge.”
“We are running out of time!” His ears rang with the force of the other man’s words. “We must have cooperation.”
“I agree, but it seems the target is smarter than we thought.”
“Smarter? We never doubted the intelligence. We were told the messenger could work around it.”
“I’ve given him –“
“Entirely too much credit,” his boss stated firmly. “You must take matters into your own hands.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And if you cannot succeed, then both of you will suffer.”
***
Lexi walked around Maverick’s living room, brushing one hand across the tops of the sofas, again admiring the work he had put into it.
“Are you sure you really want to sell, Maverick?”
“You don’t think I should?”
She paused to consider his question for a brief moment. The house was perfect, in her opinion. Every room, every piece of furniture, every surface of the house had Maverick’s brand on it.
“Do you want my professional or personal opinion?”
“Both.”
“Professionally, yes. You’d make quite a profit.”
“And personally?”
“Personally, no. You’ve made this house yours. You’ve erased any evidence of Natalie and now you just need to replace the old memories with new ones.”
He met her at the end of the sofa nearest the doorway. “Think so?”
She nodded, mesmerized by the look
of hunger in his eyes. Hunger to do as she suggested. Hunger to get on with his life. And, if she wasn’t mistaken, hunger for her.
“Let’s make a bet.”
She groaned. “Oh geez, what now?”
“Betcha can’t stop at one kiss.”
“I always lose when I bet you.”
He chuckled. “If you can’t stop after one kiss, I keep the house. If you can, I sell.”
“C’mon Sexy Lexi, you might enjoy losing this one.”
She paused briefly to consider his proposition. God, he was lethal to a woman’s common sense. With his lips quirked with a hint of a smile, he was a poster boy for big, bad, and dangerous. Warning bells clanged in her head.
And then he flashed her that bad-boy smile. Oxygen left the room.
“Yes,” she murmured.
He pushed himself off the frame and closed the distance between them. His hands found the curves of her hips with ease.
“Good girl,” he told her as he eased her against him.
With her hands braced on his lean hips and her forehead pressed to his chest, she took a deep breath, inhaling the clean, musky, masculine scent of him. Pheromones swirled around them, pushing her to open her mouth over the exposed skin at the base of his neck. She moved her tongue over the smooth surface, licking the small area before sinking her teeth into the flesh in a playful bite.
She smiled when a masculine grunt vibrated his chest.
With one last tug on his skin, she closed her lips in a soothing suction just before she lifted her mouth. Then, with her body screaming, she took a step back, grasped his shirt, and pulled it from his waistband.
“I want skin,” she told him as she moved her fingers to unbutton each of the seven buttons.
Once it lay open, she took time to move her gaze over the hard planes of his chest, now marked with her own personal brand. She moved her hands over the slabs of his pectorals and then downward. His breath hitched as her fingers touched the bare flesh of his abdomen, and then his mouth was at her ear, nibbling on her lobe.
Extreme desire fluttered her abdominal muscles and moisture pooled between her legs as he continued to suck and nip. Almost at their own accord, her hands moved to the sexy v-cut of his obliques. She trailed her fingers along the valley of each side until he reached between them and wrapped his fingers around each wrist.
She stepped back and gave him a grin. “What’s the matter? Afraid you’ll lose?”
“You go any further and we both lose.”
She made a clucking sound with her tongue. “Surely you can prevent that unfortunate scenario.”
He stood silent for a few seconds, his inner battle quite evident in the depths of his eyes. And then the cocky grin returned.
“Only if you behave.”
“Behave how, exactly?”
“If I tell you to stop, you stop.”
“Hmmm.” She pretended to consider his request. “And if I don’t?”
He reached forward and tilted her chin with one finger. “If you don’t, the consequences will be so pleasurable, you won’t ever recover.”
“Promise?” she whispered.
“Promise.”
Now empowered by his confessed desire, she stepped close and reached between them to cup the obvious bulge beneath his jeans. Electricity climbed her spine and zapped her nerve endings like lightening. The long, hard strength of him spurred her to hold on tight and never let go.
He took her mouth in a severe kiss, almost swallowing her whole.
Beneath his lips, she released a moan as she moved her fingers over the denim in an effort to touch every inch beneath. He pressed himself further into her hands as she continued to play, rubbing his shaft with her palm and then closing her hand to fist him in her grip.
Desperate to feel more of him, she lowered his zipper and slipped her hands inside and under the waistband of his boxers. Once she held tight to the pulsing muscle, she began a slow and easy stroke. Down, up, over his weeping head, and then down again.
Her original plan was to keep her rhythm slow, both to tease him and to keep her end of the bargain, but when his hips began to buck against her, the plan changed. His obvious pleasure fueled her desire and suddenly, his consequences didn’t sound like punishment at all.
She made no attempt to clear her lust-filled mind as she tightened her hold and accelerated her stroke.
Within milliseconds, a heavy hand covered hers and Maverick separated their lips. “Stop, Lexi.”
Filled with a sense of mischievous naughtiness, she moved her gaze into his and gave him a smile injected with syrup while she continued to stroke.
A muttered curse left his lips as he extricated himself from her hold and braided their fingers. “You promised.”
“So, what do you intend to do about it?”
Maverick took one look at the warm, willing woman whose talented hands had pushed him to the brink of insanity and smirked, not surprised that she’d tested the limits of his warning.
“You lost on purpose, didn’t you?”
“You bet I did.”
“Why?”
“Because I love both you and this house, Maverick.”
He released her hands, placed one on top of the other, and then squeezed his fingers around her wrists in a desperate attempt to keep them off his aching dick. She released a soft giggle, obviously not bothered by his restraint.
He tangled his free hand in her hair and pulled back her head, allowing his mouth access to her smooth, white throat. When he touched his tongue to the hollow where her pulse pounded hot and hard and fast, he could’ve sworn he heard a hiss of steam. His cock twitched in the small distance between them. Spontaneous combustion could possibly become an issue at the rate they were going.
He moved his tongue up the length of her neck and then back down again in an effort to tread lightly, to keep an iron control on his libido. Instead, the little voice of caution he was usually able to count on deserted him. The rapid rise and fall of her chest lifted her breasts and her hardened nipples rubbed his chest with every breath – he didn’t have half a chance at control.
He raised his head to gaze back into her eyes and knew they were both goners. Even though he warned her there would be consequences, he’d deal with them later – when his body wasn’t throbbing, his blood had cooled to something below the boiling point, and her eyes didn’t scream fuck me, Maverick.
He mentally laughed. Those words had probably never crossed her tongue, but the sultry look now painted on her beautiful, porcelain face told him she really, really wanted them to.
“You’re thinking some nasty thoughts, baby.”
“So are you,” she countered.
“I am.”
He didn’t give her a chance to respond. Instead, he lifted her over his shoulder, her magnificent ass right at biting level, and carried her out of the living room, up the stairs, and into the master bedroom. In less than ten seconds, he peeled her sandals from her feet before sitting her on the edge of the bed.
“And pretty soon, in the very near future, they won’t be thoughts.”
Very quickly, he shoved her top up and over her head and then reached behind to loosen her bra with a quick flick of a finger. He slipped the straps down and off each arm until the clothing lay on the floor.
“Put your arms around my neck,” he told her.
When she held tight, he lifted her once again and then deposited her back against the sheets. His fingers found the zipper of her skirt in mere seconds.
“Lift up, sweetheart.”
She lifted her hips and he pulled the pesky garment off her hips, down her legs and off her body until she lay there covered by nothing other than a pair of navy blue panties.
Again, he paused to appreciate the sight. The material barely covered her – a fact for which he was most grateful – and squeezed the treasure beneath in a tight bear hug. Desperate to touch, he moved his fingers across the top.
“Silk,” he murmured.
> She answered by lifting her hips into his touch.
“Geezus, Lexi.”
He eased himself on top of her, took her lips with his, and then began rocking against her, thigh to thigh, chest to chest, mouth to mouth. She twisted beneath him, rubbing her nipples against his chest, and thrusting her hips against his incredibly hard cock while inarticulate pleas attempted to escape from lips he claimed with his own.
Lord have mercy, we’ll burn alive.
He lifted his lips and rested his forehead against hers in an effort to shorten the leash on his savage beast of a libido.
“Off.” She tucked her hands into the sides of his waistband and yanked his jeans from his hips.
He rolled off the top of her, shrugged his shirt from his shoulders, shoved his pants and boxers off, kicked them to the floor, and then knelt between her legs. Her beautiful green eyes darkened to emerald-quality as he lowered his head.
Her fingers curled in his hair as his lips nibbled their way up the inside of first one thigh, then the other. Her body arched and she sucked in a deep, shuddering breath when he slid first one, then two fingers into the moist giving folds of her body and began to move them in and out of her with wet, silky ease.
“Maverick,” she moaned.
He lifted his head to see her eyes squeezed closed in her fit of passion. “Give it to me, Lexi.”
“No, it feels too good,” she insisted while she panted.
He arched both fingers upward as he continued to stroke and her hips bucked hard against him. “Look at me.”
She opened her eyes, her gaze now completely darkened by lust.
“Do it.”
He rubbed the swollen flesh deep inside her with both fingers, coaxing her body to give in, to give them both what he knew she wanted. She lifted her hips and thrust against him as his assault continued and then he felt her submission.
“Oh, yes,” she hissed.
Despite her strong will not to give in, the tormented muscles tightened around his fingers in a tight suction, pulsing under his touch, sucking them further inside. He continued to stroke her down until her body shook, his greedy cock cursing his patience.