by Croix, Ada
For a moment, there was nothing but the lock of their eyes. Marc ended the seriousness of the moment with one of his rare smiles. “You’ve been focused on climbing the wrong tower.” His hips bumped against hers.
Allie caught her lip in her teeth but it didn’t do much to control her nervous grin. “Is that so?”
Marc nodded, wicked amusement curled onto his features. He dipped to kiss along the curve of her neck. “I’m happy to help contribute to your education.”
37
Allie’s exhale came out shaky. She tilted her jaw to give him more room along the line of her throat. Her hands skimmed back down to explore the muscular slope of his sides. “With this kind of altruism, I don’t know why they don’t make you the poster boy for the team.”
Her joke succeeded in making Marc laugh. His breath bloomed hot against the thin skin over her speeding pulse. A nudge of his nose aligned his whisper with the shell of her ear. “I’m going to make you come so hard.”
“That’s …” Allie’s concentration was shredding along with her breath. “… The most …” She didn’t remember what she was trying to say. His arms wrapped around her beneath the falling cotton of her robe and Marc pulled her close. She felt the hardness of his length trapped against her naked belly and it caused a thrill of nerves to shiver up her spine.
“Is that what you want, Allie?” Marc’s voice was a low thrum against her throat. Their feet were moving. His steps wandered back towards the bed while he used one arm to peel the robe’s cuffs free from her wrists. “Tell me what you want.”
“You.” It was the simplest and the most profound truth and Allie exhaled it from the depths of her very core. Her need for him clenched achingly below her navel and smoldered between her legs. “Marc,” she whimpered as his hands grabbed roughly at her curves. Her fingers arched, clawing her nails at his muscle-padded ribs as if she could pull him into her. “I want you.” Her mouth was shapeless and desperate when she turned it against his bristle-shadowed cheek. “I want …” Her breath panted. With fear. With longing. “I want you inside me.”
His answer was a growl and she wanted that, too. Allie clung to him when Marc lifted her. With a twist he tossed her effortlessly onto the bed. At first it was a confusion of grabbing hands and colliding knees while Allie wriggled towards the pillows and Marc prowled up alongside her. She huffed a fuller breath through her lungs once she found supporting soft beneath her head. For a second she paused in uncertainty. Self-consciousness began to claw at her starkly bare skin. She could feel the cool whisper of the evening seeping in through the cracked window.
“You look nervous.” Marc wasn’t. His hand slid confidently along her leg and pushed open the spread of her thighs.
“I—” am, Allie began to say. She stopped because he looked up and caught her eye and everything was all right again. A grin spilled across her face and she reached for him, her palms cupped to his jaw. She stretched up to meet him in a kiss as Marc hovered over her on the prop of a forearm. Her tongue tentatively sampled the taste of his mouth while she shivered from his daring touch between her legs.
“Good?” Marc asked against her lips.
Allie nodded, her forehead bumping against his. She tried to remember to be quiet so her roommate wouldn’t hear, but her blood was already hot from all that had come before and both thought and moans escaped her. The flush spilling across her skin felt like a borderless radiance. It didn’t take long before Marc’s attentions between her legs set her off to shuddering climax.
While she curled around his wrist in a static of sparking nerves, she was only vaguely aware of him shifting beside her to reach for what he’d left on her nightstand. Marc tore the packaging open with his teeth so he didn’t have to stop touching her. Allie’s hands fussed over the shifting firmness of his biceps as Marc reached down to get himself ready. Want still thrilled in her belly, mixing with nervous butterflies. There was no such conflict in the heat between her thighs.
She quivered from the stretch of tightly-wound muscle as his knees bumped between hers when he took position above her. It was so different than the awkward fumbling she remembered with Jimmy. Marc was sleek and sure. She felt raw and vulnerable splayed naked beneath him, but every time she came close to losing her nerve his eyes would find her again. There was a promise in them—that she would not be left alone. Allie touched reverently at the edges of the smile she hadn’t known existed.
“Are you with me?” Marc asked as his hand reached up from the brace of his forearm to stroke fingers into her hair.
Allie took a breath and tried to fit her mouth to a sassy curl. “Not yet.” The nervousness was in her voice, but the upward nudge of her hips against where he held himself against her was decisive. “I want …”
Allie couldn’t bring herself to say any more, so she let her body and her kiss do the talking.
It was a language Marc spoke well. His kiss was so consuming that she kept hold of the sensation of their mingled breath. That despite the rest, which was impossible to ignore. She may have been slick with want, but there was no being ready for the size of him. Allie gasped against the twinge of him pushing into her.
“You all right?” Marc whispered to her.
Allie nodded quick, her eyes closed beneath the pinch of her brow and her lip caught between her teeth. She gripped her hands at his waist, pushing him into a pause while she breathed through the flinching clutch of her body. Her eyes flickered unguardedly open to his watch. Animal impatience crackled in the frozen poise of all that muscle and the tight curl of his knuckles which had caught her hair. But he was waiting for her with a quiet attention and masterful control.
In that moment Allie was fearless. She had never wanted anything as badly as she wanted him to be hers. With a twitch, her fingers shifted to a beckoning pull of his hips.
Marc’s smile broadened. He arced with controlled power, easing into her with an inevitability that shook little noises free of Allie’s lungs like he was compressing the sound out of her. He seemed to delight in all of them. In all of her.
“Too much?”
Allie choked out a needy whine. “I want all of you,” she gasped breathlessly. Her nails dragged across his skin. He gave it to her with a shove that cracked a moan free from her lips in pain-laced ecstasy. The searing saturation of being filled by him dazzled across her senses. Her head rolled back into the pillow, the unbidden kick of her hips grinding her most sensitive flesh against him. It caused a shatter of new sparks and she cried out helplessly.
“Are you going to come for me already?” Marc’s exhale laughed soft against her pulse.
Allie moaned shakily through her grit teeth as she felt him begin to stir inside her. Despite the overwhelmed quaking of her body she held him tight with the wrap of her legs.
Marc stretched up higher on his knees. Allie whimpered impatiently as he rearranged her legs and reached down to where they were joined. The feel of his fingers to check that the condom was still rolled to his base turned into a rub at her clit that made her shiver.
“Does this feel all right?”
“Uh huh,” Allie said thickly between gasps. It was an inadequate answer. All right was inadequate. But she still couldn’t bring herself to tell him how much she wanted it. Her hands twisted with shy obedience into the sheets. And yet her body knew how to tell the truth. The slink of her hips encouraged the wicked cleverness of his fingers. The arch of her spine welcomed the impact of his deepening thrusts.
And her eyes—from beneath the heaviness of her lashes she watched him watching her. Her softer flesh shivered and her weaker muscle quaked. Marc noticed her gaze and it deepened his smile. All of his intensity was focused wholly on her, and what was more, he seemed satisfied by what he found.
It was so much. Maybe too much. Allie’s eyes rolled back and she lost all control of her expression. Her features twisted with torturous rapture as his thrusts rammed harder. The ravenous yearning of her breath started to sound like sobs and
she shaped them to say: “Yes, yes.” Over and over.
The grunt of his exhalations became more purposed. Marc folded down to where his elbows bracketed her shoulders. “I’m gonna come,” he huffed hastily into her ear.
Allie nodded, wrapping her limbs around him tightly. She clutched encouragement both with her fingers and with the flutter of unsteady inner muscles. He sank into her with a final thrust and she trembled like struck glass as she felt his release from within.
38
He didn’t take long to catch his breath.
The stamina of an athlete. The thought trickled into her mind when Marc climbed away. She should be appreciative, Allie supposed, that he was conscientious about making sure he slipped free of her with the condom still sheathed over his length. But nothing seemed as important as keeping him close.
He sat back on his heels looking self-satisfied, his palm running over her wetted thighs as he took a deep breath. “What do you think?”
Allie shook her head and smiled around her bitten lip. “I’m not thinking.” But she did start to curl a little self-consciously beneath his gaze.
Marc chuckled. “I’m going to take care of this.” He started shifting off the bed.
“Marc.” Allie grabbed for his wrist, trying to damp down the panic that threatened her glow.
There wasn’t as much of his smile left. It was lopsided beneath the low, sated lidding of his eyes. “I’ll be right back,” he answered the question she didn’t ask.
It took a second for Allie to realize he was heading straight for the door. “What about Kelsey?” she hissed as she grabbed the sheet into a tangle over her naked body.
Marc didn’t seem very concerned. He did pause at the door, standing half behind it as he cracked it open to peer into the short hallway. Then he merely went on through without a scrap of clothing covering him.
Allie was left with too much time to think as she lay in the cooling damp. Fingers of doubt crawled in at the edges of her warmly happy radiance. When Marc returned and encouraged her to take her own trip to the bathroom, she wondered if he was trying to make an opportunity to dress and escape out the front door.
She wrapped the edges of her robe over her mouth when she came back to find him propped into a half-seat against her pillows. The besotted ridiculousness of her unguarded smile was sure to chase him away. Allie could only hope he would find it cute, how she weaved her step back to the bed. “Hi.” She mostly had her grin under control by the time she crawled over him to curl back into her covers.
“Hey.” Marc fitted an arm over her pillow once she’d settled. It gave him access to her cheek and his fingers brushed over her temple as he absently neatened at her hair. “You seemed to enjoy yourself.”
It was hard to tell if she felt embarrassed. Allie’s senses were swamped with the static of aftershocks and the shards of her worries—some of them turned to dust and others still threatening dangerous edges. She nodded after a second. Certainly, she couldn’t stop smiling. Her hand reached with uncertain possession to stroke at the resting ridges of his side. “Did you?”
Marc’s sigh was one of relaxation. He sank farther onto her bed, hitching himself to lie more neatly beside her. He made the mattress seem small. She clutched at the solid muscle of his waist. As if she had any hope of catching him if he started to roll off the side. It wasn’t until their eyes were matched in close-made search that he answered. “Yeah.”
That smile of his. It was like the sun on dark waves.
His fingers were still playing in her hair. “I can’t believe you’re a virgin.”
“Was a virgin,” Allie corrected in a mumble. She still didn’t really believe it. Her hand stroked along his side like she wasn’t completely convinced he was real. Marc Belmont, naked in her bed. She stung where his body had opened hers but it was the sweetest of aches.
“I don’t know how you got through college.” Marc wasn’t plagued with any of her uncertainty. He reached a touch to her chin and brushed his thumb at her lips. “What’s the altitude doing to those guys in Colorado.”
“I don’t know.” Allie smiled against his touch. Her gaze flicked down to watch the path of her fingertips as she traced the hard lines of his chest. “I guess … I came from a small town. I did have a boyfriend.” She nibbled her lip a second, not sure if it was the kind of thing she was supposed to admit. “We transferred schools together, and our families knew each other. We’d always been taught we were supposed to wait until we were married. There was always something to wait for, anyway.” The edge of her smile started to misshape.
“He got into grad school and I didn’t. And it turns out, he was just waiting for someone who wasn’t me.” It sounded so pathetic. A frown tucked onto her forehead and Allie gave a little shake of her head. “I’m sorry.” She peeked back at him. “It must sound so stupid to you. I must seem—”
“It’s all right.” Marc was placidly watching her.
“I’m probably so boring after …” It felt like she was just digging herself in deeper. She’d conjured that idiot Jimmy between them and now Natalie. “After all you’ve done,” Allie finished lamely.
Marc snorted a quiet laugh. “That’s one way to put it, I guess.” The bedframe complained as he twisted his shoulders to lie flat on the mattress. His hand had drawn away so he could rub its heel at his eye. “What I’ve done.”
Allie nibbled her lip and kept quiet. She curled her hands into her chest and watched his smile disappear.
“It’s true, you know.” His head turned on her pillow and Marc looked at her a searching moment. “All the girls. All the late nights. Getting blasted and blazed and high out of my mind.” His gaze moved away, gone somewhere far. “Maybe there were days I hoped I’d walk out that door and never come back. Never have to face what was empty and shouldn’t have been.”
She might have forgotten how to breathe. Allie thought he might have been looking at her shelves, but he could just as well have been seeing things that weren’t there.
“It never worked,” Marc continued after a moment of silence. “It never helped.” Those dark, dark eyes returned to her and there was no escape.
But Allie didn’t want to escape. It was crazy—she shouldn’t forget those things that he just said, the troubling truths of his past which should make her worry. And yet they didn’t seem to matter, because when Marc looked at her his eyes weren’t empty at all. Maybe she was just seeing herself reflected, but either way she thought she knew the name of that look. It was hope.
It seemed like there might be more, further words hovering on his lips, but instead of speaking them Marc looked away. “I, ah. I should probably get some sleep,” he said after a minute. “Early morning. You know.” When his gaze returned to her he was closed again behind his walled distance. At least warmth remained in the slight curve of his smile and the easy, teasing note of his humor. “I’m not sure your bed is big enough.”
“Oh.” Allie wanted to reach for him. She wanted that look he’d given her to come back, and she wanted him to stay. She wanted to promise she wouldn’t take up much room because they’d fit together perfectly. But she couldn’t make her voice work.
“Are you going to be all right?” Marc started to get up, rising above her on the shove of his arm against the mattress. Maybe he could see the cloud of uncertainty come over her features. He combed his fingers through her hair. “I’ll see you in the morning.” It sounded like a reassurance.
No, Allie thought. But she said: “Yeah.” It was selfish to ask him to stay when she knew how important his training was. “Yeah, of course. You need your rest.” She even found a smile to give him and mostly held onto it until she heard the soft thud of the front door closing over his footsteps. Only then did she mash her face into the pillow that was too small in her arms and try to fall to fitful sleep.
39
The next morning, Allie woke up sore and with lonely uncertainty carving cold in her stomach.
“Hi,” Kelsey s
aid with a lift of eyebrows when she emerged to snag a quick breakfast. “Fun night?”
Allie held her breath and bit her lip. “I promise I’ll tell you all about it. But right now I’m super late.”
She was running behind the clock before she even stepped foot outside their apartment. Her phone was full of messages that Allie didn’t have a chance to check until she got down to the garage and found it empty of water polo players. Everett had come to collect them in the big car. She supposed she wouldn’t have been able to fit all of the guys in the convertible, anyway.
The morning’s routines were in full swing by the time Allie scampered into the aquatic center feeling horribly conspicuous. She felt rubbed raw and turned inside-out, and it was hard to believe that no one else could see it. Maybe a half hour went by before she was brave enough to meet anyone’s eye, but by then she realized that no one seemed to be giving her a second glance. Even Marc was doing such a good job acting like everything was normal that she wasn’t sure if anything was different at all.
If she had started to think that the previous day was entirely inconsequential, the belief didn’t last Everett’s appearance on the pool deck. “Allie, let’s meet in my office. I’ll be in there in a minute.”
Allie swallowed thickly and nodded at the team manager. She looked to where Marc was working in with the group’s drills, but he didn’t seem to be aware of her at all. Lindsey was at least ready with a distracted smile to take the last of the resistance bands that they were putting away. There was no further excuse to delay Allie from making her way inside to where Everett kept his desk.
“Would you like to tell me why you were gone all evening with my car?” He didn’t waste much time getting to the point.