Chapter 30 MARCEL
Chapter 30
M ARCEL
Marcel paced the living room like a caged animal, the ice clinking in his bourbon. As he listened to the opening chords of “Anyone Who Knows What Love Is,” his thoughts turned to the night he saw her dance, when he first realized how screwed he was. Siobhan was like the best kind of jazz: she hooked you with the first notes. But he had let her go. He hadn’t fought for her; he hadn’t so much as lifted a finger to encourage her to stay, and now his whole body hurt. His head. His guts. He wondered whether she was with that guy already. The thought of them together riled him. Then he got annoyed at himself for caring about something that had nothing to do with him. Jealousy wasn’t a familiar emotion to him; it was a very different feeling from the solitude that had enveloped him since the age of eight. Why hadn’t he asked her to stay? Because Siobhan deserved better than the broken man he was. That’s why he had tried to push her away every time they got close. He had held back his desire more than was humanly tolerable.
And now he was going crazy.
Even though he had done the right thing.
Or so he thought.
When the bell rang, his pulse soared. He cursed, knowing it was her. He took a deep breath and opened the door. There she was, like a dangerous drug that kept tempting him. Him, with his heart in his hands, crying out for her to break it. Yes, he knew what she had come for.
So he raised his defensive walls.
“What are you doing here, princess? Did you leave your lipstick in your backpack?”
“We need to talk.”
Marcel blocked her way.
“This isn’t a good time. I’m with someone,” he improvised. “A woman.”
Siobhan nodded as though acknowledging the validity of his argument. But she didn’t seem convinced.
“For a good writer, you suck at lying.”
Goddammit.
“Go home, please,” he said, with a mixture of exasperation and indulgence.
Ignoring him entirely, she crossed the threshold. His brain and reflexes were responding in slow motion. He watched as Siobhan slipped off her shoes and left them at the door next to her purse. Her expression betrayed her relief.
She gestured to the bourbon in his hand.
“Could I have one of those too?”
“One. And then you’re going,” he said, with a note of veiled warning.
They went into the kitchen. Marcel poured a meager measure into a glass with ice and handed it to her. Siobhan’s eyes darted from the glass to his face and back again with a look that said You’ve gotta be kidding me.
He shrugged.
“We all know what happens when you drink too much, princess. So, why aren’t you in”—he flapped his hand dismissively—“wherever it was with your boyfriend? Did you stand him up or what?”
“Buckley isn’t my boyfriend. Stop saying that he is. And, for your information, I sent him a message to tell him I wasn’t going, okay?”
“Okay, okay. Jesus ... Hey, why are you getting mad at me?”
Before replying, she took a long slug of bourbon and slammed the glass down on the counter.
“No. Why are you so mad at me that you don’t even want me here?”
“I’m not ...” He closed his eyes and rubbed his face. “I’m not mad at you, Siobhan. I’m ... some other things, but not mad.”
“What other things?” she insisted, moving closer to him.
“Well ... tired. So, say what you have to say and go home. I’m serious.”
She stared at him as though trying to figure him out.
“Why did you ask me to go to New Orleans with you?” Marcel shot her a disconcerted look, visibly confused, and opened his mouth to reply; he promptly closed it again when he saw Siobhan raise her hand in warning. “Please, spare me the excuses. I know you. I know you’re going to say you invited me so we wouldn’t break the rhythm of our writing, but I’m not buying that. Not anymore. I want the truth. I want to hear it from your lips.”
“We’re not having this conversation, okay? Forget it.”
“Why not?”
“Because ... because ... Argh!” He emitted something like a groan. “Fine. You want the truth? Okay. The truth is I asked you because it was the right thing to do after what happened at Coney Island. I was a jerk, and I felt guilty. End of story.”
Siobhan shook her head.
“That’s not true.”
Marcel’s mouth curved into a bitter smile.
“What’s up, princess? Didn’t you like the answer?”
“An honest answer would be a good start.”
“Okay, what do you want me to say? That I asked you to come because I can’t bear to be away from you? Is that what you want to hear? Should I get down on my knees too?”
“I just want you to tell me how you feel about me!”
Her words struck him like an arrow in the middle of his chest.
And he felt like he was bleeding.
He.
Couldn’t.
Take.
Any.
More.
“For god’s sake, Siobhan! Isn’t it clear what I feel? You think I was pretending the night of the role-play when I said I think about you every goddamn minute of the day?” He swallowed. He wanted to stop, but he couldn’t. The words burst out uncontrollably from inside. “You really think I was talking to a fictional character and not to the flesh-and-blood woman right next to me? Couldn’t you tell I was dying to ... be with you? To be inside you?” His voice came out strangled. “Couldn’t you feel it when we slept together? Didn’t you hear my heart pounding? I ...” Desperation contorted his face. “I’m living in real agony, for Christ’s sake. Do you think I was pretending when I said you were important to me, that I shared things with you I’ve never shared with anyone? You think I fake the electricity that gives me goose bumps when I look at you, when I touch you, when I smell your coconut shampoo, when I hear your voice, or when you say my name? Or this stupid feeling of fullness I get just from being by your side. You think I’m faking it? Do you really think that?”
He stopped speaking, his pulse racing and his blood pumping through his veins, overwhelmed by vertigo at having admitted it all to himself.
At having said it all aloud.
“No, Marcel. I know you’re not faking it; I know that very well. That’s why I came back.”
“Fine. Well, now that you know, you should leave.”
Siobhan moved closer, so close that Marcel could see the tiny flecks in her blue irises, her thick lashes, the capricious scattering of her freckles. He averted his gaze, focusing on her mouth, which didn’t help much, because he knew the taste of those soft, shining lips, even though it had only been for the briefest of moments. He didn’t pull away when she took him by the cheeks. He couldn’t. And with each moment that passed, he felt his self-control eroding a little more.
“I’m not going anywhere, and I won’t let you push me away. I’m staying, Marcel. Can’t you see that it makes no sense to build a wall between us?”
“You don’t want this, Siobhan. You really don’t,” he whispered, his eyes lowered, fixed on her mouth.
“I know perfectly well what I want. And you know it too. The question is whether you’re going to keep fighting your feelings.”
He tried to speak, tried to tell her that it couldn’t be, that it was a mistake, but she kissed him gently and thwarted any attempt. The warmth of her lips was his downfall. Marcel pulled away, stunned, his breath agitated, unsure whether he would ever be able to calm himself. He cast his eyes tremulously around the beautiful oval of her face and wondered whether he could bear to hold out for a second longer.
Whether all he was feeling was real or just the metaphysics of desire.
Whether it was worth ruining the story.
But in real life, as in literature, some stories have to be ruined before they turn into something really good.
Then, it happened. Something surged uncontrollably inside him and burst his levees. And that wild deluge propelled him inevitably toward those silky lips, both shipwreck and safe haven. His ability to reason had abandoned him. He was no longer the same person he had been. Or perhaps he was more himself than ever before. All he could think was At last, at last, at last , as he surrendered to the play of their tongues, the taste of bourbon in Siobhan’s mouth, his hands gliding urgently over her neck, her arms, her back. Kissing her was like the sun hitting your face after a cold, dark night. Then, everything went blurry. He lifted her up onto the island and fitted himself between her legs; she grabbed him by the shoulders. Their passion danced around their bodies like licking flames. Marcel kissed her jaw and then her neck and very slowly lowered the straps of her dress. Realizing that he was about to leave behind those days of repressed desire, he gave in to the urge to press himself against her. When he massaged her breasts, Siobhan moaned, and the sound sent him spiraling.
“The things I want to do to you ... You can’t imagine,” he whispered, as he stuck his thumb into her bra and stroked the smooth peak of her rosy nipple.
She moaned again.
“Marcel . . .”
It sounded as though she had dragged his name from somewhere deep inside her.
Logic told him that his excitement must have a limit, but, if that was the case, he hadn’t reached it yet. He leaned over her and kissed her breasts hungrily. Then he slid his hand under her dress, between those soft thighs, and moved it toward her panties. He brushed his finger across the fabric, which was already moist; Siobhan shuddered and instinctively pressed herself against him. Marcel’s desire became atomic, it overwhelmed him, and he quivered as he hooked his index finger around the elastic and pulled the lace to one side. Touching her was like sinking his hand into warm caramel.
“God ... Were you this wet the night of the role-play?” he asked, very close to her mouth.
“Y-yes.”
“It’s a pity I missed that,” he said, without stopping his caresses. “Tell me, did you do anything to resolve it?”
Siobhan bit her lower lip and nodded.
“Show me, baby. Show me what you did.”
“Ma-Marcel, please . . .”
“Show me. I want to see,” he said again.
He left a trail of kisses from her earlobe to her neck and moved back slightly to watch her. She looked more beautiful than ever, her mouth half-open, a pinkish glow to her cheeks, her face contorted in a grimace of pleasure that gave him no peace. She took off her bra and started to rub her nipples with her fingers.
It was a gift to his eyes.
A blessed gift.
“You did it like that?”
“Mm-hmm ... And I touched myself there.”
“Here?” he asked, gently pressing her clitoris.
“Yes ... God ... Yes. Right there. But a bit faster.”
“Faster, huh? You’re quite the little pervert, princess.” Siobhan made a sound that was a mixture of laughter and pleasure. “And what were you thinking while you touched yourself?”
“I wanted ... I wanted you to come to my room and—”
She couldn’t finish her words. She was too short of breath.
“What, baby? What did you want?”
“For you to fuck me. I wanted you to fuck me, Marcel. Every which way. Hard and gentle and sweet and dirty.”
Marcel exhaled fiercely. He was going to explode. She was getting wetter and wetter, thicker. And he ached all over with the desire to put something besides his finger in her.
“How inconsiderate of me not to have satisfied your desires.”
“Yes. Very. Very inconsiderate.”
“To make up for it, I’m going to fuck you right now. Every which way. Hard and gentle and sweet and dirty. Does that sound good?” Siobhan uttered something that sounded vaguely like a yes. “And I want you to know,” he whispered in her ear, “I’m going to make every second count.”
The moan that escaped her lips when he stuck his finger inside her was his alone. Siobhan was tight, and anticipating what would come next made his vision go blurry.
But not yet.
He still wanted to take her a bit closer to the edge.
As he did, she tried to undo his shirt. She struggled with the third button, so he pulled the tiresome thing right off, and it landed on the kitchen floor next to her bra. The caress of those lips on his naked torso awoke every last nerve ending in his body. Siobhan ran her hands down his back and he shuddered. When she grabbed his buttocks, he smiled in satisfaction.
“You were dying to touch my ass, huh?”
“It’s your fault for having such a perfectly pert one. God, it drives me crazy.”
“All right, then, let’s see if that’s the only thing that drives you crazy,” he said. And then he took her hand and placed it over his huge erection.
Siobhan started to fumble with his fly. Marcel threw his head back and gasped with pleasure when he felt those delicate fingers sliding into his underwear and closing around his hard shaft.
“Fuck,” he murmured.
A few seconds later he had to ask her to stop.
“Don’t you like it?” she asked, sounding confused.
He took her gently by the chin and smiled, gazing at her.
“It really gets me going. That’s why you need to stop. Or it will all be over.”
He kissed her again passionately, and then, without warning, he knelt between her legs. He slid his lips from her knees up her inner thighs, their entire surface warm and damp. He pulled her dress down; the garment slid down her legs to the floor. He was about to take her panties off, but then she said:
“Wait. Rip them off.”
He raised his head and looked at her, half-surprised, half-amused.
“You want me to rip off your panties?”
“Don’t worry, they’re from the Gap, they’re not expensive. It’s ... In a novel by Christina Lauren, the guy ripped the girl’s panties off every time they did it, and ... well, I thought it was hot.”
Marcel burst out laughing.
“You’re something else. All right. Move your legs further apart. Here I go.” He grabbed the fabric at the edges and tried to rip it. No luck. “Damn it. They might be cheap, but they’re strong. What the hell are they made of? Valyrian steel?” Her tinkling laugh caressed his ears. He tried again. Nothing. “Shit. I didn’t know ripping off panties was so difficult. But, you know what? If a fictional character can do it, I can too. Mind you, that bastard had practice,” he muttered to himself. He tried again, this time with more force; the veins tensed from his neck to his forearms.
The fabric finally gave way.
“You were right. Really fucking hot,” he whispered, his flashing eyes taking in the thin strip of light fuzz that covered her pubis. “I’ll keep this, for my efforts.” He slipped the shred of fabric into the back pocket of his pants. “And now ... I think my hard work deserves a reward,” he announced, grabbing her by the hips and burying his face between her thighs.
“What are you . . . ? Marcel . . . Oh my god . . .”
She tasted incredible, out of this world. His tongue licked, entered and withdrew, traced circles around the exact center of pleasure; he drank in her sweet scent through his nose. He lifted his gaze and saw her trying to maintain eye contact with him as she leaned back on the kitchen island, her toes tensing on his shoulders.
“Marcel, please,” she begged.
He pulled his face away slightly.
“Have a bit of patience, girl,” he said, and started to blow gently on her glistening wetness.
“I have no patience. I don’t want to wait. I can’t—”
She raised her hand to her mouth and let herself fall back, arching her spine. She climaxed quickly. As she convulsed, moaning, he watched her again over her pubic mound; head to one side, eyes rolling in pleasure, lips shining.
She had just orgasmed, and she was beautiful.
His entire life seemed to converge into that moment.
He was dying to be inside her, but he wasn’t going to do it on the kitchen island. He stood up and took her nimbly in his arms. Siobhan gave an adorable little cry that made him laugh. He carried her up the stairs without difficulty.
“You’re not complaining about my weight today?” she asked slyly, caressing the swollen veins of his biceps.
“A man’s physical strength is multiplied by three when he’s horny. Didn’t you know?”
“Really?”
“Not really, no,” he admitted, laughing.
“Idiot.”
“But this idiot ripped off your panties, girl.”
“Yes, on the third attempt.”
“Better late than never.”
They entered the bedroom laughing, and Marcel placed her down gently on the bed. He knelt at her feet and ran his gaze over her naked body.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, bewitched.
He caressed her lips with his thumb, and then devoted himself to running his mouth over all the possible pleasure zones—neck, throat, breasts, stomach, hips—on his torturous descent, heading down there without quite getting there. She separated her legs a bit more, perhaps an involuntary gesture, and begged him with a moan:
“Marcel, please, I need you closer.”
He didn’t make her wait. He lowered his pants and underwear clumsily and fell on top of her. Siobhan grabbed his penis at the base and rubbed it against her moist slit. A hoarse cry of pleasure broke out from deep inside; this was high voltage.
“Shit, Siobhan ... I can’t ... I’m going to get a condom right now and fuck you till the sun comes up.”
He stretched out his arm to the nightstand, opened the drawer, and took out a box. He was so eager it slipped from his fingers and fell on the floor.
“Shit!” he exclaimed.
He got up to collect it, and while he was urgently slipping on a condom, he heard Siobhan laughing behind him.
He turned to glance at her over his shoulder.
“What’s so funny, princess?” he asked with mock outrage.
“It’s just ... I find it very funny to see you so flustered and with that”—she pursed her lips and gestured between his legs—“huge cock.”
She could barely contain her laughter.
Marcel tutted.
“So that’s where we are, is it? Okay, let’s see if you’re still laughing when I put this huge cock right inside you, baby.”
And having said that, he lay on top of her again and entered her. The laughter became a sigh and finally a moan that kept pace with the creaking of the bed beneath their bodies. He was gentle with her; even so, he could tell she was holding her breath as she sank her fingers into his biceps. He looked at her, her coppery hair strewn messily across the pillow.
He had dreamed of this moment so many times that he could barely believe it was really happening.
But it was happening.
He was inside her.
And he didn’t ever want to leave.
Lust overflowed inside him, saturating his brain. She clamped her legs around his hips, and he took her by the calves to get deeper inside. A world of pleasure condensed in Siobhan’s face as she tilted her pelvis, grabbing his buttocks. He pumped away without stopping.
“Is this ... still ... funny?” he whispered, his voice faltering against her neck. She moaned and shook her head. “What about ... this?” He pushed further in. She cried out, and he felt he had only a few minutes of life left in him when he felt her walls enclosing around his cock as though trying to keep it there forever. He wanted more, he wanted everything it was possible to have, he wanted to disappear inside her and never come back. He rested a hand between her beautiful head and the headboard and thrust harder; the bed struck the wall again and again. “Or ... this?”
“Marcel . . . Mar . . . cel . . .”
Through the fog of lust, he heard her utter his name falteringly and knew that she was coming for the second time that night. The certainty of her pleasure made him lose what little control he had left. Marcel exploded right away. His body no longer belonged to him, and his mind splintered into a thousand pieces as they both reached climax together. It was intense, urgent, and so devastating that all he could do was bury his face in her neck and let her scent cradle him in that sweet shuddering. When he had calmed down, he kissed her collarbone. They were both breathing erratically and hoarsely in the silence of the room, trembling with the release. Suddenly, it all made sense. From the moment he met her, he had known she would shatter his armor. He lifted his head to look at her, brushing a damp lock of hair from her forehead, and started to laugh. She did the same.
Stretched out in bed, facing one another, hands interlaced on the pillow. Marcel looked at her in a way that he had never looked at a woman before. Siobhan was smiling. She was beautiful after sex; her eyes glowed, her mouth glowed, her skin glowed.
“Stay the weekend,” he said suddenly.
“Are you worried we’re running behind?”
“I don’t mean for writing. I mean to be together. Alone. You and me.”
“The whole weekend?”
“All of it.”
“I don’t have a change of clothes.”
“You don’t need clothes for what I have in mind,” he whispered and then raised her hand to his lips and kissed her fingertips one by one.
“And what do you have in mind?”
“A wild, relentless sex marathon? No, god! What do you take me for?” He feigned indignation, which made Siobhan laugh. How was it possible that seeing her happy warmed his heart like this? He had definitely lost his head. “Actually, I was thinking of cooking and watching movies. I don’t know the protocol in these cases, especially in the trial period, but I imagine that’s the kind of thing that”—he swallowed—“couples do.” He paused and frowned. “Actually, if you have the same terrible taste in movies that you do in books ...”
He didn’t see it coming when Siobhan launched a pillow at him. And she didn’t see it coming when he pounced on her in a swift movement and immobilized her with the weight of his body.
“We’ll rule out movies.”
“Then we’ll have to cook.”
“I don’t object to my girl cooking something for me.”
Siobhan snorted.
“Pardon? That sounds terribly sexist.”
“You didn’t let me finish. I was going to say I don’t object to my girl cooking for me while I cook something for her. A Southern specialty, the kind of thing I know you like. Deal?”
“Depends what you mean by cooking. Does opening cans and emptying them onto a plate count?”
Marcel laughed.
“Well, to be honest, I’m not exactly a virtuoso at the stove myself. So, let’s rule out movies and cooking, that just leaves ...”
“The wild, relentless sex marathon.”
“I’m afraid we’ll have to make do with that,” he agreed, gently biting her neck.
Then Siobhan gently pushed him away and scrutinized him with a confused look in her eye.
“You said, ‘My girl.’”
A mischievous smile appeared on Marcel’s lips.
“Did I?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Well, you said it. Twice. And you said we were in a trial period. Like a couple.”
“My subconscious betrayed me.”
Something glinted in Siobhan’s eyes.
A glint of triumph.
“Ha. But the subconscious doesn’t betray; it just gets rid of our inhibitions to allow us to express our innermost thoughts. Doesn’t that phrase ring a bell, Mr. Black?” Marcel returned her gaze, disconcerted. She gave him a slight smile and narrowed her eyes scornfully. “That’s what you said to me when we met, and I blurted out that you were sexy.”
Marcel shook his head.
“What an arrogant bastard.”
“Number one in the category of most arrogant bastard on the planet. I didn’t like you at all, and the very idea of having to spend the summer writing a novel with you made me ill.”
“I didn’t like you much either, Miss Harris. You struck me as an unbearable goody-goody. Just look at us now,” he added, interlacing his fingers with hers.
“Why haven’t we done this before, Marcel?”
“Because this plot twist wasn’t in the plan, honey.”
And then, they tangled into each other once again. And this time, their passion wasn’t like a forest burning out of control, but a steady and inextinguishable flame.
Because this time the fire was raging in their hearts.