Chapter 16

The medic was right; they were expecting us at the hospital. Nixon was whizzed through and discharged in an hour. No broken bones, no fractures, just a lot of muscle damage. His skin was already blossoming a dark purple.

At hisAirbnb, I ran him a bubble bath. The warm water would soothe his body. Dad always used to run us baths when we were feeling poorly as kids. Mum would shove medicine down our throats.

Nix argued against it, but I wasn’t taking no for an answer. This man would have to deal with me being his carer for just one afternoon.

Worrying over him, I didn’t really take in how imposing the place was. The bathroom was bigger than my living room in London. Out of the bathroom window, there was a pool and a white beach. It was overshadowed by the fluke weather and a filter of dark, grey rolling clouds, but it was a beautiful setting in itself. Cold and depressing in that beauty.

“It’s ready!” I called, tearing my eyes away from the view to turn off the taps.

He came in, wearing just his boxers, a towel slung over his good shoulder. He chucked a jumper at me. “Put that on. ”

“What?” I asked, not paying attention to his words. Instead, I was focused on how he was using his bad arm as if it wasn’t the same colour as a blackberry.

“You got wet, too,” he said. “Take off that top; I’m surprised you haven’t got a cold.”

I pulled off theCiclatimerch. Abbe’s coat had saved me from the majority of the rain, but my hair was still damp at the front and the neckline of my top was dark with water. Nix’s jumper smelt like him,amberyandwoodsy.

When it was over my head, he was smiling out of the window. “It is a matching set, then,” he mused.

I chucked the top at him and he caught it, his grin growing. When he smiled like that, I could almost overlook and not worry about the bruises on his shoulder.

“What do you think?” he asked and jerked his chin at the window I’d been staring through.

“It’s pretty magical,” I said. “I’ve never seen a purple sky like this, but I’d love to see it when the weather is better.”

“Well, that’s what I mean,” he said. “It’s for sale.”

“And you’d buy it?”

“Do you think I should?” he asked, using both hands to pull down his boxers.

Over the days we had spent together, I’d seen him naked so many times, but I still turned away on the little wooden stool.

“And here I am struggling to pay my London rent,” I laughed.

When I spoke, he had one foot in the bath but pulled it back out, landing on the bath mat. He lifted my chin to look up at him. “What do you mean?”

“I didn’t… I haven’t given up my lease yet,” I explained. “So, I’m still paying for that. ”

“You need money?”

“No!” I said. “No, I do not need money. I’m fine. You should definitely buy this house.”

His gaze remained serious on me as he lowered himself into the bath. I picked at my nails.

“Financially, I’m fine. I promise. When I have a permanent contract, I’ll tell my landlord I’m leaving. My brother said I can stay with him when I go back to England. Everything will be sorted soon enough.”

I’d only spent a couple of weeks at mine since my dad had died.

Ben was pretty used to me hanging around.

Nix nodded but still looked at me with caution. “You don’t have a permanent contract?”

“Not yet.”

He was quiet and then went to speak. I cut him off. “ This ,” I gestured between us, “would eradicate my temporary contract immediately.”

“If you do need money—”

“I don’t,” I urged and stood up. “I’ll go and make us a cup of tea. Do you have anything for your dinner?”

“I’ll pick us up a takeaway,” he said, relaxing further into the bath.

“The two of us?” That didn’t sound like hate fucking.

He closed his eyes, enjoying the warm water. “Yes. You’re not going out in the storm.”

As he said it, lightning cracked the sky in two.

“I’ll stay until it dies down,” I compromised. He looked peaceful despite the pain in his arm. “I’ll only be a minute. Don’t drown.”

He smiled softly as I left .

After searching through the largest kitchen I had ever seen, I made tea, listening to a murder mystery podcast. Swept up in it, it only felt like minutes before he joined me in his boxers and slippers.

We’d fucked for days, but I’d never seen him so at home.

“Put some clothes on!” I cried, covering my eyes with one of my hands.

He came to my side with a smirk and took my cup of tea from my grip, putting it down on the kitchen side.

“No, no,” I said, shaking my head and stepping back. “I’m not happy with you. You lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie,” he said with a sigh. “We just didn’t tell you.Criswas fine with it.”

“Crisdoesn’t have a degree in public relations,” I snapped and picked up my cup of tea, holding it to my lips and trying to use it to shield his body from my view. “Neither do you.Crishasn’t questioned focus groups of men, women and children on you.Crisdoesn’t read every comment on every one of your posts, every article about you.Crisdoesn’t make pie charts on what gets you more positive reactions. I’m literally employed to help you with your image. On a temporary contract, so if you could help me instead of hinder me and potentially make me lose my job, that would be great.”

His brows were down, eyes darkening under their shadow. “I won’t let you lose your job.”

I shook my head, dismissing him. “For once, it’s not about you.Luca’smanager would be rightly furious if he thought that, one, we were together or, two, I was doing a poor job. It’s not your decision to fire me.”

“I’d stop racing,” he said, stepping closer to me.

My brows shot right down. Racing was this man’s life. He’d said in countless interviews that he was nothing without racing.

Just thinking with his dick.

I scoffed. “Now you’re being ridiculous.”

“Have I ever done anything to make you not believe me?”

My voice raised. “This is insane. You play this nice guy, but then you fuck around! Replying to rude tweets with insults, purposely getting photographed with women when you’re meant to be committed to Clara, posting about porn!”

“I corrected their grammar and reminded them my first language was French! Stop trying to make me boring,” he cried, head thrown back, accent strong, more nasally than usual. “I’m fucking sick of it.”

“I’m not trying to make you boring!” I shouted, tea on the side. “We just need to reign in some things.”

He held the counter tightly behind him with both hands. “I overthink every interaction with every fan I have. Every picture I like. Just because you despise me, it doesn’t mean everyone else does.”

“I don’t despise you!”

He breathed in deeply. “You do.”

“You really believe that?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

His eyes remained narrowed on mine. The anger was thrumming in my hands, pulsating in my throat, my chest rising quickly with the urge to prove him wrong.

“I don’t despise you,” I said, standing straight and closer to him, chest to chest. “I really, really don’t despise you. The tweet was funny. TheJustGroupiesthing is… we have to take your image one step at a time. We can work around it. You can back out of it.” When he only looked at me with confused, narrowed eyes, I said, “I want to show the world the best version of you, the one you try to hide, that’s all. But I definitely don’t despise you. I actually quite like you even when you purposely piss me off.”

“Yeah?” he asked again, but this time with a lopsided smile that weakened my knees.

“Yeah,” I groaned and rolled my eyes. “Don’t brag about it though. I like you for your modesty.”

His grin grew even bigger. “With some things, you’re right…” he started, cupping my elbows and keeping me close. “About me. About who I should be, about what I show people of myself.”

I nodded. “I’m right with all things, but yes, continue.”

“How about…” he said as he gripped my waist under his jumper, “you control my life off the track, and, for the most part, I’ll be good. I’ll listen to everything you say, all of your reasons.” He looked up, blue eyes piercing mine. “And in the bedroom, you can take a break from all of those decisions and I take control. You’ll do as you’re told.” His voice lowered. “I’ll be your ma?tre. ”

“As in you’ll be mydom?”

He nodded, breath in my ear. “ Ma?tre means master.”

I pressed my thighs closer together, not conscious of my tongue swiping my bottom lip until I noticed his eyes latching onto it, his own mouth slightly parted.

Yes.

Yes, sir. Yes, daddy. Whatever he wanted to be called. Yes, Nixon. Yes,Armas. Yes,Three-Time-StormSprint-Champion. Yes, ma?tre .

“And will my ma?tre fuck me hard? Rough?” I whispered and ran my hand down his chiselled chest, slowly descending to his boxers.

“Mmm,” he moaned deep in his throat. “However you want. Whether it’s slow missionary or face suffocated in the pillow doggy-style or tied down, begging—”

“Please,” I begged, looking up into those blue, blue eyes as my finger dived into his waistband. “Please.”

“Take off your clothes,” he ordered, stepping back. His voice turned serious, dark and deep. I wanted it to groan my name.

My fingers trembled with desire as I unbuttoned my shorts. His eyes were fixed on my movement. I peeled them off, threw off his jumper, unclasped my bra and stood there in his low-lit kitchen, nearly naked.

He sat back in the armchair of the open-plan dining room and kitchen, eyes eating me up like a starved man. Wherever his gaze touched, my skin heated.

Naked in front of any man before, I felt self-conscious. But the way he looked at me… it was only with desire. Lust. Need.

“We’ll still argue,” he explained, stroking his hard cock over his boxers. “But we won’t let it impact this. This is far more important.”

I nodded, stepping forward slowly. “I won’t go easy on you.”

“I don’t want you to,” he said, looking up as I straddled him on the chair. “We’ll challenge each other in our respective fields. You, professionally. Me, sexually.”

My breath left my chest with the weakness his words exerted on me. That, and his hard length beneath me, had me rocking on his lap .

“I just want to fuck you,” he said and brushed a strand of honey hair behind my ear. “All the time. Every time I see you. It’s exhausting.”

“Aw,” I said, running a gentle touch down his jaw and positioning myself over his cock. “You too tired to put those words into action now?”

“No,” he said and kissed my neck. His harsh breaths under my ear made my whole body tingle as I rocked on him.

One of his hands on my hips guided me, speeding me up as he kissed me while he shoved my panties to the side. Blinded by the kiss, we both reached down to pull at his boxers with needy,grabbyhands.

Free from the material restraint, I slid my pussy up and down him, coating him in my arousal, angling myself for my clit to run along him.

“Ride me,” he ordered against my mouth. “If you want me to fuck you hard, you’ll have to earn it.”

He could be my ma?tre all he liked. I could be a good sub. Or—

“How badly do you want this, hmm?” I asked, circling my hips, the head of his cock edging my entrance and coming with me for the ride.

“So fucking bad,” he breathed. “Livid, don’t be a tease.”

“Will you punish me for it later, ma?tre? ”

He nipped at my bottom lip and used it to pull me closer to him, my chest against his.

“Let me fucking have you,” he pleaded. “My cock is throbbing, Olivia.” He stroked up my sides. “I’ve missed you so badly.”

“You can have my pussy,” I said before pressing a small kiss to his mouth, “if you cancel that brand deal. ”

His head fell back against the chair and I kissed down his neck, sinking down onto his cock. Less than an inch.

He groaned as if in actual pain.

“You can do whatever you want,” I moaned as he reached between us for my clit. “If you cancel that brand deal.”

He swallowed.

“But not until you agree.”

“Deal.” Hands on my hips, he pulled me down on his cock, stretching me wide. My gasp was muffled by his ravenous mouth as he kissed me.

Eyes closed as I ground against him, I was careful to hold onto the arms of the chair instead of him. His hands roamed my torso, pulled at my nipples, circled my clit.

“I want to fucking own you, Livid,” he grunted. “I want your pussy to clench at the thought of me, I want to own your fucking thoughts, be all you think of.”

“Mmm,” I moaned, too lost in the perfect rhythm between us to have the energy for words, to have the attention span.

Everything was just his touch, his warmth, his hard cock.

“I want to consume you as you have me.”

I’d never been desperate for anyone with as little foreplay as with Nix. But my body had been ready, wet for him as soon as I’d seen him naked in the bathroom.

“Nix,” I cried as he ran his tongue up my throat.

“Don’t be gentle with me, monenvie, ” he begged, grabbing my hands to intertwine them around his neck. “Use me as you wish.”

And I did. There was suddenly no rhythm as I picked up speed. Nothing but the pleasure and heat sparking deep within me as I rode him, crying, gasping.

“You don’t need to be quiet here,” he whispered in my ear as I bounced on his lap. “You can shout, scream, cry all you want.”

There was excitement before with having to be quiet to evade being caught, but being able to fully unleash ourselves in this little mansion…

“God,” I ground out. “Fucking hell, Nix.”

“Yes, Livid. Fuck, I missed you. I missed you so bad.”

My head dropped to his good shoulder as he lifted me up and down him, hands back on my hips.

“You want hard?” he asked, voice rough. “Then we need a safe word. You ever used one before?”

I nodded into him.

“Normally, people just pick red, amber, green.”

I nodded again, caught up in him slipping in and out of me.

“Red,” I panted. “Red flag.”

“Fuck,” he grunted. “Fuck, tu es parfaite.” You are perfect.

Then he slapped my ass, lifted me up and, still inside of me, he walked us through the house to his temporary bedroom. The moment we were in the room, the storm was louder, the rain hammering on the skylight directly above the bed. I held on tightly, even when he dropped me onto the duvet. He chuckled and pulled me off.

“Remember I said I have some toys?” he asked, brow cocked as he turned on the electric fire with a press of a button. “Well, Livid, do you want to play?”

“Yes,” I begged.

He bent, leaning over me and I couldn’t help but blink at the proximity. “I don’t have a brat on my hands, now, do I?”

“No, ma?tre, ” I said, shaking my head. “I want to play with the toys. With you.”

His grin nearly had me collapsing back on the bed.

Instead, I watched him pull out a bag and start ripping apart the packaging. It wasn’t particularly hard work but just watching him use his muscles, I was even wetter.

“These cuffs attach to the bed,” he said and lifted them in question.

My nod was eager, my back arched in anticipation. So a minute later, I was spread across the bed and completely at Nix’s mercy.

There was a dark lust in his hooded gaze. “Remember, red flag, okay? And, when I’m ramming my cock down your throat, use this motion for me to stop.” His index finger and thumb met, creating a circle. “Do it for me now.”

I followed his instruction.

“Do you trust me?”

With his own publicity? Not at all. With following my instructions when it came to his image? Hardly.

With my body? Yes. Completely. Utterly.

And that didn’t come naturally to me.

“I do,” I said sincerely.

He sat at my side and ran his fingers lightly down my stomach, then back up again, before twisting my nipples and making me yelp. He bent to kiss them, lick them while his touch travelled down to my clit, using my arousal to play with me in short, hard strokes.

I moaned, his touch cold in comparison to just how hot I was.

“I’ve dreamed of this, Livid,” he murmured against my breast. “Literally dreamed of having you all tied up.”

Softly, slowly, he built a rhythm against my clit with small, tight circles that built me up to a whimpering mess.

He pulled my earlobe taught with his teeth. “Tell me what you want, Livid. I know that’s hard for you. But tell me what you want.”

“Your mouth. I want your mouth.”

He pressed a kiss to my mouth. “Like this?” he breathed against my lips.

I shook my head, my nose knocking into his.

“On me.”

His tongue swiped the crease of my neck before planting a sucking kiss there. I squealed, my heels digging into the duvet.

“Like this?”

I shook my head desperately this time, one cheek hitting the pillow, then the other.

“Use your words.”

My moan was tight with frustration. “I want your tongue on my clit and I want your fingers inside me.”

He chuckled into my neck. “What my girl wants, she gets.”

He descended on me. His fingers were rough and fast, a complete parallel to his soft, slow tongue.

It sounded so wet.

In the five weeks since we’d been sleeping together, the man had perfected the pressure I needed to come, but the pace of his finger fucking was brand new and had me sweating as he hit that sweet spot over and over. Watching his head between my thighs, I tried to stop bucking into him, but my body was hardly in control, grinding with his strokes, with the need to ride the waves.

But he stopped with a wicked grin. “You close, Livid?”

I nodded breathlessly. “Yes. Nix, please—”

“Mmm,” he moaned before dipping between my thighs to suck on my clit once more. I cried out, but, again, he stopped. “ See, you can pretend that you’re in control. You know I can’t resist you… but you can’t resist me either, can you?”

I couldn’t speak as he started to fuck me with his fingers again, his thumb brushing where he’d just sucked.

“Can you, Olivia?”

My eyes narrowed, not wanting to cave.

When his fingers hooked inside of me to touch that spot that made me melt, my mouth dropped open with a gasp.

“Can you? I’m not giving you what you want until you admit it.”

Did I really have to say it? Was it not obvious in everything I did?

I tried to rub my thighs together and squeeze his hand into moving again.

“I can’t,” I admitted. “I can’t… resist you.”

The grin on his face was larger than I’d ever seen. Despite winning races and getting cameos in films… this was the biggest smile I’d ever seen. He gave a chuffed little laugh before thrusting his fingers in me again and lapping me up.

The look on his face would forever be embedded in my brain. As I closed my eyes in pleasure, it was all I pictured, riding his face from below, reaching my peak.

That hit me with a scream.

The burst from my lungs shocked me as I heard it around the room. I’d never screamed from sex before in my life.

Nix smirked, standing between my legs. From the bag on the floor, he pulled out a huge pink dildo.

“I just want you,” I panted.

“Soon, monenvie ,” he said, trying to hide his grin as he lifted the dildo to my mouth. I opened for him to force it down my throat, making me cough. His eyes flickered to my hands, but I didn’t give the safe sign. I wanted him to see how far I would take his own cock. “I just need you to come one more time.”

And he thrust the toy into my pussy, pinching my clit at the same time. His rhythm was the same as before, but the dildo filled me so much further. I was crying, trying to get up, pulling the cuffs tighter, my words just noises, trying to tell him to not stop.

He wouldn’t anyway.

His focus was on his handiwork as he fucked me violently.

Normally, I hated dildos inside of me, the plastic feel… but this was — fuck.

“Don’t stop,” I cried. “Please, oh my god. Don’t stop .”

And, despite needing this to never end, my body was fighting it, arms pulling, legs kicking, chest rising as the power built in me, leaving me trembling, choking on the sounds as I came again.

He kept going, a complete machine and I blinked the tears away as I pulled on the restraints and I croaked, “Red flag!”

Immediately, he withdrew and went to unclasp the cuffs but I protested. “No, no. Just… need a second. Just anything that isn’t that dildo.” I pointed down to it, realising my hand was free. I’d pulled myself free somehow.

“Are you sure?” he asked, concern clear in his wide eyes. His fingers threaded through mine.

I nodded. “I want you.”

He kissed the back of the hand he held.

The two cuffs around my ankles were undone and he pulled them to rest on his shoulders before drilling into me. He was bent over me, my knees pressed into my chest as he reached around them to brace my neck. “Hand necklace,” he grunted .

My breaths were so fast and shallow, my laugh hardly surfaced as he held me tight.

The ringing of his phone couldn’t even bring me out of my euphoria. The shrill tone, the vibration of the bed just above my ear under his pillow. For two thrusts, he ignored it and I had no means to get it when my body was jelly, one arm held down, the other tied.

But then he leaned even further over me and demanded, “Don’t make a noise.”

I loved it when he spoke during sex. There was a tense grit in his words that always took me closer to the edge.

Caught up in the demanding tone of his words, I didn’t quite realise what he had said until his phone stopped ringing as his pace slowed and his thrusts deepened.

“ Salut, ” he said, voice gruff, fingers tighter around my neck.

There was a beep and then I could hearCriscoming out of Nix’s speaker. “ How’s the arm? ” he asked in French.

“Fine. I’ll be riding next week.”

Crissighed in relief. “ Where are you? You’re not in your room.”

“ Just got a meeting withLivie.”

I raised a brow, still pretending I didn’t speak the language at all.

“ Where? Need to speak to you. ”

“ We went out for lunch .”

“ In this weather? ” he screeched. “ Are you two insane ?”

“ At the hospital, ” he corrected. His breaths were laboured, though he was fucking me far slower than before. “ She’s waiting with me, so the least I could do was get dinner. ”

“ She’s too good to you, ” he said with a sigh. “ She certainly has some power over you. ”

“ Mm, doesn’t she .” He pressed mute quickly to groan, “Livid.”

“ Despite how much you two play hate, I think she likes you .”

Nix snorted.

“ Don’t hurt her .”

His eyes bore into mine. For two languid thrusts, he didn’t say anything, then pressed the button tounmutehimself, eyes still locked. “ I won’t. ”

My heart stuttered but he only smiled, hung up and bent to kiss me.