For the rest of the day, Lauren felt better. She felt as if she were floating on a cloud.
Every time she and Marc brushed shoulders or bumped hips or shared a look across the room, she felt her face heat up and she could swear there was a glimmer of something reflected back in his impossibly blue eyes.
When they took Emma for a walk, they held hands. It wasn’t a conscious decision, but rather one that happened on all its own. Lauren’s fingers had just been drawn to Marc’s, like some kind of magnetic force. Neither of them spoke about it, but Lauren couldn’t stop smiling as they walked down the beach together, Emma running ahead of them as Marc threw her ball with his free hand.
When they got back to the house, he took her against the kitchen counter, shoving up her skirt to find that she had forgone panties for the day. He’d growled and taken her mouth with force, much in the same way he’d pumped into her. She came with his lips surrounding her nipple, his thumb on her clit, and his hardness buried deep inside her.
After he’d lowered her back to the floor and smoothed down her skirt for her—giving her ass a firm squeeze—she’d smiled at the soreness she could feel with every step she took toward the shower.
She’d just gotten done washing her hair when he took her again, stepping into the shower behind her and pumping into her until her throat was raw with the screams of his name.
After that, things cooled down a little.
Lauren grabbed a novel from her bookshelf—marveling at how long it had been since she read an honest-to-god novel—and curled up on the couch while Marc got down on his hands and toes, doing push-ups. Lauren pretended not to watch him over the edge of her book, even as she bit her lip and reread the same sentence several times over. She couldn’t help the way her eyes raked over the tensing muscles in his back. She couldn’t rip her eyes away from the way they rippled and his skin glistened with sweat. She felt her breathing become shallow at a few points, but she tried to hide it with the book in front of her face, hiding her blush.
Or so she thought.
Marc ended up taking her once more before they got to dinner.
He cooked that night. Lauren didn’t trust herself using the stove when he was so close by that she could touch him whenever she wanted. She knew that he could do the same, but Marc was so much better at staying on task than she was. He was a lot better at so many things than she was.
She grinned kittenishly at the thought.
Their feet brushed under the table as they ate and Lauren tried her best to look away from him, her eyes on the plate in front of her. He’d made pasta; simple, tasty. The dish was good and she focused on spearing piece after piece, counting how many it took for her to finally look up at him. Every time she did, he was watching her in return and it took everything in her not to jump him right then and there.
She got halfway through dinner before they both gave in, moving toward the bedroom.
She didn’t know what was different about this day. What had made her finally decide to reveal how she felt about Marc Kelly. What had made him pretty much force her to do so. What was making them jump each other far more than they normally would. The electricity between them had been more intense today than any other since he arrived on his busted Harley Davidson. She wondered if it was because he felt what she did. If he felt the aura of danger that hadn’t left her alone all day, even when she was in his arms.
Did he sense what was coming in the same way that she did? Was he making every last second last the way she was? Did he want to prolong their pleasure for as long as possible, as she did? Would he stay when this was all over?
Yes, she decided. To all of it. She knew that he did, that he was, that he would. They were in this together and that wasn’t going to change when Jack was finally out of her life for good, when she’d stopped being afraid and running away from him.
They lay in bed for hours that evening. Then Marc sat up with a grunt.
“I should go,” he said. It was what he said every night, when it got too late for him to feasibly be there. He started to slip out of bed, but Lauren’s hand caught his shoulder.
“Don’t,” she said. He looked down at her, confused.
“You never walked through the front door,” she reminded him. “For all he knows, I’m still as alone as I was last night.”
“You don’t think he saw us walking along the beach?” Marc asked.
Lauren shook her head. “It’s private. The only way you could see onto the beach is if you’re in one of the houses on this street and I’ve seen all of my neighbors. Nobody is missing. He hasn’t seen.” Marc hesitated. “Please,” Lauren said. “Just stay.”
He nodded and lay back down next to her, their fingers linked as she draped herself over his side, her cheek on his shoulder. They were silent for a long time.
“We should put some clothes on,” he said. Lauren sighed in agreement. So, he did feel it. That sense of foreboding that told him something was going to happen tonight. Something bad or something good, she didn’t know. But it would include Jack. That was for sure. He was here. It wouldn’t be long before he arrived. And they would be ready for him.
*****