Chapter Twenty-Four
Cal
The smile I get in response could power the sun.
The warm light from the chandelier halos her wavy hair from her perch atop my lap and my insides melt.
There’s no one on this Earth—this universe—who could make me feel the way she does. And if I can keep doing the smallest of things to bring her even an ounce of the pure pleasure she brings me, I will move mountains to do it.
My fingers trace down her jawline, her neck, across her collarbone, and I let my eyes linger there, her breathing picking up slightly.
So reactive.
I run my index finger down the center of her chest. Down, down. Between the full, perfect curves of her breasts with soft pink nipples that stand at attention for me. Down. Past her navel.
Her gasp catches in her throat as I stare up at her. Eyes half-lidded, hands resting on my shoulders. The first time we do this shouldn’t be on a desk, shouldn’t be on top of law school course catalogs.
I want her in every way, laid out in front of me, on top of me, and I want to savor every second.
I swing my legs off the desk, startling her as we twist together, both my hands resting on her hips and I plant my lips firmly against hers. Her fingers twine together behind my neck and her smile against my mouth sends zaps down my spine.
I can’t help the growl that escapes from my throat as she grinds against my cock, only a single layer of fabric between us.
“Hold on,” I tell her as I stand up, get my hands under each side of her full ass and turn—the doorway meeting us in three strides. “Say goodbye to your office until later.”
“Bye office,” she says dreamily, like she’s caught in a haze, her arms and legs still wrapped around me.
She buries her face in my neck, sucking and nipping at the skin there as I walk briskly out the door of my own office and make my way to the staircase.
I stop at the base of the stairs and press her back into the wall, lifting one hand up to the nape of her neck where I gently pull her hair to get her to tilt up to give me better access.
I run my teeth up the side of her throat, sinking my teeth gently into the soft lobe of her ear as she pants.
“If you keep this up, we won’t make it to the bed.” My words are strained, not unlike my dick straining against my briefs.
“I can’t help it,” she says breathlessly, tipping her face down to mine as I wrap my arms around her again, replacing her face in my neck as I go to climb the stairs. “Thank. You. For. My. Pull. Out. Space.” She brackets each word with a kiss to my lips as I brace her against the wall halfway up.
She giggles, then gasps as I take one hand and lightly smack her ass as I stride carefully up the remaining steps.
“Calogero Renzetti! Did you just spank me?” She pulls back to meet my eyes and hearing my name, my real name, on her lips with her naked against me has my dick twitching.
“Depends if you liked it.” I focus on my feet, on the stairs, not the way her hair is pushed over to one side of her face, pink streaks from my beard blooming against her neck, and the thought of matching streaks between her thighs.
“I’ll allow it.” She settles herself back against me, her head resting on my shoulder as she twists my hair around her fingers.
“I told you there wouldn’t be any pulling out,” the words come out harder than I meant them to, but my resolve is depleting and I’m about to spread her out and take her at the top of these stairs. “Why are there so many goddamned stairs in this house?”
She throws her head back laughing and the sound is infectious. I shake my head, which is still caught between her arms and laugh.
This girl is light. My light.
The light I didn’t even realize I needed until it was too late and she was gone.
As I crest the last step, the white walls leave little to distract me as the dark reasons I needed this light play like a movie inside my head.
Blood.
And bodies.
I stop. Leaning her up against the wall, lifting her higher. I press my forehead to her bare chest and close my eyes as the edges of my vision mist over and my chest gets tight.
Having to do the violent things she should never know about.
Touching her with the hands that hurt people.
My hands shake slightly.
Touching her with hands that killed people.
“Cal, if I’m too heavy just set me down, you’re panting like you just ran a mile.” She squirms and I tighten my grip on either side of her hips, pressing her harder into the wall.
“It’s not—” the words are interrupted by a deep breath as I attempt to steady myself. “I just need a second.”
“I—I’m sorry.” Her body is stiff and her words are small.
I stop breathing completely, that sentence ripping me out of my thoughts and putting me solidly back in this moment as I look up at her eyes.
“What was the promise you made to me about apologizing?”
Her eyes are looking away from me, and I reach up, grabbing her chin and pulling her face, purposefully letting her bare back slide down the wall a few inches to make her eyes level with mine and press my erection into the wet heat of her center again.
She breathes in deeply, her eyes shutting for a beat, before she opens them again.
Her expression looks worried, like she did something wrong, as if she could ever be any one of my problems.
Hell, she could fix every single one just by touching me.
Make them all disappear just by loving me.
I could fucking kill Patrick for making her think she is the problem at every turn. I could kill him for making me think about him in this moment.
I still could kill him.
“What did I tell you about apologizing to me, Maxine?” I repeat.
Her eyes dart up to mine when I say her full name and I see the fire returning to them slowly. “You told me not to.”
“Because nothing,” I run my thumb down the center of her lips, purposefully pressing into the bottom one and pulling it down as I tilt her chin down.
“Nothing you could ever do or say to me would require an apology. In fact, nothing you ever do to anyone should require an apology. Not as long as you are with me.”
Her chest rises and falls in rapid succession as I speak, “So promise me, again, and mean it this time.”
I feel her legs loosen around my waist and I press her into the wall with my chest, wrapping my own arm around her legs behind me, my other hand still holding her chin between my fingers.
My cock presses into her, the need in my core that was previously interrupted, back in full force. Her back arches against the wall and she tries to hold in a small moan as I rock myself gently, slowly against her.
“Use that pretty voice, Sims, and promise me again.”
I rock my hips up and then down one more time, my fingers trailing up her leg from her ankle to underneath the curved line of her calf.
Finding the tension firm behind her knee, I continue to slide my palm up the soft, warm back of her thigh, then the inside, my fingertips grazing the edges of her wetness.
I curve my palm up her ass—full, gorgeous, lethal—and I dig my fingers into her hip.
My eyes are still locked on hers and as my grip tightens, my hips rock in slow motion, and she arches again, pressing her pussy against me.
I groan, “Tell me, Max.”
“Or what?”
Fire tracks down my neck, hitting my toes and shooting adrenaline back up to the base of my spine.
A small smirk plays on her lips and I’m not sure I remember my own name. My mouth feels dry. But I don’t think my cock has ever been this hard.
I spin her around so fast her hands grab for purchase on my shoulders, digging her nails into the muscles.
White heat spreads through my body as I stalk down the hallway.
Every step is certain, and my eyes don’t leave hers as I press her back into the door of my bedroom.
It doesn’t budge. I turn us around, my back to the door, and I don’t even feel the impact.
I plant my foot, kicking back one time near the edge and it splinters open, crashing against the wall, bouncing off my shoulder as I walk us steadily into the room.
“You caveman! You’re going to fix that!” Max leans back in my arms, looking over her shoulder. One finger points at the door with fragments of the door jamb hanging off, giving me a perfect view of her exquisite tits, perfect handfuls close enough to—
I pull a pink nipple between my lips and suck. I’m rewarded with a groan and her hands wrapping around my head as I run my tongue over the tight nub and pull back, letting my teeth graze as it pops from my mouth.
“Fuck,” I growl and turn, throwing her on top of the big white pillows and matching quilt of the bed. “I…”
Words escape me as I finally get to take in her naked body splayed in front of me.
Her dark locks spread around her face like a halo; her smile pulled lightly between her teeth. The type of earth-shaking beauty that artists like Botticelli yearned for, craved to capture in paint forever. Every curve catches the golden light from the sun streaming through the open window.
My hand comes up to rub my mouth and jaw, and I think I’m stunned.
I could not have imagined a moment as good as this one—as hard as I might have tried years ago.
This stunning woman, smart, gorgeous, feisty, a dreamer and passionate about all the right things.
My fucking light.
“If I promise to never apologize,” she says it so slowly like she knows I can barely hear a word she says over the vision of her in front of me, with one hand resting on her breast and the other going lower to cup herself. “Will you fuck me?”
The moment passes and the inferno flashes through me again.
I crawl towards her, kissing my way up her legs for the second time today.
The quilt is cold against the blaze running through me.
I kiss the inside of her knee, then the other, then higher—slowly, making a silent promise in my head to kiss this exact spot every day of the rest of my life if she will let me.
I glance down at her magnificent face, grinning at me expectantly. She’s all gold light and breath and dare.
“Condom?” I ask, voice rough.
“Yes.” A whisper-sure nod.