Tied Up in Knots (Marshals 3)

“The fuck are you wearing?”

My clothes? “Why, do I look weird?” I asked, taking several steps back, checking my wet shirt and pants, not sure what he was seeing.

“No,” he said gruffly, his hot gaze traveling up and down my body before returning to my face. “‘Weird’ is not the word I’d use.”

“Oh no? What, then?” I pried, taking a step forward, bumping into him, letting the warmth rolling off his solid muscular frame sear into me. I had expected steam to erupt when we touched before, as opposite as we were at the moment, me so cold and wet, him a simmering flame.

“Decadent,” he whispered, huffing out a breath. “You walked around lookin’ like that all night?”

He wanted me.

It was there in the rich, thick growl in his voice, all smoky and seductive, the dangerous glint in the depths of his eyes, and the way he wet his lips like his mouth had gone dry.

“Yeah,” I purred, grinning as I knocked him back into the door, pinning him there with one hand, bracing him, making sure he couldn’t move. “All yesterday, all today I had a hundred things to tell you, but right now I can’t think of even one.”

“How come?”

I whimpered involuntarily. “You’re finally home.”

His breath hitched as he lifted his hands to my face, touching my skin, skimming over bruises and contusions, smoothing over my eyebrows, tracing my cheeks as he looked with both his eyes and his fingertips. “Where were you?”

It was a loaded question, but I knew what I was really being asked. “Where do you think I was?”

“No,” he growled, the muscles in his strong, square jaw cording as he continued to scrutinize me, missing nothing. “You fuckin’ tell me.”

“Well, first I was with the guys, and then Janet called, and then I was almost home when I stopped at Barrett’s.”

“Why’d you stop?” he prodded, slipping a hand inside the collar of my shirt so he could stroke over my skin before trailing his fingers first to my collarbone and then to the base of my throat. “Why didn’t you come straight here?”

“I didn’t know you were home. I couldn’t get you on the phone.”

“I know. We weren’t allowed to call, and then—I just wanted to get back here.”

“Oh?” My heart was pounding and my throat hurt and my mouth was dry and all of that was Ian’s fault. Such simple words, that he wanted to get back to me, had me in knots of anxious, frantic happiness. I really was going to fly apart at any second.

He was silent for a moment and then said simply, “It hurt to go.”

“Yeah?” I pressed, because holy fuck, Ian never said anything like that. There were so few confessions from his soul that when one did happen, I pounced.

“You know it did,” he grumbled. “You know I hate to be away.”

“From me?”

“Of course from you, who else would I—are you drunk?”

I shook my head as he began unbuttoning my sopping-wet shirt. “Not anymore. I was maybe a little tipsy a few hours ago, but now, no. Exhausted.”

“Why were you tipsy?”

I shrugged as I looked at the stubble on his face, the lines in the corners of his eyes, and at his plump lower lip. My skin felt tight, flushed with heat, and I swallowed as the sensations tripped through me, sparking, sizzling, the want rising so fast I almost cried out.

“You don’t know why you were drinking?”

“Missed you,” I said under my breath as he eased the shirt from my shoulders.

“Jesus, you’re bleeding.”

“Just a bit, and it’ll stop,” I promised, leaning in to kiss his throat, suck the skin into my mouth and gently nibble. I’d leave marks, but he’d be able to hide them.

“Were you cut?”

“Yesterday,” I got out before I lifted my head and kissed him.

He tasted so good, like toothpaste and a trace of bourbon, and his mouth was hot, and his breath coming in stuttering little gasps made me smile.

“Fuck,” he panted when I stopped for a second so he could gulp air, even though all I wanted to do was kiss him senseless until he begged me to fuck him.

“I should shower and change,” I said into the hollow of his throat, licking his skin, inhaling his scent, wanting it all over me, on our bed, everywhere. “I know I smell bad. I haven’t slept or bathed since Sunday morning.”

“You smell like rain and sweat, and your eyes are so dark and your clothes are sticking to your shoulders and your chest, and Jesus, Miro, you can’t—I need to stay here to guard you so no one thinks they can be me and have what I have.”

It was me. I was what he had.

The joy of being prized, wanted, coveted filled me with sweet, syrupy pride, and I reveled in it and let it fill what his absence had emptied.