AXEL (The Beckett Boys, Book Eight) Read online

  His strokes become more intense, until he pulls out almost all the way, then plunges in me, as far as he can go. There’s a small flare of pain, but he keeps kissing me, keeps fucking me, and soon I’m caught up in what’s happening and I’m gasping and groaning in time with him.

  “Kendra,” he whispers against my mouth. “You feel incredible.”

  My whole body is flushed all over, and we’re getting slick with sweat. “I…I want it harder,” I ask him. “Please.”

  He looks at me, a wicked gleam in his eyes that makes me afraid and turned on. “Oh, is that right, sweet girl? You need to be fucked thoroughly, don’t you.”

  Then he’s hammering me, and his hand is in my hair, and I’m clinging to him, just trying to hold on as best as I can while I’m ravaged. His cock is rubbing my G-spot and I can feel another orgasm begging to come. I squirm to find the right angle, desperate.

  “You’re not fucking coming yet,” he orders me. “You can get close, but you had better not come.”

  I whimper in protest, but somewhere inside me, a little light sparks in response to his heated, dominant words. I want him to control me, to deny me until I’m a mess begging for release. Of course, somehow he can tell that about me.

  It’s fine until he reaches his hand between us and his thumb brushes my clit. I arch beneath him, blindly seeking his touch, panting, and he captures my mouth and my breaths and takes them for his.

  “Don’t. You. Fucking. Come,” Axel growls into my parted lips. That thumb is relentless, cruel, stroking my bud until it’s hard and I’m shuddering beneath him, about to cry because I’m so close, so painfully close.

  When he removes his hand, it’s almost a blessing and a curse. Axel smacks my hip and grabs me by the back of the neck. “Up, sweet girl. On your hands and knees. I want to taste that cunt.”

  I can’t deny him anything, even though part of me is mortified at the thought of being exposed so brazenly to him. I do as he commands, burying my face in the pillow. At the soft sounds of his approval, then the hard, firm swipe of his tongue along my entire slit, I jerk against his mouth.

  His hands instantly grip my hips and lock me in place. “Don’t fucking move, or I’ll spank you.”

  Part of me wants to be spanked, even though I never have before. But I’m more interested in the things he’s doing with his tongue, how he flattens it to slide along my clit, delves it into my pussy.

  Licking, sucking, drinking my juices.

  “You taste so incredible,” he whispers against me, and I’m getting closer again to the edge. “I could drink this beautiful pussy all night. So creamy and wet and lovely.” He spreads my ass apart so he can delve deeper, and I groan into the pillow from the sensations flooding my senses.

  “Oh God,” I say, pushing my ass back toward him reflexively.

  Whack! The sudden hot sting on my right ass cheek makes me freeze in place.

  “I told you not to move,” he says, then kisses the hot flesh where he smacked my butt. “Move again, and I’ll make you wait even longer to come.”

  Shit—caught up in the moment, I forgot his order. It takes everything I have, but I force myself to stay still, to let him eat me at his pleasure. I’m shaking with the effort after a few minutes, come dripping down my thighs. I’ve never been this turned on before in my entire life. Not even close. I want him to fuck me again. I need him to. He’s torturing me in the best and worst ways.

  “You’re being such a good girl,” Axel finally says. He slides two fingers inside my pussy and curls them toward my G-spot, and I just barely stop the urge to grind against his hand. “You can move now, Kendra, and I want you to come for me.”

  His tongue touches my other puckered hole as he fucks my pussy with his fingers, and when he swipes a long, intimate lick there, I’m lost. Gone. I shatter into pieces all over the bed, all over him, come pouring out of me, screams pouring out of me, my entire body trembling my need. And all the while he’s still finger-fucking me, licking me, praising me for being such a good girl for him, and it just keeps me turned on.

  Then he pulls his fingers out and I feel him shift, and his cock is pushing back in me again.

  “Yes, please, God please,” I find myself saying, thrusting my ass in the air as much as I can to encourage him to fuck me deeply. I don’t even recognize myself right now, the wanton girl who is begging for sex. Aching for it. “I need you to come for me too. Please, Axel.”

  His fingers dig into my hips as he rides me from behind. His cock batters my inner walls, and I can hear his breathing grow more ragged, feel the tension in his body when his balls slap against me from the frantic thrusts. “I… Kendra, you…” The fact that he can barely articulate his thoughts pushes me into overdrive.

  I meet him thrust for thrust, fucking him as hard as he’s fucking me. “Yes. Give it to me. Yes.” I keep the side of my face on the pillow and reach behind me to cup his hands over my hips, encourage him to hammer me.

  “I… Christ, yes…” And then there’s a long groan as he stiffens and says my name, emptying his seed into the condom. His huge cock is pulsing in me, and I can feel as he orgasms, and I swear it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever experienced.

  When he’s done, he pauses, his grip loosening, and he gives long, luxurious sweeps over my backside and ass, caressing the flesh he’d grabbed, spanked. A moment of intimacy in such a heated event.

  Then Axel withdraws from me, discards the condom in the garbage, and curls up on his side, tugging me against him. His body is slightly sweaty, and the moisture warms where we’re pressed together. Neither of us speaks. I’m too overwhelmed by everything that just happened.

  That wasn’t a mere fucking. I mean, it was fucking—crazy-hot and dirty. But there was more. A genuine connection. I am sure I felt it in the way he looked at me, how he took care to read my body, pay attention to me. Those moments of softness mixed in.

  What does it mean? I don’t know.

  “I can hear you thinking,” Axel says, a light laugh in his voice. “You do that a lot, don’t you?”

  “My brain never shuts off,” I tell him. I’m languid now, satisfied, and I just want to melt against him and stay right here. I like how he feels, the length of his body stretched out behind mine. How he’s shifted so his foot is resting in between my two smaller feet, another tiny intimacy that surprises me.

  He strokes my hair, which makes me grow heavy with sleep. “My brain doesn’t either,” he admits. The fatigue I’m feeling is echoed in his voice.

  Before I realize it, I’m drifting off to unconsciousness.

  I wake up disoriented, with a strange ache in my bones. Morning light is seeping through a crack in the massive window blinds. Then memory floods back, and my body rushes with a burst of heat.

  I had sex last night. In this hotel bed. With the hottest guy I’ve literally ever met.

  With slow, careful movements to accommodate the unexpected soreness in my body, I shift to my back and look over at the other side of the bed. It’s empty. There’s a pillow dent to indicate someone was there, that I didn’t just make it all up. But no note, no nothing else.

  I draw my lip between my teeth as emotions tighten in my chest. I don’t know how to feel right now. Disappointed, yes. A little foolish as well. Did I really expect more from a one-night stand? What, did I stupidly think he was going to ask me to see him again or something?

  It was what it was. Just sex.

  And I’ll keep telling myself that until I believe it. Because yes, as silly as it sounds, I didn’t expect him to pull that on me.

  I don’t really know anything about the guy except his first name, I remind myself. And the fact that he’s amazing in bed. Yes, there might have been something between us. But if I face facts, it’s also clear that he and I are from two different worlds. That much was evident in how he acted at the wedding.

  Axel and I never had a chance. So I suppose he did me a favor by running out, no matter how much it stings.

&nb
sp; I let myself lie in bed and try to not think about last night’s events, despite my desire to replay them over and over again, to savor the sensations I experienced at the hands of an expert lover. I can hear my cell phone vibrating in my little dress pocket of my bridesmaid gown. Probably someone wondering what the hell happened to me last night.

  Well, whoever it is can wait. I’m not in the mood to talk to anyone right now. I’ll take a shower. Scrub this off. Get a strong cup of coffee and figure out how to deal with the ramifications of what happened later. I have other things I have to focus on, business that can’t wait. Working for my father means I have to work extra hard, because he won’t let me get away with anything—not in business, anyway.

  I’ll always be his little girl. But he’s trying to help me become a competent woman. I won’t let him down.

  With that in mind, I shove myself out of bed and pad to the shower, ready to wash away the amazing night I just had and pull myself together.

  “This will be good experience for you, Kendra,” my dad says as he navigates his silver Benz down the road. “This is an unusual project for us, so it’ll be great for you to learn the business more and see the breadth of what we do at Rochester Development.”

  My father hired me on with his company right after I finished my degree back in May. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been fascinated by his retail developmental work. He never made me feel unwanted or weird about my curiosity; instead, he got me a small hard hat and took me along with him any time I desired, explaining with infinite patience how land is developed.

  Watching him raze unwanted or abandoned buildings and homes and develop new shopping plazas that create jobs for local communities, plus bring in more tax money for schools and libraries, it was like watching a miracle worker in action by the time he finished with a particular project.

  Places once forsaken would become vibrant centers of activity and community.

  And, of course, my father would become slightly more wealthy, a point he never hesitated to mention to me.

  “Hopefully the more hesitant homeowners will listen to us,” I say to him as I browse through the documentation he prepared. My father is nothing if not thorough—he has a list of all the homeowners who are resistant to the high-end mall he wants to develop in a run-down neighborhood in Rock Bridge. It will be positive growth, especially since that area of town is pretty shitty and in vastly in need of improvement.

  The city wants to change that section of Rock Bridge and get rid of the negative stigma attached to it. Plus, the land is great, and the mall will be nicely located near a major thoroughfare. Perfect for not only local shoppers, but those traveling through Michigan on their way to other states. Not to mention Daddy said there are lots of abandoned properties that can be torn down around there, and empty lots that can be converted. Great area for future expansion.

  Of course, those sites aren’t the problem. The issue will be the lived-in homes that need to be demolished for the project to get underway. Getting those homeowners to acquiesce to selling isn’t always as easy as it should be, given the compensation the residents receive for vacating.

  It’s like Daddy is knowing what I’m thinking. “Thankfully, many of them are ready to sell and relocate,” he says. “But there are some stubborn people who won’t take the deal. Despite the terms we’re offering.”

  I don’t understand people who would stay in an impoverished home when you could get the chance to get out and find a better place. “Well, hopefully we can get them to listen.”

  We pull into the neighborhood, and I can see why my father thinks it would be a great place. The location is prime; once the neighborhood is turned around and value is added through a mall, it’ll bring the city a lot more revenue. And a better reputation, too. There are a number of abandoned houses on the street with wood haphazardly nailed across windows. Scattered in between them are run-down homes aplenty.

  My father pulls into a driveway and kills the engine. “First stop. Here we go.” We get out and rap on the door.

  An elderly lady in a mint-green bathrobe that’s seen better days answers for us. She instantly looks suspicious upon seeing me and my father in dressy clothes.

  But Daddy is a professional. He greets her with a warm smile, and before we know it, we’ve been invited inside and given lemonade as we explain our goal with the land. By the end of the visit, she’s promising to think things over, and we schedule another appointment with her for a follow-up. Looking good.

  We visit a few more homes like that. A couple of homeowners aren’t home, so we note that down on our log and plan to come back another time. In a methodical manner, we work our way up and down the streets in the neighborhood.

  A lot of real estate developers would leave tasks like this to some flunkies, not wanting to take the time and effort to meet with the locals. But my father believes in getting your hands dirty and paying attention to the little details.

  Days like this make me respect him even more than I did already.

  Daddy pulls his car into a driveway of a home that actually looks decent—the yard is clean, the exterior freshly painted. When we get to the door and ring the bell, there’s a pause, then the door opens.

  And my stomach drops clear to my feet as my face bursts into flames. Shit. Shit. Shit.

  It’s him.

  Oh my god.

  Axel, sexy, shirtless, in low-slung jeans, can of beer in hand, looking like sin.

  Axel

  It’s hard to keep a neutral face when I see Kendra standing there, clutching a folder and staring at me with shock in her eyes. I don’t know how to behave around her, nor do I fucking know what to say.

  Did she somehow find out who I am and come to give me shit for running out on her without saying goodbye?

  I couldn’t help it. I woke up in the middle of the night with her nestled in my arms, and the whole thing was just too fucking much. It was supposed to be a hot hookup, nothing more. And it was sexy and intense. But there was more, and I had to pull the trigger and get out of there before I started something that would only get more complicated between us.

  I can’t do that, not at this point in my life. So, I pulled a dick move and I took off, left her without saying goodbye.

  When I open my mouth to say something, anything, the old man beside her says, “Hello, how are you this evening?” He extends his hand out toward me with unwavering patience, and I stare at it for several long moments, then give it a quick shake and hold up my other hand, bearing the can of beer.

  “I’m great. Just living the high life,” I reply smoothly.

  Kendra clears her throat and looks away from me, down at her folder. “Um, and what is your name, sir?”

  It takes me a moment to find my voice. Partly because I’m insulted that she’s pretending to not know me. Rich princess is too embarrassed to admit she had anything to do with me, that I took her virginity.

  I look over at the man and introduce myself, feeling annoyed now. “I’m Axel. And you two are interrupting my evening, so unless you have dealings with me…” I go to close the door when the man presses a palm to the door to stop it.

  He gives me an easy smile. “I’m Charles Rochester of Rochester Development. I sent a couple of letters to you recently but didn’t hear anything back. We’re interested in buying this property.”

  I scour my brain to see if I remember any mailings addressed from them. Something about that seems familiar. I’m pretty sure I looked at the first letter sent…and then I recall the contents and feel my stomach clench. “Oh, you guys are wanting to build some kind of shitty mall here or something, right? Just what we need.”

  Kendra stiffens at my insult. “It’s an upscale shopping mall, and it would be revitalizing for Rock Bridge.” To her credit, she keeps her voice even despite my open hostility.

  “I’m sure it would be. But I’m not fucking selling.” I take great pleasure in watching her cheeks bloom pink with anger at my blunt words. She stares down at
her papers, not looking at me.

  The older man speaks as if I’m a child. “I understand you’re upset and resistant—we just want a chance to explain ourselves in person and answer any questions you might have.” He’s nothing if not steady in his coolness. “It won’t take much of your time.”

  “Axel, you say?” Kendra’s voice has an edge as she addresses me. “The name on the deed is Butch Beckett. Is he home, by chance?” She looks up at me, and I can see a stiff smirk on her face.

  I raise a brow. “Oh man, you just missed him. Too bad. He’s serving another twenty in County, but I can answer your questions on his behalf. He won’t ever sell to you guys. In fact, he’d tell you to get lost. Just like I am.” Irritation itches the back of my neck, and I struggle to keep my frustration at bay.

  I’m being a dick. But this whole situation is pissing me off. Kendra acting too good for me, it lodges under my skin, makes me feel uncomfortable. I already knew this chick was out of my league. But having her act like she doesn’t even know me? It burns, even though I tell myself I don’t care.

  “Look.” Charles shifts in place, and it’s the first time I see him lose his smoothness. His cool exterior is diminished by the sharpness in his voice. “We’ll be getting this mall done one way or another. If need be, we can probably have this home condemned and torn down without having to pay your father a dime.”

  I can feel a muscle in my jaw flex. “Oh, is that right? Just try it, buddy. In the meantime, get the fuck off our property so I can go back to enjoying my now-warm beer.” I take a blatant drag of the drink in front of him and stare at Charles until he turns and stalks to his car, finally showing his emotions. Something about that moment of weakness gives me a small bit of pleasure.

  “I can’t believe you’re being such an ass,” Kendra hisses under her breath at me. She’s scowling.

  I shrug, acting like I don’t give a fuck. “So? You’re the one who is embarrassed to admit you know me.”

  “Of course I’m embarrassed,” she retorts, and I stare at her, a little surprised she admitted it so boldly. “First, you ran out of the hotel like a total coward. And second, that man you’ve been so rude to is my father. Yet I’m supposed to tell him that you gave me the old pump-and-dump last night? Sure. Right.” Her snort of derision lingers between us for a long, silent moment.