26. Maksim
Maksim
I watch Lila from across the table, the lights of the club strobing across her face.
She’s nursing her second drink—I’m counting—and talking to Ava about something that has them both laughing.
I brought her in through the private entrance.
She’s not twenty-one but my club, my rules.
The music is loud enough that I can’t hear what they’re saying, but I see the way Lila’s shoulders have finally relaxed.
This is what she needed. What we both needed.
It took me two days to make sure this outing was as safe as I could make it. Damien is here, along with two other guards, who are positioned at strategic points around the VIP section. The club manager knows we’re here. Security has been briefed. Every entrance and exit is covered.
I still feel like I’m going to crawl out of my skin.
“She’s fine,” Damien says. “Look at her. She’s having fun.”
He’s right; she is. She’s wearing jeans and a black top that shows just enough skin to make every man in this place notice.
I’ve stared down three guys who looked too long.
She’s wearing heels. They aren’t as high as the ones she wore at the party, but they’re enough to make her legs look impossibly long.
She’d tried on several outfits, including a dress that was way too short.
Thankfully, she decided she wanted to be comfortable.
She catches me watching and smiles.
I raise my glass slightly. She does the same, and flashes me a sexy grin that tells me exactly what she’s thinking.
For a moment, she looks her age.
She's not thinking about dead mothers, Albanian threats, burned stables, or men with guns. She's just a nineteen-year-old woman out at a club with friends. She’s free to be happy and to enjoy the little things in life.
“Boss.” One of the floor managers appears at the edge of the VIP section. “We’ve got a situation downstairs. One of the regulars is causing problems.”
I sigh. Of course, there’s a situation.
I move closer to Lila. “I need to handle something. Stay here with Ava.”
She nods, turning back to her conversation.
I follow the manager down to the main floor, where some hedge-fund asshole is screaming at one of my servers about bottle service. It takes me ten minutes to explain the rules and point out that breaking them will land him on his ass and get him banned.
No one wants to be banned from my club.
When I get back to the VIP section, Lila’s seat is empty.
“Where is she?” I ask the guard.
He points toward the dance floor. “Ava took her down there about five minutes ago.”
I scan the crowd. She’s in the middle of the dance floor with Ava and another woman I don’t recognize. The music is pulsing, bodies are pressed close together, and Lila is moving with a confidence I haven’t seen.
A man is dancing too close. He reaches out a hand toward her waist.
I push through the crowd, and bodies part instinctively when they see my face. Damien is somewhere behind me, but I don’t care about anything except getting to her.
The man’s fingers graze her hip.
I grab his wrist and twist hard enough to make him yelp. “Touch her again, and you’ll lose your hand.”
He stumbles back, wide-eyed, and disappears into the crowd.
Lila spins around, her eyes flashing when she sees me. “What are you doing?”
I pull her against me and slide one hand into her hair, gripping her waist with the other. And then, I kiss her.
Right there. In the middle of my club. In front of everyone.
I kiss her like I own her. She’s mine, and everyone here needs to know it.
She makes a sound of surprise against my mouth and pushes at my chest for half a second before her fingers curl into my shirt, and she’s kissing me back just as hard.
The music pounds around us. People are watching. I don’t give a fuck.
When I pull back, she’s flushed and breathing hard. Her eyes are furious.
“That was a little much,” she snaps.
“You haven’t seen a little much.”
I bend down, grab her around the waist, and throw her over my shoulder.
“Maksim!” She pounds her fists angrily against my back. “Put me down!”
I carry her through the club, past the gaping staff and amused patrons. Damien’s trying very hard not to smile. Ava is laughing.
“This is humiliating!” Lila hisses.
“You’re the one making a scene,” I say calmly.
“Because you threw me over your shoulder like a sack of potatoes!”
“You shouldn’t have let him touch you.”
“He didn’t touch me! You grabbed him before he could!”
“Exactly.”
We reach the private exit that leads to the parking garage. The guard opens the door without comment, though I see the smirk he’s trying to hide.
I set Lila down next to the SUV, and she shoves me hard.
“You’re insane!” Her face is red. Whether it’s from anger or embarrassment or both, I can’t tell. “You can’t just carry me out of there like that!”
“I just did.”
“I was having fun!”
“With some asshole trying to put his hands on you.”
“You’re jealous.”
“I’m not jealous.”
“You are.” She steps closer, poking me in the chest. “You’re jealous because someone else was looking at me.”
“I’m protective because you’re my wife.”
“That’s not what this is.” She’s breathing hard, and her eyes are blazing. “You didn’t like seeing me with someone else. Admit it.”
I grab her wrist and pull her flush against me. “Fine. I didn’t like it. I don’t like any man looking at you, touching you, or breathing the same air as you. Is that what you want to hear?”
“Yes!” She’s shouting now. “Because now you know how I felt seeing you at that party with women climbing all over you.”
I lean down until our faces are inches apart. “I wanted to break every finger on that man’s hand for getting within three feet of you. I want to take you home and fuck you until you forget anyone else exists. I want to mark you so thoroughly that no one else will try to touch you again.”
Her breath catches. “Then do it.”
I stare at her. “What?”
“You heard me.” She grabs my shirt, pulling me closer. “Take me home. Do all of it.”
I don’t need to be told twice.
I open the back door of the SUV and push her inside. I follow, slamming the door behind me. Sampson is in the driver’s seat, pulling out of the garage before I say anything.
Lila is on me immediately, her mouth finding mine, and her hands tugging at my shirt. I grab her hips and pull her onto my lap so she’s straddling me.
“We’re not alone,” I remind her.
“Sampson, don’t look,” she calls out.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I slide my hands under her top, feeling the warm skin of her back. She arches into me, threading her fingers through my hair.
She rocks against me. I groan and tighten my grip on her hips. I am certain this woman is going to kill me, but what a fucking way to go.
The drive home feels like it takes hours instead of twenty minutes. By the time we pull up to the house, we’re both disheveled and breathing hard.
I grab her hand and pull her inside, past the guards, who don’t look at us.
“My shoes!”
“Take them off, or I’ll carry you,” I reply.
And then, we’re jogging up the stairs with her heels long gone.
The door barely closes before I have her against it, my mouth on hers, my hands everywhere. She’s pulling at my clothes with the same urgency, scraping her nails down my chest.
“You’re mine,” I say against her throat. “No man touches you again. Ever.”
“Prove it,” she challenges.
We strip off our clothes until we’re both naked and breathing hard. She drops to her knees without warning.
I go still.
She looks up at me through her lashes. I exhale hard through my nose. I don’t know if I have the self-control to stand here while she sucks me into her mouth. I want to pound into her.
“Fuck, Lila.”
I reach out, sliding my hand through her hair.
She wraps one hand around my cock and begins to stroke me, watching my face for every reaction. Then, she leans forward and takes me into her mouth. I have to shoot out a hand to brace myself against the door.
“Christ.”
She sets a slow rhythm, working her tongue over my head and then down to my balls.
It blurs my vision at the edges. She presses her free hand against my stomach, feeling the muscles contract.
I thread my fingers through her hair. She takes me deeper, and I nearly collapse on top of her, a groan tearing out of me.
“You’re going to ruin me with that mouth, princess.”
I let her work me for another minute, long enough that my control starts to splinter before I reach down to pull her to her feet. She comes up flushed, her lips swollen, and looking unbearably pleased with herself.
I lift her off the floor. She wraps her legs around my waist. I carry her to the bed and drop her onto it. She bounces once, laughing, before I cover her body with mine, and the laugh dissolves into something else.
I settle between her thighs. She tilts her hips up to meet me. I push inside slowly, watching her face and the way her lips part. Her head tips back on a sweet sigh like she’s been waiting for me to be inside her all night.
Maybe she has.
I give her time to adjust. She digs her heels into the backs of my thighs.
“I didn’t come home with you to go slow,” she murmurs.
I smile and shake my head. “If you would shut up long enough and let me fuck you, you’d see I know what I’m doing.”
I move but don’t give her what she wants yet.
She slides her hands down my back, and then up to my shoulders and into my hair. She pulls me in for a kiss that’s all tongue. I bury my face in her neck and lose myself in the rhythm we find together.
“Maksim.” She says my name with a contented sigh.
“I’ve got you,” I tell her, and I mean so many things with those three words.
She comes with her fingers twisted in my hair and my name on her lips. I follow her over the edge with my face pressed against her throat. I had thought I was going to fuck her, but that’s not what that was. It reached a place I don’t have words for.
Maybe that’s why I couldn’t leave her there.
Maybe some part of me knew, even then, that letting them take her would ruin me.
Afterward, she sprawls across my chest. She belongs right here, with one of my hands on her ass and the other stroking her shoulder.
Her breathing slows within minutes. She makes a small sound in her sleep and tucks closer. I tighten my arm around her without thinking, making promises she’s too asleep to hear.
She’s mine. End of story. No one puts their hands on her again.
I stare at the ceiling and listen to her breathing.
I’m in trouble; I knew that before tonight. I felt it every time I looked at her and found one more reason not to let go.
There’s no pretending now. I would leave Miami with her. For her. I don’t give a shit about the money, the clubs, or even the bratva. None of it matters if she’s the price.
If running is what keeps her safe, I’ll run. If burning it all down is what keeps her safe, I’ll strike the fucking match myself.