The Kingmaker

I stand and walk around the table. For once I’m taller, his face level with my chest.

“You and your father are a lot alike, but you’re different in all the right ways. I sometimes wonder how did Warren Cade make a man like you?”

He nods and lets out a harsh laugh. “I wonder that, too.”

“But he didn’t make you. The ruthlessness, the ambition, the determination and sense of adventure—all those things come from your father, but you studied beyond what he taught you. You went out into the world to see what else there was to it. You chose those experiences, and they shaped you into the man you are. Into the man I . . .”

I can’t say that word yet. Our reunion is too new. We’re too new, this version of us.

I dip my head and hold his stare. “You’re exactly the man I want.”

48

Maxim

She can’t possibly know what it means to hear her say that.

I’m exactly the man she wants.

The way she looks down at me now is the same way she did when she thought I was a struggling student abroad. Before she knew my name or who my family was, she looked at me just like this, a double helix of curiosity and hunger. I thought I wanted her then, but it was just a struck match. What burns inside me now is rampant, a wildfire I’m tired of trying to contain.

She straddles me. Her skirt rides up, exposing the length of firm thighs and a tantalizing glimpse of pink panties. I slide my palms over her legs and under her skirt, cupping her ass and urging her closer. Her breath hitches when her pussy, covered only by a strip of silk, hits my cock. There’s so little separating me from what I’ve wanted since that night in the garden. She closes her eyes and moves her hips, the muscles of her butt flexing in my hands.

“So no mile-high club for you yet?” she asks.

“Are you going to pop my mile-high cherry?” I laugh.

“I’ll pop it if I can find it.” She grins and slips her hand between us, gripping and squeezing my cock. “Oh, look. Here it is.”

“Jesus, Nix.” I drop my head back and groan at her touch. I reach for the buttons of her blouse, my fingers clumsy but I’m determined to see her. Her bra is pink too, and the brown discs of her nipples show through the windows of lace. I tug the straps from her shoulders, jerking the bra down to expose the plump nipples tipping her breasts. I can’t tear my eyes away, and reach out to thumb one. She inhales sharply, her eyes dazed, her mouth open and panting. I take one breast into my mouth and pinch the other.

She starts riding me, rhythmic and writhing. She presses me to her. “Suck harder.”

God, she’s a dream. I comply, sucking harder. “What else?” I ask against her breast. “Tell me what you want, Nix.”

“I want . . .” She closes her eyes and licks her lips. “Finger me.”

Hell, yes.

Still sucking her breast, I slip my hand into her panties, stroking her clit with my thumb and pushing three fingers inside of her.

Wet. Hot. Slick.

“Holy shit.” She clutches the back of my neck, rides my fingers and lifts the fall of hair off her neck. “Don’t stop.”

I’m mesmerized by the undulating line of her body, by the long, trembling sweep of her throat, by the bob of her breasts. Her dark brows pinch and her moans fill the cabin.

“What else can I do for you?” I ask, my voice husky, my dick so very hard. Pleasing her turns me on almost as much as her hands on me.

She eyes me through an arc of dense lashes when she says what I hoped against hope she would. “Eat my pussy.”

Fuck, that’s hot. I’m gonna come in my pants if I don’t get inside her soon.

I pick her up, and she loops her arms around my neck and locks her ankles at the base of my spine. With quick strides I take

us to the back of the plane and into the bedroom outfitted with everything I need to be comfortable even thirty thousand feet in the air.

I lay her down gently on the bed, push her skirt up and pull her panties down past her ankles. Dragging her to the edge, I press my face between her legs, lick the inside of her thigh. It’s damp, and I get drunk on the smell, the taste of her passion.