Payback Princess (Lost Daughter of a Serial Killer Book 2)

by C. M. Stunich

  Every single impulse I’ve ever had toward Maxx ‘X’ Wright, the ones that I’ve tamped down through sheer willpower, the fires that I’ve doused over and over again, it all comes raging through me like an inferno.

  When he turns back, I can see it. He’s decided. Actually, he knew right away that he was going to do this, didn’t he? He just needed a chance to process it, to explain himself, to protest.

  There’s a strange sense of freedom in letting go of everything and giving in like this.

  It’s inherently selfish, I think, to just release the world around you and take what you want. The thing is, Maxx and I aren’t hurting each other. We aren’t hurting anyone else. At least … not physically. Was Chasm hurting when I talked to him on the phone? Yes. Will Parrish hurt when he finds out? Undoubtedly. But they’d both make the same choice to save me, to save each other. I know that.

  Maxx knows that.

  “I like you in spite of everything,” he says, spreading one hand wide for emphasis. “In spite of Chasm and Parrish, in spite of … Maxine.” He takes a step toward me. “I see a young woman with a quick wit, and a hell of a lot of heart.” He touches the fist that clutches the condom to his chest. “This isn’t just going to be mechanical for me.”

  “Or me,” I breathe, and then Maxx is closing the distance between us, lifting his eyes to the brightening sky in the distance. We’re running out of time. And fast. He sweeps past me, making me shiver with the heat of his body as it brushes past me, and he grabs the drapes, dragging them closed.

  When I turn around, he’s just there, and he’s grabbing my hair again, dropping his mouth to mine.

  Our first kiss is … impossible.

  I can’t breathe; I can’t think. Everything else around me becomes hazy, like smoke. I can’t see it. I don’t care. The only thing in the world in that moment is Maxx Wright. My mind goes blank—whether because of the intensity of my attraction for him or because I just can’t bear to think of the implications, I don’t know.

  Defense mechanism meets unrelenting passion, and then we’re stumbling back and I’m bumping against one of the posts of my bed.

  His tongue is hot and vicious, almost controlling. But then I feel him pull back just a bit, clamp down on that urge to dominate. He doesn’t want to do that to me. I almost wish that he would.

  And oh gods, his lips are so soft with one small exception: the center of his lower lip where he bites it on occasion. I decide to bite it for him this time, grazing my teeth over the plump shape. He groans and pulls my hair a little harder, his tongue diving deeper.

  A warm sound escapes his lips, feathering against my own. Very male, very possessive.

  Oh.

  This is what he’d want if he had me all to himself, I imagine. Too bad for him that’s not an option.

  But we can play a game. Just for tonight. Some fucked-up fairy tale that should never see the light of day.

  “Quickly,” I tell him, and he groans, putting his forehead against mine. My fingers come up, almost tentatively, and he reaches down, cupping them in his hand and then pressing them firmly against his chest. He’s as careful of my splinted fingers as Chas is.

  “Feel me,” he commands. “Touch me. All of me.”

  I almost hesitate there; I almost break. I almost think of my sister.

  “No,” he growls out, and it’s not a request. “Don’t go there. She and I, we never … we didn’t do things like this.” I pull back slightly, giving him the side-eye. I’ll do this because I have to, because Parrish’s life hangs by a thread. But I will not be lied to.

  “Bullshit. You never kissed her? Never made out?”

  He shakes his head violently.

  “No. Because I don’t trust myself.”

  “You don’t trust yourself?” I ask, trying to understand, to imagine how they could’ve dated for months in college and never once kissed each other. “What do you mean?”

  He pulls back enough to stare at me.

  “Do you want me to show you?” he asks, his grip on my hair tightening just a little. Oh. Is this what he’s talking about? I swallow past the emotions, my body tingling, flickering, dancing. I feel like I’m glittering, on the inside and the outside.

  He wants to take charge.

  And I don’t care because then I can pretend that I’m not orchestrating this mess.

  “Do it,” I tell him, letting my gaze drift toward the closed curtains. “And hurry.”

  Maxx releases my hair and picks me up. I let out a small sound, my legs going around him automatically. He crawls onto the bed with me still clinging to him, and I have to say, I’m impressed.

  “You’re strong,” I whisper as he kneels there on the bed and looks down at me.

  “Mm. The wet weight of my bike is like, two hundred and fifteen pounds. So, like, a hell of a lot more than you.” He tosses me into the pillows, and I let out another small gasp.

  “Wet weight?” I ask as Maxx puts his palms on either side of me. We make eye contact, and that zing goes through me all over again, just like the one I felt initially inside the coffee shop. My heart aches; my soul aches. This is the worst sort of betrayal for Maxine, for Parrish, and yet it’s all that I can think to do to save them both.

  If Justin kills Parrish, will he stop there? What if he kidnaps Maxine next?

  No, I have to find Parrish, and then I have to surrender to Justin completely.

  My soul shatters to pieces and tears prick my eyes. I blink them away, hoping beyond all hope that Maxx doesn’t notice. He doesn’t need me weeping for his first time; that isn’t fair to either of us. Especially not when the touch of his hand makes my back arch and my eyes flutter closed.

  He runs his palm down my waist, and my lower stomach muscles clench tight.

  But still, knowing that I might have to give up my life to save everyone else’s is terrifying.

  As long as there’s sunlight in the sky, I’ll plot against Justin, work secretly to find a way out, a solution to this monumental problem. Still, it feels like I’m running on borrowed time here.

  And it hurts.

  “Wet,” Maxx says, drawing his eyes down my body. I wish we had more time to examine each other, to get comfortable with one another’s bodies. But both of our moral posturing and hair pulling has taken all of that time away. We must be running short right now, pushing this moment down to the wire. “Means with fuel.”

  “Right.” The word is short and sharp. Everything inside of me feels pulled taut—both physically and emotionally. I’m liable to break. This … this release should help, although it’ll come at a massive cost to both of us. “It also means … other things.”

  X lets out a sharp breath, dropping his head down and closing his eyes again. I can see that he’s struggling, but I can’t let him do that, taint his first experience that way. My hands slide up, fingers curling over his shoulders. He’s so goddamn hard—his chest and arms and shoulders I mean.

  Although …

  I squeeze him a little more firmly around the waist, drawing our bodies together until I can feel other parts of him that are just as hard as his upper body.

  He’s quivering now. All over. His body is hot and slicked with a thin sheen of sweat.

  “Other things,” Maxx murmurs, and then he’s sliding the hand that’s on my waist underneath my shirt. His rough palm makes my body prickle in all the right ways, and I can’t hold back a gasp as he makes contact with my breast, squeezing hard.

  My hips buck up against his of their own accord, and he clenches his jaw so tight that I can practically hear his teeth clacking together.

  “Are you wet, Dakota?” he whispers, so quietly that I barely hear it. I can’t decide if he’s teasing me or if he’s … well, unsure? But no, that can’t be. Not Maxx Wright, Mr. Confident and Outgoing.

  “Even though I shouldn’t be, I am,” I whisper right back.

  He removes his hand and then carefully, slowly, helps me out of my shirt. It gets tossed over the lam
p on my nightstand and then Maxx is covering me with his big body again, kissing the breath out of me with sure, confident strokes of his tongue. I knead his muscles with my fingers, delighting in the perfection of his body.

  He asked me to feel him, didn’t he? So I do. I feel him all over, trailing my fingers down and then smoothing my palms across his taut belly. He makes a slight growling sound that has the fine hairs on my arms raising up in warning.

  Is he about to do it, to show me what he was so afraid of unleashing before?

  He pulls away from me, grabbing onto my sweatpants, and yanking them down my hips, my underwear going right along with them. These, too, join the shirt atop the lamp. I don’t even think he means to do it.

  Maxx stands up suddenly, moving over to the phone on the dresser and checking the time.

  He curses under his breath, turning around and, with a long exhale, shoves his sweatpants to the floor, kicking them off as he moves back toward the bed.

  I’m gobsmacked. Absolutely gobsmacked.

  He’s … very, very pretty. Also, muscular everywhere. His hips have that gorgeous ‘V’ that drives girls nuts. Also, um. He’s … big.

  He notices me looking and pauses beside the bed.

  “Everything okay?” he asks, but not like he thinks it won’t be. Just like he’d love to hear confirmation. I lift my gaze up to his face, but he isn’t smiling. Neither of us is smiling. This has become something so much more than a simple exchange between two people.

  It’s changed from the impossible to the imperative.

  “How much time do we have?” I ask instead, and he licks his lower lip again.

  “Thirty minutes.”

  Maxx climbs back on the bed and opens the condom. He doesn’t seem to have any trouble putting it on, but who would? It’s not exactly a difficult process.

  He leans down and kisses me again with a deep, heavy sort of longing, one that makes me squirm beneath him.

  “I’m sorry that your first time has to be like this,” I whisper against his lips. He takes my hair in his hand again, but then relaxes his grip, massaging my scalp with his fingertips.

  “I’m not.” He adjusts our bodies so that he’s lying between my legs, the condom-covered tip of him brushing against me and making me gasp. “I just wish we didn’t have to rush it. That we didn’t have to feel guilty. That you’d chosen me, and I’d been brave enough to choose you from the get-go.”

  I have no idea what, exactly, that means, but then he’s kissing me and thrusting in hard and deep enough that I gasp against his mouth. Our lips and tongues work together fervently as his muscles tighten up and he shudders like he’s just experienced the most amazing thing in the entire world.

  Me.

  Not the sex, not my body, but me.

  “X,” I breathe, and he shudders again. His right hand grabs my wrists, pinning them above my head. He lifts up to stare at me, and I forget about everything else. It’s just us, doing something we’ve wanted to do all along—even if neither of us was brave enough to admit it to ourselves.

  “Kota.”

  He keeps my wrists pinned and then starts to move, slow at first, which is helpful, because he’s thick. I make myself breathe nice and easy which is good because after just a few thrusts, X is pushing into me so hard and fast that my head spins.

  Pleasure twists up inside my body, making my muscles tense, and I’m forced to turn my head to one side to bite down on a pillow. Now my body’s just as slick with sweat as his, and it feels way too hot in this damn room.

  “Is it terrible,” he whispers, slowing after a few hot and heavy moments, “that I want to do this meanly, just so you’ll never be tempted to do it again?”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I reply, but I can barely talk. Words seem damn near impossible.

  X doesn’t seem bothered by that, pulling away from me, out of me. I let out a choking sound of protest, but then he’s grabbing my hips and flipping me over. He grabs one of my pillows and offers it up to me.

  “For your hips.”

  When I make little move to do anything with the pillow at all, he takes it and pushes it beneath me, propping me up. I stay where I am, on all fours, and close my eyes, taking slow, calming breaths.

  He grabs me with one hand, guiding himself to that aching pulse between my legs, and driving all the way in with a single thrust. It feels so different like this, so much deeper, so much more intense.

  I drop down so that one forearm is pressed into the bed. With the other, I reach between my legs, intending on working my clit with my fingers. What I find is the strange sensation of Maxx’s body pressed into mine, the two of us melded together in the most intimate way possible.

  Maxx grips my hips with both hands, and then he starts to thrust again, fast and furious.

  I manage to make my rebellious fingers—those very same rebellious fingers that refused to open the door inside Maxx’s Jeep at the party that seems so damn long ago—work against my clit. Just a single touch, and I’m falling apart.

  It’s too much.

  I bite my lower lip—again—but it seems appropriate for the moment.

  “Oh god, Kota,” he chokes out. “Don’t do that to me.”

  Whatever it is that I’m doing, I have no control over. I rub my clit harder, faster, and that pleasure begins to break like a wave. Maxx curses, and then he’s grabbing my hair and yanking on it hard enough that I actually come up to all fours again, my palms pressing into the mattress.

  He rides me furiously, slamming me into with so much vigor that even without my fingers on my clit, I come apart. I shatter. I melt. I let myself have him in that moment. Maxx is mine, and nobody else’s. We live in a fantasy world where we become a couple, and everything is bright and beautiful—even if this moment is dark and twisted.

  I’m groaning, even though I’m trying not to, and I’m worried the sounds are too much.

  Maxx tightens his hold on my hair and my hips, pushing deep enough that he must feel the cup inside of me. I should’ve warned him about it, but it’s too late now, and I don’t care either way. He lets out a sharp, hot sound and then collapses forward, releasing my hair and slamming his palms atop mine just in time to keep the full force of his weight from pinning me to the bed.

  He curls the fingers of our right hands together, squeezing hard; he’s surprisingly gentle with my injured left hand, even now.

  “Shit, the condom,” he murmurs, and then he’s reaching down and gripping it so that he can pull out. I let my tired body collapse on the bed, too worn out to even move as Maxx gets up to dispose of it.

  On his way back, he checks the time and then moves over to the window to look outside.

  We’re facing the west, so it’s a bit difficult to see the sunrise from my windows, but there’s definitely a decent amount of light outside.

  “What time is it?” I whisper, studying the dark angel wings on Maxx’s back. Parrish’s work. I’ve been scratching at and digging my fingers into Parrish’s art. Goddamn it.

  “Five-ten,” Maxx says, turning back around and grabbing his sweatpants from the floor. He yanks them on, and I get this sick, nervous feeling when it seems like he might leave. He doesn’t though. He actually climbs back into the bed with me, curling up behind me and sliding his arm around my waist. He pulls me against him with a possessiveness and a need that I’m not sure we can do anything about, that we can’t assuage. “Was I too rough?” he whispers against my ear, but I shake my head.

  “Not at all.”

  For a while, we just lay there together. Him in his sweats, me naked. After a minute, X helps me adjust myself so that I’m beneath the covers. He joins me, resuming his position. His body is warm and hard and big, and I love the feel of it pressed into me.

  Even though I shouldn’t.

  Even though this cuddling stuff isn’t part of the deal; we don’t have to be doing this. Parrish is safe. For now, anyway.

  I close my eyes and breathe in that fresh grass and spor
ty citrus scent.

  “God, this is gonna be weird,” he murmurs, putting his face up against the side of my neck. His breath fans across my skin and makes me squirm a little. “Why did I think I could do this and just …”

  “Just what?” I ask, turning enough so that we can look at each other. Maxx’s gorgeous eyes bore into mine, and my heart begins to race. If we had another condom, we might … But we don’t. And we’re not going to. We’re not.

  “Just do this once and let you go,” he says, his voice thick with emotion. “God, I didn’t expect to feel like this. I mean, I thought I might … but I didn’t want to.” He closes his eyes and shoves the fingers of his right hand through his hair.

  I turn my face back toward the dresser because I can’t look at him right now. And I can’t comment on what he’s saying. I don’t have words to respond to that in a way that’ll make this better for either of us.

  Maxx puts his arm around my waist again. When his palm slides down my belly between my legs, I let out a small gasp, but I don’t stop him. He presses his fingers against my heat, and I close my eyes, relaxing back against him.

  He rubs and strokes and caresses me until I’m biting the pillow again and writhing against him. Then he sticks two fingers in, and I come apart all over again, shivering and trembling as another climax tears over me. It’s too much. It feels too good. I can’t take it anymore.

  I grab his hand and put it back against my belly as I struggle to catch my breath.

  He presses a tender kiss to the side of my head, and I keep my eyes squeezed tightly shut. This isn’t supposed to be about feelings. This was … it was an assignment. And yet, it doesn’t feel like one at all.

  Just as it didn’t with Chasm.

  Chasm.

  I carefully slide out from beneath Maxx’s arm, even though it kills me, even though there isn’t anywhere in the world I’d rather be in that moment.

  I grab my clothes off the floor, snatch my phone, and slip into the bathroom.

  Right in the nick of time. Well-played, my protégé. Well-played. Get some sleep. We have much to do today.

  I’m tempted to throw the phone against the wall, the way Parrish did the other day. But I know that I can’t. Instead, I put my clothes down and nestle the phone atop them, showering and changing my cup yet again. I don’t hurry out of the shower either, taking my time and wondering if Maxx won’t be gone by the time I get back.