by Croix, Ada
While she was washing her hands, Allie stared at herself in the mirror through vision-blurring champagne fizz. It was still early in the year but her days working around the pool had let the sun kiss her skin. She adjusted the halter straps of her dress so it better fit to the tan lines shaped by the open collars of her polo shirts. Looking hard she could see the sleeve lines on her arms, but overall she thought she looked good. She tried out her smile and liked what she saw.
Allie finger-combed her hair back into something close to its original Kelsey-designed arrangement. Her amateur fixes probably wouldn’t last the fight through the crowds to get back to Blake’s balcony. With a final wiggle at the hemline of her dress, she sidestepped around the waiting line and dove back out into the tossing sea of bodies and bass to try and find Kelsey.
With the crowd constantly moving and the confusion of the strobe lights, it swiftly became apparent that Allie wasn’t going to have much luck spotting her roommate. Worse, she hadn’t paid close attention to what the foot of the stair looked like from ground level. Not to mention the gauntlet to run of impromptu dance partners who asked—hey baby, how are you doing tonight?
Dodging around the grinding attentions of random men gave Allie a greater appreciation for Blake and his balcony with every step. She was making better progress around the edge of the club when a large hand closed tightly over her bicep. Her instinct was to pull away, and when that didn’t work, to use her other hand for prying leverage. A thrill of worry swarmed from her belly to her throat when her efforts didn’t dislodge the powerful grip.
The crowd shifted and Allie’s gaze jerked up in the inconstant light. “Marc.” All resistance went out of her instantly.
She hadn’t seen him dressed up before, not in person. Allie knew him in his team colors and she knew him in the speedos she’d grown to be fond of when all those work-chiseled lines were animal bare and exquisitely in motion. The water and the sun were his elements. Somehow, all that muscle masked beneath a dress shirt seemed more dangerous.
Allie was a little surprised that he didn’t look awkward in it. Marc wasn’t polished in the way that Blake was, or Ivan … something about them had a diamond’s perfection-edged gleam. The stubble on Marc’s jaw and the confident throw of his shoulders painted a different kind of portrait. Like raw instinct rather than calculated construction.
She could feel the truth of that ruggedness in the casual absolute of his paw wrapped about her arm. An ocean of humanity teemed about them, but all that mattered was the rock she had found. Her fingertips pressed into the luxurious smooth of his shirt and she clung onto him.
The strong thrum of Marc’s voice cut through the music. “I thought I saw you.” Maybe Allie was feeling the words through his chest. Or reading them on his lips. She was riveted to him. The disarray of his hair was sweat-edged in the club’s heat. She noticed as she looked closer that his shirt was rumpled, like hers weren’t the first hands on him that night.
It almost caused Allie to let go. “I thought you left.”
No, Marc shook his head.
Someone jostled her from behind, trying to get through. Allie stepped into Marc as her balance teetered. She may have stepped on his toe, but she couldn’t bring herself to worry about it when the length of him was pressed against her from knee to breast. Her fingers flexed wrinkles into his shirt when she shifted her palm against his chest.
“I’m getting a drink,” Marc said. The box of his shoulders carved out a safe oasis for her to stand in. “Would you like one?”
Allie started to crane a look up, towards Blake’s balcony, and found that they were standing under it. She followed the line of the floor overhead towards where she thought she remembered the stairs.
“There’s a bar over here.” Marc began to move towards it. “I have my own tab.”
She glanced back at Marc. Her lips parted but remained indecisively silent. She had wanted so badly to see him again, but in the unfamiliar dark and noise of the club it seemed more perilous. Like she was on his hunting ground.
“Unless you want to go back to him.” Him.
Allie rolled moisture across her lips and leaned pressure into her fingertips. Over his heart. It was strange to think he could be jealous when she was so completely sure. “I’ll stay with you,” she murmured as she stood lost in his gaze.
“What?” Marc’s grip dropped from her arm, curling to the small of her back. He gathered her up closer and leaned in to listen.
Having him so near caught Allie’s breath into a stall within her lungs. After a moment’s nerve-strung pause she went up on her toes, her balance completely dependent on how Marc held her. Her hand slid up his chest, sweeping the strong curve of his neck to hook so that she could draw her cheek along his. She indulged in a flutter of her lips against the coarse bristle of his jaw. “I’ll stay with you,” she promised to the shell of his ear.
She felt the material of her dress bunch as his hand fisted against her waist and she gasped when the damp of his mouth branded a kiss at the hook of her jaw.
Marc didn’t say anything more. He just straightened, looking at Allie for a heartbeat with something that might have been a smile. His hand caught at hers and he turned to lead the way through the crowd.
More than her heels made Allie unsteady on her feet.
Allie clasped onto his hand with the both of hers, caging her fingers carefully along the still-thickened knuckle she had helped him tape. When Marc wedged in at the bar she painted herself against the length of his arm and tucked tight against him in an overlap of feet and knees. Through the denim of his jeans she could feel his warmth against her thigh. His fingers pulsed against hers, calling her attention to the fact that he’d asked her something.
She looked up with widened eyes, oblivious. He stretched away from his palm planted on the bar, nuzzling against her cheek to speak into her ear over the music. “What would you like?”
“To drink?” Allie shouted back dumbly.
Marc nodded. The reach of his thumb traced idly along the top of her thigh.
That, she almost said. Allie’s breath shuddered. She melted against him. “Whatever you’re having.”
Allie dared to explore further when Marc leaned away to finish the transaction with the bartender. With one hand she felt along the muscled curved of his arm, and then turned her wrist to let her fingers stroke along the solid ridgelines beneath his shirt. Latissimus dorsi, she recited to herself as she filled her palm with the contour of his side. Abdominals … she started to feel over all those ridges that occupied her days and nights with how they gleamed wetly in the sunlight.
Marc twisted beneath her touch, reclaiming his hand from the lace of her fingers so that he could drop a grip possessively over her outside hip. His elbow anchored him at the bar while he looked down, first at her fingers and then to the strained bodice of her dress before finally meeting Allie’s eyes.
She smiled so wide it hurt her cheeks. Was this what it felt like, to be together? She bit her lip but she didn’t drop her gaze away. She let Marc see how she looked at him. How she wanted him. Grabbing hold of his waist, Allie arched against him and shook out her hair, lifting her chin as her eyes sparkled. “I want to dance,” she proclaimed loud enough to be heard over the on-and-on bump of the bass line.
“All right, doctor.” Marc curled a smirk.
Allie protested with a playful fisting of her hands into his shirt. “Don’t remind me about that.”
Marc tipped his head like he was yielding, though he didn’t look very contrite. His eyes slid away briefly when the bartender came back with a pair of beers. He dropped a few bills he was palming onto the under-lit plexiglass bar and picked up both bottles into the hook of his fingers. “Let’s go.” He kept her ass in his hand, gesturing with the bottles in a direction opposite from the stairs to Blake’s balcony.
Allie grabbed one of the bottles and turned to lead the way, daring to arch her backside full into his palm. Her steps had an exaggerated
sway as she teetered on her heels. With her free hand she reached back to grab a fistful of the loose fabric of his shirttail. She could feel the dig of his thumb hooking over her hip and the tickle of his fingertips brushing against her skin where her skirt was riding up. Her modesty screamed that she should pull the hem down but the race of her heart led her onward.
26
Allie didn’t really know where she was going, but it couldn’t have mattered less as long as Marc was with her. She saw a group of people departing from a space beside one of the booths and veered to take their place. Allie pulled Marc into the out-of-traffic spot before it could fill in from the constant stream of bodies moving around the club.
If Marc originally had anything more specific in mind, it seemed he could make do with this. He let Allie turn in his arms, his grip sliding over her ass from one hip to the other as she spun to throw her hand up over his shoulder. It was strange that it didn’t feel wrong at all, as if he were made to hold her.
Allie didn’t even care if he danced, but she had to. The champagne had electrified her nerves and the swallows of beer she added sent her blood thudding through her veins in time to the beat. She had to move. A siren’s song slipped velvet from the DJ’s speakers like a disembodied confession of how badly she wanted Marc. She claimed the words with each latch of her eyes to his and rocked her body into slinking contact as she let the music sway her.
But he did dance.
Maybe Allie should have realized that a man comfortable being internationally broadcast in a speedo would know how to dance like nobody was watching. She should have known that a body fit for the highest level of competition and attuned to the moves of competitors and compatriots alike could easily keep up with her amateur gyrations. She was drunk on Marc, lured by the scent of his unfamiliar cologne and the deeply familiar trace of chlorine, addicted to the flexing strength which somehow she’d captured into her hands.
She didn’t want her drink anymore. She didn’t need it. Her pulse already sang and she found her courage in the perfect fit of his familiar solidity beneath her greedy hands.
She held her bottle out unthinkingly to him, trusting Marc would know what to do with it. He downed what was left of his beer and discarded the bottle on the top of the nearby bench so he could take over drinking hers.
Allie laughed, her gaze running over him and her freed hand eagerly joining in a doubled hook around his neck. “Don’t drink yourself under the table,” she shouted. The coy tease barely sounded like her at all, but instead of feeling the grip of nervous regret her pulse thrilled giddily.
Marc shook his head, easily keeping hold of her with the wrap of one forearm. He leaned over her and Allie held on to the coiled power of his back as he grazed the heat of his mouth up her neck, nipping at her ear before answering. “You’re the only thing I’m looking to get under.”
Allie’s breath collapsed out all at once. Static raced up her spine. “Marc.” She wasn’t sure if she were protesting or begging. Her fingers knotted in his shirt. She wouldn’t let him straighten to his distantly full height.
For a heartbeat, the tilt of his chin matched their want-hazed gazes. Like Marc wasn’t sure, either, but that he needed her to be.
A needy sound escaped Allie’s lips before she kissed him wantonly, tasting beer from the hollows of his mouth.
The music had become an afterthought. Allie let him set the sway of their feet into an absent rotation until her back was against the booth. All she could think about was the startling slip of his tongue and the lush fullness of his lips caught in the experimental suck of hers.
Allie gasped as his free hand roamed her thigh. His demanding touch swept down to her knee and yanked her leg up into a high hitch over his. The reversed caress of his palm ran beneath her leg to where her dress was riding up indecently high. Her worried moan cracked between them in shared breath. He felt so good, but she’d hardly ever been touched like this and they were in public. Her fingers dropped to ride the shifting muscles of his arm but she didn’t quite get around to pushing him away.
Her head rolled back, letting Marc at her throat while her heavily lidded eyes peered out over his shoulder. A flutter of fear stirred in her belly while a fraction of her consciousness fretted over the scene they were making. But no one seemed to send more than the most cursory of glances towards the dark nook they had found. The broad of Marc’s back was blocking out the club. His hand, though …
Allie nearly jumped over the back of the booth when the roving brush of his fingertips found the searing dampness soaked through the laced fabric between her legs.
“You’re ready for me to fuck you right here,” his voice grit into her ear.
“Marc,” Allie exhaled desperately. Her hand closed more firmly over his wrist, the monitoring band he dutifully wore cutting into her palm, and she pressed down as if she were any match to his strength. “Not here,” she begged quickly, her temple rolling against his. Her hips bucked involuntarily for how his touch had teased across where she wanted him most. “Please,” she panted. “Someone will see.”
Marc’s hand moved back to her waist but he kept a tight grip on her. “You want to fuck me.” He said it more like a command than question, the words hot where her pulse raced shallow along her throat.
The hand she still had at his nape twined a tighter grip into his hair. He played dirty, and she was naïvely unprepared for it, but neither could she let him go. Allie wanted all of him. She wanted his confidence and his trust. And yes, she did want his body in a way she had never wanted before. The way he touched her, the way he felt under her fingertips, made her feel vibrantly alive and she was hungry for more. After a sluggish delay where she lost hold of her well-practiced shoulds, Allie nodded.
“Say it.”
Her chest heaved with the breath she couldn’t seem to catch. She couldn’t. “I want to.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to f—f … Marc.” Her voice sounded like a sob. Allie clung to him. “I want you to fuck me,” she made her confession against the bristle-rough heat of his skin. “I want you.” Her fingers clutched. She needed him to understand. Her heart sped so fast from both terror and hope. “So bad.”
It must have been what he wanted to hear. “Let’s go.”
Allie reeled as she was left to stand again on her own two feet when Marc reset his grip on her arm. Her wrist twisted, her fingers fumbling to twine with his, refusing the mute inertia of being grabbed like he would his gym bag. She sucked in air like she’d abruptly been left out in the open, even though he’d barely shifted a step away in order to toss back the last of the beer.
With her free hand she fussed her dress back down her thighs and flicked her hair over her neck where her skin still stung from the hunger of his mouth. She started to follow as he led her towards the entrance, only to collide with his shoulder when Marc abruptly changed course. “I have to close out my tab,” he said in explanation before diving them towards the crush at the bar.
Allie nodded and let herself be tugged along. The song of alcohol in her veins sped her from undeniable lust towards a darker, creeping uncertainty. She started to question what she had just agreed to. Everything was moving so fast. It was a minute before her fingers clenched into a tighter grip to catch his attention. She pointed upward. “My purse.”
Marc was leaning again on the bar, waiting for the bartender to bring over his card and receipt. “Tell Kelsey to get it.” The way he looked at her set Allie on fire, an insistent ache clawing low in her belly.
Maybe she was overthinking. “It has my phone,” Allie replied with crumbling insistence. She gestured a palm at the skin tight hug of her dress which left no opportunity for her to hide anything. It might not have been the best way to persuade Marc to make a detour, given the way his tongue tasted at the edge of his mouth. Allie felt a flush rising from her tight neckline to the thudding pulse of her throat. “And my key,” perhaps was a more convincing argument.
�
��Do you need your key?” The way Marc said it, the way his dark eyes bored into her for a second before he turned to sign his receipt and tuck away his credit card, suggested that she did not.
Doubt was crawling over her. He seemed to have all the answers while she had none. Allie shifted her hand in his, hazily aware of how composed he was and how naked she felt. She had never really expected a first-time fairytale, but this felt rushed. “I’d like to get it.”
He bit into a frown so hard that she could see the bunching of muscle along his cheek even in the shadowy swirl of the club’s lighting. She thought he might argue. Or perhaps drop her hand and leave her right there. Instead, Marc said: “Okay.”
27
When they climbed the stairs, rising up from the churning mass of humanity, Allie felt more and more uncertain. The way she held Marc’s hand, necessary below, started to feel like a statement she wasn’t sure she was ready for as she ascended in his wake. Everyone would see her, everyone would know. Once they hit the balcony and she didn’t have the challenge of balancing her high-heeled steps on the stairs, she tugged her fingers away. When Marc looked back, Allie pulled on a smile to apologize for her need of her hands in adjusting at her dress and arranging her hair into a combed-back flip instead of a sweaty hang.
“There you are!” Kelsey spotted her first. “I thought we lost you. We were going to send out a rescue party.” She pranced over to smother Allie in a hug.
“I couldn’t find you,” Allie said as she returned the squeeze. “And I got a bit lost when I tried to find the way back.” Her eyes flicked to Marc over her roommate’s shoulder.
“You look like you’ve been having fun.” Kelsey put her out at arm’s length to observe Allie’s sweaty glow.
Allie tried not to squirm or palm guiltily at the side of her neck where she suspected hickies were blooming.