13. Liar #2
I stared at him, still wearing the wedding dress, while he still wore the suit.
We were married, but what kind of marriage would it be?
What kind of marriage could it be? I didn’t know what to do if things stopped feeling good and were instead more pain than I could handle.
I could handle a lot of pain, and so far he hadn’t given me a drop.
I smiled brightly. “Nix, could you help me get the zipper on my dress?” I spun around so I didn’t have to look at him.
I was so flustered about all of this. I wanted to be all bold and tell him that I wanted, but I didn’t have the slightest idea.
I should have bought a kama sutra book at the gas station.
Not that they had those at gas stations. Maybe I could find a book store.
He stood right behind me, hands on my waist for a moment while he bent down over me and nosed my hair. “You even smell like sunshine.”
“And tamales.”
He rumbled a laugh while his hands slid around my waist, pulling me into the curve of his embrace. He kissed my neck, right where it emerged from the dress, and then slightly higher, working his way lazily over my skin while his hands slid over my stomach and ribs, always pulling me into him.
“This is necking, not unzipping,” I mumbled before I realized words were going to come out of my mouth.
“Mm,” he murmured against my skin, and then his teeth scraped just so, sending a shock of electric awareness through me.
Not pain. So much not pain that I was kind of hyperventilating.
He felt good. So good. So delicious. I closed my eyes and relaxed against him while he kissed me all slow and melted butter.
I was kind of aware of him tugging me closer, but I didn’t realize that meant we eventually ended up somewhere, and it was in the enormous bathroom, with two showers, and a tub the size of a large hot tub. Maybe it was a hot tub. What was the difference? The thing had jets.
He stepped back slightly, lips still on my neck while he unzipped my dress, and then his hands were on my bare skin, slipping the sleeves off my shoulders so it fell, pooling on the marble tile around my feet like an unblemished lily.
I looked down at that dress while he stepped back into me, and this time his bare chest was against my back, warm, silky, and so firm, without an ounce of cuddleable flab.
But his muscles could be soft when he wasn’t flexing.
Right. Because we’d cuddled plenty by the fire, so this was just him in seduction mode.
My lashes fluttered open at the thought of my Nix seducing other women.
He had one hand around my waist, the other reaching out to turn on the tub, because he could do all that while his mouth was occupied with my neck.
Were my underwear okay? They were kind of cute, right?
My panties had a small smiley print, and my bra was white, basic, nothing to write home about, more practical than pretty, but it’s not like I’d had a wedding shower with lingerie from my besties.
Beastie was my only real bestie, but he’d never give me lingerie.
No, he’d give me a can of mace with a smoldering look and tell me to practice safe sex.
I tugged down Nix’s hand and took a small step away from him while I struggled to breathe. I turned to face him, but his eyes weren’t focused on my face, no, he was gazing very fixedly on my smiley print panties. His expression was kind of puzzled, but intense.
“Sorry, I don’t have fancy lingerie with me. I’ve never really had fancy lingerie, except the stuff Michael gave me but for some reason, I never really…” I rose up on my tiptoes and kissed his lips, sliding my hands up around his neck and pressing against him.
His mouth was already soft and wet, and he took my panicked kissing in stride, his strong hands steady on my back, my sides, stroking me like he was trying to calm a skittish horse.
Also, he took two steps forward until I came up against the high sides of the tub.
He kissed me and I kissed him, melting in him, clinging to him, feeling desperate and uncertain, but also just wanting so much for him to pick me up and carry me away.
He turned his head, breathing hard against my neck, which sent a shiver down my spine. “Kitten, it’s so hard to take it so slow when you’re so sweet. I want you more than I’ve wanted anything. Tell me that you want me. I need to be certain of what you want, what you need.”
I slid my hands down, over the planes of his chest, and he inhaled sharply as I trailed over his skin.
“Tell me,” he growled, teeth and tongue doing something to my neck that made my knees weak and all of my fluttery and aching.
“I want you,” I said simply, the bare raw truth in all its untarnished glory.
He pulled away, and stared into my eyes for a long burning moment before he caressed my face, brushing my hair back.
He dropped to his knees, gazing up at me. He looked like a sculpture come alive, so strong, so noble, like a fairytale knight ready to be knighted, but they didn’t cover this part in the fairy tales. Too bad. What was I supposed to do?
I held very still while we stared at each other, a storm of desire in his eyes that he kept perfectly contained.
He wouldn’t hurt me, not matter how much he wanted me, and if I was reading him correctly, he wanted me more than I could possibly survive, because he’d devour me and leave absolutely nothing left.
“Sushine, you okay? You kind of froze up there.”
I blinked at him and then I gulped a breath. I’d forgotten to breathe. “I’m good.”
He gave me a half smile with his beautiful mouth.
I was going to paint that mouth a million different times, all the ways he held those lips.
And this, this moment right here, that angle, the intensity and power in his eyes that he held so carefully in check, I was painting that first thing. This moment would haunt me forever.
“You are good. Better than good. The best. Tell me what you want.” He made it sound so flirty, and his voice, so raw and deep, it went through me like honey and thunder.
I stared at him. “You. I want you.” I did.
So much. Forever. Like this and like at the campfire and like the morning I woke up with my head on his shoulder and felt safe and warm and protected like I’d never been before.
I wanted his hands, his mouth, his heart, his soul, his life, and I wanted it with a terrifying fierceness that made it hard to breathe, to move, to do anything but stare at him like an idiot.
He smiled slowly. “You’ve got me, Kitten. What do you want to do with me? Or what do you want me to do with you?” His eyes smoldered while his hands held perfectly still on my sides.
What was he waiting for? I didn’t know what I wanted, except him.
Was I supposed to know details? Also, I couldn’t want him like this, that was asking for disaster, except it was fine as long as he didn’t know I was attached, and as long as he wasn’t, because I wasn’t about to get with some guy who was devasted when I dropped dead in six months.
Two months. Two days. Whatever. I had to live in the moment, but he was looking at me, waiting for me to tell him what I wanted when I couldn’t ever want anything too much or it would break me. I was dying, yeah, but I wasn’t broken.
“Kitten?” he asked, moving back a bit, hands on my knees while he studied me with new concern.
“Sorry, I’m just trying to figure out what you want me to say, but I don’t know.
I’ve never shown anyone my underwear, except for this one time in a rainforest with a bunch of friends, when we went down these water slides, and then I got this slug under my panty line, but this isn’t at all like that, because you’re clearly not a slug. Um. I shouldn’t have said that.”
His brow furrowed slightly then smoothed as he smiled back at me all sweet and tender.
“I like you too.” He straightened and picked me up, then stepped with me into the tub, lowering us into the water while I held onto his neck and tried to not feel weird.
He was still wearing his jeans. Wet jeans were the worst.
Once we were settled into the comfortably contoured tub, he kissed my shoulder, then my arm, then my forehead. “You’ve had a long day. Why don’t you tell me about your ex-boyfriends.”
I squinted while I tried to remember exactly what I’d told him about that. My thoughts were still spinning, I mean, I was on the lap of a mostly naked man who wore my wooden band on his left hand. My husband. And he felt so good. No pain. Not one drop. “I don’t date.”
“Never?”
I shrugged and tried to turn, but his grip on me tightened so I couldn’t move a centimeter. “Nix?”
“Hold still, Kitten, or I’ll lose control. We’re having a very important conversation.”
“Oh. Okay.” Did he have this talk with everyone he slept with?
Of course he did. This was the STI talk, and safe sex, and if I was on the pill, or birth control, or if I’d been checked recently.
Of course it was. “Tell me about your ex-girlfriends. Do you like condoms or does she do condoms, do they have women’s condoms?
I don’t even know. Have you been tested recently?
I haven’t been specifically for STI’s, but I’ve recently had a doctor’s check-up and I am, obviously, still a virgin, so sexually transmitted infections aren’t really likely.
I’m not on any birth control pills, so that’s important to know.
I don’t exactly want to get pregnant. That would be a disaster. ”
He shifted me slightly, turning me so I was more on his knees, less on his lap, and kind of facing him so he could study my face. “I’m clean. Condoms for me. Always. I’ve never been with anyone without trying to minimize all those kinds of risk.”
I smiled while a wave of relief went through me. He could take care of the practicalities that I really didn’t know anything about. “I’m glad. That’s smart to be careful with your health.”