“Okay.”
“I will be all over you if that’s what you want.”
“Yes,” he croaked out. “That’s what I fuckin’ want.”
I lunged at him, hugging him tight, crushing him against me as I pressed my lips to his ear. “I love you, Ian Doyle. Only you, and every time you go away it fuckin’ kills me. I don’t ever want to us to be apart.”
He leaned into me, and I felt the power in his hard, muscular frame as he gave me his weight and his lips opened against the side of my throat.
“Someday, when I have a movie of my life, all that’ll be there will be you,” I promised huskily.
He kissed up to my jaw and then made his way to my mouth. When he tilted my head back and mauled me, I breathed him in, taking all he was offering. Walking him into the wall, I banged him up against it, rattling the pictures, wedging my thigh between his, pressing, pushing, wanting him naked under me, under my hands, desperately.
It was too much to ask to watch him be forgotten. He was the man I loved, and the slight, I realized quickly, urged me to get him home to show him how cherished he truly was.
“Miro.” He breathed out my name.
It was all I could do to not drag him out of the house, wanting, needing to be closer, to be inside him.
I could feel it as I stood wedged chest to chest against my lover, soaking in the hard drum beating of his heart as I lowered my mouth to the throbbing pulse in his throat and bit down.
His cry was hoarse but whispered as he bucked in my arms, took my face in his hands, and kissed me.
It was drugging and violent, hot and hungry, and I forgot where I was—all that mattered was him and my desire to have him.
“Fuck,” he gasped, turning his head, breaking the kiss, his hot breath puffing over my face. “I can’t even… think. Just—lemme go.”
Moving slow, like honey, I made sure to put my hands everywhere before finally curling my fingers through the belt loops of his jeans as I stood, panting, my forehead resting against his.
His hands were up under my light cashmere sweater, on my skin, sliding over my abdomen as he fought to get his body, unsteady after my onslaught, under control.
“Oh.”
Turning, I found his stepsister, Erica, standing in the hall, smiling tentatively at us.
“There you are, Ian,” she said softly. “We were all going to say something to Dad, a quick toast, and then we’ll have cake. Mom’s going now, and after her, Lor. You can go before me, though, if you like.”
She was startled. It was all over her face as she stood there, staring, watching us both panting and breathless from kissing. To her credit, her hesitant smile never wavered. There was no judgment in her gaze, merely surprise.
He shook his head. “No, Miro and I gotta go, actually. Duty calls.”
She squinted at us, clearly confused.
I pulled my ID and flipped it open as I’d been doing for the past three, almost four, years. “Deputy US Marshal.”
Her mouth dropped open.
“That’s why we were out here,” I explained. “I got a call and pulled Ian out.”
Her look turned skeptical.
“I mean—” I shrugged, because we had not drawn apart. I still had my hands clenched on his hips, his were on my sides under my sweater. We weren’t fooling anyone. “I was obviously all over him, but there was a reason for us being out here to begin with.”
It was a lie, but I hardly cared. They had not included Ian or his mother in the “walk down memory lane.” I was too pissed to care. “So, you know, you don’t have to wait on Ian for anything. You all can go on with it like you did the movie.”
She put her hand over her heart. “You’re very blunt.”
“Yeah, he is,” Ian said, and I was glad to hear the trace of laughter in his voice. I’d worried for a second that I’d overstepped. “But that’s how I like him.”
He eased free of me but took hold of the front of my sweater. “So we’ll see you.”
“Wait, I—” she began, rushing down the hall after us. “Are you sure you have to go? I’d love to hear more about being a marshal.”
Ian snorted out a laugh, which I loved hearing. It made it impossible not to lean sideways and kiss him. He covered his cheek where my lips had been and beamed at his stepsister. “You don’t give a crap.”
But unlike probably every other interaction they’d had, he was grinning in that wicked way where you were sure you’d never seen anything prettier in your life.
“No, I do,” she argued, clearly mesmerized by him. It was easy when Ian was being charming. He was irresistible. “I had no idea there were still marshals around. I thought they rode horses and got posses together.”