Page 75 of Marlowe Banks, Redesigned
“And she was right.” Angus gave her hand a squeeze. “What if we use the intervening time to ease you into everything? No red-carpet events. No formal interviews. Just a night out once ina while and a bit of social media engagement with those accounts I’m no longer pretending don’t exist. We can make an introduction, and a direct request for privacy. So we have some control over the narrative, and so I don’t have to keep explaining to reporters why I’m showing up somewhere with Tan again.”
He held out his other hand. Marlowe took it as quickly as she’d taken the first.
“I know this thing between us is really new,” he continued. “And I come with a lot of unusual baggage. If I was someone else, we’d be out watching a film tonight, or choosing a dessert to share at a mediocre restaurant neither of us liked but we both pretended it was great because we were trying to make a good impression.”
“You eat dessert?” she teased.
“So not the point here.” His words were firm but he smiled anyway, leaning in to nuzzle her nose again. “I’ve told you how I feel. Now you tell me. Do you want this enough to try?” Despite his affectionate little touches, his smile faded. His eyes grew wary. His shoulders went rigid, as if he knew anowas possible, maybe even probable.
Marlowe drew their linked hands against her chest, forcing herself to meet his amber eyes while she flashed through memories of talk show hosts joking about her, Internet trolls mocking her, angry fans throwing trash at her. Other memories flashed by, too. Laughter and kindness and a profound sense of mutual care. She had no idea how she and Angus would build a relationship that would work for both of them, but if he was willing to try, the least she could do was meet him halfway.
“Yes,” she said. “I do.”
“Thank god.” The words rushed out of him in a gust of breath. In the next instant, his lips were on hers and his hands sweptupward to hold her face close to his. Equally flooded with relief, she returned his kisses while running her hands over his back and shoulders, finding every dent, every curve, every spot that shifted against her touch. The tension that’d been building for the last several minutes detonated as she and Angus drew each other close, breathless, hungry, already clawing at clothes.
He didn’t tease her with slowly opened buttons this time. He yanked down the zipper at the back of her dress and wrenched the garment over her head, laughing as it caught on her boobs, her chin, her nose, her elbows,andher wrists. By the time his shirt followed her dress, she was already unbuckling his belt and unzipping his fly. He shoved his jeans down and kicked them aside, laughing again as he peeled off his socks, nearly toppling in the process. Then he fell against her in another deep kiss, as though a few seconds away from her was too long. She knotted her fists in his thick waves. His mouth traveled down her neck, her chest, her stomach. She reached behind her back to unfasten her bra, struggling to find the right angle while his hands and lips continued roaming over her body, planting shivers, distracting her from her purpose, painting her with desire.
“I can’t…” she started, too breathless to finish.
“I’ve got it.” He made quick work of the hooks she hadn’t managed. As she removed her bra and flung it aside, he lifted her off the counter. She’d never been into jocks or beefy superhero types, but goddamn, it was hot the way he could raise her up in his arms as if she weighed nothing at all. She linked her ankles behind his back while he carried her through the house to a sparsely decorated bedroom. Gray walls, sleek lamps, abstract black-and-white photographs of rippling shorelines, and fluffy white bedding that looked like it belonged in a luxury hotel. He laid her down in the center of the bed, stretching himself out above her. The light wasdim, provided only by a small bedside lamp he’d flicked on with a wall switch as they’d entered. It was enough for her to see the shape of him, the highlights in his amber eyes, the upturn at the corners of his lips.
“Does your answer still hold?” he asked.
“Yes. Yes. And also, yes.”
“Good. Mine, too.” With a growing smile, he slipped a hand into her underwear and cupped her, exerting barely a hint of pressure.
She locked her eyes on his, waiting, her breath held and her heart pounding. When the hum of anticipation grew too strong to bear, she eased her weight against his hand, forcing his fingertips to press harder. He stroked her slowly, circling and skimming without entering. Her hands raked into his hair. Her hips rolled against his touch. Every nerve in her body seemed to coil in on itself, gathering tension. He held her gaze, reading her expression, steady, focused, aware. As she started to tremble at the impossible ache for more, his mouth found hers and two of his fingers slipped inside her.
She gasped as her eyelids fluttered closed. God, that feeling, the electric thrill of being touched in places that forced her toes to curl, her fists to roll in on themselves, and her breath to catch in her throat. His fingers pushed forward. She arched against him, releasing his hair to tug at the waistband of his boxer briefs.
“Not yet.” He removed her hands. “Let me watch you first.”
A prickle of self-consciousness rippled through her, but she shook it off and let herself be seen, no shrinking, no hiding, no shame. She’d always associated nakedness with the kind of vulnerability that was to be avoided at all costs, but this was different. It was about shedding the unnecessary, accepting her flawed and unadorned self as enough. It was about sharing her body with someone she trusted to treat her with care.
While she settled into that trust, he found the spots that madeher writhe and moan. Soon enough she was thrusting against him, pulling at his neck and shoulders, nipping at his lips, lost in a glorious sea of skin and sweat. His fingers moved faster, deeper. She drew him against her, held on tight, reveled in the weight of his body pressing down on her, whisperedyeses, battled her craving for more.
“Tell me what you want,” he rumbled against her ear.
She almost laughed, not because his request was funny, but because it was beautiful and joyous. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been given such open permission to want. She knew she shouldn’t need that permission, but she’d been denied it for so long she’d almost forgotten how to find it on her own.
“I want you inside me,” she said. “Please tell me you have a condom.”
He answered with dead-sexy smile. They both wriggled out of their underwear. Then it was her turn to watch as he opened a drawer in his bedside table and grabbed a foil packet. As he tore it open and put on the condom, she drank in his shoulders and back, painted by soft, warm light. She noted the little dimples that paralleled his spine, the curves of his well-toned ass, the smoothness of his tanned skin, crossed here and there by a smattering of freckles. She wondered if she’d ever get tired of looking at him. Surely at some point he’d become ordinary, just a guy who teased her about making too many assumptions or not eating enough vegetables, but that point seemed a long,longway off.
He leaned over her but she rolled him onto his back and straddled him, making up in enthusiasm what she lacked in grace. He smiled up at her, amused—and maybe even charmed—by her struggle to wedge her lanky legs around his hips. She kissed him again, drawn in by his smile, his warm eyes, and the giant heart hewas so willing to lay bare for her. With one hand braced against his stomach and the other wrapped around his erection, she lowered herself onto him. A rush of sensation followed. A fullness. An uncoiling. A fire in her blood. His hands found her waist, his grip tender but firm. She let her head fall back and her mouth drop open as she drove her hips forward. Once. Twice. A third time. Her muscles tightened around him, already hinting at the climax to come.
“I’m not going to last very long,” she said.
He pulled her into another kiss, deep and slow.
“Me, neither. But I don’t think that’s a problem.” He nodded toward the open drawer in his bedside table. Scattered atop his books were several more condom packets.
“I like the way you think,” she said, half-joking.
“I like the way you everything,” he said, not joking at all.
If any Big Questions lingered after that, Marlowe couldn’t recall what they were.
