Last Call
Murphy
Iprayed to every god I could think of that she couldn’t see my hands shaking. I released the silver clasp, and just to avoid her eyes, bent down and shucked my boots and jeans to the floor. This was the most naked she had ever seen me and I her. All I wanted was to drop to my knees and trace the rise and fall of her skin with my lips, if only to remember where the birthmarks were, and the freckles and the scars. So when I recalled this moment, I would have all the details I could possibly get. I didn’t fear us; I feared who I would be after we tumbled over thisline.
She reached out, finally no longer fighting. I could see the resolve in her eyes, nothing there but bare want and a sadness she didn’t know she carried around her like a gray cloud. I don’t make her wait. I stepped back into her arms and pressed her hard between my body and the wallbehind.
Some part of me still needed to hear it. That she wasn’t doing this out of a primitive need, but because she wanted me, if only in some secret part she refused to admit to. “Tell me you want this, Mara, and I’m allyours.”
She swallowed like I’d asked her a question in the middle of a drink. With a frantic nod, she answered, “Yes, Ido.”
Her eyes were on my body, and I was glad I gave her something to look at compared to the hardened men she saw all day in uniform. How could a grungy barkeep from nowhere stack up to medals ofvalor?
I brushed her still wet hair away from her cheeks and bent down to taste her again. The first time had been to shut her up. This time was all for me. I parted her lips with my tongue, anchored one hand in her hair and the other at her chin. Her moan almost broke me. The slight little brush of breath and sound melted every bone in my body and shot my cock to attention. Each charge and retreat spun tight the web of my feelings for her. I’d pushed them down deep so long ago. Now, with her nails marking me and our lips battling for dominance, they overflowed. In a hundred years, I’d never get enough of her. Mara Williams was my addiction. Not the vice I wanted, but the one I needed as much as oxygen orwater.
She severed the kiss with an arch of her neck, releasing her head back and crushing my fingers against the wall. I didn’t dare move, though, not with such lovely access to her long, elegant neck. I dropped my mouth to the curve of her throat and kissed a breathy trail from clavicle to chin. Her hips shifted forward as if she were unwittingly trying to get closer, eliminate any distance between our bodies. The lingering scent of the hotel soap wafted from her cleanskin.
I jerked her head back up by the hair, and her eyes snapped open. No fight there, almost a submission. An unexpected turn I could definitely play with. “On the bed,now.”
She blinked once, twice, but to my surprise, said nothing, simply stepped around me and perched on the edge of the bed. It squeaked with her minimal movements. In another life, we might play a game and try to make as much noise as possible. Or maybe I wanted the world to know this woman belonged to me, even if only for tonight. I’d waited long enough for thechance.
I stepped up, and her face sat inches from my cotton-covered hard on. If she were a woman I’d fucked before, I’d have taken myself out and invited her lips for a taste. But this was Mara, and I didn’t want to scare her too soon. “Do you want to seeit?”
She swallowed heavily enough I could hear it, see it, and then she nodded almost desperately. I bent, pulled my boxer briefs off, and tossed them on top of my clothes. My dick was so hard, it ached. I palmed it, trying to slow down my reaction to her, my body’s response to every beautiful inch of her skin I still needed to see more of. Her eyes burned into me as she watched me strokemyself.
I released my cock, not wanting this to end sooner than I planned, and stepped closer. “Take off your clothes. This ishappening.”
She let out a soft snort of laughter, and then she stripped her t-shirt off and shimmied out of her gray panties all while still sitting on the edge of the bed. I took my time looking her over. Her skin was bronzed to her mid-bicep and around her neck, but pale and creamy everywhere else. A farmer’s tan she’d gotten on deployment. It didn’t matter, I’d worship every part of her thesame.
She licked her lips and scooted up the bed to lay on the pillow. It broke my heart the way she folded her hands across her smooth flat belly as if prepping for a medical exam. What the fuck kind of men had she been with before me? Ones who fucked on clean sheets, in the missionary position, on Tuesday’s? Anger shimmered through me. She deserved so much better thanordinary.
“Get your ass back down here. This will not be clean. This will not be civilized. And this willnotbe something you can lie back andtake.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but I didn’t want to risk another argument. I gripped her ankle and yanked her toward me. She spun in the bedspread before sitting up and scooting my way with a huff. Good, now she was pissed. I wanted that heat, that fire. The sparring we’d done for the last ten years of our lives became foreplay for this moment. I wanted Mara aching and angry and all forme.
I captured her face in my hands and kissed her with years’ worth of pent up frustration. It was almost an assault, but she took to it. Her hands grasped my forearms, her short nails digging into my skin. Even her lips ground as forcefully against my own so hard, our teeth scraped. We broke apart with apant.
The fire returned in the set of her chin and a lock in her jaw I knew well. I shoved her back on the bed and grabbed a condom from my pants. She didn’t move, and when I returned, I stared down at her, a soft shade of pink dusting her skin now, anger still sparking in hereyes.
I reached down and cupped her pussy in my palm. Oh, she was ready and wet. I met her eyes, but she glanced away like she didn’t want me to see what I might findthere.
“Look at me,” Isnapped.
Her eyes locked on mine, and I caught why she hid her gaze. The anger remained, but the need almost eclipsed it. I battled against my own body’s reaction to the open necessity there. Instead of pumping my cock in my fist, I gently rolled down the condom and gave her one last chance toescape.
“Last call,Mara.”
She licked her lips and sucked on the bottom one. As her white teeth scored her skin a little pinker, I took that as ananswer.
I lifted her hips and tossed her back a few feet, so I could kneel between her open thighs. She watched my every move like an angry animal waiting for its perfect time to strike. I pulled a pillow and shifted it under her hips and then yanked her thighs on top of mine. “How long has it been?” Iasked.
She shrugged, now having no trouble locking gazes with me. “What do you care? This isn’t civilizedremember.”
I slapped the side of her ass and enjoyed her yelp in response, before aligning my cock with her entrance. Languidly, I traced her seam with the head of my dick, another stolen moment just for me, and then I thrustedhome.
The way she arched up as if her body attempted to orbit mine almost made me come rightthere.
Onethrust.
