“I’m serious. I could never forgive you. Is she taking him back or what?”
“He wants to go to counseling, but she doesn’t seem very open to it. I think she’s done.” He sighs, shaking his head. “And I think she’s been using our wedding to distract herself.”
Guilt and frustration and sympathy roil inside me in equal measures.
“I understand her pain,” I tell him, reaching up to finger the collar of his shirt. “But I’m not having fowl flying around my reception because your mother needs a hobby while they figure out their future.”
“Oh, the doves were actually for the wedding ceremony, not the recept . . .”
The razor sharp look I slice at him cuts down that explanation.
“Right,” he finishes, grimacing. “No doves at all. I’ll talk to her.”
I stare up at the rugged face, usually so impassive. After years of learning him, loving him, knowing him, I see right through the guard at his eyes. I stormed through the gate at his heart. He’s mine now, and as much as I hate fighting, I love making up even more. I step closer and tip up onto my toes, dusting kisses along his jaw. His hands find my hips, pulling me close so I can feel him hard and stretched out.
“You handling this before we eat or after?” he asks, his voice husky at my ear.
“Who needs food?”
“You do usually,” he says, his laugh low and modulated.
“Not when you’ve been on the road.” I undo his belt, unbutton the expensive pants and slip my hand in to squeeze his ass. “You may fuck me now.”
“Finally,” he bends to growl into the shallow base of my throat. “I thought I was losing my touch.”
I pull him by the leather belt hanging at his waist, walking backward into my bedroom, eyes smoldering. “Come show me this famous touch you claim to have and I’ll let know if you’ve lost it.”
He sexy-stalks me until my knees hit the bed, bringing our bodies flush. I push his polo shirt up, baring the corrugated expanse of abs and pecs. You don’t care for the most finely-honed bodies in the world without finely honing your own. He yanks the shirt over his head, and the ridges at his hips peak over the edge of his briefs. I’m not sure what God was thinking when He gave men that line at the hip.
“Take off your clothes,” he rasps at my collarbone.
“You first.” I challenge him with a look from under my lashes, loving the power tug of war that always infiltrates our foreplay. Eyeing his muscled torso, I lick my lips. “You’re already halfway there.”
Wordlessly, and holding my eyes in a burning stare, he pushes the pants and briefs down over his hips and long legs. The jangle of his belt blends with our short, panting breaths in the stillness of the bedroom. The first time I saw Markus naked, it almost sent me into tongues.
And I’m Presbyterian.
In addition to the sculpted, toned frame his clothes had hinted lay beneath, there was his dick. It’s pierced, which shocked the hell outta me. Markus is not that guy. Or at least you’d never think he was. I palm the warm, smooth, hard length of him, moving my hand up and down slowly.
“I’m gonna thank your frat brothers at the wedding,” I say, angling a smile up at him, rubbing the tip, fingering the bar of his ampallang piercing.
“Craziest dare I ever accepted.” He shakes his head, but laughs a little. “My only comfort is they all have them, too.”
“Oh, that’s not my only comfort.” I glance down between us, eyeing the little bar that delivers so much pleasure caressing inside me with every thrust.
He pushes me gently onto the bed, letting my legs hang over the side. “Oh you want comfort?”
Grabbing the waistband of my shorts and panties, he tugs both down my legs until cool air kisses the wet strip of skin at the juncture of my thighs. On his knees, he presses my legs wider apart, humming his pleasure as he runs his mouth over my pussy, repeating the caress, never taking my clit. Just grazing the lips, passing back and forth until the muscles in my thighs quiver. My fingers twitch at my side on the bed.
“Markus,” I moan, grabbing his head and pushing him deeper into me. “Don’t play with your food.”
His wicked laugh is barely breath and barely sound at my most intimate place. He opens me, licking in my crevices, sucking my clit, slipping his thumb inside.
“Shit.” I gasp, my back arching off the bed. “That’s it. Right there. Keep going.”
“Are you planning to direct me the whole time?” He asks, lifting his head, humor and love warming his gaze. “Because I assure you I know what I’m doing.”
Laughter trembles through me and I close my eyes, releasing his head, spreading my arms out at my side in surrender. “Then demonstrate your competence.”