Chapter 143: Second Thought
The first thing Revy registered was warmth. A solid, heavy heat along her back, an arm like an iron band across her ribs, and the distinct, insistent pressure of Marco’s cock, already half-hard, nestling in the cleft of her ass.
Dawn had arrived, a pale, guilty light slicing through the blinds, painting the room in bars of gold and shadow. It illuminated the dust motes dancing over the wreckage of the night: his holster on a chair, her shorts by the door, the condom wrapper a crumpled foil star on the floor.
Her body felt gloriously, deeply used. A pleasant ache throbbed between her thighs. The skin on her neck felt tight and sensitive where he’d marked her.
Then her brain switched on, cynical and clinical.
What the fuck did you just do?
The question landed like a boot to the gut. She wasn’t some naive girl. She was Rebecca Black. The Devil’s Secretary. She dealt in consequences, in cause and effect. The effect of last night was currently breathing softly against her shoulder, his fingers twitching against her stomach in his sleep.
The cause? Five years of radio silence after a weekend in a Palermo hotel that had rewired her nervous system. A chance reunion here, of all places, tangled in the decaying marriage of her best friend and his.
‘What am I going to say to Beth?’ The thought was a cold splash of reality. ‘Hey, B. So, five years into your divorce, I just spent the night getting railed by your husband’s best friend. Oops.’ It sounded like a betrayal, even though it wasn’t. Logically, it wasn’t. Beth and Damien were legally, irrevocably done. The empires were merging, not the marriages.
But logic had little to do with the heart, and even less to do with loyalty. Beth was her sister. Marco was… Marco. Damien’s shadow. A man she’d ached for in the dark for half a decade.
A low, sleep-roughened voice vibrated against her spine. “You’re thinking so loud you’re giving me a headache.”
She hadn’t felt him wake. He was that good.
“I’m not thinking,” she lied, her voice morning-raw.
“Bullshit.” His arm tightened, pulling her back more firmly against him. His erection, now fully hard, pressed insistently against her. “You’re planning your exit. Running the scenarios. Calculating the fallout.”
“I’m not running.”
“Worse.” He rolled her onto her back before she could react, his body a warm, muscular weight settling over her. The sheets were tangled around their legs. His hazel eyes, clear and alert despite the hour, scanned her face. “You’re thinking. I can feel the wheels turning. I can fix that.”
He dipped his head and captured her mouth in a deep, languid kiss that tasted of sleep and him. It was a claiming, but a slow one. A reminder. His hands slid down her sides, over the curve of her hips, pushing the last of the sheets away.
“Marco,” she breathed, breaking the kiss. “Beth… her text…”
“Can wait ten more minutes.” He didn’t smile. His expression was dead serious, intensity burning beneath the surface. He kissed her again, then trailed his mouth down her throat, over the throbbing bruise he’d left, making her gasp. He continued south, over her collarbones, the valley between her breasts. He took one nipple into his mouth, sucking hard, his tongue flicking the peak until it was a tight, aching bud.
She arched off the bed, a sharp cry escaping her. Her hands fisted in his hair, not to pull him away, but to hold him there.
He moved lower, his stubble scraping a delicious path down her quivering stomach. He hooked her legs over his shoulders, his large hands spreading her thighs wide, opening her completely to his gaze. The morning light fell directly on her, exposing every intimate detail. She felt a flush of vulnerability, then a surge of raw power as she saw the hunger darken his eyes.
“Fuck, look at you,” he growled, his voice thick. “So goddamn wet for me already.”
He didn’t wait. He lowered his head and put his mouth on her.
The first flat stroke of his tongue from her entrance to her clit made her jolt as if electrocuted. He groaned against her, the sound vibrating through her entire body. Then he ate her like a man starving. Deep, rasping licks followed by focused, brutal attention to her clit, sucking the sensitive nub into his mouth, flicking it with the tip of his tongue.
“Oh, God… Marco…” Her heels dug into his back. Her hips lifted off the bed, seeking more pressure, more of his relentless mouth. The pleasure was immediate and overwhelming, coiling tight in her lower belly.
He slid two fingers inside her, curling them, finding a spot that made her see stars. He fucked her with his fingers in a steady, penetrating rhythm while his tongue continued its devastating work on her clit. The sounds were obscene—wet, sucking, sloppy sounds, his grunts of approval, her escalating moans.
“You taste like heaven,” he muttered, lifting his head for a second, his chin gleaming. “You taste like mine.”
Then he was on her again, driving her higher, faster. The orgasm built not as a wave but as a sudden, violent detonation. It ripped through her without warning, tearing a ragged scream from her throat. Her body bowed, every muscle locking as the convulsions shook her, his mouth and fingers drawing out every last shuddering pulse.
Before the last tremor had even faded, he was moving up her body. He was frantic now, the controlled lover gone, replaced by a man possessed. He shoved his sweatpants down just enough to free his cock, thick and veined and leaking. He notched the head at her soaked entrance.
“Look at me,” he commanded, his chest heaving.
She forced her eyes open, her vision blurry with spent pleasure.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he said, each word a punch of air. “Not today. Not tomorrow.” He pushed inside, a single, deep, devastating thrust that filled her completely, stretching her exquisitely around his girth. “Say it.”
She was too wrecked to speak, her body still humming from the first climax.
He pulled out almost all the way and slammed back in, making her cry out. “Say I get to keep you.” Another brutal, perfect thrust. “Say you’re mine, Becca. Say it.”
The possession in his voice, the raw need, shattered the last of her resistance. It wasn’t a cage he was offering. It was an anchor.
“Yours,” she gasped, meeting his next thrust with a roll of her hips. “I’m yours. Now fuck me. Harder.”
A feral grin touched his lips. He braced himself on his forearms, caging her head, and gave her what she asked for. This was nothing like the deep, slow lovemaking of the night before. This was a punishment and a promise. Each drive of his hips was a punctuation mark. The bed slammed against the wall in a frantic rhythm. Skin slapped against wet skin. The room filled with the sounds of their ragged breathing, his guttural curses, her choked pleas for more.
He fucked her like he was trying to brand himself inside her, to rewrite every lonely night of the past five years. She wrapped her legs high around his waist, taking him deeper, meeting him thrust for thrust. The new angle made him grind directly against her oversensitive clit with every plunge, and a second, sharper orgasm began to climb, tangled with the overwhelming sensation of being filled, owned, claimed.
“Come with me,” he gritted out, his pace becoming erratic, brutal. “Now. Come on my cock.”
His words were the trigger. She shattered again, her cunt clamping down on him in vicious, rhythmic spasms. The intensity forced a broken sob from her lips. Her climax triggered his. With a roar that was part triumph, part agony, he buried himself to the hilt and let go, his release pumping into her in hot, pulsing jets, his entire body shuddering with the force of it.
He collapsed on top of her, his weight a welcome crush. They lay like that, sweat-slicked and heaving, for a long time. The smell of sex was potent in the morning air.
Eventually, he pulling her into the circle of his arms. He pressed a surprisingly soft kiss to her temple.
“We tell them together,” he said, his voice calm now. “Today. Over coffee. Rip the bandage off.”
She nodded against his chest, the cynical part of her brain finally, blissfully quiet. “They’re going to be insufferable.”
“Probably.” He ran a hand down the curve of her spine. “But they’re our insufferable people.”
An hour later, showered and dressed in clean jeans and t-shirts, they walked out into the main hall of the ranch. The scent of coffee and bacon led them to the kitchen.
Beth was already there, perched on a stool at the granite island, her laptop open. She wore a crisp white linen shirt, her hair in a perfect knot. She looked up as they entered, her sharp green eyes missing nothing. She took in their simultaneous entry, their proximity, the fresh, vivid bruise on Revy’s neck that no amount of makeup could conceal.
A slow, knowing smile spread across Beth Montgomery’s face. It wasn’t a friendly smile. It was the smile of a predator who’d just watched two other predators finally stop circling each other.
“Well,” Beth drawled, sipping her coffee. “It took you two long enough.”