Tied Up in Knots (Marshals Book 3)

by Mary Calmes

  He scowled at me.

  “What?”

  “If you’re so happy, come the fuck here.”

  “But I’m all wet,” I said, shivering not with cold but with happiness.

  “Yeah, I don’t care,” he murmured, lifting his arms.

  I lunged at him, grabbing tight, and he hugged me back just as hard, the both of us trying to absorb the other. “I’m gonna explode I’m so happy.”

  His grunt was all Ian, smug and sexy. “Don’t do that. I like you all in one piece.”

  I kissed the side of his neck, his jaw, and then took his mouth so he’d know he was missed and cherished and so very needed.

  “You taste like scotch,” he said, breaking the kiss, needing air, “and salt.”

  “Potato chips,” I said, grinning, just looking at him, his face, his hair, and his eyes. God, he was pretty.

  “The fuck are you wearing?”

  My clothes? “Why, do I look weird?” I asked, taking several steps back, checking my wet shirt and pants, not sure what he was seeing.

  “No,” he said gruffly, his hot gaze traveling up and down my body before returning to my face. “‘Weird’ is not the word I’d use.”

  “Oh no? What, then?” I pried, taking a step forward, bumping into him, letting the warmth rolling off his solid muscular frame sear into me. I had expected steam to erupt when we touched before, as opposite as we were at the moment, me so cold and wet, him a simmering flame.

  “Decadent,” he whispered, huffing out a breath. “You walked around lookin’ like that all night?”

  He wanted me.

  It was there in the rich, thick growl in his voice, all smoky and seductive, the dangerous glint in the depths of his eyes, and the way he wet his lips like his mouth had gone dry.

  “Yeah,” I purred, grinning as I knocked him back into the door, pinning him there with one hand, bracing him, making sure he couldn’t move. “All yesterday, all today I had a hundred things to tell you, but right now I can’t think of even one.”

  “How come?”

  I whimpered involuntarily. “You’re finally home.”

  His breath hitched as he lifted his hands to my face, touching my skin, skimming over bruises and contusions, smoothing over my eyebrows, tracing my cheeks as he looked with both his eyes and his fingertips. “Where were you?”

  It was a loaded question, but I knew what I was really being asked. “Where do you think I was?”

  “No,” he growled, the muscles in his strong, square jaw cording as he continued to scrutinize me, missing nothing. “You fuckin’ tell me.”

  “Well, first I was with the guys, and then Janet called, and then I was almost home when I stopped at Barrett’s.”

  “Why’d you stop?” he prodded, slipping a hand inside the collar of my shirt so he could stroke over my skin before trailing his fingers first to my collarbone and then to the base of my throat. “Why didn’t you come straight here?”

  “I didn’t know you were home. I couldn’t get you on the phone.”

  “I know. We weren’t allowed to call, and then—I just wanted to get back here.”

  “Oh?” My heart was pounding and my throat hurt and my mouth was dry and all of that was Ian’s fault. Such simple words, that he wanted to get back to me, had me in knots of anxious, frantic happiness. I really was going to fly apart at any second.

  He was silent for a moment and then said simply, “It hurt to go.”

  “Yeah?” I pressed, because holy fuck, Ian never said anything like that. There were so few confessions from his soul that when one did happen, I pounced.

  “You know it did,” he grumbled. “You know I hate to be away.”

  “From me?”

  “Of course from you, who else would I—are you drunk?”

  I shook my head as he began unbuttoning my sopping-wet shirt. “Not anymore. I was maybe a little tipsy a few hours ago, but now, no. Exhausted.”

  “Why were you tipsy?”

  I shrugged as I looked at the stubble on his face, the lines in the corners of his eyes, and at his plump lower lip. My skin felt tight, flushed with heat, and I swallowed as the sensations tripped through me, sparking, sizzling, the want rising so fast I almost cried out.

  “You don’t know why you were drinking?”

  “Missed you,” I said under my breath as he eased the shirt from my shoulders.

  “Jesus, you’re bleeding.”

  “Just a bit, and it’ll stop,” I promised, leaning in to kiss his throat, suck the skin into my mouth and gently nibble. I’d leave marks, but he’d be able to hide them.

  “Were you cut?”

  “Yesterday,” I got out before I lifted my head and kissed him.

  He tasted so good, like toothpaste and a trace of bourbon, and his mouth was hot, and his breath coming in stuttering little gasps made me smile.

  “Fuck,” he panted when I stopped for a second so he could gulp air, even though all I wanted to do was kiss him senseless until he begged me to fuck him.

  “I should shower and change,” I said into the hollow of his throat, licking his skin, inhaling his scent, wanting it all over me, on our bed, everywhere. “I know I smell bad. I haven’t slept or bathed since Sunday morning.”

  “You smell like rain and sweat, and your eyes are so dark and your clothes are sticking to your shoulders and your chest, and Jesus, Miro, you can’t—I need to stay here to guard you so no one thinks they can be me and have what I have.”

  It was me. I was what he had.

  The joy of being prized, wanted, coveted filled me with sweet, syrupy pride, and I reveled in it and let it fill what his absence had emptied.

  “Miro,” he gasped as I bumped his cheek with mine, turning into him, nuzzling, catching his jaw with my teeth before my mouth was on his and I was parting his lips with my tongue.

  I took what I wanted, one kiss after another, each melting him a little more, rendering him boneless and willing, building ache and hungry, desperate, cloying need.

  He bucked into my grip when I shoved my hand down the front of his sweats. He coiled his arms around my neck, clutching tight as he ground his mouth over mine, sucking, tasting, returning every bit of the delicious building heat that blazed between us.

  “Jesus, I missed you,” I barely managed to get out, my voice gravelly and ragged, already leaving me as I watched Ian tremble in my hands. “And I have to change that.”

  He pushed me back so he could see my face. “What?”

  I fought to get my body under control and not jump him.

  “Miro,” he demanded, his temper flaring.

  That was some impressive compartmentalizing, that he could simply turn off sex and turn on his logical, questioning brain. Apparently I wasn’t as irresistible to him as I thought.

  “What’re you changing?”

  Raking my fingers through my wet hair, I tried to think of what I wanted to say through my tired, and now horny, brain.

  “Miro?” He husked out my name, and I heard the twitch of fear in his voice then.

  I shook my head and then bent over to take off my boots and socks, picking up the wet dress shirt he’d peeled off me while we kissed.

  “Talk to me.”

  I took a breath. “I’m missing you too much when you go, and it’s making me careless with people and in situations,” I said thoughtfully.

  “What does that mean?” He questioned, because he had to know I was talking about the job. “Is that how you got cut? Is that why Barrett’s chasing you across the lawn, talking me down?”

  “It’s just how it’s going,” I said, walking around him, heading toward the laundry room.

  He got in front of me, and I had to stop or plow into him, and when I did, he grabbed everything away, let my boots and shirt fall to the floor, and took my face in his hands. “I don’t want you not to miss me.”

  “Yeah, but you can’t be everything. It’s not fair to either of us.”

  “What in the hell are yo
u talking about?” He slid his hands to both sides of my neck, and I fought the urge to lean into him and just breathe.

  “I can’t use you as a touchstone if you’re not here because I end up feeling disjointed and like I don’t give a shit about anything since you’re not there to talk to and sleep with and laugh at me when I do something stupid.” I sighed, forcing a smile. “It’s not working.”

  “I don’t understand,” he said softly, coaxing, his right hand flat on my chest, pressed to my heart, the other mapping my abdomen and lower. “Make me understand.”

  “Somewhere along the way, I forgot how to be me without you,” I said matter-of-factly. “I’m not sure when, but now I’m different, and I have to change back.”

  “But I don’t want you to do that.”

  I sighed dejectedly. “Yeah, but you don’t get a say, just like I don’t get one with you being in the military.”

  “Now wait.”

  “It’s okay,” I soothed, easing free of his hands, trembling in the cold air. “I’m gonna take a shower. Can you throw my shirt in the washer and put my boots by the sink? I’ve gotta find some newspaper to stuff down inside of them.”

  “’Course,” he replied before I turned and bolted upstairs.

  It wasn’t the best shower I ever took, but it was right up there. By the time I got out, the walls were dripping with condensation and the mirror was all steamed up. As I wiped a clear spot on it, I realized how beat up and shitty I looked before I brushed my teeth.

  I had blue bruises and yellow ones, red splotches along my jaw under two days’ worth of stubble, and dark black circles under my eyes. My color was off; I looked pasty, sickly, and my eyes themselves looked flat and lifeless. I had no idea what Ian or anyone else could have seen in me.

  Once I was out, changed into flannel pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, and finally warm, I was surprised to find him sitting on the bed. He had a steaming cup of tea in his hand.

  “Man, that looks good. I think I’m gonna go get one.”

  “This is yours, idiot,” he groused. “I don’t drink this oolong crap.”

  I walked over, took the cup from him, and then sat down carefully beside him so I didn’t spill it. “Thank you,” I said, leaning sideways to kiss his cheek.

  He turned into me, catching my mouth and kissing me softly, slowly. Even the nibble he took before he pulled back was tender.

  “You think it’s nice to kiss me like you did downstairs and then just walk away?”

  I chuckled before I took a sip of my tea.

  “Hello?”

  “You’re the one who put a stop to it. I figured you were done.”

  “Done.” His voice cracked. “You’re making me crazy.”

  I put the cup of hot tea down on the nightstand and then turned back to my man, slipping my hand around his cheek and staring into those beautiful eyes of his. “I couldn’t tell.”

  “You couldn’t tell,” he almost shouted at me, grabbing my hand and pressing it to his long, hard, fully erect length. “Can you fuckin’ tell now?”

  I squeezed him through the sweats he had on, and the mewling groan that came out of his throat made me smile. “So you’re saying you want me, then,” I teased.

  “Yes—fuck, I want you!”

  “I’m having trouble reading you,” I said as I shoved him down on the bed, shucked off his sweats, curled over him, and took his cock down the back of my throat.

  He roared my name, and the sound, raw, guttural, torn from his chest, ripped from deep down in his soul, washed a tight quickening of liquid heat through me that had been missing between us for a while.

  I was being careful.

  He was unsure.

  Together we’d been loving and thoughtful, but neither of us let go, too afraid of what would happen, what we would say. A mistake might be the end, so we’d been tiptoeing around the can of snakes, neither wanting to loosen the lid.

  In our hesitancy we’d created distance, because if we weren’t that close, we couldn’t get hurt.

  I loved Ian with everything I had, but I also feared him dicing my heart up into little pieces at the same time. Meanwhile he was gambling on me, on me staying, on me being strong, and whether he knew it or not, testing at the same time. Would I stay when push came to shove? If he was gone more than he was home, would it still be worth it for me?

  But now—right now—I had him at my mercy, I was driving him crazy with my mouth and hands, and there was nothing between us but ferocious, devouring need.

  I sucked hard, licked him from balls to head, and then swallowed around him, showing him all the tricks in my arsenal until he was clenching my hair in a tightened fist and rocking in and out, fucking my mouth. When he pushed me off, I was surprised.

  “What?” I panted, saliva dripping from my chin as I spoke.

  He took hold of me, roughly wiped my lips with his thumb, and then hooked his hand around my neck and pulled me down so he could kiss me.

  I ravaged him and he arched up off the bed, brushing against me as he whispered my name in endless, reverent litany.

  “Ian,” I ground out, shoving his T-shirt up, bending to suckle on one raised, pebbled nipple, seeing him gorgeous in his honest submission, the twisting current running between us making him jolt in my hands as I kissed him again, rougher, because my longing wasn’t just reverence, but angry as well.

  Why did he leave me? Why couldn’t he simply stay?

  The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes in the morning, the last when I closed them at night, this was what I had to have… Ian in my bed, tangled with me, breathing in tandem.

  “I hate you,” I snarled.

  “Yes,” he rasped, because he knew. He had to. “But I don’t care. You love me more.”

  That was true too.

  “Fuck me,” he growled into my mouth as I delivered another punishing kiss. “I’ve been wanting you since I left. I just want to feel you on top of me and in me and just—fuck, Miro. How’d we get so far from us?”

  He was gone, that was how.

  “Nothing makes sense when I’m not here, and then I get here, and lately you’re not you. Why’re you being careful with me? Why are you treating me like I’m not yours?”

  It was like we started and stopped. I got used to him being gone, and then he came back and I spent the whole time waiting for him to go again. I wasn’t living anymore. But I loved him, so much more than was wise because how much Ian could give and how much I could take was something we couldn’t answer.

  Things needed to be settled between us, but not now. The only thing that mattered now was feeling Ian wrapped around me.

  I sat up and rolled him to his stomach, shoved his facedown into the rumpled blankets before I dove for the nightstand to retrieve the lube.

  “Do you think about me at all when I’m not here?”

  “Idiot,” I croaked, snapping open the tube. I slicked my cock fast and then pressed against his pale-pink hole. “You’re all I think about.”

  “Then kiss me when I get home, and grab me and put me over the table in the kitchen and just hold me the fuck down. Please, Miro, stop pulling away. Show me.”

  I had to take what I wanted so he’d know he was loved. And no matter what happened between us, that was the irrevocable truth.

  I pressed inside him slowly, sinuously, feeling his muscles ripple and stretch around me, the squeeze on my dick so good I nearly came. “Fuck, Ian,” I rasped, my breathing choppy as I pushed his T-shirt up over his head and off so I could kiss and lick over the heavy scars that crisscrossed his back. He’d once worried I thought they were ugly, until I’d explained in lavish detail that every part of his body was a wonder to me.

  “Move,” he begged, pushing back, taking me in deeper. “Miro… love.”

  That endearment, the only one he ever used for me, and only me, never ceased to make my heart clench.

  “Show me you want me.”

  Words only for me because I alone was trusted with h
is passion.

  Sinking down into him, I pounded deep, hard, before easing back and repeating the motion, again and again, the rolling thrusts creating a seamless rhythm that only became hammering and relentless when Ian began stroking himself off and chanting my name.

  “I swear I’m worth it,” he beseeched me, his voice low, seductive, holding me as inexorably as his body. “Just stay with me.”

  “I know you’re worth it,” I gasped, slamming into him, letting go, holding nothing back, knowing my heart lived and died for him and nothing else. “Don’t you think I know? Can’t you tell?”

  “Then don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.”

  “No,” I promised, and I prayed it was one I could keep. “Now come for me.”

  “I want—can’t—I’ve had to be so in control.”

  I had to take that discipline away from him. I was the one who annihilated his careful restraint, who allowed Ian to be completely himself in the safety of my love.

  Pulling out to his howl of frustration, I fell down on the bed and lifted my arms to him. “Come ride me.”

  He scrambled to do my bidding, straddling my hips and impaling himself hungrily on my cock. Hands on my chest, digging his fingers into my pectorals, he rode me hard, finding the angle he needed, grinding down into me, setting a pace that was all about him and what he needed and what felt good.

  His hard granite thighs clasped my sides as his ass milked my length, and I watched him jerk himself off, felt the muscles in his ass spasm and clamp around me like a vise before his climax tore through him and he spurted onto my chest.

  It was so hot. Watching Ian come undone, I was seconds behind him. I just had to alter his timing enough, so I took hold of that perfect ass of his and held him tight over me so I could piston up into him, pummel him from the bottom until just that much more friction pushed me over the edge.

  “Ian!” I thundered his name and he collapsed over me, his arms no longer able to hold him up, sweat and cum between us as our lips fused as tight as our bodies.

  When he tilted his head, I thought he needed air, but it turned out he just needed a better angle to get his tongue farther down my throat.

  Chapter 15