Maxence’s hands roamed her body, his caresses getting rougher until she was gasping each time he grasped her flesh and squeezed.
He growled in her ear, “When I say face-down on the desk, I mean I want you lying face-down on the desk, your arms and legs spread, ready for me.”
She whispered, “Show me.”
Maxence steered her to stand up. She didn’t let herself flop like a ragdoll, but he evidently had some very specific things in mind.
He turned her to face the desk and, with his palm between her shoulder blades, firmly pressed her to bend from the waist until her forehead touched the green desk blotter. “Turn your head.”
She did, and she caught a glimpse of him standing over her. The lines of his face had hardened, almost like he was angry, but he wasn’t scowling.
He said, “Arms spread to the side, as wide as you can.”
She did.
“That’s for leverage and stability.”
She pressed her palms and fingers against the cool wood, hanging on with her fingertips.
“And spread your legs.”
Dree toe-heeled her feet wider, her toes scrunching into the high-heeled pumps. Because the heels on her pumps were so high and shifted her weight forward, her hip creases pressed against the desk. She almost couldn’t move.
He growled, “Don’t move your arms or your legs. You’re mine to play with.”
She nodded and stared at the books in the bookcase just beyond the edge of his desk. The bindings were maroon and black leather, and all the volumes were the same size.
The warmth of his hands touched her knees, and his big palms and fingers slid upward, shoving the tight stretchy fabric of her dress up and over her thighs until it was an elastic band around her waist and left her ass bare.
With one hand, he grasped her hip, while his other hand curved around the side of her ass cheek until he was holding the bottom of it. “Have I ever mentioned that you have the most beautiful bottom I think I’ve ever seen?”
Dree lifted her head and tried to look back over her shoulder. “I do?”
He pressed her face back against the green desk blotter. “No looking back. No talking.”
She laid her cheek on the felt blotter.
He stroked her ass with feathery touches at first, but then the petting turned to a massage of her ass cheeks and hips, reaching lower with each circular caress until one of his hands reached under her and between her legs, and he slowly rubbed the entrance to her channel.
Dree clawed with her fingertips, trying to stay still. She had no illusions that if she did the wrong thing, he was going to stop and leave her high and dry.
Well, not dry. She was sopping wet down there.
Maxence spread her wetness over the folds of her sex, barely grazing the sensitive nub he’d made her rub earlier.
When she was thoroughly slick, he began to press one of his fingers inside her, each stroke awakening sensation. When his finger was sliding through her flesh easily, each stroke a slow torture that wound her up but didn’t finish her, he added another finger and stretched her inside.
She couldn’t hold back a low moan at the pressure and friction rubbing inside and yet not forcing her over the edge.
When his two fingers slipped in easily all the way up to his hand, he very lightly twisted and rubbed his knuckles over her, enough to stimulate her so that her core and abs clenched but not enough to finish her off.
She was going to die. That was it. She was going to die because every time he did that, she gasped, but it felt like she couldn’t breathe. She was going to die.
He kept doing that, each twist of his wrist grinding his knuckles against her, and her body clenched so hard that it hurt.
His growl was even lower in his throat this time when he asked, “Should I keep giving you my finger, or should I take you?”
She thought she wouldn’t have to say this kind of stuff. That was the whole point of only having safe words, that she didn’t have to ask for it.
She didn’t answer.
He growled near her ear, “If you don’t tell me, I won’t let you come.”
Dree squeezed her eyes shut and whispered, “Take me.”
His fingers were gone, a withdrawal that made her want so much more. A zip ripped the air behind her, and a desk drawer slammed, the vibration shuddering through her breasts pressing on the wood. Her heart was pounding in her ear so hard that she barely heard the crinkle of foil before he pushed at her entrance.
She tried to relax, tried to open herself to let him in, but Maxence was pushing in. She was so slick that his massive erection didn’t drag against her flesh but slipped inside her. His hips slammed against her ass.
His intrusion made her spine curl and she rose off the desk, but he pushed her back against the wood. She assumed he would grab her hips, but Maxence gripped her shoulders, holding her down on the desk and slapping his hips against her ass.
She was already so close from his hand that the friction inside spiraled her more tightly. Her throat was making little sounds every time he pumped into her, and she knew she was supposed to be quiet and that there was someone on the other side of that door at the other end of the office, but she couldn’t help it. The world condensed to his hands on her shoulders and his staff shoving inside her. Her back bowed, and she pressed her forehead against the desk as she pushed back, trying to get that little last bit of friction.
One of his hands left her shoulder, and his hot breath puffed against the back of her neck. His arm wrapped at her waist and then his finger was on her, and the strong pinch and rub of his fingers broke through.
Ecstasy barreled up her spine and into her skull, a white throb of light that filled her senses.
He pounded into her, each shove another pulse that destroyed her sense of the world around her and left her only with his hard flesh, his energy, and the cinnamon and dark wood scent of his cologne filling the room from their heat.
Behind her neck, he snarled like a wolf tearing into meat, and his body jerked with a wild upward stab. His fists on her shoulders clenched, his fingertips digging into her flesh.
She felt him inside her, the throb of him and the spasm through his muscles as he panted, his breath harsh on her spine.
After a few breaths, his fingers loosened, and his lips were gentle as he kissed the back of her neck. “Good girl.”
Right after that, he pulled out of her, practically ripping himself out. A few noises squished, and the condom thudded in the wastepaper basket.
Even though she was still panting, even though she was still raw and her mind spun from that insane orgasm, her feet were lifted, her panties were on her ankles and then pulled up, her dress was tugged down as far as it went, and then Maxence was sitting in the chair and she was cradled in his arms with her head on his shoulder.
“Chérie,” Maxence said. “You were wonderful. You did so well. I’m proud of you.”
Dree snaked her arms up and wound them around his neck as he pressed her against his wildly beating heart. “Is this part of it, too?”
“This is called aftercare. After I take everything I need from you, I give you what you need.”
Buzzing cotton still filled her head. “What is it you think I need?”
“My gratitude for letting me take what I needed.”
She pushed herself up again so she could look at him. “Is that all you need?”
His dark eyes blazed with fire as dark as her desires, and as dark as his. “No, but it’s enough for now.”
She snuggled back against his chest. “Okay. I guess that’s enough for today.”
“I didn’t say that.”
Chapter Ten
New Year’s Eve
Dree
The next day, New Year’s Eve, Dree had planned to go to bed early because everything still seemed pretty overwhelming, but Chiara convinced her to come out with a few other palace employees to watch the fireworks over the Mediterranean Sea.
A group of about twen
ty people strolled the short distance out of the back of the palace, past the enormous Christmas tree brilliantly lit with red and white lights in the center of the courtyard and the creepy bronze statue of a guy in medieval robes over on one side, and into the old town of Monaco-Ville. In just a few blocks, Dree and the rest of them reached a small, crowded park high on a cliff that overlooked the harbor and the enormous expanse of black water.
The winter night was chilly, and Dree was glad that she’d dug her bright red ski jacket out of the back of her small closet. It was a very good thing that Chiara had insisted it needed to be cleaned and sent it down to the palace laundry that first day she’d arrived. Dree hadn’t been able to smell herself when they were in Nepal, but a few days of regular showering had reset her nose and she’d realized just how foul her riding clothes had been.
The fireworks were glorious, of course, a sumptuous display of glowing firefalls that culminated in a red and white crescendo over the Mediterranean.
Afterward, they stayed up to have a drink in the staff breakroom downstairs. Dree heard stories from the Monegasque citizens who’d always dreamed of working in the palace with their sovereign prince. The reverence they held for Maxence’s uncle Rainier IV was palpable in their kind words and the way their eyes traveled up as they spoke of him.
The next day, New Year’s Day, was a Sunday. Chiara had warned Dree that the staff walked to church together, so Dree was ready and waiting even though she was just the tiniest bit hungover.
The church was near where they’d watched the fireworks the night before, an immense cathedral with stained-glass windows rising to the ceiling far above and a pipe organ bellowing music.
Dree was just talking to her friends and hadn’t thought about the fact that she was in a church right next to the palace, so when Maxence and several other people walked in before the priests’ processional, she was startled.
He didn’t look at her.
He was staring straight ahead and didn’t seem to notice anyone as he took his seat in the front row of chairs just outside the altar rail.
Seeing him remain outside the rail and taking communion with the rest of the congregation instead of assisting at the Mass seemed jarring to Dree. If he had read the Scripture selections or delivered the sermon, the congregation would’ve been entranced, but they didn’t get the chance to see it.
Monaco didn’t know that side of him.
Chapter Eleven
Conclusion
Maxence
The next day, a new ambassador from the Netherlands arrived and presented his credentials. Maxence soberly received them and greeted the new emissary.
The letter of introduction addressed him as “Cousin,” as always. Power and position bind sovereigns more intimately than blood. The fact that the King and Queen of the Netherlands were the parents of one of Max’s best friends made the salutation especially amusing. He took a picture of the letter with his phone to razz Casimir about before he sent it off to the archives, planning to declare himself Caz’s great-uncle and thus entitled to boss him around.
Connections among sovereigns and royal families lasted centuries. The nouveau riche oligarchs and billionaires had formed more of a clique than a family, which left any one of them vulnerable if they lost their money-based power. If Monaco ever fell to guillotine-wielding republicans, one of Max’s “cousins” would send a plane to Nice to evacuate him. Royal blue blood was thicker than restless political tides.
He received a letter and solemn bow from the Dutch diplomat, who was a ruddy-cheeked Nordic man who looked as though the winter wind off the icy sea had chapped his cheeks. The appointment was for fifteen minutes and ran short.
After that meeting, Maxence sent Quentin Sault and one other security person, who’d hovered at the back of the room like castle ghosts, out of the office and instructed Dree to suck him off under his desk. Her petal-soft lips and warm tongue on his dick commanded all his attention even though he pretended to sign some paperwork. The pumping heat of her mouth and throat enveloped him, and the white flash of unthinking abyss snatched him away.
His fingers fisted in her hair so that the pale spider-silk strands were like thread knotted around his knuckles.
Then, Monaco’s Minister of the Environment arrived to meet Maxence and impress upon him the importance of combating climate change. A coastal country that was less than one square mile in area could not afford to lose even an inch of available land to rising sea levels.
Maxence concurred and reassured the minister that he would impress the importance of the issue upon the Council of Nobles as usual, and he would do his utmost to ensure that Monaco’s policies and commitments would not change after the election.
Afterward, Maxence had Dree sit naked on her knees while they discussed what he wanted.
“I’ve read those books,” she said. “I know what you rich pervs like. You want a ‘sub,’ don’t you? You like a woman on her knees, and you can screw her while she just lies there and submits? You like to ‘exercise control in all things,’ including your women?”
“Boring.”
She looked up at him sideways, truly skeptical. “That’s not what the books say.”
“It’s so formal. It’s staid. It’s almost rehearsed. Everything is too under control.”
“So,” she paused, and he could nearly see the gears grinding in her head, “what is it that you think is going to freak me out?”
She had to know. It wasn’t something you could just spring on people. “I like it—rough.”
Dree blinked her dark eyelashes over her big, blue eyes. “Like, how rough?”
His voice dropped in his throat. “Rough.”
Her eyebrows slanted down. “So, you like rape? Or consensual, acknowledged rapey-ish sex? I don’t know how to say it.”
“Disgusting. I would never force a woman to do anything. I can’t even pretend it. Not forced.”
The softness of the curves of her hips and breasts drew him. While he talked, his hands stroked her jaw, her shoulders, and the underside of her breasts.
She asked, “Then—what?”
Maxence’s face heated, not with embarrassment, but from the images in his head. “I don’t ‘exercise control in all things.’ I don’t like control at all. I want to lose control. I like to be out of control. I like to lose myself in a woman until I can’t think or rationalize at all. It takes over me. I lose control, and I make you lose control, and then we’re just an unthinking, unyielding, uncontrollable force of passion until we collapse, exhausted and nearly unconscious, in a tangle of sweat, heat, and blood.”
She looked down, frowning, and seemed to examine her fingers on her knees. “I can kind of see it, the losing-control thing, like when you drove me crazy in Paris until I practically attacked you.”
He nodded.
“I—I did attack you. And then again in Nepal, you were—” She looked up at him. “You were out of control.”
He nodded again, watching her.
“How much more out of control can you get?”
“As much as you can take,” Maxence said.
Dree bit her lower lip and nodded, obviously thinking about it.
“Does it always have to be like that? Can’t it sometimes be . . . gentle? Emotional?”
“Like that last night in Nepal, the second time?”
Dree nodded. “So, you’re okay with that, too. Sometimes.”
He drew his finger from her ear around to her throat, stroking the silk of her skin. “Sometimes.”
Her one comment was, “I don’t see how that could last in the long term.”
And that gave Maxence pause.
Because she was still considering a future between them, even after that night in Nepal when she’d refused to travel the world with him.
As was he.
The day wound down, and Maxence sent Dree out to the receptionist and then to the kitchens to bring his afternoon hot chocolate.
He had one more phone call
to return.
On his phone screen, a number—no name, just a number—was repeated three times at the top of the list of missed calls.
Max thumbed the glass.
While his phone rang, he leaned back in his desk chair and swiveled it around to watch the wintry sunset turn the terra cotta walls of the fortress to flame.
The twilight of the day.
A suitable time for an ending.
A click.
A woman asked, “Maxence?”
“Flicka,” he breathed.
And there was a pause.
A pause like that one could last a lifetime if they let it. They both knew she’d broken his heart, once upon a time.
And they both knew why he wasn’t right for her. Flicka liked being in control, not losing her mind and self.
But that wasn’t why he’d called.
Maxence asked her, “Should I have taken you out of that house in Geneva?”
Her voice rose like begging. “No, no, Max. That’s not why I called. You couldn’t have done anything more. Anything would have caused them to shoot us. Besides, Pierre knew where I was. He had more resources and power, and he couldn’t do anything until they moved us. They’d have shot Alina and me before his commandoes blew the door.”
His soul was shredding as he spoke. “It felt wrong to leave you. It still feels wrong.”
“You did everything you could, Maxence. You did the right things at the right times because it got us here. I’m okay now.”
“Are you?” he asked, a catch in his voice.
“I am. I married him.”
“Again?”
“Yes, again. Just in case the first one didn’t count. Or just in case Pierre’s trumped-up divorce did. And so Wulfram could give me away.”
“Oh,” Maxence said, staring as the sun’s fire licked the world outside his office window.
“And now you’re going to be the Prince of Monaco. It reminds me of when we used to talk in school about how we were going to burn down the world. Something was going to happen to my brother, which I fully expected to happen because Wulfie prepared me for it every day of my life, and so I was going to be the princess of Hannover. And I offered to kill Pierre for you.”
Prince: Royal Romantic Suspense (Billionaires in Disguise: Maxence Book 5) Page 11