HisMarriageBargain

by Sidney Bristol

  Sammi grabbed her arm. “Where are you going?”

  “Nowhere.” She eased back against the pillows and scooted toward Sammi. “How are you feeling?”

  “Groggy as fuck.” He ran his hand up and down her arm and she melted a little more.

  “Need anything?”

  Sammi wrapped his arm around her waist and hauled her across to him. Autumn laughed and squirmed, but he was all muscle and rogue strength. He tossed a leg over Autumn’s and settled her against him. It wasn’t the first time they’d cuddled, but things had been different then. She hadn’t been married to him and had known it wouldn’t, couldn’t, go further. Now all bets were off. Her heart did a painful flip-flop.

  What did she expect from this relationship?

  A broken heart.

  Because he was dying.

  Autumn clutched him and buried her face against his shoulder. It was so easy to forget what was coming because the now was so overwhelming. He’d married her to enjoy the moments he had left. So she’d make sure he enjoyed them all, whatever it took.

  Sammi rested his cheek against Autumn’s head and inhaled her fragrance. It was spicy and floral, something unique he’d never smelled before meeting her. The scent got on anything she touched. Shirts. Jackets. Blankets. Hell, even his car on the rare occasion he drove her anywhere.

  Autumn’s thigh slid up between his legs. He didn’t know if the movement was intentional or not, but his morning wood was about to pose a problem.

  Her foot slid up and down his calf, her fingers curling into his shoulder.

  He didn’t know what she wore to bed, but he could feel fabric and, under that, her bare breasts brushing against him. It was a special kind of torture. He’d intentionally forbidden himself from thinking about her boobs. How round, perky and firm they were. She had some of the best cleavage.

  Autumn wiggled closer, rubbing his dick with her hip.

  Sammi groaned and clenched her tighter. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  She tipped her chin up and smiled. Her dimples winked at him, giving her a mischievous air. “Getting into trouble.”

  “I couldn’t tell.”

  Her bottom lip slid out into a picture-perfect pout. He snorted, which turned into a surprised gasp as her hand wrapped around his cock through the boxers.

  “Autumn…” he groaned.

  “What?” There was that mischievousness again.

  Sammi grasped her wrist and pulled her hand up to his chest. He wasn’t going to go down that road. He wouldn’t take advantage of her like that. They shouldn’t even be sleeping in the same bed. One of the reasons for the suite was its dual luxurious bedrooms.

  She propped her head up on her palm and studied him, suddenly very serious.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  “About us.”

  “Yeah?” Was she having second thoughts?

  “We never talked about how this is going to work.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She shrugged. “I mean legally we’re married but what are we really? Am I your wife, your friend with benefits, live-in best friend or what?”

  “You’re my wife.” Had they made such a huge disconnect that she missed that little fact?

  When he’d hatched this plan it had been to get married in name only. He’d told himself he could handle her being with other men, as long as she lived with him and he had first call on her time. Now that it came down to articulating those thoughts, everything in him revolted at the idea of another man touching his wife.

  Autumn was his.

  She leaned toward him until they touched from shoulder to hip, her gaze searching his face, looking for something there he couldn’t help her discover. Whatever it was, he hoped she found it, that he was the man who met the standard. She lifted her hand and cupped his cheek, rubbing her palm along the stubble then up into his hair.

  “Good. If I’m your wife I don’t want to hear any more of this ‘it’s for money’ business, okay?”

  “I’m just being honest.”

  Autumn rolled her eyes and leaned in until their noses touched. “No, you’re pretending to be a saint. And honestly?”

  “What?”

  Her lips were so close. He could feel the caress of her breath. It was distracting, in the best manner possible. She chuckled and pressed a lingering kiss to his cheek, a hairsbreadth from his lips. He found himself clutching her closer, wrapping an arm around her waist and holding her tight.

  “You’re a much better sinner.”

  Sammi wanted to fuck her. He wanted her to ride his cock, her breasts bouncing and her pussy hugging him.

  No.

  Not going down that path.

  “Autumn—”

  She kissed him full on the mouth.

  Their second kiss.

  The first had knocked his world off its axis and this changed the climate.

  He tore his mouth away on will alone.

  “Autumn, no. Stop.”

  “What? Why?” She leaned away from him, her brow furrowed.

  “Because…” All the good reasons had fled him.

  “Sammi, let’s be reasonable.” She stroked his chest while appearing the most serious he’d ever seen her. “I’m not the cheating kind and I won’t look the other way for you to have someone else in your bed. I’m not too keen on having a pretend husband. I want a real one, and I mean that in every sense of the word. Besides, unless I’m wrong, the last girl you had sex with sucked. Do you really want to die with your last fuck being horrible?”

  His mouth was dry and his balls ached. Despite the absurdity of the situation, he laughed.

  “I just…” Sammi licked his lips and tried again. “I just don’t want to ruin our friendship. I might be in a wheelchair next week. I might not be able to have sex in a month.”

  Autumn shrugged. “So we make it work. My point is I married you. All of you.”

  It was as if the world rotated a little to the right and spun the wrong direction in that moment.

  He’d always been attracted to her. She was beautiful and talented and vibrant. But she’d always been off-limits. As his wife though, everything changed.

  “Are you sure?” he asked. When was the last time he double-checked with a woman to ensure she wanted him? A decade at least.

  Autumn snuggled in close, a small smile on her face. “I married you. I’m not entirely sane, duh.”

  “Point taken.” He kissed her forehead and it felt right. Genuine affection.

  “How about some breakfast? Hungry yet?”

  “Starved.” And maybe a little space would give him some better perspective. “I’ll call room service.”

  “I’m going to jump in the shower really quick.” She wiggled away from him and stood, stretching her hands toward the ceiling.

  * * * * *

  Sammi picked up the heavily laden trays of food from the room service cart and carried them out onto the balcony. Autumn had opened all the doors to the outside after her shower and declared that she would only eat out there.

  The balcony ran the length of their suite and was walled off from their neighbors’ for privacy. It was wide enough for an entire set of furniture—an L-shaped wicker couch, two armchairs and an ottoman. Autumn lay on the couch, her hair spread out to dry with large sunglasses covering most of her face. Since she’d bolted past him onto the balcony after her shower he’d only gotten the impression of her wrapped in flowing fabric. Now he saw that she’d worn some kind of transparent beach cover-up over a bikini. A very small bikini he couldn’t recall seeing before.

  “Breakfast is served.” He lifted the metal cloche from the food and stared.

  That was not what he’d expected.

  On one side of the tray was the omelet with turkey bacon, as he’d requested, on the other were pancakes with fruit topping. In the middle sat a small, orange cake with white swirling designs painted on it. It even had a little miniature topper of two rings.

&n
bsp; “They were going to bring it out last night, but there wouldn’t have been enough for everyone so I asked them to hold it. Surprise.” Autumn wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed his cheek.

  Sammi didn’t know what to say. The surprises, they just kept coming. He squeezed her arm and shook his head.

  “I’m hungry,” she announced and reached past him for her breakfast.

  Sammi took his meal to the couch where he balanced it on his knee and began cutting the omelet into smaller bites. Usually he only had these when he had breakfast with his mother, always accompanied by her special blend of tea. It was disgusting but on the few occasions he’d tried to refuse she’d guilted him into drinking several cups instead of just one or two.

  “What do you want to do today?” Autumn asked between bites.

  “I don’t know. We could take a boat tour, hit up the shops, go lay out on the beach—”

  “Didn’t you say you wanted to get a massage?”

  “We can do that too.”

  “I’m not about to say no to a massage, but you said yesterday it might help.” She chewed another bite of the fluffy pancakes.

  He peered at her pancakes. “Why don’t you use the syrup?”

  Autumn shuddered and her lips compressed into a tight line. “No.”

  “What’s wrong with syrup?”

  “I like my pancakes dry, maybe with some fruit.” She reached for a glass of milk and downed half of it.

  Now he wanted to know. Sammi turned toward Autumn and studied her. “Are you allergic?”

  “Nope.”

  “Is it a consistency thing?”

  “No.”

  “What about—”

  Autumn dropped the fork on her plate with a clink and spoke in a rush. “My mom used to crush up horse pills and put them in maple syrup when I was sick because she could steal them from across the street instead of going to buy human medicine.” Her cheeks were bright pink.

  That was not anything he’d expected to hear.

  Autumn pulled her hair over her shoulder and stared at her plate. She pushed the pancake around but didn’t take a bite.

  “Horse pills?” he asked after a moment.

  “Yeah. Horse pills.”

  “Like big pills, or pills actually for horses.”

  “Pills actually for horses.”

  Autumn had never talked about her roots, and he realized belatedly that he didn’t know anything about her history except that she was a self-starter, motivated and kind. Sure, he knew that financially they were different, but he’d assumed she came from a middle-class family.

  “Sorry, I didn’t know.” It was the only thing he could think of to say.

  She shrugged. “How could you?”

  Maybe Autumn’s mother had been so bad off the horse meds were the only thing she could give her kid. He wanted to believe Autumn’s mother had her best interests at heart and that it wasn’t as horrific as it sounded. But her silence was telling. Whatever Autumn’s history was, it was darker than he’d realized.

  But he was here now, and she’d never have to take horse pills again.

  “I’ll remember to ask them to leave the syrup off next time.”

  They ate in strained silence for a few minutes. Waves hitting the shore, birds and the comings and goings of humans created the soundtrack to the day, punctuated by silverware scraping across plates.

  He finished his omelet and placed the plate back on the tray. Autumn was quick to follow his lead, leaving behind a half-uneaten breakfast. She moved as if to leave, but he caught her arm and pulled her back. Autumn relaxed against him, leaning back so he could hug her from behind.

  “Where are you going?” he asked against her temple.

  “I don’t know,” she mumbled.

  Sammi kissed her cheek several times in quick succession. Autumn’s smile flickered and she laughed.

  There she is.

  He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her onto his lap. There was no telling how long he’d have this kind of strength, so he might as well use it while he could.

  “What are you doing?” Autumn continued to laugh, which he preferred to her brooding silence. She twisted around until she could face him, legs stretched out on the couch to one side.

  “Saying good morning,” he replied.

  “That’s not how you say good morning.” Autumn cupped his face and her gaze dipped to his lips. “This is how you say good morning.” She lowered her face to press her parted lips against his.

  Sammi hauled her closer. Autumn’s fingers dug into his hair, twisting and tugging. He let his hands rove over her back, feeling her smooth skin, the occasional raised line of a tattoo. Autumn shifted in his lap until she straddled him. She moved her hips, grinding against his cock.

  “Oh yeah,” he murmured against her lips.

  “Like that?” she purred, still holding his face.

  “Yeah.”

  He fisted the delicate material of her cover-up, pulling it up until he could touch more of her, skin to skin. Was she serious about having sex with him?

  She kissed him again, but this time her hands coasted down his shoulders and over his chest. Why had he put a shirt on? He was overdressed.

  Autumn grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it up.

  “You read my mind.” He grinned and she laughed as she tugged the shirt over his head and tossed it on the couch. Again, she ran her hands down over his shoulders, chest and stomach.

  She’d touched him a hundred times, at parties, during a tattoo or just hanging out, but this time every inch she connected with burned with desire. He wanted more.

  “I’m just good like that.” She shrugged and leaned back. The taut muscles of her abdomen rippled as she undulated once, twice. It was dirty and sexy as hell.

  Autumn pulled a packet from her bikini top, a sly smile on her lips.

  Sammi laughed and took the condom from her. “I’d call you a Girl Scout but I don’t think their motto is the same.”

  “I always played better with the boys anyway.”

  He left the condom on the couch next to him and slid his hands up under her sheer cover-up to palm her breasts. Autumn’s boobs had always captured his attention. They defied gravity and taunted him. And now they were all his.

  Autumn placed her hands over his and squeezed, showing him how she liked to be touched. He rubbed his thumb over her nipple and she hissed, so he rolled the peak between his fingers.

  She winced and grabbed his wrist. “Careful.”

  “Sorry,” he said quickly.

  “It’s okay.” Autumn leaned back and drew the triangles of her bikini to the sides of her breasts. “I don’t think I ever told you they were pierced.”

  Oh hell.

  Not only did Autumn have little stainless steel bars through each nipple, but tattooed around her areola in red, orange and green were little curly designs, making each breast look like a beautiful unfurling flower.

  Sammi passed his thumb over the hard nub and Autumn’s hips did an interesting swivel. He glanced up at her face to find her watching him with parted lips and half-hooded eyes.

  “How does it feel?” Sammi rubbed both nipples with his thumbs, back and forth, in little circles, tweaking the ends of the piercings.

  Autumn’s fingers dug into his shoulders. “Makes them more sensitive and it turns me on,” she got out between little pants and moans.

  “What else do you have pierced?” He’d seen the list of piercings the shop offered, which included a few things he’d never known could be modified.

  “Where’s the fun in telling you?” Her cheeks dimpled as she grinned mischievously.

  So there are other piercings…

  “There’s four in your ears. One in each nipple.” He tweaked those gently and she moaned. “Your bellybutton. Where else have you been pierced?”

  Autumn groaned. “I used to have my dimples pierced, tongue and superficial piercings down my back.”

  Sammi
didn’t even know what a superficial piercing was or how one would pierce dimples. He filed those away to ask her about later. Much later.

  “Any others?” He released her breasts and smoothed his hands down over her stomach.

  “Nope. Not telling.” She shook her head and closed her eyes, fingers digging into his shoulders.

  “Fine. Let’s find out.”

  The ties to her bikini bottoms came apart with a single tug on each side. Autumn steadied herself with a hand on each of his shoulders and rose up on her knees.

  Is this really happening?

  Sammi pulled the bikini bottoms from between them and stared. Her mound was perfectly smooth. Not a hair to be seen. Just a tattoo of a cat curled up to the left side, just inside the crease where her leg joined her torso.

  Autumn had a pussy…on her pussy. He would have laughed at the pun, but she arched her back and did what he could only describe as a stripper body roll. It wasn’t just an undulation of her body. It was a rolling and curving, a grinding against him.

  He almost missed it. Her boobs were still pretty distracting, but he kept being drawn back to her mound and, when she leaned back, he glimpsed something silver, metallic, between her legs.

  Sammi wrapped an arm around her and hauled her up against his chest. She laughed with her head tossed back, hair and the sheer cover-up caught in the wind.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I think I found it.”

  He held her gaze and reached between them. Her folds were soft and slick with arousal. That was until his fingers brushed something hard and warm to the touch.

  Autumn gasped, her fingernails scraping tracks on his shoulders.

  Sammi watched her face, fascinated by her complete abandon and the way she never once looked away or played coy. She was fucking turned-on. By him. And she didn’t care who knew it.

  Carefully he traced a ring that pierced delicate skin just above the hard nubbin of her clitoris. If he held the piercing with two fingers, he could gently flick the erect button back and forth.

  “Oh fuck me,” Autumn said on a whoosh of breath.

  Sammi wanted to. His balls ached and his dick was painfully hard.