The Kingmaker

“Not this one. There’s power in choosing your own path, and I’ve waited until I found someone I was sure I wanted to be with my first time. This is what I want, Doc. I’ve never felt more in control.”

What looks like doubt marks the handsome face. “You’ve been honest with me, Nix. So open, and everything you’ve shared makes me respect you even more.” He brushes a thumb over my mouth. “Makes me want you even more. You’re exactly who I thought you were.”

A chuckle rasps between our lips when he kisses me.

“Even better than I thought you were, actually. I don’t take any of it for granted, so I need to say something, and I hope it doesn’t ruin this.”

“Okay.”

“I can’t afford attachments. Next week, I’m off to Antarctica. Then to South America. I have no plans of settling down or committing and—”

“I get it.” I steel my heart and suffocate anything soft and vulnerable. I keep my voice steady. “You’re saying this is just sex.”

He melds our glances together, brings my knuckle up to his lips, and shakes his head. “No, it’ll be more than that. I already know with you, it will feel like more.” That same bright ambition, hot as passion, or maybe merely a trick of the light, flashes through his eyes. “That’s what will make it so hard to walk away at the end of the week, but what I’m saying is that I will. I’ll walk away and I won’t look back.”

He passes his big hand in the air, sketching an imaginary line between our bodies. “I can’t do this right now.”

My laugh comes like forced air through a vent, quick and hard and cool. “I’m not expecting a proposal. You think because I haven’t had sex before I’ll be an emotional wreck next week when we go our separate ways?”

“No, I’m not that arrogant.” His lips twist in a show of self-mockery. “Okay, I am actually pretty arrogant, but no. I just want you to know this will mean something to me, but I can’t allow it to be—”

“Neither can I.” I reach up and sink my fingers into the thick hair at his neck. “I get a week with someone I’m crazy attracted to, respect very much, and will remember fondly as the first man I ever fucked.”

I keep my voice deliberately even and neutral, and strip away all the emotion. I stomp on all the possibilities that feel like unopened buds ready to sprout. I show him only my desire and willingness to have him as he comes.

“And that’s enough?” He scans my face, searching for a lie, the truth, weakness—I don’t know what. “A week, our time together, going our separate ways at the end—it’s enough?”

I honestly don’t know. What do I say? That after only a taste, I already crave him? That I have no idea how my body, my heart will respond to the kind of connection even just conversation and a few kisses have evoked? I don’t know what I will feel at the end of the week, but I know I want this, so I tell him exactly what he needs to hear.

“It’s enough.”

He doesn’t move, so I do, tipping up to press my mouth to his. At first he just watches me kiss him, eyelids lowered, lips closed, like he’s still not sure we should. I lick into the seam of his mouth, and he groans my name, his eyes closing. That sound vibrates through my lips and to my core—to the seat of my need and want and curiosity. I want to understand this physical mystery I’ve eschewed all my life, and I want it with him. If the price is ultimately heartbreak, my eyes are wide open.

I cover his hand with mine and coax it up to my breast, press myself deeper into his palm. He squeezes and slides a thumb under the bra to tease my nipple. My breath stutters and my eyes close. He runs his hand up my shoulder and under the silk bra strap, persuading it down my arm. Under his touch, the bra’s clasp snaps free, baring me to him. I’m proud of my body, not because it’s a certain size or because I’m fit, but because it’s what I have to offer him. I chose this man, chose this time. In a world where so many of us don’t get to choose, I cherish that. It’s my right, but that doesn’t mean I take it for granted. Not when I’ve seen so many stripped of that choice. Not when I’ve seen so many who regretted their first time.

I can already tell that won’t be the case. Not with Maxim.

He bends and takes one nipple into the heat of his mouth. I gasp and shove my fingers into his hair that has half a mind to wave and half a mind to curl. One of his hands cups my butt and with the other, he kneads my breast. He slips open the button and zipper of my pants, coaxing them down and over my legs until I stand only in the panties to match the bra Kimba and Vivienne insisted I wear “just in case.” With his thumbs hooked under the silk bands at my hips, he slides those down until I’m completely naked.

“Damn, you’re beautiful, Nix.” He breathes the husky praise against my neck, inciting a trail of goosebumps along my arms. He sinks to his knees,

scattering gentle kisses on my stomach, the underside of my breast, my hip, the tops of my thighs. Finally, he kisses lower, between my legs. His spreads me with gentle fingers and swipes once with his tongue.

“Jesus,” I moan.

He glances up through impossibly, enviably long lashes, his mouth a roguish slash of a smile. With the gentlest of nudges from him, my legs give way, surrendering to gravity and the sensations licking over my body, and I fall back. The bed beneath me is cool and downy. His palms are the perfect kind of rough on the sensitive skin of my inner thighs as he spreads my legs and bends his head again, running his nose along the crevice of my pussy.

“I want this so bad,” he rasps, his breath a caress. He lifts my legs onto his shoulders, the breadth of him widening me, exposing me. I expected to feel embarrassed or self-conscious, but I don’t. Some wild, wanton thing longs to grab him by the hair and force his head down into the wet, throbbing place where his mouth hovers. Anticipation is the match to a line of gasoline, and I’m already on fire. He doesn’t move.

“Dammit, Doc,” I whisper hoarsely. “Do it.”

With a growl, he does. He licks into my secrets and eats away my inhibitions, his mouth and tongue and teeth consuming me like it’s his first time and I’m his last supper.

“God, you’re perfect down here,” he says roughly. “You’ve done this before? Someone’s gone down on you before?”

I can barely breathe, can barely form words through the haze and havoc he’s wreaking on my body. “Yeah.”

His fingers tighten around my thighs, and he pushes his face deeper into me. “I hate everyone who’s ever tasted you.”