Maksim shook his head. “I don’t talk about this with anybody. It’s way fucking better if you don’t know.”
While his desire to protect me was so very sexy, this was about much more than that. “You’re my husband,” I said. “And I need you to trust me.”
For a long moment, we faced off in the moonlight. I didn’t back down; I wanted to know, I needed to know. But I made sure to meet his eyes with kindness and patience, to let him know that whatever secret he was holding, it was safe with me. Finally, he said under his breath, “I look after them. Find them homes. Make sure they grow up being loved and cared for.”
Surprised though I was, it instantly made sense. After all, he’d been looking after me all this time without my knowing it. “All of them?”
Now he slid two fingers over my clit, rolling it back and forth between them. My back arched up behind me and I pressed my cheek into the pillow.
He sighed. “Not all of them. I help those I can. Most of them are girls. I’ve got a guy who helps me. We help them get whatever they want as they grow up. Educations, marriages. Whatever.” As he spoke, he continued to draw my pleasure from me, making me writhe beneath him.
My toes curled so hard that it made my arches cramp, which only intensified the pleasure. Even though I still had so many questions, I couldn’t find the words. All I knew was what I was feeling. And what I was feeling was bliss. I couldn’t resist giving in to him—my body wouldn’t let me—and I felt myself tipping over the edge into orgasm. “Don’t stop,” I whispered. “I’m…”
“Come for me, right now,” he said, soft and sweet with a hint of fury. And I did, at his command.
As I came back to myself, as my dizzy pleasure cleared, I gazed up at him again. All this time, me and everybody else thought he was a monster, as bad as his father or worse. And yet, deep down, part of me had never believed it. My heart had never truly believed it, even before I had him in my arms. “But why doesn’t anybody know?”
“Because my father is a piece of shit who thinks kindness is weakness. So, I’ve had to learn to protect people from afar. Without their knowing. How do you think this happened?” He raised his hand, with the missing finger.
“I’ve never had the courage to ask.”
“You can ask me anything. Fucking anything.”
“So then tell me.”
He glanced at his hand, inhaling deeply. Thinking, remembering. “I was young. Ten, almost eleven. There was this kid, a total bully. And he kept bothering this poor crippled little boy. He went after him with a knife. But I got in between them.” He wiggled his fingers a little, smiling, reveling in the memory.
“Did you win?”
Now he narrowed his eyes. “You think I’ve ever lost a fight, Princess?”
I hesitated, letting the implications of that sink in. “What happened to the bully?”
Maksim nibbled his lip, studying me.
“Let’s just say they don’t call him One Eyed Owen for no reason.”
I gasped, stifling a laugh but unable to stop myself from smiling. This side of him, this secret hero side, was quickly becoming my favorite side of all.
“Yeah. Didn’t kill him, though. Even though I could have. But anyway, I’ve spent my whole damned life looking after people in secret.”
“Like with me.”
“Exactly,” he said, glancing away, now even smiling a little. “But I feel a little different about you than I do about poor orphan kids and crippled children.”
“Do you?” I teased.
He nodded.
“So, show me. With your mouth,” I whispered. “Please.”
He unstraddled me and drew my legs to the edge of the bed, where he parted my thighs and placed his mouth on me. Moaning into my pussy, he sounded like a hungry man, starving for so long, who finally found what he needed to bring him back to life.
Though I desperately wanted to touch him, to caress his cheeks, to hold him close, I knew better. He’d told me to leave my hands, and I left them. And there, on my back, staring up at the lacy canopy of my bed, he took me to another room-spinning orgasm.
Once I was panting and spent, he drew me up to standing, guiding me in front of him with firm hands on my hips. He sat down on the edge of the bed and then placed a gentle but guiding hand on my shoulder.
Taking his cock in my hands, I knelt before him, gazing up at him. He placed his hand on the back of my head, pushing me down to take him in my mouth. I felt vulnerable, out of my depth, but I let his moans and breathing guide me as I explored his cock. I kept him in the front of my mouth for a while, but then felt that pressure on the back of my head again and took him deeper and deeper.