The Gamble by Kristen Ashley
His mouth was twitching and he took the phone from me then he put it to his ear.
“Arlene,” he said then he paused to listen then he said, “Right.” Then he bleeped the phone off and put it back in its charger.
I stared at the phone. Then I stared at him.
Then I noted, “That was quick.”
“Yep,” he replied.
“What did she say?”
“You and your Mom are meetin’ her for drinks tomorrow night.”
“We are?”
“She says she’s arrangin’ a Girl’s Night Out.”
“Um…”
“Jenna’s there now too, Arlene says she’ll be there again tomorrow night. She says Jenna says she wants to get to know you.”
“Um…”
“I’ll go with,” Max offered and I stared at him.
Then I said, “Command performance Girl’s Night Out with Arlene I’m guessing doesn’t include you being there.”
“I’ll take Brody and Steve, we’ll let you do what you gotta do and we’ll have Guy’s Night Out.”
“I don’t think Girl’s Night Out works when it happens at the same place and the same time as Guy’s Night Out.” I supplied helpfully.
“Babe,” he replied, grinning then said no more.
Still being helpful, I explained, “I know you think that word speaks volumes but, I have to tell you, it actually doesn’t.”
His grin got bigger then it changed then my wineglass was no longer in my hand, it was on the nightstand. I had one second to look at it sitting there then I was in Max’s arms and on top of Max.
“Max…” I started, his hand slid in my hair and he rolled, taking me with him so he was on top. “Max! The movie!”
His mouth was at my neck as he informed me, “The police guy saves her at the last minute then he gets hacked in the first five minutes of the sequel.”
“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.
Chapter Ten
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 behin
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.”
“So,” I steadfastly ignored him, “you were all friends.”
As usual, Max steadfastly stayed on target. “She’s beautiful but she’s cold. Great with her mouth w
“Max –”
“And she doesn’t let go when you fuck her, wants control, of you, of herself, of everything. The whole thing was an exercise in manipulation, her tryin’ to wrap you around her finger, catch you in her honey trap. But what she never got was, she’s wound up so tight, so intent on her scheme, she never let herself enjoy it and if she doesn’t, you can’t.”
My eyes caught his and I told him honestly, “I’m not sure I need this information.”
“Never,” Max said, again ignoring me. “Never did I walk into a room and see her dressed to go out and forget how to breathe like I did when I saw you before we went to The Rooster.” I felt my eyes grow wide at this admission and I, too, forgot how to breathe.
When I remembered I whispered, “Max –”
His thumb came up and slid back and forth along my temple. “Technical points at givin’ head, Shauna’s a ten. Artistic merit, zip.” His mouth came to mine and he muttered, “You, babe, you get into it and fuck,” his nose slid along mine and I watched his eyes get dark with good memories as he went on. “Watchin’ you suck my cock, could swear you like it better than me. Perfect fuckin’ scores.” He kissed me lightly and continued, “Fuckin’ her, she doesn’t even rank compared to you. Different league.”
As much as I didn’t want to admit it, this pleased me greatly.
“And she’s never, not once, not since fifth grade, made me laugh,” Max finished.
That pleased me even more.
“Okay, I’m better than Shauna,” I mumbled, feeling slightly shy and also self-conscious (even though I still felt very pleased), “moving on.”
“Yeah, we’ll move on when you promise never to get that look on your face again when I’m bein’ honest about her.”
“What look?” I asked, although even though I didn’t see it, I figured I knew.
“That look like I caught you off guard and shoved a knife in your gut.”
Oh dear. Could he really read me that well?
“Yeah, that’s what you looked like,” he said, like I’d spoken my unspoken question aloud and I felt my eyes get wide.
“That’s uncanny,” I blurted.