Xander (Billionaire Racers Book 1) (9 page)

XANDER

Pirate’s
Cay is pinup pretty, a slice of paradise with white sandy and blue water. I own a beach house here that I use as home base when I am racing. The ocean fronts the property with the marina at the back: that gives me two emergency exits if shit hits the fan and I need to get Lily out. Liam will honor his promise to me and the Banda will back off, but there is always danger. Nassau is barely any distance from Miami and there are too many power-hungry idiots in our world.

The local resort has a handful of vacancies, but I want Lily in my place, so I bundle her into the golf cart my team has waiting for me and take her there. She is nervous, I think, because she flits through the house like a demented butterfly as soon as I open the door. I am nervous too, if I am being honest. Our race is over, and I am waiting for her to tell me if I win or if I lose. Will she gave me a second chance?

When I try to feed her, she is not interested. I am not sure when it became a crime to take care of your woman, but she does not want to eat. Pity, because the cold buffet laid out on the kitchen counter is spectacular. My housekeeper deserves a fucking raise for the oysters on ice alone.

“Show me the bedroom?” She sounds tired.

I lead her down the hallway, my fingers tangled with hers. I am not sentimental ever, but I like the way our hands fit together. When we stop in front of a bright aqua door, I step back, giving her that space she’s silently demanding. Too bad I have no clue what is going through her head right now. My favorite plan involves threading my fingers through her hair and kissing her until there is nothing left but me, Lily, and the four-poster bed inside the room. No doubts, no second thoughts, no regrets.

“I need some space, Xander.” She marches inside the room, increasing the distance between us exponentially with every step. “I’ll think this over.”

This
being our marriage.

As if we are still just a business deal rather than a set of promises.

Fuck this. She is deliberately ignoring me, trying to tidy me away in some neat mental box she has. I can woo her. Coax her as if she is a tricky bit of deep water sliding beneath the deep keel of the yacht. I mentally change my plans around.

“Come swim with me.” I have an awesome pool, and nothing beats swimming naked in the moonlight. It is not as if anyone will come out and start taking pictures of us. I pay my security good money to keep everyone else away. When she nods, I lead the way. The bedroom opens onto the pool—I saw something like it in Bali once, and I had to have that here. Trees and palms surround the water, a living wall of lush green that serves as a backdrop for the white night garden. It smells like fucking paradise.

LILY

I insist on a swimsuit.
Hello.
If I get in the water naked, my first time with Xander will be pool sex, and I’m not sure I’m ready for that. He growls a little—I’m learning he doesn’t like having his plans upended—but then he points me toward the tiny jewel box of a pool house where he promises I’ll find a selection of suits. Sure enough, when I ease the glass doors open, disturbing the thick vines of sweet-scented jasmine, I find enough bikinis to stock a store. The suits are expensive brand-name suits with the tags still on, and ten minutes later I’m sporting a red-and-white striped Vitamin A bikini and slipping into the water.

Swimming together goes better than I expected. Xander seems content to wait for me to make up my mind. For the longest time, we just float together looking up at the stars. We bicker amicably over the location of the Big Dipper and then make up stupid names for the billion other constellations we can’t name.

Xander turns his head to look at me. “You would like some champagne?”

“I should get out.” I’m slowly turning into a prune. Xander nods, lifts me out of the pool, and wraps me up in an enormous cotton towel. I wonder if he’s ever had a relationship where he’s not the one giving stuff.

“
Da
. Sounds good.” He sets me on my feet, yanks on his jeans, and pads away into the house. Guess I merit personal butler service. While he plays fetch, I wander back into the bedroom. It’s gorgeous, which comes as no surprise. Xander’s decorator is top-notch and has brought to life a Moorish fantasy. I can hear the ocean, but there must be a dozen tiny fountains tucked away in his secret garden as well, and I can smell the jasmine here too.

Xander thinks I’m here to seal a business deal. He has no clue how I feel about him, how I’ve always felt. I used to watch him when I was dating his stepbrother, hoping he’d look at me, just once, and see me. Sleeping with him now is the kind of mistake I’ve dreamed about. He’ll take care of the Petrov family and me. He won’t renege on our deal, and my dad will have the security he deserves. It’s just that… I want more.

I want Xander, not the head of the Volkov family.

Still thinking, I strip off the damp bikini and wrap his robe around myself. When I look in the mirror, my hair is a tangle of curls and waves. I look needy. Flushed.
Greedy
. My answer is staring back at me.

Xander crosses the room in the mirror. He’s brought the champagne, and I’m sure it’s the best and most expensive champagne ever. I could probably buy a small sofa for what that bottle cost, and it’s so not what I want right now that I could cry.

So it’s up to me to change that.

He sets the bottle down and pops the cork with sure, confident movements. I get on the bed. When he turns around, two flutes in his hand, I’m ready for him.

“Come here.”

XANDER

I can take orders in a good cause. I set the flutes down. Lily looks fucking hot in my robe, the heavy cotton slipping off her shoulder as she comes up on her knees. When I reach her, she touches me, running her hands down my chest with a soft hum of approval. She does not want my champagne—she wants
me
.

Lily has one hand on my dick and the other on my heart. She can squeeze my dick all she wants—it is the other I am not so sure about. We have unfinished business between us, and sure I want to be inside her. That has made me feel guilty as fuck for years, but she is not that girl anymore. Her fingers find me through my jeans. Tighten. Trace the hard-on I have for her.

Da
. I fucking waited for this.

For her.

All these years I honestly thought there was no chance she would come back voluntarily. She was sixteen. Scared. I was the big, bad hitman who stepped in to save her ass and then extracted a price of his own. She whispered
sorry
when we got married, as if she believed I had been forced, when I had done everything I could to make ensure I stood there beside her. I was hers from the moment I laid eyes on her anyhow—she is simply collecting on that debt now.

“Mine,” she whispers roughly and tries to wrap her fingers around my dick through the denim. That is not so easy to do, but I award her points for trying. My dick would like to note that she is all grown up now. She is no little girl. It is okay if we do this—we are married, for fuck’s sake, and this is what married people do.

I cannot let her go.

I have pretended all these years, pretended it is okay that she is not by my side. That instead she is off somewhere else, living and working and maybe starting a new life with some other guy who is nicer, sweeter, better family material. I married her, and I let her walk. I let them lock me up, and then I put as much distance between her and me as I could. She erased that space when she came to me in Miami, and now there is only three fucking inches between us. Those inches are nowhere near enough to stop me from touching her.

She leans forward, almost toppling off the bed.

“Oops,” she giggles.

I love her laugh. I love hearing her happy.

If she hits the floor, I will be there to catch her. To go down with her. This is 100 percent the truth.

“Get in bed.” She has busy hands, my lovely Lily. Her fingers find me through the gaps between the buttons of my jeans. The soft butterfly stroke on my bare dick rocks me. It is not as if I am about to turn her down, not when she touches me way too fucking gently, and it turns out I do not mind soft and easy at all. Her face flushes, her lips parting as she stares at my dick. Her nipples form hard little peaks, and I need to get my mouth on her.

Just got one thing to do first.

“Tell me you are sure.” I cup her jaw, lifting her head so I can see her eyes. I am not taking chances with this. She leans into me with a husky moan.

“Yes,” she says, and that is good enough. I push her robe open all the way and open up the best Christmas present ever. I have had a fantasy or fifty about peeling that little string bikini off her, but turns out that naked is even better. She is beautiful.

“Yes,” she repeats and squeezes. Jesus. Christ. Her other hand discovers my balls through the worn denim of my jeans and it is as if she flips my go switch. I want her bad. I am not a nice guy. Nice gets you killed by the Russian mob, and I am a big fan of living. I like sex. I like it hard and rough, with me pounding all out into my partner. Orgasms for all absolutely, but I am not about poetry and candles and romantic shit. This house is as far as I go, and it is just a fucking set, a token effort at setting the mood and saying stuff I never feel.

Tonight, I would like to learn how to be Mr. Right. She has said yes. Twice tonight and once six years ago when her daddy dragged my sorry-not-sorry ass in front of a justice of the peace. I step back, yank my jeans open, and shove them down my legs, beating all known records for speed undressing. It is not as if I can keep the woman of my dreams waiting. She has nefarious plans for my body, and I am honor-bound to help her out with those.

Tonight, Lily Petrov is my Mrs. She’s mine.

Or I am fucking hers.

It is not as if there is a difference.

Sliding an arm beneath her back, I take her down to the bed, and she issues me a goddamned handwritten invitation. Her legs circle my hips, the too-large robe sliding down her arms as she moans.
Fuck me.
How could I back off now? I want in, and she is not precisely asking me to go slow. So I settle in to enjoy my view and to find out if she tastes as good as she looks.

I cage her head with my hands, my arms brushing the sides of her face. That goes in the feel-good column, but I should make sure. I lower my mouth to her throat and lick. Fuck, she tastes good. I pretend I am the one in control here as I brace myself over her and kiss her pretty throat. Find the spot where her pulse slams against her skin. She is so beautiful it hurts, and I am an ugly bastard. She is as gorgeous on the inside as she is on the outside, and yet she trusts me to get this right. No fucking pressure,
da
?

I kiss her with everything I have, fisting her damp hair until my fingers are wound tight in the lush, slick strands. Holding on to her. Running my fingers through it to see if it feels as good as I think it does. I kiss her and kiss her, my hips pressing against hers until she’s moaning and pushing back hard.

No mercy.

She is spread for me and all
mine
.

My fucking, wonderful, amazing wife.

“Lily.” I must say her name, have to remind myself to suck in a breath of air because it is unbelievable she is here in my arms, wanting the same things I do. Her hands come up, grabbing my wrists, sliding over my palms until she is all tangled up with me too.

She looks up at me, her mouth parted for my kiss, and I stand at the peak of the world’s tallest wave, about to go flying or free-falling. Maybe I slam down hard into the trough and the world goes crazy upside down. I have no idea what comes next, but it involves kissing. She arches toward me, her eyes drifting closed.

“You’re the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.” That does not come out right. She is not a
thing
. She is the acme, the fastest wave, the smoothest current, the wind in my sails. My brain is not getting the words to my mouth, though, because she feels so good. If I keep her in bed for a week, maybe I can figure out how to tell her that.

Her breasts are a handful I need to palm now, all soft, pale skin and the sweetest pair of nipples that beg for kisses. I run a finger over the white marks from her bikini top, circling the sensitive tips. She squirms, and guess what? That gets me going too. There is nothing she can do that I will not love. I am goddamned easy when it comes to my Lily. And since she is made to be worshipped, I get with the program. I cover her left tit with my mouth and suck hard.