Possess(The Syndicate: Crime and Passion 1)(31)

But he’d never change his mind, and I, any feelings I might have had for him, would make no difference at all.

So I was stuck in limbo, not able to go back to the life I had left a decade ago, knowing it was impossible, but equally unable to imagine staying where I was, living out this undefined relationship with Maxim, knowing that all the things I had hoped for in my life weren’t possible but having nothing to replace them.

Or at least I thought so.

I hadn’t talked about any of this with Maxim, so maybe there was still a chance.

A small kernel of hope began to bloom in the back of my mind. A single question had been the catalyst for this new stage in our relationship. Maybe another would push us further.

I lingered at the festival and then drifted back to the building, knowing my absence had been noticed but hoping that it would go unremarked upon. I had more than halfway expected Maxim to send Adrian, Sergei, or one of the others to get me.

But he hadn’t, or at least, no one had approached me, and as I walked back inside, my skin percolating under the cool air of the air-conditioning, I was grateful for the time and space.

I was no closer to figuring out where I stood, how I might get what I wanted, but the time had been clarifying, reminded me I wasn’t powerless. I headed for his office on instinct, the sun still bright in the sky.

He’d be there unless he’d been called away, but I would wait for him if he was gone, because I needed an answer to my question.

When I reached his door, I knocked but went in without waiting, my eyes taking a moment to adjust to the dimness after being outside in the bright sun. Maxim was there, sitting at his desk, but still not writing.

There was some shift in him, almost imperceptible, but I had trained myself to be aware of the subtle changes in him. So I saw the moment when he realized that I had returned.

He turned, looked me over from head to toe, and then stood, all without speaking.

As he walked across the room, his strides long, powerful, I felt the dryness in my throat and the dampness between my thighs as I looked at him.

I couldn’t shake the sense that he was displeased, though I couldn’t begin to imagine why he would be. He flipped a switch on the wall and the blinds began to rise, filling the huge room with light. Two of the office walls were floor-to-ceiling windows, and it was rare for Maxim to open them.

In fact, I couldn’t think of a time when he had done so.

I looked at him, brows furrowed in question. “You’re opening the blinds.”

“You like to be watched,” he replied, again looking me over from head to toe.

I walked toward him, face still twisted in a frown. “What’s wrong, Maxim?” I asked.

“Take off your clothes,” he said.

“What?” I asked, gaping at him.

He stood, hands loose at his sides, waiting. He watched me, his expression suddenly stormy but still desirous, and he looked at me, his gaze caressing my entire body as I wanted his hands to.

I started to respond automatically. I pulled the tank top over my head and dropped it at my side and then worked the denim shorts down and over my hips.

“All of them,” he said when I stood still and looked at him again.

“Maxim, the curtains are open,” I said.

“You like to be watched,” he repeated.

“Maxim…”

“All of them.”

I couldn’t disregard the rough command in his voice and began working my underwear down and then moving to my bra, excited at the prospect of Maxim again touching me but unsure about what was driving this.

My skin prickled with awareness, both of him watching me and of the prospect of others doing the same.

I didn’t know what had come over him, but it was something. I met his eyes again, searching, but I saw nothing but that desire and anger swirling in them. “Maxim…” I said, the word a plea, but for what I wasn’t sure.

There was no mercy in his hard gaze.

“Touch yourself. Don’t stop until I tell you to,” he said.

“What!” I almost yelled, eyes wide as I looked at him. He’d never asked me to do something like this, and I still wasn’t sure what was driving this.

“I can see your pussy, how wet it is. Touch yourself,” he said.

My sex clenched at his words and my hand began to move along my skin, though my mind was whirling.

I was so torn, the desire, the need to comply fighting with the question of what was wrong.

And yet my fingers against my skin had my sex clenching again, and soon everything else faded except the feeling of his gaze on me, the response my own fingers were eliciting.

I didn’t understand his anger, but I knew it was there. Still, I touched myself, my pussy getting even wetter as my fingers slid along my skin, sending a rush of sensation through me.