Chapter 17
Blake
My body tingled. Every single nerve ending attuned to the man standing in front of me, leaning against my office door. His gaze roamed over me from head to toe, sending a flush of heat rushing through me.
In the back of my mind, hesitation on letting him in here, into what I largely considered the gateway into what the inside of my head looked like at all times, was almost loud enough to stop all of this altogether.
Letting someone into a space I spent the majority of time in felt so intimate.
More than if I’d simply invited him back to my cabin.
Here, I had personal trinkets gifted from campers long since moved on, important documents related to the business, and photos of my family tacked to the walls to remind me that no matter how suffocating these four walls got, I had them waiting for me on the other side.
Oddly, Marlow wasn’t focused on any of that. His eyes were pinned to me and only me, even as he slowly pushed himself away from the wall and stepped over the threshold.
I stayed rooted to my spot, letting this towering beast of a man fill up the small space with both his body and his presence. He shut the door behind him and then tossed something toward my desk, the sound of it hitting with a thunking sound that nearly drew my attention away for a split second.
He cupped his hands around my face almost at the same time, pulling me right back into the moment where all I could focus on was him.
He descended until his lips were pressed to mine, a feverish hunger taking over my body instantly the moment we were finally connected once again.
A moan ripped from my throat as I clawed at his shirt, my desperation to force him to make good on his promise far outweighing whatever lingering embarrassment I had for the state of my tiny little office.
He lapped against my lips with his tongue, tilting his mouth until it was flush against mine. I let him in, let him taste every damn inch of me while my knees were beginning to go weak from how fucking turned on I was.
Trying to get this man out of my system was a fool’s game, one that I was sorely losing and not at all caring about doing so.
I’d tried to bargain with myself over the weekend about getting through this next week, promising to take those rare vacation days and get out of here to find something to entertain myself with that wasn’t at all attached to Marlow Knight.
What was inherently stupid was how convinced I was that I could beat whatever sorcery he’d woven around us both to attach us so tightly together. Binding us and making it nearly impossible to walk away, even if it was the right thing to do.
Falling into this man’s trap again was stupid on all levels. And yet, I didn’t care at all.
I was happy. Finally happy after my miserable weekend of pretending like I was fine all along.
Marlow turned me and then pushed me back with his hips until my ass met the lip of my desk. One second he had his hands cupping my face, and the next, he was sliding them down my body to grab at my hips and pick me up.
I kept our mouths fused together as he set me down on top of the desk, bending me back until I was lying flat amongst the papers I’d been in the middle of working through when I’d gotten that knock on my door so late into the evening.
I instinctively parted my legs for him, welcoming his large body to fit right where I needed him to. A slow rock of his hips had me groaning again, the friction of my cock pinned against the inside of my shorts as painful as it was fucking mouthwatering.
Belatedly, I remembered the condoms I still had back at my cabin and kicked myself all over again for not storing them here instead. In hindsight, this was karma getting back at me for trying to gatekeep Marlow’s sex life, because now it was affecting mine, too.
Marlow’s lips popped off mine, the wet sucking sound making my dick twitch. He trailed his mouth along my cheek, working his way to my neck, while one of his hands wandered under my shirt to find my nipple.
“Oh fuck.” The second he had it pinched between his two fingers, he pulled on it.
My body twisted under his, one leg coming up to hook around his hip and force him down to practically mold himself against me, giving me enough leverage to grind against the hard line in his pants.
The soft moan in my ear shot straight down to my dick.
“I want to fuck you so bad,” he murmured.
I wanted it, too. I wanted to feel that hard rod in his pants jamming against my hole until he pushed his way inside and split me in two. I wanted it to hurt so fucking good until tears were streaming down my cheeks and I was begging him to keep going.
He could give it to me good. I knew he could.
“Condoms,” I choked out, barely coherent anymore.
“I know.” He pecked the spot right below my ear. “We’ll improvise.”
I was fine with whatever. Honestly, at this stage, I was so raw with need that I’d probably let him fuck me raw.
A decision I’d absolutely regret later once I sobered up and actually thought about how many fucking STDs we could unknowingly pass back and forth to each other because we were being fucking dumbasses.
But right now, my dick was calling the shots.
It was screaming at me to fuck around and find out.
I was tired of being responsible and always having to think ten steps ahead.
I didn’t want to have to plan for shit. I wanted to live in the moment, be in the thick of it with no worries about the consequences later on down the line.
I’d lived my entire life afraid of the future and what butterfly effect I’d unknowingly cause to fuck myself over, eventually. I was a chronic planner and an even more chronic worrier. I had plans for plans and plans for those plans, too.
Nothing would ever get past me. Not so long as I had a strict idea of what needed to get done.
But here, in this moment, I wasn’t afraid to let go, to give up my rambling thoughts and let myself sink into oblivion. Marlow could take that for me—take it from me and allow me to just... be.
He swiped his tongue over my skin, leaving a cool trail of spit behind before straightening up and towering over me once again. His breathing was a little labored, his tanned skin flushed slightly pink. He was honest to god the sexiest man I’d ever seen, let alone allowed myself to let touch me.
He worked the belt around my waist off, tugging it through the loops and then tossing it onto the desk next to me. I shivered at the implication of him leaving it there and not simply tossing it onto the floor like he was getting ready to do with my shorts.
I’d only been tied up a few times and each experience was... lackluster, to say the least.
In concept, being at the complete mercy of the other party was enticing as fuck, yet in practice, gave little room for error when choosing said partner.
Namely, those who got lost in the heat of things and started trying to default on their responsibilities, aka pleasuring and seeking pleasure themselves, back onto the other party who had little to no mobility to do anything other than lay there.
So... those had been short-lived stints.
Marlow wasn’t easily flustered—case and point, diving into the rapids to rescue an older woman and barely batting an eye before, during, and afterward.
He took things in stride, dealt with the punches and kept on rolling.
That was the kind of dominant you wanted controlling the bedroom activities. Not one who thought they knew what they were doing and then got too overwhelmed when they realized they were in over their head with a partner who wasn’t just going to lay there and take whatever was given to them.
I’d admit to being hard to please, at times, but I also wasn’t asking for a left kidney in return.
Commit to what you promised or get out.
Simple as that.
“Blake.”
My eyes shot up to meet his.
“Stop thinking.”
Ugh, fuck. Caught in high-def.
The amused smirk that played across his lips suddenly untangled the knot that had formed in my belly from over-thinking yet again. I let myself ease back into the moment, unhooking my leg from his hip so he could fully tug off my shorts and underwear and toss them onto the floor away from us.
He splayed his hands over my hips, framing my aching dick between them. “I’ll never get tired of looking at you.”
My back arched instinctively at the compliment. Now look who was preening at the praise and attention.
“I could say the same for you.”
He chuckled. “Look, I won’t lie, we look good together.”
We really fucking did.
He grabbed the belt, sending my heart racing instantly. He grabbed one of my wrists and brought it up to pin above my head, shoving a stack of docs out of the way with his elbow while he asked, “You ever do something like this before?”
“Uh, once or twice.”
Amusement danced in his eyes. “Blake, you keep surprising me here.”
“Let’s just say I’ve had a healthy sex life.”
“And still single?” he muttered.
What did that mean?
Before I could ask, he pinched the belt between his teeth and then grabbed my other wrist, drawing it up to meet its match, and then shifted hands to hold them both together in his one.
Taking the belt from his mouth, he brought it up to tie around my wrists and part of my arms, tugging it tight enough to keep me from wiggling free but not enough to cut off circulation.
Clearly practiced in this area.
A stab of jealousy rocketed through me.
“You know what I’ve been thinking about?” he asked.
“Tell me,” I said to distract myself from obsessing over the imaginary list of people he probably had on his roster who were most likely dying for him to get home.
“I want to mark you.”
My mouth fell open. “W-What?”
“See, a funny thing I’ve noticed about you is that you get this look in your eye sometimes.” As he spoke, he moved his hands down from my chest, slowly working his way back down to my pelvis. “It’s this weird flash of anger that I couldn’t really figure out what I was saying to cause it.”
I could barely focus on the words coming out of his mouth over how he was pushing up the hem of my shirt until my entire torso was exposed.
“But then it happened again when we were back at my cabin and just now, too. And each time it was after I mentioned something about my sex life.” He pinched both of my nipples between his fingers.
I groaned immediately.
“Tell me, Blake, are you normally this jealous?”
I wanted to smack my head against the fucking desk.
How?
How?
“No,” I moaned miserably.
Fuck, how did he know—how did he figure that out?
Fucking financial analysts. Fucking business tycoons who were all about reading the room and picking out the weakest link. I hated how hot it was, how turned on I got from him reading me like a damn book.
No one could. No one did.
No one but Marlow fucking Knight.
He laughed, delighted. “Just for me, huh. I’m honored.”
“Oh, fuck off—” A gasp ripping from my throat cut me off as he dealt a slap to the side of my hip. “Ohhhh.”
“I really need to figure out what to do with that mouth of yours.”
“Fill it,” I begged.
Another sharp slap, this one coupled with a gruff. “Oh, I plan to.”