by Isabel Wroth
“You turned him,” Kerrigan stated calmly.
Maksim confirmed it with a hum, kicking a rock down the path ahead of them. “I did.”
“Is Thomas an only child?”
The gentle note of teasing in her voice made him smile. “Yes. I have sired no other progeny.”
To say the words aloud strangely brought a pang of regret. Earlier at the coven house when Kerrigan had gathered her things, Maksim watched her join in on a conversation about Rowena’s insistence on being Ivy’s midwife.
Kerrigan laughed with them, rubbed the small mound of Ivy’s pregnant belly, and teased her about giving birth to a hairy monster of a baby. It had been painful to watch.
Of all the many things Maksim could give his Bride, fathering a child with her would never be one of them.
He’d never thought about it before, but seeing Kerrigan’s happiness when she leaned down and spoke to Ivy’s growing belly, Maksim felt nothing but regret.
“Shame,” she told him now with a wicked glint in her eye. “I’d make one hell of a wicked step-mother.”
He startled himself by laughing, and she joined him with a few musical giggles. They walked a fair length before their laughter ebbed, and Maksim found he was unable to leave the question unasked.
“Will you regret being unable to have children with me?”
Kerrigan grew pensive, quietly considering her answer, and every moment she didn’t speak was another moment dread curdled in his belly.
“Not at all. I look forward to being the aunt who gives outrageous, exasperating, and completely inappropriate birthday presents. While the rest of the coven is popping out babies, I’ll keep my girlish figure and look this good for the rest of my life. ”
Maksim turned and slid his arms around her, coaxing more happy laughter out of her as he took her hands and swayed with her under the moonlight.
“It will be a long and happy life, I promise you, my most precious blood.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Kerrigan whispered his name, never-ending shudders echoing along her body and into his. Beneath her, Maksim had the most gorgeous view in the world, watching the blood rush up her chest, her throat, into her cheeks.
A trickle slid from the four punctures framing her right nipple, the furled bud hard and tight. Only three nights of sexual bonding between them, and already she responded to his bite with an immediate, mind-altering orgasm.
Her breasts shook with every desperate plunge of her hips, as though she couldn’t bear to stop chasing the pleasure twisting through her. He watched the ribbon of blood curve down the underside of her breast and drip onto her belly.
Fixated on the crimson path, Maksim could see her stomach clench in time with the rippling squeeze of her vaginal muscles, gripping him so tight it was a wonder he could even move.
The silvery skeins of her hair tickled his thighs; the whisper-soft caress a sharp contrast to the prick of her black fingernails where she clawed at his chest.
Kerrigan didn’t just let the pleasure wash over her, she rode the wave, working herself up and down, back and forth, demanding every drop.
He fought to hold back, to let her take all she needed before he allowed his own furious hunger to consume her. New to the pleasure of mating, Maksim wanted her to experience everything she’d ever fantasized about.
In a few short hours, they would enter a den of vipers, and even with all his planning and strategizing, things could go wrong. The threat of losing her consumed him and brought forth a wildness that bordered on rabid.
The rippling fingers of white-hot bliss wrapped around his shaft in a bruising clench started to ease, giving him the opportunity he’d been waiting for.
Maksim flipped her down to the bed, unable to help the grin that spread when she whimpered and weakly grabbed at his hips to stop him from withdrawing.
“Hush, love. We’re far from finished.” Her sounds of protest turned into a long moan as he bent over her and used his tongue to clean the thin trails of blood from her belly.
He worked his way up, lapping at the underside of her breast, licking and sucking at the tender flesh until not even a smear of red was left behind.
He got to where he’d bitten into her, just in time to feel the punctures close. When he raised his head to look, he was pleased to see smooth, fair, unblemished skin.
Maksim set his hands on either side of her shoulders and looked up at her as he licked the last luscious drop of her blood from his lips. Whatever expression he wore made her breath catch and excitement widen her eyes.
“Turn. Over.”
Kerrigan was on her belly before the last syllable left his mouth. He touched a kiss to her shoulder, which would be the last gentle touch he gave her for a while.
Maks slid one hand down beneath her, pushing down between her skin and the bed until his fingertips touched the stripe of curls at the top of her mons.
The sound she made when he jerked her hips up, shock and eagerness, fanned the fire already burning inside him.
“Reach up and put your hands against the headboard.”
Kerrigan obeyed his guttural command, shoving pillows aside so he could see her fingers spread wide on the snowy white wood.
Her heart rate had slowed while he licked the blood from her skin, but now he could hear it thundering once again.
Her breath came in short bursts, and Maksim thought about being gentle. To deny his animalistic urges and take her with all the love and tenderness she deserved.
Maksim almost convinced himself, but then Kerrigan tilted her pelvis and pushed back to catch the head of his cock with the slick, scalding hot mouth of her pussy and said, “Please?”
Without a seconds hesitation, Maksim plowed upward, driving deep without care or restraint. Surprise had her swaying forward with a sharp cry, but she straightened her arms and pushed back.
The position forced her backside higher, her body bowing in elegant supplication with a muted moan of bliss.
Maksim went to his knees and grabbed hold of her hips, picking up a driving rhythm that echoed her racing heartbeat.
He didn’t want to hurt her, but the more he tried to hold back, the tighter she gripped him, and if the sound of her ecstatic shouts were any indicator, she loved it.
His head spun, his vision wavering as he got closer to his own end. Maks had to throw one hand out against the wall to brace himself, lifting her almost off her knees with his arm around her waist.
She screamed, begged, and he was powerless to resist.
Until her, Maksim hadn’t ever felt the world fall away with his orgasm. It tore from his cock in white-hot spurts, liquefying his muscles one moment, turning them to stone the next.
He was soaring free, burning up in a conflagration of pure sensation, with Kerrigan at the very heart of the blaze.
Maksim barely had the presence of mind to shift his weight to one side as he slumped forward, taking them both to their sides.
Kerrigan hugged his arm between her breasts, holding on tight as a cascade of shudders wracked her sweat-slicked body.
“Let’s… do that… again,” she panted.
His own heart struggled to keep up, forcing him to actually take a few deep breaths. Her demand left him grinning smugly.
“Liked that, did you?”
“So much.” Her words came out slurred and sleepy, and had they not already made their appointment in the city, he would have spent the night giving her exactly what she asked for.
*****
At her request, Maks took his shower first, knowing all too well if they got in together, they wouldn’t make their appointment.
He left her sprawled across the bed amid the tangled blankets, a dreamy smile on her face. He didn’t linger, but in the time it had taken him to wash up, Kerrigan had made the bed, gone upstairs, and come back down with a gift.
A smart looking suit waited for him, draped over the couch. The dark charcoal-colored coat and matching trousers sat side by side, the wai
stcoat with slender silver pinstripes lay beside a dove-gray shirt with silver buttons.
He watched as Kerrigan finished lifting a pair of black Oxfords and a matching leather belt from the box to set on the coffee table.
He must have made some sound because she straightened and whirled to face him, looking like she’d been caught in the act of doing something naughty.
“Surprise!” she said with a flash of her hands.
“I certainly am surprised,” he managed to answer, having forgotten what it was like to be on the receiving end of her surprises. “When did you have time to find me a suit?”
She shrugged and lifted a narrow box from the white bag at her feet, still blushing clear to the roots of her hair.
“I took some measurements while you were sleeping and sent them off to a local tailor. Green or gray?”
Kerrigan held an emerald green tie in one hand and pewter-colored silk in the other.
“Green. You did all this for me?”
“Of course I did,” she told him, her brows coming together in a prim little frown as she turned to lay the green tie across the suit coat. “Jeans and a sweatshirt might be appropriate for out here in the country, but I knew you’d want to be suited up and well-armored for tonight.”
His heart gave a mighty thump as he realized she’d done more than give him a gift. Maksim was definitely not a jeans and sweatshirt kind of man and would certainly have felt out of place in anything less than a three-piece suit when meeting with his brothers.
In having a suit prepared for him, she was giving him back a measure of normalcy, of dignity.
Swallowing the burning lump that had risen in his throat, Maksim crossed the distance separating them and caught her chin between his fingers. She smiled up at him immediately, her hands sliding around his waist.
“I haven’t told you, have I?” he said with regret.
“Told me what?”
Maksim searched her gaze to find her eyes were more purple now than blue. Like lavender on a cloudy day. In the grip of pleasure, they turned a deeper shade, like blue glacial ice.
“To simply say, ‘I love you,’ seems so inadequate.” When she was surprised, like now, the two colors swirled together, shimmering like a geode. “I’m no poet, Kerrigan, but I tell you truly, nothing, no one, has ever been more important to me. With every cell in my body, I live for you.”
A spill of happy tears rolled down her cheeks as she stretched up on her toes to press her lips to his. Maksim lost himself for a time in the sweetness of her kiss, chasing her when her heels dropped back to the floor.
“I live for you, too,” she murmured, only a breath between them. “Will you indulge me in a little fantasy?”
Screw their appointment; he’d get her money back as soon as he had access to his bank accounts.
“Anything.”
Her blunt teeth raked over her bottom lip, and she whispered something he would never have expected. Something that made his mouth dry and his cock hard as granite.
“I want to help you get dressed.”
*****
Kerrigan watched Maks’s eyes turn preternaturally bright in response to her request. Part of her felt silly for even asking, but it was the truth. She’d dreamed of helping him get dressed in his spiffy suits.
Without reason, she’d learned to tie all sorts of knots, envisioning standing in front of him, adding that one final touch with a fancy knot to his tie to finish off his look.
“Anything,” he repeated hoarsely. “I’ll need to dry my hair first.”
Brimming with eagerness, Kerrigan let go of his waist in favor of lifting her hands to rake through his hair with one of the simplest, most useful spells Kerrigan had ever learned.
“Aquae Motum.”
Every last drop of water clinging to Maksim’s slicked-back hair defied gravity to collect in her palms.
A flick of her fingers pushed it all together until a ball of water hovered just above her skin, that she then carried to the bathroom to toss into the shower.
Maks looked both delighted as he reached up to feel his perfectly dry hair, and Kerrigan couldn’t help but smile.
“Stick with me, kid. You’ll never need a hairdryer again.”
He chuckled in reply, lifting his arms slightly when she reached around from behind him to tug his towel away. Keeping to her task was a study in focus.
Kerrigan struggled to look away from his nude body, especially as his cock was fully engorged, thick and pointing straight up toward his navel.
Obviously aware of her perusal, Maksim crossed his arms akimbo, taking a stance reminiscent of a ship captain standing on the deck of a pitching ship. Or a sultan impatient to be serviced.
“Boxers or briefs?” In addition to picking up the suit this afternoon, Kerrigan also snagged some extras.
His smile went from curious to downright wicked.
“Neither.”
Despite having had him twice already tonight, her hands trembled with a rush of undeniable arousal as she put the underthings back in the shopping bag.
The fine wool blend trousers were soft in her hands. Soft enough she supposed to not irritate him. The belt buckle jangled when she threw it over her shoulder, the rug scratchy under her knees when she knelt at his feet and gathered the pant legs up for him to step into.
The skim of her fingers along his thighs as she pulled the fabric up to his hips made his cock jerk and visibly pulse. Kerrigan was careful with the zipper, following his direction to leave the slacks unclasped at the waist.
“It will be much easier to tuck in my shirt,” he told her, his voice having dropped to a silky rumble.
“Kay. Undershirt?”
“No, thank you.”
There was something about knowing just how little fabric separated his skin from hers, and Kerrigan already had plans for undressing him later.
She picked up his shirt, loving the color of it, and walked around behind him to help him shrug into sleeves. Maks made an appreciative sound when Kerrigan came around to slip the pearly silver buttons through their holes.
“You said this tailor is local?”
Kerrigan nodded, glad her measurements had been accurate. “Mr. Fausti, yes. He set up shop only a few years before the coven moved here to keep up with the wedding venues that have sprouted up all over the place.”
“His work is exquisite.” High praise from a man who’d been having his expensive suits expertly tailored for decades.
“I’m glad you like it. How would you prefer your shirt to be tucked in? In front or behind this rather sizable bulge?”
Maksim snickered at her teasing, making no moves to take over.
“In front, always.”
She realized what a silly question it was. If tucked behind his cock, any time he got an erection, the head would peek up above the waist of his pants. Like it was doing now.
Her hands were careful, but Kerrigan couldn’t keep herself from purposefully letting the pointed tips of her fingernails scrape lightly along the length of his shaft.
He sucked in a hiss of air, his belly flexing in response to the teasing caress, and when she moved around to tuck the shirt down over his butt, Kerrigan bit her lip to keep from getting a good grab of the taut muscles.
She’d appreciated many an ass from afar over the years, but Maks truly had a butt to die for. Marble statues of Greek gods would be envious to have their posteriors compared to Maksim’s.
She came around and flipped his collar up, draping the emerald green tie around his neck, enjoying the riot of butterflies twisting through her belly in response to his unwavering stare.
“Where did you learn to do this?” he asked as she pinched the thicker side of the tie in one hand and started the loops with the other end.
Kerrigan carefully tightened and straightened, coaxing the slick material to lie just the way she wanted.
“I was in Paris chasing after a book. It was late, and I couldn’t sleep, so I flicked on the TV and c
ame across a sexy movie. It was all in French, and at the time, I wasn’t fluent enough to understand everything, but the couple’s body language was enough. She was helping him get dressed for the day, and… I don’t know. It just struck a chord.”
“It made you sad,” Maks told her softly, lifting his hand to stroke his fingertip down the slope of her cheek, like she had the tears she’d cried that night tattooed on her face.
“It did. I got online and watched a bunch of other videos on how to tie all sorts of fancy knots. It got me through the night.” She finished up and flattened his collar, smoothing her hands down his chest with a smile.
He didn’t say anything in response, so she retreated to fetch the pinstriped vest, swirling her fingers over the round buttons.
“What’s that smile for?”
She lifted her shoulder, moving around him to tighten the strap at his low back, fitting the vest snugly to his waist.
“I had some special buttons that I asked Mr. Fausti to use. It came out better than I thought.”
Maksim glanced down. “Medusa?”
“Mmhm. I got these first in Greece, and when I heard their story, I couldn’t resist.” She reached into the pocket of her robe, opening her hand to show him the cufflinks.
“They’re silver coins rumored to have been used as payment to an ancient sect of assassins who killed men accused of harming women. I had them coated in a protective resin so they won’t burn you. Did you know Medusa means, Guardian?”
“I believe I read that somewhere.” Of course he had.
Kerrigan slipped the links into his shirt sleeves. “I figure, since we’re going into a potentially dangerous situation, it wouldn’t hurt to have a few charms to remind us of a protective demi-goddess with the power to turn her enemies to stone.”
Amusement curled the corners of his lips up. “I realize you’ve never seen me at my worst, love, but it’s not my ability to take on my brothers that’s concerning me. It’s the danger swirling around you and not knowing which brother is responsible.”
