by Mara Leigh
His conflicted expression was hard to read. I wanted so badly for him to wrap his arms around me, to kiss me, to tell me that he still loved me the way I loved him.
Then his expression did become easier to read—and I did not like what I saw.
He stepped back. “That’s terrific, Faith. I couldn’t be happier for you. On second thought, I’m glad I came today. It’s great to know you’re going to be okay.”
The coldness in his tone chilled the heat of my rising blush.
“Mac…”
He handed me the ball. “I should get going. It was great to see you again.” He strode toward the exit at the far side of the court.
“Mac!” I dropped the ball. It struck the other one, and the two rolled off in opposite directions. I raced forward. “Stop. Mac. I’m not finished.”
He stopped but didn’t turn. “Not finished what?”
“Talking to you. I let you say your piece, now you need to listen to me. You owe me that.”
His shoulders twitched, and he turned slowly toward me. “Okay. Shoot.”
“Mac, I, you… there’s something else I need to tell you. If I don’t, I’ll never forgive myself.” Why had I become tongue-tied? I tried to wet my dry mouth.
“Hey!” Mac shouted. “Put those down.” He touched my upper arm. “Some assholes are stealing your basketballs.” He took a step toward them, but I grabbed his hand and held tight.
“I don’t care. Let them go.”
“But…”
“Mac, you broke my heart. I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving you. Sister Henry says it will lessen with time, but I don’t see how that’s possible.”
He was frozen in place, still turned toward the ball thievery scene. I wanted to see into his eyes, but perhaps it was easier this way. Not seeing his expression gave me a few more moments of hope before he shattered my heart in a billion pieces.
I ran my thumb lightly over his hand. “I need to tell you. I need you to know, in case there’s any chance you still feel the same way. Mac, I love you. I will always love you. And if you—”
“It’s just lust.”
His words punched me in the guts. “Oh.”
He turned slowly toward me, so much pain in his eyes. “Faith, I was your first. What you’re feeling, it’s not real.”
Air refilled my lungs. He meant me, not him. “It is real. What I’m feeling. It’s real.”
He shook his head. “I’m the only man you’ve been with. The only man you’ve ever even kissed.”
“That just means I got lucky.” I leaned up against him. “Very lucky.”
He drew a few inches away. “You’ll meet someone new. Someone better. And then you’ll understand.”
“It’s you who doesn’t understand, Mac. For me, there is no one better. There will never be anyone better.”
“Ha!” A sharp laugh burst from his chest. “Almost any man would be better.”
“Mac, you’re a good man. The fact that you don’t believe it—to me that’s more evidence of how you’re good. It shows you’ve got a conscience. That you see your mistakes.”
He shook his head, but I wasn’t giving up. “Mac, we’re so alike.”
He looked at me like I was crazy.
“I mean it. Our actual experiences may be different, but both of us let our parents dictate our lives, who we were going to be. Can’t you see? Can’t you see that our meeting helped both of us figure that out? Turned us into the people we were always meant to be.”
He drew in a long breath, and I could tell he was thinking. Or at least, I hoped he was thinking about what I’d said.
“Mac, you may have done some bad things in your life, but that doesn’t define you. And it’s in your past. Everything you’ve shown me—how you treat others, treat me, treat everyone except maybe yourself—shows your real character. It shows the man you are inside, and Cormac Downey, I love that man. I love him with all my heart.”
His eyes softened along with his tense posture, and so I kept going. It was now or never.
“You’re the only man I’ve been with, that’s true, but you’re the only man I ever want to be with. Sure, maybe some day the pain of losing you could lessen, and I might meet someone else I could love. I do understand that it’s possible, but what I know for sure is that even if that happened, I’d never stop loving you.”
Out of breath, heart pounding, I glanced down. “But if you don’t feel the same way—”
He grabbed my face with both hands and drew it toward him. Then, holding me there, our foreheads touching, our lips and eyes inches apart, we breathed together for a long time, as if trying to absorb one another, to become one.
Then he kissed me. He kissed me in a way that was hard and soft all at once, in a way that made my knees buckle and desire pool between my legs. He kissed me in a way that made me know that I’d never tire of kissing Mac—all day, every day for the rest of my life.
“Is this real?” His voice was deep and thready.
“I hope so.”
“Me too, because, Faith…” He drew a long breath. “When I came to see you today, I didn’t expect this, I didn’t even let myself dream… I don’t deserve you.”
I caressed the side of his face, warm from the sun, warm from inside.
“Faith, I love you, so much. So much it fucking hurts. Sorry, I’ll try not to swear so much.”
“Swearing? I didn’t hear that part. All I heard was—”
“I love you!” he shouted. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”
He swept me back into his arms and we kissed.
The basketball court—the city, the state, the whole world—melted away. There was only Mac and me and our lips and our bodies, how they were joining and the delicious anticipation of how I knew our bodies would join later, him thrusting inside me so deeply we’d always be one.
“Get a room!” A voice broke into my delirium. “At least get off the court!”
A basketball bounced toward us, and Mac lunged to protect me from its impact.
“This one of yours?” He turned the ball to reveal the letters written on it in permanent marker.
I nodded.
“Then let’s get out of here. Find somewhere private?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
And it was a plan. A very good plan. And I knew it was a plan that would keep us both on track, the right track for the rest of our lives.
Eighteen
Mac
“Are you sure about this?” Faith asked as we stood on the edge of the cliff, the Pacific Ocean crashing against the rocks below.
I looked into her eyes. “I want this more than anything. Never doubt that.”
“I know you want to get married, silly. I just meant are you sure you want to get married without your brothers here. You guys are so close, and they’re my brothers now, too.”
“My condolences.”
“Ha.”
“Seriously, Faith. We’ll throw a party to celebrate when we get back. This—” I gestured around us. “This, today—tonight. This promise we’re making to each other. I don’t need anyone else to witness it but you.”
“And me,” the officiate piped in, “and her.” He pointed to his wife, who was to be our official witness. “Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“That’s okay,” Faith said as she tightened her grip on my hand. “Now let’s get this done, so I can take my husband back to our room and ravish him.”
“You plan to ravish me?”
Blush rose on her cheeks. “Oh, Mac, you have no idea.”
Faith
Mac picked me up when we neared our room. “I'm going to carry you over the threshold.”
“Does it count at a hotel?”
“It all counts.” He kissed me and then, holding me with one arm, dug into his pocket for the keycard.
I turned the handle after he unlocked it. Great teamwork.
“I think I'll carry you over every threshold we cross from now on.”
“Hmmm....” I kissed his neck as he kicked the door wider and carried me across.
The second we were alone he kissed me, and I swiveled in his arms, wrapping my legs around his waist to deepen our kiss.
Turning me so my back was against the wall, Mac moaned as his erection made contact with my body. He adjusted his stance so his thick hardness stroked directly over my panties, then he kissed me, hard.
Already turned on, I sucked on his tongue as he ground his cock against my increasing wetness, and a sharp stab of lust tightened my insides, unleashing pleasure that coursed through my entire body and mind.
Mine, I thought. This man was mine. And I was his. And now we were bound together. Forever.
We were young and had met less than a year earlier. Our courtship had been fast, but I knew that no matter what challenges lay ahead, I would always have Mac at my side, and I'd be at his, and this feeling, the sexual part of our relationship....
I gasped as the pressure on my clit increased, his erection rubbing me through our clothes so perfectly I was close to an orgasm already.
I broke from our kiss, and his lips moved to my neck as one of his hands slid onto my breast, his thumb massaging my tight nipple through the sheer fabric of the white sundress I'd found at the thrift store.
“Mac,” I whispered in his ear. “I need you. Inside me. Now.”
He set me down and we rushed to remove our clothing, leaving everything where it fell on the floor. He picked me up and carried me to the bed.
“God, you're beautiful.” Kneeling between my legs, he stroked my thighs, my belly, then my breasts as he regarded me with an intoxicating combination of lust and reverence. “I need a minute to worship your body, give thanks to whatever higher power created it, then brought you to me.”
“Oh, Mac, I love you so much.” And I wanted him to fuck me. Fuck me hard and fast, fuck me slow and gentle, fuck me until neither of us could take any more.
I still didn't like to say that word aloud, but in my head it was perfect.
And speaking of perfect, his erection was hard and red and standing so close to his stomach I knew it must be painfully engorged. I reached toward it, wanting to feel its rigid girth in my palm, to guide it where I needed it to be, but he tucked his arms under my thighs, put my legs up on his shoulders, and lifted my lower half off the bed so I was supported only by my neck and shoulders.
“You okay?” he asked, and I nodded, panting from the shock, the thrill.
Then his eyes disappeared from my sightline as his mouth took my sex.
He’d turned the tables on my ravishing plan, but I didn’t complain. His tongue plunged and licked, his lips kissed and sucked, and when I was just about to come, he lowered my hips to the mattress and plunged a finger inside me.
After a few strokes, he added another, and I arched up to absorb the intrusion as he bent to suck on my clit.
His fingers pumped inside me as the clit suction brought me to an orgasm that stole my sanity, wracking my entire body, and I bucked as wave after wave of pleasure flowed through me, followed by aftershocks as he flicked my sensitive bud with his tongue.
As I was coming down, he kissed up and down the soft skin of my inner thighs. “How was that, my wife?”
“Oh.” Barely able to talk, I stroked my fingers through his hair. “My husband. That was the best. The best ever.”
“I'm glad, because now I’m going to fuck you.” His voice was a near growl as he entered me slowly, pushing forward one delicious inch at a time. Our gazes remained locked, letting each of us bear witness to how this felt for the other, how every new millimeter of penetration felt better than the last until he was seated deep inside of me.
He stroked hair out of my face and gently kissed me as we lay together, him on top and inside of me, him part of me, and I wanted to live like this—exactly like this—for the rest of our lives.
But my lower half had different ideas. My hips moved of their own volition, pumping against his still body.
Then he started to move too, starting with long, slow strokes, me gasping as each one hit home. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, that I couldn’t feel it any deeper, he tucked his hands under my legs and pushed them back up near my ears, then he drove into me faster and harder, making me moan in this immobilized position, and I loved yielding to him, feeling utterly his. I wanted to do the same for him.
“Turn over.” I pushed on his shoulder.
“As you wish,” he quoted his brothers’ favorite movie as he rolled onto his back, pulling me along so I straddled him, his cock still buried deep inside me.
I adjusted my position, letting gravity push me down so he was in even deeper, and then with my hands on his chest, our gazes connected, I started to rock. The friction of the slight movement of his thick rod inside me was literally breathtaking, and soon I was panting, so greedy to have more and more and more of Mac.
Rising higher on my knees, I rode him, rising up and down as fast as my body allowed, loving how sweat rose on his chest, how the veins on his neck protruded, how his organ filled me so completely, giving me pleasure and comfort and joy all at once.
His face strained as his orgasm neared, and I loved seeing him come from this angle. Slowing my bouncing, I reached behind me to find his testicles, and when I touched them his hips bucked up, pushing hard, driving him in even deeper.
“Holy shit, Faith.”
“That good?” I cupped his sex organs lightly as I moved above him.
His breaths came faster and faster, and then his hand slid to our intersection and found my clit. He rubbed me there as I bounced above him, so connected in lust, in pleasure, in love.
“Now, baby. Now. Are you ready?” His voice was hoarse, and I nodded, unable to speak as I felt my orgasm rise. His hips drove him up off the mattress as he shouted my name and his face twisted with ecstasy, our ecstasy.
We'd come together before—twice before—but never like this, and my breaths came in shallow bursts as my insides convulsed around him and his hips continued to buck and twist and thrust inside me.
When I couldn’t take anymore, I collapsed onto his chest and he held me, our lungs synchronizing their timing and our hands roaming each other's bodies.
My brain started to function again, and I lifted my head to look into his eyes. “Um, Mac?”
“Yes, baby?”
I cringed at the word, given what I was thinking.
“What's wrong?” he said with alarm.
“We forgot to use a condom. We've been so careful after that time in Las Vegas.”
“Oh. I'm so sorry, baby. I got carried away.”
“It wasn't just you.” I stroked his chest, joining some beads of sweat near his nipple. “Would it be so bad?” I asked.
“What?”
“A baby.”
His fingers trailed up and down my spine. “Whatever you want. We can start trying whenever you want. All I know is I want a life with you, to raise kids with you, to have a family with you. One where our kids have strong bonds like my brothers and me. But with good parents. You know. A real family.”
My head nodded against his chest. “That's what I want too, more than anything.”
“You’re twenty-three. Shouldn't we wait until you're at least finished college?”
“Colleges accept mothers, right? And people in their thirties. What if I wait to go until after our kids are in school.”
“If that’s what you want.” He pulled my chin up and kissed me. “All I want is for you to be happy. I don't want you to regret having kids so young.”
I pushed up on my elbows to look into his eyes. “Mac Downey. If there's one thing I know for sure, it's that as long as I have you I won't have regrets. None that matter. None that would compare to the regrets I'd have had if we hadn't found our way back to each other.”
He smiled mischievously. “So, no regrets about letting your sin consultant—an ex-criminal, no less—do wicked, sinful things to
your body?”
I slid one of my legs up over his and lay my hand on his hardening cock. “I'd be devastated if my sexy, ex-criminal sin consultant ever stopped doing wicked, sinful things to my body.”
“Oh, baby.” His cock throbbed in my hand. “How about I do some of those wicked things to your body right now.”
“Yes, please.”
“Condom?”
I drew a breath, considering the question as my fingers stroked his partial erection, marveling once again how the organ grew and hardened at my touch. “If I'm going to get pregnant tonight, has that ship already sailed?”
“Probably.”
“Then fuck me, Mac. Fuck me right now. Fuck me however and as many times as you want.”
And he did. He took me hard and fast, then slow and soft. He took me on every piece of furniture in the hotel room, in the shower and then on our terrace, under the stars as the Pacific Ocean crashed into the cliffs below.
And I knew through it all that I'd found my true calling, that I'd found my true mate, that I'd found the most important thing I'd ever want or need to be happy.
About the Author
Mara Leigh escaped from the corporate world and now loves to hang out in coffee shops, letting her imagination run wild. After living in various cities including Edinburgh, San Francisco and Philadelphia, Mara and her exorbitant shoe collection have settled in Toronto where she writes sexy, smart, satisfying romance and erotica.
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