Chapter Fourteen
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Max
There was no time to second-guess my decision.
Not that I wanted to.
Not once Miko’s hands pressed on my hip, pushing until I rolled flat onto my back for him.
His body shifted closer, his scent overpowering me, dragging a little mewling sound out of me as his face leaned down, his forehead nearly touching mine, his dark, molten eyes boring into mine as his fingers drifted upward.
His touch moved across the sliver of skin between my shirt and pants—whisper-soft—making a little shiver course through me.
The TV was muted, but the lights still flashed around the otherwise darkened room, illuminating Miko on and off as he dipped a finger under the waistband of my pants, then panties, but refusing to slide further down.
On a frustrated whimper, I grabbed his wrist and pressed his hand downward. His little chuckle shivered over me. But then his fingers pressed over the material between my thighs, making a whimper work its way out of me. A deep rumble moved through him, finding me wet and needy for him.
That sound only ratcheted up my need, and I let my thighs slide a little wider for him, a silent invitation for more.
Miko’s head dipped, his face in my neck. His breath was warm on my skin as he took a deep breath just before his fingers moved, pressing in, making me arch up as my breath shuddered out.
I could feel the brush of Miko’s lips, just a hint of what I wanted, but I was too distracted by the way his fingertips were teasing down under the waistband of my panties to care to ask for more.
Just as his hand moved inside, fingers touching me without any barrier, his lips pressed into my neck as the throaty moan escaped me.
His finger traced up my cleft, finding my clit, but only working frustrating circles around it, refusing to touch me where I needed it most.
His tongue teased up the column of my neck, the shell of my ear, his own breathing heavy with desire. Even as the thought formed, I could feel his hard length pressed against my leg.
The ache was instantaneous, dragging a whimper out of me as I just barely fought off the urge to grab him, to pull him on top of me, to yank down his pants and feel him surge inside of me.
“Mmm,” he rumbled against my ear. Like he knew what I was thinking. Like maybe he could feel the way my body was responding to just the idea of him inside of me.
“Miko,” I whimpered, needing more, the ache in my lower stomach getting too acute to ignore.
I expected him to ignore the plea, to keep teasing me, but his thumb shifted inward, pressing into my clit as two of his fingers thrust inside of me.
The combination—unexpected, so so welcome—nearly undid me right then, making a choked moan escape me as my walls tightened around his fingers, as my hips ground up into the touch.
Miko’s teeth nipped my earlobe, his words when he spoke a soft secret against my skin. “You’re so wet for me.”
There was no denying that.
There was no way I could ever try to tell myself, let alone him, that I didn’t want him. My body was betraying me perfectly.
My hips rocked impatiently until Miko’s fingers started to move, gently thrusting as his thumb began to circle my clit.
Reaching out, my hand slid up his forearm, grabbing him around the bicep and holding on as he kept working me, driving me up.
It wasn’t long until the mewling sounds became soft moans as he drove me closer and closer to the edge.
“No,” I cried when he suddenly pulled against my hold and slid his hand out of my pants.
He didn’t say anything, but as the light of the TV flashed bright for a second, I could see the sexy, self-satisfied smile toying with his lips.
But before I could settle on any feeling other than utter disappointment, Miko was shifting up onto his knees, reaching for my legs, and yanking me more toward the center of the bed.
My feet landed at each side of his thighs as his hands went out, grabbing the waistbands of my pants and panties and drawing them down my hips and legs.
Anticipation sizzled across my nerve endings as my pants were tossed off the side of the bed.
Miko’s fingertips slid up the sides of my calves, knees, thighs—deliciously soft, deliberately slow. As if waiting for something.
It wasn’t until his touch reached my hips, and my thighs fell open, that I realized that was what he wanted.
Grabbing my knees, he pushed them up toward my belly as he lowered down. His soft hair teased my inner thighs for the barest of seconds, making goosebumps rise up all over, before his lips were around my clit, sucking it into his mouth with an intensity that made a choked cry escape me as my thighs clamped to the sides of his head.
Too much.
Too good.
Too… everything.
My thighs shook as I slid them over Miko’s shoulders while his lips sucked in a pulsing rhythm that made every muscle in my body tense.
Close. So so close.
But just as I was sure that clawing need would be relieved, his lips pulled away, his head shifted, planting a kiss to my inner thigh as my legs trembled with unmet need.
Too frustrated to think of anything else, my fingers slid into his hair, dragging him back to where I needed him most.
I felt the tip of his tongue moving out, tracing up and down my cleft, tasting me, but refusing to give me the contact I felt sure I might combust without.
If anything, though, the more I whined and whimpered and—yes—even begged, the more he seemed to move away from where I needed him most. Until, suddenly, I felt his tongue fold and press inside of me, the sensation foreign, shocking, intoxicating.
He thrust a few times, dragging ragged sounds out of me I didn’t even know I was capable of.
Until suddenly, his lips were on my clit again in little pulsing sucks as his fingers thrust inside of me, turning, and stroking against the top wall as his tongue finally moved out and started to work me in lazy circles.
I felt completely out of control of my body—and I supposed that was the point. My thighs shook, every muscle in my body tensed, goosebumps rose, my breath panted in and out between soft whimpers that became desperate moans as Miko drove me closer and closer to the edge.
My fingers were fisted in his hair, my hips rising to meet his touch, my thighs clamped to the sides of his head, my heels digging into his back.
“Miko…” I cried, with this strange, overwhelming urge to push him away. It was too much. I wasn’t sure I could take any more.
Seeming to sense it, Miko’s fingers tapped hard against my top wall as he sucked my clit again.
And I just… shattered.
The sound that escaped me was a cry and a moan at the same time as my whole body shuddered hard, every muscle taut as my breath caught in my chest, breathing becoming impossible as the pleasure coursed through me over and over as Miko kept working me with his mouth and fingers, dragging it out until the orgasm finally released its grip on me.
My thighs relaxed, falling open, allowing him to move slightly, pressing kisses to my inner thighs, over my pelvic bone, the hollows of my hips.
I struggled to find my breath, to slow the frantic flickering beat of my heart. My hand rested there over my chest as the aftershocks set in and I tried to wrap my fucking head around what had just happened.
Because, fuck.
I mean, I was no starry-eyed virgin. I’d been with men before. I knew what it felt like when they touched, tasted, fucked.
But this? This was something I’d never experienced before. A connection that had my eyes feeling wet, a pleasure that seemed to tear me apart with its intensity.
Miko’s chin had just planted on my belly, his face angling up to look at me, to likely say something that I didn’t quite feel ready to hear yet. I felt too raw, too pulled apart at the seams for talk.
But just then, there was a shrill ringing—an old landline phone ring—coming from somewhere inside Miko’s suite.
Something about it made him stiffen, made his stupid handsome face go from sexy and self-satisfied to confusion that was quickly chased away by concern.
“I…” he said, but he was already moving away from me, moving off the bed. “I have to get that,” he finished as he nearly tripped over my bunched-up pants on the floor in his rush to get to his room.
And, yeah, that was the cold, hard shock of reality I needed to get a damn grip on myself.
I folded up on the bed, watching him disappear through the adjoining door. Then, quickly, quietly, I rushed off the bed and carefully closed the door so it didn’t make a sound.
It wasn’t until I slid the lock that I felt like I could breathe again.
Was locking him out of my room the most evolved, mature way to handle my very intense feelings right then? Nope. Not at all. But I’d never claimed to be evolved.
Hell, most of the time, I barely recognized my own feelings, let alone analyzed them to understand their roots. I damn sure never shared my feelings with some random guy I’d hooked up with.
And that was all men had ever been to me.
Hook-ups. Even the ones that lasted weeks or months; the only use I had for them was fun and casual. Just mutually satisfying sex that scratched that itch that didn’t want to be ignored anymore.
Men sure as hell were never anything I took seriously enough to actually want to open up to, to share my thoughts, fears, history, or future plans with.
The second I even got an inkling that one of them might be catching feelings, I was quick to put an end to things.
I didn’t want that.
But I had to admit to myself, as I grabbed my pants and panties and made my way into the bathroom, this was already different from those men in my past.
Because I’d already opened up to Miko. I told him parts of my past, my present, my future. He’d seen me at some of my most vulnerable. He knew some of my habits, my likes, and dislikes. All before things even started to get a little physical between us.
“Get over it,” I told my reflection.
The woman staring back at me looked different. Sure, the bruises were kind of darker than they’d been earlier that day—though there was that telltale green and yellow around the edges that said they were already starting to heal—but my skin was flushed, my eyes dreamy, and, yep, still a little teary.
I sucked in a deep breath, watching until my eyes went blank again.
This didn’t have to be a big deal.
We were both adults.
We’d both had casual interactions with the opposite sex. Heat-of-the-moment physical touch didn’t mean anything. Nothing had to be awkward.
At least that was what I was telling myself as I moved back out of the bathroom.
Just in time to hear Miko’s door click closed. Quietly. Like he was trying not to be heard.
Suspicions piqued, I rushed to my own door, glad I was between him and the elevator, so I could look through the peephole and watch a warped, mini version of him make his way in that direction. But not before casting a worried look at my door.
What the fuck was he up to?
I mean, there was no way he could expect to sneak out and drive back to the city without me noticing, so it couldn’t have to do with his bosses or anything like that.
Which only meant one thing: he was leaving to do something that had to do with the diamond heist.
Without me.
Well, we would see about that.
I was never good at sitting on my hands while someone else did all the work.
I rushed to my duffle, shoving some of the essentials into the small purse I’d packed, sliding my feet into my shoes, and then rushing out into the hall.
I went past the elevator, sights set on the stairwell, so I didn’t run into Miko while I tried to figure out what he was up to.
I pushed open the stairwell door just in time to watch Miko move out the front doors, making a beeline for his car.
That fucker.
I rushed behind him, putting my finger to my lips so the doorman didn’t greet me. I didn’t want Miko to cause a scene in front of everyone. I just wanted to rush behind him and get to the car just a second behind him.
That was exactly what I did.
He bleeped the locks and climbed in as I ducked low and rushed up the passenger side.
I whipped open the door and jumped in before his head even had a chance to whip over and see me.
“Get out.”
Oh, he was all businesslike and bossy right then.
I was annoyed at myself for thinking that was hot.
“Absolutely not.”
“Max, I don’t have time for this.”
“And yet you’re still sitting here,” I said, shrugging as I reached to clip in my seatbelt.
“Max, seriously. Get out.”
“You’re gonna have to drag me out,” I told him, chin lifting.
He watched me for a second, a frustrated muscle ticking in his jaw as he came to the right conclusion. That in a battle, I would out-stubborn him every damn time. And take pleasure in it.
“You’re a pain in the ass, sugar, just so you know.”
“Oh, I am fully aware,” I agreed as he turned over the car, shifted into reverse, and whipped out of his spot so quickly that my arm flew up to grab the ‘ Oh, shit’ bar.
I wasn’t so distracted by him trying to sneak out that I didn’t realize this was the best possible thing that could have happened. It immediately forced away any potential awkwardness that might have come from the little incident back in my hotel room.
I was all too happy to skip right past that and get back to business.
“I’m assuming this has to do with that phone call. What the hell kind of ringer was that anyway?”
“One so different from my normal phone that I wouldn’t accidentally confuse them,” he admitted as he turned off onto the highway.
“It’s your burner?”
“Yeah.”
“For this job.”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to clue me in, or should we play Twenty Questions?”
“The call came from my IT guy,” Miko explained. “It didn’t sound good.”
“What does that mean? You think he’s the one who took the diamonds?”
“It means that the person who did take them seemed to be in the apartment with him, shit sounded tense, and the call cut out.”
“Oh, shit,” I said, wincing at the sound of that. “Someone is… cleaning house.”
“Hopefully not if I can get there first.”
“We,” I corrected.
“Absolutely fucking not,” he said with enough ferocity that my brows shot up. Did my pussy clench a little at his bossiness again? Yeah, fine. But we weren’t talking about that. “You’re gonna keep your stubborn ass planted right there in that passenger seat,” he told me as he pressed his foot down harder.
I sat there silently, knowing damn well I wasn’t going to stay in the car when we got there, watching the speedometer inch close to ninety before he finally slowed and turned into an apartment building complex.
He’d clearly been here before.
It was one of those communities where every one of the buildings was the same. Just a labyrinthine collection of identical red brick buildings almost completely devoid of any personal touches. But Miko navigated it with enough familiarity that allowed him to speed around and into a spot.
“Stay,” he growled at me as he threw open the door and climbed out.
It was right then I noticed something I hadn’t seen on him before.
A gun in a holster on his hip.
This whole situation seemed like it could possibly go completely sideways.
I wasn’t going to sit on my ass in the car if Miko might need some backup.
I grabbed the key fob so the car would shut off and ran out to catch up with him.