Chapter Forty-Five Gemma
Chapter Forty-Five
Gemma
He swipes the key card across the reader and the door unlocks. I take in the suite, trying to focus on the details rather than how badly I want him to touch me.
I follow Max through a dimly lit hallway, peering into various rooms. Not a single cent has been spared on details—the best finishes, the finest furnishings and décor. Max watches me, gauging my reaction with a sexy lopsided grin. His woody scent clings to the air, and I breathe it in hungrily.
My breath stalls in my throat when he leads me to the massive windows taking up the entire back wall of the penthouse, much like his own. I’m again taken aback by the beautiful view.
Holy shit. Opposite is a large terrace dotted with potted plants and—is that an in-ground pool? He leads me down a set of stairs I hadn’t even noticed, which opens to a theater room. The left wall is a viewing window to the pool, an underground terrace pool. In London. Unheard of.
“Oh, how the other half lives,” I say wistfully.
“Do you like it?” he asks, his voice low. He follows me back up the steps.
“Like it? I don’t think I’ve ever been in such a gorgeous suite. This view is stunning.”
“It is,” he says. I pivot to find his aquamarine eyes locked on me, not the skyline, and I turn so he can’t see the heat climbing my cheeks.
“How much is this per night?” I ask, trying to distract myself from the warmth pooling low in my belly.
“Twenty-five thousand pounds,” he provides. My eyes widen.
Stepping forward, he reaches a hand up to caress my jaw, feathering his thumb back and forth over my cheek as if I’m something precious.
“Max,” I whisper, my eyes drifting shut.
His touch is different, as if he’s memorizing every inch of me.
When I open my eyes, his pupils are wide, his brows cinched together. He looks at me as if he’s just placed a missing puzzle piece and now the image makes sense. As if he can predict my thoughts.
“What?” I ask, feeling more exposed than I have before.
He shakes his head.
“You don’t even realize, do you? You’re extraordinary.” His thumb traces my bottom lip.
“You don’t have to say that.” I cast my gaze downward.
He bristles. “I’m being serious.”
“So am I,” I say, my voice quieter. “I’m not the kind of woman men write sonnets about. No one’s ever scribbled verses about me in the margins of their notebook.”
“You’re selling yourself short,” he says.
“I’m being realistic. I know what and who I am. You don’t need to make me feel special to get what you want. We both agreed to the terms. I’m already here.”
He looks taken aback. “Is that really all you think this is?”
“Isn’t it?” I challenge, though my voice wavers slightly.
“No. Not anymore,” he says.
“What changed?” I ask, knowing full well what changed, because I’ve felt it too.
“I got to know you, Gemma.” His eyes burn with intensity.
“Maybe you just like that I don’t expect anything from you.”
“Bullshit,” he fires back. “There isn’t a world where you’re in someone’s life and don’t become the center of it.”
I turn my head, but he captures my chin between his thumb and forefinger, forcing me to look into his eyes.
“Don’t do that. Don’t push me away. Don’t hide—not from me.” He pauses briefly. “Let me see you, Gemma.”
“What if you don’t like what you see?” I whisper.
He releases a breath. “That’s not possible.”
“I’m not good at this part,” I confess, feeling my heart crack open as I allow myself to say the words.
“You don’t have to be,” he says quietly. “You don’t have to perform, or prove, or pretend with me.” His fingers move to thread through my hair. “I just want to see you—messy, scared, brilliant you.” He pauses. “I want all of it.”
How does he know? How can he see?
My face crinkles with confusion. “What if you can’t give me what I need?”
“I know I can.”
“How do you know?”
Delicately, he brushes a loose lock behind my ear. “Because I think you want to see me too.”
My body wants to revert back to what it knows is safe and comfortable—what I can control. “This isn’t what we agreed to.”
A brisk laugh leaves him. “I don’t care anymore.”
“It’s just sex.” The lie barely holds together as it slips from my mouth.
“It’s not. It’s not, and you know it.”
Of course I know it. Lava explodes in my veins, sending my heartbeat soaring. My mind tries to weave together all the reasons this is wrong. All the reasons it can’t work. All the reasons we shouldn’t.
“But Anna—” I press.
He drops his forehead to mine. “We’ll figure it out. She’ll hate this, at the beginning. But I can’t pretend I don’t want you.”
My shoulders slump in defeat. “It won’t—”
My words are cut off when he slams his mouth against mine, capturing my gasp.
My tote bag slides off my shoulder, dropping to the floor with a thud.
All excuses fade to smoke the moment his mouth seals over mine.
My body recognizes him as its master before my mind can catch up and I melt against him.
The kiss is frantic and full of need, and I find myself surrendering to the heady rush.
“Gemma,” he groans against my mouth, and my knees threaten to buckle.
I whimper as his strong hands twist in my hair, tugging my head back with a slight sting so he can deepen the kiss.
Our tongues dance and his breath becomes mine as I pull him closer by his perfectly pressed suit.
He walks me backward until I feel the cool surface of the island against my skirt. He lifts me like I weigh nothing and sets me on the edge, reaching beneath my skirt and dragging my wet knickers down my legs.
“You’re already wet,” he groans, dragging his fingers through the mess he’s made of me. “Fucking dripping. All for me.”
“I need you,” I beg, practically shaking.
And I do. I need him. He’s the only man who’s been able to meet me halfway, offering everything my body craves. He touches me in a way other men are afraid to, in a way that sends liquid fire skittering through me.
His eyes darken at my confession. “Say it again,” he commands.
“I need you,” I whisper, shocked at my own desperation. I’ve never needed someone the way I need him now, as if there’s a void inside me that only he can fill.
A growl of satisfaction rumbles deep from his chest and his hands pull away from my pussy and bracket my face, my wetness smearing across my cheek. Tilting my head, he exposes my throat. Gooseflesh pebbles my skin as he nips, grazes, and teases me with his tongue and teeth.
My fingers find the fabric of his jacket, peeling it down his shoulders before they get to work unclasping his belt to tug his zipper down.
Releasing my neck, he grips my shirt, ripping it open in one rough tug. I gasp as buttons scatter across the sparkling tiles.
“That was pure silk!”
“I’ll buy you another one.”
I push his trousers down, exposing his hard cock, and I bite my lip.
“Look at what you do to me,” he says.
My fingers wrap around the thick, hot shaft and he groans as I pump him from base to tip, swirling the pre-cum back and forth through his slit.
His eyes are feral and the sounds he’s making are animalistic, savage, shooting straight between my legs.
“Jesus, Gemma,” he hisses through clenched teeth. “You’re going to ruin me.”
Good, I think to myself. I want to ruin him the way he’s ruined me. I want to wreck every woman who came before the way he’s done to me.
“You don’t even know,” he rasps. “You touch me like that, and I forget my name. Forget what I’m doing. Forget I’m supposed to have any damn control.”
“Then don’t,” I say, my grip tightening as I stroke him harder. “I want to see you lose control.”
The words flick a switch inside him, and his hands are suddenly between my legs, pushing my knees wide.
I release his cock as he pushes up my skirt, the loose material gathering at my waist. He hooks his forearms under my knees, pulling me forward, my arse hanging off the edge of the smooth bench.
I slap my palms against the counter to steady myself.
His eyes drink me in with a fervent hunger—like he’s discovered something holy between my thighs.
“Fucking hell,” he pants, eyes roaming over my core. “I’ll never get enough of seeing you.”
He presses himself flush against me, rubbing his erection through my slick center. My juices coat his velvet skin, and I tip my head back, a moan catching in my throat. My hips tip back and forth, guiding him through me and seeking more.
“Max,” I whimper.
“Tell me you’re mine,” he chokes out. “Say it, Gemma. Say it or I’ll stop.”
“You’re insane,” I gasp, circling my hips. A muscle feathers in his jaw, and I fight the urge to roll my eyes, half-tempted to see what the gesture will earn me.
“Say it,” he demands.
“I’m yours.”
That’s all it takes. He drives into me in one brutal thrust. My back arches and a cry rips from my throat as he fills me.
I’ve just admitted that I’m his. I should feel panic. I should run before I willingly let myself fall. But I can’t.
He leans in and kisses me, wet and hot and deep, full of passion and promise. An overwhelming foreign sensation bubbles inside me and my eyes glaze over, wetness clinging to my lashes as I try to decipher its meaning.
“Baby,” he says against my lips, and my rib cage splinters. Not because I don’t like the endearment, but because I do.
Time suspends as our eyes remain fastened on each other, and recognition passes between us—like tectonic plates, something between us fundamentally shifts. Realigning into something irreversible.
A lone tear traces a path down my cheek, and he kisses it away.
“I know,” he says, his voice low. I can’t speak, and as if he can read my mind, he starts to move.
Slow at first, pacing himself. I clap my legs around his waist, locking my ankles together.
Needing more, I press my front against his and he drags himself in and out of me, winding my arms around his neck.
Without asking, he gives me everything he knows I need.
His hands grip my arse, anchoring us together, and without pulling out, he lifts me.
Buried inside me, he carries me to the bedroom, gently sitting at the edge of the bed.
My knees sink into the mattress as I straddle him.
His cock twitches inside me and I brace my hands on his strong shoulders and begin to move, lifting, sinking again, slower, then faster.
His eyes fix on me as his hands cling to my hips, guiding me up and down.
“You’re even more beautiful like this,” he groans. “Fucked out and mine.”
I roll my hips faster, picking up the pace. He’s so much deeper in this position.
“I can feel you everywhere,” I breathe.
His muscles flex as he guides me up and down, the sharp sound of flesh meeting flesh cracking through the room as he meets me thrust for thrust.
He lifts his hand, and I watch—panting—as he spits into his palm, curling his fingers to rub them against the saliva. A low, desperate moan escapes me as he slides his thick fingers down, pressing them against my arse.
I curve my spine, anticipating the delicious stretch I crave so badly—I want him to fill me. Everywhere.
A finger circles my hole, teasing me, pressing lightly against my back entrance. I gasp, reveling in the sensation.
“Do you want me to take you here?” His breath is hot against my neck, and I nod frantically.
He slaps my arse. “All fours.”
Lifting off him, I do as he commands, falling to all fours on the bed, my fingers digging into the expensive cotton sheets.
He drops to his knees behind me—I’d blush at the way he shamelessly inspects my pussy and arse. It’s deeply personal, and I love it.
I wiggle my hips, silently begging.
His mouth latches onto my pussy, dragging a firm, deliberate line from my front to my back. I buck my hips, growing impossibly wet.
I’ve had rim jobs before, but this is something else entirely.
His tongue draws circles around my tight hole, and I release a low, keening moan.
“I’m going to work you open, sweetheart,” he says, thrusting two fingers inside me and curling them. My entire body bows as pleasure rolls through me in waves. I whimper, pressing back against his hand, greedy for more.
“That’s it,” he coos, spreading my juices up my crack and around my hole. I look back, and gently, ever so slowly, he presses one finger inside my arse.
“I can take you,” I pant.
“I know you can. Such a good girl,” he growls.
My vision swims as he continues to fuck me deep with both hands, teasing, coaxing and building me up until I’m nothing but raw, exposed nerves.
He carefully slips a second finger in my back hole; this time, I take it easily. My breath hitches, but not from discomfort—from need. He patiently works me open, my body turning into a live wire.
“You’re nearly ready.” His voice is strained.
“Plug,” I pant, barely able to speak. “In my bag.”
He pauses. “You brought the plug?”
I nod, my cheeks pressing into the sheets.
“Fuck,” he groans, pressing a kiss to my spine, then stands. “I’m going to get it, okay, baby?”
“O-Okay,” I breathe.
The moment he slips from me, the emptiness feels unbearable. I’m so worked up. I close my eyes and listen to his footsteps, the rustle as he rummages through my bag, then he’s back.
A click pulls me from my lull. “You keep lube in your handbag?”
“It’s me,” I murmur, barely lifting my head, and he responds with a light chuckle.
The mattress dips behind me and I jolt as something cold and slick lands between my cheeks.
I gasp, lurching forward. “Jesus.”
He strokes a hand down my back. “Ready?”