by L. D. Davis
It was so hard to resist his captivating smiles that too often made me blush, or his touches that tempered my rancor, and those small kisses that made my blood run hot.
Marco broke into my thoughts. “Are you having a good time?”
“I am,” I admitted, stealing a glance at his blue eyes, hoping he was clueless about what I was thinking and feeling. “I’ll have to thank your sisters sometime.”
“I am glad, Tesoro.”
I carefully stretched out my leg. It was beginning to ache, but I didn’t want him to know that. “You’ve set the bar pretty high. I don’t know how you’ll ever beat today. If we have any more dates, they will most likely be subpar in comparison.”
His eyes narrowed. “There are no ifs about it. I did not come here with only one date in mind.”
My heartbeat quickened at that, even as I tried to tell it to slow down, to calm down. “What did you have in mind?”
He stared at me again, but his expression was more serious, which made my heart go even wilder. What he was going to say, I didn’t find out, because once I adjusted my legs again and tried not to grimace at the pain, Marco’s attention zeroed in on my limbs and he frowned.
“You are uncomfortable. Does your leg hurt?”
“A little bit. It’s no big deal.”
His frown deepened. “I thought I chose activities that wouldn’t hurt you.”
“You did. Sometimes it hurts for no reason at all.”
He seemed doubtful. “Can anything be done? Is there anything the doctors can do?”
It wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have. I shrugged. “Not really.”
“Do you want to take the tent down and sit on the couch? Will that be more comfortable for you?”
There was no way I wanted to take down our little fort. I was loving it way too much. “No. I’ll be fine. I think if I go grab a few extra pillows I’ll be all right.”
“I’ll go get them.” He was crawling out through the flaps before I could stop him. “Where do I get them?”
“My bedroom. Second door on the left.”
“Okay. I will be right back. Do not eat all the food.”
It should have only taken Marco a minute or so to grab the pillows and return, but after about three had passed, he still hadn’t returned. I figured maybe he made a pit stop in the bathroom, but after six minutes, I poked my head out.
“Marco?”
When he didn’t answer, I still didn’t worry. Maybe he had to poop. It happened. This was real life, and people pooped in real life.
I started to settle back inside before I remembered something very important. My list. The list of outcomes for dating Marco. I’d left it on the table next to my bed, out in the open. I had forgotten about it at some point during the day.
Cringing at the pain in my knee as I put weight on it, I hurried to my feet. As fast as my stupid legs could take me, I climbed the steps to the second floor. When I got to my bedroom door, out of breath, I found Marco sitting on my bed with a sheet of paper in his hands.
“Marco.” I breathed his name like a plea, silently begging him not to read it, even though I knew it was too late.
Slowly, his head rose, and his eyes met mine. For the first time since I’d known him, I saw the face he must’ve worn for his business dealings. His eyes revealed nothing. There were no tells on his face, not a squinty eye or frown lines. Nothing. Blank.
His blank stare unnerved me. I stood there, frozen, waiting for long breathless moments.
“I just came to get the pillows,” he said finally, his voice rather flat. “I saw this, and I started to look away, because I thought it might be personal, but I saw my name. It wasn’t hidden, or folded up, or anything, so…I thought it would be okay to read it.”
He rubbed his jaw, which had already sprouted more stubble since this morning. It made a soft noise, but it seemed very loud in the silent room.
To my absolute horror, Marco began to read the list aloud. There was a rough edge to his voice that made me cross my arms over my stomach, as if to protect myself from my own words.
“All the possible outcomes of dating Marco Mangini. One: We could fall in lust, not love, and not know the difference until it’s too late. Two: I could get pregnant. Three: If I get pregnant, he may feel obligated to marry me. Four: We might be happy for a short time. Five: He may begin to resent me once he truly realizes I am not her.”
Mercifully, he stopped at five, but his jaw twitched as he stared down at the list. Suddenly, he stood up and held it so tightly in his hand it began to crumple.
“This isn’t a list of possible outcomes of dating me. It’s your story, isn’t it? Your marriage to Gavin.”
Chapter Seventeen
As we stared at each other from opposite sides of an emotional abyss, I felt vulnerable in a way I’d never felt before. I was like a book with all my pages read thoroughly and dogeared at the edges.
I could’ve dissolved into a sobbing puddle; it wouldn’t have been difficult. My throat felt like it was closing, and my eyes burned with the need to cry, but I held my breath a few times until I knew I wouldn’t.
“Are you going to answer me?” Marco asked after a long and painful silence.
I used biting sarcasm to cover my true emotions. “I’m sorry. I thought it was a rhetorical question.”
His jaw tightened again. It was his only tell, the only physical sign of his discomposure. “It was a real question and I want a real answer.”
Maybe a few weeks ago I would’ve lashed out at him and did everything I could to get him out of my house so I wouldn’t have to face these questions. I still didn’t want to answer, but I also didn’t want Marco to leave. That realization was startling, and it made my stomach flutter so much that I hugged myself tighter to keep the butterflies still.
“It’s more of an outline of the story of my marriage to Gavin,” I finally responded tersely.
A crease appeared between his eyes, another slip, another showing of his ire. “Yet it is my name at the top of the paper. You were never going to give me a chance, were you?”
I reached up to push back my hair, noticed how much my hand shook, and quickly dropped it to my side again, and then held myself even tighter. “I told you at the cabin I wouldn’t let you catch me. I told you this morning I didn’t think I could do this, and now you’re all surprised to actually see it in writing?”
“This list has nothing to do with me,” he said sharply enough to make me wince. “I know the difference between lust and love. I would not marry you to use you as a replacement for someone else I couldn’t have. I would not ignore you and neglect you and then make empty promises to string you along when you want to end it. If I married you, I would not let even one day go by without making you feel loved and wanted. I haven’t let one day go by without making you feel loved and wanted, even from hundreds of miles away.”
As I reeled from his words, Marco glanced down at the list in his hands again as he seemed to deflate. It was almost as if he couldn’t stop himself from looking. He was probably fed up with my shit, and I expected him to leave at any moment, now that he knew I hadn’t given him a fair chance. Now that he had a damn good idea how my marriage had been, there were probably doubts about me, too. I had enough baggage to fill a FedEx cargo plane, much more than he’d originally thought, and he probably didn’t want to any part of it.
His eyes shifted up and he studied my face so intently that I dropped my gaze to the floor. I continued to stare down, even when he began to move toward me. I saw his feet as he approached and watched them stop only inches from mine. When his fingers lightly touched me under my chin, a gentle shiver ran through me.
“Don’t look down like that, Tesoro,” he murmured, tucking my chin up until I met his eyes again. “You always keep your head up. Always keep your eyes up, no matter what. Do you understand?”
My nod was jerky, like a freakin’ puppet’s.
“I am going to ask you only one question,
and I want you to answer with honesty. Not partial honesty, but with every honest ounce of your body.” There were only a few beats of hesitation before he asked his question. “Do you want me to leave, Lydia?”
It was a loaded question. He wasn’t just asking if I wanted him to leave at that moment and come back later. He was asking if I wanted him to walk out the door and leave my whole life, to never come back, to end all our phone calls and text messages, to end everything. He would go, and that would be the end of it.
I knew, without having to think too deeply, that Marco and Gavin were nothing alike, but it didn’t make the list of possible outcomes untrue. Any of that history could repeat itself in some variation. As much as I wanted to believe in happy endings, I knew the only guarantee that came with life was death. People did change. Lily, myself, Gavin, and even Kyle had changed. Love was finite. It died just like people did, or had the potential to warp into something unhealthy and frightening.
I had to go with my gut. I couldn’t let my brain alone dictate this one. Maybe someday I would regret my answer, or maybe I would be just fine. There was no way to really tell. I had a fifty-fifty chance either way, but I did as he asked. With every honest ounce of my body, I gave him his answer, and a scowl that could kill.
“No. I don’t want you to leave.”
His brows went up, but not before I saw the flash of relief in his eyes. “And you are not happy about that?”
I glared harder at him. “No, I am not happy about that. You pretty much backed me into a corner.”
A smirk grew on his gorgeous mouth. “You could have said no.”
“You’re an ass. You knew I wouldn’t say no.”
He held up a hand in defense. “I honestly did not know which way you would go.”
One corner of his mouth was still slightly lifted, but his blue eyes had grown serious again as he glanced down at the list and back to me. His voice was soft again as he held up the paper.
“This is not me. This is not us. I am not him, and you are not the same person with me as you were with him. I cannot promise to be a perfect man, because I am just as flawed as anyone else. What I can promise you is that I want you for exactly who you are, not who I wish you could be.”
The fluttering in my belly intensified. I tried to downplay it by telling myself they were just pretty words, and words meant nothing without action, but the butterflies continued to swarm in my stomach.
Marco folded the list several times until it was a quarter of the size it had been. He walked back to the table beside my bed, opened the drawer, and dropped it inside before closing the drawer again. “Someday, we will have to talk about all of that. I mean really talk about it, but not now. Not like this. I do not want to end a day like today like this.”
“Maybe you should’ve considered that before you picked up a piece of paper containing my personal thoughts off my table inside my bedroom,” I grumbled.
He came to me, touched my face, pushed back my hair, and softly touched his lips to my jawline. Once. Twice. Three, four times. I released a long, shuddering breath.
“I am sorry.” Another kiss. “I am sorry.” And another. “I am sorry.” He kissed the corner of my mouth.”
“Stop. Kissing. Me.” I said each word breathlessly as his lips moved across my jaw.
His hands slid down my body and slipped under the hem of my shirt. The palms of his hands were warm on my skin as he lazily caressed my lower back.
“I’m not kissing you. I am pecking.”
I gasped when his teeth gently bit down on my earlobe. “You’re not a bird, and that is a bite.”
“It is a nibble.”
“What the hell are you doing, Mangivitis? Are you trying to…to…distract me?”
When his mouth found the pulse on my neck, I gripped his hips to keep myself from turning into a gelatinous pool at his feet. My eyes had closed at some point, and I realized I was standing on my toes and tilting my head to one side to give him better access.
His chuckle was villainous, his voice low and growly. “Is it working?”
“No. I thought…I… Oh…thought you weren’t going to kiss me.”
“I’m not kissing you, Tesoro,” he murmured against my throat. “I am persuading you to kiss me.”
“You can’t…can’t manipulate…me.” I let out a soft whimper as he nipped at my neck.
“There are no rules that say I can’t.”
My hands acted without my permission and slid under Marco’s shirt, making him gasp for a change when I touched his hard, smooth stomach. I was still in pain, but I ignored it when his hands cupped my ass and he lifted me. My hands were still under his shirt and had lifted it halfway up his torso, and my legs wrapped around him as he kissed up my throat toward my mouth.
My usual doubts and insecurities, and the anxiety from minutes ago, tried to press through a growing lustful haze. I could’ve let them in like I always did and ruin not just the moment, but the whole day, but when Marco’s mouth stopped so close to mine that we shared breaths, something clicked off. My thoughts shut down. A door slammed somewhere in my brain, severing the link between mind and emotion, leaving me to feel freely without those pesky memories and thoughts that would influence my actions. I let myself just…feel, without boundaries. Aching desire. Burning hunger. Wonderous excitement. Tenderness. Affection. The anxiety remained, and distantly, I heard the muffled shouts of my opposing thoughts, but I continued to block them out, and for once, just let something else in, to let him in. For once, I wanted to just let go.
So, I did. I closed the breath of distance between my lips and Marco’s and kissed him.
He growled with approval when our mouths connected. I abandoned his hard stomach, wrapped one arm around his neck and pressed a hand against the back of his head as I tried to kiss him harder, deeper.
Laughter vibrated against my chest and in my mouth. I pulled back and stared at him, eyes wide with incredulity. “Are you laughing?”
“You are so eager, Tesoro. I like it.”
My brows came down and I violently wiggled until he had no choice but to put me down or let me fall. Once I was safely on my feet, I gave him a hard shove. “Asshole.”
He laughed again.
Furious, I started to walk away from him, but he caught me around the waist with one arm. Before my feet could leave the floor and my legs could wrap around him once more, we were kissing again. He carried me the few steps to my bed. His mouth stayed on mine as he carefully lay me on the mattress and settled his weight on me. He was heavy on top of me, his muscular frame dwarfing mine, but I didn’t care. I liked that he was so much larger than me.
As we drowned in each other, absolutely reveled in one another, I began to explore his body again. My hands moved under his shirt, slowly up and down his strong back, and over his hips. I slipped the tips of my fingers under the waistband of his jeans and lightly drew my nails over the flesh there. His whole body shuddered as he released a low growl in his throat.
Holding himself up on one forearm, Marco’s other hand did its own exploration. His strong hand moved up my leg, lingered on my upper thigh before easing up and under the hem of my shirt. His palm scorched across my bare stomach. When his fingers traced the underwire of my bra, I gasped softly against his mouth. My body reacted to his kiss and touch, to him as a man. He knew that for sure when his thumb moved over the hardened peak of my breast, making me moan.
I knew his body was reacting to mine, too. I could feel the length of him, hard against my thigh, only inches away from where I grew hotter and needy with every passing moment.
When our kiss finally broke, Marco gazed down at my face, a variety of emotions swimming across his features. I’d never seen him look at me so intensely before, not even during our confrontation over the list. My heart went into another series of flutters and took my breath away.
I reached into his hair, gently ran my fingers through the silky strands. His eyes closed briefly as pleasure and contentment app
eared on his face. His body even seemed to relax with the long breath he released.
“Can you feel my heart, Tesoro?”
I put a hand against his chest. His heart hammered against my palm.
“That is what you do to me, Lydia. That is what you have done to me from the first time I ever saw you.” He didn’t wait for a response. Maybe he didn’t need one. His mouth found mine again, except this time, the kiss was slower, lazier; more sensual.
The man’s kissing skills were freakin’ magical. Like a unicorn, or a fairy riding a unicorn over a rainbow. I felt as if I were on a different plane, in a different world or dimension as I tasted his warm mouth, took in his scent, and ran my hands over his body. I felt apart from myself; high, doped up, spaced out. Totally euphoric. His every touch sent me higher, deeper into my delirium.
Marco slipped a hand under my ass and pulled me to him as he rocked against me. With a moan I couldn’t hold in, my head tilted back as my own hands slipped under his jeans and gripped his bare skin. As he kissed my neck, he rocked against me again and again. And again.
Suddenly, he stopped, rolled off me and onto his back. Panting heavily, he stared up at the ceiling. When he reached down and adjusted what looked like a very painful erection, I practically salivated, and at the same time felt a little embarrassed and glanced away.
“Why did you stop?” I asked quietly as I, too, stared at the ceiling.
He laughed softly. “Believe me, Tesoro, I want to keep going, but I did not come here for that. As nice of a fantasy it always is in my head, I had no intentions of having sex with you tonight. I just wanted you to have a good day, and to maybe steal a kiss or three from your beautiful mouth.”
When I felt his gaze turn to me, I met his eyes.
“So, you don’t want me?” I was embarrassed by how small my voice came out, by the trace of hurt in it as my mind began to reopen those doors I had slammed closed. The thoughts and negativity I had shut off began to fire up again.
