Possess(The Syndicate: Crime and Passion 1)(25)

As she slept, I watched her, trying to understand what had come over me, trying to understand the hold she had on me.

But as the minutes and then eventually hours passed, I got no closer to reaching my understanding.

Hadn’t understood that first day, hadn’t understood it in the ten years since, and I doubted I would now.

There was nothing to understand, maybe there was nothing to explain. Maybe it was simply the case that Senna was my obsession. Or maybe she was the only person with whom I could ever express something like love.

There were no answers, so I stopped thinking and then got into the bed beside her, and when she curled against me, her warm, soft body against mine, I fell asleep.





* * *



Senna



When I woke, I knew exactly where I was.

I had dreamed of this too many times not to.

Me, in Maxim’s bed, surrounded by sheets that were still warm from his body, that still smelled of him.

Everything I had imagined, had only allowed myself to think of in the deepest, darkest night, everything except for him being there.

I turned, inhaled deeply, letting myself absorb the smell and warmth, but saddened by the fact that he wasn’t there. But I wouldn’t let his absence dampen my joy.

Last night may have been an aberration, may have been something that I would never be able to explain, but it had happened.

If he didn’t acknowledge it, never touched me again, I would be sad. But I would always have last night, always have the knowledge that Maxim, no matter how detached he tried to be, felt something, had wanted me, if only for those few moments.

I turned over to lie flat on my back and stretched, the new sensations in my body drawing my attention. My hips stung from where he had squeezed them. My thighs burned from the position he’d held me in, and lower, between the thighs, I felt that delicious stretch that served as a reminder of the thing that had happened between he and I.

“Are you sore?”

I looked up as Maxim came in, dressed in a dark gray suit that was breathtaking on him, as everything was.

“A little. Not bad,” I said, smiling.

“Tell me if that changes,” he said.

“Okay,” I replied.

I wasn’t sure what I had expected, what our first conversation after this would be like, but it hadn’t been this. It wasn’t Maxim’s way to express any deep emotion, and I had halfway expected he wouldn’t acknowledge what had happened. His tenderness now, though, the slight softness in his eyes, warmed me.

He got closer to me and sat on the edge of the bed, eyes sweeping the outline of my body through the sheets and then up again until he met my eyes.

“It’s a shame,” he said finally.

I frowned, watching him as he moved closer. “What’s a shame?” I asked.

He brushed his thumb across my lips. “You’ve taken my cock in your mouth and in your ass, but I’ve never kissed you,” he said.

I was frozen by his words, the dirtiness of them, the truth in them, the fact that he was moving closer to me now.

I wanted to meet him halfway, more than halfway, but was frozen, watching as he moved closer and then closer and then pressed his lips against mine.

A soft brush of lips, a faint exhale, and then more. He kissed me deeper, took my mouth with his command and thoroughness and left me breathless, throbbing with need to be filled by him.

When he broke away, I looked into his eyes and saw that they were deep with passion, a look I was finally coming to recognize. “So many other places to taste,” he said.

My body shivered with the promise in his words.

“Will you?” I asked, voice coming out trembling, shaking with desire and anxiousness to hear his answer, leaving me almost breathless.

“Yes,” he said. Then he stood. “But I have an appointment. So do you.”

I’d forgotten about my plans for the day completely and would have pretended I still had if it had meant a chance to be with Maxim again.

He paused, looked at me, his expression telling me he knew the direction of my thoughts.

“Soon, little flower. Soon,” he said and then he left.





Sixteen





Senna



The day passed in a joyous haze. There were few moments when I wasn’t thinking of him, wishing he was with me, wanting to touch him again.

I could hardly believe what had happened, what Maxim had told me was to come. As the afternoon passed, I still hadn’t completely wrapped my mind around what had happened, and I didn’t really want to.

The whys didn’t matter. All that mattered was that finally, after all these years, one of my closely held and most unlikely dreams was on the verge of coming true. That thought in mind, I showered, letting my hands linger but not for too long. Then I dressed, choosing a white peasant blouse to pair with my jeans and sandals.