by Croix, Ada
She came again, calling his name and shattering back across the car’s trunk.
It took her a minute to realize afterwards that he was shifting between the weak splay of her legs. “Wait,” Allie barely breathed. Marc was standing straight and working at the button of his fly. She fumbled her legs back to action, bending her knees up to press against his chest, but he just used the pressure to tip her across the car’s trunk.
“Marc, wait,” Allie said a little more strongly, reaching to push at his shoulder. “I can’t. I can’t. Not like this.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Marc huffed distractedly and leaned over her to reach for the back seat. “Do you have something in your purse?”
“What?” Allie’s vision was still sparking and she couldn’t quite put her thoughts together after what he’d done to her.
“Do you have condoms?”
Allie’s breath caught. “No.” It was like the night at the club. That note of mundane practicality in his voice that said: he’s done this before. Even worse—he’s done this a lot.
“Maybe there are some in the glove box.”
She caught a panicked fist in his shirt before he could go. “Marc, it’s not just that.”
He stopped, turning a look behind his shoulder towards the road to see if she meant they were being interrupted. There was frustrated confusion in his eyes when he looked back to Allie.
A noise cracked in her throat as she delayed her confession a final moment. “I’m a virgin.” Allie couldn’t hold his gaze to find out what his frustration turned into. She fussed her skirt back into place and looked around. At the open sky and the far off ocean and the smudged car—anything but his eyes. “I can’t just … I can’t. Not like this.”
“You’re a virgin.” Marc still had his hands down his pants.
The heat in her cheeks was not just from her arousal. Allie gulped a breath and nodded, her chin ducked low.
Marc’s sigh turned into a laugh. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
35
It wasn’t news that Marc was ready to accept instantly. Breaking free from her hold on his shirt he stalked around to the front of the convertible. He flicked open the glove box but didn’t seem to search very hard. Like he was expecting to come away empty handed. His circuit around the car brought him right back to where Allie had hastily smoothed the cups of her bra and straightened her seat on the fender.
“I’m clean.” Frustration lingered in the sharp motions of his gesture-spread arms. “You’ve taken my fucking blood. You know I’m clean.”
“I …” Allie was staring at him.
“I haven’t fucked anyone since I’ve gotten back to the States.”
Could Allie believe him? Maybe it didn’t really matter. “Marc.” She was desperate for him to understand. “I’m not on birth control.” Plus, she might not have expected a blanket of rose petals, but this …
He’d stepped forward and her legs were pinned against the car. The curve of his arms around her waist might have been picture-perfect, but in that moment it didn’t keep her from noticing the frightening strength of him. “I’ll pull out.”
“Marc,” Allie insisted, pushing at his chest with both her hands. “No.”
He growled like he was angry. He didn’t let her go. His arms were a knot of steel cable around her. But Marc’s forehead dropped to her shoulder like a child seeking comfort. “Allie. You are driving me fucking crazy.”
Allie held her breath, not daring to move. Her fingers were splayed over his pulse where the stretch of his neck leaned close to her chin. “I’m … sorry?”
“I’ve never worked harder for anything in my life.”
From the tremble of her nerves, Allie found a smile. She pressed the shaky curve of it into his skin. “Not even the summer games?”
“Not even the summer games.”
Twining her fingers more securely in his hair, Allie peeled back and dared to look at him. “This is sounding like a poor setting of priorities, Mr. Belmont.” She was too uncertain to really sell her scolding schoolteacher’s frown. “Maybe you should adjust your thinking and apply yourself harder.”
“I’m trying to apply myself hard.” Marc shoved pointedly against her, but the constriction of his arms was loosening.
It was enough of a reassuring sign for Allie to allow a playful squeal to escape her lips. She aimed a harmless smack at his shoulder.
“Fucking priorities,” Marc grumbled as he settled back on his heels and looked down to fasten his pants. “You sound like Everett. Way to discourage my dick.”
Allie bit her lip, still obsessed with taking in his every detail. Her knees squirmed against the insatiable ache that continued to glow low in her belly. She didn’t want to discourage him. She just … wanted more than a dirt lot and a semi-stolen vehicle. “I bet he’s wondering where his car is.”
“You might as well text him now.” It was hard to tell from his blandly clipped statement whether Marc was angry. He seemed resigned, at least, rolling out his shoulders and stretching his arms up to lace his fingers behind his head.
Allie couldn’t shake the sense she’d done something wrong. She slid from the fender to her feet, walking the few steps so she could reach to straighten his collar. “Did I get you in trouble? With Everett.” She flicked a brief glance up. He was looking down at her from the upward tilt of his chin caused by his lean into his linked hands. “He was worried about me driving you today.”
She thought Marc’s chuckle sounded a little bitter. “I’m not sure I’ve ever been out of trouble. What did you tell him, anyway?”
Her hand looked small laid against the solid plane of his chest. She stared at the stretching spread of her fingers. “That I was worried about you. I said—” Allie frowned, trying to remember. “I told him that things got a little out of control, and you and Blake got into a fight. I said I was worried you might be hurt, and I thought maybe someone should check up on you. Who wasn’t me.” She nibbled her lip and lifted an apologetic look. “I never wanted to get in the way of your playing. And you did say Everett was your emergency contact.”
Her reasoning won a conceding grunt from Marc. His hands ruffled through his hair as he dragged them forward over the crown of his head. “You know I got kicked off the team in twenty-eleven for fighting.”
“I didn’t know that.” Allie had a disconcerting feeling, like her fingers were near the trigger of a loaded gun and she didn’t know where it was pointed. She kept them frozen over his heartbeat. “Is that why you had to leave college, too?”
Marc laughed, which at least was better than exploding. His fingers scrubbed over his face as his arms dropped down to his sides. “No, that was mostly due to being an idiotic twenty-year-old.”
Allie frowned at him. “I don’t understand.”
“Look,” Marc sighed through his exhale. He gripped her hips and she swayed closer to him without thinking. “I went to my first summer games and it didn’t fucking matter. You think you do something big enough and it will fix everything, but …” He shook his head and his voice dropped to a low rasp. “My family was still gone. I didn’t have anyone. There was nothing …” He clenched his teeth closed on a frown.
His eyes averted to follow the lift of his hand. Marc caught a lock of her hair in a twist around his finger so he could tuck it more neatly behind her ear. “I couldn’t focus on my classes.” With a surprisingly delicate touch he re-set the strap of her bra so that it was better centered over her shoulder. “I was partying instead of studying. My GPA was dropping below threshold. I was starting to fuck up my training. Everett got to me before … anything official. Said I should find something that worked for me, because school wasn’t it.”
The drift of his fingertips fell along the line of her spine to settle at the small of her back. Marc’s eyes ticked a steady watch between hers. “You asked me once, if it was hard to leave everything. I didn’t think I had anything to stay for.”
“But you still came b
ack?”
“I guess I was homesick.” Marc glanced towards the ocean. “I didn’t think that this could ever feel like home. Not a place with too many bad memories. But I’ve been all over the world, and I didn’t find it there either. And now …”
In trying to be quiet, Allie’s breath had gone quick and shallow through her parted lips. She licked at them, trying to get the race of her nerves under control. “And now?”
Marc looked at her a silent moment. His only answer was a nearing lean that claimed her mouth in a slow-savored kiss.
The flutters in her stomach must have been from fireflies, because she felt like she was glowing. Allie reached her fingertips to carefully map the shape of his softened expression. Like she needed all her senses to be sure. “Come home.” She rocked up on her toes to better fit against his tall frame. “Come home with me.”
He was searching her eyes. “What are you saying?”
Shifting her knees to set a roll to her hips, Allie let the grinding obviousness of her body do most of the talking. “If we stop to get … If we stop by a store.” She still couldn’t quite bring herself to say the things that experience made easy for him. “I want to be with you.”
“Are you sure?” Outside the heat of the moment, Marc seemed wary. “You’re not waiting for marriage or any shit like that?”
Allie almost laughed. She almost lost her nerve. Instead she risked the bloom of her smile and traced her thumb along his jaw. “I think I’ve been waiting for you.”
That made him smile, too. He was only a little smug-looking. “Well I’m not going to say no.”
It might have sounded like carelessness, but the cup of his palm at her back was tender when she stretched up to kiss him. She had never imagined that Marc could be so gentle. The scratch of his bristled cheek beneath her fingertips was a reminder of his roughness, the strength with which he held her was undeniable, and yet for her lips he was warmly welcoming. She felt like she was floating—not captured, but cherished.
Allie didn’t want to pull away, not ever, but she did want to get going. “You left the keys on the seat?”
“Yeah.” He caught the curious pause of her gaze on him. “It’s a little late to be worrying whether I have an outstanding felony.”
“Do you?” She tried to make it sound like a joke as she opened her door and watched him saunter over to the far side of the car.
“Not outstanding.” Marc dropped into the passenger seat and busied himself with re-adjusting it for the longer stretch of his legs. He was smirking when he looked up to where Allie was still hovering in her open door. “I might have gotten a few too many speeding tickets,” he relented by telling her. “I told you I was dumb in my twenties. But it was more than a decade ago. Now it’s just that I’m allergic to bureaucratic paperwork.”
“Maybe someone in the office could help you with that.” Allie slipped into the car. “I shouldn’t have let you drive,” she murmured as she worked her seatbelt, guilty even though everything had turned out okay.
“You were so upset I’m sure you couldn’t see straight.” Marc sounded factual as he relaxed back and slipped on his sunglasses. “There was no way I was letting you get behind the wheel.”
“Well I’m better now.” Allie studied his profile a minute. Her smile couldn’t quite settle on one shape as she considered how he was trying to look out for her, and why. It was complicated, but maybe that’s what made it all the more important. “Thank you.”
36
The temperature had dropped with the sun but the convertible in the Southern California evening was too much of a treat to forego. Allie tapped out a quick apology to Everett for not returning his car on time before she called up the GPS to plot the route south. They stopped at a gas station on the way. Marc hopped out of the car to work the pump and make a run into the convenience store. While he was gone Allie sat squirming in her rumpled skirt, her underwear wadded somewhere in the back seat and the feel of his hands still burning on her bare thighs.
The big car was gone when they got back to the garage. Allie left the convertible in its space.
Marc pinned her against the wall in the elevator and kissed her breathless. With every ding of the ascending floors, her heart raced with fear that the doors would open and they’d be discovered by someone on the team. They made it to their floor without any stops and the hall was dark and quiet.
It was difficult to go slow opening the door to her apartment with Marc running his hands over her nude backside beneath her skirt. She bit her lip to keep from squealing and cupped her keychain in her palm so it wouldn’t chime. Peeking in through the cracked door she found that Kelsey’s room looked closed up and there was just the one light on in the kitchen.
“My room.” Allie pointed down the hall towards the open door. “Give me a minute.”
Allie stepped into the bathroom before following him.
A full fairy’s court of wings danced in her stomach. She stared and stared at her own reflection, wondering if she were really this girl. The girl who fucked the troublemaker. Her hair was wild from the drive and there were smudges of mascara beneath her eyes from her earlier crying. That wasn’t who she wanted to be.
Allie slid her rumpled clothes from her body and kicked them away into the corner. Turning on the water, she rinsed off her smeared makeup and the day’s grit from her face. She brushed her teeth and combed her fingers through her wind-teased hair. Her robe was on its hook on the wall so she plucked it down to wrap around herself.
She’d told Marc that wasn’t how she saw him, and it was true. To Allie, he was someone who had decided what was important to him and went after it with everything he had. He was someone she hoped that she could be like. She looked in the mirror and wondered if she already was—the girl who knew what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to try.
It was disconcerting, to walk into the space that was hers and find a naked man going through her bookshelves. Allie leaned back against her bedroom door, letting it click closed.
“Tolkien,” Marc tracked a step back to tap the book spines with his fingertip once he noticed she’d entered. “You are such a nerd.”
“It’s as pop culture as … as Star Wars.” Allie tucked the thin cotton of her robe a little more tightly, crossing her arms as she watched him move in the low light.
Marc wasn’t self-conscious at all. He touched her things with one hand and absently stroked at his length with the other. “These aren’t the post-film covers,” he pointed out with a knowing smile.
Perhaps for him it felt perfectly normal to be naked in front of her, but Allie struggled to maintain the conversation. It helped to keep her gaze pinned up, looking to the dark of his eyes rather than the promise of all that flesh. “Yes, I read books before films are made of them,” Allie said like it was a confession. “Do you?”
“I guess they have made movies of Michael Crichton and Tom Clancy novels.” Marc shrugged carelessly.
“Oh, is that what you like. Marc, are you secretly a spy?” Allie tried to tease. “Don’t tell me that’s why you were in eastern Europe all those years.”
“The US team did send us to military training.” Marc lifted a cryptic brow. “… For a day.” He didn’t maintain the act long, breaking it with a chuckle. “Have you secretly been injecting me with dino DNA?” Marc countered.
“I shall hereafter call you Marcosaurus Rex.” Allie licked at the edge of her mouth as her smile spread wide. “I don’t need to give you anything for you to be the king of beasts.” She lost the fight to keep her gaze from flicking in fascination over his naked form.
Marc stalked towards her with predatory slow. There was a picture that he didn’t really look at before picking up. He must have noticed it while she was in the bathroom and been waiting to ask about it. “Is this you with a cow?”
“Steer.” Allie pressed away from the door to take the frame from him. She reached to set it face down on her desk. “I was in FFA. It’s—”
“
I know what FFA is.” Marc hooked her by her robe’s belt. “There was a place literally called ‘cow town’ near where I grew up.”
“Were you a farm boy, Marc?” Allie smiled up at him, enchanted, as she ran her hands over the ridged solidity of his bare torso.
“No. I was a nerd and a swimmer. And then …” A brief shadow flickered over his face. “And then I got sick of staying within the lines.” He picked her belt’s knot loose and let the ends fall. “Luckily the water polo coach saw me before I was kicked out of school for fighting. He told me there was a way to beat people up and still swim.”
“So you’re saying you’ve always been a model teammate.”
“Yeah.” Marc paused a moment to meet Allie’s eyes and appreciate her sarcasm with a half smile. His attention was divided, though, since the removal of the belt let her robe fall open. The broad of his hands skimmed in to find the shape of her waist beneath its edges. “What was your progression from steer to aquatic animals?”
“You mean that most fascinating of water species, Marcosaurus Rex?” Allie’s eyes sparkled. She shook her head, dropping her attention to the run of her palms over his skin. “I thought maybe I’d be a vet. And then I had a really great teacher, and I realized that I loved learning about how bodies work.” She should have known that it would have been too much of an invitation for his roving hands. As if in tutorial, he pinched at the hardening flesh of her nipples. It pulled an arch to her spine and a gasp from her throat.
Her line of thought was nearly derailed, but Allie slanted a still-private smile up at him to finish her answer. “I liked the idea of being able to do something that would help people. So now I’ve spent years trying to climb academia’s ivory tower.” Her fingers climbed up to his shoulders and reached to lace behind his nape. “But I look around, and …” She turned her chin to give the room a brief glance and it all looked like someone else’s life. All of it, until she lost herself in the captivating dark of his gaze to conclude with a murmur. “Maybe I’m homesick, too.”