“There’s still plenty more to work with,” I say, coming in closer with a grin on my face.
I press into her, forcing one thick thigh between her legs. My hand comes up to trace the lines of her jaw, gliding along down past her chin to her neck, trailing the collar bone until I reach the one tufted shoulder piece holding up her dress. I can feel her swallow hard underneath my palm as I slide it over her chest and underneath the edge.
Quick as a viper, I curl my fingers and grab a chunk of fabric, tugging hard. This part isn’t as flimsy as the skirt, and it takes more force to even make a tear. Once that happens, the rest follows easily.
When I’m done, the front hangs like the rags of a woman who has already been ravished, rather than one who is about to get fucked senseless against this huge picture window.
Underneath, she has on a strapless bra. It takes one finger pressed in the center to slide it down, revealing Sloane’s perfect breasts. The way her chest rises and falls in heavy breaths only draws the eye even more.
I pull back once again. Something about the ruined look of her has the adrenaline roaring through my veins like some bloodthirsty barbarian.
“Consider yourself immobilized, Sloane. Now take it off. All of it. I’m ready to eat.”
She pauses just long enough to realize it was a demand, not a request. Then, she reaches to her side and unclasps the chain belt. It falls to the floor in a series of tinkling clanks. Next comes the dress itself, or at least what’s left of it. Sloane reaches under the fallen strips of fabric to find the zipper, struggling slightly to get it going before it releases in one glide. This one is more of a hushed sigh, pooling around her ankles and leaving her in nothing but the bra that she quickly dispenses with, reaching around to unclasp it and dangle it up for my inspection before she drops it to the floor.
As though my eyes could be torn away from the picture of perfection she’s just revealed. The darkness only seems to accentuate the color of her skin rather than mask it, the highlights coming in brighter, the shadows darkening, turning her into some work of art that the eye lingers on if only to discover all its hidden secrets—secrets I plan on fully discovering within the next few minutes.
She leans back against the window, slinking one leg then the other out of the pile at her feet, kicking it out of the way, so it’s just her in those heels and all of Monte Carlo behind her.
I reach down to unbuckle my belt and undo my fly.
“No,” she says just as I hook my thumbs in the waistband to slip my pants past my hips. “I like you this way for some reason.”
I get it. Me half-dressed, her completely naked. There’s something…powerful in it. I grin and come closer. I think I’ll let her finish revealing what I have to offer.
Once again, she stops me, this time with one sandaled heel, reaching me from her extended leg. The stiletto heel lands dangerously close to the bulge in my pants, denting my upper thigh where it settles.
“We need to start using condoms.”
“Even after last night? I think that bridge has been crossed, don’t you?”
“That depends on how naughty you’ve been with it.”
“Meaning?” I ask, starting to feel my impatience grow.
“Meaning, how many of those escorts, or should I say, courtesans, have you screwed. Lara? Lisette?”
“Lisette?”
“Oh, come on. It didn’t take me long to figure out she was a plant. Once she drops the act, she’s quite the vixen.”
“And now you want to waste my fucking time while we play twenty questions?”
“It was one question, one you still haven’t answered.”
I grab her leg and throw it off my thigh, then lean in closer, forcing her back against the window.
“I don’t pay for sex. If a woman is getting money from me, she’d better have a lot more to offer than her pussy; I don’t care how golden she thinks it is.”
“And what am I?”
I stare at her for a moment before speaking
“Sloane, do you want me to tell you this isn’t just sex? Okay, it isn’t. Yes, I’ve wanted to fuck you since the moment I first laid eyes on you. I am a man, after all. The more I’m with you, the more intrigued I am by you. I don’t buy forty days of a woman’s time just because I want to stick my dick in her. I want you more than I’ve wanted any other woman.” I lean in close enough to graze her ear with my teeth. “So yes, I’ll get the fucking condom.”
The suites are stocked with everything a guest could possibly need, including things they didn’t know they’d need. Obviously, condoms are standard. I pull one out of the bar cabinet and walk it back over to where Sloane is.
“Your demand, your obligation,” I say, handing it to her.
“Happily,” she sasses, taking it.
I hear the sound of it ripping open, then one of her hands comes out to rest against my chest. Her fingers trace the scratches on my skin, causing them to sting slightly. She snakes a finger down my abs and to the elastic waistband of my underwear.
“Nice,” she says once she’s inside. I realize this is the first time she’s felt it anywhere but inside of her.
“Just nice?” I ask, knowing damn well my dick is worth more than such a measly compliment. If she needs any reassurance, I fully plan on reminding her. I press in closer to her. “You’re about to be chum if you keep this up. Put the damn condom on, or I’ll take you raw again.”
With my bare chest flush against hers, I can feel how heavily she breathes as she struggles to unroll the rubber down my girth.
She’s barely finished before my hands force their way in between the glass of the window and her ass pressed against it to grab her. My fingers dig into her flesh as I lift her up and practically impale her on my cock. She cries out at the ferocity of it, which only feeds my desire.
The first feel of her, soft, wet, and warm, is like a rush of ecstasy. I savor it, keeping Sloane there as I force her legs around my waist, her heels digging into the backs of my thighs. Then, I feel her insides contract, squeezing like her hand was just seconds ago. Taunting me.
“Come on Magnus,” she purrs. “I know you’ve got a better bite than that.”
Something like rage boils inside of me, which I suspect is just what Sloane wants. No timid little guppy here. She’s like a jellyfish, beautiful to an almost ethereal degree, seemingly delicate, but with a definite sting once she gets going.
“Careful what you wish for,” I grunt.
Her arms wrap around my neck, fingers crawling through my hair as she presses her naked chest into mine. I work her up and down my shaft, and she snakes her body against mine, creating erotic friction that electrifies me.
I fall forward, pressing Sloane against the glass so I can work my hips faster. Looking over her shoulder, the city is still alive and dazzling, as though Monte Carlo itself is powering us on. Just like this city of mine, the later it gets, the more the excitement builds.
The window becomes slick with sweat, and Sloane’s back slides across it, forcing me to grip tighter as I repeatedly plunge into her. My breath fogs up the glass. Her fingers pull at my hair. My knuckles go numb, crashing into the hard surface with each buck of my hips. Her legs begin to quiver.
That’s when I feel it.
I wait, enjoying this last bite of her, which is even more delicious than the first as her entire body goes taut, squeezing me in her embrace like the jaws of a shark. I come at the same time, erupting into her with a force that I wouldn’t be surprised makes that damn condom useless.
When Sloane is nothing but a weakened mess, I loosen my grip. We fall against the glass, Sloane’s sweat-covered, much smaller body trapped between me and the window. I stay like that, not wanting it to end as my mind comes back down off its high.
The same question that’s been battling me for the past year enters my mind.
What comes next?
Chapter Forty-Two
Sloane
“You know we can’t keep doing this, Magnus.”
When he finally released me, I walked over and snatched the sheets off the bed to cover myself, throwing it around me like a drunken Roman stumbling back to a villa after some bacchanalian orgy. I’ve at least removed those ridiculous heels so that I don’t look so glaringly post-spontaneous-sex.
“And yet, here we are,” he says, still wearing only his pants and shoes as he walks over to the bar in the bedroom to pull out a bottle of Remy to pour. He raises one eyebrow my way as though to ask if I’d like some, and I shake my head no.
“Is this what the next thirty-odd days are going to be like? You asserting your dominance, forcing me to accompany you as you destroy one man after another, only to end with sex?”
“You say that like it isn’t the perfect aphrodisiac. Don’t deny watching a man lose a million euros wasn’t a turn on for you, Sloane. Especially knowing why I operate the way I do.”
I think about the words he said right before he finally agreed on the condom. That he was intrigued by me, but that could mean anything. He did make it clear that sex has always been on his mind.
“Is this why you wanted me for the full forty days? To screw me?”
“Would you believe me if I said the thought hadn’t crossed my mind at all?” he responds with a teasing grin before taking a sip.
My lips tighten, pressing together with anger.
Magnus walks over toward me, perched on the bed. Something about him in nothing but those pants seems even more erotic than if he were naked.
“What is it you want, Sloane?”
I stare at him a moment, mostly to regain my composure.
What do I want?
Obviously, I need what I came here to Monte Carlo for in the first place. But need and want are two different things. One is survival; the other is…what?
I stare at Magnus as he tries to read me. Is he a man I could fall for? Is he the man I’ve already fallen for?
I shake my head, realizing he’s a distraction, one which I can’t fall prey to. The sex is good. Dizzyingly good, mostly in the pure primality of it. Just…letting go like that, fierce and hungry and…
Focus, Sloane!
“Back on your boat, I asked you to tell me everything. So tell me. No distracting me with metaphors about hunting or sharks or guppies. Tell me, what is it Gabriel wants to know? What is it every financial expert is craving to know? What is it you’re planning now that you’re almost one year away from your deadline…with only two more men to destroy?”
Magnus considers me for a long moment. Behind those expressive green eyes, I can see his mind working. He isn’t the kind to trust anyone, and with his history, I don’t blame him.
But this, as the saying goes, is the moment of truth.
“Nothing.”
I sigh and slide my eyes away, realizing this is just another power play, hunt, game, whatever the hell he wants to call it.
“Sloane.”
Something in his voice draws my eyes back to him, and I’m surprised at what I find there. Magnus stares at me with all the intensity of a star reaching supernova status.
“That’s the truth. Everything I’ve done this past year—selling off assets, hosting dinner parties with random CEOs, sports stars, celebrities? That’s my bluff. My grandfather was the one to teach me. Make people think you have a royal flush…only to lay your cards flat to reveal nothing more than a single high card.”
I stare at him, trying to comprehend what he’s saying. Magnus Reinhardt planning…nothing? It would be like Beyoncé switching to heavy metal, or Francis Ford Coppola switching to romcom.
Which is the genius of it.
Those examples just prove the rule.
The ultimate bluff.
“Now, you get it,” he says, reading my thoughts.
“So this is it for you? Your…what? Your final act?”
“You make it sound so anticlimactic.”
“It is.”
“Which makes it so much more climactic,” he says with a wry smile.
“I can’t tell if you’re still bullshitting me,” I say, considering him.
Magnus comes in closer, his half-naked body invading my space, with only a thin sheet separating us.
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it does. Or have you forgotten why I’m here in the first place?”
“That’s something you don’t have to worry about. I told you.”
“I’d feel a lot more reassured if you told me the truth.”
His eyes cloud over a bit, and he looks past me at Monte Carlo through the window.
“Everything I own, every piece of real estate, every business, every sports franchise, every last dollar in my various bank accounts, even that damn yacht, has been nothing more than a tool for me. It’s helped me get back at the people involved in that money laundering scheme that ended up getting my parents killed because they knew too much. Even if some of them weren’t financially ruined, they at least felt my bite, which was enough for me. When the last two are finally dead, I’ll have accomplished everything I swore I would. So what does one do when the hunt is over, and their hunger is sated?”
He’s still staring past me at Monte Carlo.
Magnus’s eyes slide to me, remaining so intensely focused I’m almost certain I know the answer.
“When you make partner, what then, Sloane?”
“What do you mean?” I ask, a little thrown by this sudden shift in topic.
“You’ll have accomplished exactly what you wanted. What then?”
I shrug. “I suppose…marriage and children. Isn’t that what everyone wants?”
“Is it?”
“Don’t you?”
“I’ve been so focused on getting what I want, I never took the time to seriously think about it.”
I feel a tiny pang of guilt, mostly because I can relate. I’ve always been subconsciously cognizant of the dangers of putting off domesticity in favor of my career, especially as I creep toward thirty. Hasn’t every ambitious woman been beaten over the head with it?
Now that partnership is within reach, it doesn’t seem so bright and shiny a prize.
The brass ring.
Lara’s words come roaring back. Marriage to Magnus? I almost laugh, but there’s something in his gaze, still glued to mine that stops it before it can even find a foothold. Despite his glaringly disproportionate wealth and power, there’s something about him that makes me feel like he’s the only one who could match me wit for wit, ambition for ambition, lust for lust.
Like two sharks in the sea.
There’s even a soft side there, underneath that sharkskin of his. Small things, like the way he holds my hand or touches the small of my back as we walk side by side. He’s protective. Dominant.
“What’s really your plan, Magnus?” I urge.
Something in his eyes seems to flash, and it’s followed by striking clarity. He tosses back the rest of what’s left in his glass and steps back away from me.
“I should go.”
“No,” I say, reaching out a hand to take his. “Tell me.”
He allows it, if only for a moment. Something in me suspects it’s just the touch of my hand blessing even this small part of his body that keeps him from snatching it away.
Then he does.
Magnus leans in closer so that his eyes are level with mine.
“The only thing you need to know is that right now, you and yours are protected. That, and the assurance that I will make it so that you don’t have to worry ever again.”
“Then, I just go back to New York as though this never happened?”
“Don’t ask me for something I’m incapable of giving. Sharks don’t change their ways, Sloane.” He reaches out one hand to stroke my chin. “I wasn’t lying when I said I find you intriguing. If there’s any woman I think could be my equal, you are it. But…the road I’m heading down will change things. You don’t want to be a part of it.”
Try me.
The words are there
in my head, screaming. I know what darkness lies ahead for him, and a daring part of me wants to be there with him, by his side. But the goody-two-shoes girl, the one who plays by the rules, who accepts defeat even when she knows the playing field was hardly fair, who bows out gracefully and vows to try harder next time—she’s still operating the machinery in my brain.
If sharks don’t change their ways, perhaps neither do guppies.
But who knows what can happen in forty days?
Chapter Forty-Three
Magnus
“They arrived in Monte Carlo this morning.”
Even though the interruption of the phone call was a distraction I didn’t need, I now perk up at Jaques’s words.
“Where are they staying?” My sister knows there’s always a room for her here at La Mer, but she also knows I’d be aware of her every move if she stayed here.
“With your aunt, it seems, at least for tonight. There is no record of a reservation at any hotel yet.”
Not that Estelle Reinhardt would need one in this town.
But staying with Mona is a surprise. Although my aunt is far less likely to judge any of Estelle’s new beaux, my sister holds her in far more regard than she does me. Not just introducing someone to Mona but staying in her home means that Estelle must be somewhat serious about this man.
Or just making a show of it for some agenda.
Either way, now that she’s here in Monte Carlo, she fares no better than a fly caught in a web—my web.
“Tell me what you know of her plans.”
“She and some friends of hers are going to the White Party tonight. After that, her plans seem to be open-ended. No return tickets booked, either for Paris or anywhere in Italy.”
“Thank you,” I say before hanging up.
So her only plans for tonight are the White Party at the Buddha Bar, one of the most well-known annual events in Monte Carlo. The dress code is white; the atmosphere is nowhere near that pristine.
It would be the last place on earth that she’d introduce me to Giorgio Conti. Estelle knows I’d rather pull my fingernails out one by one than attend an event like this.
The Monte Carlo Shark: An International Legacies Romance Page 21