Externally, he matched my grin, the villainous bastard inside of him seeming to read my mind.
Fucking perfect.Listen up, Marauder. I never pick truth, either. And I’m out to prove you wrong, for once in your life.
He leaned his head back and blew a smoke ring toward the sky. “It’s medicinal. It helps me relax.” He blew out a wider one. “I get headaches somethin’ terrible. It eases those, too.”
“Not even twenty-four hours married and you’re already needing something to help you relax from a headache. I would’ve said drinking—” I nodded toward the empty glass on the small table next to him, dregs of whiskey at the bottom “—but I know better. Men like you never drown in the bottle. Gills instead of lungs.”
He outright smiled, and something about the imperfection of it made him a hundred times more attractive. It sent my stomach down into my feet and then back up to slam into my heart. I moved past him, deciding not to take the seat next to him, and leaned against the railing, my hands over the side.
After a few minutes, he cleared his throat. “Overcompensation,” he said. “It’s a real thing.”
Every time he saidthing, it came out asting.
“Are we speaking in riddles now, darlin’?” I copied most of his words and his accent. I grew up in New York, but I also grew up in a house with an Irish father and a Scottish mother.
Even though I couldn’t see him, I felt him move forward, and that unique smell became even stronger after I heard the breath leave his mouth. “The loudest voices outside are the ones whispering the lowest behind closed doors. Meaning. Those with something to prove usually have the most to hide.”
“Rhymesandriddles,” I said. “The Irish is strong with this one.”
“‘Tough. Tough. Tough.’ That’s what you scream the loudest.”
I squeezed the railing, my knuckles straining against skin. “What am I whispering then?”
“You want me, but your pride is standing in the way.”
“It’s not my pride,” I said. “It’s my principles.” Then I turned to him and unfastened the ties of the robe, letting it fall to the ground. “But since this is my choice, I choose now to say fuck it all. I do want you. I want you to fuck me.” Then I gave himthatlook, a look that dared him to take all or nothing.
He stood from the leather lounger, in no hurry. But when he finally made it to me, the tension between his body and mine was as taut as a bow about to release an arrow. His body was close, only a small gap between us, but his heat felt like a raging fire against my skin.
He looked down at me at the same time he took a puff of his cigar. He held the breath in and then slowly leaned down, putting his mouth close to my nose. His breath came out in slow exhales, a little smoke coming out with each release, until he made it to my mouth. I closed my eyes but parted my lips, breathing in, inhaling him like the drug coming from his mouth, until he hit my lungs and rushed into my bloodstream.
I could already feel him inside of me, the high making me feel like I could fly.
Each time he shared his breath and I took his in, the sensation only grew stronger. My limbs weighed nothing, and my head swam in the clouds. I barely felt it when he turned from me, but when he came back with a mouth full of smoke and I sucked in deep, his tongue invaded my mouth. His hands fisted in my hair, rough compared to the slow and delicious rhythm our tongues were moving to.
Remembering that I had hands, I used them to rip his shirt open. My palms caressed his chest, over his broad shoulders, until I forced the shirt from his muscular arms. My hands were back on him, my nails digging into his skin, ready to draw blood. Though I felt as flighty as a bird, there was this crazy energy running inside of me, waiting for the right time to rule my hands and maul him.
The kiss broke but his mouth didn’t stop moving. My chin. My neck. My shoulders. Back and forth. Long, slow, warm kisses. My chest. When his mouth closed over my nipple, I sucked in a breath, my claws sinking into his back, but not enough to draw blood. Just enough to gain some balance. My legs were weak, like they didn’t belong to my body, but wrapped around his.
A low noise escaped my mouth, and it didn’t sound like me. I’d never made noises during sex. I was too aware of every wrong move by my partner, of all of the problems that existed in my world, of how I’d never be truly satisfied after.
The same noise came again when his mouth moved even lower, his tongue dragging along my stomach, until he was face to face with my hips, his big hands on each side, keeping me in place. His breath was warm as his mouth came even closer. I shivered, the heat of it clashing with the cold that tried to leave my body—not nerves, but anticipation.
As his mouth came between my legs, his tongue tasting me, I let him go and gripped the metal of the fire escape, afraid that I was going to become weightless and lose all balance. A free fall into heaven or hell. My eyes rolled back, and a long, low mewl left my mouth. I was sprawled open against the railing like some sacrificial virgin.
“Fuck. Yeah,” I breathed out. I’d never had a man taste me like this. Like he had all of the time in the world, but at the same time, he was too starved to savor.
The orgasm that ripped through me was as brutal as it was beautiful. I screamed out, the noise echoing around us, and for the first time in my life, I wondered if this was how the arrow felt when the bow sets it off. The pleasure overwhelming my body didn’t quit even after he did. It fucking lingered, and I wanted another hit. My cheeks felt even hotter, because that had happened way too fast.
He stood and licked his lips before pinning my body against the railing. “Forked tongue, darlin’.”
He was right. That forked tongue was made forsin.
Before he said another word, I pulled his mouth to mine, like my greed wasn’t as sinful as his tongue. He lifted me up like I weighed nothing, setting me on the edge of the railing.
“You,” I breathed between kisses that were wilder than some of the sex I’d had before him, “will get life in a cage if you let me fall.”
“Ah, my darlin’,” he said, his voice slow and low, matching his hooded eyes.My darlingcame out of his mouth asma darlin’. “I’d never let you fall. This arse is too beautiful to bruise.”
