Page 78 of Best Man Speaking
And I don’t care if I was the one who put “no beds” on the list.
Having sex on his couch, fooling around at the tailors—none of that was an issue. But what I want from him tonight, what I want from this? Fucking on the ground, isn’t it.
Marcus gently pulls my hands away from my face. I could pretend to resist, but who am I kidding? I don’t want to.
“I feel like I just snuck a boy into my parents’ house. I’m too old to feel like this.”
“To feel like what?” he asks, taking my change of subject and running with it as he sits next to me on the bed.
The bed we’re not meant to be sharing in any sense of the word.
I don’t bother to sit up as I answer him. “To feel like my heart is about to burst out of my chest because I’m nervous about being ‘busted’ with you here.”
“I don’t know about you, but I kind of hope I don’t ever grow out of the heart-racing age.”
The thought that he ever felt that way about me, that he might feel this way about me, now stokes a fire inside me. The urge to place a hand—both hands—and my goddamn ear over his heart to hear, feel, or see the evidence that he might have such a reaction toward me is almost overwhelming.
I sit up next to him, planting my hands firmly beneath my thighs to prevent their wandering. “That makes me feel a little better.”
“I missed you tonight,” Marcus says into the now-quiet room.
I turn to look at him so quickly that my hair flies across my face. Regardless of the small, playful smile gracing his lips, he’s earnest. The last remaining wall in my defense against all that he is cracks.
“You missed me?” I ask, enthralled with the thought.
“It seems so,” he replies evenly, brushing the hair off my cheek and tucking it behind my ear.
Marcus doesn’t look unhappy about his admission but also doesn’t seem to know what to do with the information now that it’s out there.
Personally, I’m still stunned to have heard the words at all.
“Huh.” The small sound of disbelief leaves me before I can think better of it. “Interesting thing, since I missed you too.”
I rub my palm against my chest absently. I had missed him, it’s true, and my mind can’t help skipping ahead to imagine what it’d be like if I left again on a more permanent basis. Today, missing him had been a mild niggling, a sensation that, if left long enough, would become a deep ache. An ache I’d felt before and wasn’t looking to feel again. It was another reason to stay, to at least try.
But Marcus hasn’t asked about what’s next, about what happens when I leave. If I leave. If I want to stay. It’s on the tip of my tongue to bring it up now, to tell him about my plans and how I’m up for changing them. That I’m selling the house, giving myself the chance to trial a fresh start here. Maybe. I’m still full of too much pride to stay where I’m not wanted.
“I’m done with our rules,” I say instead, the words simply falling out.
Marcus smirks at me. “Works for me. I’m generally not a fan of rules.”
“You helped come up with them.”
“And I couldn’t care less,” Marcus counters, invading my personal space, his legs brushing mine. Still sitting on the edge of the bed, he moves toward me, running his hands from my elbows, up my biceps, and over my shoulders to trace the sensitive skin of my neck.
“We scrap the rules, then?” I ask on a gasp as goose bumps explode down my arms and across my chest, my craving for his touch reaching a crescendo.
“If that’s what you want,” he replies, his attention very obviously elsewhere.
Caressing my jaw, he gets close enough to kiss, but instead of his lips touching mine, they gently brush across my cheek and around the shell of my ear in the most subtle of touches,and that’s it. I’m done for. My arms move of their own accord, wrapping around his neck, so I’m able to press my heated lips against his.
I manage to pull myself away from him for just a moment.
“It’s what I want,” I reply steadily, sure of myself, sure of this. I run my fingertips along his cheek. “Is it what you want?”
I know without the invisible boundary of the truce to keep us in check, things are likely to get messy. I have questions, there are things we need to talk about, and before I tell him I’m going to stay, I need to know we can wade our way through the past.
Together.
