4. Maverick
4
MAVERICK
I leaned back in the office chair and closed my eyes.
A small headache was already starting to form behind my eyelids.
It had been three days since we’d returned with the little monster.
Three days of her staying holed up in her room.
If I were a smart man, I wouldn’t let myself be this affected by Mila.
But I wasn’t smart—at least, not when it came to my brothers and, apparently, not when it came to her.
I had done a lot of shitty things in my thirty-five years of life. Bad shit that had gotten most men locked up for life. I wasn’t a good man, but I had never taken a woman against her will.
This was a first, and I supposed I should feel guilty over that, but fuck me, I wasn’t.
I could hide behind the excuse that Silas wanted her badly enough to cross every line, every fucking imaginable boundary there was, but I wasn’t trying very hard to stop him.
And I didn’t give a fuck.
I could say my sympathy for the girl didn’t exist because of the dirty blood running in her veins.
But, Daniel Hayes’ daughter or not, there was no denying the truth.
I fucking wanted her too.
We left her alone— mostly —considering how much shit needed to get done now that the old president was no more.
And the fucker had left behind a lot of shit that tainted the club’s name and, indirectly, the narcotics ring he had taken from our father with his bloody hands.
I was only finding out how much shit he was in now that I’d taken control.
Though the narcotics trade in and of itself was running smoothly, there was a lot of unrest over the new heads of this operation.
But all those fuckers should know that now that it was under our control, it would stay in our control for fucking good.
It was a multimillion-dollar business, and I was sure there were going to be a lot of stupid motherfuckers coming out of the woods, wanting a piece of it now that Hayes was dead.
They might even think taking power from us would be easier than taking it from Hayes.
They would be fucking wrong, and the price to pay for their stupidity would be their lives. I would ensure it.
I didn’t bother opening my eyes when the door opened.
Only two other men would come into my office without knocking.
We were in our own home, not far away from the city, and isolated enough that Mila couldn’t just walk out the door and leave.
The gate surrounding the property certainly helped, and I smiled at the memory of the look on her face when she’d seen it for the first time.
It wasn’t so different from the house we grew up in, but my brothers and I weren’t the same. The house might feel the same, but it was worlds away. Not only did that house hold a lot of bad shit for my brothers and me when we were living there, but it was tainted even more after the attack, after Hayes had taken over and turned it into the clubhouse where he raised his daughter. It operated as the club’s headquarters.
The location was perfect, and now that Hayes was dead, the deed to the house would “technically” belong to Mila. How perfect that the little princess was now under our control.
“Are you going to pretend to be asleep?” Killian asked me from the door.
I smiled a little and opened my eyes, taking in my middle brother. The scowl that had been fixed on his face ever since we brought Mila home was ever-present.
“What do you want?”
“To go over the accounting of the operation.”
“Have Peter do that,” I said. Peter was the club’s accountant, and a damn good one at that.
“I have, but I wanted to go over Hayes’s assets. I think it would be easier if we have most of it transferred to us the legal way.”
The way Hayes had taken the deed to our house wasn’t fucking legal. Some bribe money, to the officials and the polices, some forgery here and there, and it was under the fucker’s name, while we were unable to do anything about it. We could probably do the same thing Hayes did to obtain the property, but I wasn’t Hayes.
And Mila was his only living relative.
“You mean with Mila’s signature?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I’m sure Silas could convince her.” He practically sneered the word.
“You know you can’t avoid her forever.”
His face darkened. “I’m not.”
“Right. And his other assets?”
“I’m still looking. I don’t know where the fucker hid them.”
“Should have kept him alive long enough to ask,” I said. I regretted not prolonging his kill. And for more than one reason.
As much as Mila wanted to put on a “don’t fuck with me” face, there was no way to disguise the haunted look in her eyes—the one abuse victims usually got after a while.
Why I cared, I didn’t know.
It was fucking ironic that I should care about this, considering what we were doing to her. We could spin it however we wanted, hiding behind the reason of Silas’ newest obsession, but there was still something wrong with the way we were treating her… keeping her.
Killian made a low, noncommittal sound in the back of his throat. “Should have, would have, could have. Hindsight is fucking twenty-twenty,” he commented, his voice gruff.
One of my eyebrows rose at the double meaning in his words. I steepled my hands together and rested my chin on top of them, looking up at him.
“You think I’m making a mistake, letting Silas keep his obsession.”
He scoffed. “I’m sure it’s not only Silas’ obsession anymore.”
“I didn’t hear you protest much back in New Orleans.”
“Would it have made a difference?”
I shrugged. We both knew it wouldn’t have.
“Not every woman we interact with will be a carbon copy of Lilliana. You know that, don’t you?”
He scoffed. “Then you’re stupid. Lucky for you and Silas, I won’t fucking fall for that shit. I’ll protect us.”
“What shit?”
“That fucking innocent act she’s got going.”
I didn’t answer him. I didn’t think it was an act.
“We’re the ones who took her, not the other way around,” I reasoned. We were the monsters in this story, not doe-eyed Mila Hayes.
“And it won’t be long before she figures out why and uses that against us. Honestly, I thought you were better than this. It’s not like you to be led around by your dick.”
“Careful, little brother. I’m still the head of this family,” I said quietly.
He shook his head but smartly didn’t respond.
We might be pretty evenly matched physically, but I could still kick my little brother’s ass if needed.
Both brothers.
His shoulders sagged, and he looked away. My heart pinched at the sight. It had been a while since Killian looked like he needed me, and all I could think about was the teenage boy who’d looked at me in horror and self-loathing when he realized it was his mistake that caused us to leave the mob.
I never blamed him for it, and Silas didn’t either.
But Killian blamed himself, and sometimes, I thought that was even worse.
What he didn’t understand was that, even at the worst moments of my life, even when I felt lost, unsure of how I was going to keep them safe, a small part of me was happy for the attack.
I hated that we had to leave the organization—the family —behind, leave our family legacy, the very one I had trained my whole life to take over one day, but I was fucking happy to take my brothers away from our abusive shithead father.
I was happy Hayes had killed him.
Just as I knew Mila wasn’t all that brokenhearted that her old man was dead. And perhaps that was why I couldn’t kill her. Because underneath the fa?ade she wore, she still looked like me at sixteen.
“I’m gonna go back to the company,” Killian muttered after I hadn’t spoken for a long moment. He turned around and walked out of there before I could say anything more.
The company was a corporate building owned by the Irish mob. It was a front that housed the more legitimate side of our businesses.
But it hid some of the most hideous secrets of the world.
It was where my brothers and I spent most of our time, but lately, I hadn’t wanted to hole away in there all that long.
And I hated to admit to the reason behind that.
I stayed in the home office for a while. It was late and the house was quiet.
Just past midnight.
Silas still hadn’t come home after I asked him to inspect the warehouse to make sure everything was up to par with what we wanted, and with Killian gone, it was just me and the little innocent.
I moved the mouse on the computer to wake it up, and opened the security footage in the house.
I doubted Mila knew there was a camera in her room. Otherwise, she would have taken more care when she changed, but I had been watching her like this for the past three days.
The image was in black and white, so I couldn’t see her details clearly, but I saw enough to know she had perky tits that would be a perfect handful, a trim waist, and a pussy that wasn’t groomed for sex. As if I needed the cameras for that, though. Not when she had been entrenched deeply in my mind from the first moment I had her in my arms.
There was no doubt she hated me now, and the soft woman she had been in my arms was long gone. How long would it be until I saw that side of her again? Or was she gone from me for good, and would only open up to another man? Someone who didn’t play the monster in her story?
My jaw clenched at the thought of her with another man.
I was just getting as possessive of her as Silas was. I knew it, just as I knew I would kill any fucker who was stupid enough to touch her.
Any fucker besides my brothers, that was, though whether Killian would join was another question.
She was asleep soundly in the center of the huge-ass bed. This house was big enough for Mila to have her own room, though she wasn’t that far from Silas’ room. She shifted and I stood without another thought. Going into her room wasn’t even a conscious decision anymore.
I had been in there every night, watching her sleep.
There was something peaceful about the act.
She slept with abandonment.
Not a very smart thing to do for a girl in her position, but I wasn’t going to chastise her for it.
I liked to listen to her breathe.
Something about it quieted all the voices in my head, and lightened the load on my shoulders.
Being in her room, taking in her sweet natural scent that was already dominating the space somehow, made me feel less like the head of one of the biggest criminal enterprises in the world, less like the big brother of two men who needed me despite what they might say, and more like?—
More like a man obsessed.
And it was as simple as that.
I was just a man obsessed, and how lucky for me that my obsession was living under my roof, completely within my control.
I held my breath when she shifted a little on the mattress, but she didn’t wake.
I smiled.
The little monster was a sound sleeper, which was surprising, because I thought with the way she’d grown up, she would have been more aware of her surroundings than that.
I shook my head when she barely stirred as I moved closer. I could make out the outline of her small form in the dark. Something about this girl called to me in ways that had never happened before, and I didn’t know what to do with the feelings she was able to bring out of me simply by existing.
Gently, I pulled the blanket down her body.
So lost in sleep, she didn’t even realize there was a monster lurking nearby.
The nickname I gave her was ironic.
At the time, I was just fucking fascinated by her choice of shirt.
This girl looked too innocent for my taste. I had expected someone harder. I had wanted someone harder—or, at least, I thought I did.
But her innocence was a beacon, drawing me in, and the monster shirt she wore was something else.
Cartoonish in a way, fucking adorable in another.
I smiled a little as I ran one finger down the side of her face, reveling in the softness of her skin.
She made a small noise, a cross between a moan and a whimper that I felt all the way down to my dick.
I shifted on my feet and moved my hands down, taking in the delicateness of her jawline and her soft, full lips that I ran the pad of my thumb over.
My eyes adjusted to the dark a bit and I could see more than just an outline of her.
Not enough to make out her features clearly, but enough for me to see as I directed my hand down to her neck. I curved my palm around it, feeling her pulse beat steadily with each breath she took, under the white T-shirt she had on.
It was big on her, making her seem somehow much more fragile than she already did.
I ran my hand down her sternum, between her breasts.
I paused on her flat stomach when her legs moved a little, but when she didn’t wake, I continued down to the hem of her shirt.
I lifted, showing off a sliver of pale skin on her stomach that seemed to glow in the dark.
A little more, and more until it rested on her collar. I let my eyes run over her.
Fuck, even in the dark, she looked perfect.
So fucking perfect, my dick was straining against my jeans.
She would probably be horrified to know I visited her every night after she’d gone to sleep.
She would probably kick me in the balls—or try to. Rightly so.
I didn’t give a fuck.
I never claimed to be a good man, and if Silas was so goddamn persistent that we keep her, why would I fight it?
I didn’t think I could.
I ran my hand up and gently grasped one full tit.
Her tits weren’t big, but they weren’t small either.
A perfect fucking handful.
I took her hardened nipple between two fingers and rolled it gently.
She let out another moan and shifted slightly.
Was she turned on in her sleep?
If I moved my hand down to her panties, would I find her pussy weeping with want?
Fuck me, but I wanted to find out.
And I was never one to deny myself anything.
I let my fingers roam down her slender body, taking in every soft curve I vowed I would explore more thoroughly later.
I circled her navel when I found the dip and her body seemed to react to it, a soft noise coming out of her.
I turned toward her, preparing for her to wake up and to cover her mouth in case she screamed.
Wouldn’t want to wake up the whole house, now, would I?
I was fucking considerate, after all.
But she didn’t wake up.
And I wondered why her lack of sense of self-preservation both amused and annoyed me.
My fingers reached the hem of the gray shorts she wore to bed.
Boys’ shorts and boys’ shirts.
This girl needed new sleeping clothes.
I smiled a little, just imagining the look on her face should I buy her sleeping clothes.
I moved my hand down from the flare of her hips to where the shorts had ridden up mid-thigh. It wasn’t revealing in any way, and I knew from the camera feed that they came down to her knees, but they were baggy enough that I didn’t have to work very hard.
I shifted the fabric up even more, revealing dark panties.
She sighed as I lightly ran my fingers across her slit. Her legs moved about on the bed before she spread them out a little, giving me better access.
Fuck.
My cock twitched from the feel of her swollen clit pushing against the fabric, and I was hit with the urge to taste her again, to remind myself of how it had felt with her and why I had been unable to let go. To find out all her dirty little secrets and keep them for my own.
I rubbed harder, feeling some moisture building against the fabric, and I wondered if I could make her fucking come like this.
Could I make her come while she slept, unaware of all the corrupt things I was doing to her, unaware of all the dark thoughts swirling in my brain, or even my primal instinct telling me to ruin her so good that no man save for me and my brothers would do?
Could we do it?
Could we keep and share Mila Hayes?
Killian would have to get his head out of his ass first. He would have to be willing to forgive himself for the shit that happened when he had been nothing more than a fifteen-year-old kid.
There were some things that were out of our control, and Lilliana would have come into our lives whether we’d wanted her to or not.
I shook away the thoughts of the bitch and of my brothers, and even the weight on my shoulders, and focused on the sleeping girl in the bed.
She made everything light, and I found myself completely addicted to the feeling.
I pulled the fabric of her panties aside, my fingers finding her center.
I bit in a groan threatening to escape.
As I predicted.
She was fucking wet.
I licked my lips as I let my fingers come up to her fat, greedy clit, pressing in on it.
Her mouth opened, as if she was trying to get in enough air, and her hands moved down to the bedsheets beneath her, gripping a little before she let go.
“Fuck me, but how am I supposed to let you go now?” I asked in the silent room.
Perhaps she had held on to some hope that she could escape us. Perhaps she thought all she was doing was biding her time until we fucked up and she could run.
She thought wrong.
Because when I decided to keep someone, there was no escaping. No running away, no divorce. No nothing.
And in this moment, she was irrevocably mine.
I yanked her shorts off almost forcefully and could see her rousing from sleep.
I didn’t give her time to react or for me to think.
I climbed in between her legs to the little piece of heaven I now owned, and buried my face in her wet pussy.
Her taste instantly exploded on my tongue, and I growled, my fingers digging into the supple flesh of her delectable ass.
She would surely bruise.
She would wear my mark on her tomorrow.
The thought of that only drove me further into a frenzy.
She gasped.
“What the fuck?” she asked.
I covered her mouth with my hand before she could scream. No one was around to hear her, but that didn’t mean I was in the mood to be screeched at.
“Be a good girl, Mila, and I’ll let you come,” I said, right before returning to eating her out with vigor.
Fuck.
She tasted as I remembered. So fucking sweet, so fucking addictive, and I was hooked.
There would not be a day that went by that I wouldn’t taste her, I vowed.
I took the lips of her pussy into my mouth, sucking.
She let out a small noise that was a cross between a gasp and a whimper, before setting her hand on my forehead and trying to push me away.
I looked up at her.
The moonlight shining through the window brought her fair skin into focus, along with her dark, erect nipples.
I kept eating her out, letting my hand travel up her body and grabbing her tits.
She didn’t scream when I let go of her mouth with my other hand.
Good.
The little monster was learning.
She tried to push my hands away.
I grabbed her harder, and she whimpered.
And I was hit with the urge to see her.
To see all of her.
I pulled away long enough to turn on her bedside table lamp, letting the room bathe in a soft yellow light and allowing my eyes to roam over her body.
Her shirt was still pushed up to her collarbone. Her chest heaved in and out with every hard breath she took, and her shorts and panties were thrown haphazardly somewhere on the floor.
For being so short, this girl was all legs, and between those out-of-this-world legs was her dripping cunt.
I smiled and licked my lips, reveling in the hint of fear—and arousal—I could see in her eyes.
“Fuck, baby girl. Has anyone ever told you how fuckable you are?”
“Fuck you,” she gritted out.
“No. Not tonight,” I said darkly. “But you will. And what’s more, little monster, you’ll beg for it.”
“In your fucking dreams.”
I laughed. Fuck, but I couldn’t even remember the last time I had laughed so much. Or when I found someone so amusing.
That was a forgone conclusion. When she was ready for me, I was going to take her. Roughly. Brutally. Until she felt nothing and no one but me.
Until she became as addicted to me as I was to her.
I leaned down and licked her drenched flesh from one hole to the other.
Her legs trembled against me, and she lay back down on the mattress and covered her eyes with her arms.
I watched as she bit her lips harshly, trying hard not to make any noise.
Challenge fucking accepted.
I pressed a wide smile against her.
“Does this feel good, little monster?” I asked, letting my fingers gently run down her crease. I stopped when I got to her back end, reveling in the feel of the tight ring of muscle puckering at my touch.
I was going to take her there one of these days.
There would not be a single spot on her body that I didn’t own.
“Fuck you,” she said with a little less heat.
I smiled. “You keep saying that and I’ll start to think you're begging for it.”
She stilled beneath me. “You said not tonight.”
“And do you believe me? Do you think I am a man of my word?”
When she didn't answer, I laughed again and took her clit into my mouth.
Her back arched slightly off the bed, presenting her glorious tits to me.
I shifted. I was getting so hard, it was getting painful.
“How long do you think it’ll take me to make you come?”
Another whimper came out—this one so soft, I almost didn't hear it.
“Maverick,” she protested weakly.
“Yes, sweet girl? Let me make you come. You’ll let me do that, won’t you? Let me remind you.”
Remind her of the girl who had softened toward me back at that hotel.
Her eyes flashed with want and another unnamed emotion that brought an ache to my chest. I ignored the pain and looked at her.
She bit her lip when I slowly, gently, pushed a finger inside her. She didn’t stop me.
Her mouth opened but nothing came out. I pushed it in even further, feeling the tight heat that surrounded me. “Fuck. I knew you would be like this,” I muttered against her, going to eat her out again.
She tightened her legs around my neck, trapping me to her. I didn’t even think she was aware she was doing it.
I grabbed her hips and shifted her up, bringing her closer to me.
“Oh, God,” she uttered.
“That’s it, baby girl. Let me hear you scream. Let me feel you lose control.”
I steadily thrust the finger in and out of her. She clenched around me as tremors started to wrack her body, increasing in intensity, leading to an explosion that I knew would feel so, so fucking good.
“Come for me,” I demanded, lapping her clit and quickening my pace.
She lost it on a shout, which was quickly muffled by my hand.
She bit down on my skin, her gaze unfocused. I wondered if she would have stopped if she knew how much I fucking loved the sting.
I slowed my lips against her pussy, lightly dipping my tongue in her entrance before pulling out and playing with her swollen clit, wanting to prolong the orgasm for as long as possible.
Her legs twitched from the remnants of the high before finally, they lagged around me and fell back down to the mattress.
I pressed one last kiss against her, causing a small moan to come out, before finally pulling away and looking at the relaxed girl lying there.
“You have no idea how badly I wanted to do this the first night I came into your room and watched you sleep,” I said.
Her brow furrowed, as if she couldn’t comprehend what I was saying, before her expression morphed into understanding and disgust.
My smile widened.
“Until next time,” I promised. If she thought I could stay away from her now, she was going to be sorely disappointed.
She unleashed my monster simply by existing. There was no hope of me reeling him in. Not anymore.
I climbed off the bed, and her eyes came up to my aching dick straining across my pants.
She blushed like a fucking virgin, and I chuckled.
Her shyness was refreshing. And now I wondered how she would look had I taken off my pants and rubbed one out in front of her, covering her naked body with my cum.
It was almost too hard to walk back into my room.
I didn’t even remember how I got there, but I wasted no time. I shoved off my clothes, my cock springing forward from the erection.
I groaned low as I fisted my shaft.
I moved up and down roughly, watching as the precum made its way out of the angry, purple tip.
I swiped it with my thumb, imagining Mila’s full lips wrapped around my cock.
Mila didn’t look like she knew what she was doing, and it occurred to me that I didn’t know the level of her experience.
It didn’t fucking matter.
Virgin or not, my brothers and I would be the only men in her life. I’d kill any fucker stupid enough to try to touch her.
My hand slammed against the wall as I quickened my movements.
I closed my eyes and drew in the image of her sea-colored eyes.
And that was all it took.
I came with a shout, my cum squirting onto the sheets of my bed.
Fuck me.
I couldn’t remember a time when I had come that hard. And this was with my own hands.
I quickly cleaned up before turning in for the night.
Tomorrow would be the same.
We had Daniel’s narcotics operation to deal with, but somehow, the thought didn’t feel as… mundane as it once had.