by Croix, Ada
Allie gasped as the feel of him kindled greedy fire beneath her skin and spread her own slickness between her thighs. “I did,” she admitted with hardly any voice. Marc didn’t need to push her hips. She kept up the rocking glide on her own.
“I came here for …” Allie was trembling on the edge of incoherence while she encouraged his hands in their roam over her body. The steady grind of her heated flesh kissed dampness along his length. His pinch at the hardened bud of her breast seared new ecstasy across her senses. She collapsed forward with a cry.
The reach of her fingers stroked reverently across Marc’s cheek and then gripped fiercely at his nape. “I want it all,” Allie panted into his smile-curled mouth between hungry kisses. Her other hand fumbled back, steadying his length as she tilted to make the next rock of her hips aim true. “I want all of …”
Allie’s voice cracked into a moan. It was so hard and so much. The slamming slink of her spine embedded him to her core and it dazzled behind her eyes. Her stomach quivered and her thighs spasmed, her toes losing their grip on the sheets while her knees hugged tight to his flanks. The overcome shapelessness of her mouth spilled hot breath against his cheek and for a moment there was nothing else in the world but the feel of him bare inside her.
Marc wasn’t about to let her catch her breath. “All of my cock?” Her trembling weight laid over him was no challenge to his strength. His returned grip on her backside slung around her thighs so he could bounce her against his pitching thrusts.
Her control was lost. The loose curl of her fingers scraped ineffectually at his skin and Allie whimpered over the first slow drags that teased every inch of him against her heat-laced edges. The stretch of her fingertips found the line of his jaw. “All,” she managed to whisper.
He must have taken it to mean harder. At first it was all Allie could do to fist her hands into the sheet beyond his shoulders and brace herself against the resounding smack of his body. Her breath was shaken out like sobs by the impacts, but between her sipped inhales she hissed: yes, yes.
The scrabble of Allie’s toes found purchase and she forced her elbows to straighten so she could look deep into the liquid dark of his eyes. The fall of her hair curtained about them and exquisite winces knit across her brow. She rallied her meager strength to kick her hips against his, claiming Marc more deeply.
“I want.” Allie was shredded by her wanting, but she was nevertheless determined. She fought for balance on one propped arm so she could reach a clumsy trace of Marc’s eyebrow and then his lips. “I want you.” Her fingers cradled delicately into the dark licks of his hair. “I want all of you.”
“Allie.” There was no resisting the crush of his embrace. Marc curled upward and wrapped her tight to his chest. He kissed her between the desperate gasping of their breaths. Their rhythm fell briefly to pieces but they found it again. Together, clutched close, they chased each other to the final free-fall edge.
When Allie collapsed limply on top of him his breath panted a devoted song at her ear and his heart beat on-and-on beneath hers. In the darkness it seemed as timeless as the ocean. And yet, when her arms would listen again, this was a vastness she was capable of holding. Her shins hugged gentle to his sides and her elbows cradled around his shoulders. The stroke of her fingertips played soft into his hair.
The rise and fall of his chest slowed. The song may have quieted, but instead Marc spoke. “I love you, Allie.” The thrum of his certainty vibrated between them. The solid weight of his arms wrapped in sure hold around her waist. “I love you, and you’re the only thing in this whole world I couldn’t bear to lose.”
A turn of her cheek let her see him. “You have me, Marc.” She looked into the eyes she couldn’t escape and caressed the jaw that relaxed into her touch. “I love you. I love you so very much.” Allie kissed it to his lips and knew she’d never let him go.
Epilogue
The days grew longer as they warmed towards summer and the sidewalks filled with bikinied beachgoers. The temptations may have been close, but those on the road to the summer games had their eyes focused on something else. The men’s water polo team had little time for relaxation as they pushed themselves to be their best for the competition coming in August.
Though they’d achieved their qualifying placement, there were other international competitions on their schedule as they prepared themselves for the games. Due to her new commitments Allie was not able to travel with Marc, but he was sure to call her every night he was away so she could talk him through his hand exercises.
Allie accepted the research position in Doctor Seinder’s laboratory and was able to set her schedule in a way that made it possible to carpool with Candace. On the other days of the week she supplemented her part-time employment by taking Lindsey up on the offer to staff her clinic near the aquatic center.
The youth water polo clinic that Marc volunteered to do with Blake was a great success. Allie borrowed Candace’s camera and went along to help take photos to document the event for the team’s media efforts. It was just the start of such collaborations. The guys seemed to put the events of the club behind them as they developed their teamwork in and out of the water.
On Father’s Day, Everett held a cook-out at his house and invited anyone who was planning on staying in town for the day off. Marc wasn’t the only team member to attend, and yet Allie was happy to see that he and the team manager spent a long time talking beneath the shade of a tree. There was a cooler of chilled beers in the corner of the yard, but thankfully Adam wasn’t there to have the bright idea of bringing the ingredients for blowjob shots.
Violet’s internship work with the national basketball team helped her network her way to an administrative NBA job that would start after the games in August—she didn’t want to give up her ticket to Rio. Allie was planning on going to the games too, but not with a staff position. She carefully squirreled away her paychecks so she could get her ticket to be by Marc’s side.
They tried not to rush into worrying about their lives after August, but the assumptions and discussions started trickling in. An apartment for the both of them, close to campus. Whether Marc should meet her parents during Thanksgiving in Colorado, or before. That there was no better place for a wedding than a bluff overlooking the ocean.
On Marc’s last day off before the team left for Rio, Allie surprised him by renting a car to go driving. She kept the keys. They took the freeway north and then twisted into the canyon roads, finally dropping back to where the sunset ocean stretched to a glimmering horizon. Marc helped her find the turn to the unpaved road that led to their lookout point. This time, Allie straddled his lap and made love to him under the stars.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ada Croix lives in Northern California. She grew up with tales which showed true love performing miracles and that there’s nothing foxier than a rogue fighting for his lady.
This is her first novel.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I suppose a first novel must begin before its first page is drafted, its nascence in every experimental scrap of writing. In that sense, I am most grateful to the many individuals who have encouraged and inspired me to write.
This particular adventure would surely have not been possible without my editors, my navigator and my co-pilot. It has been a long journey, and in the end—the best stories are made of love.
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