by Sara Daniel
Chapter Ten
As Adrian laid her gently on the bed, Marcia wanted to assure him she wouldn’t break. But when he left in the morning, she might not only break, she might very well shatter.
He removed the robe from her arms, trailing his fingers along her inner elbow and wrist and finally over her palms, sending shivers racing up her limbs.
“You like that.” He smiled and traced her stiff nipples.
“Yes, I like it.” She moaned. “In case you’ve forgotten, I like everything you do to me in bed. What I want most is to feel your weight on top of me and inside me.”
“Most? So you want me to skip this?” He leaned over her, kissing first her lips and then her chin and neck. Continuing to work his way down, he sucked her breasts and licked toward her navel.
She should have been self-conscious, desperate to cover her thick torso before she turned him off, but he caressed her with such reverence, the self-doubts silenced in awe and desire. At last, his hot, gorgeous mouth reached the juncture of her thighs.
“Oh.” Inviting him to touch and taste her everywhere, she let her legs fall open. “I haven’t decided if I want you to skip this or not. Keep trying to convince me your way is better.”
Rumbling laughter vibrated her clit. “I’ll give it my best shot.”
“Please do.” She gripped his hair, floating in a haze of pleasure as his lips skimmed along her slit. He turned her to butter, first molding then melting her. “This is so nice.”
“Nice?” He lifted his head, disbelief etched in his face and tone. “Don’t tell a man his lovemaking is ‘nice.’”
But it was, in the very best way. Beautiful. Perfect. Instead of trying to explain, she giggled. “Amazing.”
He slipped his tongue inside her.
“Extraordinary.” She gasped, too filled with desire to laugh any longer.
Replacing his tongue with a finger, he encircled her clit with his mouth again.
“Exquisite.” She wanted to find the perfect adjective to convey the sensations he evoked, but no word was good enough to explain the beauty and pleasure filling her. Her brain splintered and then she could no longer think at all.
He played her higher and higher, encompassing her in amazing sweetness until the pleasure consumed her and she tumbled over the edge. Muscles trembling, she jerked wherever he touched her. “Adrian, please. I need your cock inside me. I want you to come with me.”
He rose over her, bringing his face even with hers. Sinking into his kiss, she tasted both her pleasure and his desperate need on his lips. More than anything, she wanted to fulfill his desire as beautifully as he’d fulfilled hers. Without breaking contact, they stripped off his clothes together. Naked, he ripped open a condom and sheathed himself..
She lifted her hips, and he surged into her. His body fit with hers so perfectly, tears sprang in her eyes. “I’d convinced myself the memory of us was too good to be true, but it’s too good not to be true. Nothing can compare to the reality of you.” Wrapping her limbs around him, she hugged him as close as possible. If only she could hold him tight enough, she’d never have to let him go.
He moaned into her neck. “Oh, Marcia, I’ve missed you so much. You fit with me. You rock my world even when we’re lying still. Being with you thrills me and completes me. You are and always have been my other half.”
Her body trembled so hard, she couldn’t control it. He quaked against her, their alternating spasms pushing each other in a beautiful dance. They approached the pinnacle of desire as one, their tears and shouts of joy mingling together.
***
Daylight filtered around the edges of the curtain, and Marcia started. Oh no. She couldn’t have fallen asleep. The last thing she remembered was Adrian collapsing against her chest, their breathing heavy and hearts hammering in unison.
His torso remained half-draped over hers, his arms and legs tangled with hers, as he slept with his lips nestled against the pulse of her neck. Their one-night stand had come to an end far too soon. When he opened his eyes, she’d have to give him the damned divorce he wanted.
They’d lost so many years. Instead of using every second to convince him their relationship deserved another chance, she’d fallen asleep when her entire future rode on their night together.
“Are you awake? Why are you tensing?” he murmured.
Her panic grew. “Because I have things to do before I leave this morning.” The words came out testier than she’d intended.
“Like what?” He met her gaze, a hint of wariness in his eyes.
“Like give you something to remember.” She couldn’t simply fade from his life. She needed to leave her mark. Even if she couldn’t have him forever, she needed her memory to have a permanent home with him.
“I’ll never forget.” He nuzzled her collarbone, and his erection stirred against her pelvis.
If she continued to lie under him, he’d give her another beautiful, amazing recollection. She needed to create a memory for him so he would remember why she had once been special to him.
With a twist of her limbs and torso, Marcia reversed their positions. Adrian lay on his back while she straddled him, her breasts and ring necklace swaying in his face.
“Hell of a view.” The last of his sleepy contentment ebbed away. With his arousal springing to life, he lifted his head and captured her nipple with his lips.
She gasped and ground her hot core against his thigh. Then she tugged free of his grasp. “Lie still and don’t do anything. Just tell me how you feel.”
As she kissed the corner of his mouth, her ring and her breasts glided over his chest, a sweet pendulum that hypnotized his cock into standing straight and tall.
He groaned and fought for the enormous control required not to caress her in return. “I’ve died and gone to heaven.”
“Too cliché. I want you to tell me how you really feel.”
“So demands the woman who claimed my lovemaking was ‘nice,’” he teased. He hadn’t died, but she was his heaven.
A wicked grin lit her face. “I’m not going to be nice.”
Scraping her nails over his pectorals and flat nipples, she dragged her body along his pelvis. He reached for her hips, but she swatted his hands away. She stroked the tip of his cock along her hot, wet opening.
Need slammed through him, and he strained for more, desperate to claim the paradise he could never get enough of. Using every last thread of control, he tucked his hands behind his head to keep from thrusting into her.
She pinched his ass, and he jerked, his cock bobbing against her pussy. Before he could beg her to repeat the erotic tease, she kissed and licked her way across his abs, turning him cross-eyed with desire.
“Not only do your morning gym workouts intimidate me, they’ve transformed you into a different person from the man I remember,” she admitted.
“I swear it’s the same me,” he whispered. “Muscles and physical endurance mean nothing because I turn weak the moment I’m with you. If you don’t surround my cock with your sweet pussy now, I’m going to lose control and embarrass myself.”
“I would love to surround you and make you come for me.” She scooted down the bed and swirled her tongue around the tip of his cock then licked straight to the base.
He dug his fingers into the pillow, trying to hold back the tsunami building inside him. “I want to come inside you. I want you to tremble and fall apart around me.”
“Sounds nice.” She shot him another wicked grin and opened a condom package. After rolling it down his length, she positioned above him again and glided down, taking him in all at once.
He willed himself not to explode on impact. Addicted to her brand of nice, he overdosed on the sheer, unfiltered pleasure from his personal goddess. Marcia rose above him and then plunged down. Again and again. Leaning over him, she captured his mouth with hers and kissed him, still pumping his shaft.
“I’m coming.” He gasped, trying to pull back to avoid hitting the peak before
she caught up. Grasping her hips, he angled them for maximum pleasure and drove into her with desperation. “Please come with me.”
She rocketed apart, her muscles contracting against him. He couldn’t contain his orgasm a second longer. Pouring into her, he gave her everything he had, praying it would somehow be enough.
Bliss surrounded him. He’d found his paradise and would never leave.
Marcia’s muscles started to relax, but then panic filled her expression and she tensed. She shoved off him and stumbled to the floor.
Already missing her soft, warm body, he reached for her. “What—where are you going?”
She jumped to her feet, her eyes wild and cheeks flushed. “Damn you, Adrian. Damn you for turning my life upside down and then asking for a divorce. I will never forgive you for this.”
Bliss dissolved into blind panic, and he grasped for her hand. They’d bypassed all talk of divorce, hadn’t they? Surely what they’d just shared had changed everything. “Marcia.”
She evaded his touch, slamming into the bathroom.
Disoriented and still weak with post-orgasm tremors, he disposed of the condom and staggered to the closed door. “Marcia, can we talk please?”
He tested the knob, but it wouldn’t turn. She’d locked him out, just as she’d locked him out of her life for the past seven years. He still loved her. And he still didn’t know how to bridge the gap.
Chapter Eleven
Marcia glared at herself in the bathroom mirror. She would not cry. She’d hang onto her anger and use it to propel her out of the room without shattering.
With movements too jerky to be natural, she picked up the pieces of clothing she’d left hanging on the tub and dressed. Finally, she lifted the necklace with her wedding ring over her head, squared her shoulders, and emerged from the bathroom.
Adrian stood on the other side of the door, still naked, his body sculpted as if from marble, his expression inscrutable. “Before you walk out on me, I have one thing to say.”
Say you love me. Say it’s all a mistake, and we never should have left each other. Say we should spend every night together forever.
“You need to file for divorce,” he said.
Her heart, already bruised and broken, shattered anew. She shook her head, pressed the ring and necklace into his palm, and then raced for the door.
He beat her to it, slamming his back against the door before she could open it. “If you file, I’ll agree to anything you want. Alimony, my motorcycle, my 401(k), my membership in the skydiving club. Whatever you want, I’ll sign it over to you. But I can’t be the person to file because I don’t want a divorce.”
Her pulse pounded in her ears. She didn’t want to take anything from him. The only thing she’d ever wanted was his heart. “I can’t either,” she whispered.
Reaching out, he stroked his fingers over her cheek. “I want to be your husband. I want to wake up to your smiling face every morning and fall asleep spooned against your back every night. I want to give you a foot rub after you have a lousy day and turn to you for a neck rub when my week sucks.”
She opened her mouth and stepped toward him.
But he continued talking. “I love you, Marcia. I loved you from the moment I saw you wandering lost on your first day on campus. I’ve waited every day for seven years for you to need me as much as you did that day. But you don’t need me because you’re a strong woman who can handle whatever mess is thrown at you. I love you even more because of your independence and strong will.”
Overwhelmed by his beautiful speech, she took a shuddering breath, trying to understand where their confessions left them. “If both of us refuse to take action to officially end our marriage, and you love me and I love you, then what? I don’t want to spend another seven years in relationship limbo because neither of us has the guts to make a move.”
“I’ll make a move.” In a flash, he flipped their positions, pressing her back to the door. He dashed across the room and grabbed a condom then returned, slamming his mouth into hers, his kiss demanding and frantic. Pushing up her skirt, he shoved down her underwear and drove his finger straight into her, claiming her with an urgency that turned her instantly wet and wanton.
She grasped his shoulders and wiggled her hips until her panties fell to her ankles while he rolled on the condom. Kicking the garment away, she latched her leg around his waist. He grasped her ass and lifted her as if she weighed nothing.
“Both legs around me,” he ordered.
She complied, and he drove into her, desperation leaving no room for sweetness or gentleness. She didn’t want it. Abandoning all finesse in the primitive urge to mark him as her own, she squeezed and scratched while he did the same.
“Damn it, Adrian, I love you. I’ve always loved you.” Her body unraveled until she couldn’t think or speak.
He continued to pump into her with hard, frenetic strokes. “Promise you’ll never leave me again.”
“I promise. We’ll never use the D-word again.”
He thrust harder, faster, deeper. “I swear. Say you love me again.”
“I love you,” she screamed. The orgasm blasted through her, tearing her apart from every direction. She clung to him as the only thing left in her world. Grasping his head, she whispered in his ear, “I love you so much.”
He exploded inside her, a torrential rush that left him trembling.
When the storm subsided, they still clung to each other.
“I never want to lose you again,” he whispered, his voice raw. He brushed his lips over her temple in a gesture so tender, tears filled her eyes.
She cupped his jaw. “You won’t. I’ll live wherever you are. If Sunburst can’t transfer me to an East Coast corporate or hotel management position, I’ll quit and find something new.”
He rested his forehead against hers. “Don’t quit right away. My home isn’t on the East Coast. My home is with you. Mr. Sunburst suggested I could work for him, but if that’s too weird, I can find a position with a California PR firm. I’ve also toyed with the idea of starting my own company.”
She dropped her feet to the ground, standing on her own but still embracing the love of her life. “How about we both open dialogues with our bosses about our job options. Then let’s come back together and have a long discussion about those options. After we talk, we need to include some serious bedroom negotiations and then talk some more about what we both really want before either of us takes a new job or prepares to move.”
His lips curved in the sweetest smile she’d ever seen. “I love the way you think.”
“Good, because I love you.” Standing on tiptoe, she kissed him hard.
His cock stirred, and his eyes brightened. “Do you think we’ll get fired if I make us late for work?”
“I think we can risk it.” She took his hand to lead him toward the bed, but instead of trailing after her, he tugged on her wrist.
As she turned, he knelt in front of her, holding between his thumb and forefinger the ring she’d returned to him. “Marcia Johnson, will you do me the great honor of being my wife forever and ever, till death do us part?”
Happiness swelled inside her, leaving no room for doubts or insecurities. She smiled down at him, the biggest crisis of her life resolved more perfectly than she ever could have predicted. “That’s Marcia Torres to you, sir. And seeing as I want more than one night with my husband, my answer is a resounding, love-filled, unequivocal yes.”
And they were indeed very late for work.
~A Note from Sara~
Dear Reader,
I’m so excited to bring you Marcia’s story. Marcia was first introduced as Blake’s hard-working assistant in One Night With the Groom, and she next appeared as the very efficient “Assistant of Honor” in One Night With the Best Man.
Like Marcia and Adrian, my husband and I met in college and spent our first year of married life as poor college students. College is a time of so many firsts and so many career hopes and dreams that
I easily imagined a couple so caught up in their personal goals they lost sight of each other. I am happy to report that my husband and I did not make the same mistakes as Marcia and Adrian. But twenty years later, I still remember the stress of balancing schoolwork and a new marriage!
I’d love to hear from you, whether you want to chat about college, romance novels or something quirky like squirrels. Drop me an email at [email protected] and share whatever’s on your mind. Also, subscribe to my newsletter to stay up-to-date on my book releases and other author news: http://eepurl.com/rx_AL
Sara Daniel
Also from Decadent Publishing
www.decadentpublishing.com
One Night with the Best Man
Chapter One
Hell yeah, Alex Cortez wanted to be the best man at his sister’s destination wedding. A party in Jamaica or maybe Bora Bora. Bring it on, baby.
Then Luciana had hit him with the real destination: the dilapidated farm in Iowa where they’d grown up.
Hell. No.
Except he couldn’t decline, not after she’d waited a full year while he completed his last tour with the Marines so he could attend.
Maneuvering his sports car onto the rutted gravel road, he pulled to the side before the farm came into view over the hill. When the sale had gone through the previous year, he’d considered it the best day of his life, despite a round of enemy fire and a dinner of MREs.
Why Luciana wanted to have her big day at the place that had stolen their father’s life and mother’s health then tried to kill her soul, he had no freaking idea. The filtered, air-conditioned air did nothing to disguise the scent of manure, livestock, and fresh-cut hay from outside. He sneezed twice and cursed several more times.
One more mile. He’d survived the deserts of the Middle East and warring factions in Africa. He could suck up his abhorrence of the farm for two days.