The Kingmaker

Tears trickle from the corners of my eyes when he roars and shakes over me. I clamp my legs, my arms around him, holding him so close even the rhythm of his heart belongs to me. The sweat slicking his chest is mine.

Through a rain of adoring kisses he leaves on my face, my shoulders, and my breasts, I try to remember he is not mine. He told me it would be more—that it would feel like this. Like more than sex, and it does. It already does. If I plan to make it out of this week whole, I have to cling to the only promise Maxim made.

That when it’s time to walk away, he will.

15

Maxim

Tea.

I wondered how she takes her coffee, but she doesn’t. Lennix likes tea.

And her eggs? Scrambled hard.

And how she looks in the morning-after light? Thick, still-damp hair hangs over one shoulder, an unrelieved fall of inky black. Her skin, smooth dark gold, glows from her shower. I’ll never forget how she looks right now. I’ll never forget how she looked last night.

“You’re staring,” she says, not glanc

ing up from the newspaper someone delivers to my door every morning, I assume courtesy of the last tenant.

“No, I’m not.” I turn my attention to the toast and away from her wearing some robe she found at the back of my closet. I don’t have the heart to tell her I have no idea whose it is.

“You weren’t?” She shifts so the robe falls open, gifting me shadowy glimpses of her breasts and long, firm thighs. “My bad.”

I eat up the sight, licking my lips, searching for traces of her taste.

“I said I like my eggs scrambled hard,” she says with a sweet smile. “Not scrambled burnt.”

“Shit.” I shift the pan from the bright red eye of the stove onto a cool burner. I’m still pulling toast from the toaster and scraping at burnt eggs when she walks up behind me and circles me with her arms.

“Made ya look,” she whispers, tipping up to kiss the nape of my neck. I turn off the stove and face her, linking my fingers at the small of her back.

“You were staring, too,” I mumble into our first kiss of the day.

“Was not.” Her smile against my lips calls her a liar. “I was minding my own business, reading that newspaper.”

“Oh, did you learn Dutch overnight then?” I ask, eyeing her abandoned copy of de Volkskrant with its distinctly non-English headlines.

Laughter shakes her shoulders beneath the robe, and I slide my hands over the slick fabric clinging to her body. She’s healthy. Fit. Tight bends and lush curves. I caress one of my favorite curves, her ass, and kiss down her neck, breathing in my shampoo in her soft hair. Me on her.

We may part ways next week—no, we will part ways next week. We have to—but I’ll remember this night and any more she gives me for the rest of my life. She’s that special. My body knows it. My heart, which I don’t consult in any of my decisions, won’t be far behind if I’m not careful.

“Spend the day with me,” I say.

I don’t want to sound needy, clingy, pathetic, but it only took one night for me to know I won’t be able to get enough of this woman.

“I’m here with my friends, remember?”

“They have you all the time. I only get a few days with you before you go back to the States.”

I lower until my mouth is level with her breast, and suck the curve and nipple through the silk robe. She groans and plunges her fingers into my hair, scraping my scalp.

“Please.” I nudge the lapel aside to find clean-scented, soft flesh beneath the robe. I slide the sleeves down her arms until the belt loses its fragile hold on her waist and falls open, catching at her elbows. She’s nearly naked in my kitchen, and I want to bend her over the table and take her from the back. Hard.

“I can’t just forget about them,” she says, sounding husky and unconvinced.

“Tell them good dick is hard to find. Surely they’ll understand.”