Page 10 of Wickedly Played (Checkmate #1)

Chapter Eight

SERENA

To say I’m utterly confused is an understatement. What the hell was that? Max was hard. I felt his erection against my ass as he thrusted his hips into me. Is he into me?

My last two clients were easier to work with than the demonstration.

I tied them up, spanked them with a whip a couple of times, earned my money, and then changed to leave.

Max waited for me outside of both of my sessions and placed his hand on the small of my back to lead me to the dressing room.

Once we’re back in my SUV, I put my head on the cold glass of the window.

I’m horny. There is no other way to describe the ache between my thighs despite Stella getting me off earlier.

Sure, Stella’s mouth is pretty great, but it didn’t stop my mind from imagining Max between my thighs.

His tongue is deliciously buried inside of me.

Or bent over with him pile driving inside of me from behind.

“I’m sorry,” Max breaks the heated air.

Shaking my head to clear it, I look over at him. “For?”

He clears his throat. “I shouldn’t have taken Deacon’s place like that. That was unprofessional of me.”

I shrug. “It is okay. I’m not mad. You do have a lot of skill with tying people up,” I try to lighten the mood.

“It was my job to be good with rope. I’ve been trained to do this for many years. I promise I won’t cross the line again,” he says.

“Did you like it?”

It is his turn to shrug. “I shouldn’t answer that question.”

We’re quiet for the rest of the way back to my house. He instructs me to stay out of the home as he does a glance at the home before allowing me to come inside.

“Thank you,” I murmur as I walk up the stairs.

“Serena,” he calls.

“Yes?” I ask, turning on my heels.

“For what it is worth,” he begins, “I did like it.”

I smile. “I felt that you did on my back. Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone you have feelings or desires,” I sass.

Over the next week, we won’t talk about the obvious. Max goes back to just being in the background of everything I do. My stalker has written a couple of notes, but Max has intercepted them.

We are now seated in Adam’s office to see how things are going between us. Jim is next to me, and Max is leaning against the wall. I’m pretty sure my crush on him is evident to everyone but him. I can’t help it.

“Things are going well,” I confirm.

Adam nods. “Max, what about you?”

My bodyguard shrugs. “As good as they can be going, I guess.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jim demands.

“She’s safe. We haven’t had too many problems. I don’t have anything else to report,” he explains.

Great.

I go to get up when Adam calls out for his brother to stay a little longer.

“Serena, how are you?” Jim asks.

“I’m trying.”

“I know you had a good relationship with your last two guards. But Max is doing good. Right?”

“Yes. He’s fine. I guess I’m just tired. I had a couple of shows last night and I’m tired.”

He pats me on the shoulder. “I hear the shows are going good, too. I’m proud of you, kid.”

“Thanks,” I whisper.

Jim is probably the closest thing I have to a father since mine is a piece of shit.

After the hot shower, I pull my sheets down to slide into bed when I start to hear screaming. “Max?” I yell through the adjoining door.

When he doesn’t answer, I walk into his room. “Max?” I call again. Without an answer, I walk over to his bed to see him fighting something off in his sleep. I place my hand on his shoulder to try to wake him up.

“Max?” I yell once more.

This time, he does wake up. He grabs my hand, rolls me so I’m under him, and his body is pressed on top of me. “Hey, precious,” he murmurs against my neck.

Precious? Who the fuck is that?

He calls me Sweetness.

“Max,” I whisper.

Max’s powerful hips do roll a little into the apex of my thighs. I let out a powerful moan at feeling him between my legs. His lips kiss a fiery path down my neck before nipping at my collarbone. “I want to make you feel good,” he murmurs again.

“Yes,” I moan a lot louder than I intended to.

It has been so long since a man has made me feel this weightless. Max’s power over me should make me afraid, but it is the biggest turn-on. I lift my hips off the bed to seek out more friction. My tiny little underwear and tank top are no match for him as he rips them from my body.

“I’ve missed you,” he whispers. “I must taste you.”

My body is singing with arousal when his tongue and lips trail down my body. His lips suck in the turgid peaks of my nipples, causing my body to buck against his hips. He kisses, sucks, licks, and nibbles down my breasts and stomach until he gets to my pussy.

“You smell better than I remember.” Max’s tongue lashes between the seam until it hits my clit. I bow my back out to get closer and to push him away.

My arousal is loud in my ears, making it hard for me to process what he is saying. If I hadn’t been so far gone, I might have picked up on what he was saying.

Hindsight is 20/20. It might have saved me the embarrassment in the end if I hadn’t been thinking with my pussy.

His tongue flicks my clit a couple of times. With each flick, I’m moaning his name. “Max, please! That feels so good,” I groan. My thighs are hugging his head to pull him in closer to me. “I’m going to come!” I beg.

“You taste so sweet, baby. I could die down here,” he swears. “Fuck me.”

“Please don’t stop!” I cry.

His lips suck my clit into his mouth in a rough manner, and I detonate all around him. I’m thrashing on the bed as the orgasm is ripped from my body. “Yes! Yes!”

I feel the exact moment when he’s pulling down his briefs to free himself from the confines. He’s as hard as steel but velvety smooth against my leg once he’s free. My breathing has begun to slow a bit as I return to planet Earth. There's a voice inside my head that tells me to slow down.

Fuck it. If he wants to have sex, I’m here for it.

I hear the drawer open next to the bed, and then a metallic sound clicks over. I jump when the cold metal touches my head. The sharp tip nicks my neck, causing me to scream out. I feel the blade pierce me a little deeper, unlocking a hidden fantasy I didn’t know I had.

“Baby, I can’t wait to sink inside of you,” Max says with gritted teeth. The knife slithers down my throat before it brushes over my hardening nipples. “You remember how much I love to have you at my mercy. You’re still my good girl.”

“Please,” I beg. “Please. I want to come on your dick,” I whisper in the air. The blade bites into my turgid nipple. “Oh god!” I scream loudly. I feel the blade piercing me, and the smell of blood floods through the air.

Max is trailing his mouth up my legs, over my mound, to my belly button, and then I feel his erection right where I want it to be.

“Condom?” I murmur. I’m not that far gone to remember not to wear protection.

“We’ve never worn condoms before,” he growls. The blade slips down, cutting a superficial cut into my skin.

My mind begins to clear. Before? We’ve never been together like this before.

I wish I had a chance to come down from my orgasmic high. It would have been a lot better than what happened next.

The alarm to the front door is sounding through the home. The connection has been severed as Max yanks his body off of me and looks down at me like I’m an intruder.

He looks down at the red rivulets on my creamy skin. I see him licking his lips, following the path from the cut.

“Why are you in my bed?” Max’s voice demands.

I’m mortified. Jumping out of his bed, I run into my room to grab clothes and run downstairs to see what happened. I don’t get to the last stair when I feel Max pull me behind him.

Even though I was in his bed, I have a feeling he was thinking I was someone else. My heart is hammering in my chest as the rejection clouds my mind. I fight the tears springing to my eyes when my eyes clock the note.

I’ve forgotten about the utterly embarrassing moment upstairs and the fact that my bodyguard stabbed me.

But I liked it.

He doesn’t want me. Why would he want me? I’m just a job to him.

Just like before, there is a note on the bottom stair. I don’t have to go to it to know it is from my stalker.

This time, though, I feel truly violated. It isn’t from the break-in at my house. It is from the most intense orgasm of my life that came from a man who must not have known it was me in the bed.

“Serena!” Max calls after me.

Shaking my head, I ignore him. I can’t fathom speaking to him right now after I still feel his mouth between my legs.

I can still feel his cock lining up to slide inside of me.

How far would this have gone before I recognized he wasn’t really in bed with me?

Would I have slept with him? I feel like I would have.

Instead of screaming, crying, or demanding answers, I gather myself to go back to my room. With any luck, my stalker will be in my room to kidnap me, so I don’t have to face Captain Chucklehead in the morning.

“Serena?”

I wake with a fright and scream when I hear someone’s voice in my room.

“Who is it?” I demand, hugging the blanket close to my chest.

“It’s Max.”

My heart stops beating triple time. I’m not ready to speak to him.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to fall asleep, and I don’t want to talk about this right now.

I don’t want to hear how he thought it was a mistake.

I don’t want to hear how he doesn’t like me.

I understand. I’m a sex worker. I’ve been the novelty in a relationship since I became this person, but never the mainstay.

Pulling the blanket over my head, I roll to the side away from him.

“Serena,” he begs. “Please talk to me.”

I mumble a couple of four-letter words under my breath. “It is fine. Don’t worry about it.”

He’s on the bed above me as he’s yanking the blankets from over my head. “You can’t ignore me when I still taste your pussy on my tongue.”

“Are you sure it was mine and not the woman you were dreaming of?” I snap. “Max, go away. We’ll pretend this didn’t happen.”

I don’t miss the sound of defeat and regret in his breath. He must know I’m hurt. “What if I can’t pretend it didn’t happen, sweetness? What then?”

I blink my eyes several times to clear the sleep out of them. “You thought I was someone else. You were having a nightmare, and I came in to check on you… I felt you grab my arm, and then I was under you. It happened so quickly… I didn’t know what to do.”

“Serena, I’m so sorry. I have weird… sleep. I don’t know how to explain it…”

I shrug him off. “Like I said, it is fine.”

He growls, ripping the blankets out of my fists. “You don’t get to do that.”

Hissing, I sit up in bed. I’m wearing a new tank top that is tight across my chest to make sure a boob doesn’t pop out of my top at night.

“I don’t get to do what? Pretend it didn’t happen?

Is this just a game for you? Work for the sex worker, give her a good orgasm, and then make her feel like shit?

I don’t need you to make me feel bad about myself.

I have plenty of other men who do it, and I don’t need to pay them for it. ”

I can hear him kicking his shoes off, and then his weight is on the bed.

After he moves just right, Max is in my bed.

I would scream if he weren’t pulling me closer to him.

I would also scream if it didn’t feel this good to be close to him.

I should be screaming and firing him right now to put me in this position.

But my body has betrayed me.

“Sweetness, I don’t want you to feel bad. Truth is, you have the sweetest cunt I have ever tasted.”

“Is that why you are in my bed?”

He kisses the top of my head. “I’m in your bed because I want to be. Go to sleep.”

“What did the note say?” I ask while snuggling into his arms.

This is wrong. This is so wrong. Even though I know it is, I love the feeling I get from being this close to him.

“I’m going to be installing a stronger alarm system in the morning.”

Even as I fall asleep, I think about how good this feels. I think about how good it would feel to be in something real. I also think about what it would be like for Max to wake up being nice.

I also consider how much I’m going to pay for this. I give intimacy, I don’t get it back.