Page 10 of Diamonds (Aces Underground #2)

MADDOX

M y eyebrows nearly fly off my head.

“What?”

She touches my chest, squeezing my pecs slightly. “I want to make you feel the way you made me feel. Remember the first time we made lo—had sex? I teased you back there just for a moment, and I seem to remember you didn’t hate it.”

“That was a tease, Alissa. It’s a whole other thing to…”

“Has a woman ever done that to you before?”

I bite my lip.

One woman did. At least I think she did. The memory is hazy at best.

But then what I witnessed—correction, what I think I witnessed—afterward soured the act for me.

“Women usually aren’t interested in doing that for a man,” I finally reply.

Technically not a lie. Technically also not the answer to her question.

But Alissa isn’t Rouge Montrose. She’s a kind, generous woman who isn’t viewing this as a transaction, but as two people wanting to do everything they can to pleasure one another.

Her face grows pink. “You know what, forget it. You’re clearly not?—”

I grab her wrist. “No, Alissa. I want you to.”

Her eyes brighten. “Okay. Get on your stomach.”

I slowly move my body into the position. God, why does this feel so vulnerable?

This woman has had my dick in her mouth. It’s not as if this is all that different.

It’s not as if?—

Fuuuuuuucccckkk.

She’s already started. Her smooth, silky tongue is on my hole, licking its perimeter first and then moving across it in straight lines.

If this is even a tenth of what a woman feels like when she’s getting eaten out, then chicks have got it fucking made.

And my cock is about to burst.

I reach under my body and straighten it out, giving it a few gentle pumps. Not too much or I’ll explode all over Alissa’s bedspread.

I’d much rather explode right into her .

She continues plundering me for a few minutes before my aching cock takes over my entire body. I flip onto my back and my dick springs upward, hard as fucking steel.

“Sit on it. Now.”

Her eyes widen. “You sure?”

“Sure as I’ve ever fucking been.” I narrow my eyes. “Sit. On. It. Now .”

“Yes, sir,” she says on a breath.

Her words make my dick even harder.

I like being called “sir.”

She stands up on the bed, giving me a view of her entire body from her beautiful feet to her gorgeous light-blond hair, and then lowers herself slowly over my dick.

Damn. I could come right now.

She bites at her lip and closes her eyes. “Fuck, Maddox.”

“Yeah. You like sitting on my fat cock, don’t you, Alissa?”

“More than anything.” She brings herself up and down, up and down, over my cock, until she’s practically bouncing on it.

And I’m in fucking nirvana. Her pussy is so perfect. So soft, yet so tight. Like she was molded to my dick.

I won’t last very long.

“Faster, Alissa.”

She grits her teeth and increases her speed, and I thrust my hips in tandem with her bounces.

“I’m close, Alissa. Are you?”

“Yes,” she moans. “So close, Maddox. So close.”

A few more pumps and I’m emptying myself into her, filling her to the fucking brim.

She lets out a guttural moan. The kind that pierces your ears in the best fucking way.

We’re coming together, and damn…

It makes it ever better.

She sits on my dick for a moment longer before she finally slides off me and curls up next to me.

I stroke her soft hair. “You make me see fucking stars. I don’t think I’ve ever found a woman quite like you.”

She chuckles. “Girls like me are a dime a dozen.”

“Not true.” I hover over her, turning her face to meet mine. “You are one of a kind, Alissa Maravilla. You’re an entire wonderland within a single person. A beautiful soul inside a beautiful body. You’re a woman that I can?—”

The words stop in my throat.

She wrinkles her forehead. “That you can what?”

I swallow my fears. Time to get real. “A woman I could…settle down with. And I realize it’s soon to say something like that, but?—”

She places a finger over my lips. “Don’t apologize. I feel the same way.”

“Do you?”

She nods. “I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.”

And then she closes her eyes. I return to her side and wrap my arms around her.

The horrors of this day have melted away, at least for now, and we fall asleep.

* * *

I open my eyes.

Where am I?

The whole room is outfitted in pinks and yellows.

And a beautiful blonde woman, naked as the day she was born, snoozes next to me.

Alissa.

The love of my life.

We fell asleep in each other’s arms.

After…

Oh, God.

May’s head. The park. Bill. We almost got caught by a cop on the way to the morgue.

And then, naturally, we fucked like maniacs.

I rub my temples against the headache beginning to form.

That was early Monday morning, so it must be… Fuck. What time is it?

Alissa has an alarm clock on her nightstand.

Eleven thirty.

Shit.

I was supposed to open the shop at eight a.m.

I don’t even know what time it was when we finally got to sleep. But it was nearing three in the morning when we were at the morgue.

I run my hand over my head.

I’m naked, too.

And…shit. I don’t have anything to change into.

Alissa said she had some oversized T-shirts I could wear. I walk to her dresser, open the middle drawer.

Yes. T-shirts. But all in her size. I reach to the bottom and finally find an XL T-shirt, navy with a pattern of red mushrooms.

Not exactly my style, but it’ll do.

I’m not going to wear her underwear, so I’ll have to go commando. I’ll just put on the tux pants I was wearing last night. I changed into a set of gym clothes I had in the back of my car before we left for the park in Rosemont by the airport.

I run my fingers through my tousled hair and check myself in a full-length mirror in the corner of Alissa’s bedroom.

Not exactly GQ-worthy, but pretty decent given the circumstances.

Alissa is still sleeping. Should I wake her? It’s Monday morning. She probably has work today.

I have work today, too. But that seems to be a lost cause at this point.

If there were ever a reason to take a day off from the shop, it’s the night we had.

I give her shoulder a light squeeze. Her eyes flutter open, and she smiles up at me.

“Maddox. Good morning.”

I kiss her cheek. “Morning, baby.” I gesture to the clock. “We both overslept. Do you have work today?”

She sits up quickly. “Damn it. I’m not sure.” She looks around the room. “My phone. Where’s my phone?”

“Probably still in your purse,” I say. “I think you left it in the kitchen when we returned last night.”

“Right.” She rubs at her forehead. “Oh, no. Last night. Last night .”

“It’s okay, baby.” I rub her shoulders. “We made it to morning. Everything is going to be taken care of.”

“I need my phone.”

“I’ll grab it.” I walk into her living room, spy her purse on the loveseat, and grab her phone. I walk back into her bedroom and hand it to her.

She pulls up her calendar app and scans it. “Oh, thank God,” she sighs. “I’m not on until two thirty today.”

“Great.” I smile at her. “Would you like me to make you some breakfast?”

She frowns. “All I have in the fridge are eggs and bacon. And a few veggies. Red onion, bell peppers, tomatoes.”

“Omelets it is then,” I say. “You can stay in bed. I’ll take care of everything.”

She rubs at her stomach. “I’m not sure if I have an appetite after last night.” She bites her lip. “I mean, the park. What we did after was wonderful.”

“I know what you meant.” I cross toward her bedroom doorway. “But you need to eat. We both need to. I’m not particularly hungry either, but we need energy if we’re going to get through whatever the next couple of days brings.”

She nods. “Okay. You’re right.”

“Plus it’ll do us both some good to do something normal. It’s not like we can do a whole hell of a lot until we have May’s identity confirmed by Bill’s lab, anyway.”

She rubs at the back of her neck. “Make sense, I guess.”

I walk back into her kitchen. It’s nice. Her apartment is clearly a remodel. All stainless-steel appliances, polished to a shine. A large ceramic jar holds a set of pastel-colored cooking utensils.

I open her fridge. A half-dozen eggs, a new package of bacon, and a tomato and red bell pepper. I spy the red onion next to salt and pepper grinders on top of her fridge. I also grab a quart of whole milk from the fridge-door shelf.

I find a wooden cutting board in one of her lower cabinets and a vegetable knife in a block next to her stove.

I dice the vegetables and lay a few strips of bacon across a skillet.

Once the veggies are done, I take four of the eggs and whisk them together with salt, pepper, and a dash of the milk.

Once the bacon is done, I pour half of the egg mixture in the skillet, right over the bacon grease.

I sprinkle some of the diced veggies over the omelet and then drag the sides inward with the spatula until the entire thing is cooked through, and I gently fold it in half.

I repeat the steps for a second omelet, cut the cooled bacon into bits, and sprinkle them over the food.

I walk back into Alissa’s room, presenting her breakfast with mock decorum. “Make way for the omelet!”

She frowns. “How can you joke around after what we’ve been through?”

“I think the only thing we can do is joke around.” I hand her the plate along with a fork. “We can either worry while we wait for news from Bill, or we can enjoy each other’s company to the best of our ability.”

She wrinkles her nose. “But it doesn’t seem right. We should find some way to honor May.”

“We’re doing what we can to see that Rouge—or whoever killed her—is brought to justice. That’s how we honor her.” I sit on the side of the bed and rub her shoulder. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t still enjoy the little things. We can live for May, for her memory.”

She takes a forkful of the omelet and brings it to her mouth. She chews slowly and closes her eyes. “This is delicious.”

“Thanks. The secret is a dash of milk.” I return to the kitchen, grab my plate, and return. I lie back next to Alissa and we eat our breakfast in silence.

And it’s nice. It’s normal.

Breakfast in bed with the woman I love.

Alissa finishes her last bite and plunks her fork back down on her ceramic plate. “Last night, with the cop. He recognized your name when you pulled out your license. Why?”

I close my eyes and run my hands through my hair. I put my half-finished omelet on the nightstand. “I’m sorry I was short with you last night about that.”

“We were both stressed. God knows anyone would have been a little persnickety.” She grabs my hand and rubs her thumb over my wrist. “But please tell me. I feel like this thing we have—it could be real. And if it does get to that place, is there something I should know?”

I nod. “But it’s a long story.”

She eyes the alarm clock on her nightstand. “I’m not called in until two thirty. We have a bit.”

And I’ve run out of excuses.

It’s time I told Alissa the truth anyway.

Or at least…part of the truth. Unveil the madness of my life one layer at a time.

“My family is—well, was , I suppose—into politics.”

“Right. Makes sense.” She bites her lip. “You said you grew up in the spotlight. And you mentioned having some connections to the mayor’s office.”

“Yeah. It’s my damn family name. The Hathaways have been called the Kennedys of Chicago. We held a political stranglehold over things in the city for several decades.”

“Until?”

I exhale. “Until me, Alissa. I was the last in line. I was expected to take the reins and lead the Hathaway legacy into the twenty-first century. But I…” I look down.

“I just couldn’t do it. I had seen the kind of backdoor deals my father made.

The grime under the papered-over cracks. I had another dream.”

Her eyes brighten. “Your shop.”

“Exactly. It was an old family property, one that had fallen into serious disrepair since my great-uncle died. But the family still owned the building, and I cut a deal with my dad to get the building in my name in exchange for half my profits.”

“Goodness. That must not have left you barely anything to live on.”

“I had a rough go at it the first few years. Dad didn’t give me a cent to live on, either. He did do me one kindness, though.”

“The car?”

I exhale sharply through my nose. “That, too. But the greatest thing he ever did for me was die. After that, our deal was void. I got to keep all my profits. And it was only two years later.” I rub at my forehead.

“I know that’s a terrible thing to say. That the one good thing your father did for you was kick the bucket. ”

Her lip quivers, and she swallows. “I think… I think I understand.”

I squeeze her hand. “You do?”

She nods. “My mother. The day she died… I mean, it was terrible. But once she was gone, this weight was lifted off my shoulders. For the first time in my life, I felt… free .”

“Agreed. One hundred fucking percent.” I grab my plate off the nightstand and raise it as if in a toast. “To freedom.”

She chuckles and then grabs her plate and clinks it against mine. “To freedom.” She looks over at her clock again. “And on that note, I’d better start getting ready. Thanks for the breakfast. And for last night. Thank you…for everything.”