Page 63 of Just Say (Hell) No
That’s how the cards fall.
Marko was gripping his duffel in one of those big hands, his enormous frame filling up too much space, his dark-red presence taking up too much air. At least, she couldn’t breathe.
In a different reality, the woman she’d never be was saying,I need to talk to you.Clearing the air, talking about options, about honesty, about Ella. The woman she was, though, had thrown away her parachute. She was leaping over a cliff into the dark, falling free through that star-spattered night sky, down and down through all the colors of the Aurora Australis. Pink and red, green and purple, glowing rich, pulsing warm, lighting up the cold dark.
Marko dropped his bag with his jacket, and then his backpack. First one hand opening, then the other, and thewhoompas everything hit the floor in the silence between songs. And then a new piece starting up over the speaker. Wild and free and passionate. Flamenco.
It wasn’t some other reality. It was this one.
She didn’t know who took the first step. All she knew was, he was closer, and then he was there, and her hand was at the back of his neck, pulling his head down. His arm was around her, and she wasn’t on solid ground anymore. He’d lifted her straight off her feet, and his mouth was covering hers.
He wasn’t rough. He didn’t bruise. But he held her like he couldn’t let her go, and he kissed her like he needed to do it. His lips moved over hers, her mouth opened, the kiss got deeper, and the pleasure curled like smoke low in her belly. Or maybe that was the iron-hard arms around her or the big hand beneath her, lifting her up to him. It could be the fingers of his other hand tangled in her hair, pulling her head back. It could be the whole package. It could be Marko.
When he finally let her mouth go, she wanted him back. But then he kissed his way across her cheek, his mouth as gentle as it was insistent, and buried his face in her neck. When he started kissing her there, not quite so gently, she may have changed her mind, because that was…good.
She heard a sound through the buzzing in her brain, and realized it was coming from her. That Marko’s lips and teeth were sending electric pulses straight to her core, and that she was whimpering. His red was enveloping her, sucking her down into the fire.
She needed more. She neededhim.Her hand was under his T-shirt, and his skin burned hot, the muscles bunching under her palm.
“Bloodyhell,”he said, and then he was dropping with her, his hand behind her head, cushioning it as he followed her down onto the mattress. He had a hand on her thigh, was shoving her nightdress up, and she needed him togetthere. Right now.
He didn’t receive her signal, apparently, because his hand stopped, and he dropped to one elbow and kissed her mouth again. And this time? Being kissed that deeply, with his big body over hers, took her breath away.
“Touch me,” she said when his lips were finally moving down her throat and she was tugging his shirt up his body, because she needed her hands on his skin. His hand still wasn’t any farther up her thigh, though, and she needed it to be. If she had to direct traffic, that’s what she’d do. “Come on.”
He stilled for a moment, and then he was on one elbow again. “In a hurry, eh,” he said, the fingers of one leisurely hand pushing the ribbon strap of her nightdress slowly off her shoulder before he bent to trace its path with his tongue and made her eyes open wide. “Could be I’m going to disappoint you,” he whispered into her ear, then put his tongue there, making her shiver some more. “Because I’m not planning to hurry. Patience is a thing. Seems you need some help with that.”
His hand was drifting down her arm, circling her wrist, and pulling it up and over her head as he kept kissing her neck, and she was burning up. “Ella,” she managed to say.
“Beach. Shh.”
She needed to talk to him first. But the music had slowed down, and so had Marko. He’d pulled both her hands over her head, and she wanted to touch him, but that felt so… The other strap of her nightdress had gone the way of the first, and he had a hand tracing around the edge of the bodice, dipping into her cleavage, and his mouth following it. And when he dragged the silk down beneath her breasts and finally put his talented mouth to work? She cried out with the pleasure of it.
“Mm,” he said, and then, instead of moving on like any other man would have done, he put in even more effort right where he was. Still gentle. Still slow. Unbearable. She didn’twantgentle and slow. She wanted hard and hot. She needed to tell him so. She…
His other hand was moving up her thigh again, and this time, he didn’t hesitate. His hand went straight to where she needed him, and she all but leaped off the bed.
“Ah.” He sighed. “That’s nice. That’s gorgeous, eh.” He was stroking, probing, playing, and still in no hurry at all.
She’d never been a patient person, and she wasn’t starting now. She got both hands under his T-shirt, pulled it up his torso, and got her hands all over him.
It was anatomy class. It was the best figure drawing session ever. Every muscle of his chest, his back, his arms was fully defined, revealing itself to her through her fingers. She felt him, she learned him, and she wanted more of him. But his hand. Hismouth.He was traveling a glacially slow path south, pulling her nightdress down as he went, licking and kissing his way over everything he uncovered, and she took the opportunity to pull his T-shirt higher. But she couldn’t get itoff.
“Give it to me,” she said.
“Sweetheart,” he said, a laugh in his voice. “I’m trying.”
She couldn’t laugh, not when he had her feeling like this. But she did anyway. “Yourshirt.Oh. That’s… Wait. Oh. Do that again.” Her hips had started to rock under his hand, and then he was pulling her nightdress all the way down her legs and kissing his slow way back up her thighs, which made her need to open them up for him even more. That was… sneaky. “But take off… your clothes,” she managed to say. “I need a… turn.”
If there was a better feeling than a man smiling against the sensitive skin of your inner thigh… Then his mouth shifted again, and oh, yeh. That was a better feeling.
Now or never. She pulled herself out from under him, and he rolled to his side andglaredat her. She wanted to laugh again, and she wanted to lie on her back and let him please her until she cried out loud. Until her hips were rocking, her head was banging against the mattress, and she’d lost her words and lost her mind. Instead, she pulled his T-shirt over his head, then shoved him onto his back and pulled off everything else.
If she’d ever wondered if she’d be disappointed, she wasn’t wondering anymore. And shewantedit. She knelt between his thighs, her hands on his chest, and started to kiss him, to feel all the hardness of him. This time, she was the one whose hand was wandering. And when it closed around him, he leaped into her like he’d been made just for her.
Oh,yeh.
He said, “If you’re going to put yourself on your knees for me…” Which sounded good, but did he lie back and give her a chance? He did not. He slid out from under her and shoved her shoulders gently down until she was on her hands and knees.
