Chapter Eighteen
DELANEY
The countertop dug into my back, but I could not fucking care less.
Marc’s lips were on mine, and my entire body had stopped taking instructions from my brain.
He kissed the way he did everything else—with total, unhurried focus.
One hand slid into my hair, tilting my head exactly where he wanted it, and the other settled at my hip with a certainty that made my knees unreliable.
I’d spent years looking at this man and cataloging all the reasons I found him aggravating.
I had not, apparently, been paying nearly enough attention to the rest of him.
I pulled him closer, wanting less space between us, wanting none at all.
My body had moved ahead of my better judgement entirely, and I was choosing not to interfere.
Twenty years of pretending we were nothing but antagonists, and now his hands were tangled in the strands of my hair.
The moans and whimpers that escaped me were loud and uncontrolled.
With every swipe of his tongue, every touch of his hand, I wanted more.
As though he knew exactly what I needed, he parted my thighs with his knees and shifted into the space he made.
The sound that escaped me wasn’t dignified in the slightest. He swallowed it immediately, like he’d been waiting for it.
Every gasp I made, he collected. Like they were something precious he wanted to keep.
He pulled back just enough to speak. “Tell me what you want.”
I blinked. My higher reasoning had gone somewhere warm and unhelpful. “What?”
“Tell me what you want.” Quieter this time. Patient. His thumb traced a small circle against my hip that made it very difficult to think.
“I—how can you not tell?” I managed. “My body is on fire. I want you so bad.”
The corner of his mouth curved. Not smug. Something more than that. Satisfaction. “I can tell,” he said. “But I need to hear it, too.”
I understood what he was doing. The part of me that had read approximately one thousand romance novels understood it perfectly.
The rest of me was trying to figure out how sentences worked.
I thought wildly of every historical novel I’d ever consumed—the rake, the drawing room, the heroine who threw propriety out the window entirely. I’d always found those scenes dramatic. I now had significantly more sympathy for the heroine.
But fuck did I love a consent king too.
“I want you,” I said. The words came out steadier than I felt. “I want to feel your hands everywhere. I want your stubble to leave marks on my skin so I can find them tomorrow.” I held his gaze. “I want your cock inside me so I don’t feel so empty. I’ve been aching for it.”
His eyes flashed with hunger and a fraying control. All that carefully coiled tension gave way to something darker and more immediate.
His hands slid under me, and then—before I’d fully processed what was happening—he lifted me.
Simply picked me up like the logistics of it required no particular effort.
My legs wrapped around his waist on instinct, and as he walked, the friction of each step rubbed my clit in the most delicious of ways and did nothing to help me think clearly.
He stopped at one point to press me to the wall, and I lost a few seconds to that—to the solid weight of him, the way his mouth found mine again without slowing down, how his tongue dueled with mine, and how my fingers dug into the back of his head and held on.
The scratch of his stubble against my chin was going to be visible tomorrow, but I’d already decided I loved the idea of it.
One moment, we were in the hallway with me wrapped around him like a spider monkey, and the next, I was bouncing softly on the edge of his mattress, his hands releasing me as he stepped back.
I frowned. “What are you doing way over there?”
His chest rose and fell with effort that he wasn’t bothering to hide. His shirt was rumpled where I’d gripped the fabric. The evidence of wanting me was as obvious as the impressive length that was tenting his pants.
It was such a heady feeling knowing he wanted me just as much as I wanted him. Knowing I’d done that to him. That controlled, precise, quietly devastating Marc had come undone because of me.
My pussy clenched on nothing, and I needed to convince him to come closer. “You’re too far away,” I said
One eyebrow lifted. “I am.”
“Come here,” I held out a hand.
“I will.” His voice had dropped into something low, unhurried. “As soon as you take off those clothes for me.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Then a slow smile took over. “You know,” I said thoughtfully, “it would be more exciting if you did it. The drag of your fingers across my skin.” I let the last few words land with intention.
His jaw shifted. “Is that what you think?”
“I have a very compelling argument for it, yes.” I nodded.
He held my gaze for a long moment—long enough that I could see the effort it was taking him not to close the distance. “If you want me to come to you, I need you first to be a good girl and strip.” A pause. “Slowly.”
Two words. That’s all it took. Good girl. The phrase landed somewhere low and immediate—my breasts grew heavy, my clit pulsed, and my knees trembled—before my brain had time to catch up.
“Does my little vixen like praise?” His voice was curious.
“From you?” I said honestly. “Apparently, yes.” I’d never experienced anything like it—the way those words settled directly between my thighs and took up residence, making my clit throb. My previous partners had a lot to answer for.
“Then stand up.” He didn’t bark out orders. His voice had this combination of sexy authority. One that made me want to do everything he said because I understood, at its core, he’d never misuse it.
I stood.
I unzipped my boots slowly and set them aside.
Then I peeled off my socks one by one. His eyes hadn’t left me once, and that attention—that steady attention—did more for my confidence than anything else.
Then came the jeans.
Of course, I’d worn the fitted ones. And no matter how sexy I’d tried to make it, the reality of peeling tight denim over my hips and down my thick thighs was not the stuff of movies. By the time I’d kicked them off, I was very aware of how unseductive that had probably looked.
I went still.
I stood there in my oversized sweater, underwear, and bra, my gaze glued to the floor.
For one terrible moment, all the warmth and confidence drained out of me, replaced by that old familiar voice—the one that cataloged my thighs, my softness, and all the ways my body might not match the image in my head. The one that questioned if I wasn’t sexy enough, would he want to keep looking?
His footsteps thudded on the hardwood, then the softer sound of the rug that surrounded the bed. He stopped directly in front of me and gently cupped the back of my head. His fingers laced in my hair and tugged, so I lifted my face to meet his gaze.
“Did I push you too far?” he asked.
“No.” I shook my head. “I just—the jeans. I’m not used to doing a striptease. And that was probably the least sexiest thing you’ve ever seen.”
He took my hand. Pressed it flat against his chest, holding it there. His heart raced beneath my touch.
“Do you feel that?”
I did. Every frantic beat.
Then he drew my hand slowly downward—across his stomach, to his waistband, then lower. He paused. “Is this okay?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
He guided my hand the rest of the way, and I felt exactly how much he wanted me, even through the fabric. My fingers curled instinctively around his hardened cock and squeezed. He sucked in a sharp breath, his whole frame going taut.
“Does that feel,” he said carefully, “like a man who has lost interest?”
I moved my hand again, slowly, and watched his eyes close for a moment at the sensation. He shuddered. The power in that—in being the one who did this to him—was like nothing I had experienced.
He caught my wrist. Steadied himself with what looked like genuine effort. “You come first.”
“Marc, come on. I clearly want you.” I groaned. “Trust me, if my panties get any wetter, they might just slide down my legs all on their own.”
“This isn’t some romance novel ideation, Delaney. Your pleasure is mine.” He said it as a fact.
I scoffed. “What guy doesn’t want to come?”
“It’s not just about that with me. I get off on you getting off.”
My eyes widened. “Really?”
He didn’t say anything. Except for the self-satisfied smirk that curled up the corners of his mouth.
I looked at him—at the open, earnest certainty in his face—and felt something turn over beneath my ribs. I’d spent a long time with people who treated desire as a transaction. This wasn’t that.
“Okay,” I said softly. A side I didn’t even know I had, this bratty, pushing-buttons side, had me squeezing his dick one more time, and dragging my nails up his hard length.
His eyes sparked, and I had a feeling he was taking note of my behavior and deciding just how much he’d be willing to let me get away with.
“Okay.” He stepped back, giving me space, and that same quiet attention settled over his face.
Waiting. “The rest, then. I want to see all of you.” For a moment, I almost argued, almost reached for him, and let this stubborn, bratty side win.
But the way he looked at me—like he had all the time in the world and no intention of looking away—settled within me.
I slid my fingers under the hem of my sweater. Lifted it an inch. Let it drop.
His gaze dropped to the sliver of skin at my waist and stayed there, something about that—the complete honesty in his attention—made me braver.
I lifted the hem higher again. This time I almost got to my ribs, just under my breasts. Then let it fall.
His hands closed into loose fists at his sides. He didn’t move. Didn’t demand. Just waited, and the waiting somehow undid me more thoroughly than any urgency could have.
I ripped the sweater off over my head and tossed it to the floor.