Tied Up in Knots (Marshals 3)

“You think it’s nice to kiss me like you did downstairs and then just walk away?”

I chuckled before I took a sip of my tea.

“Hello?”

“You’re the one who put a stop to it. I figured you were done.”

“Done.” His voice cracked. “You’re making me crazy.”

I put the cup of hot tea down on the nightstand and then turned back to my man, slipping my hand around his cheek and staring into those beautiful eyes of his. “I couldn’t tell.”

“You couldn’t tell,” he almost shouted at me, grabbing my hand and pressing it to his long, hard, fully erect length. “Can you fuckin’ tell now?”

I squeezed him through the sweats he had on, and the mewling groan that came out of his throat made me smile. “So you’re saying you want me, then,” I teased.

“Yes—fuck, I want you!”

“I’m having trouble reading you,” I said as I shoved him down on the bed, shucked off his sweats, curled over him, and took his cock down the back of my throat.

He roared my name, and the sound, raw, guttural, torn from his chest, ripped from deep down in his soul, washed a tight quickening of liquid heat through me that had been missing between us for a while.

I was being careful.

He was unsure.

Together we’d been loving and thoughtful, but neither of us let go, too afraid of what would happen, what we would say. A mistake might be the end, so we’d been tiptoeing around the can of snakes, neither wanting to loosen the lid.

In our hesitancy we’d created distance, because if we weren’t that close, we couldn’t get hurt.

I loved Ian with everything I had, but I also feared him dicing my heart up into little pieces at the same time. Meanwhile he was gambling on me, on me staying, on me being strong, and whether he knew it or not, testing at the same time. Would I stay when push came to shove? If he was gone more than he was home, would it still be worth it for me?

But now—right now—I had him at my mercy, I was driving him crazy with my mouth and hands, and there was nothing between us but ferocious, devouring need.

I sucked hard, licked him from balls to head, and then swallowed around him, showing him all the tricks in my arsenal until he was clenching my hair in a tightened fist and rocking in and out, fucking my mouth. When he pushed me off, I was surprised.

“What?” I panted, saliva dripping from my chin as I spoke.

He took hold of me, roughly wiped my lips with his thumb, and then hooked his hand around my neck and pulled me down so he could kiss me.

I ravaged him and he arched up off the bed, brushing against me as he whispered my name in endless, reverent litany.

“Ian,” I ground out, shoving his T-shirt up, bending to suckle on one raised, pebbled nipple, seeing him gorgeous in his honest submission, the twisting current running between us making him jolt in my hands as I kissed him again, rougher, because my longing wasn’t just reverence, but angry as well.

Why did he leave me? Why couldn’t he simply stay?

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes in the morning, the last when I closed them at night, this was what I had to have… Ian in my bed, tangled with me, breathing in tandem.

“I hate you,” I snarled.

“Yes,” he rasped, because he knew. He had to. “But I don’t care. You love me more.”

That was true too.

“Fuck me,” he growled into my mouth as I delivered another punishing kiss. “I’ve been wanting you since I left. I just want to feel you on top of me and in me and just—fuck, Miro. How’d we get so far from us?”

He was gone, that was how.

“Nothing makes sense when I’m not here, and then I get here, and lately you’re not you. Why’re you being careful with me? Why are you treating me like I’m not yours?”

It was like we started and stopped. I got used to him being gone, and then he came back and I spent the whole time waiting for him to go again. I wasn’t living anymore. But I loved him, so much more than was wise because how much Ian could give and how much I could take was something we couldn’t answer.

Things needed to be settled between us, but not now. The only thing that mattered now was feeling Ian wrapped around me.

I sat up and rolled him to his stomach, shoved his facedown into the rumpled blankets before I dove for the nightstand to retrieve the lube.

“Do you think about me at all when I’m not here?”

“Idiot,” I croaked, snapping open the tube. I slicked my cock fast and then pressed against his pale-pink hole. “You’re all I think about.”