She licked her lips and opened her mouth. But her brain fumbled over the words. How the heck was she supposed to ask this? She clapped her mouth closed and had Marcus frowning.
“Iris,” he commanded. “Ask.”
She cleared her throat and cocked her head to one side, a little hair falling over one eye. “Can I do that? To you?”
His pupils dilated. “Do what.”
She licked her lips again. “What you did to me? Can I taste you?”
Marcus growled, like literally growled. “Yes. But I don’t know how much I’ll be able to take of that. Your mouth on me.”
She paused, unsure what he meant.
He cleared his throat. “I’ve thought about it a lot, baby, on my own. And seeing it, feeling it in real life, might be a bit much for me.”
Iris shivered. It was almost too much. To know that he’d thought of her that way. She’d done her best to keep her thoughts of him as PG-13 as possible, but obviously he’d been unable to do the same in regards to her. It was intoxicating, to be wanted this much. And it made Iris feel that heady power again. The bold certainty.
Literally nothing you could do wrong tonight.
Iris nodded and took a deep breath, leaning forward. One of his hands threaded through her hair, all the way to her scalp and the familiar sensation soothed her. He had a thing for her hair. Iris remembered the way he’d reacted to her haircut and it hit her all at once. He didn’t have a thing for her hair, he had a thing for her. She was smiling as she bent over him, sent one palm skating up the place where he wanted her most.
He really was magnificent. Built to perfection. She was definitely no expert in the area, but she couldn’t imagine anyone being more aesthetically pleasing than he was. It was that thought that had her purring as she circled him with her hand. She gave one experimental stroke and was lowering her head to him when she suddenly found herself flipped onto her back, pinned beneath him.
Marcus’s gaze tore through her, his jaw clenched and his eyebrows pulled low over his eyes. She realized that her hands were pinned under his, her legs tangled and trapped under his.
“I can’t,” he growled. “Take it anymore. I need you.”
His words rocketed through her. He needed her. She could barely believe that this man, this insanely strong, sexy man was looking at her that way. Was needing her like this.
“I need you too,” she whispered and they both knew all the ways she meant those words.
His mouth fell to hers and he kissed her the way he had out on the balcony. Like time held no meaning or power. Like they weren’t humans subject to human boundaries. It was a meeting of spirits, not bodies. Iris clung to Marcus even as he tore his mouth from hers and landed his forehead against her collarbone in a growl.
“We can’t have sex,” he gritted out the words like they were made of glass.
“What?” she exclaimed. “Why?”
He rolled off of her deftly and was in the bathroom like a shot. “We don’t have any condoms,” he called from the bathroom. “I’m going to get some.”
Iris bit her lip. The very last thing she wanted was for him to leave this room right now. It had been weeks of them not sleeping together, with so many different obstacles in the way, she was certain that if he left this room, something would get in the way again. She thought about everything she knew about him, about whether or not she trusted him.
“Or…” she called back. He was in a different room, but even so she could feel him freeze. “I mean, you haven’t been with anyone in a year, right? You’ve been tested since then?” She was grateful for the dark of the room as she blushed a deeper pink than she ever had before.
“Of course,” his voice came to her as he stepped out of the bathroom, his pants on but unbuttoned. “I wouldn’t sleep with you if I wasn’t sure I was clean. Condom or not.”
“Then,” she patted the bed beside her. “Why don’t you come back to bed?”
They both knew what she was telling him. He was as still as a photograph as he stared at her from ten feet away.
“I’ll get you pregnant,” he said, his voice a deep rumble.
Everything pulled tight in Iris at that. He didn’t say it like a possibility, he said it like a certainty. She shook her head. “No. I have an IUD. We’re safe.”
He remained still as he watched her, five seconds passed. Ten seconds. And then he dropped his pants and he was crawling over top of her, pressing her back to the bed.
“I’ve never had sex without a condom,” he said in a low voice as his mouth bit its way up her neck, to the back of her ear. His hands slid around to her back and he was gripping her to him so tight she could barely breathe.
“Me either,” she admitted.
That made Marcus growl again as he dragged a hand from her lower back down to her thigh. With a rough, impatient motion he wrapped her leg around his waist. His teeth clamped over a soft part of her neck as he pressed against her.
Iris looked up and felt a deep thrill at the veins and tendons that stood out in his arms, the muscles pulled tight across his golden back. He was straining for her, wild and just barely in control. She couldn’t believe that anyone would be like this for her, but for it to be Marcus? The most attractive man in the world? Well, she couldn’t help but run her tongue along his neck, tilt her leg higher over his hip.
“I want you in every way a man can want a woman,” Marcus growled into her mouth. His hands stroked over her back, her sides, far from gentle. “I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want you.” He lifted his head and his eyes were like two black diamonds in the night, glinting and bottomless. “The first time I ever saw your picture in an assignment file, I knew. I didn’t want to know. I told myself that it was nothing. But something in me knew.”
“What did you know?” Iris whispered back, her lips so close that they brushed against his as she spoke.
“That you were mine.”
Marcus’s teeth scraped over her bottom lip at the exact second that he finally, finally pushed inside of her.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Iris’s mouth opened in a silent scream of shock and pleasure and Marcus groaned, loud, and straight into her skin. He’d never felt anything like this in his entire life. It felt so good it hurt. It felt so good that he knew that everything else in his life had just been knocked down the priorities list about fifty pegs. It felt so good that he knew he’d spend the rest of his days trying to do it again and again and again. It felt so good, that in this vulnerable moment, he knew, bone deep, that she was the rest of his life. Simple as that. It was her.
“Shit,” he growled, seating himself all the way inside her and grimacing in what looked like pain. When he raised his head and propped himself up on his elbows to look down at her, he’d never felt closer to another person in his entire life. Her hair spilled over the bed, her ice blue eyes were sharp and blurry at the same moment. He’d expected her to be demure or shy, to look down and cover her gaze the way she always did. But there were those eyes, blazing into his. God, he always wanted her eyes. And this was no different. It was almost too much. She spread her legs even wider, wrapping them around his waist. Her eyes sliced into his. She was giving him everything. Everything.
The animal inside of him almost broke loose and Marcus clenched his teeth to maintain control. He needed to give her everything soft and sweet that he had to offer. He needed to make her see how much he was trying for her. He thought of her soft skin, the delicate curves of her body, her little pink toenails. She deserved all the gentle lovemaking in the world. He could do this. He would do this. He’d leash himself back and make it perfect.
Marcus pushed up onto his hands, one on either side of her head, and began to rock into her. The look on her face almost undid him. Her hands reached up for his face and he was shocked and further aroused when her touch was not gentle. Her fingers grabbed at anything that she could reach. His neck, his shoulders, his hair.
He thrust and thrust and her breath
came out on each beat, like they were perfectly in sync with one another, hearing the same carnal song.
“Please, Marcus,” she moaned, her head whipping from one side to the other.
“Anything, baby. Anything,” he groaned back. I’ll give you anything.
She gripped at his shoulders again. “More,” she breathed. “More skin.”
He immediately complied, dropping back down so his chest pressed against hers. He was careful to keep most of his weight up and off her but the pleasure of her slick, sweaty chest was undeniable. He swiveled his hips and she screamed, arching her back into him with surprising strength and force.
He couldn’t help the feral grin that tore out of him as he gripped her hand and the sheets at the same moment. She was rougher than he’d thought she’d be and that thrilled him. But that grin immediately dropped away when she started moving her hips underneath him, meeting him with every stroke.
He growled and dropped a hand down, attempting to still her hips. But she didn’t fall still. She ground against him more, harder, her hands tangling in his hair and her mouth suddenly on his. Marcus felt the animal inside him strain against its leash. She was undoing him and he couldn’t let that happen.
“More,” she begged him against his mouth, and Marcus found himself utterly helpless to deny her.
He gave her more, his eyes squeezed tight against the acute pleasure of it, his face buried in the crook of her shoulder. He wanted so badly to watch her right now, to burn into his brain every single expression that fell across her face, but he knew that the sight would ruin him. Turn him loose. So he just felt her instead, his eyes hung closed.
She was killing him, little by little. Her hips were wild and vicious from below and her breasts smashed into his chest. “More,” she chanted. “More. More. More.”
And it was that, her relentless plea, that finally broke him. She was too soft, too perfect. And he loved her. He loved her so much that his body won out over his mind. His mind screamed for him to slow down but his body slammed the door on it. Took over. Marcus felt a strange tidal wave of both relief and regret smash through him as the animal inside him snapped the leash and came for Iris.
He switched their position, subtly, but inexorably. The way he shifted his weight made her immobile, she couldn’t move or writhe against him anymore. He gave her everything he had to give and more than he even knew he had. His muscles strained and sweat slicked over his spine. His toes dug into the mattress as he used every bit of leverage he had access to. The bed smashed against the wall with each thrust of his hips. The part of him that was still aware of what he was doing came tearing out of his mouth.
“I know it’s too much,” he told her as his teeth tore over her lip. He said the words almost as an apology. There was no way he could stop this now. The only way he could stop was if she asked him to. “I’m too much. It’s too intense.”
And it was. He was so huge. So deep inside her and every thrust was sharp and unforgiving and took the breath right out of her. But that wasn’t all. His hands were tight and everywhere. Pinning her down, taking from her, tugging at her hair. His teeth clamped, too hard and sharp at her neck and she cried out. And when she opened her eyes, it was to see his dark gaze on her, consuming her. His mouth was slack and tight, somehow at the same time. There was a storm in his eyes. A raging cyclone of emotion and Iris felt herself get sucked away into it. It was too much, more than she’d ever had. More than she’d known was possible. The way his legs locked over hers, it was like he was trapping her. Lashing her to him. She knew there was no escape and part of her relished it while part of her struggled against it.
If she didn’t already know that she loved him, it might have been too much. Making love with this man was like getting burned alive. But she could see him in there. Her Marcus. She saw his body and mind and heart all straining against each other. And in his eyes, where other women had seen only harsh focus, blazing, blinding intensity, Iris saw what was really there.
She saw herself in his eyes. She realized immediately what he was looking at. It was only her. It was this intense, this blackhole of passion, because he’d lost himself entirely. For him, this beast of a man on top of her, there was nothing else but her. She had absolutely no question that she was his entire world. She was everything that mattered to him.
Iris could see, clear as day, what she was doing to him. She was unleashing him. He might be pinning her down, trapping her, taking her apart piece by piece. But she was destroying him.
It was that thought that had her rearing up, straining against his hands that had her shoulders pinned to the bed as he rutted. As rough as he was, the second she pushed against him, he gave way. Her momentum tumbled them to their sides where they stayed joined. He never stopped his relentless pushing into her. One of his arms banded around her back and again, she found herself restrained, fixed against him. His eyes swallowed her whole, it was like the brightest light being shined in her face. And she let him do it all. He needed it. But he needed something else that she wasn’t sure he was aware of. He needed her to pin him down and stare him down right back. He needed her to fix him in place, like a flag in a storm.
So she rolled them even more and he let her take him on his back. Planting his feet underneath her, he pressed up into her from below, taking both of them clear off the bed with each thrust. His hands clamped like vices on her hips and she knew he was leaving bruises. But she let him. He needed it. And as a heady rush of power and safety rolled through her, she realized that she needed it too.
She fell over top of him then, crushing her breasts to his chest. She knew that she could never physically restrain him. It would be like a butterfly trying to restrain a wolf. But she could pin him in place in another way. In a way he’d never expect.
She put her mouth at his ear and drew his earlobe in between her lips. Marcus groaned and gripped her even harder with his hands. Iris squirmed under the intensity of the grip and rearranged one of his hands to the small of her back to let up the pressure a little. His hand immediately fisted and the pressure eased.
“You’ve always protected me,” she whispered in his ear and he thrust even harder. “That’s why I can give you everything, Marcus.” She twisted her fingers in his hair and licked at his ear. “Because you keep me safe.”
She was rising as fast as he was and she felt herself there, almost there. Whatever it was that he was doing with his hips was driving her to the edge, even if she didn’t want it to be over. But he was perfect, skilled and passionate, and built to love her. She didn’t stand a chance.
She planted her hands on either side of his head and rose up to look him right in the eye. “Marcus, you—oh God—” She cut off as a wave of pleasure rode up high inside her, warning her of what was coming. He dropped a rough hand between them, where they were joined and the electricity of his touch was so strong, it catapulted Iris off into her pleasure faster and harder than she’d ever experienced before. But she had to tell him. She had to say it. So even through the excruciating ecstasy he was tearing out of her, she moaned the words he had to hear.
“You take care of me. Oh god, Marcus, yes.”
You take care of me.
How she could say those words even while he was ravaging her, Marcus didn’t understand, but he couldn’t deny what they did to him. Those words broke something inside of him, and it was all he could do to ride her through her pleasure. The second it was done, he lifted her off and rolled her onto her stomach on the bed. He came over top of her back, entering her again and spreading his arms over hers, his legs over hers. He even laid one cheek over top of hers. He covered her in every way, restrained her, held her down for his love. And her moans and breath and whispered, feverish words mixed with his as he raced himself to the heaven he’d only dreamed about. He was dimly aware of her tightening and shouting and thanking God as she found her pleasure again.
When Marcus found himself flinging over the edge, it was into darkness. There was nothing
but her body and his soul. He lost feeling in his extremities, lost any sense of time or place. All he knew was that she’d torn him in two. That his soul, his heart was never going to be the same. This wasn’t bodily pleasure, this was something else. This was ecstasy on the deepest level. And it couldn’t stay inside him. He didn’t fight it. He plunged into darkness, and gave it all to Iris.
***
Ten minutes later, or an hour later, he couldn’t tell. But Marcus regained his bearings and rolled off of her. Some unnamed mixture of emotions descended on him like a heavy, constricting blanket as he stared at the off-white hotel ceiling above him. Oh God. What had he done? What had just happened?
How could he go on knowing that the most pleasurable experience of his life, the most mind blowing, heart stopping experience, had to have been completely overwhelming and way too intense for Iris. He scraped a hand over his eyes. What was wrong with him? Why was his love so rough? Why couldn’t he control it?
Iris hopped up from the bed and went into the bathroom. Marcus cursed himself as he searched for words to make it right and found pretty much nothing. He waited for the lock to click on the bathroom door. For her to lock him out of her space in some way or another. But not ten seconds later, she was back with a glass of water that she chugged half of and handed to him.
“Holy smokes,” she said, with a curious little lightness in her voice. She crawled over top of him to get back in bed, her body brushing familiarly with his. He stiffened against the touch. Why wasn’t she shrinking from him?
He set the glass aside and turned to study her as she snuggled into his side, her head on his shoulder and one of her legs tangled through his.
“Wow,” she said as the tip of her nose brushed his neck. And… were those her lips pressing against him? Was she kissing him? After that?
Holy smokes. Wow. He tried his best to read between the lines and understand what she meant by that, but his brain was moving slowly, sluggish and confused.
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