by Faye Avalon
They didn’t say much else during the drive back to Monaco, but Gabe wrapped his arm around her and drew her close.
When they arrived back at the apartment, Gabe went into his study. He came out moments later and joined her where she stood against the terrace railing looking out over the Monaco skyline.
In the distance, the Prince’s Palace stood proud, awash in a warm terra-cotta glow from the surrounding spotlights highlighting its majesty.
She turned to Gabe as he wrapped his arm around her waist. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
He looked deep into her eyes. “Yeah. Beautiful.” He leaned down and kissed her, then drew back. “I’ve got something for you.”
“What is it?”
He held out her bag. Her stomach gave a small jolt as she reached out to take it. Inside she found her phone, credit cards, coin purse and passport.
For some inexplicable reason, she felt her throat tighten.
“Your battery’s probably flat,” Gabe said, tapping her phone. “It’ll need charging.”
All Maddie could do right then was nod.
“Want a nightcap?”
She shook her head, placing her things back in the bag.
Gabe started to move away, but she reached out and caught his hand. “Thanks.”
He hiked up his shoulder. “No problem.”
“I agreed to the week, Gabe. I’m not going to do anything stupid.”
“I know.”
From the look in his eyes, she knew he meant what he said. She drew him closer. “That nightcap you offered, does it still stand?”
He reached his arms around her waist and brought her close up against him. “Of course. What would you like? Brandy? Whisky?”
“None of the above. But I’ll take a double shot of you.”
His eyes went smoky and hot. “Only a double?”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t want a refill at some stage,” she said, smiling up at him. “It wouldn’t pay to get too drunk, too fast.”
“Don’t see why not.” His hands lowered to cup her backside, making her insides tremble. “With you it feels like I spend the whole day in a kind of drunken stupor.”
She laughed, then moaned softly as he tilted her hips to bring her in direct line with his cock. “I see we’ve got some enthusiasm going again.”
“Always. What are you planning to do about it?”
She looked over her shoulder and out toward the high-rise apartments surrounding them. “We’d better go inside, for a start. Your neighbours might complain if they get front-row seats at an X-rated movie.”
He grinned, rakish and sexy, and spiked her lust levels. “You don’t know my neighbours.”
“That’s true. But then, they don’t know what I’ve got planned.” She lowered her eyes, looking up at him with a seductive flutter of her lashes. “Neither do you.”
His cock jerked. “From the way you’re looking at me, I’ve got some idea. And maybe you’re right. We’d better take this inside.”
He hiked her into his arms, and she laughed as she wrapped her legs around his waist. “You’ve got a thing about carrying me.”
“Yeah, why not? Especially when I get to feel your hot little pussy pressed against me.”
All her core muscles clenched in response. “And I get to feel your very impressive cock.”
“Yeah, it’s a win-win.”
In the bedroom, he lowered them down to the mattress, unzipped her dress and began peeling the fabric from her shoulders. Maddie shivered as he eased the bodice down to her waist, taking the lace cups of her bra in the process. He leaned down and kissed a bared breast, sliding his tongue over the peak until it blossomed into a hard bud.
He bit gently, sending shock waves of sensation from her nipple straight to her core. Wet and hot, she opened her legs so that Gabe could press his hand to her mound.
“I can feel how wet you are,” he said against her breast before bringing his mouth to hers. “Tonight, I’m taking it slow. I’m going to touch and kiss every inch of you. I’m going to make you beg, make you scream.”
Maddie writhed against his hand, trying to coax him to move, to slide his fingers inside her. But he was true to his word and wouldn’t be rushed no matter how much she wriggled and coaxed.
“Remember your saying?” she said, tugging his shirt from the waistband of his trousers. “What goes around...”
His response was to pull her dress right off along with her panties. He settled between her legs, pressing his hands to her thighs to anchor them open. “I’m going to fuck you with my mouth,” he said, glancing down at her bared pussy before meeting her gaze. “After which you won’t even remember your name, let alone any of my sayings.”
Maddie swallowed, her fingers curling around the sheet as if reaching for some kind of ballast as her senses spun.
She gripped tightly as his mouth covered her heat, as his tongue slid languidly down her wet slit. He licked, teased, sampled and slowly drove her deeper and deeper into sexual oblivion.
She moved against the mattress, all the while clutching the sheet and trying to anchor herself in a storm of sensation. She rode it, aching and breathless, until it was virtually impossible to take any more.
When she attempted to draw her legs together, he hooked his arms beneath her hips and opened her up more. The angle meant he could push deeper, and Maddie cried out.
His response was to coax her legs over his shoulders, which took him deeper still.
Unable to withstand his relentless demands any longer, Maddie gave in to the powerful spasms that rocked through her as she came.
Gabe didn’t let up, not until the last ripple of orgasm spent through her. Only then did he release her. He stood, yanked off his clothes, then reached across to the bedside table.
Suitably sheathed, he moved between her legs.
Maddie reached for him, and he leaned down and kissed her. The scent and taste of her arousal was thick on his tongue, and she felt the lust building inside her again.
He knelt between her legs and, as he’d done before, slipped his hands beneath her backside and raised her hips. Slowly, painfully slowly, he slid his cock inside her. A mere inch at first, then he pulled back. He slid in another inch. Pulled back again.
“Gabe... Please...”
Her muscles clenched around him as he slid in another inch. Tried to hold him inside her when he pulled out again.
Their rapid, sharp breaths filled the otherwise silent room, and with each push and retreat, Maddie felt desperate for Gabe to fill her. When he did, she gripped him hard, not wanting him to release her.
He stayed deep inside her but moved in shallow pumps. The feeling against her inner walls was exquisite, and it only intensified when he raised her legs and wrapped them over his shoulders.
Leaning down, his hands either side of her shoulders, he pumped hard. Harder still. Maddie gasped, trying desperately to grab for air as he continued to thrust.
She knew he was close. She knew how his body tightened up, how the muscles of his shoulders bunched, how his nostrils flared as his teeth clenched.
Then he shouted his release, and as he came, so did Maddie.
They stayed how they were until they’d regained control of their breathing.
When Maddie could move, she reached up and touched Gabe’s jaw. “Wow.”
He took another couple of deep breaths. “Yeah. Wow.”
Inch by excruciating inch, he withdrew from her, and Maddie wanted to mourn the loss of intimacy. But then he moved beside her and pulled her into his arms, and it was somehow just as satisfying.
“Well, you made me beg and you made me scream,” Maddie said as she bathed in a lovely warm bubble of contentment. “You said you would, and you did.”
“Yeah. But I didn’t kiss every inch of you.”
“You managed the essentials, though,” she said. “I’m certainly not complaining.”
“And that scream of yours,” Gabe said. “It was far too muffled for my liking. I can do better.”
“So can I.”
He raised his head, meeting her gaze as she looked up at him. “Give me five minutes. Then we’ll try and wake the neighbours.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
WAKING TO THE warm Monaco sun slanting across the bed, Maddie stretched in a lazy catlike fashion, unable to stop the smile that came unbidden to her lips.
Once more Gabe had worked his magic on her body through the night, shooting her to heady heights before leaving her limp and satiated in the best possible way. She wasn’t sure if they’d woken the neighbours, but they’d given it a damn good try.
The man certainly knew his way around a woman’s body. He played her like an expert violinist, in fact, determining what string he needed to pluck and manipulate at exactly the right speed and at exactly the right moment in order to make that instrument sing the sweetest of tunes.
Maddie stretched again before glancing at Gabe’s bedside clock. She’d already sensed that it wasn’t especially early, not the least because she and Gabe had already made love as dawn made its presence felt, and then she’d promptly fallen back to sleep. So it came as no surprise to see it was heading toward ten thirty.
Since Gabe wasn’t beside her, with considerable reluctance she stepped out of bed and made for the shower, aching in places she hadn’t known she possessed.
It was strange, she thought, stepping under the warm water, but although Gabe had given her back her phone, she didn’t have the least inclination to use it. There was a kind of freeing that came with having no shackles, and it felt good.
Since her father’s decision to temporarily hand her the task of overseeing the running of Mallory Hotels, the weight of that responsibility had fallen heavily on her shoulders. She sometimes felt like a minnow attempting to negotiate with the big fish while trying not to get eaten. The fact that she’d so far come through without any major catastrophes she put down to having people around her she could trust and who were experienced and loyal.
Knowing she could trust her team made things so much easier. When she’d checked in yesterday, it was to find emails from the various managers reporting back on the day-to-day running of their departments. While she hadn’t planned taking leave for a honeymoon, she’d thought it necessary to message them regarding her physical absence from the office for a week and to confirm that she was contactable via email and would check in a couple of times each day.
Being in possession of her phone, and having Gabe agree to share what he found out about Oscar, had put her on a more equal footing in their relationship, both in and out of bed. This thing between them was purely physical and it was only temporary. But bloody hell, it was exceptionally good.
Distracted, she jumped when two strong arms came around her.
“Starting without me?” His words bit into her thoughts in the same way his teeth bit into her neck. “A shower’s always best when it’s shared with someone who knows what to do with his hands.”
Those hands got busy—one working upward to cup her breast, the other sliding down between her legs.
“You’ve got the talk, I’ll give you that,” Maddie said as her knees turned to mush beneath the devastation Gabe inflicted on her sensitive body. “I wonder if you’ve got the moves to go along with it.”
His thumb slid over her slick nipple at the same time his finger slid into her wet heat. Dropping her head back to his shoulder, Maddie closed her eyes.
The heavy pulse of the jet spray raining down on her body added to the eroticism of the moment. Gabe’s hot body pressed against her, his arms holding her captive as he worked her body like a sexual guru. The scent of his soap—both on her and on him—inflamed her nostrils so much that she drew it in like a hungry feline desperate for more. His breathing, heavy and urgent, burned against her ear and set the tiny hairs alight with sensation.
Her head swam, her legs buckled and those strong arms whipped her around until she faced him. Gabe coaxed her back to the shower wall. “You want to know if I’ve got the moves?” he questioned, reaching out to a small shelf and grabbing a condom. “I’ve got moves enough to make you beg, remember?”
“Vaguely.” Hell. This man could make her beg just by breathing.
Maddie managed to stay upright as Gabe rolled on the condom, then pressed her to the wall again and drew up her legs. “You might want to hold on to me, princess. I’m not about to show you any mercy.”
Her arms were already sliding around his neck, the look in his eyes sending sharp thrills racing through her, her muscles clenching in anticipation of feeling him slide inside her. The determined press of him against her heat turned those sharp thrills into a frenzied need.
He thrust hard, making her gasp at the unexpected determination of his possession. Her head fell back against the tiled wall, even as his mouth claimed her throat. His tongue was hot, his lips demanding. Seconds, mere seconds, and she was writhing her hips, her fingers digging into his shoulders as she clawed desperately for something to anchor her.
His hands held her thighs, his body pushing her legs wider as he thrust hard and deep. All the while his mouth was relentless, his teeth biting, tongue sliding, and driving her up...up...up.
She continued to grab at his shoulders, his back, something—anything—to stop her rocketing off into oblivion.
Gabe’s fingers dug harder into her thighs and he raised her knees higher until he was so deep that she didn’t know if she could bear it.
“Gabe...please...just...”
Maddie tried to move her hips as the need for satisfaction clawed at her senses and sent her on a desperate drive to find completion. Without breaking rhythm, Gabe worked his hand between them and found her clit.
It was the last push she needed to fly over the thready threshold that kept her rooted to reality. Everything spun—her head, the cubicle, the very air around her—as she was catapulted into the stratosphere.
“Oh...hell... Gabe...”
They flew, Gabe muttering a string of curses with each furious thrust until he slowed and they came down as they’d gone up—together. For long moments, Gabe didn’t move, holding her pinned to the wall and still inside her.
When he withdrew he let her legs slide down and pressed his forehead to hers. Languid and loose, Maddie kept her arms around his neck, wanting to be close to him, to feel his heat, smell his comforting citrus scent, feel the breath move in his chest. It was as if she’d been turned inside out, spun around and around, and everything that had been solid now seemed in sensual disarray.
Gabe pressed his hands to the wall on either side of her shoulders and leaned in to touch his mouth to hers. He took his time kissing her, and when he drew back, he smiled. “Okay?”
Maddie bit her lip, not entirely sure she would be able to form the simplest of words. Instead she managed a low “Mmm.”
Saying nothing more, Gabe walked out of the cubicle, and when Maddie felt capable of putting one foot in front of the other, she followed him. Gabe held out a large towel and wrapped it around her. Then he wrapped a towel around his waist and pulled her close again.
“Morning.”
It was Maddie’s turn to smile. “Isn’t it lunchtime yet?”
“Almost.” He raised the dark slash of his eyebrows. “Hungry?”
“Not particularly. You?”
“Oh, yeah.” A dangerously dark gleam shone in his eyes. “I can always eat.”
She took the implication, and frowned. “We’ve been at it all night and most of the morning.”
“What can I say? You stimulate my appetite.”
“I thought men had to wait a bit between fucks.”
His mouth kicked up on one side and ma
de him look roguish. “You have such a way with words, princess,” he said, repeating her earlier reprimand. “While that might be true for some men, maybe I’m not one of them.”
“I’m just saying what I’ve heard, not issuing a challenge. But now that I think of it...”
Bloody hell. Why did she say that? She could almost see him mentally accept the gauntlet she’d thrown down.
The gleam in his eye intensified. “Okay. Challenge accepted, but first I’m thinking some retribution is in order for your obvious lack of belief in my considerable prowess.”
Whip fast, he tugged the towel from around her, then did the same for his. He picked her up and deposited her none too gently on the bathroom counter. “Gabe...”
“Shh. Don’t talk.”
He dropped to his haunches and spread her legs. Despite that he’d been inside her moments before, she felt the pull of heat at her core. Using her hands, she anchored herself back against the counter, arching at the first touch of Gabe’s tongue to her slit.
He flicked gently along the length of her nether lips as Maddie let her head fall back and enjoyed the slow, easy pace that Gabe set up. Except there was nothing easy about the way he made her feel. Beneath the intense sensual need for him grew another need that had little to do with the physical.
She was in big trouble, but she seemed powerless to do anything about it. All she could hope was that this whirlwind of feeling that came with the sex they shared was simply a reaction to his intense masculinity, his sheer magnetism and skill.
There was no chance for further deliberation because he touched her clit, swirling his tongue around and around, faster now, harder, relentless.
Maddie arched even more, cried out, as wave upon wave of tremors coursed through her. She rode those waves like a surfer struggling for balance, only to come crashing dangerously to shore as she finally lost her footing and let the waves wash over her.
Gabe released her, sliding his tongue down the inside of one thigh before climbing up the other. He brought his hands to her hips and pulled her forward so that he could stand between her legs.
“That was some punishment.”