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He chuckled. “Oh, I definitely know you’re brilliant, little librarian.”
She cupped his cheeks. “You will find a way to survive this new normal. I may not be such a hot example of doing that, but it is possible. You find a way to exist, to thrive even. You can do that, Outlaw.”
His mouth was on hers before she even finished the sentence. No words passed between them for long minutes, both of them getting lost in each other. Mark broke their kiss just long enough to continue the trail along her jaw. “We should eat something. You’ve been working hard all day.”
“Later,” she murmured. Food was the last thing on her mind right now. “You comforted me last night when I needed it, and I think, this time, you should take some comfort from me.”
“Believe me,” he said into the hollow of her throat, “it was far more than just comfort for me. I hope you know that.”
“I do. It’s—” Her breath hiccupped as he nipped at her skin. “It’s scary, but I do.”
“You don’t have to be afraid of me, Jenna.” He slid to the edge of the bench and let her stand, slowly backing her down the hallway to the bus’s bedroom. His limp was hardly noticeable.
“Don’t I?” Her words were barely a breath, and when her legs hit the bed, she fell back onto it, welcoming Mark’s weight as he followed her down. “You’re not going to steal my life, but you are going to change it. I don’t know if I’m ready.”
Mark took her hands and wove their fingers together, pinning her hands to the bed with gentle strength. “I’m not rushing you. But I’m not going to pretend I don’t want you, and I’m not going to hide the fact that I’m playing for keeps. You’re who I want, Jenna Franklin.”
Emotion welled up in her chest. “Why? Why would you want me when I’m like this?”
He smiled. “You said it yourself. We’re both our own kinds of broken. If you want to dig a cave to the center of the world and live there, I’ll dig it myself and paint you a goddamn beautiful sky.”
Everything in her body swooned. He meant every word he said, and it was as exhilarating as it was terrifying. Like going on a roller coaster without a seat belt.
He began kissing his way down her body over her clothes. “Tell me what you like.”
She was embarrassed to say it, even after they’d already been together. “I don’t want you to think differently of me.”
His eyebrows rose into his hairline. “Unless you’re about to confess to being a black widow and that you’re planning to kill me after we have sex, that’s not going to happen.”
“I just—”
He caught her lips again, kissing them open and deepening the connection between both of them until she was breathless and arching beneath him. “Talk to me, Jenna. You’ve trusted me with so much else, trust me with this too.”
This was the last piece of her, and it was harder than it should have been to let it go. Mark hadn’t judged her about any of it—about the fear or her regression, about throwing up after stepping into fresh air. She took a deep breath and flexed her hands where they were still pinned to the bed by his.
“I like this,” she whispered. “Rougher. Push and pull. Manhandling isn’t out of the question.” She looked at him. “As long as that’s not hurting you.”
Mark smiled. “Why did telling me that make you nervous?”
“Because I’ve been kidnapped,” she said quietly. “I don’t want people to think the two are connected. Or like… I don’t know. Like I suddenly developed a taste for it after everything else.”
His eyes darkened. “Even if that were the case, I wouldn’t judge you for it.”
He sank down her body, and she reached to stop him. The look he shot her now wasn’t dark with anger or frustration on her behalf—it was filled with heat. “Don’t move, Jenna.”
His words—the deep timbre of his voice in that controlling tone—made her insides clench in the best way possible. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I’m well aware. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to or that I don’t want to.”
Mark curled his fingers into the waistband of her pants and pulled them off. Already, she felt the difference between the tender comfort he’d shown her the night before and the unyielding command now. It drove heat straight into her in an entirely different way, along with the strong grip moving her thighs apart.
If anyone had told her the sight of Mark Outlawson with an arrogant smirk on his face while he knelt between her legs would be enough to undo her, she wouldn’t have believed them. But it was true. A deep shudder of arousal rippled through her body.
He never broke her gaze as he stripped her underwear away. “Promise me one thing,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“If it’s too much, or there’s something you don’t like, you’ll tell me to stop. There’s nothing offensive about that. I just need to be sure.”
