Max thought about the answer, considering his words. “Let’s just say I believe in how they’re doing it.” He shook his head. “Fuck. There has to be some honor, doesn’t there? Even among thieves?”
“It’s an optimistic view, but what can I say? I’m an optimist.” Carlos got in the car and looked up at Max. “See you tomorrow. Boss.”
He shut the door and started the car.
Max stood in the driveway until the headlights disappeared at the end of the drive.
When he returned to the house, Abby was sitting on the sofa with a glass of wine, her feet tucked up under her. He sat down and pulled her feet into his lap, grateful she didn’t speak right away.
He rubbed her feet and she repositioned herself so she could lay back against the arm of the couch.
She sighed. “That feels so nice.”
“You worked hard tonight,” he said. “Thank you.”
She smiled. “You cooked the steaks.”
“True, but you did everything else.”
“Fair enough.”
She closed her eyes and for a long moment there was nothing but silence.
“I like him,” she finally said.
“You don’t know him,” Max said. “Not really. And neither do I.”
“Maybe, but I like what I know. He seems nice, solid.”
“Solid, how?” he asked, starting on her other foot.
“Just… reliable. Plus, it might be nice to have someone else around, you know?”
He squeezed her foot. “Are you saying you’re getting tired of my company?”
Her eyes flickered open. “If that was going to happen, it would have happened a long time ago. Like in eighth grade when you got all dumb around Ashley Gonzalez. Or in tenth when you wore that stupid U2 shirt to school every day.”
“That was a good shirt,” he said.
“It was practically falling off you when you stopped wearing it,” she said. “And it stunk, because you hardly every washed it.”
He chuckled. “Ouch.”
“The point is,” she said, “if I’m not sick of you by now, I’ll never be sick of you. It’s one of the advantages of sleeping with your best friend.”
“Noted.”
“I’m just saying it might be nice to have someone you can count on,” she said softly.
“I can count on you.”
She sat up and maneuvered onto his lap, one of her legs on either side of his thighs. “That will always be true, but we don’t have to be an island of two.”
He cupped her ass in his hands. “Why not? It sounds perfect.”
She smiled and bent her head to kiss him. Her lips tasted like the lemon sorbet they’d had for dessert, like wine, like love.
She rested her forehead against his. “Nothing bad will happen if you let someone in a little.”
“You can’t possibly know that.” He’d meant it as a joke, but it came out more seriously than he’d intended.
“I do.” She touched her lips to his, then left a trail of kisses over his cheeks and jaw. “And if it did, it wouldn’t matter, because there will always be us. There will always be this.”
She slid her tongue into his mouth and his cock sprung to life in his jeans.
He slid his hand under her T-shirt, the heat of her back searing his palm.
She molded her body to his, her breasts pressing against his chest as he moved his hands over her hips, up her arms and across her shoulders. Holding her face between his palms, he deepened their kiss, the urgency in his body bringing new fervor to the sweep of his tongue in her mouth.
She moaned as she worked the buttons on his shirt, then pushed it off his chest. Desperate to feel her bare skin against his, he lifted the T-shirt off her body and wrapped his arms tightly around her back, pressing her to him as he kissed his way down her neck and across her collarbone.
“We could go to bed,” he said, touching his lips to her chest.
“No way,” she murmured, running her hands through his hair. “We’re not moving.”
“If you say so.” He kissed each of her nipples through the lace of her bra, then pulled the cups down. They offered up her perfect breasts, nipples hard and pink and begging for his mouth.
She grabbed a fistful of his hair and gasped when he drew one of the buds into his mouth, arching her back to give him easy access as he sucked.
The cleft between her legs was hot against his cock, even through his jeans. He already knew what it would feel like to slide into her: like tunneling through warm satin, like being enveloped in the heat of the sun.
He held onto her hips and rolled her under him so that she was the one sitting on the couch.
Her eyes were glazed, only half-open as she watched him kneel between her legs. He unbuttoned her jeans and she lifted her hips as he pulled them off with her underwear in one sweep.
He looked up at her, lips slightly parted and swollen from his kisses, breasts still plump above the lace of her bra, nipples swollen and hard from his sucking.
He pushed her knees apart and pulled her lower on the sofa. Her pussy, glistening with desire, was at the edge, right where he wanted it.
He leaned in and lowered his mouth to the inside of her thigh.
Seven
She sighed when his lips touched her skin. Her nerve endings sparked like live wires as he lifted one of her knees to his shoulder and kissed his way along her thigh. She lifted her hips when he got close to her mound, desperate to be enveloped in the heat of his mouth.
He pulled back before she got what she wanted and she hit the couch with one of her fists.
He chuckled, the vibration of it traveling up the skin of her other thigh as he gave it the same attention, nibbling at her flesh, licking and kissing his way back toward her throbbing pussy.
This time when he got there, she grabbed a fistful of his hair and slid down a little closer to his mouth, making clear what she wanted. Three months of lovemaking with Max had obliterated all her old inhibitions.
He’d seen all of her. Had tasted all of her. Been inside all of her.
There was nothing to hide. Nothing she wanted to hide.
She half-expected him to tease her, to make her wait. It was one of his favorite games.
To her relief, he slid his hands under her ass instead. His breath was soft against her aroused center, her knees resting on his shoulders as he stroked through her folds with the pad of his thumb.
She arched her back and sucked in her breath, her hands still in his hair.
“You’re so wet, Abby,” he murmured. “So fucking wet.”
“It’s for you,” she said. “Now what are you going to do about it?”
After all the hours in bed with him, she still never knew exactly what to expect. He might lick her from one end to the other or fuck her with his fingers first. He might drive into her with his cock and then withdraw, leaving her panting and begging for more.
This time he went straight for her clit, locking his mouth down on it and sucking, giving her no time to build to the pleasure that rocked her body.
Not that she was complaining.
He sucked until she couldn’t bear it another second, until the pressure was an exquisite blend of ecstasy and pain. Her channel was crying out for his fingers, his cock, anything to fill the yawning emptiness of her pussy, all the more demanding for the sensation exploding in her clit.
He wasn’t going to give it to her. Not yet. She could tell from the firm placement of his hands under her ass, offering her up to his mouth.
He wanted surrender. Wanted her to prove that she trusted him as much as he trusted her.
She pressed down against his mouth and let go, relinquishing her desire for his fingers and cock, giving herself over to the fevered lapping of his tongue.
The wave of her orgasm rose almost immediately, a roar that built in her core until she could almost hear it, like a tidal wave rushing toward shore.
She moved her hips in time with his tongue, gri
nding against his mouth, disappearing into her urgency, into the heat seeping from his mouth to her already-hot pussy, contracting as her orgasm reached the point of no return.
She was a split second from letting go, from spilling into bliss, when he surprised her by withdrawing his mouth.
She gasped, opening her eyes to look at him.
His jeans were unbuttoned, his cock a perfect staff jutting between her thighs, already poised at her opening. She didn’t have time to wonder why he was withholding her orgasm when in the past he’d always insisted she come at least once before he penetrated her. They were half-formed thoughts trying to swim to the surface of her passion-fueled fog as he drove into her with a ferocious growl.
She cried out, the pleasure of his massive cock pushing through her swollen channel almost more than she could bear.
He rolled under her until she was straddling him again, back where they’d started. Gravity did the work of dropping her even further onto him. The deep penetration coupled with the friction of his stomach on her clit had her moving immediately, rocking her hips against his as she held onto his shoulders.
He held her head in his hands as he thrust into her, matching her frantic movements with a fever of his own.
“It’s just us, Abby,” he said between kisses. “I don’t need anything else.”
She knew what he was saying, felt it as surely as she felt his body joined with hers: other people would come and go, but their world revolved only around each other.
It always had. It always would.
She gave him her tongue, gave him her body, gave up any idea of separation between them. She didn’t know where she ended and he began. Maybe it had always been this way — the two of them operating under the illusion that they were different people when they had been one and the same all along.
The thought was a match to the embers of her orgasm, burning low in her belly since he’d taken his mouth off her. It flared to life, hungry and demanding release as he plunged upward into her.
The pressure on her clit was ecstasy. She moved faster, wanting the perfection of his cock filling her and the stimulation on her clit all at once, getting there the only way she knew how — by moving faster, by sinking onto him again and again, letting his cock impale her, his head slam into her cervix until she was teetering on the brink.
“Open your eyes, beautiful,” he said, as if he’d felt the subtle shift in her body, the impending flood of release. “Look at me when you come.”
She opened her eyes and looked at him. She was secure in his arms, his body a wall of muscle against hers, his hands still holding her head like a rare and precious jewel as she moved her hips into position, giving her body permission to let go.
There was fire in his eyes, but love, too. So much love.
She didn’t know which one tipped her body over the edge, but a moment later she was crying out, fighting to keep her eyes locked on his as she shuddered around him.
He let loose a guttural groan as he came, his eyes on hers as he drove into her over and over again, their hips working in unison as their bodies trembled, suspended in a sky full of stars, their pleasure spinning them through the dark and quiet expanse of space.
She bent her head to his as her orgasm subsided, dropping kisses all over his face.
“I love you,” she said. “I love you, Max.”
He closed his eyes. “Abby…”
Her name was a sigh on his lips. A prayer.
Eight
Max walked through the doors of the Bellagio and headed for the pool. It was the high season for tourists — everyone who wanted to avoid the worst of the heat either came in the spring or fall — and the concrete around the pools was crowded with guests lounging on the hotel’s white lounge chairs.
Max cursed under his breath. He should have asked Nico for specifics about where he’d be. The pool areas of Vegas’s hotels had gotten larger and more elaborate over the years — less like swimming pools and more like amusement parks with water.
The Bellagio’s, at least, was somewhat classy, with Roman designs etched into the bottoms of the pools and fountains bubbling up out of two of them. If you ignored the steel and glass towers surrounding them, you might be able to convince yourself you were on the Italian Riviera instead of in the middle of the desert.
None of which was going to make finding Nico any easier.
He was reaching for his phone when he noticed a hulking figure approaching him.
“Hey,” Max said, closing the distance between them. “Didn’t know you were in town.”
“Just passing through,” Farrell Black said. “We’re over here.”
They made their way through the pool area, winding their way around women in tiny bikinis and kids shrieking as their parents told them not to run and couples holding hands on side-by-side lounge chairs.
“Jesus,” Farrell said, “how do you live with this bloody heat?”
Max laughed. “What heat? You should have been here in July.”
“When hell freezes over will I ever be here in July.” Farrell’s British accent made the figure of speech sound almost uptight. “This fucking town is the only place in the world that makes me grateful for London’s bloody cold.”
They headed up a small flight of concrete stairs toward a series of canvas cabanas lining the outer rim of the pool area. Max spotted Nico right away, sitting on a lounge chair just beyond the open flaps of one of the cabanas, a glass of Scotch in his hands.
No umbrella drinks for Nico Vitale, although he’d ditched his customary suit in favor of gray slacks and a white linen button-down. The top three buttons were undone, as close as Max had ever seen Nico to cutting loose.
“Max, nice to see you. Would you like a drink?” Nico asked.
“I’m good.”
Max’s appetite for alcohol had diminished considerably since he’d come out with his feelings for Abby. It was only now, with the clarity of hindsight, that Max saw how hard he’d been trying to anesthetize himself after his return from Afghanistan, that he saw how alone he’d been.
And not just alone: lonely.
Gambling, women, booze. He didn’t need any of that shit anymore.
He only needed Abby.
“Have a seat,” Nico said.
Max took the lounge chair on one side of Nico while Farrell sat on the other. Max almost held his breath as Farrell lowered himself onto it, half-expecting it to crack under the man’s sheer size.
“It’s nice out,” Nico said. “Although I could do without the crowd.”
“There are a lot less people if you’re willing to brave the heat in July and August. The rest of the year, it’s like this,” Max said.
“It’s an interesting change of pace.”
Max chuckled at Nico’s diplomacy.
“How’s business?” Nico asked.
“Coming along,” Max said. “I think we’ve weeded out the last of the DeLuca holdouts, and we’ve shut down the drug operations that were targeting kids. We’re making overtures to the remaining businesses, bringing them online with the new guidelines.”
“Any objections?” Nico asked.
“Nothing we can’t handle.”
That there were a few sick fucks in Vegas who actually objected to the Syndicate’s rules didn’t surprise him. Some people just wanted permission to act on their basest instincts. They didn’t like being told no, didn’t like having to play by the rules.
Nico nodded. “Keep an eye on them. Sometimes they come back to haunt you.”
The words were loaded with meaning, with history, and Max suddenly wished for an opportunity to shoot the shit with Nico. To hear all the gory details of his rise from reluctant heir to the New York territory to the steely global leader he’d come to know.
The Syndicate had been bringing territories under control ever since the assassination of its former leader. Max had a feeling Nico had more than a few crazy stories — Farrell too.
“I’ll do that,” Max said.<
br />
He waited while Nico looked out over the pool area, his eyes hidden behind his sunglasses. Max knew him well enough to know he’d talk when he was ready, and he knew Farrell well enough to know he wasn’t about to rush the conversation.
“We’ve found out a few things from our friends at the FBI,” Nico finally said.
“Anything interesting?”
“Depends on how you look at it. Apparently Jason’s been in for an introductory interview. He claimed no knowledge of the shooting, no knowledge of DeLuca’s business dealings.”
“How did he explain running?” Max asked.
Farrell snorted. “Said when he heard he was a person of interest, he panicked. Never been part of anything violent before, etcetera, etcetera.”
“And it took him three months to come to his senses?” Max asked.
“He claimed the imminent loss of his company cleared his head, provided him with an incentive for going back and telling the truth,” Nico said.
Farrell downed the rest of his drink. “That wanker wouldn’t know the truth if it bit him in the arse.”
“The Feds can’t possibly buy that bullshit,” Max said.
“There’s what they think and there’s what they can prove,” Nico said. “The two are rarely the same thing.”
He already knew there was no proof. There was only one security camera near the entrance of the conference room at the Tangier where the shooting had taken place, and it hadn’t been operational at the time of the shooting.
Intentional, no doubt.
The gun used to wound Nico and kill DeLuca and his guard had never been found. Jason must have taken it with him and disposed of it somewhere along the way.
As far as the Feds knew, the conference room had erupted in a firefight after a business dispute. Max and Nico had defended themselves against DeLuca and his guard, and Nico had been shot by Jason, who’d fled the scene. Both Max and Nico had claimed ignorance about DeLuca’s illegal business dealings — on the record, anyway — and they’d both been released pending further investigation.
The interviewing agents hadn’t looked convinced by their story, but without proof to the contrary, what could they do?
Surrender to Sin (Las Vegas Syndicate Book 3) Page 4
