Chapter 16
Chapter
Sixteen
After they’d annihilated the pizza, Ethan insisted they make smores.
“You promised,” he told Kate. “You said we could do it the next time we had a Friday night dinner.”
“What about your hand?” she asked him. “Doesn’t it hurt too much to cook?”
“Of course it doesn’t. I’m not a baby.” He looked at her beseechingly. “Please?”
“Okay,” Kate agreed. “But first I want you and Addy to put your pajamas on. It’s almost bedtime.”
So James had pulled the gas grill out and set it up, looking to Marley for confirmation that he’d done it right, while Kate had gotten the two younger kids cleaned up and in their pajamas.
Now all five of them were sitting outside, their graham crackers and marshmallows and chocolate squares wrapped in foil and sitting on the top of the grill while they waited for them to melt. Kate had put on some music in the kitchen and it was spilling out into the yard. Some old, mellow rock album that made the air around them feel soft and warm.
“I put some wine in the refrigerator earlier,” she said to Marley as they sat on two chairs facing the grill. James was standing over the cooking smores, Ethan next to him, with a pair of tongs in his hands, waiting for the right moment to take the packets off the rack. Addy was on the swing set.
“I have to drive home,” he told her. “Remember?”
“You could walk.” She shrugged. “Or run.”
The corner of his lip lifted. “My car’s outside. What would everybody say if it was there overnight?”
She tipped her head to the side, her jaw jutting out. “Let them talk.”
“You’re just high from the carbs,” he said. “You’d hate that.”
“Honestly, I don’t care. Have a drink with me.”
The smile he gave her made every cell in her body start to vibrate.
“Okay then.” He stood. “I’ll get us both a glass.”
After the kids finished their smores, and Kate and Marley had finished half the bottle, James went upstairs to shower. Kate agreed with Addy and Ethan that they could watch a cartoon on their tablets in bed for half an hour if they promised to brush their teeth extra well.
An hour later, all three of them were asleep. She’d been in to check on each one. Addy was curled up like a ball, Ethan’s arms were slung out over his head like he was doing some kind of cheer, and James had nodded off with his headphones still on his ears. She managed to gently pull them off, and then plugged his phone into the charger so he’d have some juice in the morning, all without waking him.
It had been a long week. Kate hoped they’d all sleep in late tomorrow.
“Everything okay?” Marley asked as she walked into the kitchen. He was loading the dishwasher. The man knew how to foreplay.
“Everything is perfect. By some miracle they’re all asleep.” Her lip curled as she stepped toward him. And there they were, those flutters again.
She was getting used to them whenever he was around.
He closed the dishwasher and reached for her, his palm curling around her hip, his other hand cupping her face. And then his mouth was on hers, like he’d been aching for this all night.
She knew she had.
Kate tipped her head up, feeling the soft, sure pressure of his lips. The gentle slide of his tongue. The way his body felt so hard against hers. In every way. She curled her arms around his neck, pushing herself against him.
This man was undoing her in every way. Her thighs clenched with need for him.
When he pulled back his eyes were hazy. “Outside?” he rasped.
She nodded. “Outside.”
This time he grabbed her hand, pulling her through the kitchen door into the cool evening air.
But instead of taking her to their favorite Adirondack chair, he turned her until her back was against the wall. As though he couldn’t wait any longer to touch her. To kiss her.
To make her feel like her world was shifting.
Her heart was pounding as he slid his hand down her side, his fingers dipping beneath her t-shirt. “This okay?”
“Yes,” she breathed. She craved his touch. And when his hand slid up her stomach, to her bra-clad breasts, she let out a little cry into his mouth.
He rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, forcing a low groan from her lips. She had to steady herself against him, her hand on his waist. The thick ridge of him was pressed against her stomach. She arched against it, wanting to know just how needy he was for her.
Oh yeah, he was super needy. She liked that too much.
His lips slid to her jaw, then her neck. Then he suddenly dropped to his knees in front of her, both hands on her hips. His face pressed against her t-shirt-covered stomach.
“I just need to kiss your skin,” he told her, his voice thick. “Just for a minute.”
“Yes please.” She stroked his hair. It was so soft against her palm. He nudged the fabric up, his mouth hot against her belly. She wondered if he could see her silvery stretch marks in the moonlight. If he could feel the indentation of them against his mouth.
Maybe she should care. Be worried about that. But it was difficult to think properly about anything when this man was on his knees for her. Worshipping her.
He kissed her hip, her stomach, her belly button. Then he pushed her t-shirt higher up, kissing his way to her ribcage before sliding his lips along the edge of her bra. Every touch of his mouth felt like fire. She scraped her fingernails against his scalp, whispering his name.
And then he closed his mouth around her nipple, through the lace of her bra, and her knees started to buckle.
Pulses of pleasure were making her thighs tight and her body slick. He sucked at her nipple again, his teeth scraping against her. “So fucking beautiful,” he muttered.
Despite the cooling night air, her face was heated, her body on fire. He slid his hand down, cupping her, his mouth still hovering where she needed him the most.
“Are you wet?”
“What do you think?” she said, grinning.
He looked up, his eyes catching hers. She jolted at the connection. What was happening here?
“Let me make you come.”
“Here?” Her heart hammered against her chest.
He nodded. “Right here. Right now. Let me make you feel good. Please.”
“With my clothes on?”
“I wasn’t about to strip you naked in your backyard.” He lifted a brow. “ Yet .”
“Okay,” she breathed. Every cell in her body danced with delight at her answer. And he gave her the sweetest, sexiest grin she was sure she’d ever seen. He stood, his mouth capturing hers again. God, she could never get tired of kissing this man. Feeling his big, hard body against hers was fast becoming her favorite thing.
His fingers flicked open the button of her jeans, then he slid down the zipper, all while still kissing her. This man has game. The thought crossed her mind and then she forgot about it all together because his fingers were there.
He groaned into her mouth when he felt the slickness of her. The swell at the apex of her thighs. He touched her lightly, murmuring her name against her lips.
“You’re perfect,” he told her. “Every part of you. Better than I ever imagined.”
“You’ve imagined me?” Her voice was tight. He’d found a rhythm now. One that was making her feel so achy she wasn’t sure she’d be the same again.
“All the time.”
“What do you do when you imagine me?” she whispered. He slid a finger inside her and it made her eyes roll to the back of her head. His thumb was still circling, his finger sliding.
He pushed a second one in and she gasped against his mouth.
“I touch myself until I come so hard I can’t breathe,” he told her.
She imagined him doing just that. With those talented fingers wrapped around his cock, his lips parted as he pumped himself until he reached his peak.
The picture in her mind was enough to start a chain reaction in her body. His mouth was on hers, his fingers inside her, his thumb circling and circling until she thought she couldn’t take anymore. And then she felt it, the hot pleasure, starting to uncoil in her belly, sparks flying through her nervous system, down to her toes, up to her brain.
“Marley…”
He must have felt her tightening around him. “I’ve got you. You’re so damn beautiful, Kate. Let me see you come.”
Her chest hitched, her toes curled. Her body wanted to bend in two but he wouldn’t let her. He kept her upright with his mouth, his fingers plundering her body until she wasn’t sure she could take any more.
“I’m so close,” she whispered.
He pressed his mouth harder against hers, swallowing her cries as she started to convulse around him, her hands holding onto his shoulders for dear life. He curled his fingers, hitting her at a spot she didn’t even know she had, prolonging the pleasure as she came apart with his touch.
And when she finally caught her breath, his eyes were staring into hers. He slowly pulled his hand out of her panties and lifted them to his mouth.
And slid them inside.
Oh .
“You taste like heaven,” he told her. “Next time it’ll be my mouth between your thighs.”
“What about you?” she asked, so aware of his hardness pressing against her.
“What about me?”
“Don’t you need to…” She slid her hand down between them, cupping him.
He let out a grunt of pleasure at her touch.
“No, not now.” He shook his head. “The first time I come with you is going to be inside you.”
Her cheeks pinked up at his words. God, she wanted that. So much.
“I’m sorry that I can’t take you inside and… well. Sorry that my life is so complicated.”
“It’s not complicated,” he told her. “It’s real. And you don’t know how much I like that.” He kissed her brow and it felt almost more intimate than her lips. “Thank you for letting me have this.”
“I can’t believe you have to walk home now.”
His mouth curled into a smile. “The walk of shame.”
“It makes a change having the guy do it.”
He cupped her face with his warm palm. “Don’t you get it yet? I’d do anything for you. Walking a couple of miles isn’t even a blip on the radar.”