Chapter 11 #3
Maxim took the opportunity to kiss along her neck.
Her skin was achingly soft and her pulse fluttered beneath his lips.
He would have been happy to stay there longer, teasing out little noises as he explored her, but she wrestled his T-shirt over his head and he had to lean away from her or risk getting strangled by its collar.
As the shirt fell away, she let out a noise shockingly close to a growl.
“Fuck,” she groaned. “I knew it.”
What was she seeing? Maxim glanced down at his bare torso: coarse brown-blond hair over his sternum, the shadows from muscles, the ugly ridges of the scar. He looked back at her and realized she was staring ravenously at his chest and his stomach and his pectorals.
Oh, well that was flattering.
Lust beating a fierce tattoo throughout his entire body, he hefted her a little so she could also stare at his biceps.
Pippa’s hands followed her stares and she swept her palms over whatever she could reach. “Too bad there aren’t any lawyer calendars.”
He frowned. “Lawyer calendars?”
Pippa nodded, continuing to take in his body like she would a buffet. “Like the ones for firefighters, but it’d just be page after page of Maxim Sheppard posing seductively with binders.”
“Mmm.” Maxim chuckled. “Sprawled on a plaintiff table, crotch hidden only by a gavel.” He leaned in and nipped her earlobe.
Pippa’s laugh warbled as she shuddered in his arms. “I’d buy it.”
It was the silliest thing to feel proud of—that if there existed in the world a printed collection of outrageous photos of himself in various states of undress, this woman would want it hanging in her home.
“What about ones of you?”
“Me?” she slurred.
“If you can have sexy lawyer calendars, I’d like a sexy witch calendar.”
Pippa snorted. “That would be attractive. Smeared in blood and running away from things.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of straddling a broom. Bare-breasted in front of a fire. Getting bent over a cauldron.” He punctuated the last part with a firm grind of his hips into hers.
Pippa whimpered. She crushed her mouth to his with such force that he “Mmf!”ed in surprise.
Their kisses were sloppy and desperate. The utter wildness with which he kissed her was a little embarrassing, honestly.
Maxim considered himself, if not quite a master, at least extremely proficient in this act.
He was well versed in the gentle tease, the quick lip bite, the small gestures and touches that were carefully curated to drive his partner into a state of trembling desperation.
But with Pippa, he was the desperate one. He didn’t care about the coyness or the curated teases because he only wanted to be closer to her, to have her and take her and lose himself in her so utterly that he would no longer remember the definition of coyness or that it even existed as a concept.
He swept his hand up her shirt and cupped one of her breasts, feeling her pebbled nipple through the thin lace of her bra.
God, he loved that he couldn’t fully enclose her breast with his hand.
He loved the soft weight of it and the sounds she moaned into his mouth when he brushed her nipple with his thumb.
With a sudden impulse, Maxim set Pippa on her feet.
She swayed slightly and had to set her hands on his shoulders to steady herself.
Her kiss-reddened lips parted and he could tell she was about to verbalize either a question or a complaint, but before any words came out, he dropped to his knees in front of her, his mouth achingly close to her pussy.
All it took was a brief glance downward for her to understand.
“Oh,” Pippa breathed. Her eyes had gone heavy-lidded.
Maxim slid his hands up the back of her thighs, skimming the curves of her ass and catching his fingers in the waistband of her leggings.
“Is this okay?” he asked, close enough for his breath to warm her through the fabric.
Pippa shuddered. “Yes.”
She kept repeating it, again and again, as he hooked her waistband and dragged it low. The air tingled around Maxim, seeming to vibrate in tandem with the pulse that fluttered beneath Pippa’s skin.
Yes.
Black fabric eased down her thighs to her knees. She was wearing a cotton thong and it was soft under his touch and wet between her legs.
Yes.
Pippa’s fingers tangled in his hair, and he glanced up to see her watching him, her pupils blown and her eyes glassy. Her chest glowed pink above the low collar of her shirt and her stomach trembled with her ragged breaths.
Maxim kept eye contact as he pulled her underwear over her hips. Her grip tightened on his hair and he longed to surrender and drown in the pleasure of that feeling, but he watched her just as she was watching him.
He abruptly remembered their conversation in the bathroom over sutures, where she’d mentioned vampires and oral in the same sentence. Could she possibly be thinking that the only reason he was doing this was to prove something to her?
Perhaps. In that case, the best solution would be to stop her from thinking.
Maxim leaned in and covered her pussy with his mouth.
He managed to hold her gaze for a long, sultry second, then gave in and let himself drown.
She was all heat and salt and slickness.
Her cries rang out above his head and he let them drive him onward.
He took every garbled, slurred attempt at his name as further encouragement.
Pippa’s legs shook as he slid two fingers into her. Her grip on his hair nearly rivaled her grip on his fingers and if he was any more erect, he’d—well, that wasn’t possible. Setting his free hand on her hip to help hold her steady, he pumped into her with firm, languid strokes.
“I can’t—” Pippa bit out around gasps. “It’s— I—”
Maxim would have taken his mouth away from her and asked what she needed, but her vice-like hold on his hair kept him pressed firmly against her pussy. So he sucked, and licked, and urged out more of her gibberish.
When her legs buckled and she sank forward onto him, he finally understood what she must have been trying to say: I can’t stand.
He rocked onto his heels and guided her down on top of him so that instead of tumbling to the floor, she ended up straddling one of his thighs and holding onto his shoulders, his fingers still buried within her.
Now that their faces were at the same level, he saw the rosy flush to her cheeks and the soft shine of perspiration beading along her hairline.
Pippa gave him a chagrined smile and let out a short, huffing laugh.
Maxim would have joined her, maybe attempted a suave and witty bit of repartee, but he was too taken by the sight of her.
The feel of her. The puff of air from her laugh had made him aware of her arousal on his face, of the dampness around his mouth and on his chin.
Maxim had been on a rotating ride at a carnival once. Built like a drum, it spun faster and faster until he’d been pressed to the walls, utterly immobile and wholly helpless.
He felt exactly the same now: head light, pulse racing, the dual rush of fear and excitement battling as the world spun around him and he could do nothing at all about it. And even if it was possible to move, to tear himself away from this spinning bliss, he had no desire to.
Pippa flexed her hands on Maxim’s shoulders.
Her fingernails pressed firmly into his bare skin, and that whisper of pain brought him back to stillness, solidifying the floor beneath his body.
His fingers were still buried within her, surrounded by her slick heat.
She lifted herself tentatively off his thigh to settle down again, and again, until she was fucking herself on him.
“I thought of you last night,” she whispered. “In my bed. Your fingers feel much better than mine.”
Jesus. Maxim’s entire body seemed to stutter.
He dragged his free hand through her tangled hair and cupped her nape. “Yeah?” he said. “I thought of you while I jerked off in your shower this morning.”
Pippa’s whimpered response could be bottled and sold as its own aphrodisiac.
Maxim kissed her hard, wanting to consume it.
She’d be able to taste herself on his lips and on his tongue.
She tightened her hold on his shoulders as she rode his thigh, then gasped into his mouth as he crooked his fingers inside her.
Each of her cries were muffled, but they were gaining volume, increasing in pitch, and he could feel the buzzing tension beneath her skin as if it were under his own.
He wanted to hear her come. Unobstructed, unmuffled. He wanted to see it.
Maxim pulled away from her mouth and gripped the back of her neck, pinning her in place as he fucked her hard.
Her eyes widened briefly before they fluttered half-shut in pleasure.
He drove in harder, faster. She quaked around him and her hold on his shoulders was no longer a whisper of pain, but a growl, a shout.
He’d have ten half-moon welts on his skin after this, and he’d relish each one.
Oh, she was nearly there. Her lips drifted apart, that top plump one shining and nibbleable.
“I want . . .” she whispered.
“Yeah?” Maxim rasped. “Tell me what you want.”
“Bite me.”
He gave a surprised huff. “What?”
“Bite me,” she said again, more urgently. “Hard. Anywhere.”
He thrust into her once, deep enough to make her whimper. “I’m not one of your vampires, Pippa.”
“That’s not— I fucking know that.” The crease between her brows deepened, and the desperation in her voice was almost palpable. “Please, I just like . . . Please do it.”
Between the lust rampaging through his body and the urge to see her undone, he didn’t have any remaining capacity to question her.