by Renee Rose
She sets a shot glass of tequila in front of each of us, along with a small plate of lime wedges and the salt shaker.
Maxim reaches for the salt shaker, beating me to it. “Body shots. I pick the location.”
I blink at him. I know what body shots are. I’ve done them before with stupid college boys. But never with the hot, virile man beside me. The guy I’m married to. The man my friends and the liquor I’ve already consumed has lowered my inhibitions with.
I hesitate, waiting to see where he’ll put the salt, but he chooses an innocuous place—the webbing between his thumb and forefinger. He licks it and sprinkles on the salt, then holds the lime in his teeth.
All the while, my friends watch, waiting to do their shots for the entertainment at hand to unfold.
He brings his hand to my lips. I lick, pound my shot and bite into the lime between his lips as my friends whoop and holler.
“Are you sharing, girl? Because I might want to lick some of that, too,” Kimberly says with a wink.
I know she’s kidding—probably swaying it to nudge me into having sex with Maxim, but I can’t deny the smack of jealousy that hits me square in the chest. It’s that, along with my newly-recognized exhibitionism, that makes me grab a lime and the salt shaker. “Come and get it, big boy.” I rub the lime across the top of one of my breasts where the skin shows above the dress, then sprinkle salt on top. I shoot him a do-you-dare? look, even though I have zero doubt he does, indeed, dare.
Yes, he makes a total show out of it, and I’m the center of attention—exactly the way I like it. He moves in slowly and drags his tongue across the salt. Then he swipes again, and a third time, before dipping his tongue below the top of my dress and teasing my nipple.
“Mmm.” He comes up and holds my gaze while he downs the tequila. He doesn’t suck the lime in my teeth. Instead, he kisses the fuck out of my mouth, twisting and torquing the lime between our lips while holding the back of my head captive.
When he finally stops, I spit the lime onto the table and gasp for breath.
Kayla fans herself. “Oh my gawd. So that’s how it’s done.”
“Your turn.” Maxim winks, and my friends salt their own thumbs and down their shot.
A round of bottled waters magically appears—Maxim must’ve ordered them before the cocktail waitress left the last time.
“Let’s go dance,” I suggest, somewhat drunkenly after I’ve downed half my water.
Maxim stands to let me out. “You want me to go with you or stay here and hold the table?”
I put my hands on his chest, accidentally bumping right up against him when I lose my balance. Why was he being so dang nice to me?
Oh damn, I asked that out loud. I definitely need to dance off that tequila shot.
I go up on my tiptoes and press a sloppy kiss on his lips. “Thank you for saving our table,” I say and weave onto the floor with Kayla and Ashley. The other two stay behind with Maxim. I whirl when I get a few steps away and point between them. “No body shots on him while I’m away. He’s mine.”
Maxim’s amused smile sends cascades of warmth into my belly and down my inner thighs.
Handsome husband.
Chapter 9
Maxim
My bride and her friends like the attention they garner on the dance floor. I’m a possessive man—extremely possessive. And when that mudak had his hands on her, I was jealous as hell. But I’m not one of those guys who needs his woman to cover up and not show off the gifts God gave her. Especially not if it gets her horny flaunting it.
The women dance and return. I push water, then order another round of cocktails, which they don’t finish. The next time they go out to dance I go with them. There are two-foot platforms people can climb onto to dance against the wall, and I lead the group back there. I hold Sasha’s hand to steady her and lift my chin toward the platform. There are people dancing on it, but I project enough authority—like I own the place, and I decide who gets to dance on the mini stages—that the people on it decide to hop down.
Sasha loves it. She climbs on and pulls her friends up. Twirling and bouncing with pleasure. She looks down at me with the heat of alcohol-induced lust and exhibitionism in her eyes. “Are you coming up?” she calls down over the music.
I shake my head. “I’m standing guard.”
Her friends love that. They whoop and ooh. I didn’t say it for effect, though. I am literally standing guard. From where I dance, I get flashes of panty beneath their short skirts, and any guy who takes that as a green light to approach is going to catch my knuckles in his gut.
There’s an art to knowing when to leave a party when alcohol is involved. You want to leave just past its peak, while everything is still perfect and fun, but you’re not too inebriated.
I watch until their exuberance starts to wilt, and then I swoop them down off the platform and outside to get some fresh air. Once they cool off, I suggest it’s time to go.
Sasha collects her big purse from the coat check, and I put her friends in the first cab waiting in front of the elite club. I walk around to the driver’s window and hand him a hundred dollar bill. “This is for their ride. If they don’t get home safely, I will hunt you down and kill you.”
Sasha smacks my arm as the cab driver bobs his head and accepts the cash.
“You can’t say that.”
“I can,” I counter. “I did.” I claim a second cab for us.
Sasha shakes her head. She’s somewhere between tipsy and sloshed, so all her movements are exaggerated and slow. “Because you’re a man you can throw your weight around like that. There’s no way I could ever r-reenact that scene and have the cabbie take me seriously.” I catch her elbow as she wobbles on the pavement, then hand her into the back of the cab and follow her in.
“Chateau Marmont,” I tell the driver.
Sasha’s still chewing on the injustice. “I don’t think I could even get that cocktail waitress to give me decent service. And it’s my money you’re throwing around.”
“It was my own,” I correct her.
“Either way, you still have all the power. I have none.”
Getting into a philosophical discussion with her in this state is probably a bad idea, but I do, anyway. She’s right—playing alpha male is easy when you are one, but she sees herself as far more weak than she is. “Power isn’t just something divvied out by gender. And it’s definitely not something that’s bestowed on you by others. It’s a choice you make for yourself. Either you react to everyone else, or you claim your own power.”
“Right. How do you think I should’ve taken my own power when my dad called me in to tell me to marry you or lose my inheritance? Hmm? Should I have told him to go fuck himself? Is that what you would’ve done?”
She has a point.
But so do I.
“No, Sasha. But you’re married to me now, and you have a choice. You can keep pushing and prodding me—running away and making me chase—to try to get the power from me. Or you can decide you’re my equal and make your demands. Tell me what you need from me to make this work.”
She blinks at me, wide-eyed, silent for a moment. Then she says, “But I don’t want it to work.”
Her words hit me like a cement block to my head.
“What’s the alternative, caxapok? We divorce, and the money goes to Vladimir? Or we separate, and one of your father’s men either kidnaps or kills you for your fortune?”
“I did make my demands.” She smacks my arm with the back of her hand. “I asked you to let me stay in Moscow. And how did that go over for me? Hm? Oh yeah, I remember, it ended with you carrying me out to the car like a sack of potatoes!”
My lips twitch at the memory and at her feistiness. “My ability to keep you alive is possibly the sole reason your father picked me. Leaving you in Moscow wouldn’t accomplish that.”
“Okay, so I demanded my own bedroom. What did that get me?”
The taxi pulls up in front of our hotel. I pay h
im, and he opens Sasha’s door for her. I walk around to take her hand.
“I didn’t trust you not to run away. And with good reason, apparently.”
“Are you really just talking about sex here when you tell me to demand what I need?” Sasha asks as we step into the lobby.
I put my finger over her lips with a smile because she’s too loud, and she giggles.
“Is that it?” she asks again as I guide her down the hallway. “You want me to demand sex? My friends think I should.”
I open our room, and she looks around, just now noticing her surroundings. “Where are we?”
“Chateau Marmont.”
She turns around and opens her arms. “I’ve always wanted to stay here.”
I step closer, my hands lightly touching her waist. “And now you have.”
She totters, blinking. It’s probably wrong to try to seduce my wife when she’s been drinking, but I’ve been hard as concrete since she first threw herself at me on the dance floor.
“How would you demand it?” I prompt, sliding my hands down her hips until I get to the very short hemline of her dress. I inch it up.
“See, the thing is, I don’t think you deserve it,” she says to me.
On the other hand, her tipsiness makes this a perfect time to figure out what schemes are going on in that beautiful head of hers.
“You’re right,” I agree. “I don’t deserve it. Not after you offered yourself up so prettily before, and I didn’t accept.” As I speak, I slowly hike her dress up over her ass, then up her torso and over her head.
There. It’s out in the open. Maybe we can put this behind us once and for all.
She’s stunning in a pink bra and matching thong. Curvy, voluptuous, and perfect.
Sasha’s composure crumbles a little, probably both at being stripped and by the reminder. But being my fiery beautiful bride, she pops open her own bra, allowing her breasts to spring free and bounce. She’s double D’s all the way and fucking gorgeous with her pale skin and pink nipples. She drops the bra on the floor, lifts her chin and cups her pretty breasts proudly. “Well, this is what you missed out on, Max. And you don’t get a second chance.”
“Sasha, I wanted you then, and I want you now.” I step into her space, unbuttoning my shirt and tossing it to the floor. “If you weren’t seventeen and the pakhan’s daughter, I would’ve been on you all night, every night on that trip.” I tug off my undershirt. “Believe me.”
She sets her jaw like she doesn’t want to believe me, but I know I have her attention. I’m saying the right thing, for once.
I take a chance and lightly touch her waist. Let my fingers slip under the waistband of her thong. I don’t move it. It’s just a suggestion of what I might do. “Sugar, your father would’ve killed me. And not a nice, swift mercy killing. He would’ve cut off my balls. Cut off every finger that touched you. And then slit my throat and listened to me beg as I bled out.”
She shakes her head and rolls her pouty lips inward. Instead of retreating, though, she leans into me, her nipples brushing against my bare chest. “You didn’t just refuse me. You went and told my father.” She smacks my chest. The accusation and betrayal in her eyes slices into me. Especially when a sheen of tears coats her eyes. “You know what he did?” She tries to shove me away, but I don’t move. “He slapped my face and called me a whore.” She slaps mine.
Aw, fuck. My heart twists for her. Igor was a fucking loser as a father to her. I cup her cheek as if I can soothe away the sting of the years’ old slap.
“No one will ever slap your face again—this I promise you. Not if they want to live.”
She blinks rapidly.
“Fuck, sugar. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But I had to tell him.” I let my hands settle on her hips for real and gently maneuver her backward toward the bed. “Igor was so twisted, I was afraid it was a test. Like he told you to tempt me to find out if I was loyal. If I respected his law. And even if it wasn’t a test, if anyone else on that yacht told him they’d seen you going in or out of my cabin, I’d have been a dead man. It wasn’t something I could wait to be accused of—I had to be proactive. You put my head on the chopping block coming in that room.”
I stop guiding her before the backs of her legs hit the mattress. I want to get her horizontal, but this conversation is too important to rush through. I should’ve had it with her the day we married.
“I don’t forgive you,” she says sulkily, and I sense the lie.
“Give me a do-over,” I entreat. “The way I remember it, you were in the middle of my bed.” I lift her hips to plop her down on the bed. “Only you weren’t wearing these.” I reach for the thong, going slowly in case she protests.
She doesn’t. Her pupils are wide as she reclines on her elbows and watches me drag the scrap of fabric down her legs.
She isn’t waxed bare, but has a neat auburn trim. Her belly shudders in and out.
“Beautiful,” I murmur. “You were beautiful then, but you’re even more beautiful now.”
“What’s different?” Her voice is husky.
I push her knees up, spreading them wide and settle between her legs. “Now I can have you.”
She tries to snap them shut around my ears. “I didn’t say that.”
I lick into her, and she gasps, tightening her thighs even more. I grasp her legs and stroke my palm up and down one of them. “I didn’t mean it that way. Only that you’re an adult and Igor’s dead.” The truth is, I didn’t even let myself look at her the night I found her in my room. I mean, I saw, but I forced my mind to ignore what I saw. I didn’t even sprout a chub because I knew it would be wrong.
So wrong.
I ease her knees back open and tongue her, tracing around her pink bits, then sucking her clit between my lips.
I try to work my index finger inside her, but she’s tight as hell. She whimpers slightly. When I look up to read her face, I find her expression slightly alarmed.
Goosebumps shoot out on my arms as it hits me—my bride might be a virgin after all.
“W-weren’t you going to punish me?” Her cheeks flush—whether it’s excitement or embarrassment I can’t be sure.
I know she’s diverting my attention, but I fucking love that she asked. It’s the second time she’s reminded me of her punishment. I’m thinking she loves the idea as much as I do. Punishment probably seems safer to her now than letting me conquer that pussy of hers—especially if she’s a virgin like I’m starting to suspect.
I smirk. “I was going to wait until morning when you were sober, but if you want your spanking now, I’m happy to deliver.”
I don’t give her a chance to respond, I just tuck my hand under one side of her hips to roll her to her belly. She spreads her legs a little, like a good girl. I give her ass a few smacks and rub.
Fuck. Sasha is a good girl. She may play bad girl all day long, but at the end of it all, she kept this pussy pristine because Igor told her to lock it up. She fooled me. She fooled everybody. But the sex-tease act was a manipulation. Underneath it all, my bride is an innocent.
She even fooled Igor because he flat-out stated she wasn’t a virgin.
He was an ass.
I dip my fingers between her soft thighs and rub. Her pussy weeps, greedy for attention. I spread the moisture up to circle her clit and back again. Then I deliver several hard smacks. “That’s for letting that mudak touch you,” I tell her, using the Russian word for asshole instead of the English. “That is the part I won’t be quick to forgive.” I stroke again, teasing her entrance with the tip of my finger before working it inside.
She spreads her legs wider, tipping her ass back to give me better access. “I was about to give him the elbow when you arrived.”
I slowly pump my finger as I slap her ass a few times with my free hand. “That better be fucking true.”
She moans. “It is.” Her accent’s grown thicker.
I ease out of her and warm her ass again with another flurry of span
ks. I start light and gradually increase the power behind the spanks until she starts to squirm and reach back. I clasp her wrist and bend her arm behind her back. “That’s for making me get on a fucking plane to chase you.” I slap the backs of her legs, and she cries out, cursing me in Russian. Her porcelain skin glows pink with my handprints, and I can’t deny the surge of possessiveness I experience admiring it.
I slide my middle finger between her legs at the same time my thumb dips between her cheeks to nudge her back pucker. She squeezes her ass cheeks up tight against the intrusion.
I slap her ass with my free hand and continue to work my middle finger past her tight entrance and apply pressure with my thumb. I prod her cheeks open and drop a little saliva between them to aid my progress.
“What are you—oh!” Sasha gasps as I breach her back hole, too. She pants, her hips rocking to take my middle finger deeper. I lean on my shin beside her, to get in close, working my digits in both her holes. I alternate, filling her pussy, then her ass as she writhes and moans incoherently. I work my free hand under her hips to find her clit and she bucks, opening her legs even wider. She’s beautiful—fully surrendered, yielding, responsive. I try to get a second finger inside her tight entrance while I circle her clit.
“Maxim.” She sounds alarmed. She must be close to orgasm.
“That’s right, caxapok.” Say my fucking name. I’m simultaneously shocked by how far we’ve come since yesterday and stunned at how right it feels. How satisfying it is to hear my reluctant bride croak my name in that desperate, needy tone.
I pump into both holes simultaneously, and she pushes back to take me deeper, arching her back. My cock strains hard against my zipper, but now that I suspect she’s a virgin, I can’t take her. Not tonight when she’s been drinking. It would be wrong—even if she is my wife.
“Maxim—Gospodi.” She clenches both holes, drawing my digits deeper as she comes with a strangled cry. I continue to rub her clit until her muscles stop squeezing and pulsing. Until she sinks back into the bed, all the tension in her body releasing.
I lean over and bite her shoulder, then kiss the center of her back. “Good girl. You took your punishment so well, sugar.” I ease my fingers out and go to the bathroom to wash up and bring her a damp washcloth. She’s already half-sleep, the alcohol and her orgasm sending her off into dreamland. I manage to get her under the covers and then undress, turn off the light, and crawl in beside her.