He makes enough progress to push a sleeve over my shoulder, dragging his teeth across the firm ball of muscle. Then his tongue. I arch and sigh. Tunnel my fingers into the long luxury of his hair. Groan with relief when he hoists me up and against him and carries me to his bed.
We tumble down together in a flurry of urgent breaths, rough kisses, and desperate touches. I drag my hands up his muscled abdomen, taking his T-shirt along the way. He rips it off, returning to the more important task of kissing me into wild oblivion.
Having seemingly given up on the tedious buttons of the dress, he hikes the skirt’s hem up to my hips. I’m blind to everything but the sensation of his fingers slipping under my panties, over my most sensitive flesh, then teasing my opening.
I draw in a ragged breath, taking the scent of him into me. Apples and rain, flesh and muscle, heat and desire. Maximus…this man I’ve fallen so deeply for in so many ways. In every way…
A groan vibrates from my lips, echoing from him as he pushes inside, penetrating me with fast, firm strokes.
“I… Kara, I—” He closes his eyes, wincing with emotion.
My eyes flutter closed too. The sharp rise of my orgasm blocks everything out—everything but the perfect pressure of his palm against my clit, his dedicated ministrations sending electric pleasure through every cell. A beautiful delirium.
I tremble against him as his movements slow.
“More,” I whimper, even as the pulses in my core persist. I need to feel him losing control too, taking his pleasure from my body the way I’ve taken from his.
In this very bed. On these sheets.
How can he do that to me? Satisfy me and make me crave more still…
I don’t have a moment to rationalize how, because the promise of more is shattered with the shrill ring of my phone.
Maximus drops his head into the bedspread beside me. “Fuck… Please tell me that’s not your mother.”
Boneless, my brain cells still scattered, all I can do is sigh.
And then remember.
He pulls gently from me. The absence of contact is made even more miserable with the sudden realization that now I won’t be enjoying more of him in any form.
I groan, this time with angry frustration.
He rolls to his back with his own sigh. I rise and surge toward my phone but end the call. It doesn’t matter. Veronica will call back in a few seconds. She’ll call until she hears a voice, a surefire guarantee that she connects with whoever she pleases, whenever she damn well wants to.
I set the phone back on the counter and button up my dress.
“What are you doing?” Maximus sits on the edge of the bed. His hair is mussed from my eager fingers pawing him like a wild animal. His cheeks are flushed, which makes his eyes even more intensely blue.
What I wouldn’t give to shut my phone off and crawl back into those sheets with him right now. For hours. For days.
“I have an appointment,” I say instead, hoping my hurried preparations will excuse me from the lack of detail.
But he’s not letting me get away with it. My luck runs out as soon as he pushes up to stand.
“With who?”
I swallow and focus on my buttons. “Fine,” I finally say. “You deserve to know. I’m meeting Arden. At his office near Rodeo. Mom wants us to wrap up this project we started. She’s adamant about it.”
Max’s reply takes several seconds to come. Some of the longest ticks of my life.
“Arden.”
I don’t have to look up to pick up on his outrage.
“I’m sorry. But this isn’t a permanent situation. Even so, if I never had to see him again, I’d be truly happy. But she’s forcing the issue—”
“No.” He growls the word like it’s law.
I finally risk a look in his direction. The second I do, I’m pulled more fully into the sudden shift in his intensity…from raw and sexual to possessive and pissed.
“You’re not seeing him alone. Is Veronica insane?”
“Likely. But she’s also confident I’ll be safe with him.”
I utter the reassurance with a little more fervency than I feel. Arden’s never made me feel especially safe. And at his worst, he’s made me feel very unsafe. I haven’t nearly forgotten. But worrying Maximus needlessly isn’t the answer either. He’s holding up under the stress of this new life, but for how long? He already looks like he’s ready to snap. Now more than ever.
He shakes his head. “I don’t trust it. I don’t trust her. And I sure as hell don’t trust him.”
“She’s my mother, Maximus. If I can’t trust her—”
“But can you?”
I pause, because the vehemence of his question forces me to dig deeper for my own truth. Do I trust her? Implicitly? I take a deep breath, buying more time to question everything.
“I trust you, Maximus, and I haven’t known you that long. I trust Z because he might be the only one who can save me now. And…yes, I trust my mother because she’s my mother. She’s difficult, I know.”
His jaw tightens with that.
“Okay, she can be downright vicious. And love isn’t exactly an emotion she’s well-versed in. We might not have mutual affection in abundance, but I believe she’s invested in my safety. In, you know, keeping me alive.”
For a minute, I think he’ll keep pushing me. But he simply stares, his breathing evening out, like maybe he’s beginning to understand the insanity of it all. The illogical but inescapable contradiction that is my mother. My family. My life as a demon who’s done everything to be someone different.
“Fine,” he finally says, throwing his shirt back on.
I blink back my shock at his sudden acquiescence. “Okay.”
“But I’m coming with you.”
Chapter Eleven
Maximus
She’s not comfortable with my ultimatum. But as I lift her into my truck, I linger my hands on her waist to convey my gratitude for her reluctant acceptance of it.
I hope she picks up on the rest of my feelings too. How I hate unsettling her like this. How I desperately wish I could change my mind, but that’s not possible. Not right now. I don’t trust Arden and Veronica by a fucking inch. Even a fraction of one. Arden’s a snake. An ambassador of hell itself.
So like it or not, she’s stuck with me. And everyone will just have to deal with it.
“Maximus.”
“Hmm?”
“Maybe you should stop and think about this.”
I start the engine. “I appreciate that, beautiful—especially because I know the place in your heart that it’s coming from.”
“If you really knew that, you’d be stopping and thinking.” Her tone points to her persistent worry.
I turn my focus back to the GPS screen in place of kissing away the little V between her eyebrows. Damn, the woman is hot when she’s fretting. “Done all the thinking I want or need to.” Like the engine warming to a roar beneath the truck’s hood, my blood heats with the heritage that it’s been too long denied. The legacy from Olympus. The spirit of a king. It feels good to let that pedigree flow a little more freely. “Who knows? I might even prove useful on your grand treasure hunt.”
“You mean by being the best treasure in the room?”
Her flattery doesn’t fall on deaf ears. I swoop toward her with a fast but passionate dip of my lips. I don’t even mind that a persistent pap has found his way into my complex’s garage to snap us in the clinch—until a separate flash joins the first.
I snap my head around. Once I spy the two men there, the electrocution takes over every hair on the back of my neck—just like it threatened to do over the weekend when I saw the same pair in the bar at Yamashiro.
But in the two seconds I take to glance back at Kara, the photographers have rushed away, probably to the garage’s deeper level. “Did you see those guys?” A useless query and I already know it, which doesn’t stop me from going on. “One of them had a beach bum smirk and a glitchy walk.
The other stared at me like a goddamned wolf.”
Kara releases half a laugh. “That’s a pretty specific observation, even for you.”
“That’s because I’ve seen them before.”
“Very likely,” she says. “Lots of the guys cover the same beats. Some of them have been snapping Jaden, Kell, and me for years.”
“Any of those guys stare at you like you just fell from heaven?”
Her smile fades. “That’s not funny.”
“I’m not trying to be funny.”
She settles back into her seat with a heavy sigh. “I also don’t think we should try to be late,” she mutters with gentle firmness.
I roll my shoulders to shake off the paranoia—which is all it is, damn it. Instead of looking for false monsters around every corner, I’ve got to support Kara in facing the real one a few miles away. As I head toward Wilshire on our journey toward Beverly Hills, I use stoplight pauses to sneak glances across the truck’s cab. Kara’s expression is stoic. She taps a finger on the armrest in time to the song on the radio. This clearly isn’t her ideal way to spend the afternoon either, but she’s being brave about all of it. Admirably so.
Despite my frustration with the situation, I’m proud as hell to be by her side. She inspires me. I tell her so by reaching a steadfast hand to her knee. I back up the action with a determined murmur. “You’re the most courageous person I know, Kara.”
She molds her hand across the top of mine. “Except I’m not wholly a person, Maximus.”
“By that definition, neither am I. But here I am, wondering how I’m going to keep my hands to myself for the next few hours.”
Her answering grin matches my heated energy. “Why don’t you just use them in some fantasies instead?”
“Now there’s an idea.”
“But if you do, you have to promise me one thing,” she murmurs.
“Just one?”
“You have to pay careful attention, because there’ll be a quiz later.”
I answer with a low chuckle. “On my fantasies?”
“Maybe not a quiz,” she amends. “I’d call it more of a…long-form exam. Really long. It’ll probably require us pulling an all-nighter.”
I kick up one side of my mouth. “So you’ll need to stay over. Maybe for quite a while.”
“Well, that’s a given.”
“And what kind of special notes are you allowing for this test?”
“Notes?” She lets out a cute psssh. “Who said anything about notes?”
I flick over a playful glare. “Is that fair?”
As soon as she turns in her seat, the intensity of her stare scorches my whole profile. “You know what’s not fair?”
“Hmm?”
“Having to wait so long to have you inside me again.” She practically whispers it, which only adds to her gorgeous irresistibility. She’s so small, inviting, and entrancing against the expanse of the truck’s passenger seat. “Last time I checked, I was a demon, not a nun.”
I drag in a breath, patching up my willpower for what feels like the hundredth time since those blessed moments when I was inside her. “A fact that my own body won’t let me forget,” I assure, turning a tender glance toward her. I want to caress her with much more than my gaze but don’t dare trust myself right now. But the temptation lingers, especially as she crosses her arms, turning her breasts into pert plumps.
“At the risk of stating the obvious, Professor, you have a funny way of showing it.”
“Not ‘funny,’ Kara.” My voice is a soothe now because I need the calm as much as she does. “I just want to make sure…”
“Of what?” she demands when I pause too long.
Screw it. I take the risk of scooping her hand into mine. As always, that incredible energy flares between us, but I breathe deeply before it can ignite the rest of my blood.
“Being with you, in that way—I feel like one of those beams of light on the ocean, right as the sun is setting. You know what I’m talking about?” I feel corny as hell, but I’m committed to the subject now. Time to see this through. “They’re tiny specks but part of something so much bigger…greater. And while the ocean goes on, those lights are only there for moments each day. But when you’re looking at them, those are the very best moments of the day.”
Her small fingers tighten around mine. There’s a sweet, sublime smile on her lips. “Yeah,” she murmurs. “I do know what you’re talking about.”
“Then you understand why I’m not going to simply dive between the sheets and just fuck you again, Kara.” I pull her knuckles to my lips. “Not with all this insanity going on around us.” I turn her hand over and capture her palm with a gentle kiss. “You’re the fire on my ocean. The sunset that’s worth waiting for.”
Her breath audibly snags. I savor the sound and the fusion of our heartbeats via the press of our palms.
Until I notice we’re on final approach to Prieto’s office. The blaze in my blood is instantly iced down. Not even Wilshire Boulevard’s high-end bustle, with edgy sculptures and cycling studios and exotic car dealerships, takes me from the freeze.
By the time I toss the truck’s keys to the valet at Arden’s office, I’ve extended that chill to my basic self-control. For Kara’s sake, I promise to keep it that way. I offer her my elbow as we walk across the lushly landscaped inner courtyard and then board the elevator for the third floor. By the time we disembark, I’ve actually managed to school my features into a semblance of calm neutrality. It stays put until we head toward a set of ornate double doors that look like they belong in the Palais Versailles instead of a chic Beverly Hills complex with a relaxed Moroccan vibe.
The doors swing open suddenly, revealing a smiling Arden Prieto. The guy is decked out like he’s been practicing his Humphrey Bogart impression all morning.
“Darling Kara,” he croons, drawing out every vowel. “Don’t you look like a delicious dream today?” He hums seductively, licking his gaze shamelessly over her.
I’m conscious of the figurative smoke between my coiling fingers.
The moment stretches on until he seems to finally notice me, if the downward dip of his glance can be clearly deciphered. The distraction of Kara’s beauty aside, he undoubtedly can’t miss the stiff loom of my posture and balls of my hands. While taking on this kind of tension serves me well with college clowns and standard-issue assholes, it only makes Arden’s eyes alight with humor.
“Professor Kane. I wasn’t expecting you.” His smug smile melts into a grimace. “But of course, none of us were.”
“Arden,” Kara all but hisses.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” I mutter, not really meaning it.
“No. It’s not.” She nails Prieto with a matching glower. “I’m here to honor my mother’s request about this project, okay? Out of respect to her and my sister, I’m willing to be nice about it if you are. Completely your call.”
“My call.” Prieto strikes another practiced stance, cocking his head. “You’re absolutely certain about that? Because if it was actually my call…”
She wilts a little, as if Arden’s sarcastic banter is already starting to wear her down.
I want to flatten his face like molding clay.
Instead, I stretch out my fingers for the sake of grasping Kara’s hand. “Come on, Arden. Surprise us all. Become the gentleman you keep hinting at instead of acting like a teenager who got turned down for prom.”
“Says the guy who’s already screwed the prom queen?” He punctuates the verbal jab with a silky smirk, brandished with the glee of an evil prince.
I freeze every muscle, recognizing his game. He’s still openly baiting me, which means he’s either fearless, stupid, or tempting me into a display of jealousy that will serve his own interests.
My money’s on the latter, so I fight down the rage. Again. It’s not easy. I focus on deep, cool breaths through my chest while ignoring the violent viscosity of my blood. Prieto won’t own any part of me like this—just li
ke he’ll never possess any part of Kara.
“Some things just aren’t worth it,” I say, glancing quickly to Kara. The determination in her eyes is like the end of a smoky sunset, nearly knocking me down. So worth waiting for.
“But some things are,” she says, “like taking care of all this so we can go home.” A faint smirk curves the edge of her lips. “And bake apple tarts.”
This time, I’m ready for Prieto’s nasty comeback, whatever it may be—only it never materializes. Though I don’t bother with even looking at him now, his stare is a palpable witness to my lingering look with Kara.
He clears his throat loudly. It’s a victory bell to my ears.
“In any case, Veronica has asked me to update you on the latest procurement opportunities for the collection.”
One day, hopefully soon, baking and making out will be our sole priorities in life. But for now, my stunning little demon has to wear a congenial smile.
With an arch of his eyebrow and a sweep of his hand, Arden gestures us into his office. He wastes no time ushering Kara toward his desk with a hand along the base of her spine. I hang back but ensure I’m in his periphery with my best thundercloud glare. I’m not at the point of openly threatening…but if he inches that hand any lower…
“Now this piece here…” he begins. “This is a listing I found just yesterday. It’s very interesting.”
“Beautiful,” Kara concurs, peering longer at the image of a circular object crafted in detailed silver and gold and dominated by two figures, a man and a woman. “Is it a plate? Oh, no. There’s a shallow lip along the edge and a center indentation. It’s a phiale.”
Arden’s approving hum sets my teeth on edge, but I keep my face set in careful neutrality.
“You’re absolutely right. The Greeks used these shallow bowls for libations. But you probably already knew that.” He grins shamelessly. “Are you sure you’re simply majoring in classics and not pulling a minor in Art History or Archaeology?”
She laughs, but it’s a courtesy. I saw her pull this too many times at the restaurant the other night, with those shallow brackets at the corners of her mouth, to conclude anything else.
Heart of Fire: (Blood of Zeus: Book Two) Page 9
