Colorado 01 The Gamble (60 page)

“You ruined it!” I cried as his hand pulled
my robe over my shoulder and his lips trailed its progress.

“Trust me, you didn’t miss much,” he said
against my shoulder.

“I would have liked to see it play out.”

His mouth moved back up my shoulder and down
my chest as he changed the subject when he muttered, “Like lyin’
with you on my bed, watchin’ a movie.”

I liked that too, a lot.

Still, I said, “Yes, well, then we should
have finished the movie.”

I was paying so much attention to his mouth,
I didn’t notice his hand had slid up my side, my ribs until his
fingers curled around the edge of my camisole at my breast.

“Prefer what we’re gonna do now,” he
murmured against my cleavage and before I could retort his fingers
pulled down my camisole exposing my breast then they curled around
it, lifting it up and Max’s mouth closed around my nipple and
sucked deep.

My back arched as heady sensations shot
straight from my nipple to between my legs.

My fingers slid into his thick, fantastic
hair, I forgot all about the movie and I whispered,
“
Yes
.”

His mouth pulled my nipple deeper then his
tongue swirled. I closed my eyes and just let my body experience
the beauty of it.

He released my nipple, moved up and his lips
hit mine.

“Bet you’re already wet,” he whispered there
then his fingers tugged at the drawstring of my pajama bottoms, his
hand slid in, I gasped at his touch and his eyes darkened with
desire when they found he was right. “Fuckin’ love that,” he
growled and kissed me, his tongue in my mouth, his finger slid
inside me and I moaned, not just already wet, but also already
ready for him.

His finger slid out but then hit my sweet
spot and rolled and my back arched to get closer to him but also to
show him how very,
very
much I
liked what he was doing.

“Crazy,” Max muttered against my mouth.

“What?” I whispered, my hands had pulled his
thermal free and were gliding along the skin of his back.

“That asshole had you, had this,” his finger
slid in then out and started rolling against my sweet spot again,
“didn’t take care of you,” Max went on. “Didn’t touch you for
months. Let you walk out of that restaurant without puttin’ up a
fight. Fuckin’ crazy.”

“Max,” I breathed and he kissed me again,
his finger still moving.

When he stopped kissing me, he told me,
“Want you ridin’ my cock tonight, Nina. Wanna see all of you, wanna
watch you fuck me, watch you make yourself come.”

“Okay,” I whispered, though I didn’t know
how I managed to speak since my entire body spasmed at his
words.

He kissed me again, deep, hard, beautiful
then stopped and ordered, “You’re gonna suck me first though, I
want your mouth on me again.”

“Okay,” I repeated in a whisper.

“Your mouth,” Max growled, “Christ, nearly
as sweet as your pussy.”

I shifted with agitation under him. He was
going to make me climax just by talking to me.

“This too,” he said but said no more.

“Sorry?” I tried to concentrate but it was
difficult.

“This,” his body pressed into mine, his hard
crotch rubbed against my thigh, his finger slid inside and then
started moving in and out and his tongue swept my bottom lip, a
combination that was mind-scrambling. “This too is why I’m so
fuckin’ sure about us.”

My hand left his back and went to his face.
“Max –”

Max cut me off, not that I knew what I was
going to say. “Take your clothes off, baby, want you naked while
you work me.”

“Okay,” I breathed.

Then I took my clothes off while Max did the
same.

Then I curled between his legs and sucked
his cock until he yanked me over him. Then I rode it, fucking him
while his eyes never left me, mine never left him and his hands
moved all over me. I rode him until I made myself come and kept
going until he did too.

Follow Me into the Light

Max woke me with one hand between my legs,
the other at my breast and his mouth at my neck.

My neck arched upon waking then I whispered,
“Darling.”

His hands went away, he turned me and he
kissed me. Then he did other stuff to me. Then he took me, him on
top, my knees bent, thighs pressed to his sides.

When I was almost there, teetering close to
the edge, he pulled out, flipped me to my stomach, hauled my hips
up and rammed into me, hard and rough, again and again and
again.

Delicious.

“Touch yourself, baby,” he growled his order
from behind me and, my face in the pillow, my fingers clenching it
at the sides of my head, I did as I was told.

For about thirty seconds. Then I came, long
and luxurious, my moans muffled by the pillow.

After I did, my hand slid away but Max’s arm
curled around my ribcage and he lifted my torso as he kept
thrusting into me, his finger moving between my legs, rolling on my
sweet spot.

I pressed back into his body, my hand
curling around his wrist and I moaned, “Max, I can’t… too
much.”

He didn’t listen, his finger kept rolling,
his cock kept thrusting, his hoarse, gravelly voice demanding,
“Again, Duchess.”

“I can’t.”

“I want it again.”

“Max,” I whispered.

His other hand cupped my breast, his finger
and thumb rolling on my nipple too and his touch shot through me
like a dart.

I was right, it was too much. I was going to
come apart.

“Give it to me,” he growled. “Hurry, baby,
I’m close.”

My body jolted as it hit me, longer, past
luxurious to sumptuous. So beautiful, I cried out, my other hand
moving to cover Max’s on my breast, fingers curling tight.

“Christ,” Max grunted, “so fuckin’ sweet.”
Then he drove deep with velvet brutality, once, twice, three times,
groaning as he came through his thrusts.

He stopped then bent at the waist, pushing
my torso down on the bed, he let me go and I collapsed back into
the pillows. Max stayed where he was, his fingers moving on my
behind, the small of my back, as his shaft gently glided in and out
of me.

I let him, loving every plunge, his light,
intimate touch, thinking this didn’t exactly feel like settling,
this felt like having it all.

He slid out and dropped to my side then he
pulled the covers over our bodies and gathered me into his arms. I
pressed my face to his throat as I wrapped an arm around him,
flattening my other hand against his chest.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Mm hmm,” I answered, giving a little nod of
my head.

His hand slid up my back and his voice
sounded like he was smiling when he made a query to which he
already knew the response. “Was it too much?”

“Mm mm,” I replied, giving a little shake of
my head.

His body shook too, with laughter. I cuddled
closer.

Then he asked, “How’d you do it?”

I tilted my head back to look at him. “Do
what?”

“Go without for months?”

My head pressed into the pillow as it tipped
to the side. “Sorry?”

“You’re a hot little piece, Duchess, can’t
imagine a woman like you could stand being without for very
long.”

I shoved my face back into his throat and
didn’t answer.

“Nina?” he called.

“Did you just call me a hot little piece?” I
asked his throat.

I knew he was smiling again when he replied,
“Yeah,” one of his hands drifted over my bottom as his other hand
slid into my hair, “‘cause you are.”

“Mm,” I mumbled instead of getting angry,
deciding in my current state to take that as a Max-style
compliment.

“I see Nina Zombie beats out Pissed Off
Nina,” he observed.

Again, I decided not to reply.

Max rolled me to my back by rolling into me
and got up on an elbow, his other arm resting across my belly, the
front of his body resting along the side of mine.

“So?” he prompted.

“So, what?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

I looked at his collarbone and shrugged.

“Musta been hard,” he noted.

My eyes went to his and even though I would
rather have luxuriated in the post-glow of a double orgasm and a
morning without one of my relatives at the door, I got serious and
looked in his eyes.

“
You know if I had a choice, go back to
Brent, who was the one who beat me, or go back to the time before
and after Charlie died, finding myself so alone, so lost, so
needy
that I allowed myself to get
tied to Niles, I would pick Brent.”

His hand left my belly to cup my jaw and his
face was soft when he whispered, “Baby.”

“I’m not kidding.”

“I know, that’s ‘cause it’s fresh. Coupla
weeks, you’ll feel differently.”

I sighed and closed my eyes, saying, “I
don’t know.”

I opened my eyes when I felt his mouth touch
mine.

“I do,” he said when he lifted his head.

“Yes?”

“You gettin’ lost, gettin’ tied to that
asshole, led you to me,” he grinned and his grin was arrogant. “So,
yeah, coupla weeks, you’ll feel differently.”

My eyes narrowed on his grin before they
went back to his. “You know, you’re not only annoying and
domineering, you’re also arrogant.”

His mouth came back to mine and I saw his
eyes were still smiling when he informed me, “Yeah, and you love
it.”

“I forgot, you’re also impossible.”

His eyes started dancing a split second
before he kissed me, not a touch of the lips, but deep and long and
he was mostly on top of me when he was done with my mouth. My arms
were also around him with one hand wrapped around the back of his
neck and his kiss was so good, the weight of him felt so nice, I
forgot to be peeved.

“This is nice,” I whispered.

“Yeah,” he whispered back and dipped his
head, running his nose along my jaw.

I didn’t tell him but Max doing that made it
even nicer.

“Max?” I called and his head came up.

“Right here, baby.”

“Why Shauna?”

The minute I said the words, I wished I
could shove them back in my mouth. I didn’t even know why I said
them. They just came out. We’d been “sparring”, as Max called it,
we were good at that, it had become us and, after, he was being so
sweet, I felt safe asking.

I knew as the darkness swept his face, I
shouldn’t have asked.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked,” I muttered,
fear rippling through my belly because I knew I’d done something
wrong and I didn’t want him to go back to that other Max of
yesterday afternoon. I decided to change the subject and tried to
slide out from under him, offering, “I’ll go make coffee.”

His weight didn’t shift, in fact he gave me
more of it, holding me in place and my eyes went to his.

“Why shouldn’t you ask?” he enquired.

“You obviously don’t want to talk about it,”
I pointed out carefully.

“Maybe not, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t
ask.”

“Well –”

“You’re naked in my bed, babe, you’re
cookin’ in my kitchen, you’re movin’ to town, buyin’ a lawyer desk,
all of that to take a gamble on me. Don’t you think you got a right
to know?”

I did think I had a right to know, about a
lot of things, about
everything
.

I didn’t tell him this. I just held onto my
courage and his gaze.

Max got up on a forearm but didn’t shift the
rest of his weight as his eyes went to my temple and the fingers of
his other hand went there too, sifting into my hair. He slid them
down, through the tendrils and then he started twirling a lock
around his finger. I felt his touch and it felt lovely but I also
watched his features, emotions drifting over them openly, too fast
to read but most of them were not good. Then his eyes left the lock
of hair even though his finger kept twisting it and they came to
me.

“Long time ago, fifth, sixth grade, we had a
posse. Bitsy, Brody, Shauna, Kami, Harry and me.”

“Harry?” I asked, surprised.

“Yeah.”

“Kami?”

“Yeah, kind of, mostly she tagged along,
didn’t have many of her own friends.”

I didn’t find this surprising if what Max
said about Kami being a bitch since forever was true.

“Not Curtis?” I queried.

“No.”

And not Anna?
I thought but didn’t speak the
question aloud.

“We were tight,” he continued, “did
everything together for years, into high school. Stayed tight,
school to school, even though Bitsy and Shauna were a year younger,
Kami, two.”

I nodded, prompting him to go on as my hand
slid around to rest on his chest.

“Kami broke off, findin’ her own friends but
she always stayed close to Shauna. Brody and me made varsity our
freshman year, Harry didn’t. That’s when Brody and me took on Curt,
who was a year older but we lost close touch with Harry. He was
around, we hung out but we were no longer tight.”

“Did Shauna stay close?”

“Yeah.”

“So she was your friend?”

He grinned. “I was in high school. High
school boys do stupid shit around beautiful girls and, even though
she was a conceited pain in the ass most of the time, she’s always
been beautiful, even back then.”

I tried not to let the knifepoint of his
words sink into my flesh but I didn’t succeed.

The night before he’d told me I was
pretty
not beautiful and, as all women
knew, there was a big bloody difference.

“Duchess,” he said softly, obviously reading
my expression, “doesn’t hold a candle.”

I forced a smile and tried to take us back
to our earlier subject. “Go on.”

Max stayed on the current subject. “Babe,
seriously.”