Page 33 of Past Due

He skimmed his fingers up her bare legs and grasped her hips. He could feel her shuddery breaths under his hands as he peppered soft kisses along the exposed skin of her upper thigh and the curve of her waist. When he gripped the band of her shorts and started to tug them down, she gave his hair another tug, stopping him. He growled at the painful pull but didn’t ask her to stop. He ignored the reason why and pretended he wasn’t finding it enjoyable to be at her mercy.

“B, what are you doing?” The shortening of his name felt perfectly familiar. It was the sort of sweet thing only she would dare. He supposed that was because he would only allow her such an intimate liberty.

“What I’ve been dreaming about doing since the day I met you,” he murmured before dragging his mouth along the slope of her belly. He inched the shorts down her hips, baring more of her silky skin and delighting in the flush that crept into the paleness he uncovered. He kissed every little freckle he discovered, and she gasped his name. “Tell me to stop,” he commanded. “Or let me taste you.”

“Stop,” she ordered, jerking hard enough that he winced. Before he could ask her why, she trailed her fingers down his cheek and traced his mouth. “I think you should kiss me here,” she touched her own mouth, “before you kiss me there.”

He couldn’t argue that and stood swiftly to give her what she wanted. Marley smiled up at him, her shyness returning as he leaned down to capture her mouth. God, it was worth the wait. Her supple lips fit against his perfectly, and he had a vaguely romantic thought that maybe she had been made just for him.

Marley gripped his shirt and whimpered when he flicked his tongue against the seam of her lips. She let him inside, moaning when their tongues tangled, and he slipped his fingers through the waves of her hair. He finally had her right where he wanted, and he wasn’t giving her a chance to run.

“B,” she whispered in between feverish kisses. “I’ve wanted this for so long.”

He felt suddenly foolish for all the time they had wasted. All that dancing around their attraction and for what? For them to both end up miserable and lonely while they pined for each other?

“I’m sorry.” He kissed her tenderly. “I’m so sorry I was so stubborn about going after you.”

“Make it up to me,” she commanded.

He growled with pent-up desire and lifted her off the floor. She wound her slim legs around his waist and attacked the buttons on his shirt. Their passionate kisses grew messy as he walked them back toward the bed. When he placed her on it, she moved to her knees and finished unbuttoning his shirt. She jerked it out of his pants while he toed off his shoes. The shirt fell to the floor, and his belt quickly joined it.

Marley leaned back, her eyes suddenly wide as she took in the scars on his chest. “Oh, Besian,” she whispered tearily. “All of this for me?”

“I would take that bullet a thousand times.” He hissed when her elegant fingers gently outlined the scar bisecting his chest. The vertical scar from having his chest cracked hadn’t healed well, probably because he hadn’t followed any of the doctor’s orders. He had been too busy maintaining his growing empire to sit at home and recover.

The other scar, the one from the bullet that tore through his chest and blew out the back side was even worse. It had puckered and taken on a pink shine with rough keloids on the right side. Like the neater scar from his surgery, this one had been aggravated by his inability to sit still.

He started to tell her that he could have them fixed by a plastic surgeon if they bothered her, but the words caught in his throat when she leaned forward and licked the entire length of the vertical scar. His abdomen tightened, and he gasped at the unexpectedly erotic gesture. She kissed her way across his chest to the gnarly bullet wound and kissed all around it.

“Fuck,” he swore, his fingers tightening in her hair. “Marley!”

She grabbed his shoulders and pulled him down on top of her. He went willingly, sliding his arm under her back and hauling her to the middle of the bed. When he covered her smaller body with his, she grinned up at him, her whole face lighting up with excitement and want. He wanted to imprint that image in his mind, to never forget this moment.

She sighed happily when he kissed down her neck and made quick work of pulling off her shirt. The shorts came off even faster, and he threw them over his shoulder, not caring where they landed. She giggled when he planted ticklish kisses around her navel. “Besian!”

“Marley.” Kneeling between her thighs, he marveled at her naked curves. “Fuck, you’re so beautiful.”

She blushed, the pale skin that hadn’t gotten much sun turning bright pink. “I’m okay,” she said anxiously. “I know I’m not like your dancing girls.” She covered her perfect breasts with her hands as if self-conscious. “I know you have a type.”

“Yeah.” He kissed the protest right out of her. “I have a type.” He kissed her again. “You.” He pressed his lips to one nipple and then the other, smiling devilishly at the way the dusky brown flesh pebbled. “Everything about you is my ideal woman.”

“B,” she said nervously.

“You don’t believe me?” He nodded. “Okay. Challenge accepted.”

She gulped. “Challenge?”

“By the time I’m done with you tonight, you’ll never doubt me again.”

Her eyes widened, and the blush crept from her chest into her neck and face. Not giving her a chance to protest again, he mapped out her body with hands while following every caress with a kiss. She shivered under him, and he smiled against her skin, loving the way she responded.

He captured her mouth as his hand slipped between her thighs. He lightly scratched his fingernails along her inner thigh, making her gasp and giggle against his mouth. When he reached the spot he wanted to explore the most, she whimpered and pressed her thighs together, trapping his hand.

“Easy,” he murmured against her pouty mouth. “Open your legs for me.”

She parted them slowly, and he rewarded her with a gentle stroke up and down her pussy. She had a sparse thatch of hair, a novelty for a man who tended to only bed women who danced and were waxed bare. He didn’t care one way or the other. He was going to shove his face between her legs regardless.

But first...

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