Page 54 of Surrender: XXX Maxim
Chapter Thirteen
Iwake up content—a fact that makes my heart beat faster before my senses fully return. There’s no foot in my side, no tiny fingers tangled in my hair. Confused, I feel out with my hand, alarmed to find empty space beside me. “Ainsley?”
“She’s eating breakfast,” someone calls before panic can set in, their voice raspy with sleep. I look over to find Maxim unmoved from his previous position on the floor, his back to me. A familiar heat stirs as my eyes skim over his muscle, defined in the daylight.
But once I reach his face, the fire dies down, replaced by cold, hard fear. From this angle, I can only make out the stern set to his jaw—he’s still in that room, brooding internally. Over regrets? Normalcy by day and BDSM by night could be a game that even he isn’t up to playing for very long.
“Maxim?” I tentatively call out, rolling toward him.
He doesn’t answer. Then he groans, stretching his arms above his head, and the tension leaves his muscles. “I believe they’re having omelets,” he says from over his shoulder, his voice neutral. “Courtesy of Lucius.”
Slowly, I relax back into the mattress. “Is there anything he can’t do?” I wonder tiredly.
“If there is, he’ll rectify it somehow,” Maxim replies with audible respect. “The man is the best money can buy.”
That and loyalty. There’s no denying that, their professional relationship aside, Lucius cares for him.
“You should go eat,” Maxim suggests, rising to his feet while I shift to keep him in view. “I will shower and…”
He meets my gaze, and whatever he finds makes him trail off. The distraction is mutual. One look from him sets me alight despite the exhaustion weighing me down. I flick my tongue along my lower lip as I follow the line of his gaze downward.Oh. My robe fell open when I moved, revealing my breasts. Absently, I start to adjust it, but he lunges, grabbing my wrist.
I’m in his arms before I know it. He takes me into the shower, and we bathe together, saying nothing—verbally anyway. The way he touches me conveys a million different things, soothing over every sting inflicted last night.
A tendril of lingering doubt creeps in, feeding off the memories of him in that room. The anger. The repressed emotions. Again I have to wonder if this little game of give and take is more than he can handle. Is normalcy beyond his limits?
His fingers sink into my hair, grazing my scalp as if to banish all other thoughts but this. His nearness. Our nakedness. Heat. Cautiously, our lips meet. Once. Twice.
“I am curious about something,” Maxim confesses, drawing back. My lips burn, mourning the loss of his as he turns his attention to my throat. His teeth knead the flesh along my collar, sending heat churning through my belly with every nip.
Distracted by how his mouth increasingly travels south, I can barely form a coherent reply. “Oh?”
“You didn’t argue,” he points out before cupping my breast in his palm. With a sinful caress, he squeezes, making me lurch against him. “When I told your family you refused my proposal.”
“What?” I stiffen, but his tongue laves over my nipple, and any logic dissipates. “I-I…”
“You didn’t deny it either. That I had pursued you—or ‘dating’ as your sister put it.” Rather than annoyed, he sounds oddly…smug at that fact. As though in not refusing him outright, I hadn’t closed the door on an engagement entirely.
“I…”
He returns his mouth to mine, robbing me of the chance to argue. Within seconds, he’s buried within me to the hilt, and I lose track of everything but the sensation building between us.
Slow, lazy, unhurried sex is another first.
Experienced with him, it feels like some novel, newly discovered concept that I pity every other woman for never getting to enjoy firsthand.
Afterward, we dress, and by the time we make it downstairs, breakfast is long gone, and Ainsley is musing about lunch.
That meal is eventually supplied by Maxim as well—more grilled meat and fresh fruit from the well-stocked fridge. This time, we pack up the food and eat on the beach, wiggling our toes in the sand. That hazy, dreamlike feeling returns and I’m stupid enough to wish this could last forever.
But when Lucius approaches, a cell phone glued to his ear, I know reality is about to descend. Rudely.
Apparently, Maxim assumes the same. He lunges to his feet and races to meet Lucius first. Whatever words they exchange leaves the younger man scowling, and when he returns, he shoves his hand into his pocket and withdraws a wallet. From it, he takes several crisp hundred-dollar bills.
“Who wants it?” he demands, brandishing the bills in his fist.
Predictably, all six kids shout in a deafening clamor.
His voice booming, Maxim easily overpowers them, “Alright. If all of you can make it to that end of the beach—” he points to a spot in the distance “—and back, you can divide it amongst each other. Go now.”
