He paused for a second, holding me tight against his side, and then said the last thing in the world I was expecting to hear.
“How much I really want to make love to you.”
Chapter 14
Quiet as a mouse, Marcus took my hand and we tiptoed across the roof, climbing over the window frame and landing back inside the house. The darkness provided a blanket of cover, shielding our flushed faces and wild eyes as he led me slowly across the floor.
He wrapped his strong arms around me. I was dying to feel his body against mine, skin to skin, for so long. He slid his fingertips deeper into my hair, kissing me passionately.
Turned out, his bed was even bigger than mine.
When we got to the edge of the mattress, he tugged me suddenly toward him. His hands came down over my back as he tilted his head to whisper in my ear.
“The way you look at me, it ravishes me. It’s a power I can no longer resist.”
I touched his face. “I tried, but I can’t stop thinking about you.”
“I can’t either. You take my breath away, Becca.”
“I just want something meaningful. If that’s not what you’re looking for, then just tell me to leave,” I said.
A little off-balanced by his sudden hesitation, I leaned back to look up at him and saw his eyes searching mine desperately in the darkness, brimming with some uncertain emotion.
“I don’t want to be something you regret,” I said.
He brushed my hair away from my face and placed it behind my ear.
“Why would you ever say that?” he asked, his fingers sliding down my back.
The words were echoes of my abrupt departure when I’d left him on the island, and the pain they’d caused was suddenly clear. He was feeling as mixed up about this as I was. The cool façade, the man who was always in control—he was flailing just as much as the rest of us, trying desperately to grasp hold of something steady. Of something real.
My mind flashed back to the night at the Santa Monica Pier, the thousand lingering looks and chaste kisses on the cheek, the happy couple strolling along the beach in the Caribbean, and Marcus and me coming together for the first time and kissing in the waves.
And I suddenly realized, without a shadow of a doubt, how long I’d wanted to do this.
How much I wanted to do this.
He softly kissed me on the lips. And those lips…they were so sweet, so soft, so perfect.
“I can stop thinking of you,” he said,” I can’t stop dreaming about you, wanting you, and needing you. All I know is that I desperately need you in my life.”
With a sweet smile, I reached out and wound my fingers through his windswept hair. He leaned into the touch, but kept a careful distance, still watching me with those beautiful eyes.
“I could never regret this,” he said.
The words were as much an affirmation to me as they were to him, and hearing them aloud, a sudden feeling of lightness flooded my entire body.
A similar look of relief brightened all of his features. His face grew abruptly tender, and his eyes grew heated at the same time. Without another word, he pulled us together.
There was a muted urgency as his hands slipped under my thin camisole, a quiet desperation that came from waiting so confused, so long. He pulled it up and over my head and tossed it on the floor, eyes flickering down across my pale skin before his fingers found my drawstrings. I smiled as he slowly slid my pants off. He kissed me harder as I unbuttoned his jeans. Anything he wanted, I knew I would do for him. I pulled his pants down. I just wanted to touch him, to feel his skin against mine.
He caressed my cheek ever so softly. “Can’t you see? I’m falling in love with you, Bex.”
“I’m falling in love with you too,” I said.
Kisses trailed from my ear to my shoulder, and then back up again. I couldn’t get enough of his warm, moist, sweet, and sensual kisses.
“I love kissing you,” I said.