Chapter 10
CHAPTER 10
E verything feels different. My arms are wrapped tightly around Marcus from behind, exactly like they were on our way to Seattle. But now, as we leave the city behind us, there’s no question of what-ifs and maybes. No question of whether he wants me, because now he’s all mine. Forever, officially.
I wrap my arms tighter around him, and he lifts one of my hands and kisses it. He laces his fingers through mine as he drives toward the undisclosed location. He won’t even give me a hint. All I know is, our top-secret honeymoon spot is in the opposite direction from Stanford and San Francisco.
My mind floats back over this most perfect day and all the other surprises it held, like Lin and Johnny and Guo Mama. Lin brought me the most beautiful dress, curled my hair, and did my makeup. We laughed and cried, and she begged me to let her marry Marcus. I denied her request without hesitation, and my giddiness had almost sent me flying out the door toward him, but Guo Mama had pulled me aside, away from Lin, and asked if I’d told Marcus about Nick.
“No,” I’d said, my voice shaking as anxiety stacked in my chest again.
“Why not, Xiao Mei?”
“Because this is the life he wants. And the life I want. I want to be with him, and I want to be part of him getting everything he wants.” Tears welled in my eyes, threatening to streak my mascara, so Guo Mama smiled and said she understood. She’d brushed a stray tear off my cheek, warning me to be careful and stay safe. I promised I would, and then I followed her out of the house, Lin holding my arm to steady me when all I wanted to do was run to Marcus.
I rest my chin on his shoulder now, watching Washington blur past us, and I smile to myself as anticipation rustles in my stomach. On all the rides before, dread, fear, and uncertainty rode heavy in my thoughts since we didn’t really know what was coming next. But now, I have a pretty good idea about what’s next. There’s no dread or uncertainty like when we were driving away from San Francisco. There are definitely nerves, but they’re mixing with excitement and wanting, making a sparkler of my stomach.
My life’s about to change again, and I notice everything like it’s my last time as this version of myself—the rough road, the chill in the air that makes me huddle into Marcus’s back, and my legs hugging his hips in a way that feels more possessive now that he’s legally and officially mine. Forever.
The wind pushes my dress up my thighs, and Marcus glances down, gripping the handlebars a little tighter.
Anticipation splits me open a little further, and I would happily stop anywhere, but Marcus wants everything to be perfect. There’s probably a hundred diagrams and checklists floating through his head while very different visuals float through mine. I wish he’d just let go for once, but he has his plans and surprises, and I have unbearable waiting.
I press against his back, my hands drifting up his chest. He puts one hand over them, but I slip one hand out, drifting it down his stomach, across it, my fingertips playing with the hem of his shirt and sliding under.
His stomach muscles tense, but he doesn’t push my hand away, so I let it wander, testing his limits. Smiling, I bite my lower lip when his knuckles go white, surprised when he veers off the road and flips down the kickstand.
He hops off the bike, ripping off his helmet, and walks a few steps before turning back to me, face flushed.
I smile and shrug. “Why’d you stop?”
He closes his eyes and swears, fighting a smile. “Because you’re driving me crazy . And you know it.” The smile breaks through, and he runs his fingers through his hair. “I swear you’re gonna get us killed if you keep doing that. And I really don’t wanna die today. Not yet anyway.”
I smirk. “Marcus Miller, I’ve played by your rules for months, and now there are none.”
He takes my hands in his and pins them behind me. “Tell your hormones to back down a little longer and then, when we get where we’re going, release them like the beasts they are.” His smile catches the few rays of sun poking through the clouds. “I want them to run so free. So very free. But not until we’re there.”
“But I want you so bad right now.” I look into his eyes and read his thoughts, which hover at the surface and send heat up my neck. Oh, he has plans.
He rests his mouth against my ear. “I’m gonna show you just how much I want you. Just not here on the side of a two-lane highway in the middle of nowhere. So, if you want more, you’re gonna keep your hands to yourself until we get to where we’re going.” He lets me go and grins down at me as I groan.
“ Seriously? How long until we’re there? My hormones are wondering.”
“Not telling.” He wiggles his eyebrows at me, climbs back on the seat, and buckles his helmet. “Let’s get outta here before Big Foot finds us. I hear he likes Asian girls, especially incredibly hot ones. Also…” He smiles at the road ahead of us, then turns it on me. “I’m imagining you naked, so the sooner we get there, the sooner it becomes reality.”
Three agonizingly long hours and a ferry ride later, we’re driving through a gorgeous town on a winding road, far from anywhere either of us has ever been. All new territory in every way. We had time to change on the ferry, and I opted for jeans and a loose sweater while Marcus switched from slacks to jeans but kept on his button down. I’d tried and failed a few times to talk him into finding a secluded spot on the ferry, but when Marcus puts his mind to something, there are no detours.
The sun is setting over the ocean, the orange glow slicing through the trees as we pass patches of forest that open to a rocky shoreline. Marcus checks his phone at an intersection, and we turn left toward the ocean. The road winds through more trees, and the lights of the town fade behind us. A few minutes later, we pull up to a gate.
I peek around him at the private driveway through decorative metal rails. “How did you afford a mansion?”
He shakes his head. “Overtime on three graveyards, that’s how.” He punches in a code on the keypad, and the gate swings open.
Marcus drives slowly through the gate and down the lane. He rounds a corner to a beach house set on a hill above the ocean, completely encircled by trees.
“How did you find this place?” I ask. My eyes climb the steps to the front door and move along the wraparound porch, my nerves and excitement flaring.
“Spent hours on Wen’s laptop while you were working your last day. And here we are…”
He pulls up to the garage and taps his phone screen. The garage door lifts, and he parks the bike, cutting the engine.
“And…here we are.” Marcus hangs his helmet on the handlebars and grins over his shoulder at me.
I slide off the bike, hang my helmet on the handlebar, then slip back onto the seat, facing him. “So…release the hormones?” My stomach tightens, and the garage light flicks off as a breeze slips between us, ruffling Marcus’s hair.
His nose brushes mine. We look into each other’s eyes in the dim light from the sunset, and I scoot forward, sliding into his lap. I kiss him slowly, like I’m leading him down a winding path.
He melts into me, tugging me closer. His hands slip under my shirt, up my back, pulling the sweater over my head. One hand tosses the sweater over the handlebars behind me while the other glides over my bare skin, spreading fire.
Finally.
I deepen the kiss, unbuttoning his shirt, never breaking contact. We mold together, our mouths hungry and eager for each other until he pulls back, breathless, his mouth hot on my ear. “This bike’s gonna know way more about us than it should if we keep this up.”
I close my eyes as his hand runs up my neck, tangling in my hair.
“We have a whole house to ourselves. Where we can do anything we want for three days, no interruptions.” His smile spreads against my temple, and sparks zing through me.
He winds my legs tighter around his waist then holds me as he slides off the bike. I wrap my arms around his neck as he carries me toward the door.
“Should we grab our bags?” I ask.
He hits the garage door button, and it closes behind us as we walk up the steps. “I’ve got the essentials in my pocket…”
“What are you saying, Marcus Miller?” My fingers curl into the hair at his neck.
“I’m saying we might be doing things that don’t require clothes, and I am very prepared.”
“Do things like…?
“I don’t know.” He kisses my neck as he climbs the stairs. “Catch up on a couple TV shows. Bird watch. Make Thanksgiving dinner six months early.”
I tighten my arms around his neck, laughing as he pushes open the door. Inside the beach house, a wall of windows overlooks the ocean, trees bowing all around it. An orange smudge of a fading sun hangs above the dark line of ocean in the distance, the only light coming into the room. We’re nothing but shadows in the glow.
But my mind leaps to what comes next now that we’re finally here, and fireworks explode in my stomach, hot and tingly. It was easy to flirt and drive Marcus close to the edge when we were on the road, but now…
My eyes meet his, our chests warm against each other. “So what should we do now that I’ve released my hormones? They’re running all over the place, and I’m not even going to try to control them now…”
He grins, and I hold my breath when his fingers play with my bra, the only thing still between us. When the clasp releases, I slip it off and watch his face.
His eyes drop to my bare chest, and he swears under his breath, and rushes through the shadowy living area, his hands roaming my bare back, down to my backside. His mouth is hot, hungry, and I melt into him. When we reach the bedroom, he lowers me to the bed, his hands exploring my body.
“I want you, Mei.” His hands find mine, fingers lacing together and stretching across the mattress as his mouth moves down my neck, lower. We’ve been in this place before, pushing limits, but now he’s not holding back, and the heat builds between us until the weight of his body presses out a memory of Nick. I squeeze my eyes shut to push it back down, but a word crawls up my throat and out. “Wait!”
Marcus jerks his head up hovering over me, catching his breath while his hand runs across my face. “Are you okay?” He pushes himself to his knees above me. “What’s wrong?”
“I…” I’m breathless trying to run from the memory of Nick throwing me onto the bed, his body suffocating. “I don’t know.” I whisper, and he searches my face before lowering his forehead to my chest.
“Did I scare you?” he asks. The question flits around me as I steady my breathing. “I’m so sorry, Mei. I got caught up in…everything. Didn’t think about how triggering this could be.”
“Please don’t apologize,” I say, tears gathering in my eyes. “Everything’s great. So good—amazing—and…finally, we’re here. I’m just…” I don’t want to say the word because I’ve been the one teasing him all week long, frustrated that he wouldn’t lose it over me, but now he’s on the edge, ready to leap, and I’m the one backing away from the cliff. “I love you. I trust you. I just didn’t realize…” Didn’t know Nick is still ruining every perfect thing in my life. I thought I was over it after our week of making out and wishing and wanting to speed past his limits.
He looks up, reading my eyes, his face softening as his hand smooths my forehead. “You don’t have to say it, Mei. I know there are things that still haunt you.” His eyes hold mine in the gray light. “Also, if I’m being honest, I get that you’re nervous because I am, too. Have been all day.” His hand cradles the back of my neck, weaving into my hair. “At least I was until I saw you like this and my brain shut off.” He smiles, kisses me slowly, deeply, like he’s reaching inside me to stroke my panic. He pauses, his eyes staring into mine. “Let’s slow things down, yeah? We’ve got forever to do this. So you’re in charge—you decide when you’re ready.” He smiles against my neck and rolls off me. “I don’t need any advance notice—I’m ready whenever. But you know I can wait, too. So, so good at waiting.” He pulls me into him, his hand stroking my back, my head on his chest, and I wonder, not for the first time, how, in my world of bad luck, I ever got this lucky.
I smile at the dark ceiling, watching the moon throw shadows through the window. Marcus is sprawled on his back beside me, his arm over his forehead, breathing deeply in his sleep. It’s a sound I fell in love with our first night in the cottage, even if it was from the top bunk.
We’re definitely not in separate beds now. I roll into his side, reliving the last six hours. After my panic attack, Marcus held me, and we talked about our wedding day, the craziness of the last month, and how great it was to see Johnny, Lin, and Guo Mama. And then he’d told me all about the research he’d done for this moment—all the books with the covers torn off he’d read alone in his top bunk. He’d smiled into my neck, and I’d scooted up so I could hold his face in both hands as I’d kissed him.
“So now you’re an expert.”
He’d grinned. “Uhh…more like a well-read amateur. Who really, really wants to learn but is insanely nervous.”
He’d gotten honest about his fears, and as he talked, I’d traced his mouth with my fingertip, drawn into his world. It had led to my own moment of honesty when I’d slipped out of the sheet he’d wrapped around me. His eyes had sparked, and we’d made out, our hands and mouths teasing until our nerves had sputtered and gone quiet.
I bite my lip, my smile widening at the ceiling. Marcus taught me things I didn’t even know about myself last night. He was patient, gentle, careful, and when there was finally nothing between us, he created a new space in my heart, just for him. After, we’d lain facing each other in the dark, smiling and amazed at where we’d gone together.
My body is sore in new places, but I’m overflowing with love and gratitude. I feel bad for any girl who doesn’t have a Marcus for her first time. Or all the times after that.
The moonlight still glitters above us, but thoughts of another dark room in L.A. move across my mind, blocking the light. I yank my thoughts back into this silvery, moonlit room where, last night, Marcus proved that he and Nick are two different species.
I wiggle my toes and run my fingers lightly over the words he wrote in Sharpie around my belly button after our first time: “WHOA” and beneath it “Day 1 of ∞.”
I hold up my left hand, moving it around so the infinity ring glints in the shadows. My grin stretches my whole face, even though I should be sound asleep after last night. But my mind refuses to quiet, so I slide my hand over Marcus’s bare chest, my eyes still on the ring as I rest my mouth on his ear. “Wake up, sleepyhead…”
I kiss his earlobe, and he stirs, mumbling something unintelligible. His hand slides across his stomach to my waist, and he rolls into me, his mouth pressing against my neck.
“Hey, baby.” He kisses my throat, up to my chin, whispering as he goes. “Sorry I fell asleep so fast, but… kind of a busy night.”
I run my fingers through his hair, holding him to me. “I have the perfect way to wake you up because I don’t want to waste time sleeping…”
He pulls back, his eyebrows raised. I grab his hand and tug him up and across the mattress. Snatching one of the robes hanging on the closet door, I wrap it around myself before handing him one.
Pulling on his robe, he glances at the clock on the nightstand. “You know it’s three AM, right?”
I nod, grinning as I lead him and his sluggish feet to the hot tub on the deck overlooking the ocean. Cool air weaves around my legs, the wooden deck smooth beneath my feet as I step toward the hot tub, reaching for the belt on my robe.
But Marcus grabs my hand and pulls me to him. “No way.”
I look up at his face, which is surrounded by messy spikes of hair my hands created last night. “Have something against hot tubs at three AM?”
“I absolutely love hot tubs at three AM with a naked you, but hot tubs are meant to warm you up after you’ve taken a dip in the ocean.”
“ No time like the present for a swim ?” I ask with my eyes.
He scans the quiet ocean and the private boardwalk to a dock on an inlet. “No time like three AM for a dare.”
Goosebumps scatter over my skin when a breeze winds up through my robe. “Okay….”
“You’ll get your hot tub time only if we drop these robes, run down that boardwalk, and jump off the dock. And you have to stay in for at least two minutes.”
“Do you realize there are killer whales in that water? Right there?” I jab my finger at the ocean.
“Yeah, well, unlike Big Foot, they’re not into Asian girls. I personally don’t get it, but…”
“Are you serious right now?”
“You woke me up at three AM not for the reason I was hoping, so yeah, dead serious.”
I step closer, hand on his belt. “Take your own dare, and maybe all your three AM dreams will come true.”
He pulls his belt, and his robe drops to the deck. I shriek when he tugs my belt, trying to dart out of reach, but he yanks it before running down the deck stairs, a white streak in the dark. My robe slides off and I chase him down the steps along the cliffside to the boardwalk, laughing like a crazy girl at his white bum glowing against the dark smudges of trees. A few seconds later, a splash echoes through the air, followed by a string of curse words. My stomach knots. The end of the dock leers at me, and my legs tense, but Marcus chants from the water. “Faster, Mei! Don’t stop. Get in this water NOW! HUSTLE, MILLER!”
I squeal, plunging into icy water. Fear about what’s beneath me shoots me to the surface, and I burst out of lapping waves, gasping and shrieking. “So— cold !” I yell through clenched teeth.
Marcus whoops, swimming toward me, and pulls me against him as we tread water, sputtering and laughing. Moonlight shimmers around us like we’re in a spotlight, just two silhouettes in a very, very dark ocean.
I tread faster, and Marcus laughs, our legs tangling.
“You ever done this before?” he asks, breathless.
“Never. And I won’t, ever again.” My teeth chatter, and I wind my arms around his neck, pressing my cold, wet body to his to find warmth. “What about you?” I ask through a shiver, and he holds me against him, his hand splayed across my back.
“Only with ugly soccer guys.” He rests his forehead against mine, nudging my nose with his. Our legs and feet kick each other. “They didn’t have anything I wanted to see. And I definitely didn’t get this close to them. But you?” He smiles. “Watching you run down that dock like you owned the place kinda revved me up. If we didn’t have to tread to stay alive, we’d be doing something else right now.”
I wriggle out of his arms and splash him before twisting and swimming toward the dock.
“You wanna play, Mei?” he calls as he swims toward me, a gleam in his eye.
“You forget I’m connected to the mafia,” I call back, changing direction to outswim him, but my stiff, jittery doggy paddle isn’t fast enough.
He lunges, and I squeal when he hooks me around the waist and yanks my back to his chest. “You’re going down, Mrs. Miller,” he says in my ear, wrapping his legs around my waist and dragging me underwater with him.
We surface a few seconds later, his arms still around me. We spit salt water and swipe at our eyes, laughing and breathless. He turns me to face him. “What you gonna do now, Mei?” His hands glide up my legs to my thighs, and he grips them, wrapping them around his waist. One hand presses my lower back, the other keeps us afloat. “What’s your escape plan? It’s just you, me, and all the killer whales under us.”
I squeeze my thighs against his ribs, and he groans, dropping his forehead to my shoulder. “You’re gonna kill me. Gotcha.” His hand slides along the curve of my back, flexing over my backside. I close my eyes when his mouth skims my neck, leaving a trail of heat, until something brushes my leg, and I jolt in Marcus’s arms, screaming and thrashing. “Did you feel that?” I shriek. “Something just brushed my leg.”
He bursts out laughing. “Yeah—my hairy leg.”
“No! It wasn’t.” I push away from him and swim toward the dock, stopping only when I hear voices. I scan the beach and tree line, skidding to a halt on a couple walking along the beach, hand in hand.
Marcus swims up behind me, sliding his arm around my stomach, his mouth on my ear. “You can either stay in the water and get devoured by the scary sea monster feeling up your leg, or you can jump out right now and give those people the show they came to see. Your choice, baby. I know what they’re hoping for ’cause I want the same thing.”
“I’m so naked!” I hiss through chattering teeth.
“So very, very naked…”
The couple sits on the beach like it’s the middle of the day and they’re settling in to whale watch.
Or…
“Sunrise,” I whisper.
“What?” Marcus’s breath brushes the back of my neck as we tread, his hand skimming up my body.
“They’re waiting for sunrise. They’re not going to leave for at least two more hours.”
“Then we risk becoming fish food. Although those sharks circling us earlier were smiling. Seemed super friendly, so we’ll probably have a great time out here.”
I tear away from him, frantically splashing toward the dock. Grunting and panting, I try to haul myself onto it without scratching my stomach on the weathered wood, giving all of nature and the sunrise couple a front row view of all my body parts.
Marcus belly laughs behind me, and his hand lands on my backside, pushing me up and onto the dock. He slides onto it beside me like he’s some kind of seal and we scramble to our feet, and he grabs my hand, pulling me behind him as we sprint up the dock, right past the couple on the beach and through the trees along the boardwalk, not stopping or looking back until we jump in the hot tub and sink to the bottom together.