Marriage of Inconvenience

by Penny Reid

  “Dan!”

  “Mmm?” I swirled my tongue around her nipple, waiting . . . waiting . . .

  “Please!” Her voice was high, tight, needy.

  It did things to me.

  My dick pulsed, ached. Without meaning to, my hips gave a jerk and I was pressing myself mindlessly against her hip.

  That’s right. I was humping her leg. But whatcha gonna do? It felt great. And she moaned, so I knew she didn’t mind.

  “Dan. Touch me. Please, please, please.” Kat was breathing hard, excited. I released her wrist. Her nails digging into my skin a punishment for my delay.

  “I want you,” I said, sliding a finger into her, separating her, tracing a circle around the spot where she wanted me. “I need you. I want inside you.”

  She whimpered, such a sexy sound, her nails scratching down my back, her legs shaking. “Yes.”

  “How badly do you want me?” I baited, biting and kissing a path up her neck, sliding my cock between her legs, slick against her clit, nudging her entrance, whispering in her ear, “You’re so fucking sexy like this, hot and wet.”

  I leaned back to capture her mouth, giving her another stroke down below. She shivered, her nails digging into my hips.

  I ended the kiss with a slow lick of her lips, wanting to remind her of my mouth on other places. “I thought about you all day, on your desk last night,” another sliding stroke, another shiver, “your skirt hiked up. How you opened your legs for me—”

  A gasp.

  “How much you liked it when my mouth was on you, eating your—”

  She covered my mouth with hers, groaning, her hands coming to my shoulders and pushing me back, back, back, beneath and past the spray of the shower, until my knees connected with a ledge.

  “Sit down,” she ordered, pushing, her hand sliding down my body to wrap around my cock.

  She stroked.

  I shuddered.

  And then I sat the fuck down.

  Her eyes on mine, she climbed on my lap, straddling me, her knees on either side of my hips, the friction of her breasts slick and hot against my skin.

  I grabbed two handfuls of her ass, but not to guide her, oh no. Not that. She gripped me, stroking, her body open and hovering, but making no move.

  “Do you like being teased?”

  I grunted, my fingers digging into her hips, and tried to keep my voice even as I said, “Was I teasing you?”

  Her eyes narrowed and she tilted my cock towards my stomach, treating it like a slip-n-slide for her clit.

  “Oh fuck.” My head fell back, connected with the wall of the shower, and I lost my damn mind.

  “You’re so sexy like this,” she echoed my earlier words, sucking on my neck, grinding against me. “Tell me what you want.”

  “Fuck me.”

  “Nicely.”

  “Fuck me nicely.”

  She laughed, low and husky, but then she did.

  She positioned herself above me. She slid down, taking me in, her breath catching, her eyelashes fluttering shut, her nails leaving new marks on my shoulders.

  “Dan.”

  “Kit-Kat.”

  “I love you.”

  “I fucking love you, too.”

  She laughed, but then her forehead wrinkled as she set the pace, the slow, slow, slow pace.

  A groan wrenched from me.

  Sadist.

  She was a sadist.

  I’d married a sadist.

  . . . I can deal with that.

  Little sighs, little moans, little high-pitched cries of pleasure. But I didn’t want these sounds. I mean, yeah. They were sexy as hell. I liked them. A lot.

  But I couldn’t stop thinking about the sounds she’d made when I’d eaten her out. The deep grunts, the cursing, like she was possessed, like she couldn’t hear herself, like nothing mattered and she didn’t care one fuck about anything but how great she felt in the moment.

  Her lip had curled. I wanted to see her lip curl.

  So I gave her a minute to do her thing, liking my view of her swaying tits in my face, equally hating and loving how slowly she was bouncing on my dick, and then I took over.

  I stood and she held on. I carried her the short distance to the wall and used it as leverage, propping her up.

  Now, can we just pause here and take a moment to appreciate how difficult this is? I mean, she’s on my lap, making me crazy, and I pick her up—with my cock still inside her—and carry Kat to the wall. I deserved a gold fucking medal for technique, and she deserved a platinum one for her balance and strength, ’cause I definitely wasn’t the only one making this happen.

  Her eyes flew open and captured mine. I spread her wide and thrust, setting a quicker tempo, making sure every quick slide was friction where she needed it.

  “Oh, Dan, oh, Dan, oh, Dan!”

  It sounded like a cheer. Like she was a cheerleader. And us having sex was a super exciting touchdown pass.

  Her body bowed, everything tense and tight, and she grunted, cussed, her lip curling. It wasn’t a pretty face, and it wasn’t tidy, or neat, or thoughtful, or controlled, or graceful.

  But in this moment, it was a gorgeous, messy, perfect, inelegantly sexy face. It was her ‘O’ face and I loved it.

  She pulsed, shuddered, shrieked as though possessed. Her hips moved instinctively, greedy, searching, demanding.

  It was all I needed.

  I’m not going to say I exploded inside her, because I pulled out and exploded against her stomach. Now I’m fully aware pulling out isn’t an effective form of birth control, but in our mindlessness to devour each other, it was the best we had. Clearly, she hadn’t been thinking about it.

  But still, big fucking kaboom. The earth shook, the angels sang, the heavens opened. St. Pete tossed me a high-five. He might’ve winked—dirty old bird—and I might’ve also forgotten my name.

  When I came to, Kat was wrapped around me. Legs around my hips, arms around my shoulders, head buried in my neck, and she was breathing like I was breathing. Like we were going to die.

  And I had two thoughts:

  One, I love her.

  So I said, “I love you.” And I kissed her shoulder. Why her shoulder? I don’t know. I just really loved her shoulder. And her neck, chin, ears. Everything.

  Two, I want to do it again.

  So I asked, “We got any Gatorade?”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  New drug research and approval facts (USA):

  1) The overall success rate for drugs moving from early stage Phase I clinical trials to FDA approval is about one in 10 (10%).

  —Reuters

  2) The average drug can take anywhere from 8 - 18 years from pre-clinical (development) to clinical (phase 1, 2, and 3) to FDA approval.

  3) The average cost to bring a drug to market: Phase 1 $15.2 million; Phase 2 $23.4 million; Phase 3 $86.5 million (total = $125.1 million)

  —FDA.gov

  **Kat**

  A slanted sunbeam spilled across the carpet and the corner of the bed. Sounds from the city were faraway, only permeating the quiet when I held my breath and strained to listen. Cuddled beneath fluffy, warm covers that smelled like soap and clean cotton, I watched Dan sleep while I swallowed past a lump of rising self-recrimination.

  We’d made love in the shower. After, we’d touched and kissed in the dark, learning each other’s bodies by heart. I’d fallen asleep content, happy, feeling hopeful. In the light of day, as I relived our frenzied moments, remorse replaced contentment.

  I’d completely forgotten about birth control.

  I’d been irresponsible.

  I’d been thoughtless.

  That’s not true. I hadn’t been thoughtless. I’d been thinking, but only about myself. Only about how great he felt, and how much I wanted him, and how loving him felt like freedom from fear and anxiety, and that freedom was just as inebriating as alcohol and drugs.

  I’d been fortunate enough to escape my days of substance abuse without the e
ncumbrance of addiction. I knew I was lucky. Some scientists believe, though as far as I knew it hadn’t yet been conclusively proven, a combination of genes are responsible for addiction vulnerability. If I’d been born with those genes—a luck of the draw, a roll of the dice—perhaps I wouldn’t have had the strength to change my life.

  Or maybe I did have those genes. But instead of drugs and alcohol, my addiction was right in front of me.

  Dan slept like a stone, strong even in his stillness. He lay facing me, his back to the window. The sunbeam touched the crown of his head and shoulders, giving the illusion that he, and not the sun, was the source of the light.

  My gaze glanced over his crooked nose, the fringe of dark lashes against his cheeks, the grainy stubble of his jaw, the line of his lips at once luscious and stubborn.

  He’s so beautiful.

  My heart swelled and a quiet battle persisted within me.

  Abruptly, Dan frowned, his body quaking, and he sucked in a short breath. He opened his eyes and I tucked my hands beneath my chin to keep from touching him.

  “Hey,” he said, squinting at me, then the room, then the bed. “We’re at the hotel.”

  I nodded, saying nothing as I studied the way his body moved as he turned, the stretch and pull of his muscles, the details of the ink on the plateau of his chest, the slope of his sides.

  “Kat?”

  My eyes darted to his. “Yes?”

  Dan studied me for a second before he lifted an eyebrow, a mischievous smirk on his wonderful mouth. “Like anything you see?”

  “Everything. Too much,” I lamented, and perhaps that was the problem.

  “What time is it?” He propped himself up on his elbow, the side of his face resting in his hand.

  “Just past nine. We need to be at your mom’s house by ten thirty.” I searched his face, finding a light bruise at his jaw I hadn’t noticed before, his stubble had mostly hidden it. “Your jaw—” I reached out, not touching the spot but tracing around it. “They did hurt you.”

  Dan made a sound like pshaw, catching my fingers and bringing them to his lips. “Nah. Ricky pulled his punch. No biggie.” Dan yawned, his eyes sobering as they moved between mine. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  “Go ahead. But there’s something I want to discuss with you, too.”

  “You wanna go first?”

  I shook my head; I was still gathering my thoughts. “No. You go first.”

  “Okay.” He inspected me, but then eventually said, “We need to talk about security.”

  “Security?”

  “Yeah. Seeing how easily Seamus’s crew could get in and out of here made me realize we can’t stay.”

  He had a good point. “What are you thinking?”

  “You’re not going to like it.”

  “Go ahead.” I braced myself.

  “What about your family’s place in Duxbury?”

  Staring at him, I felt myself frown. “You’re right, I don’t like it.”

  “When we were at Eugene’s office, going over the properties, it’s the one that makes the most sense. It’s nearby, gated, secluded on several acres, you got those guard dogs, the helicopter. You’d be skipping Boston traffic. Any security upgrades should be easy to handle, and it has a panic room on every floor.”

  “Panic room,” I scoffed, laughing without humor. “Great.”

  “Just think about it. We’ll stay here for another week, increase the security, but after that we’ve got to go.” Dan placed a kiss on my hand again, looking equal parts sympathetic and matter-of-fact. “Now you. What did you want to talk about?”

  Taking a deep breath, I pulled my hand from his and sat up, holding the sheet to my chest. “We need to talk about birth control.”

  He grinned, scratching his neck. “Yeah. I guess neither of us were really thinking about it last night.”

  I gaped at him. “That’s it?”

  “What?”

  “You’re not more upset? What if I’m pregnant?”

  Dan seemed surprised by my outburst. “You don’t want kids?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “Then what is the point?”

  “We haven’t talked about it. What if you don’t want kids?”

  “I do want kids.”

  “But what if you didn’t? And I did. And I got pregnant, and then you were unhappy, and—”

  “Hey. Slow down. Why are you twisting yourself up about this? If you’re pregnant, you’re pregnant.”

  “That’s easy for you to say, you don’t have to carry the child for nine months.”

  His eyes moved between mine, narrowed. “So you don’t want kids?”

  I groaned, shaking my head. “I do want kids, just not right now.”

  “Okay.” He nodded, like the matter was settled. “Sounds good. Kids later.”

  “But that’s not my point. I—we—acted irresponsibly and recklessly. We need a birth control plan.”

  “Okay.” He nodded some more. “Sounds good. How do you feel about condoms? You like condoms?”

  “The birth control plan isn’t the point either.”

  He exhaled a huge breath. “Then what is the point?”

  I glared at him. “The recklessness! The recklessness is the point. We can’t be reckless like that.”

  “About birth control?” He squinted his eyes again, like he was having trouble following.

  “About anything.”

  Dan stared at me for a few seconds, and then his eyes lost focus as they moved around the room. “Uh . . . okay. But,”—he sat up, pushing his back against the pillows behind him—“sometimes people are thoughtless, and they make mistakes. I mean, yeah, ideally, let’s do our best to be responsible. However, no one is perfect. That’s why we have the concept of consequences and forgiveness. Forgiveness doesn’t mean there’s no consequences, it just means we accept and deal with the consequences, and then we move forward.”

  My heart was racing and I didn’t know why, but before I could catch the words, I blurted, “I think I’m addicted to you.”

  He blinked at me, unhurried and still a little sleepy, a slow smile claiming his lips. “Thank you. The feeling is mutual.”

  I moved to him, bringing the sheet with me, and climbed on his lap. His hands settled on my hips, one above the sheet, the other below it.

  “Dan.” I needed to make my point. “I’m worried that, when we’re together, when we’re . . .”

  “Making l-o-o-o-ve,” he provided, using that deep voice of his, lifting a sly eyebrow. The backs of his fingers beneath the sheet brushed against my bare skin, moving higher to fondle my breast.

  I clutched the blanket tighter, trying to ignore the sensations ignited by his touch, but not wanting to stop him either. “Yes. When we’re making love, I’m completely uninhibited.”

  He smiled, looking pleased. But when I didn’t continue, he frowned. “Is that a problem? I mean, isn’t that the point?”

  Closing my eyes, my forehead came to his shoulder and I groaned. “I guess it is. But, in my experience, those kinds of blissful highs don’t come without a devastating low. I worry about, what happens when we fight? I’ll still want you. Will I bend on or be thoughtless about something important to me because I crave being with you? Or I’m worried about you? You see what I mean?” I shook my head, not even certain of my own point. “I guess, what happens if the recklessness I feel when I’m with you becomes carelessness in other parts of my life?”

  I felt the beat of his pulse next to my cheek, the stubble of his jaw along my neck, the heat and strength of his body against me. I inhaled him, the moment and the feeling, loving our closeness entirely too much.

  At length, he guided me back so he could look at me. “That’s probably going to happen.”

  Before I could speak, he continued, “It’s already happened to me. When Seamus came into my ma’s house that night, when we came back from the day at Eugene’s office, I was careless when I turned
my back on him, even though I’d taken his weapons. But I was worried about you, and so I was thinking about you. Not him.”

  A pragmatic smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You’re going to bend, and so am I. We’re going to compromise, negotiate, and distract each other. Being together means our priorities are going to change. That’s what happens when you make space for another person. Comfort zones will be stretched.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh at how he said the last part, like it was a promise.

  “Kit-Kat,” he began gently, “I think having Everest-sized highs and Marianas Trench-deep lows is just a part of life. But you can’t have one without the other.” Dan pushed my hair from my cheek, tucking it behind my ear, his fingers lingering on my neck before tracing along the bare skin of my chest.

  Dan’s gaze followed his hands as he hooked a finger in the bedsheet and tugged, exposing my breasts.

  His eyes heated and he leaned forward, holding me up while my hands automatically came to his shoulders for balance.

  He placed a soft, wet kiss at the center of my chest and murmured, “If you numb yourself to the valley,” his lips feathered across my breast, moving to its center, “you won’t be able to recognize the peak.”

  Dan’s kidnapping was the best kept secret at the party on Sunday.

  What wasn’t a secret?

  Dan’s oldest sister Mary owned a pink vibrator that went off in her purse while she was in a parent-teacher conference for her kindergartener and she said it was a bomb rather than admitting to the nun that it was a sex toy.

  I couldn’t recall a time I’d laughed so hard, or so freely, ever. The story had everyone gathered laughing, even Quinn.

  “So, I guess I learned my lesson.” Mary took a sip from her beer.

  “I’m so afraid to ask.” Matt, Marie’s boyfriend, wiped his tears of laughter.

  “Don’t leave the batteries in the vibrator.” Mary shrugged. “Obviously.”

  “Not ‘Don’t take a vibrator to my kid’s school’? That’s not the lesson?” Dan gave his sister a look that was equal parts teasing and indulgent.