Chapter 17 #2
He picks up the pace. The knuckle of his thumb bumps roughly against my clit, and I try to scoot closer to him, moaning against his mouth.
“Not enough,” I gasp, hands fumbling at his half-undone shirt. My mind is hazy, though, and I’m not sure what I’m doing, drunk on needing him.
“What do you want, Roxanne?” he snarls. “What do you want, my love? Take it.”
Thoughtlessly, I push him back, ignoring the drag of his soaked fingers against my silk skirt. It’ll dry—maybe not fast enough for anyone else not to notice just how wet I am for him. We stand staring at one another, chests heaving.
He’s gorgeous. Broad and dark, with that tooth glinting between his parted lips like a promise, the black tattoo crawling up his neck.
“Get on the ground.”
Makari lifts a brow, but doesn’t argue. He kneels slowly, first on one knee and then the other. His hands wander questioningly up my calves, but I shake my head.
“I want to ride you.”
His shoulders tense at the words. For a moment, I worry he’ll say no and that he won’t be able to give up control. After all, every time before this it’s been Makari who makes the first move, who claims me and plays my body like an instrument he’s all too familiar with.
This time, I want to be the one pulling the strings.
With a smirk, he sits back on his haunches and slowly stretches out.
His erection strains against the charcoal trousers he’s wearing. I climb down next to him, my fingers fumbling at his belt. He helps me deftly unbuckling it, but his fingers tremble. As he thumbs open the button and undoes the zipper, I palm him and he moans.
He’s already rock hard and throbbing through the fabric.
My mouth waters at the thought of his thick cock. I want him in a way I’ve never wanted another man, and we’re both breathless as I hike up my skirt and straddle him, hands disappearing under the burnt orange silk to remove him from his boxers.
The thick vein on the underside of his cock throbs against my fingertips. Makari lays all the way back, flat on the ground, his hands gripping my hips as I lift myself and run the head of his cock through my soaked folds.
We both moan.
Completely lost in my pleasure, I play with myself until my thighs are trembling and Makari is cursing quietly in Russian beneath me.
When I drop my head forward to meet his dark, bottomless eyes, my hair comes out of the clip it was in, grazing his face.
I feel weightless, swaying, lost in the way his gaze devours me.
I feel gorgeous and wanted and sinful and good all at the same time.
I sink down onto him, so wet that the stretch is more pleasure than pain.
“Fuck,” Makari mutters as I groan happily.
Take what you need. That’s what he said.
That’s what I intend to do.
I ride him like a ship in a storm, finding a rhythm quickly thanks to how solid and steadying he is beneath me. His hands grip my hips harshly, stiff from giving up control—from not guiding me to what he wants.
“God, I’ve wanted this,” I gasp, leaning forward and canting my hips back until his cock hits that spot that makes us both whimper. “I’ve wanted this so badly, Makari. Wanted you.”
“Yes,” he hisses, dull fingernails scraping down my thighs. “Take it, Roxanne. I’ve thought about fucking you on that conference table every single day.”
I let out a breathy laugh, slowing to twist my hips, feeling him in a new way. The Bear gapes, surprised. “Who’s fucking who?” I ask with a smirk.
He rumbles out a snarl, half-rising as if to take over, but I push him back and press my tits in his face. He happily buries his face there, nipping and kissing my sensitive skin until I’m moaning and losing my rhythm.
“Fuck me then, Roxy,” he whispers, one hand gripping my ass as I rock back on him. “Are you going to make me come?”
Just the idea of making Makari Medvedev, The Bear of Bar Harbor, lose control is almost enough to do me in. My vision goes fuzzy, hips working unconsciously as I ride him. The sounds he makes mirror my own, and I know he’s close.
With a feeling of triumph burning through my veins, I tilt my hips back again, press two hands down on his chest, and ride him until the sensation overwhelms me.
The way he curses and stiffens and grips me tight is enough to send me over the edge into a shaking orgasm. “Mak,” I moan, rhythm slowing until I’m grinding deliciously through the pleasure. “I never want to stop this, Mak. You’re so good. You make me feel so good.”
“Blyat’,” he gasps, cock throbbing inside me. It’s almost too sensitive, but I stay on top of him, quivering. “Shit, that’s perfect. Your pussy is perfect.”
When it’s over, we’re both breathless. I’m leaning back, hands braced on his shins as we both try to collect ourselves. The wet spot on my silk skirt where his fingers dragged earlier is drying, but I can feel his cum oozing out of me, coating the sides of my thighs.
Mak stares up at me, heavy-lidded and inscrutable. Suddenly, I feel self-conscious, and try to hide it by gathering myself, rolling off of him, and snapping my legs shut quickly.
He rises, already tucking his shirt back into place and doing up his belt. Resetting every polished surface of himself with quick precision. Then, to my surprise, he strides into another room and returns with a towel.
I pull myself upright, smoothing my hair with shaking hands.
I don’t want him to see how rattled I am, so I straighten my shoulders, lift my chin, and pretend none of this affected me.
But it did; namely, the softness of his touch as he pressed the towel between my legs.
The look in his eyes when we glanced at one another.
“You have a meeting,” I whisper, trying to steady my voice. “In a few minutes.”
He glances at his watch, and when he looks at me again, it’s as if he wants to say something, but doesn’t want to risk it. He steps closer, unbothered by the way I’m trying to hurriedly clean myself up. His hand catches my wrist.
I look up just in time for his lips to graze my cheekbone.
His mouth barely brushes my skin. It's so faint I almost convince myself I imagined it. But then he lingers, not kissing, not pulling away, just there. It is a whisper of touch that says more than contact ever could.
I freeze. My hand was still in his, while my other fist uselessly clenched the towel. He could let go. He doesn’t.
When he straightens, his expression shutters again, but not in its usual way. This isn’t the mask he uses on the rest of the world.
“Roxanne,” he gently murmurs.
My heart pounds at the sound of my name on his tongue in that quiet, low, hushed tone; one stripped of command. It’s nothing like the clipped orders he gives everyone else. It’s gentle. And that scares me more than all his sharpness combined.
I try to look away, but he guides my chin back with two fingers, tilting my face toward him.
His thumb grazes the edge of my cheekbone, then drops, and there’s a flicker of conflict in his eyes—something rawer than lust, something that looks almost like regret.
Or longing. Or both layered so tightly together I can’t separate them.
“I shouldn’t have,” he says softly. The words sound like they’re being dragged out of him, scraped from the inside of his ribs. “I shouldn’t make you keep getting involved.”
I don’t know if he means touching me, or fucking me again, or brushing his mouth across my skin like he cared how I felt in the aftermath. I don’t know if he even knows.
For a moment, neither of us moves. My pulse is loud in my ears, drowning out the hum of the building, the distant footsteps in the hall. It’s just him and me and the undeniable awareness that something shifted between us just now—tiny, fragile, impossible to ignore.
He lets my wrist go, but the memory of his touch stays, a warm band wrapped around my skin.
“We should go,” he says, voice low, but there’s no dismissal in it. No icy edge. It sounds more like he’s forcing the words out because the alternative is something he’s not ready for.
I nod, though I barely trust my legs. As I gather my things, I feel him watching me—not with hunger, but with a kind of searching confusion that sends heat curling through my chest.
At the door, I pause.
Mak is standing where I left him, hands braced on the desk as if he’s holding himself together. He meets my eyes, and for a split second he looks like he’s come undone—unguarded in a way I’ve never seen. Like he wants to reach for me again.
And something inside me cracks, just a little. Not enough to break. Just enough to let him in.
Who is he really? The terrifying man I met years ago?
The arrogant boss?
The violent protector?
I don’t know. But I’m starting to think I might like to.