He continued to gaze down at me from his lofty vantage point, and then suddenly, with a loud thunk, he stepped down one of the stairs. I held my breath as he trod purposefully down the rest. One at a time. The sound of his feet on the wood created a kind of beat that was slow and screamed of anticipation. Something to come. Finally, his foot hit the ground and there he was, standing right in front of me.
“Thing is . . .” he said, softly this time. His tone had totally changed.
“Yes?” I urged. Something had shifted between us. I could feel and see it in the way he was looking at me.
“Thing is, Frankie, I know it has nothing to do with me, but despite that, I found myself sitting here all night, unable to go to sleep, wondering what you were doing and whether you were enjoying it and whether you were, were . . .” He stopped talking and looked pained.
“Whether I was what?” I asked.
“Whether you were kissing him.”
“Why would you wonder if I was kissing him?” I asked. Heart pounding. Mouth drying up.
He stepped even closer to me. The light of the moon caught the side of his face and his eyes no longer looked brown in this light. They looked like a dark caramel. Warm. Like you could fall into them.
“Well, did you?” he asked. His voice was low and gravelly, and coupled with those caramel eyes, it was all making me feel very hot and fluttery inside.
“I . . . I . . .” Why was I stuttering? I was stuttering because the look on his face was stealing all my words and suddenly the entire night felt that much hotter than it had a few seconds ago.
Mark inched forward until there was hardly a gap between us now. “Because if you did kiss him, then I wouldn’t be able to.”
I sucked a breath in as his words winded me in the solar plexus. “You want to—?” I let the question hang in the air. I needed him to say it again. I needed proper confirmation that he had meant what I thought he meant.
“Kiss you,” he repeated.
“You want to kiss me?” I managed in a whisper.
“It’s all I’ve been thinking about all night,” he said, and this time, his hand came up to my waist. Gently. I put my hand over his, slipping my fingers into his, to let him know that it was okay to touch me. It was okay for his hands to be on my body. I stared into his eyes; they were now a kaleidoscope of colors: caramels and chocolates with little flecks of gold around big black centers. I took his other hand, and without saying a word, I placed it on the other side of my waist. This hand wasn’t as gentle as the first one was, and as soon as it came into contact with my body, his fingers dug into my skin a little. I heard myself let out a small moan which made the gold flecks in his eyes disappear into the black.
“Then kiss me,” I said, the words sticking in my dry mouth.
CHAPTER 60
A small smile flickered over his mouth, but only for a second, because soon his lips were parting, as his face came closer to mine. I closed my eyes and waited. Waited for the moment of connection to come. The anticipation of those lips coming into contact with mine was enough to make me want to jump out of my skin. But when the lips didn’t come. When I’d felt like I’d waited for an eternity, I opened my eyes.
“What are you . . .” I said, when I saw he’d pulled away. He was watching me with a smile now.
His smile grew and then he shook his head a little. “You’re cute, that’s all.”
“Cute?”
He nodded. “So damn fucking cute, Mrs. Frankie Taylor, with a heart for a dot.”
I blushed and put my hands over my cheeks, which suddenly felt hot. “I’m not going to live that down.”
“Unlikely,” he said, pulling my hands away from my face and then holding them. He moved closer. I looked deeply into his eyes as his face came right up to mine and finally, his features blurred together when he couldn’t come any closer.
The kiss was slow and soft and short. It was more of a series of short little kisses, only lips. The short kisses soon grew longer though, until the spaces between them disappeared and it became one, long kiss. Deep. Slow. My fingers found a place in the back of his hair and his slipped around to the small of my back, pulling me closer to him. I held on as we kissed. He tasted sweet. Of chocolate and maybe a little bit of gin. His stubble was rough against my face, but in just the right way.
Soft and rough. Warm and deep. My hands left his hair and trailed over his shoulders, until they came to rest on his chest. He groaned against my lips, as if me just touching him there was driving him wild. The thought made me brave, so I ran my hands down even more, pulled at his shirt, and then slipped my hands into it. My fingers traveled up to his warm chest; it was smooth and firm and as the kiss deepened, I dug my nails into his sides, feeling his rib cage expand and contract beneath my hands. Another groan escaped his lips and this time, I heard myself whimper in response to it.
And then, everything was suddenly electric. As though a switch had been flipped. The kiss became fast, hungry. Devouring each other with lips and tongues and teeth. His hands slipped down my back, they cupped my ass, and then he pulled me into him. I could feel he was hard against me and this made me want to climb out of my clothes and climb right onto him. He pushed himself into me, moving his hips a little, and I swear, stuff in my head went fuzzy and fluffy around the edges until the angles and shapes of the real world fell away and it was just us. Outside. In the desert. Under the stars and . . .
“OH!” I exclaimed loudly when my feet were no longer on the ground. “Wh . . . what . . . Oh my God.” I let out a loud giggle as Mark lifted me off the ground and started rushing me back to the house. “You’re going to drop me,” I laughed.
“Let’s hope not,” he said. I could hear he was starting to strain as he walked up the stairs with me, which wasn’t very reassuring.
“Hi, Harun!” I said, as I reached the veranda and Mark finally put me down. Harun opened his one eye and looked at me as if he was totally disinterested in what I was doing. I looked back at Mark, whose breathing seemed a little labored.
