His fingers peeled from my cheeks, his eyes following their path as his hands skated down my neck, my shoulders, and then rested on my stomach.
I felt so huge, and yet, when I looked at Max’s hands splayed over my bump, they made me feel small. Not just me. Max made everything else feel small. Every problem. Every worry. Every danger. Everything he took from my plate that seemed insurmountable suddenly appeared like nothing more than a mote of dust in his hands, something he could easily brush away.
“You made this baby with my name on your lips,” he murmured, staring at me like it changed everything and nothing at the same time.
I drew a trembling breath, suddenly so overwhelmed with a million emotions I felt like I was going to burst. “Max?—”
His mouth silenced mine, kissing me for the first time since…all of this.
It was sweet—bittersweet—for a moment. A blend of guilt and longing, regret and anger. For a moment, that kiss housed everything that four years of ignored and hidden feelings could provoke. And then it transformed, shaping into the giant, ravenous beast that grew in hibernation.
“You’re mine, Daze,” he growled against my lips, his voice like velvet-coated steel. “Finally mine.”
With one hand anchored to my stomach, he wrapped his other hand around my throat, pinning my head to the onslaught of his mouth. His tongue lashed and stroked against mine in a fury I fought to keep up with. My prickling skin now felt like every cell burned. My lungs breathed, but only for more breaths soaked with his scent. It didn’t take long for my mind to turn into a tangle of want, my body a knot of need, and Max was the only cure.
“Max,” I gasped, clinging to him because I could register nothing but his large, pulsing presence as it consumed me.
“Mine,” he repeated, and I couldn’t tell if it sounded more like an order or a plea.
My lashes fluttered. I felt myself giving over to his storm like a boat pulled out to sea. The posts of the bed swam into focus, and I realized he’d laid me on my back at some point during that kiss.
“And now I’m going to enjoy every inch of your perfect body,” he muttered, the soft press of his lips to mine reverberating like the strike of a hammer onto the head of a nail.
I sagged onto the soft mattress as his hand drifted from my throat down to my breast. A sigh seeped from my chest as he resumed the torture he’d started in the tub. Stroking and plucking, kneading and weighing. The whole time, I felt the footprints of his breath march down to my other breast. My heavy-lidded eyes forced open, focusing on his dark hair and the hard angles of his face as he stared at my nipple, watching it pebble tighter toward him.Begging.
And then I was begging too.
“Please,” I whimpered, my back bowing just as he leaned forward. A strangled cry washed away my plea when he wrapped his lips around my nipple. His mouth…that tongue…it had been devastating the way he’d kissed me, but now it felt dangerous.
He licked and lashed, swirled his tongue and sucked hard, until I was nothing but a puddle of moans and heartbeats and a baby under the onslaught of his tongue.
“Max,” I chanted his name, pleasure ebbing me in an unexpected way toward release.
Growling against my skin, his mouth moved to my other breast, stirring a fresh current of pleasure through me.
“You’re so perfect, Daze,” he murmured, teasing and coaxing my nipple against his tongue. “So perfect and sweet.”
I whimpered as he sucked hard again and sent a ray of bright, hot sparkles shooting through me. I tried to rub my legs together, the ache between them suffocating, but Max’s leg remained wedged in my way. Huffing in frustration, I tried to arch and rub my core against his jeans. Needing pressure. Needing friction.Needing some kind of relief before I started to come apart at the seams.
“Don’t worry, baby. I’m going to give you what you want,” he promised in a low voice, the rough husk caressing my skin. “Now spread those pretty legs for me, wife, and show me how wet you are.”
I simultaneously wanted and didn’t want his brand of torture. The way he drew me taut to the point of bursting. The way he wrung everything from me.The way he pleasured me until he knew I could hold nothing back.
It wasn’t just about release. It was about surrender.It was about trust.
I felt my legs release their clamp on his, drifting wider and baring myself for him. My eyes worked open as Max moved down my body. His mouth stamped a hot path down my sternum and over my stomach, every kiss pumping more fire into my cells until I felt his big body kneel between my legs.
“That’s a wet pussy, wife.”
A quake of pleasure ripped through me at his praise. “Max…” My hands dug into the comforter as I tried to keep myself from combusting.
“Christ, you’re so wet for me.” The groan that followed signaled even more desire leaking from my core at his pleasure-wrought words.
“Max, I can’t,” I panted, straining toward him. “Please, I can’t…”
It was as though he hadn’t just turned my body to Jell-O in the tub not that long ago.
“You can,” he growled. “You can and you will because I’ve been dying for a taste of you, and I won’t go another night without it.”
