18. Nadia
18
NADIA
M axim didn’t say much. He listened to the doctors when they came to check on me, and I was astounded by how fluent he was. The receptionist had spoken in English at the hotel, but here, I witnessed how experienced Maxim was at speaking in Spanish.
There was so much I didn’t know about him, and not for the first time, I wished I had all the time in the world to get to know him.
He handled the process of getting me checked out, and when the lead doctor assessed me, still concerned about memory issues, he seemed suspicious. I went with the story that Maxim was my husband—the lie he started—and with his collaborative falsehoods, we convinced them that I suddenly, almost magically, no longer had memory issues.
That just seeing my “husband” had snapped me out of the mental fog.
I was discharged, and still, on the drive from the hospital, Maxim didn’t say anything.
He was mad. Aloof. Broody.
The longer he remained quiet, the tenser I became. I was lucky to have been hit with no lingering or serious injuries or complications. It was a miracle. My body was still exhausted, though. I hadn’t slept well in the hospital. Plus, this constant stress of being on the run was tiresome.
I didn’t have the energy to fight or play mind games with him.
“How long are you going to give me the silent treatment?”
He sighed, not taking his eyes off the road. “I’m not. I’m thinking.”
I chewed on my lip, wishing I could feel the tingle of his mouth against mine again. With the way he was acting, desire was a joke.
“Thinking about how quickly you could get me to the airport and fly me back to my dad?”
He turned slightly, glowering at me. His lack of an answer didn’t improve my mood.
I anticipated a return to the hotel I’d run from, but it seemed that he wanted to change up our hotel. If he was paranoid about staying in one place, he must have had a reason to be worried, but I couldn’t summon the clarity to stress about that.
Being in the hospital wasn’t easy. Someone died next to me when I was in the emergency room. A couple cried together as they faced major surgeries after a house fire. Hearing others in such distress reiterated how alone I was, and in those sober moments of respecting how short life was, I wanted Maxim. I missed him fiercely, and now that he’d come back to me, I wanted to fight with all I had to make him understand that.
“How did you find me?”
He parked and looked at me. “I searched all the hospitals. I kept calling. And today, someone said they had a patient matching your description.”
I nodded. If he was waiting for an apology, I wasn’t sure how I’d give him one. I wasn’t sorry to try to save myself from marriage with Lev. But I was remorseful that I’d worried him and inconvenienced him to hunt me down like that.
Upstairs, in another hotel room he’d acquired, he gestured for me to sit on the edge of the bed. “Are you sure you’re not wounded in any other way?” He hovered, looking over me and seeming genuinely worried.
“No.” I shook my head and let him check me over. I felt touched that he’d be so concerned even when he had to be so angry.
“You’re not hurting anywhere?”
Only in my heart. Because I want you so badly it pains me.
“No.” I grabbed his hand and stopped him from obsessing over looking for an injury. I already knew how protective he was, but I wanted to think that he was so hawkish and worried because he wanted me to remain well and unharmed. Not that he had to make sure he wouldn’t deliver a faulty bride to Lev.
He sighed, not pulling his hand out of mine. “You shouldn’t have run, Nadia.”
I licked my lips. My heart beat faster, and I drew in a long breath to brace for talking. For pouring my heart out to him and convincing him that we belonged together, not parted because my dad promised me to a man old enough to be my grandfather.
“Please, Maxim. I am begging you to understand.”
He stared at me, so intensely that I couldn’t dare to look away. “To understand what? What do you have to explain to me?”
“That I don’t want to be given to Mr. Avilov.”
Still, he gazed at me. His charming, cocky smile didn’t show on his handsome face. But I had his full attention.
“It’s not fair to me,” I added.
“ Life isn’t fair,” he argued gently, reaching out to cup my face. He stroked his thumb over my cheek, and with the reverence shining in his eyes, I felt like the most treasured woman in the world.
His touch comforted me. While he wasn’t rushing to agree with me, he wasn’t being combative and insisting that he had to do his job and bring me home.
“It’s not fair to me,” I repeated for emphasis. “I want to make my own choices about my future.”
He caressed my lower lip, and I pulled in a shaky breath at that simple yet erotic touch.
“I want to make my own choices about who I want for my husband.”
His gaze turned hotter. Smoldering. I couldn’t look away, locked in this trance and sizzling tension of desire that grew between us.
“I want the freedom to choose a man like you,” I explained.
I laid my heart out for him. I couldn’t be clearer.
“I know I’m na?ve and young, but I know, Maxim.” I swallowed hard. “I know that I want you .”
With a ragged growl, he dipped toward the bed. Our mouths met in a torrid kiss. It was full of longing and bottled-up need, but already, his firm, soft lips were a familiar welcome against mine.
I snaked my arm around his neck, clinging to him as he braced one hand on my side. Putting a knee on the bed, he suspended himself over me while he encouraged me to lean back.
“I shouldn’t,” he said against my lips, his hot breath mingling with mine. “I have no right to want you, Nadia.”
I parted my legs as we scooted up the bed. Holding on to him, I kept him close enough for me to kiss his cheek, his jaw, and then his mouth again.
“I’ve got no right to want you like this,” he growled as he lay on top of me, warming me with his hard, solid muscles.
I nodded. “You do,” I protested as I tugged at his shirt. I needed more. I wanted all of him, including the direct touch of his warm, taut skin against mine. “I give you the right to want me. However you need me, Maxim.”
He moaned into another, longer kiss after he reached back to tug his shirt off. I reveled in the dips and rises of his sculpted pecs and abs. Tracing my fingers over his back, I reduced him to shivering with goosebumps showing under my caress.
“I’m giving you whatever you want,” I promised as he lowered his hand toward my core. His hand was big and hot, his palm so hard and firm as he rubbed over my mound.
“I’m giving all of myself to you, Maxim.” I hardly knew what the hell I was saying. It sounded like gibberish in my mind, but I had to make him understand that the only rules that could matter were what we decided upon here. Just us. Together.
“Take me,” I begged. “Make me yours , and no one else’s.”
He lifted up, gripping my dress to remove it from my body.
“I want to,” he said with a heavy-lidded stare of lust as he took in the sight of me in nothing but my lingerie.
I kept my legs spread wide. I lifted my arms over my head, thrusting my breasts up to entice him to kiss me there.
He growled, lowering to remove my bra, then dipping more to trail kisses between my nipples, over my breasts, and down toward my panties.
“I want nothing more than to take you, sweetheart.” He crawled further down the bed, tugging my panties off as he went.
I nodded, leaning up on my elbows to watch him. Ever so slowly, smiling smugly as he eyed my pussy, he brought his head down to me.
“I want to taste you, here.”
He did. Swiping his tongue to my slit, he stroked from my entrance to my clit. All my nerve endings felt like they were frayed. Tingling. Zinging with pleasure. I came alive, crying out then moaning as I lay back on the pillow and threaded my fingers through his hair.
Without pause, he licked and sucked. Each time he played with my clit, suctioning it between his lips and flicking the tip of his tongue at it, I cried with need. Then when he dragged his hot tongue over my wetness before tunneling it into my pussy, I gripped his hair harder.
It didn’t take me long to react greedily. It felt too good. I knew I was being naughty, lusting for this dangerous man and acting on my desire so openly. I humped up into his face. Holding his head there, I pushed my hips upward so I could get all of the delicious friction and sweet pressure of his torture.
His mouth wasn’t made just for smirks or giving me those damningly teasing, charming smiles.
He was put on this earth to devour me like a rabid man desperate to make me come.
Under the pressure, I caved. My orgasm couldn’t be held back. His head moved quicker as he lapped at my cunt, and with his finger rubbing harder near my clit, torturing me with that bundle of nerves, he pushed me over the edge.
I crashed, sobbing and needing more air as my climax hit. It was hard and fast, barging into me like a visceral strike.
“Maxim. Fuck!” I trembled under the onslaught of his tongue and lips on me. He kept at it, humming his satisfaction as he ate at me. My thighs quivered. My chest rose and fell with frantic pulls of air. Dizzy, but in a good way, I slumped to the bed and damn near melted from the bliss drugging me so deeply.
“I want to fuck you here, too,” he rose to his hands and knees. Crawling over me, he looked like a sinister predator on the prowl, and I smiled sluggishly at the wicked intention he had in mind. Straddling me as I leaned up on the pillows, he trapped me to the bed. His thick trunks for thighs bracketed my arms. As he reached down to spread his fingers through my hair, he lined his dick up to my lips.
At once, I parted them, eager to suck him into my mouth. Just like he had when he went down on me, I maintained direct eye contact.
The smooth head slipped in easily, and as I swirled my tongue around the mushroom pushing in, I moaned at the tangy hint of his precum.
“Slowly, sweetheart,” he got out through clenched teeth.
I hummed my agreement, hoping he saw the respect and need in my eyes. I was new at this. I’d never given a man head before. He was my first to suck in and taste, and I wanted him to be my last too.
I lifted my hands to hold his ass, and after I managed to pull his dick further into my mouth, he put his other hand on my head. Guiding me, he thrust between my lips with a slow, agonizing pace. In and out. Back and forth, he slid, but the thrill of pleasuring him was addicting.
This was nothing like when he’d fucked me before. That time was raw, feral hunger. Hard slaps and frantic fucking.
The determination in his eyes showed me that he had something else in mind this time. Now, he seemed to want to savor me, to enjoy every second of fucking my mouth, of letting me worship his long, hard dick with my lips and tongue.
“Faster?” he teased when I pushed at his ass to get more of him in. “No. Not yet, sweetheart.”
Yet. Just hearing that one word sounded like the best promise of all. Yet implied that he planned on giving me his cock again. And I couldn’t wait to learn all the ways to please him.
“You like that, you naughty little slut?” he crooned as he rammed his dick into my mouth.
I moaned, letting that sound be my reply. His dirty talk sparked my arousal to burn hotter. Even though I’d just come, I felt my pussy throbbing, my juices slipping out to smear on my thighs.
“Do you?” He went a little faster.
My lips strained, stretched around him so deep. My mouth was stuffed, and my eyes watered at the pressure to suck him in as deep as I could. I hoped he saw in my gaze how much I was loving this.
He grinned, a smug expression that thrilled me even more.
I wanted to make him smile. Just like that. Forever.
“Too bad.” He pulled out, and I panted. I missed the absence of his dick, his taste, and I frowned as he slid down the bed. Making room for himself between my legs, he picked up one of my knees and draped my calf over his shoulder.
“Too bad,” he said between rushed breaths. “Because I also want to fill you.”
As he lifted my other leg to set it over his other shoulder, he slammed his dick all the way into me. I arched my back at the instant tight fit. That wicked stretch, all the way to the hilt. He was in me, all the way, and it felt perfect.
“I want to fill your sweet, naughty pussy,” he said as he pulled back out. “Over.” He pushed in. “Over.” Another hard drive. “And over.”
He reached down to grip my hips, and holding on there, he pummeled into my cunt.
This was more like the other time, faster, harder, and brutal.
I lowered my hands to clutch his legs, and once I held on tight, I realized he wanted me to pull toward him too.
We met each other, thrusting and pulling in sync.
“I want you, sweetheart. So fucking much,” he growled.
The tendons in his neck flexed under the strain of clenching his teeth. His muscles bunched and tightened, all the hard bulges of his shoulders and arms, his wall of abs. He was a machine, honed to perfection, and working hard to force us both to come.
“You’re a bad little slut,” he reminded me.
“Only” —I groaned as he went faster— “yours.”
“Yeah?” He stared at my jiggling breasts, smiling like the devil.
I moved my hands up to cup them, hoping to further torment him.
“Pinch them,” he ordered. “Show me.”
I tweaked the hard tips between my thumbs and fingers, lightly at first, but then more. The pain was just a bite, but it served to heighten the need to come. As I pinched harder and held them against the rocking sway of my breasts with his furious thrusts, the pleasure nearly knocked me out.
“I want to be your little slut.”
He groaned, sliding one hand from my hip to find my clit. I gasped at the contact of his finger there, and I knew I couldn’t last.
“I want to be your naughty sweetheart,” I said.
“Fuck, yeah, Nadia. Yes.”
He moved his finger faster on my clit. His balls slapped against my ass as he drove his big erection deep into me. And as I rubbed my nipples between my thumbs and fingers, tugging with more force, I splintered apart for him.
It was too much to handle.
“Oh, fuck!” I screamed it, along with other sounds that might have been words and curses. This orgasm was a big one, sweeping through me and lighting all my nerves on fire.
He followed right after me, roaring a deep, guttural sound of pleasure. Tensing in his back, he rammed in harder one last time as I milked him. His thighs hardened. Digging his fingers into my hip, he clutched me tight and pulled me down his length, as if he could possibly sink in any further.
He spilled his hot cum in me, flooding me. With each jerk of his dick, I swore my pussy clenched on him harder.
We were locked together, fitted like two halves in a complete whole. Sweaty, exhausted, but sated, we remained entwined.
He didn’t pull out of me as he lowered, collapsing over me but immediately rolling so I was draped over him.
For long, precious moments, we stayed glued together, united. I rested my cheek on his chest, and he rubbed his fingers up and down my arm in a tickling pressure that felt so damn good.
We came down from the high of coming, and without a word, we relaxed until I wondered if he’d fallen asleep. I was drowsy myself, but once he shifted, gently slipping out of me and easing me to get up, I yawned and peered at him.
“Let me clean you up,” he said.
He didn’t give me a chance to protest. Carrying me to the bathroom, he proved that he really did care. He had to if he ran a bath then joined me in it. Soaking in the water, secure in his arms, he held me so close like he feared he’d lose me again.
And that was the moment I vowed never to run from him ever again.
My heart couldn’t take it. Because it belonged with his, beating in time, a perfect match.