Possess (The Syndicate: Crime and Passion Book 1) (9 page)

S
enna

F
our weeks later
, I ventured outside, the bright sun calling me.

I hadn’t left Maxim’s bed since that first night, but he’d been preoccupied for the last couple of days, leaving me restless and a little bored, so I’d decided to leave. It was hot out, stifling, really. I could see the heat rolling low against the ground, felt the sweat beading on my forehead as the sun beat down on my bare shoulders, the waves of heat wrapping around my legs. The clothes I’d chosen covered far less skin than my outfits normally did. That was partially a concession to the heat, and, I could admit to myself, an outfit I hoped Maxim would appreciate.

I didn’t care about the heat, though, hardly paid it any attention at all. Instead, I focused on the festival.

Summer Festival was a tradition in the city, or so the brochures said, a huge three-day affair that had games, booths, parades, and pretty much any diversion that could be thought of.

Nearly every city I’d ever gone to had some similar tradition, and this one was particularly vibrant. Newborn babies, people well into their golden years, and every age in between had congregated here and were enjoying the fun.

I saw dozens of kids sitting atop their fathers’ shoulders, pointing and laughing, eating candy. Saw the young lovers holding hands, giving sly glances to each other. Saw the couples who had bonds that had extended for years.

And envied them all.

I’d never held hands with a lover on a sunny day, had never watched as the man I loved carried our child on his shoulders. Had never held my own sleeping baby in my arms.

Never would.

That awareness hurt, made it almost impossible to stay here, but I did. Stayed and watched the duality that was my life play out.

Because I would never again be one of those carefree people enjoying the Summer Festival, would never have a normal life, which was something I regretted.

But as much as I regretted it, I also knew that while I had lost normality as I had previously conceived of it, I had also had my world opened, could now see the festival through new, different eyes.

Saw the pickpockets working the crowd. Saw the tense meeting taking place near the vegan chef’s booth, most likely an attempt to resolve a dispute over guns or drugs, one where neither party felt safe enough to meet anywhere but a public place.

I could see the people who were different, like Maxim.

Like me.

Were he here, Maxim would have scoffed, been insulted I would compare him to such lowly criminals, his arrogance and certainty two of the things I loved about him, two of the things that made him so frustrating.

His arrogance was well earned, and as highly as he thought of himself, I’d seen no reason for him to think less.

His certainty let me sleep at night, knowing that if he gave me his word, he would never go back on it.

But he’d never change his mind, and I, any feelings I might have had for him, would make no difference at all.

So I was stuck in limbo, not able to go back to the life I had left a decade ago, knowing it was impossible, but equally unable to imagine staying where I was, living out this undefined relationship with Maxim, knowing that all the things I had hoped for in my life weren’t possible but having nothing to replace them.

Or at least I thought so.

I hadn’t talked about any of this with Maxim, so maybe there was still a chance.

A small kernel of hope began to bloom in the back of my mind. A single question had been the catalyst for this new stage in our relationship. Maybe another would push us further.

I lingered at the festival and then drifted back to the building, knowing my absence had been noticed but hoping that it would go unremarked upon. I had more than halfway expected Maxim to send Adrian, Sergei, or one of the others to get me.

But he hadn’t, or at least, no one had approached me, and as I walked back inside, my skin percolating under the cool air of the air-conditioning, I was grateful for the time and space.

I was no closer to figuring out where I stood, how I might get what I wanted, but the time had been clarifying, reminded me I wasn’t powerless. I headed for his office on instinct, the sun still bright in the sky.

He’d be there unless he’d been called away, but I would wait for him if he was gone, because I needed an answer to my question.

When I reached his door, I knocked but went in without waiting, my eyes taking a moment to adjust to the dimness after being outside in the bright sun. Maxim was there, sitting at his desk, but still not writing.

There was some shift in him, almost imperceptible, but I had trained myself to be aware of the subtle changes in him. So I saw the moment when he realized that I had returned.

He turned, looked me over from head to toe, and then stood, all without speaking.

As he walked across the room, his strides long, powerful, I felt the dryness in my throat and the dampness between my thighs as I looked at him.

I couldn’t shake the sense that he was displeased, though I couldn’t begin to imagine why he would be. He flipped a switch on the wall and the blinds began to rise, filling the huge room with light. Two of the office walls were floor-to-ceiling windows, and it was rare for Maxim to open them.

In fact, I couldn’t think of a time when he had done so.

I looked at him, brows furrowed in question. “You’re opening the blinds.”

“You like to be watched,” he replied, again looking me over from head to toe.

I walked toward him, face still twisted in a frown. “What’s wrong, Maxim?” I asked.

“Take off your clothes,” he said.

“What?” I asked, gaping at him.

He stood, hands loose at his sides, waiting. He watched me, his expression suddenly stormy but still desirous, and he looked at me, his gaze caressing my entire body as I wanted his hands to.

I started to respond automatically. I pulled the tank top over my head and dropped it at my side and then worked the denim shorts down and over my hips.

“All of them,” he said when I stood still and looked at him again.

“Maxim, the curtains are open,” I said.

“You like to be watched,” he repeated.

“Maxim…”

“All of them.”

I couldn’t disregard the rough command in his voice and began working my underwear down and then moving to my bra, excited at the prospect of Maxim again touching me but unsure about what was driving this.

My skin prickled with awareness, both of him watching me and of the prospect of others doing the same.

I didn’t know what had come over him, but it was something. I met his eyes again, searching, but I saw nothing but that desire and anger swirling in them. “Maxim…” I said, the word a plea, but for what I wasn’t sure.

There was no mercy in his hard gaze.

“Touch yourself. Don’t stop until I tell you to,” he said.

“What!” I almost yelled, eyes wide as I looked at him. He’d never asked me to do something like this, and I still wasn’t sure what was driving this.

“I can see your pussy, how wet it is. Touch yourself,” he said.

My sex clenched at his words and my hand began to move along my skin, though my mind was whirling.

I was so torn, the desire, the
need
to comply fighting with the question of what was wrong.

And yet my fingers against my skin had my sex clenching again, and soon everything else faded except the feeling of his gaze on me, the response my own fingers were eliciting.

I didn’t understand his anger, but I knew it was there. Still, I touched myself, my pussy getting even wetter as my fingers slid along my skin, sending a rush of sensation through me.

“No!” Maxim said when I started to push my fingers inside. “Nothing inside, just touch your clit.”

My sex clenched, fluttering with the need to be filled, but I did as he said and only touched the outside of my lips and worked at my clit, desperate to feel something inside me while not wanting to disobey him.

The soft
snick
of his zipper lowering got my attention, and I watched as he pulled his cock from his pants. He was hard, his cockhead red and slick with his own moisture. I watched as he stroked his hand down his broad shaft and back to his cockhead, moving my fingers along my soaking sex in time with his hand.

My vision began to dim, and the orgasm hit me hard and suddenly. As I came, my sex clenched even tighter, yet empty, still needy, needy for Maxim.

“Come here,” he said, his breath a little deeper as he stroked himself.

I moved to him quickly and perched on the edge of the desk, shamelessly spreading my legs. He stepped between them and pushed my thighs wider apart, moved closer until his cock rested at the edge of my entrance.

“Little flower,” he said, pushing his cockhead against me until he barely breached me, “you want my cock inside you? Want me to fill you up, take away the emptiness?”

He got closer as he spoke, and I reached for him, grabbed at his strong shoulders, pressed my chest against his, his suit brushing against my tight nipples, anxious to get closer to him.

“Yes,” I whispered.

“No,” he said.

Instead of pushing his hardness inside me, filling me as only he could, he began to stroke himself again, moving his hand up and down his hard, thick shaft faster and faster, balanced there on the edge of my opening but not entering me.

He stroked even faster and then, on a harsh breath, he started to come. He sprayed my pussy with his seed, and at the first splash of his warmth, my sex clenched down hard, rocking my body still desperate for him, still needing to be filled.

He wouldn’t, though, and with hazy eyes I watched as he tucked his cock back into his pants. My hand drifted between my thighs and I touched myself but then froze when I heard his voice.

“Stop,” he said.

His voice brought me back to myself, and when I fully came back to myself I shuddered, part embarrassed, part pleased, still empty, and after a moment, he spoke.

“Senna, I decide who sees you and how. Now get dressed and don’t ever wear that again,” he said.

I gaped, but then began to move almost automatically. I left, feeling angry, more than a little humiliated, but also deeply satiated with pleasure, thrilled by Maxim’s possession.

And still no closer to figuring out what any of it really meant.

M
axim

I
stayed away late
, but then was driven to her.

“Are you pouting, little flower?” I said.

She glared at me and then smacked my hand away from her chin.

“Don’t patronize me, Maxim. I’m not a child.”

“Then don’t act like one,” I chided. Then I reached for her again and she again smacked my hand away.

“Senna…” I said.

“What the hell was that today?”

I should have asked her the same question. She’d left without bothering to tell anyone where she was going, but Adrian had kept a close eye on her until she returned.

Initially, I hadn’t been concerned. She was protected, but when she walked in, and I’d seen the small tank top she wore, tight against her waist, hugging her breasts, the shorts, far shorter than any I’d ever seen her in, I had lost it.

“Perhaps I overreacted,” I said.

She glared even harder. “Perhaps,” she replied.

“I don’t like you dressing like that,” I said.

“What about what I like?”

“What are you talking about, little flower?” I said, realizing that this conversation had quickly moved beyond what had happened today.

“Is this all there is for us?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“You know.” She gestured between us, looking at the rumpled sheets. “Is this all there is, Maxim?”

I didn’t respond immediately. For once, I wasn’t entirely sure what to say. So instead, I answered with a question. “What else do you want?”

She looked at me, her eyes deep, dark. And it was with a sudden realization that I understood what she meant. I shook my head. What she was thinking wasn’t possible. There was no room for anything that might resemble a real relationship. I had already erred in keeping Senna around for as long as I had. But I’d accepted she was a liability, could deal with the repercussions of it, that being with her made me weaker and put her in danger.

The danger, while troublesome to think about, did not scare me. I would confront anyone who dared come after me, or, God forbid, Senna. But the plain truth was I had nothing to give, no capacity to understand a relationship, no idea how such a thing might even look. I shook my head. I could kill without blinking, run an organization like the Syndicate with little trouble, but a relationship, something real, beyond the physical, with Senna was beyond me.

“That can’t be, little flower,” I said.

“I’m not your little flower anymore,” she said.

I reached for her, cupped her jaw, not caring when she flinched. “You will always be that, Senna. But this”—I gestured between us as she had—“is all there can be.”

“What about what I want?”

“What do you want?”

“Everything. A family,” she finally said.

“No,” I said.

“‘No.’ It’s that easy?” she said.

“It’s that easy. You can’t have that,” I said.

“I could with someone else,” she said, lifting her eyes to mine.

“No, you can’t,” I said, my voice going deep, every inch of my body instantly alert, near bristling with anger at her words.

The very thought of it, Senna with someone else, having a family with someone else, didn’t even make me angry. Because it couldn’t happen, I wouldn’t let it.

Perhaps cruel of me, awful, but there was simply no other outcome. I couldn’t give her a family, but I wouldn’t let her have it with anyone else.

“Do you want that with someone else?” I asked.

“Would it matter if I did? Would you let it happen?”

“No,” I said.

“I don’t, Maxim. I want that with you,” she said.

“It’s not possible.”

“So that’s it?” she said. “We just go on like this?”

“Yes,” I said, but when I looked at her, I somehow knew that wouldn’t be enough.