An Obsession with Vengeance (Wanted Men Book 3)

by Haviland, Nancy

  She sat up straighter in her seat and stiffened her spine so she’d stop shaking. He doesn’t have this power over me. He doesn’t. She had no right to feel this because she’d known who he was right from the very beginning.

  God, she was so fucking stupid.

  So, so stupid. How could she have let her guard down? How could she have let him in?

  CHAPTER 18

  Two hours later, after having made yet another round of calls to his boys now stationed anywhere Luiz had told him Eberto might show, Maks blew into the safe house as though a gale force wind was at his fucking back. He shrugged his coat and suit jacket off—yes, he’d put on his goddamned street clothes again, and being reminded of that small fact added to his ire.

  “Go.”

  Sydney’s guards for the day grabbed their coats and fucked off so fast it would have been funny had he not been ready to tear his own skin from his body. A deep-seated yearning for relief was all he knew.

  No sound preceded his Aussie flying into the room, wide-eyed, silver-blonde hair flying behind her. His grand entrance had obviously brought her running. She came to a screeching halt when she saw him, and the look of utter loathing that entered her eyes was as infuriating as it was confusing.

  “Where’s Andy?” he growled.

  “You said it was okay for him to go to that sleepover.”

  And that cool reserve was back in her tone. Her accent, as much as he fucking loved it, made it worse, made her sound austere and condescending. He wasn’t having that right now. Not one fucking bit of it.

  The longer he looked at her, at how utterly lovely she was, at how tiny she really was in comparison to him, the more he couldn’t deny his overpowering need to have her submit to him. He had to have her. Which was why he’d come. It swallowed everything else: his reasons for abstaining, his fear, the self-protective laws that he lived by. His word—which Vasily had canceled out by telling him to do whatever he must to get the fuck back in his head! Humiliating. What he’d almost done to his Pakhan because of his fixation with this woman crashed through his head once more. As did Vasily’s disgusted dismissal.

  As Maksim started forward, he was reminded of the painting in his office. He was the demonic beast just then. Sure felt like it by the expression that came over Sydney’s face when he drew close.

  She tripped over herself to move back, coming up against a low bookcase filled with old-school encyclopedias not found in homes anymore. “What are you doing? Get your hands off me!” she snapped when he laid his palms on her upper arms.

  He stroked her, feeling the fragility of her bones beneath her chilled skin. Christ, he would be so careful with her. More careful than he’d ever been with another. Just not tonight. Her eyes were red rimmed. “Can’t do that.” He felt completely out of control of even his own thoughts and reactions and observations. His brain activity was erratic and made no sense. “You’ve done this to me. Now you can suffer through what it’s brought to your door. My attentions.”

  She jerked sideways, wheeling around to face him after she’d put a few feet between them. “I don’t want your tired attentions.” Her finger came up to point in his face in that way most men hated. “How can you even do this without dying of shame? What kind of person are you? Did you honestly think I’d accept you? You were just with another woman!”

  That brought him up short and he faltered. The antipathy—and more interesting, the shimmer of pain—in her eyes blasted him. How the fuck did she know about his dancer?

  “I wasn’t with another woman,” he ground out.

  A harsh, biting laugh shot out through the sneer that twisted her mouth. “I watched you summon and leave with her, Russia. Your hand rushing her along by squeezing her ass. Please don’t insult me by lying about something I saw with my own eyes.”

  “You were at the club?”

  “Yes.” The word cracked out like a whip.

  “Why?”

  “None. Of your. Fucking. Business.”

  Rather than lose his shit in the face of her insolence and blatant disrespect, something else registered with him. She was furious. Hurt. Jealous?

  “I brought her into my office, attempted to do the usual, and it didn’t happen.” Saying the words brought his temper back to where it had been an hour ago when he’d had to send the brunette off without a story to share. “I couldn’t fuck her!” he shouted, startling Sydney into a jump. “You’ve made it so I can’t even get hard for another woman. I kissed her; she touched me—because I couldn’t bring myself to touch her, goddammit—and fuck-all happened. I wanted to prove to myself that this isn’t really happening, that you aren’t that deep in my head, but it is, and you are.” He stepped forward and slammed his hand down on the bookcase, knowing that by attempting to verbalize it he still wasn’t making sense. “You’ve gotten control of what my fucking body does, and that isn’t sitting well with me, Sydney. So you know what?” He rushed her, grabbing her by the arms to pin her to the wall, pushing his hard, aching cock into her firm navel. “You’re going to take care of it now. You’re going to take me down because I can’t fucking concentrate on what I should be concentrating on because fucking is all that’s in my head. Fucking you. I nearly knifed my Pakhan tonight because of you!”

  She was staring at him, her lips parted slightly, eyes wider and a darker purple than he’d ever seen them.

  “What, no gloating? I’d have thought learning this would double the size of that fucking horse you sit on.” He knew that was unfair. Knew what he was saying and doing was unwarranted and verging on behavior he’d swiftly cut someone else down for. But he couldn’t stop. She was inside him, and he didn’t know how to deal with that. “To know you’ve done this to me. To know I have become obsessed with you, the way my goddamn kryshas recognized before I did. I laughed it off back then, thinking it was impossible.” He put his nose to the skin of her neck and inhaled deeply. His entire body strained, hungering, at the dark-forest scent that permeated and locked on to his every cell. “It wasn’t. And I am. And I fucking hate it.”

  He fucking hated it.

  He did.

  Sydney’s mind reeled at what she was hearing. For hours now, she’d made herself sicker and sicker imagining what Maksim and that beautiful woman were doing. Yet now he was telling her they’d done nothing? That he’d tried, but because she wasn’t Sydney, he hadn’t been able to follow through? Hadn’t been able to touch her? He’d kissed her, though, and grabbed her ass, and that made Sydney see red. As much as she didn’t want it to, that ate at her like acid. He shouldn’t have done that. If he’d needed a release or whatever he’d been going for, he should have come to her!

  What? Are you crazy?

  Apparently she was. “I’m insane,” she whispered. And grabbing her Russian’s beautiful head between her hands, she dragged him up from where his forehead was leaning on the wall and attacked his mouth with hers. She wanted the memory of his kiss with that other woman gone, replaced with a memory of him kissing her. Only her.

  His dark groan had her body liquefying.

  This is wrong, she thought in the back of her mind. I shouldn’t do this with him. For so many reasons, not the least of which is he could be lying!

  She pulled back and shivered around the rumble of warning that rose in his chest. “Are you lying to me, Maksim?” she panted. “Are you only saying these things to get to me?”

  He looked her right in the eye and did a damn fine job of reassuring her. The almost-adolescent description was what made her believe him.

  “I couldn’t touch her because something inside my goddamn chest felt off at even the thought. It was heavy and . . . tight and unfamiliar. When she kissed me and ran her hands across my stomach, I wanted to shove her away rather than bring her closer. My fucking lip curled, Sydney. Even the way she smelled was wrong. Too sweet. She was too big. Her hair too dark. Her voice and words too p
lain.” His hand splayed across her chest, his thumb trailing softly over her collarbone. “Everything about her was wrong because nothing about her was you. Goddammit, does that make any sense to you at all?”

  She melted. “Makes perfect sense.” She had no trouble remembering all the comparisons she’d made during the past months when every man she saw came up lacking next to this one. She swallowed the fear trying to climb her throat—pushed aside the you-shouldn’ts and the what-are-you-doings?—and gave in to this. She rested her forehead against his and accepted the connection he was offering. “How about I help you out with your concentration problems?”

  His closed fist slammed hard on the wall above her head. “Don’t fuck with me.”

  She licked her twitching lips. “I was sort of hoping you’d fuck with me.” Don’t be so forward, her modesty screeched. Right. She didn’t want to appear as if she were begging for sex, even though her body coming alive suddenly had her wanting to beg him for sex.

  “I . . . can’t hold back anymore. Are you sure you’ll be able to take it? Because I’m riding the edge here. I know I’ll regret it later, but this first time won’t be warm and gentle—not that I’ve ever done warm and gentle,” he admitted, looking confused that he might want to. “I’m going to fuck you. I’m going to own you. And it won’t be something you’d have ever shared with Emily over coffee on a Sunday morning.”

  His mention of Emily, recognizing that they’d been close enough to have shared sex stories, did something to Sydney’s heart. His dirty words did something to her body. She felt a wave of pure pleasure ebb and flow between her thighs as her core readied.

  “After hearing that, I’m pretty sure I’m now ready enough to take just about anything,” she whispered, wondering if he would always affect her so easily. A few sweet and naughty words from him and I’m putty in his hands.

  His eyes blazed as he ground out some nasty-sounding curses in Russian and held her against the wall with his body while grasping the hem of the white tank she’d changed into. He yanked down the neckline, slipped his fingers into the cups of her white lacy bra, tucked them beneath her breasts to offer them up, and she was in his mouth, his fingers pinching and his tongue rolling around her nipples. All in under three seconds.

  Oh, shit. She was shocked, excited, and a little uneasy, all at once. Which made her giggle and gasp and squirm and moan.

  “That’s it, princess,” he said against her flaming skin. “If you’re feeling it, I want to hear about it. Nothing held back. Understand?”

  She was already having a hard time understanding anything around what he was doing to her. Her hand found the back of his head, and she held him where he was. Her own head hit the wall behind her, and her hips rolled, rubbing herself just right across the hard length of his erection. More. Something tightened inside her, coiling, waiting to go off. Further noises came from her throat that weren’t approved by her brain. How mortifying. It was as if the soundtrack from a porno was playing through her.

  Maksim growled, sucking hard on the underside of her left breast for a moment, making her cry out in pleasure. He turned them, and then she was falling, the long chaise longue meeting her back. He began speaking, half in Russian, half in English.

  “Need more . . . something-something . . . getting critical . . . something-something . . . need to eat . . . something-something . . . tell me if I scare you . . . something-something-something.”

  He drew back and pried her legs from around his waist to jerk her leggings and socks off. Her panties were torn from her body, and then she was spread wide and her hands were reaching for an anchor. She once more cried out when his hot mouth met her throbbing core.

  “Fucking beautiful,” he rasped, lapping at her. He released her thighs, and she heard rather than saw him rip open his shirt. He was naked from the waist up in the next instant, and Sydney’s gaze rushed down to roam over tight muscles, gorgeous ink, and supple skin. So did her hands, anywhere she could reach, which was sadly only from his shoulders up. But the sight of his mouth on—

  He sank his tongue deep and then traded places with his fingers so he could concentrate on her clit, and she practically howled. He pumped into her hard, fingers curving up, nibbling and biting her thighs and sucking at that bundle of nerves. She exploded in no time, her spine bowing, muscles clamping down as her first climax ripped through her.

  Maksim worked her through it, murmuring things in Russian, but gave her no time to recover before he was standing and stripping the rest of their clothes off. Dazed, she watched as he ripped open a condom he’d procured from his pocket, presumably, slid it down his beautiful form, and then reached for her. Lifting her as though she weighed nothing, he carried her over and plopped her onto her ass on the cool wood of the dining room table.

  “Perfect height,” he explained, gripping his shaft at the base.

  Dying to slow him down so she could participate, she put her palm on his tight, rolling abs and held him back. She leaned to the side so she could at least take in the perfection of his massive, deliciously naked body. “Mmm . . . this is perfect,” she praised, stealing the opportunity to slide her palm down until she could grasp that very, very special part of him. She encircled his girth and squeezed, feeling almost resentful of the latex barrier now separating their skin. She’d felt him last time they’d been together but hadn’t gotten the chance to see it. She was looking now.

  Her eyes flipped up to meet his when she heard a hiss. His lids were down low over molten silver, his chest pumping, his many tattoos seemingly alive as his shoulders rose and fell. His biceps bunched when he placed his hand on her ass and pulled her closer to the edge of the table, her skin squeaking across the surface. Her pulsing core bore down on his waiting shaft. He didn’t stop, but sheathed himself in one fluid pump as deep inside her as he could go. Her high-pitched mewl was lost when he took her mouth. Pleasure flooded her as he stretched her. So much pleasure.

  “My princess . . . so hot . . . luscious . . . tight and perfect,” he said against her lips as he began moving, pulling out and sinking back in a rhythm that wasn’t the slow and steady she’d experienced before. No. Maksim gave her no time to savor, just to experience. Sensations battered her as he did what he’d said he was going to do. He fucked her. He owned her. And she loved it.

  “Sydney. Fuck, don’t help yet.” He gripped her hips, stilling her from keeping up with the pace he set. “I need to do this. I need it. Have to know I’m in control of it this time.”

  Her breath coming in little gasps as she tried to push down on the feeling once more climbing, the euphoria, that beautiful tension returning, she released his shoulders and leaned back on her hands. “Fine,” she whispered, trying not to let her eyes roll in her head. “Take what you need.”

  And he did. Her powerful Russian took everything she had to give and demanded more. He took from her on the table before introducing her back to the wall again. Once he’d had enough of that, and she’d caught her breath after her second orgasm, he fell onto his broad back on the sofa and effortlessly worked her writhing form on top of him, alternating between holding her suspended over his hips so he could thrust up into her and then giving his mouth another turn, making her moan and gasp until her throat hurt. He touched her everywhere, claimed every inch of her skin, right down to her ankles, driving her on until she was utterly consumed with pleasure.

  They ended up back on the chaise longue, him finally settling himself on top of her, their chests meeting as he entered her again. He held her eyes. “You’re sore,” he said when she winced slightly. His voice was deliciously rough, his shoulders practically shimmering from the light sheen of perspiration covering them. Slippery from it, it was the most erotic thing to feel their bodies sliding against each other, the glide so delicious.

  “Sensitive,” she corrected.

  “Fantastic.” He slowly licked across her lips as he burrowed his fi
ngers into her hair so that he could hold her head steady.

  Luckily, because she would have thrashed again when his hips went on an angle and he hit that spot deep inside that made her eyes tear up. “Agreed. This was worth making you wait.”

  He breathed out a deep, quiet laugh that came so easily it caused goose bumps to rise on the backs of her arms. “Brat. My sanity disagrees.” He withdrew until he was almost free of her and then slid home. She lifted her hips to meet him.

  “You have to admit it wouldn’t be this good if I’d given in that first night.” She shook herself free of his hold so she could stretch up and nibble on his earlobe, circling her tongue around the diamond stud in his ear.

  “I’ll admit nothing of the sort. It would have still been me and you, so it would have definitely been this good.” A shudder passed through him when she moved over to nip playfully at the thick corded muscle running up from his shoulder. She soothed him with another slow lick.

  Sydney tried as hard as she could not to let those words get to her. She couldn’t take the things he said to heart. Had to remember he’d most likely said them all before.

  “You hiding from me?” He spread his hand out on her throat and used his finger and thumb on her jaw to bring her face out from his neck. “Don’t. I get to see it all. Because it’s mine right now, and I’m very greedy.” He trailed his fingers down until he burrowed between them to find her swollen bundle of nerves. The tremor that shook her nearly unseated him. “Easy, princess,” he soothed, rubbing a smooth, wet circle that guaranteed she couldn’t take it easy. “Now it’s time for you to bring me down. How hard can you take it?”