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“Mm,” I whimper, mimicking his contented hums as he glides in and out of me. My legs wrap around him as his arms cage me. I can tell that despite his obvious strength, this isn’t the easiest position for either of us, given the lack of space.
“I have an idea,” he says as if he can read my mind. “Hang onto me.”
“Okay,” I say, locking my ankles around him and looping my arms around his neck.
He stands up with ease. And the next thing I know, he’s flipping me around and placing me on my knees on the seat, facing the glass. He places one knee on the seat and I feel him again, this time thrusting into me from behind.
“Fuck,” I let out, slapping my hands on the glass.
“How does that feel?” he asks. I will say it’s different, but not bad different. Good different. Deeper and fuller, and at an angle that presses into all the right spots. I find my knees shuddering before he even moves.
I nod.
“Good,” he says as he slides in and out, over and over, a little harder and a little quicker each time. I can see the lights below us. The ocean waves crashing before us. The same kind of waves crashing inside us. And I can also see his eyes in the glass's reflection. Dark, direct, deep with focus and desire.
Good lord.
We pick up the pace a little more with a smooth jolt, similar to when you hit the Sport Mode button in a car. At the same time, the gondola jolts, and we start to move again.
“Oh,” I say, feeling a small surge of panic. Because while we are not moving fast, we are moving. Which means at some point we are going to the ground and I don’t have half my clothes on.
“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “Focus on this. On me. On the way you feel,” he says into my ear. And then, he grabs my braid and wraps it around his hand before thrusting his hips against mine over and over and over again. The orgasm surges closer and closer so quickly that I fear that when we reach it, we are going to crash.
And we do.
Like the waves below are rising and falling and smashing against the shore, we crash in an outpouring of pleasure and release and blinding heat.
“Fuck,” I say as he groans. Then his hips slow, and he pulls back, standing up. It isn’t until I hear his zipper and his belt buckle that I realize we are nearing the ground. I hop up, yanking my skirt down around my hips, latching my bra and buttoning most of the buttons on my top. I’m not even certain they’re straight; I am just trying to cover my tits before the doors open. When they do, he places his hand on the small of my back to guide me out.
But the moment we are outside, I bolt. I don’t look for my sister; I don’t look for my dad or Dylan or the faces of the people waiting in line. I just run into the night, heart beating and mind blown.
Chapter 4
Marcus
Five Years Later
“Your ugly mug is on the news again.”
My best friend Tucker’s voice comes from behind me, and my shoulders tense nearly to my ears at the sound of it. Yes, he is my best friend, but the entire point of hiding at the corner stool at the bar top of Bitters was to hide. I picked this whiskey bar slash speakeasy in downtown Miami just for that reason. I wanted to hide from people I know, people who know me, and everyone in between, Tuck included.
“How the fuck did you find me?” I mutter as he stands next to me at the bar.
“Easy. You’re predictable. Especially when you stress out about work. And right now, it’s no secret that you’re stressed,” he answers. He snags a complimentary marinated Castelvetrano olive out of the dish in front of me and pops it into his mouth with a smirk. I don’t mind him taking an olive. I’m not an olive man myself. But I do mind that he’s invited himself to my private party for one because he’s right, I came here to escape.
“And yet here you are to remind me of all those stresses,” I say. I turn my whiskey glass in a circle on the mahogany.
“Actually, I’m not referring to work,” he says before lowering his voice slightly. “I’m talking about your ex.”
Mentioning Juliette is enough to make my teeth grind together painfully. I’m ready to tell him to get lost, but before I can say anything, he pulls up a leather stool and plops down, sending a cloud of cologne into the air. Somebody really needs to explain the less is more concept to this joker.
“I don’t want to talk about my ex,” I tell him as the bartender places a coaster in front of him.
“That’s fine,” he says, ordering a dirty martini and turning his attention back to me. “I just thought you might like to know the latest,” he says.
“What I’d like to do is physically remove you from this bar. You can’t seem to take a hint that I want to be alone right now,” I tell him, but he just chuckles at that.
“Bet,” he says with an eyebrow raise and we both know it’s not going to happen. One, I’m a little drunk. I paid the driver to park out front so I’ll have a safe ride home after unwinding. Two, is that Tuck isn’t just my right-hand man, he’s the head of security at Ashford Hospitality, my multi-billion-dollar company.
