Six
Victoria stiffened when she realized where Max had taken her. Unlike the apartment he shared with her now, with its warm palette of honey-hued hardwood floors and cream-colored walls, Max’s former bachelor pad was industrial in style. An acid-washed cement floor chilled her bare knees, while exposed ductwork hovered above her head and pale gray walls surrounded them along with an impressive collection of sexual paraphernalia.
Her p-ssy clenched with longing, her body trained to anticipate the pleasures to be found in the familiar space. But anger and jealousy simmered inside her. She didn’t want to play. She wanted to fight.
“Where’s Jezebel?” she asked, keeping her head defiantly back to stare up at him.
His mouth curved in a slow, sexy smile. “Your possessiveness makes my dick so hard it hurts.”
“Are you sure your hard-on isn’t due to seeing the woman you’ve been banging for twenty years!”
Max began to undress, freeing the buttons of his shirt one by one, exposing the hard expanse of his chest one inch at a time. “I could be in her now,” he drawled, his gaze heavy-lidded with the arousal that strained against the zipper of his slacks. “She’s naked in our apartment. On her knees and desperate for my cock.”
She gasped, then moved to rise. “What the f*ck?”
With a careless wave of his hand, he undressed her and sent her across the room to the bed. A bondage bar appeared on the red satin beside her and a tremor ran through her at the sight of it. Soon she’d be helpless and exposed, her body restrained and arranged to service him. Before Max, she had never imagined that she would crave that level of vulnerability and loss of control. Now she couldn’t imagine doing without it. He told her what to do, what to feel. And in return she’d orgasm until she was insensate with pleasure.
“You can’t hold my past against me,” he said, his voice tight and low. “I like to f*ck. So do you. For the rest of our lives, we’ll be f*cking only each other. Nothing else matters.”
He approached her with that wickedly sexy stride, one that promised as much as she could take, his body rippling with muscle. His erection was thick and long, the wide head glistening with his excitement. It curved up to his navel, the size of him enough to make her thighs squeeze together against the ache he created. She pushed up and curled her legs beneath her, wanting him but wanting answers, too.
It was harder to stay focused on talking than she cared to admit. She knew exactly how that big dick felt inside her, how it stretched her and rubbed all the most sensitive spots, how she writhed beneath his hard body and begged for him to give it all to her.
“Max . . . ”
“I should be hunting.”
He reached the end of the bed and she saw the sweat glistening on the steely ridges of his abdomen. A creamy, glistening drop of pre-cum slid lovingly down the thickly veined length of his cock.
He was so hot for it.
“Instead,” he went on, “I can’t breathe for wanting you. Can’t think. Can’t wait to sink my dick inside you and come until my balls stop aching.”
“Did she make you this hot?” Victoria asked softly.
“Never.” He grabbed the bar in his fist, the bright chrome suddenly looking dangerous when held by that beautifully defined arm. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone. You know that. Stop doubting me, Victoria. It’s starting to piss me off.”
She took a quick breath, her nipples hard and aching. He stood there waiting, a formidable male in full rut, his face harsh in its unyielding masculine beauty. His virile body strained with the need to mount her.
“You know what to do,” he said huskily. “Don’t make me wait.”
Victoria turned and stretched out facedown, spreading her legs to accommodate the bar. Her pulse quickened, spurring her breathing and her desire. Still, she couldn’t hold back from saying, “She wants you back.”
His former lover had been in their home, naked and willing. What excuse could there be for that?
“I don’t care what she wants. I only care about you.” Butter-soft leather wrapped around her ankle and tightened. “Your magic is in me. I feel you. Smell you.” His hand slid adoringly up the back of her leg. “Taste you.”
She moaned. “Why is she in our home?”
“Why are you obsessed with her?” His hand came down hard on her buttock, the sound of flesh hitting flesh cracking like thunder. She cried out and squirmed, her skin on fire from the spanking. “You know I love you too much. There’s no room for anyone else.”
His voice throbbed with emotion and Victoria’s eyes closed tightly. His hand smacked hard against her other cheek and the heat swept through her legs, swelling the lips of her sex.
“You don’t know how you look together,” she moaned. “How obvious it is that you enjoy f*cking each other. You wouldn’t understand unless you saw me with one of the Hunters that came before you. See how they look at me in a way that says they know what it feels like to have me suck them off . . . how it feels inside me . . . ”
“Victoria,” he growled, just before he bent and sank his teeth into her hip. Punishing her. Marking her.
She sobbed, so aroused her body hurt. “I hate that she knows how good you feel. The sounds you make. I hate that you wanted her so much.”
“Not as much as I want you,” he breathed, nuzzling his cheek against hers. “Not even close.”
The other leather cuff magically secured itself on her ankle.
“She was targeted today,” he told her roughly. “Struck right on the street in broad daylight with me beside her.”
Victoria’s breath caught.
“I told you how dangerous this hunt is. Told you they’d come after those around me. It could’ve been you—”
His voice broke. Sliding his hands gently beneath her torso, he cupped her breasts and pulled her up onto her knees. He moved onto the bed, tugging and milking her nipples. His chest was hot and hard at her shoulder, his hair a soft caress against her neck. Her back arched, pressing her aching breasts into his hands, her balance fully dependent upon his strength.
“It could have been you,” he said again, his lips at her throat. “And I couldn’t have borne it, Victoria.”
“Let me help you. Please.”
“You’ll help me now.” He gripped her nape firmly in his hand and urged her forward, anchoring her by the waist as she folded to press her cheek against the bed.
Her arms pushed through her splayed legs and were instantly bound to the bar by leather cuffs. She was helpless and unable to move, her hips arched high and held wide, her sex open and positioned for his pleasure. The deepest penetration.
Victoria creamed with excitement and anticipation. The more restrained she was, the hotter Max got. The hotter he got, the more she wanted him.
He straightened and snapped his fingers. It was the only warning she got before the lash of a flogger stung the back of her thighs. She moaned into the comforter, absorbing the sting of pain into her clenching core. Inside her, something rebelled. But it wasn’t stronger than her desire. Max took her places she didn’t want to go and yet couldn’t wait to get to.
His hand stroked over the heated, smarting skin. “Stop fighting me.”
“F*ck me.”
The flogger came down again. She gritted her teeth against the pleasure/pain. Max used the perfect amount of force, his actions skilled and methodical. She couldn’t help but wonder at the practice he’d had, the darkness in him that made him need unequivocal subjugation.
“Stop analyzing me.” His voice was low and controlled, quietly authoritative. He whipped her again, striking new flesh with unerring precision. When he was done, the temporary marks he left would form a clear artistic pattern. “Stop doubting me.”
“Max . . . ” The plea in her voice came from a wellspring inside her that only he’d ever tapped.
“Stop second-guessing me. I spent only two days away, Victoria, and you seem to have forgotten what you promised me.” The suede straps whacked against her buttocks. “To serve, obey, and please me. To never question an order or deny me anything. To never tell me no.”
“I give you more than I’ve ever given anyone.”
The flogger came down harder. Not enough to bruise her, but enough to tighten her attention on him. On the sound of his steady, unaffected breathing. On her pounding heartbeat.
To make her wetter. Needier.
“You’re too focused on your vulnerability,” he crooned, massaging her burning flesh with gentle fingertips. “It was a gift you promised me when I claimed you, but you’ve never really given it, have you? But I’ve kept my promise to you. To cherish you . . . treasure you . . . to keep you safe.”
“Your life is dangerous, Max. You’re dangerous. That’s part of the package.”
“Are you still arguing with me, kitten?”
She tensed, but he switched his game on her. From pain to pleasure. His clever fingers gliding over her exposed p-ssy. She shivered as sensation darted through her, tightening her skin. A gasp escaped her as he rubbed her *, circling over it with featherlight pressure.
“Such a pretty cunt,” he murmured, his breath hot against her glistening folds. His tongue teased her, rimming the opening to her sex. “Soft and tight and creamy. I’m going to f*ck it hard and have the most delicious orgasm inside it. I’m going to pump you full of thick, slick cum.”
“Yes. Max . . . please.”
He straightened and caught her hips, rolling her carefully to her back. She lay splayed before him, her ankles and wrists by her ears. “You won’t come.”
She whimpered and swallowed hard. “I’ve obeyed you.”
His silvery eyes stared down at her from within a face sharpened by lust. There was a wildness in his gaze she hadn’t caught before. “In practice, if not in spirit?”
Alarm tingled through her. “What happened today, Max?”
Gripping the back of her thigh, he took his cock in hand and stroked it between the lips of her sex, coating her with the pre-cum that leaked copiously from the tip. He was so big and hard, thicker than she’d seen before. Veins coursed down the length of the shaft as well as up his straining forearms, his body poised to mate as hard as he’d promised.
“I vanquished one of them,” he bit out between clenched teeth.
Then he rammed his cock into her, his magic slamming into her with equal force.
Victoria’s mouth opened on a silent scream. Possessed by him. Ravaged.