by Anne Marsh
“I don’t want to let you go,” she says and her gaze flicks down the front of my jeans. This does not help me with my intention to behave less like the bastard I am and more like the man she deserves. I can practically feel her measuring the length of my dick, and my imagination goes to town fantasizing about her hands on me. Her pretty pink mouth spread around me, sucking me deep as I fuck her mouth first.
I tighten my grip on her. “You saw me shift. You have to be okay with the wolf because he’s not going anywhere.”
My balls ache, tight with inexplicable, demanding need for this woman—and she deserves words. Pretty words, romantic words, all the fucking words I don’t have in me.
“I think I can be,” she whispers. “Prove it to me, one day at a time. Tell me how this works between us.”
“Being a French knight wasn’t all fighting. We had courtly duties. Singing, dancing, poetry recitals—had a real fucking soft side sometimes when we were dancing attendance on our ladies. If you’d been mine back then, I’d have whispered French love poems in your ear, just to get your attention. How’s your French?”
“Nonexistent,” she admits.
“Pity.” I lower my head and whisper my words against her ear. “Guess you won’t know if I’m reciting the phonebook or a love poem then. Dites-moi où, n’en quel pays.”
Why does she have to be so goddamned beautiful? Why does she reach some part of me that no one has touched before? I lift her up and she scissors her gorgeous, bare legs around my waist. Her pussy teases me through the pink thong, the soft curve of her mound and the crease where her thigh meets hinting at softer, still more secret places. She’s open and vulnerable like this, and yet she’s never been more in control. What I want, I can’t take. What I want, she has to give, starting with every inch of her bared and wet and aching for me.
“Blade—”
Don’t ask me to go again.
Don’t ask me to stop again when, maybe, we’re finally just beginning.
“Oui?” I’ll use every weapon in my arsenal, and she loves my French. I cup the side of her face with my hand, dragging my thumb over her silky skin, stealing one more moment for myself as I walk her over to my desk and gently set her down.
“I don’t—” She inhales, sucking the air into her lungs, breathing me in, finding that special rhythm that exists just between us two. Oui, I feel it. I’m breathing with her and I’d fucking breathe for her if she needed me to. But she’s strong and she’s got this. And then she undoes me with a whisper.
“More,” she says, almost too quietly to be heard, her words brushing against my mouth, my skin. “Give me more. Tell me more. Don’t stop.”
She asks for poetry when she means romance and feelings, but the poetry I can give her. I ease her dress up and tug at the ribbon holding her thong together and, yes, the soft whisper of the fabric tearing makes me harder. I’m a greedy bastard. I want all of her, right now, right here. Oh, and I’ll give her whatever she wants, give it to her harder, faster, dirtier. Slower too, because no matter how long we live, no matter how much time we have together, there will never be enough time to enjoy my Leah.
“Est Flora la belle Romaine, ” I groan harshly, tugging the scraps from her and tossing them onto the floor. Our hands get all tangled up together while I yank the dress over her head. She came back for me. She chose me. Fuck if I know shit about this relationship stuff. Except I do know one thing.
I want to learn.
I want to discover everything that makes her scream, that makes her squeal. How fast or slow she likes it when I lick a path between her tits and down between her thighs. Does she like one finger, two, or as many as I can fit inside that hot, tight pussy of hers? Hard or gentle or both because she’s as greedy about this as I am? We’ve had so little time together, so I store away each moment she lets me take because I’m building a gallery in my head and she’s my fucking Sistine Chapel, my Mona Lisa, so undeniably beautiful that I can’t quite believe that she exists and that I’m not already kissing the hell out of her. I’ve had so many fantasies and none of them have been better than this moment right now.
Her brown eyes flutter shut, but I need her to look at me. She doesn’t even have to tell me that I’m rocking her world or that I’m the one she wants. She just has to let me know I’m the one she needs. I ease her back on the desk and slide down her body, tasting her as I go like the world’s best-ever lollipop and my favorite flavor. I lick each curve, trace the space between her tits and underneath, move down and over the sweet curve of her belly. She giggles and then moans, her breath catching as I lose myself in her body.
I spread her open, pulling her legs over my shoulders, and she stiffens.
“Blade—” Her eyes meet mine, dazed with heat and need, but unsure, too. The look in her eyes, the tension in her body, tell me she’s nervous about opening up. About being vulnerable for me when she has no idea that she holds all the power here. That I’d never, ever hurt her. Fuck. She’s been hurt so badly before, and since I can’t go back in time and fix it, all I can do is make new memories for her and for us.
“S’il vous plait.” I keep my eyes on her face, my fingers smoothing over the soft skin of her thighs. I won’t look, won’t touch further, not until it’s what she wants, too.
“Oui,” she sighs. “If you want to.”
She’s never heard the one about the big, bad wolf eating you up? Because there’s no way I stop at just one taste. No way I don’t devour her whole, because no one licks his ice cream and then decides he doesn’t want the entire cone.
So I give her the next line in my poem, my lips brushing her soft, tight curls with each word. “Archipiades, ne Thaïs, qui fut sa cousine germaine.”
Her fingers pluck at my shoulders. “Oh, my God.”
And that’s not a complaint.
“Echo, parlant quant bruit on mène .” I punctuate each word with a slow slide of my fingers down her swollen lips.
“Dessus.” I part the slick folds carefully. Christ, she’s gorgeous.
“Rivière.” I circle my forefinger around her clit.
“Ou sur étang.” Press inside her folds.
She cries out, singing out her pleasure for me in counterpoint to my words.
“Qui beauté eut trop plus qu’humaine.” I lick and suck, cupping her ass with my hands, dragging my tongue over her.
She squeals and cries out louder, heels digging into my shoulders. She covers her face with an arm, and another time I’ll stop her. I want to watch her face, see her flush, her eyes brighten, her mouth part as she breathes harder, faster, quicker. She rocks her pussy into me, demanding more—and I give it all to her.
“Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?”
“How long is this recital?” She sounds dazed—so fucking perfect.
“I know all four stanzas.” I spread her wide with my thumbs, sucking her clit into my mouth because I have to have all of her. I cover each sweet inch because I can’t not taste her. Learn her. Cupping her ass with my hands, I lap at her, worshipping this soft, secret place.
This is my mate and that knowledge ignites me, bringing all those long-forgotten, never-learned emotions to the surface. So many feelings, I could explode. Part of me yearns to draw her down into my arms and tell her everything still unsaid about who I am and what I’ve spent too many centuries doing. To let her see every dirty inch of me. But now is for showing, not telling, so I lick and suck, loving her with my mouth.
I eat her like she’s the last meal I’ll ever have.
I eat her like she’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted.
Even run my finger between her cheeks, pressing lightly against her back entrance. “Gonna take you here.”
“You want all my firsts?” She pants the question, probably because I’m working her with my mouth again. Licking a sweet path from just above her ass to her clit. Stopping to give that sweet spot long kisses because how can I not?
“What other firsts?” I pull away just
long enough to ask the question. Maybe she has feelings for me, too. Maybe we can be each other’s first in matters of the heart. Sounds fucking corny, but she makes me hope. She’s asked to be mine, but she hasn’t given me the words. Hasn’t said I love you, Blade, and I feel that silence.
“Nothing,” she mutters.
“Something,” I growl, nipping her clit gently with my teeth.
Her throaty oh God doesn’t answer my question, so I lift my head, resting my chin on her belly until she opens her eyes enough to meet my gaze.
“Shit.” She shoves up on her elbows, staring at me. “Are you stopping?”
“Are you answering?”
She shakes her head.
“I’d really like you to.” To encourage her, I find her clit with my fingers and press. “Please?”
“Fine.” Pink paints her face—whatever it is, she really doesn’t want to talk about it. “You were my first. I was a virgin that night at the bayou bar. It doesn’t matter. Finish what you started today, okay?”
She was a virgin? She chose me?
I was… special.
I was first.
Gonna be her last too if I do this right.
“Less talking. More doing,” she gasps. If she wants to be fucked, I can do that. Slow and sweet’s not my thing anyhow. I was raised to be a knight—not a gentleman. I thread my hands through hers and dragging them over her head until she’s stretched out beneath me like my very own pagan sacrifice.
I bite her shoulder, driving my dick in deep, and that sends her over the edge. She doesn’t scream my name, just squeezes hard and tight as if she’s holding that piece of me to her, too. And then she lets go, surrenders, and when she gives it up, I do, too.
“Je t’aime,” I promise her. “I love you.”
She wraps her arms around me, holding me tight. Holding me close and then closer still. Fucking awesome.
She takes a breath. Lets it out. “I love you, too.”
Fucking perfect.
Desperate to find protection for her family, Lily turns to the only man in Miami who can help her: Xander Volkov. She hasn’t seen the billionaire Russian since their unfortunate shotgun marriage six years ago but he now runs one of the most powerful Mafia families in town. Lily hates everything about the Russian mob, but hating Xander gets harder each day… and when they bet the future of their marriage on the outcome of an adventure yacht race, Xander is determined to win once and for all.
Don’t miss the start of an exciting new bad boy mini-series from New York Times bestselling author Anne Marsh
Xander
Someday Lily Petrov will kill me. It is good then that I watch her on the club’s security feed, because I cannot be trusted around her, and not because I want to hurt her back. Hurting her is the last thing I want, particularly when I have so many filthy, wonderful, fucking awesome fantasies from which to choose. I blame the plenteous selection entirely on Lily, of course. Tonight, her four-inch heels star front and center in the dirty scene currently playing in my head. Added fantasy fodder? She is short, curvy, and completely bare between her shoes and the hem of her white cocktail dress. When she moves, I can almost but not quite see the curve of her ass, and while I pretend her bare skin is an invitation to run my hands up the smooth length, I also believe in honesty.
Lily Petrov hates me.
We share a history, and it is not a happy one. She dated my stepbrother, he got her into trouble, I exposed her, and then I worked out a deal with her father to take care of the mess. Initially, that appeared to work out poorly for me because, at the time, her father ran one of Miami’s top Russian mob families while I was a junior member of a competing family. In corporate terms, I still worked the mailroom while Lily’s father was CEO. Even then I was hungry. I made Lily’s problem into an opportunity by ratting her out to her dad and then making my case that I could clean up the mess for him. The mailroom guy does not get many chances to negotiate with the CEO and I ran with it. Reader, I fucking married her because her daddy could give me a leg up in the mob world.
If I were a smarter man, I would head in the opposite direction of Lily, because there is one reason only why she is here at the club despite my promotion to Russian mob boss and billionaire. She wants something. Unfortunately for me, I have not learned how to tell her no. Instead of running, I watch her ease into the room like a swimmer not quite sure of the water’s temperature. She looks uneasy and more than slightly uncomfortable, as if she thinks someone might actually try to kick her out of the Billionaire Race’s pre-party.
The Billionaire Race gets tons of press coverage, and that makes my public relations people happy. We have two criteria for entering. You must be a billionaire, and you must own a racing yacht. Score two out of two? Welcome to the race. We are the Young Boys Club rather than the old guard, and nothing makes us happier than rubbing all our lovely money in your face. A penis is not an actual race requirement, but so far our membership is exclusively male. You ladies should feel free to earn your place with us—I am always happy to have a girl around.
Racing is straightforward. I go out, I make my ten-million-dollar yacht sail faster than yours, and I score another trophy and front-page coverage of my smiling, handsome face as I either loft the cup over my head or swill champagne out of it. Usually I have a couple of women hanging on me too, because their hot, bikini-clad selves make our photos go viral. People have dirty imaginations. They prefer to believe I keep an enormous list of filthy, erotic things I’ve done or am about to do to those mostly naked women cavorting with me in the photographs. Possibly in public. I did mention that I am a good-looking bastard, da? And this is the racing world where money and power make the boats go round as much as the ocean currents and the wind do.
Tomorrow’s race is the hottest ticket since the America’s Cup or those round-the-world races where you sail your yacht through some of the most dangerous water in the world. Since we are not actually trying to kill anyone (I have people who handle that if I ask—it comes with the mob-boss job title), we race around the Caribbean. Tomorrow’s race is a grueling, nine-hour haul from Miami to the Bahamas through some truly challenging water. While the trophy is shiny and I like the idea of scoring the million-dollar pot for the charity of my choice, the real action comes in the side bets because every man racing tomorrow is a billionaire and this is one of the ways we do business.
Tonight’s party is therefore a multipurpose event. Mostly, I am negotiating to get what I want. When you are a billionaire, other people are either chump change or they want a piece of you. Lily has never wanted anything to do with me. When I discovered my stepbrother had been fucking her and had taken her to a club where he had owed money, I recognized that I had an in with the Petrovs. I am a good businessman—I knew Ivan Petrov would reward the man who could get his pretty little princess out of trouble. I set my stepbrother and Lily up, and then I fixed the problem for Ivan. I married her, and then I took the fall for the assault in the club. I paid Ivan’s price.
My wife knows nothing about set-ups, prices, or falls. She married me and then she proceeded to ignore me for the next six years. I did not merit so much as a card or roses on our anniversary. Still, her father gifted me with a few choices pieces of Miami real estate as a wedding present. His properties were the launch point for my billions—before our wedding, I’d had the ideas but not the capital. Afterward, the sky was the fucking limit, even if my alliance with Ivan Petrov remained a secret one. I am his hidden weapon, his concealed carry, and his last line of personal defense. The other mob families do not know about our ties, and we both prefer it that way.
There is one more thing that Ivan Petrov himself does not know. I wanted more than just his property—I wanted Lily. At sixteen, she was too young for me. Now, she is older. So am I, but that means I can protect her better. I am richer and more powerful. She will be safe on my watch.
Still, watching on camera as Lily works her way across the dance floor, I wonder if I should have come
for her sooner. Maybe twenty-one was not too young, or even twenty. Eighteen. She is fucking gorgeous, a feminine version of a Venus flytrap sucking down boy mosquitos as if they were candy. Tits, ass, and legs—Lily’s petite package is gorgeous, but that is not the best part. She looks up at the security camera, although I suspect she is unaware of its presence. For a Russian mob princess, Lily is strangely innocent—or maybe the rest of us are just too fucking deviant. She has cut her hair since our spectacularly ill-fated wedding day, the honey-blond length now falling in long layers around her face instead of the straight, slick ponytail I have spent the past six years dreaming of fisting. Full pink lips flash a reserved greeting at someone in the crowd, her brown eyes frowning slightly. She usually avoids the Russian mob families; it is possible she cannot put names to all the faces. Her own face is heart-shaped and her nose has the tiniest tip at the end as if her whole face wants to smile. Lily Petrov is one of the happy people. She is short and curvy, and the minute she steps into the sun, her skin turns the color of gold.
Honestly? Her pretty veneer is simply one more weapon in a well-loaded arsenal. She can think circles around most of tonight’s party guests. It is one more reason for me to stay here in security’s command central, watching her on the live feed rather than engaging her. Of course, I am also an adrenaline junkie who thinks taking a fifty-foot yacht through the edge of a hurricane is the best way to spend a Friday night, so I am unlikely to leave her alone.