The only person who was somewhat aloof was my dad. He was generally a lot more laid-back than the other men in my life, and his reaction would have taken me aback if it weren’t for the fact that Dad was the only one who knew the truth. I watched as Dad studied Marco, and I knew him well enough to know that he was trying to gauge whether Marco was worthy of that second chance he’d advised I should give him. If anyone else noticed Dad’s unusual behavior, I was certain they put it down to overprotectiveness.
The only really awkward moment during the visit was after lunch when Beth came to stand beside Marco’s armchair. She tilted her head to the side, inspecting him curiously as Marco smiled back at her in amusement. And then everyone heard her ask loudly, “Are you Hannah’s boyfriend?”
Hannah wanted a black hole to suddenly open up in the middle of the sitting room and swallow her whole.
Worse, Marco’s reply was, “Nope. She won’t let me be.”
Beth had immediately turned her cute look of consternation on me. “That’s really rude, Hannah.”
And that was so adorably funny even I laughed through the blazing heat in my cheeks.
A little while later Joss and Ellie got up to make coffee and tea and I ignored Marco’s gaze, as I shot out of the sitting room after them into the kitchen. “What the hell are you all playing at?” I asked quietly. “What happened to Braden’s and Adam’s overprotectiveness? What happened to all of your overprotectiveness?”
Joss shrugged. “We like Marco. He seems like a solid guy.”
I didn’t even know what to say to that.
I looked at my sister. Ellie frowned at my expression of disbelief. “Hannah, we all just appreciate how much effort he’s putting in with you. We want you to be happy. It’s obvious to everyone you two are more than friends. I mean, we’ve hardly seen you for three weeks and when we do all you talk about is what you and Marco have been up to.”
“Friends, my ass,” Joss grunted, stirring sugar into someone’s coffee. “The sexual tension between you two is off the charts.” Her grin turned smug. “Reminds me of me and Mr. Carmichael.”
“No details.” Ellie held up a hand, her eyes pleading.
“I wasn’t going to,” Joss assured her, but we knew where her mind had wandered by the still smug smile curling her mouth and by the heat in her eyes.
I sighed, leaning back against my mother’s kitchen counter. “I thought I could at least rely on my family to help keep things platonic between me and Marco. But you’re practically spoon-feeding me to him.”
Ellie snorted, a long, drawn-out, sarcastic snort. “Be serious, Hannah. You spend nearly every waking moment with him. If anyone is helping him with you, sweetheart, it’s you.”
Gazing at him sleeping on my couch, I was overwhelmed with my feelings for him. Feelings deep in my gut, throbbing in my chest, and tingling at the ends of my fingertips. The past week, after Sunday lunch, I’d seen Marco once for dinner, but work had kept us busy and at the weekend he once again had a mysterious family commitment. I came to the not-very-hard-to-deduce conclusion that this family thing occurred on alternate weekends.
It was difficult not to push him on that subject.
But I didn’t. Mostly because of the aforementioned hypocrisy.
So… we hadn’t seen each other for a few days. The whole missing-him thing had gotten worse. That’s why when I opened my door that night and saw him there I was flooded by my emotions. Whatever the mysterious disappearance was about at the weekend, Marco proved to me that he missed me as much as I missed him, because there he was on my doorstep the night after. He couldn’t even wait a day to see me.
I told him I had essays to mark but that didn’t deter him. We ate dinner and then Marco camped out on my couch and let me get on with my work.
My resolve had weakened.
I could feel it.
He just had to push me and…
I dropped my gaze from his handsome, sleeping face and resolutely attempted to concentrate on my work. The next essay I picked up was Jarrod’s, which made ignoring Marco even harder. But I did it, because Jarrod deserved my focus.
His revised personal essay moved me. For all Jarrod’s seeming laziness with the other teachers and obvious issues with the father who had abandoned him, he had found strength that not many boys his age had by looking after his little brother, Harvey, and helping to raise him. For Jarrod, the aim of his essay was to show his growth in getting over childish fears and becoming a young adult. But the reader easily discerned from the multitude of situations he posed to us that Jarrod overcame his own fears in order to make Harvey feel safe, in order to help Harvey not be afraid.
It wasn’t easy for someone with Jarrod’s pride to put all that on paper, and he’d made me promise that only I and the examiner would read the essay.
It was a shame that I’d made that promise. I wanted to shove the paper in Rutherford’s face and demand that he see that the boy he thought so little of wasn’t a boy at all. He was a boy in age, but he’d been forced to become a man in spirit in order to give his brother the emotional support he himself had never had.
I sighed heavily, wishing there was more I could do to help Jarrod see his self-worth.
“What’s wrong?”
I lifted my head from my work at Marco’s rough voice and question. His eyes were open, his low-lidded gaze affecting me emotionally as well as physically.
That rush of tenderness I felt clearly translated in my returning gaze because Marco suddenly grew more alert.
Resolve weakened further. Just one push…
My heart was pounding hard, but I tried for nonchalance, tapping my pen casually against the papers in my hand. “I’ve got this kid in my fourth-year class. Jarrod.” I set the essay aside with the others. “He reminds me of you.”
“Yeah?” Marco slowly sat up, his elbows resting on his knees as he leaned toward me. “You must have a soft spot for him then.”
I laughed. “So sure of yourself these days.”
Marco didn’t answer; instead, his eyes darkened, glittering in the low light as he lowered himself onto the floor. The thundering heart banging away in my chest sped up even more and I unconsciously licked my lips as he moved toward me.
My breathing grew shallow, my mind screaming Stop him! while my body happily gave in as he nudged my legs apart, putting himself between them, and moving his torso into mine so I was forced to lean back on my hands to create space between us. Marco wasn’t having any of that. Instead he leaned farther into me as my head tilted back, one hand flat on the ground at my hip, the other sending the hair on the back of my neck up as he cupped my face.
“I know you still care.” His words whispered across my lips, his mouth almost touching mine. I shivered, my breath stuttering. “And, babe,” he continued, “I don’t think I can pretend any longer that I don’t think about being inside you nearly every hour of every day.”
His words were almost the equivalent of his mouth between my legs.
I wanted him. I wanted him so much I was struck mute with the fear that if I spoke I’d deny myself.
Marco took my silence as acquiescence.
His thumb stroked my cheek in tenderness, his eyes dropping to my mouth.
Breathless, I waited.
His head dipped, crossing the minute distance between our lips, and my eyes fluttered closed at the brush of his mouth over mine. My lips tingled, and I sighed, excited for more.
His kiss continued in gentle seduction, a touch of lips against lips, the pressure increasing in increments as my skin grew hotter and hotter.
I’d never been kissed like this. No guy had ever taken such sweet time with me, as if needing to sample every last inch of my mouth. Every time I thought he was going to deepen the kiss, he pulled back, dusting butterfly touches against the corner of my mouth or nibbling on my lower lip.
The tingling was delicious. “Only yours,” I pulled back a little to say softly, sounding almost desolate and wondering if in amongst the lust there wasn’t some truth to that tone.
Marco watched me as if he were trying to read me. Tenderly, he tucked my hair behind my ear. “Only mine what, Hannah?”
“Your kiss. My lips tingle when you kiss me.” I smiled sadly. “Real, honest-to-God tingling. No one else has ever made me feel that.”
A dark triumph entered Marco’s eyes. “Good,” he answered gruffly, before lowering his mouth to recapture mine.
My breathing grew steadily more and more out of control as he returned to torturing me with slow, seductive kisses. I longed for him to touch his tongue to mine so I could taste him. I remembered the taste of him. There was nothing quite like it. I needed that back.
Pushing up off the floor, I reached for him, my hands gripping his shoulders when the sudden movement pressed our mouths harder against each other. I moaned in need and Marco crushed me to him, his other hand in my hair holding me to him as I opened my mouth against his. My lower belly dipped as his tongue moved against mine, as his heat and taste filled me.
Yes.
This is what I’ve been missing.
CHAPTER 14
“Put your legs around my waist,” Marco ordered, his voice thick with need.
I immediately did as he asked, my arms encircling his shoulders as he held me fast and stood with ease. I gasped at the feel of his hard-on, our eyes locking and creating imaginary sparks of molten embers at the collision. Marco carried me, our breaths mingling as we panted in anticipation.
I was barely aware of moving through the flat until he was lowering me onto the soft duvet on my bed, his body sliding over mine.
He held himself up, his hands braced at either side of my head. “No turning back,” he murmured.
Pushing his shirt up, feeling his hot, smooth muscle under my hands, I shivered with excitement. “No turning back,” I agreed, completely taken over by the sexual promise in his eyes.
Marco tugged his shirt up over his head and tossed it somewhere behind me.
“Oh, my God,” I whispered before I could stop myself, immediately reaching for him, needing to touch all that glorious skin. He was powerfully built, sculpted. “You’re beautiful.”
The words were almost muffled because Marco was peeling my own sweater off me, throwing it in the same direction as his own. “No, but you are,” he answered quietly, his hands skimming up my waist to cup my br**sts over my bra.
I arched my back, pushing them into his hands.
Marco accepted my offer.
He kissed me, deep and hard, as he deftly unclipped my bra at the back.
My hands traced every inch of his chest while we kissed, reluctantly letting go when he gently pushed me back on the bed and slipped my bra straps down my arms.
The bra disappeared.
Marco’s gaze drifted from my face to my na**d br**sts and the heat in them made my br**sts swell, my ni**les tightening. I felt that roller-coaster dip in my lower belly and knew that if he slipped his hand between my legs he’d find me wet and ready for him.
He touched me, cupping my br**sts again, squeezing them gently, thumbs rubbing over my ni**les as he learned the shape of me. His breathing had grown heavier and I could feel the hard press of him through his jeans.
I arched again, silently asking for his mouth.
He didn’t deny me.
I sighed at the gentle brush of his lips against first my right breast and then my left. He tormented me, kissing near my nipples. And just when I thought I’d have to beg out loud, he licked my right nipple before closing his mouth around it and sucking it.
A larger ripple moved through my belly and I cried out softly, throwing my head back against my pillow.
Marco lavished attention on both ni**les until they were swollen, until I was desperate for him.
He pressed a sweet kiss to the outer curve of my breast and sat up.
I swear to God I almost came just at the sight of him straddling me with that dark hunger in his eyes – a hunger that would make any woman in the world feel combustible.
Our eyes locked, with thick, heady silence between us. Marco hooked his hands into the waistband of my leggings and underwear and he tugged. I lifted my lower body, giving him better access, and he raised my legs to peel the garments off. Once he’d divested me of them, slowly, gently, caressing my calves and outer thighs, he lowered my legs, spreading them as he did so. I’d never felt so exposed, or, to my surprise, so turned on as I felt with him looking at me.
With jerky movements, his jaw taut with dwindling control, Marco unsnapped his belt buckle and drew down the zip on his jeans. Every inch of me was on fire, my inner thighs were trembling, and I couldn’t control my breathing as my inexperienced body screamed for his much more experienced one.
He pushed his jeans and boxer briefs down and I was faced with his huge, raging, throbbing hard-on. He was perfectly in proportion to his size but… I found myself tensing, my back stiffening against the bed.
Marco removed his jeans, pushing them to the side before moving into me, nudging my legs even farther apart as he lowered his torso over mine. He kissed me gently, trailing his fingertips up my outer thigh in a way that caused renewed shivers and my body to relax a little.
“I’m checked out,” he whispered against my mouth. “I’m guessing you are too. You on the pill or do we need a condom?”
I hesitated, thrown by the question.
“Hannah?” He nibbled my earlobe as his hand continued up over my belly until it found its destination at my breast. He squeezed it, his thumb rubbing my swollen nipple. I found my eyes fluttering closed.
“I’m on the pill,” I whispered back in a daze, coming out of it only when his hand disappeared from my breast and found a new, even better location between my legs.