He could lie and say he needed to duck out to buy more cigarettes. That’d be a relatively drama-free way to buy himself some time. After rolling the idea over in his head, looking for flaws in his logic but not finding any, he slid his nearly full pack of cigarettes out of view behind the grill and returned indoors. A silence had settled over the apartment. Marlena wasn’t in the bathroom or living room, but the bedroom light shone.
“I’m going out to buy more cigarettes,” he called without looking toward the bedroom as he passed in front of the door. “I’ll be back.”
He paused with his hand on the front door knob, listening for her answer, but the silence yawned on, so he backtracked and poked his head around the threshold of the bedroom door.
She was in bed, lying the wrong way with her arms stretched wide, her legs up against the headboard with her feet flexed toward the ceiling, and her eyes closed. Her damp hair fanned out over the quilt in copper waves, and she wore nothing but the tank top he’d set out, and that was a tight fit over her breasts, judging by the clear outline of her tight nipples beneath the fabric and the way her breasts held their curves despite her prone position.
Her bare legs pulled at his attention, drawing him through the door and into the room.
“You weren’t a fan of the pants, huh?” He heard the drag of pain in his voice, and she probably did, too, which was fine because he didn’t, for one second, believe she was half-naked because she was interested in sex tonight.
Her eyes opened. She craned her neck to look at him, then lowered her legs to the side and pushed onto her elbow. The move lifted the shirt, revealing the soft swell of her stomach. Sensual. Decadent. He couldn’t take his eyes off her body. Everything about her was so strong, yet luscious and soft at the same time. She was everything he wasn’t—serene and centered, openhearted, with no rough edges.
Forget about fleeing the apartment with a lame excuse. All he wanted to do now was to sink into bed with Marlena and let her soothe his torment.
“Well, I tried the pants on but you have narrow hips and . . .” Her eyes still looked weary, but as she spoke, her cheeks pinked as though she was embarrassed. “I have too much junk in my trunk, if you catch my drift.”
Goddamn. That had to be the sexiest thing he’d ever heard. His body had already stirred to life at the sight of her, but her words took his arousal to a pants-tenting level that he hoped she noticed so she’d know her juicy ass wasn’t something to be embarrassed about. Quite the opposite. To make sure she did notice, he reached down and made an adjustment. “I like that. Your ass should have its own fan club.”
“How do you know it doesn’t?” she deadpanned.
The rock sitting on his chest from his P.E.T. listen eased even more. “Good point. I’m not exactly up on celebrity trends.”
Her lips twitched as though she was contemplating a smile. Then she rolled to her back again, her face up toward the ceiling and her feet flat against the headboard. “You don’t have any condoms.”
“You searched my cabinets?” He should have been pissed that the first girl he’d brought over had violated his privacy like that, and he wasn’t sure why he wasn’t, except that this wasn’t just any girl. This was Marlena.
“And drawers. No condoms.”
“I figured you wouldn’t be good for anything tonight.”
She didn’t look at him when she answered. “I want to forget, and I want you to help me with that. I want you and me to go back to existing outside of each other’s shit.”
That was never going to happen, because she’d been right before. They were so deep into each other’s lives that there was no reversing it. Not only because of their history and their ties to Olivia, but because of so many little details. How could he ever look at wicker furniture again without thinking of her bed? Hot sauce, yoga, the scent of ylang-ylang or bergamot? There was no way he could ever see Marlena again without every cell in his body shifting in her direction. For better or worse, how could he ever sleep with another woman without recalling the care and restraint that being with Marlena required of him?
More basic and immediate than all of that, he was already in the trenches of her personal life’s shit because there was no way he was going to stop worrying about her physical safety in her old apartment, knowing her brother had been staking it out. But that was a conversation for later. She wanted his help to wash away the hurt she’d felt that night, and he could use some help of his own in coping with his pain.
“They’re in the table by the front door. The condoms, I mean.”
She flashed a glance at him from the corners of her eyes. “A foyer fetish?”
“Funny, but no.” A part of him resisted sharing the truth with her. Being a misanthrope and full-fledged commitment-phobe, he understood innately that it was poor form to let a girl know she was special to you. But Marlena’s words came back to him, words she’d shouted across the parking lot on the night of that disastrous massage appointment.
We could have been the exception.
That was exactly what she was becoming, and there was no use denying it. “They’re by the door for easy access to grab on my way out. I don’t invite women here, as a rule. You’re the first.”
He’d expected a big reaction to that, the way chicks liked to make a huge deal over that kind of thing, but she didn’t even flinch. What she did was smooth a foot over the face of the headboard, her red toenails shining like bright berries against the wood’s dark finish. “So this furniture has never been properly tested? For all we know, my wicker bed is more durable.”
She was making a self-deprecating jest, and while he appreciated the humor and the fact that she was feeling good enough to attempt jokes, all he could think about was how badly he wanted to lose himself in her tonight.
He walked to the bed, his eyes never straying from her legs and stomach, from the copper hair above her pussy, caressing every inch of her flesh with his gaze. He set his beer on the coaster atop the nightstand, then captured her foot against the headboard, keeping his grip light so he wouldn’t set off her trigger. “I made this bedframe and headboard, along with every wood piece in this apartment. Trust me, the bed will hold, even for what I’m going to do to you tonight.”
Her lips parted, releasing a ragged exhale.
He lifted her foot to his mouth and dragged his nose along the top of it. He pressed a kiss to her ankle, then returned her foot to the headboard. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
“Going out for cigarettes?”
He pinned her with a fierce gaze, the better to clue her in on how she was affecting him. “If you think I could walk away from this apartment right now, then you have no idea what you look like lying there in my bed.”
Walking to the front door, the beast inside him roared, demanding to be set free. If he had it his way, she’d be tied to that bed, her legs spread eagle, giving the headboard and footboard a real test. He took a moment to see the visual through of him grabbing her hair while she gagged on his dick. The way her face would look with her makeup running and her eyes watering from deep throating him the way he liked. Then he left the fantasy at the door and grabbed the box of condoms.
Back in the bedroom, he opened the nightstand drawer and dropped the box inside.
“That’s better,” she said.
He smoothed his hand from her stomach up between her breasts, bunching the tank top up until he had a full view of them. Then he slid his hand back down again, between her breasts, along her supple stomach and over that landing strip of hair to cup her pussy.
Leaning a knee on the edge of the bed, he brushed an errant strand of hair from her cheek. “Someday, you’re going to let me tie you to this bed.”
She shook her head.
He rotated the pads of his fingers over her closed pussy lips. “Someday.”
She reached for his belt and unlatched it one-handed, then the button and zipper of his slacks. “We are so incompatible.”
He pressed his
middle and index fingers between the folds and into her wet heat, loving her whimper in response. “Don’t forget mutually insufferable.”
“And know-it-alls.” Her voice was breathless as she spread her thighs wider. “We’re just a couple of big, ol’ know-it-alls.”
She brushed her thumb over the head of his dick where it breached the elastic band of his boxers, then reached in and with those pale, slim fingers, pulled his erection free of his clothes. It hung between them, heavy and hard, and so sensitive that he felt eighteen again—horny and greedy and instantly at the edge of release, a dick with legs.
He brought his hand up from her pussy and pushed his middle and index fingers into her mouth, an act that shot a pulse of arousal through his body. Then she caressed his fingers with her tongue with the same swirls and teases she employed while sucking his dick and he nearly lost it.
“You have a dirty streak to you,” he bit out from behind a tight jaw.
She stroked her foot up his arm and eased her lips from around his fingers. “The better to fuck you with.”
She was a little confused about which one of them was going to be doing the fucking, and to prove that point, he took hold of his dick and guided it to her waiting mouth, a milder version of his rough fantasy. She took him in hungrily, sending shockwaves of pleasure through him. With a grunt, he thrust into her mouth, again and again, keeping the movement shallow. She kept her lips vacuum-locked around him, driving him wild. His hands came up to her head, ready to hold her in place so he could mouth-fuck her harder, but he caught himself at the last second and threaded his hands together behind his own head to keep them out of trouble.
When he’d had all he could take, he eased his dick from her mouth. Though he loved the way she looked wearing his shirt, it was time to strip her down.
“Raise your arms.”
He ripped the tank top over her head and took a moment to drink in the sight of her, lying in his bed, in his home, naked and wet, her hair fanning out over his bedding and her lips dewy from sucking on him. There wasn’t a thing on this planet hotter that Marlena at that very moment. And she was all his.
After a quick debate about shucking his own clothes, he decided against it. He got off on the idea of her being stripped naked while he was dressed in business casual. Stripped naked and a yoga expert, no less. Time to put her flexibility to the test. He seized hold of her ankles and folded her legs up and over her body until she balanced in a modified shoulder stand, with the rounded swells of her ass reaching for the ceiling and her feet near her ears. He wanted to smack that sweet ass so badly, he could hardly stand it.
Growling in frustration, he grabbed a condom from the drawer and stuffed it in his pants pocket.
“What’s your plan? Pretzel sex with the yoga instructor?” she said.
Her knowing, teasing tone told him that perhaps he wasn’t as creative as he thought he was. Oh well. Guess he’d just have to make her feel so good that he’d blow the memories of her past lovers out of the water.
He climbed onto the bed and wedged himself between the headboard and her body. The position might have been cliché in her world, but not in Liam’s. The access to her body was incredible. Wrapping his arms around her thighs to steady her, he put his mouth and fingers to work.
He feasted on her, reveling in the taste of her swollen flesh and every little sound and sharp breath she took. When he sensed her fatiguing of the pretzel position, he ripped the condom wrapper open and rolled it on, then gently tipped her to her side. He stretched himself out along her back, spooning her.
He kissed her shoulder, and that was when he noticed, for the first time, the handprint bruises on her arm. He closed his eyes and buried his face in her hair as a flare of rage ripped through him at the reminder of what she’d been through. What a bastard he’d been for fantasizing about getting rough with her during sex. Never again. There was enough violence in the world of men, and he wasn’t going to let it touch her life again.
He spit on his hand and gave himself a few jerks to spread the moisture, then lifted her leg and coaxed her to plant her foot on the headboard.
“How about we put this bedroom furniture to the test now?”
Her hand came between her legs to touch his erection and guide it inside her. As it slipped in inch by hot, wet inch, she tipped her face back and brushed her lips along his jaw. Her eyelids were half-closed, her breathing shallow. “You’re going to fuck me so good tonight, Liam. You always do. Make me forget everything. Everything except you.”
“That’s right,” he murmured into her skin as he seated himself fully inside her. “That’s all that matters tonight. Just you and me.”
He withdrew, then thrust again, more forcefully this time. She arched against him with a whimper.
“You and me, yes,” she breathed. She reached an arm back and plunged her hand into his hair.
He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. “We’ve got all we need right here, like this. The rest of the world can just go to hell.”
***
Liam woke at dawn and only wondered for a split second why he was so close to the edge of the mattress instead of in the middle of the bed. Marlena.
He cracked an eyelid open. She was gone.
Her blue dress still hung over the chair in the corner of the room. Her shoes sat below it. Filled with equal parts relief and disappointment that she hadn’t snuck out of the apartment while he was sleeping, he flopped to his back and watched slivers of orange sunrise stream through the cracks in the blinds and stretch across the ceiling.
Her presence had him back to feeling claustrophobic in the apartment, as he had the night before while listening to his P.E.T. recording on the patio, and not only because he loathed morning-after small talk. He craved the silence and peace that came with solitude. He had yoga and strength training to do, his P.E.T. to listen to in preparation for his eight-thirty appointment with Dr. Patel, and he wanted a cigarette.
Flipping the quilt off, he sat. There was no use stewing about the choices he’d made or their repercussions. Marlena had needed him last night and he’d promised to come through for her, and so he had. Granted, after he’d gotten over that panicky, trapped feeling, having her stay with him hadn’t been a hardship. Not at all. Sex with her had been incredible, as it had been every time. And he’d enjoyed falling asleep to the sound of her breathing, with his arm tucked along her back and his fingers resting in her hair, all in the comfort of his own bed.
But that was then, and this was now. And right now, all he wanted was to be alone.
After pulling a pair of boxers on, he went in search of her. The apartment was silent. She wasn’t in the bathroom or living room or kitchen. He pulled the vertical blinds aside and confirmed that she wasn’t on the patio. His home gym, then.
Sure enough, she was on his yoga mat holding herself parallel to the floor in a plank position and wearing nothing but her bra and panties. She glanced in his direction, then walked her hands toward her feet and came up to standing.
“Good morning,” she said.
Funny how, in his claustrophobic panic this morning, he’d forgotten she was a yoga instructor, one whose teaching style he liked. He’d been ready to drive her home early so he could be alone to do his regular yoga routine, but yoga with a beautiful instructor dressed in nothing but lacy white lingerie trumped a DVD anytime. “Mind if I join you?”
Her smile laid waste to his last remaining shreds of claustrophobia. “Please.”
From the closet, he brought out his blue back-up yoga mat and unfurled it parallel to hers. She held mountain pose, giving him time to get in position.
“Do you want to lead with your usual morning sequence or shall I teach you mine?” she said.
“You’re the expert. Take it away. Teach me something new. Something challenging.”
“Do you know what the hardest pose of all is?”
“Firefly pose? Because that one is a son of a bitch. I can’t do it yet.”<
br />
She shook her head. “Tadasana. Mountain Pose.”
“That’s just standing. Everybody can stand.”
“Just because everybody can do something doesn’t mean they’re doing it well. Sometimes the simplest things, the basic building blocks of our lives and our spirits, are the most difficult to master. Stand with me in Tadasana.”
He dug it when she got like this, spiritual and serene, that know-it-all tone of hers turning velvet and husky. He followed her lead, rooting his feet to the mat, rotating his palms forward and finding balance. He looked straight ahead and found her already watching him.
They started slowly, warming up in mountain pose before transitioning to deep bends. Each pose built on the last in difficulty and stretch, challenging his knowledge of yoga, strength, balance, and flexibility in a way that the Bomb Squad classes couldn’t. Because they were facing each other, he was constantly presented with the opportunity to stare at her breasts, which was a far better view than the console of his treadmill or the TV that were his usual focal points.
Thirty minutes or so into the routine, he followed her lead into the start of a tripod headstand, with his palms and head forming a triangle on the mat for maximum balance and his knees resting on his upper arms. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her strike the same pose, and slowly rotated himself on his head to face her before straightening his legs, his feet flexing toward the ceiling.
She caught on and rotated to face him, too. When she met his gaze, she smiled.
“So this is it,” he said. “We’re finally doing headstands together.”
“I like it,” she said.
“Me, too. But I would have liked it better if you’d been naked.”
She gave an incredulous snort. “My breasts would be suffocating me right now if I didn’t have this bra on.”
He hadn’t considered how being stacked like she was could be a detriment, but she had a good point. “That’s okay, I’m a medic, remember? I would have resuscitated you. Mouth-to-mouth, the whole bit.”
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