He worshipped my body with a gentle fierceness. Tears again pricked my eyes.
He did, in fact, intend to ruin me for all other men.
Somehow, I’d landed on the bed, and now Malone slid down my body, gathering my thighs over his shoulders, about to do something Ken had done precisely once. I sat up on my elbows. “Malone?”
“Oh, please don’t say ‘anchovies,’” he said while tracing my calf, an area I’d never considered an erogenous zone until that very minute.
“You want to do this?”
“Most emphatically yes.”
And so he did. At the first touch of his tongue, I lost all thought. With seconds, orgasm found me, and I had a new appreciation for the phrase “earth-shattering.”
“Stark, you’re supposed to make a man work for it,” Malone said with a chuckle from where he now stood at the foot of the bed, working with his belt.
Another full-body shudder came over me. “I meant to play it coy, but ...”
He dropped trou, and I sucked in a breath at the sight of him: broad shoulders, trim waist, sculpted arms and legs, and an impressive erection.
“Two five seven,” I said.
“What are you—oh,” he said with a grin. “But I don’t need your Social Security number.”
“Just covering my bases,” I said.
Condom now on, he joined me on the bed, kissing me breathless and using his hands to touch and tease me back to the edge. I whispered, “July fourth.”
“A firecracker, huh?” He traced the outline of my breast.
“Jefferson. You can steal my identity if you would only—”
He kissed my words away, and then his body joined mine. Time both slowed down and sped up. Amid the wonder of it all, I looked up to see that small muscle in his jaw tighten with the effort to restrain himself. That act of self-denial sent me hurtling once more, and he soon joined me before collapsing at my side.
Still panting, I laid a hand on his cheek before whispering, “You’ve definitely ruined me.”
He turned his face to kiss my hand. “I was about to tell you the same thing.”
Chapter 29
By tacit understanding, we didn’t joke about pizza or benefits after that. We did, however, make love twice more. I, by some miracle, woke up before Malone the next morning. He slept on his back with his head resting on his right arm, so I could see the tattoo that wrapped around his bicep.
I had traced it with my tongue.
Kinda wanted to do it again.
As he slept, hair mussed, eyelashes longer than any man’s had a right to be, a deep longing ballooned inside me, threatening to burst. This was what I’d thought I had with Ken. This was what I wanted.
No, not the sex, although, yes, the sex.
What I wanted was to go through life with someone who so clearly saw who I was but didn’t feel the need to change me, someone who not only loved me but—
There’s absolutely no indication that Malone loves you.
Maybe I had been so starved for basic consideration and affection that I was confusing that for love. What was it Havisham had said? That the patriarchy was a helluva drug and too many men were getting high on their own stash? Here was a man who went to what felt like an insane amount of trouble for me. Only one in a million would’ve walked away from me, giving up a quick pleasure for a longer one, on what I now referred to as the Day I Almost Desecrated My Dining Room Table.
So of course he’s going back to California. Of course we won’t even have the chance to see if this relationship has legs.
He had mentioned researching a move to Atlanta for her, though ...
