by Olivia Dade
She let out a breathy sound, and he drew back to grin at her.
“So smug,” she said, and he was almost certain that was meant to sound like a complaint. But there was too much affection in her tone for that, too much satisfaction.
“Where’s your bed?” He ducked down to trace the plump peninsula of her earlobe with his nose, then with his tongue. “I want to see you spread out for me.”
She made that sound again, and yes, he would admit it.
As she led him by the hand to her bedroom, his smile was definitely smug.
Lavineas Server DMs, Eight Months Ago
Book!AeneasWouldNever: Hey, Ulsie. You didn’t reply to my messages yesterday?
Book!AeneasWouldNever: Which is fine, but I wanted to make sure everything was okay. It was the first day I hadn’t heard from you in
Book!AeneasWouldNever: Well, months, I guess. Anyway, if you haven’t had time, I completely understand, but I just wanted to check on you.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: oh god i’m sorry broke a glass and cut my leg last night, ended up in the emergency room
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: before the stitches they gave me the good pain meds so i’ve been kinda out of it sorry, still am i guess
Book!AeneasWouldNever: I’m so sorry you got hurt, Ulsie. Are you okay?
Book!AeneasWouldNever: Please, PLEASE tell me you had someone else drive you home, and have someone taking care of you now.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: taxi time, bitches
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: not bothering friends so late, and no way i’d call my parents
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: no worries i’m fine now aeneas’s confused boner week is taking care of me, fanfic ftw
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: turgid tumescent throbbing confused boners ftw really
Book!AeneasWouldNever: Ulsie—
Book!AeneasWouldNever: Shit. I wish I
Book!AeneasWouldNever: Please be careful, and call someone if you need help.
Book!AeneasWouldNever: I’ll be checking on you whenever I can.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: velvet over steel mofos velvet over fucking steel
17
MEN LIED, TO THEMSELVES AND TO HER.
Cocks didn’t.
Confronted with so much truth—veined, thick, glorious proof—even she couldn’t doubt it anymore. He wanted her. As she was.
April lifted her head and stole a glance at Marcus, currently kneeling between her thighs as she lay sprawled naked on her bed. For privacy, they’d drawn semi-sheer curtains across the windows, but some sunlight was still peeking through. Her room was aglow with it, every inch of her lit and exposed, and his erection had gone from impressive to painful-looking when she’d spread her legs for him.
Which was only fair, because the sight of him had her squirming restlessly.
He was golden in the filtered sunshine, strong and lithe and honed, leashed energy vibrating in every movement. When he hunkered down lower and slid his hands slowly up her thighs, over every dimple and swell, his longer strands of hair in front swung down, shielding his eyes from her.
They couldn’t have made eye contact anyway, though. He was watching the path of his splayed fingers, or rather her flesh as it prickled and burned beneath his deliberate caress. To her disappointment, he didn’t veer inward, toward the juncture of her thighs, but kept moving up, up, up. Past her hips. Over the mound of her belly and the silvery-pink stretch marks there, up her ribs, until he nudged the sides of her heavy breasts. But he didn’t linger there either, instead finding and following the lines of her collarbones with his thumbs, and trailing his knuckles lightly down the lengths of her arms.
She left her palms turned upward and exposed to him. It was probably an unnecessary statement, given the openness of the rest of her body, but she’d wanted them both to know: she was choosing to trust him.
He wasn’t a stranger anymore, and she didn’t intend for this to be a one-night stand. If he walked away now, if he turned a critical eye on her body, he would hurt her.
Still, she lay there, the vulnerable, sensitive cups of her hands pale beneath the stroke of those golden fingers. His body a cage around hers, on hands and knees, he leaned forward and nuzzled into her right palm. Pressed a soft kiss there.
Then he trailed that sharp-edged jaw, ever so slightly rough at this point in the day, back up her arm, and rubbed into her neck until she actually giggled.
She could feel him smile against her skin, and she was done lying still. His shoulders and triceps passed beneath her hands, his skin warm and smooth, every muscle obvious and delineated in a way hers were not and had never been. The light dusting of hair across his upper chest, dark golden and springy, she petted. His nipples she lightly thumbed to peaks, smiling herself as he arched over her and breathed out hard.
Then she was stroking down his belly, solid and flat and bisected by more crisp hair, and suddenly, he wasn’t quite so leisurely anymore.
He sat back on his heels, between her legs. Her exploring hands he nudged aside with a murmur of apology, something about how long it had been, and how little restraint he had left. His own hands swept upward, until he was cupping her breasts for the first time. They spilled out of his gentle hold, too big for containment, and he gave a little pleased-sounding hum.
“So soft.” It was a murmur, as if to himself.
With his thumbs, he was circling her areolae, watching the smooth skin furl in response. Then the pads of those thumbs were feathery on her nipples, brushing back and forth as her legs involuntarily parted further.
Hunkering down again, he rubbed the near-stubble on his jaw over the upper swells of her breasts. She gasped, and then his mouth was hot on her nipple, sucking, teasing, flicking, playing with the faintest hint of a tooth’s edge, as his fingers plucked the other. He switched, and she shifted again. Arched up against his mouth, greedy for more pressure.
Breast play had never much interested her, to be honest, but the sensation was electric now, her lower belly turning heavy and liquid. He didn’t linger, though, maybe because his breath was growing as short as hers.
After a minute, he was dragging that jaw down again, down more, and then his breath teased through her coarse hair. When he parted her with his fingers, she squirmed, the cool air and anticipation both unbearable. He made a low, amused noise, and she wanted to smack him, but she wanted his mouth on her more, so she waited tensely.
The bastard blew on her clit, a stream of cool air, and he was going to pay at some point in the future for that. She was trembling by then with the need to raise her hips to that teasing mouth, to fist her fingers in his hair and shove his face exactly where she wanted it.
Then he licked her, unhurried and thorough, and she moaned instead. Loudly.
His arms were heavy on her thighs and hips, holding her in place as he settled down and got to work. His tongue was as strong and sensitive and agile as the rest of him, and God, his unrelenting patience as he flicked and sucked and nosed through her slickness—
“Fuck,” she whispered, delving her fingers through his hair, clutching his shoulders. “Marcus—”
At the sound of his name, he sucked on her clit a little harder, and she couldn’t stay still. When her hips lifted, he held her down, held her in place, forced her to accept his pace with the unrelenting strength of his arms. None of it hurt, nothing, but she wasn’t going anywhere, not unless he wanted her to, even though she was so much bigger than him.
The force of that knowledge whited out her brain for a moment, and she whimpered.
He lifted his head for a moment, raising himself up on his arms enough to make eye contact, and she groaned at the sudden absence of that incredibly talented tongue.
“Everything okay?” His mouth was wet with her, his pupils wide and dark. “If I do something you don’t like, just tell me. Or if you want me to stop—”
Okay, enough talking. Back to licking.
“I’ll let you know if I have any comp
laints.” She lightly pushed at his shoulders and raised her hips again, because God, please. “In the meantime, for the love of—”
Even as a demigod, he’d never looked quite so self-satisfied.
“Say no more.”
Tangling her fingers in his hair, she let out a breathy, appreciative gasp at the darting flick of his tongue. Jesus, if he’d learned that swirling motion for a role, as he had so many of his other impressive skills, she was applauding his choice of parts and possibly nominating him for a retroactive porn award of some sort.
He was sucking on her clit again, flicking it with his tongue, and his thumb was circling her entrance, pressing just inside and rubbing around and around, and she was rocking and arching against him, grinding against his mouth as her chin tipped back and her world became brightness behind her eyelids. Fuck. Fuck.
And then—
His mouth was gone. He was scrambling off the bed, reaching for his jeans, and she lay there and trembled in near-orgasm and scowled at him with the full force of her displeasure.
His hands were unsteady too as he smoothed the condom over his cock, and he winced apologetically as he caught her eye.
“Wasn’t sure I could last long enough inside you for a third orgasm, and I want to feel you come around my dick.”
“Hmph.” That was reasonable enough, she supposed, and she stopped glaring. “Do you want on top, or . . .”
He flopped down on the mattress, his face flushed and eager and oddly young. “I’d love to have you ride me, if that’s good for you. So I can watch you above me.”
Her own face warmed at that, and the pleasure wasn’t entirely sexual.
She straddled his lean hips. And because she was apparently a vindictive bitch when sexually frustrated, she took her time about positioning him and sinking down on his cock. She lowered herself slowly, swallowing him inch by inch, eyes locked to his, hands braced on his thighs behind her as he stretched her wide.
“April,” he protested, but he had no right to complain, and he knew it.
She was so slick and ready, the penetration was nothing but pleasure for her, and she clenched around his thickness within her and smiled with her own brand of smugness as she slid down, down, down on him.
By the time she was done, by the time she had his cock hot and hard and wholly within her, he was panting and hitching his hips against her weight, his blue-gray eyes dazed and frantic. But in that position, with her size, she had the power now.
Leaning forward, she tucked her hair behind her ears and petted his dampening chest.
“Everything okay?” Shit, she had to grind against him. Just a little, because she was still so very close, and her eyes went half-lidded with the jolt of sensation. “If I do something you don’t like—”
“Yes, yes.” His smile was tight and pained but genuine. “I’ll let you know.”
She forced herself to still. “I’m taunting you, obviously.”
He huffed out a little laugh. “Obviously.”
“But I mean it too,” she told him.
“I know. I appreciate that.” Each of his hard breaths lifted that flat belly, shifting her like an ocean’s wave. “Now let me—”
His thumb found her clit and rubbed slowly, and she closed her eyes entirely.
Oh. Oh. Yes.
Leaning back again, she braced herself and began to rock on him. Not up and down, because she was too far gone for that. Back and forth, against that agile, teasing thumb, as his cock filled her and spread her wide.
“April.” His other hand was squeezing her hip in a possessive hold. “April.”
When he shifted beneath her, she cried out, the bolt of pleasure between her thighs unexpected. Despite her weight, he was lifting his hips beneath her in shallow, short thrusts, fucking her from below as she clutched his thighs, his lifted knees, anything she could take hold of. Fuck, he was so strong, so hard within her, swelling and somehow pressing deeper, rubbing her inside and out, and his thumb—
The pressure burst, and she was making loud, harsh sounds, clenching around him again and again, heedless of anything but how fucking good he felt moving inside her, still circling her clit, levering himself up to kiss her hard before he fell back again and bucked his hips and shouted and shook.
He kept his hand on her until the end, coaxing every last twitch from her sated flesh. When she slid to the side, reluctantly parting from him to collapse boneless onto the mattress, he cupped her cheek and kissed her softly and sweetly. He tasted like her. His fingers were still slick with her.
That touch, that unhurried kiss were a statement, she knew, made silently and immediately, before she had even a moment to wonder and worry.
He repeated that statement after they both made quick trips to her bathroom, with the way he immediately climbed back into bed and cuddled close, encasing her with all four limbs in a way she would soon find smothering but welcomed for now. He was stroking her back in long sweeps, murmuring in her ear about how fucking hot it was to watch her riding him, how the sounds she made when she came pushed him into his own orgasm just as much as the feel of her squeezing him, how next time he was going to make her fall apart with his mouth alone.
They were all welcome words, but not his actual message.
He didn’t need to say it aloud. She heard anyway.
This wasn’t just a fuck.
I love your body.
I’m not going anywhere.
SHARKPHOON
INT. OVAL OFFICE – NOON
DR. BRADEN FIN stands with GIRL IN BIKINI #3 before the president, his tight swim briefs covered only by his white lab coat, both still splattered with the blood of his fallen, chomped-upon colleague. He’s also wearing safety glasses and a look of grief and determination. The president is staring up at him, steely-eyed, elbows on her desk, fingers steepled.
PRESIDENT FOOLWORTH
You’re wasting my time. This is no emergency.
BRADEN
Madam President, it is. You don’t understand. The typhoon is so powerful, the sharks so enormous, nowhere is safe. Not our aircraft carriers. Not our nuclear facilities. Not even here, with the Reflecting Pool so close to the White—
PRESIDENT FOOLWORTH
(smiling coldly)
The Mariana Trench is a continent away. You’re dismissed.
A gust of wind and the sound of breaking glass. A shark crashes through the Oval Office windows and bites the president in half, then gulps down the other half too and disappears out the same window in pursuit of other victims.
Girl in Bikini #3 lays a consoling hand on his arm.
GIRL IN BIKINI #3
You tried to tell her.
Shaking his head sadly, he puts his arm around her and goes back to work.
18
IN THE END, APRIL ORDERED YET MORE TAKEOUT FOR dinner—steamed chicken and vegetables for Marcus, red curry with shrimp and rice for herself—and he accepted her invitation to stay the night. Cuddled together on the couch, they binge-watched an old season of his favorite British baking show until it was much too late, before finally stumbling back to her bedroom.
There, they rested on their sides in her bed, naked, legs entwined, face-to-face in the blackout-curtained dimness of her room, only the distant glow of a bathroom nightlight illuminating their expressions.
With one hand he held hers. With the other he played with a strand of her hair. For a first-time sleepover as a couple, the silence between them was surprisingly comfortable. Not strained, or full of unspoken tension and awkwardness.
Still, she was going to break that silence and possibly make things awkward.
The question might seem less fraught in the darkness, though. At least, she hoped so. “Marcus?”
“Yes?” He sounded remarkably awake, given his efforts that day. Against her kitchen counter, of course. In bed. Then, just an hour or so ago, with him kneeling on the floor of her living room, her legs draped over his shoulders as she reclined on the blanket-covered co
uch and clutched a throw pillow and moaned and came so hard against his eager, inventive mouth, she wanted to bronze his tongue. But only after she was finished with it, naturally.
“Do you ever worry . . .” she began.
She paused. Brushed an exploratory fingertip along that elegant cheekbone, down that slightly battered nose, along that famously sharp jaw.
“Do I ever worry about what?” The prompt was encouraging, rather than impatient.
The whorl of his ear was warm under her fingertip, the skin of his earlobe soft. She tried her best to memorize the feel of both, even as he turned his head to kiss her palm.
Millions of people could recognize him under the blinding lights of a red carpet. But if she touched him like this long enough, maybe she’d be able to recognize him even in the darkness, by feel alone, in a way that made him uniquely hers.
The possessiveness in that thought should alarm her. It was uncharacteristic, especially when it came to a man she’d known for only a limited time, and a man staggering under so much baggage, both openly stated and unacknowledged.
For some reason, though, it seemed as if they’d known each other for years. As if he understood her, instinctively, a feeling she found both impossible and irresistible. Their teasing back-and-forth that night had come so easily, their discussions about underproved dough and the relative harshness of the judges’ critiques as comfortable as if they were longtime friends.
Still, his work and his fame complicated his relationships in ways she’d never before had reason to consider. And now that she did have cause to think about those complications, she couldn’t dismiss them without a discussion.
She started again, this time determined to say what needed to be said. “Do you ever worry that I’m attracted to the character you play on television, or the person you pretend to be in public, rather than the real you?”
He was quiet for a minute, the crease between his brows deep despite the stroke of her fingertip over the spot.