Chapter 11 #3
He’s careful with me, the same care he spends on the girls, and I don’t know what to do with that. Nobody’s handled me gently in a long while. The gentleness is harder to guard against than anything rough could be.
“You waltz,” I accuse him.
“My sister-in-law Hannah taught me.” He steers us neatly around a slower couple. “She taught dance, and she refused to let my brother reach the altar without knowing how to lead. Daniel got drilled for weeks, then made to practice on me.”
The picture builds before I can stop it, two grown men circling somebody’s living room. A laugh escapes me. “And who led? When the pair of you practiced.”
His face curdles on the spot. “Who do you think? He stuck me with the woman’s part every single time.”
“So how did you end up this good at leading?”
He draws himself up, mock-solemn. “I went back to Hannah for private lessons. No chance I was going to my grave knowing only how to follow.”
I laugh outright, and his mouth tips up, pleased, a little proud he wrung it out of me.
He says their names with an easy fondness, and I don’t miss the past tense running under it, the small shadow he won’t let reach his mouth.
I don’t ask about it. Everyone’s got their dead, and I know how it feels when a stranger pokes at the grave.
So I let him spin me again instead, and for once, the spinning is welcome.
The song winds down, and we drift to the carousel to wait.
By now the crowd’s thinned in this corner, just a few stray families left, but the girls beg for a second ride, so we let them.
When they climb off, they want to get some peanuts from the stall near the trees.
We try to go with them, but they insist we keep dancing.
My ten-year-old is matchmaking, and she’s terrible at it. I should shut the whole thing down. Instead I let them go. We stop after a minute when the music ends and go wait by the railings of the carousal.
“You still need some work, though,” Marc remarks while we wait.
“On what?”
He angles his head. “I counted three things you got wrong out there.”
“Excuse me.” I round on him. “I know how to waltz.”
“Let me fix your steps.” He’s already got my hand. “Come here.”
There, away from the floor and the fiddle, the last families gone, only the carousel throwing soft pastel light into the dark, he draws me in close to turn me through it slowly. There’s no music now. It turns out we don’t need any.
His hand is splayed warm across my back, his thumb tracing a slow arc that has nothing to do with footwork. We’ve quit pretending this is a lesson, somewhere back a few turns ago. His breath stirs the hair at my temple. I should step back, but I don’t move.
He bends his head until his mouth rests near my ear. “So what’s your verdict on my teaching?”
I have to swallow before I can manage anything dry. “There’s room for improvement.”
“Then maybe I should perfect it.”
He kisses me.
It starts slow, his lips brushing mine with deliberate softness. My mind screams at me to stop—this is dangerous, I can’t do this, not with him, not again—but the warning dies the instant his fingers slide into my hair, gripping tightly at the back of my head.
That single possessive tug snaps something inside me.
I kiss him back hard, all the pent-up hunger I’ve buried for years exploding out at once. I moan into his mouth as my fingers fist in the front of his shirt, yanking him closer.
Marcus groans low in his throat, the sound vibrating through my body as he backs me up against the railing.
One big hand grips my waist, and the other stays tangled in my hair, holding me exactly where he wants me.
He kisses me deeper, filthier—nipping my bottom lip, sucking it between his teeth, then soothing the sting with his tongue until my knees go weak.
Heat floods through me, pooling low in my belly, and I press flush against him, feeling the hard line of his body, the way he’s already getting hard for me.
His hand drifts lower, possessive, fingers digging into the curve of my ass as he grinds me slowly against him.
I gasp at the friction, and he swallows the sound, devouring me like he wants to consume every inch.
The air between us is thick with the taste of spiced sausage and pure Marcus—salt, heat, and raw want.
My nipples tighten against his chest, and I arch into him shamelessly, chasing more.
He breaks the kiss only to trail his mouth down my jaw, sucking at the sensitive spot beneath my ear before biting down gently. “Fuck, Jessa,” he rasps, his voice wrecked and his breath hot against my damp skin. “You have no idea what you do to me.”
I’m burning up, thighs clenched, aching for him to touch me lower, to push me further right here in the shadows. My hands slide under his shirt, nails scraping over the hard muscle of his back as I pull him closer, desperate for skin on skin.
Then a short, sharp scream rips across the dark.
We tear apart and spin toward it in the same breath.
Off past the thinned crowd, over by the peanut stall at the tree line, Mia is down in the grass. Bella crouches over her, both hands shaking her small shoulder, screaming her name into the night.