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He pinned my wrists over my head and grinned down at me, his eyes alight with a passion so fierce it seared me to the bone, but only in the best possible way.
“You had your turn,” he announced. “Now I’m the one who’ll do the fucking.”
His mouth crashed down on mine with so much hunger I nearly came just like that. I tugged at my wrists, but he refused to release them. A few seconds later, as he thrust into me again, I was seeing so many stars I didn’t even care.
A chorus of needy sounds spilled from my lips. I pushed my hips up to meet him frantically, and he met my desperation for release by slamming into me harder, faster. It was an aggression I hadn’t gotten from him the other day in the Vigil office, but I knew that the instant I made any indication that I was in discomfort, he’d stop. He watched my face avidly, speeding up his thrusts to match the gasps and whimpers flowing out of me with the rush of bliss.
“I won’t make you wait any longer,” he said raggedly. “We’ve had enough teasing.” His other hand slipped between us, fingering my clit as he bucked into me even harder. “Come for me, Maddie.”
The pressure of his fingertips and the heat in his voice sent me careening over the edge with a cry. Ecstasy crackled through me as if I were a firework. It burst from my core all through my limbs, leaving me shuddering with glee.
Beckett tipped his head back with a few more brutal thrusts. He tensed with a shudder of his own and then bowed over me as he slowed to a stop. He caught my mouth with one last, sweet kiss before releasing my wrists.
“Wow,” I whispered, not even bothering to lower my arms from where he’d pinned them. He eased more of his weight onto me, blanketing me in his heat but bracing himself on his elbows so he didn’t squash me.
Beckett beamed at me, the merciless lover falling away, leaving only that handsome, adoring face with a gleam of almost boyish delight in his eyes. “I’d say that worked out well for both of us in the end.”
I laughed. “No kidding. You’ve definitely given me a stroll to remember.”
With a guffaw, he rolled us so we were both on our sides and pulled me in to snuggle close to him. I relaxed into his solid frame, letting his warmth and the afterglow of the sex wash away any lingering worries for a little longer.
As much as I’d enjoyed the ice cream, this workout had clearly burned most of it off. My stomach let out a faint, embarrassing gurgle. My cheeks flared, and I ducked my head next to Beckett’s. “I don’t suppose you’d like to go grab some dinner?”
His body tensed just slightly. He tipped his head to check the car’s clock and sighed. “I wish I could, but I can’t squeeze it in. I’ve got an important business meeting that I’ll need to head off to in less than an hour. I’ll have to drop you off soon, but we can stay here like this for a little bit longer.”
“Oh, okay,” I said, tamping down on my disappointment. It wasn’t as if he’d offered dinner when he’d asked me out. “I figured I’d ask.”
“We’ll do dinner later this week,” he promised, kissing my forehead. But even as I nestled against him again, I couldn’t help wondering what kind of business meeting a major business owner would have to attend on a Sunday evening.
CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO
Beckett
Istraightened the lapels on my jacket as I strode up the front steps of the upscale hotel. Two doormen opened the glass doors simultaneously. My shoulders straightened a little more with my first steps into the lobby, which was full of marble tiles and gold accents on the furniture.
Now more than any other time, I needed to present myself as totally impervious.
My loafers tapped against the polished tiles as I walked right through the lobby, already having received directions to the hotel’s boardroom in advance. For meetings like this, we dealt with the local staff as little as possible. They’d have been instructed by the member organizing this meeting not to interfere with specific guests on their arrival.
As usual, it was a space with maximum privacy, tucked away at the back of the fifth floor with a door so sound-proofed not a hint of sound penetrated it until I’d pushed into the room.
A crystal chandelier hung above the long mahogany table, casting splotches of light across the vast room’s walls. Floor-to-ceiling satin curtains covered what I assumed was a long stretch of windows, which would only have shown darkness beyond them anyway, other than the globe of the moon.
The Devil’s Dozen always met at night, always when the moon was at its fullest. I didn’t know when the tradition had started, and when I’d asked Dad as a kid he hadn’t been able to tell me, so I didn’t think he had a clue either. Probably no one in this room did. But we kept to those long-held customs all the same.
Thirteen chairs surrounded the majestic table with plenty of space in between: six on one side, six on the other, and one at the head for this month’s meeting leader. We each got that spot once a year.
Most of the seats were already filled. Several cool gazes had turned my way at my entrance. I offered a mild but unaffected smile, knowing I was facing down the heads of the biggest and most secretive criminal empires in the world. They were the most powerful people currently living, and they knew it.
And I was one of them—almost.
I ignored the skepticism I could feel in their gazes and marched to one of the vacant chairs without hesitation. Not the one next to the Long Night, whose skeptical gaze was more a glower, though he didn’t say anything. I’d rather not deal too directly with him.
In his sixties now, the older man’s hair was almost entirely white, but there was nothing frail about his broad frame or the sharpness of his eyes. And he had a good reason to offer a less than warm welcome. I was here representing the Storm in my father’s place, and as the Storm, my father had staged a hostile takeover of some of the Long Night’s territory in Paradise Bend several years back.
The man glowering at me had no idea that it wasmyintervention that’d saved him the trouble of having to fight to get that territory back. I kept my family’s internal conflicts as private as I could.
It would have been nice if Dad hadn’t gotten it into his head to make a power grab like that to begin with. I’d rather not have been starting my theoretical reign with enemies within the inner circle of the Devil’s Dozen. But I had to work with the hand I’d been dealt.
