Captivated (Deep in Your Veins 6)

He didn’t ask me to bite him, but he also didn’t ask me to release the vein. So I didn’t. I just stayed like that, clutching his shoulders tight, while he rammed in and out of me until, finally, we both came long and loud.

I woke the next evening to a cock plunging inside me from behind as I lay on my side. Which was never a bad way to wake up. Ever.

It was no slow fuck. No, Max pounded into me with hard, feral thrusts, his hand gripping my thigh a little too tight. All the while, he whispered all kinds of stuff in my ear—that he loved being inside me, that I was born to take his cock, that he loved filling me with his come.

He dug his teeth into my shoulder, making me think he just might bite down, but he didn’t. Just as he hadn’t when he took me in the shower before we settled into bed, or when he fucked me during the day while I was still half-asleep. Yeah, using his teeth in an almost-bite had become a ‘thing’ now. I wasn’t sure who he was teasing—me, or himself. Hell, maybe he was teasing us both.

Whatever the case, it was working its magic on me. Which might have been why my orgasm crashed into me out of nowhere. It swept him under, too. And then we were both trembling and struggling to catch our breaths.

When my brain switched back on, I realised he was still half-hard inside me. I went to get up, but he splayed a hand on my stomach.

“Not yet,” he said, nuzzling my nape. “I want to feel you a little longer.”

Having no issues with that, I relaxed into him again. I ignored that I was liking this a little too much. Ignored that I could easily imagine us doing this evening after evening for a long time to come. Maybe Max would one day want that with someone, but he didn’t want it with me.

Having learned about his upbringing, I understood him better now. Understood that he didn’t have commitment issues. No, he had issues trusting and connecting with others. The brain sought patterns, especially during hard times. He’d been forced to repeatedly leave behind people who he connected with and, thus, he’d come to associate ‘bonding’ with ‘loss.’ And his mother’s betrayal was no doubt the icing on the top of the cake—it would have felt like yet another example of how getting close to people only led to pain.

On an intellectual level, he would of course know that forming a connection to someone wouldn’t always result in hurt. But that wouldn’t negate him reflexively avoiding true attachments. Especially if the person in question lived a life of risk and constant danger, because it could be too easy to lose someone to that danger.

Still, Max—being the determined, tenacious man he was—would for sure power past all that when he found a woman who made him want to. That woman simply wasn’t me.

Which was fine. Really. I didn’t want it to be me. At all. Nope.

God, I was such a fucking liar.

CHAPTER SEVEN

(Paige)

Just like the past couple of nights, both my squad and Max’s tried tracking Lenox as a team. This time, we didn’t spread out too much as we trekked through the rainforest. Sam and Jared wanted us all to stay close together. Or, more specifically, they wanted me surrounded by people so that Lenox would have a low chance of attacking me again.

Personally, I found it unlikely that he’d even try. Seeing me so well protected would surely discourage him from acting again. Maybe that was what happened, or maybe he just wasn’t in the areas we searched, but we found no sign of the bastard anywhere.

When lunch time came around, we all returned to The Hollow. My squad and I ate lunch at the café. Afterward, Imani wanted to stop by the store to grab a bottle of water—now that she didn’t drink NSTs throughout the night, she had to up her water intake to stay hydrated. I offered to go to the store with her while the other girls went on ahead of us to meet up with Sam, Jared, and the guys.

Imani and I were just crossing the bridge that had been built over the man-made beach when she spoke. “So … tonight will be your last night with Max.”

My stomach sank, just as it did whenever that none-too-cheery thought floated through my brain. But I couldn’t admit that to Imani. She’d only get angry with Max for ‘hurting’ me when, in fact, he’d set out not to from the get-go. So, keeping my expression blank, I merely said, “Yup.”

Her eyes narrowed on my face. “You have no hope that he’ll put an extension on this, do you?”