Page 55 of A Wedding in a Week

Because that’s what real partners do for each other.

Marc won’t let me.

He pulls away again, although only far enough to place the cup on the table. He pushes it further from the edge for safety, then he pushes me too so I lean back, and thank fuck this table was built by someone who proves that hearts aren’t the only Luxton connection—building something solid for the future must be another thread running through us.

Marc traps me against a handcrafted example while my feet are planted on another, this entire farm a symbol of life going on no matter what, and I want that so much. I want to look forward here with Marc, not back. Want to build something with him that lasts. I also want to wind myself around him the same way his arms lock around my neck, but not in a way that strangles. His hold is supportive. He’s also got me right where he wants me, nowhere to hide while he checks in.

“Doing that with your mum was okay, right? I figured the worst they could do was say no again.”

I can’t form words. Even the thought of both him and Mum trying to help fells me, and if anyone ever told me I’d need my brother’s best friend to brace me, would I have believed them?

Now Marc grins, and we’re mouth-to-mouth again, his hands in my hair even though there’s no need to grip it tightly, not when I’m already tied to him, or I want to be, at least, so I don’t move. I won’t. Not until he pushes again.

I sink further back then, and he comes with me, his smile exultant, and I know where I’ve seen that expression before. He’d been as victorious the first time he timed an egg to perfection right here, its yolk gold and liquid, and now I understand why my parents gave him so many ways to feel like he had a role here.

I want that for him too, so much that if my arm aches, it stops registering. All I feel is that he’s determined, a man on another mission, this time telling me what he wants with a hand on my fly and a breathless question.

“We’ve got time, yeah?”

I must nod, because there’s that exultant smile again before he slides off me, and I’d be sad at the loss of his weight on me if my elbow didn’t heave a silent sigh of relief at him doing what he has all week long, only not by unfastening a seat belt. He unfastens what’s weighted my soul.

He also unzips my fly to blow me, meeting my eyes for a second time, only he can’t smile with his mouth this full, but fuck whatever I said about him looking exultant. That’s a winner-takes-all word with a hard edge. What he shows me is shared and soft-edged, nothing sharp about what leaps between us again like….

Not like my lambs with springs in their feet.

Not like Jess each time Mum visits with treats in her pocket.

Not like Lukas at getting any chance to tease me.

It doesn’t leap like the Land Rover did either, although Marc pulling off my cock and then pulling me upright is almost like being in a vehicle that flips from nose to tail all over again. I’m on my feet before I know it, unable to process that I’m upright, and that he’s talking to me.

His voice finally registers, rasping, “You can’t keep leaning like that on your elbow.” He must see I can’t compute yet, my brain still offline and lagging. “Come here.”

He steers me out of the kitchen, then pauses in the hallway where he eyes the stairs, and fuck knows what I must look like when his gaze comes back to me—close to falling, perhaps? Or maybe stunned fits better for me standing in my hallway in broad daylight with my cock out.

His gaze drops to it. Mine does too. I’m so hard, my dick full and heavy. It’s also still wet and shining.

I palm myself, and he watches.

Then I try to ring my length with my fingers but can’t make them curl.

He comes to a decision, and it’s good that he’s taking the lead because there’s precious little blood left in my brain. I can’t think, not beyond processing that we’re moving, and that the back of my legs hit the living room sofa where Marc shoves for a third time.

Its frame creaks when I land. Then it creaks again, Marc’s weight combining with mine on another piece of furniture built with a farming family in mind, and I wish to fuck I could hold him as tightly as I want to. I do manage to get a hand between us, and to roll us so he’s wedged between me and the back of the sofa, and that’s better. I yank his belt loose, and he’s open to me. I mean more than his fly, even as I slide a hand in at an awkward angle, ignoring a twinge that jolts the same way as brushing against electric fencing. I’m jolted a whole lot more by him helping.

He gets his cock out for me and also somehow takes the weight of my arm so that I get to hold us both without straining. It’s still awkward, but it’s also amazing, and if a clock still ticks down, it stops just long enough that each pulse of pleasure isn’t hurried. We might as well be the only people left on the planet.

For now, we are.

All I see is Marc and the way he grits his teeth like my hand on him is too much. “Too dry?” I start to let go.

He clamps a hand over mine.

“Don’t fucking stop.” That’s gritty. So is what follows. “Didn’t want to leave you in bed this morning.” His breath puffs out, humid and hurried. There’s barely any space between us, but his grip tightens as if I’ll slip away from him like sand does through his timer. “Wanted to come back upstairs when I’d finished in the yard. Roll back into bed with you and do this.” His kiss is quick. Too quick. It’s dry-lipped, and he sounds parched. “Wanted to make the most of it while—”

I stop him with a kiss, and he lets me.

His mouth opens quickly as I thrust my tongue in, and I don’t care if our teeth clash or there’s a sudden taste of liquid metal—I’m used to a life of roughness, and he gives back as good as he gets, yet he’s soft too when he pulls back for breath, or at least his gaze is.

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