“Yeah.” If she sounded like she didn’t care, that was almost entirely the truth. Especially at this moment, with this man only inches away.
Now that the fog had lifted, sunshine highlighted the starbursts of fine lines at the corners of his solemn eyes, the brackets surrounding his perfect mouth, the creases running across that noble forehead. Somehow the lines didn’t look like flaws, even in the unfiltered, unforgiving glare. Instead, they only transformed his unmistakable prettiness into something earthier, something she could grasp in her fist and take between her teeth and consume.
Honestly, if she hadn’t begun to like him so much, she would find his excessive handsomeness extremely aggravating. And despite all her affection, she still wanted to rumple all that beauty, wanted to sink her fingers into that shiny, silky hair and pull, even as she traced the jut of his jaw, sharp as flint, with her tongue.
What sound would he make if she bit him there?
When he swallowed, his throat bobbed. “Is that why you changed your number?”
He was breathing faster now, and fuck, she wanted him gasping in need. For her. Only her.
She shrugged. “Once they figured out my name, I had a few calls and some pictures taken. But changing my number helped, and they seemed to lose interest after a couple of days.” Once they concluded we weren’t dating anymore. “I figure the reprieve will end soon, and that’s okay. It’s a price I’m willing to pay.”
What strangers said didn’t concern her.
Her mother’s phone calls, however, she’d dodged since that first date.
“Are you sure?” With a gentle fingertip, he urged her face toward his again. “Because you’re right. They’ll find us again. Find you. If you decided to protect your privacy and stop seeing me, I’d understand.”
He’d bared himself metaphorically for her today. It was enough. More than enough, despite the dangers of their involvement.
So she had every intention of baring him literally. Tonight, if possible.
“Maybe you’d understand. I wouldn’t.” Boldly, she stepped into him again. “If I want you, I’m not letting a few strangers with cameras stop me from having you.”
Dropping her hand from his chest, she slid it around to his back. Slipped a fingertip below the hem of his sweater and teased the hot, bare skin just above his jeans.
As he bit off a rough sound, she walked him back, back, back, their thighs tangling with each step, until he was pressed against a sturdy-looking wrought-iron fence, and she was pressed tight to him.
Her heart was thumping hard enough to shake her, and it wasn’t due to all that caffeine.
Once she got on tiptoe, she laid her mouth on his jaw. The merest hint of stubble abraded her lips, a welcome friction. The tight-stretched flesh there tasted like salt on her tongue, and vibrated with his low moan.
She took that skin between her teeth and licked.
His hips bucked, and she gloried in the way he ground against her so fiercely, just for one mindless moment.
“What do you say, Marcus?” Back against that fence, where passersby couldn’t see, she slid both hands beneath his sweater and stroked up the satiny line of his spine, then dragged her nails lightly going back down. “Should I have you?”
He didn’t answer in words.
He didn’t need to.
It seemed she’d burned all the gentleness out of him, and good riddance. He fisted her hair in one hand and splayed the other wide on the swell of her ass, hauling her tighter against him. Her own sweater had ridden up, and those knit leggings didn’t blunt the sensation of his thigh nudging between hers, the jut of his cock against her belly.
She might have backed him into that fence, but she wasn’t in control. Not anymore.
“Turnabout,” he murmured against her neck, open mouth hot on her skin, and licked the spot. Nipped it. “You still have a mark here. Good.”
Her back hit the fence as he flipped their position, and he settled hard between her thighs. She huffed out a labored breath, dizzied and so fucking turned on she wanted to scratch and claw until he made the ache go away.
His teeth and tongue scored a path of fire up her neck, under her own jaw, and then—
Oh, his mouth claimed hers like a battle prize, hard and desperate, and she opened to the claim without hesitation.
Later they could try tender and sweet, but right now she wanted his tongue in her mouth, his teeth on her lower lip, and his groan swallowed by her panting breath. She wanted that possessive hold on her ass to squeeze her closer, closer, as the tug of her hair turned her nerve endings incandescent.
Here, he tasted like sugar instead of salt. Like mint. Like darkness and heat.
“So sweet,” he rasped, then slanted his fierce, reddened lips across hers once more, and she moaned into his mouth as he rubbed against her just right. His jeans were loose enough that she could slide both hands beneath the denim if she kept them flat, slide them beneath his ultra-soft underwear too, and then she was sinking her short, blunt nails into the satiny, clenching, round cheeks of his ass and staking her own claim.
At the sting, he ground against her again with a low, rough noise and twined their tongues greedily. His herbal scent was turning muskier, deeper by the moment, and her own overheated skin prickled with growing dampness.
He couldn’t wrap her legs around his waist and fuck her against this fence. Not in daylight. Not in public. Not given her size. But the next time she fished her technicolor vibrator from her nightstand, she had a new fantasy to ride to a bed-shaking orgasm.
When his mouth eventually lifted a hairsbreadth from hers, she chased it.
Then she heard the sound too.
“Hey, you two! Get off my property!” It was a disgusted shout, originating from the doorway of the house beyond the fence. “That’s way too much tongue for a Saturday morning!”
Marcus gave a quiet snort, and he whispered in her ear, “Apparently we can come back later this afternoon to dry-hump against his fence again.”
“During normal business hours.” Regretfully, she slid her hands out of his jeans. “Although there are also public indecency charges to consider.”
He rested his forehead against her shoulder for a moment, still breathless. “Fair point.”
Then, with an odd sort of groaning whine, he levered himself away from her and turned to offer the man in the doorway his usual charming smile. “Our apologies, sir. We’ll be on our way now.”
The man emitted an unappeased grunt and disappeared back inside his house.
As they returned to the sidewalk, Marcus cupped her hips and maneuvered her in front of him. Almost close enough to touch, but not quite. “Stay here for just a minute, please.”
If she arched her back just a tad . . . yes. There.
As her ass pressed against the ridge of his erection, his fingers tightened to a pleasurable bite through her leggings. “April . . .” He sounded as if he was speaking through clenched teeth. “You’re not helping matters.”
Okay, then. No more below-the-waist contact, at least for now. Instead, she tipped back her head, laid it against his shoulder, and smiled as they waited for his body to calm. “Really? Because it felt like I was helping.”
“Helping me get arrested, maybe.”
“To echo a wise man: fair point.” Luckily, her current state of swollen arousal wasn’t quite so obvious, but God, she needed to squeeze her thighs together. “Want to hold my purse?”