Page 46 of Tripped By Love
“Everything okay?” Marco asked him, and he whipped his eyes up.
“Yeah. It’s all fine.”
But he didn’t seem like it was. He seemed pouty and angsty, just like a teenager in love should feel. I hadn’t ever had that. I’d skipped right around that phase of my life. I mean, I’d had a schoolgirl crush on the dynamic quarterback, like everyone else at our high school, but it hadn’t been full of pining and the I’m-going-to-jump-off-a-bridge-if-he-doesn’t-look-at-me kind of drama.
“Mama? Hippo?” Chevelle came out of the laundry room, rubbing his tired little eyes. I picked him up, sticking out my hip to give him a perch.
“Soon, Snickerdoodle. Let’s play a game while we wait for Hippo and dinner.” I turned back to Marco. “Want to put those in the oven for me and set the timer for thirty minutes?”
He nodded and turned back to the pans and the oven while I went into the living room with Jonas trailing me. I set up the Jenga-like game that used shapes and colors to identify which blocks to pull. To my surprise, both men joined us, sitting on the floor by the coffee table while we waited for the food.
The talk was light. Jonas asked about the restaurant, Brady, and his studio. I asked about Jonas’s guitar skills and who his favorite bands were. Marco silently built and rebuilt the tower every time it fell with a quiet patience as he listened to us all jabber back and forth.
Dinner was full of the same conversations.
When Chevelle began to droop again in his high chair, I said I had to give him a bath, and Jonas thanked me for dinner before taking off to the apartment, but Marco stayed behind. I grabbed Hippo out of the dryer, and Chevelle’s face lit up like he’d seen Santa Claus. He brought the dog to his face, rubbed his nose in the animal’s belly, and then sighed the most adorable little sigh.
“I’ll clean the kitchen while you give him a bath,” he said, waving a hand at the mess we’d made. Usually, I cleaned as I went, but I’d been distracted this evening.
“You don’t have to do that. I’ll do it after. I’m probably not going to work out tonight. I’m too drained.” It had been a very long day. Full of highs and lows and swells of attractions. Full of joy and fury and desire I couldn’t seem to tame.
“I got it. Go take care of Chevelle.”
I stared for a long moment before taking Chevelle off to the bathroom, a strange ache circling through me as I wondered what it would be like to have this every night. To not have the full burden of a household fall on me. If I was still living with my parents, I could have that. Mom or Dad or both would fill in the voids, give an extra hand, but it didn’t feel the same at all. Much like what Marco and I had been talking about earlier, the difference between a parent and partner was more than the mixed-up letters.
I bathed my boy, rocked him while reading a book, and then stuck him in his crib with kisses and snuggles. “I love you, Snickerdoodle.”
He stuck Hippo up at me. I kissed the dog, snuggled him just like I had Chevelle, and then gave him back to my son. Chevelle’s eyes were closed before I’d even switched off the light. I grabbed the baby monitor and headed out to the kitchen.
It was sparkling. Everything was put away, and the dishwasher was humming.
Marco was sitting in a kitchen chair, arms crossed, but his eyes were closed, and his chin was almost touching his chest. I wanted to laugh. It was like he’d fallen asleep just like Chevelle?while resisting doing so. He looked peaceful asleep. He always wore a sense of calm around him like a cloak, but there was something softer and sweeter about him this way. My chest expanded, filling with emotions I knew were ridiculous to have for a man I’d never kissed, who would probably never kiss me because, regardless of his words from earlier, I was a duty. An obligation. His boss’s sister.
I touched his shoulder gently, and he jerked awake, arms going wild and almost smacking me in the face. I laughed as I ducked, lost my balance, and was surprised when he caught me with an arm around the waist, which had the opposite effect. Instead of steadying me, I teetered more in the opposite direction and ended up in his lap.
Both of our eyes went wide. Our mouths were mere centimeters apart. My butt was tucked up against parts of him that I swore went hard the instant I landed on him. Neither of us moved. We just gazed into each other’s eyes as if cataloging the way our bodies felt folded this close together, touching in tantalizing and forbidden ways, determining who would be the first to call mercy and give. Stand up. Move away.
I didn’t want to. I didn’t want anything but to finish what we’d started earlier before Jonas had interrupted us. I needed to see what it felt like to be kissed by him. Claimed by him while I claimed him back.
His hand lifted, and his rough finger ran along my jaw, ending on my chin where he rubbed softly. “You have baby powder.”
Flames licked through me, traveling from every place he was touching me?hips, thighs, chest, and arms?into my inner recesses. Melting them from solid to liquid like watching chocolate on a double boiler.
I moved slightly, drawing our lips even closer. His lids closed, thick dark lashes laying against tan skin. My eyes fell to his mouth. Solid dashes of red that always looked both firm and soft to me. I dropped my chin forward the remaining distance, giving in to the temptation but also holding back just a little so that the touch of my lips on his was a barely perceptible one. Almost a dare, screaming,Push me away. Make me stop.
He groaned. I felt it from his core, all the way up to his chest as it expanded and contracted with the sound. And then, he was devouring me. He pulled me with his hands so there was no remaining space between us, and his mouth thundered against mine. Pushing, sliding, gasping. And finally licking. Begging access that I gave with a little moan of my own that seemed to drown us both. The movements of our tongues were softer than the force of our lips had been at first. Seeking, learning, lavishing each other with tenderness, solace, hope. Then raging again. Demanding, seeking answers that only our bodies seemed to know how to give.
My body flooded with endorphins. Heat. Desire. So much that it ached. So much that I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel cool again. I’d forever live in the blaze that Marco was scouring me with, marking me for all eternity.
My hands ran over the short stubble that was his hair, the bristles soft and sharp all at the same time, the texture of them adding to the fuel growing inside me. His hands were locked at my waist, curving into the soft hollow above my hip bones as if he was afraid to move them. Afraid to touch more than just that one spot.
My body arched into him as our tongues continued to weave together. Oxygen was such an unnecessary thing while we consumed each other. He groaned again and then removed his lips from mine. He flung his head back, face tilted toward the ceiling. Eyes closed.
I knew I should have backed off. I knew I should have stopped, but goddamn it, I didn’t want to. So, I teased his neck with a lick and a nip, and his hands convulsed, gripping me tighter for all of twenty seconds.
And then there was only air between us.
He’d picked me up and sat me down on the chair while he stood at the opposite end of the kitchen table. Gasping. Panting as I’d never seen him do, even in the midst of our hardest workout.
My body was alive, but the cool air of the kitchen was brushing against my heat, and soon, I was shivering. From the desire and the absence of his body. From the memory of his taste and feel. From the knowledge that he was going to say he regretted it.
