Page 29 of Love Walked In

It was icy cold and dark outside, but in this room, in Mari’s arms, lost in her hungry kisses, it was like the hours and days sped up. The petal softness of her lips, the lush curves of her under my hands, made me feel like a plant growing in fast-forward, unfurling and reaching toward light.

I gloried in her, in us together, as we made our way across the spartan Airbnb, as I found the bedroom door handle with the hand that wasn’t occupied with clinging to her, as I dropped my glasses onto the nightstand and tipped us both onto the hard mattress, Mari laughing a little with surprise as we bounced.

I wanted to savor that giggle, wanted to make her do it again a thousand times.

I pressed up onto my arms and looked down at her, excitement and anticipation surging inside me like a burst of sunshine-yellow paint. She was effervescence, green spring and new life, flowers blooming on her skin.

I wanted to bask in her.

She blushed deliciously pink, pulled me back down to her and kissed me hard with her wide mouth that tasted like tea and spices, and I pushed back, consumed her like she consumed me, filled my hands with her glorious arse and squeezed, slid my hand under her soft blue jumper to find skin like silk under my fingertips.

She stiffened, yelped into my mouth.

I took my hands away like she was on fire. “I hurt you— fuck. Are you all right?” I asked, panic coursing through me.

“No,” she gasped, but all at once Becca’s pained, grimacing face appeared in front of me, and I pulled back, rolled away with my hands on my face. What a cruel joke, for fate to give me a woman who actually desired me and for me to fuck it up so quickly.

“Where are you going?” she laughed, brushing her hand across my back. “You didn’t hurt me, I’m just really ticklish. When you touch me like that on my ribs, too soft, I can’t handle it.”

Her explanation did about as much good as throwing a pebble at a stone wall. I was still clumsy, still not good enough. “I can’t do this,” I blurted as I sat upright, fumbling for my glasses.

“Wait, what? Why?”

I looked around on the floor for my shirt. “I just… can’t.”

A second passed.

“Leo,” she said, soft and plaintive. It would be like stabbing myself in the chest to ignore that. I turned around and saw her eyes were round and wide, that she was holding her knees like she needed comfort. “Did I do something wrong?”

Self-pity disappeared just as quickly as it had come. My fingers dragged painfully through my hair at the thought that I’d hurt her feelings. “It’s not you. It’s not remotely you. It’s me. I…” The words knotted in my mouth.

“You what ?”

“I’m shit at sex!” I answered far too loudly.

Unbelievably, she didn’t burst out laughing. She just sat for a moment, blinking. “What do you mean?” she finally asked.

I was tempted to crawl under the bed and die of sheer humiliation.

“I don’t know what I’m doing. I just wanted you so much that I thought it would be all right, but now you’re here, and gorgeous, and I’m rubbish .

I’ve only slept with one other person in my life and even then not that many times, because she didn’t like what I did to her. ”

Mari eased into a cross-legged position facing me, rested her elbows on her knees, then put her chin on her fists. “I’d like to think I know you well enough that you weren’t forcing her to do anything,” she said gently. “Were you both inexperienced?”

I nodded, embarrassment reddening my cheeks.

“So you didn’t know how to make her feel good, and maybe she didn’t know how to tell you what she liked. That’s not just your fault, Leo.”

I stared at my twisting fingers. “I wasn’t the one who was hurt.”

“But you were the one who felt like a monster. That’s its own kind of hurt.” She rose up on her knees and put her hand on my chest, over my heart still wild for her touch. “I know you’re not a bad guy.”

I wished with everything I had that it were true. But I knew I was awkward, prickly, clumsy. No one’s idea of a hero. If I’d been left to my own devices, I would have crashed Alexander’s legacy onto the rocks and wrung my hands while it sank.

But could I still run the shop after Mari left in April? More than that, would I want to?

Doubt felt like a widening crack in the path ahead, one I’d fall into, and I mentally backed away as quickly as I could.

“And not being perfectly in tune with your partner’s desires doesn’t make you a monster,” Mari continued now. “We’re brand new, Leo. We have so much to learn about each other. But that’s why we have to talk.”

She was asking me to be present, to be with her, and I pushed down thoughts of the future. “I always like talking to you,” I offered tentatively.

A saucy little grin teased me from the corner of her mouth. “Even if I’m telling you to change something?”

I smiled. “Even then.”

She rewarded my honesty with a tender little kiss. “Let’s play a game.”

Curiosity flickered to life. “What kind of game?”

“Show and Tell.” She tilted her head toward the plain wooden chair in the corner. “Go sit over there.”

I obeyed her, and she scooted to the end of the bed, facing me, two meters away that felt like two miles.

“You’re a great kisser,” she began quietly, looking me in the eye.

“Your mouth felt incredible on mine, and you were soft when I wanted you to be soft, and hungry when I wanted you to be hungry.” She trailed her small, delicate fingers down her throat.

“I’m really sensitive on my neck and shoulders, and I’d love it if you sat behind me on the bed and just kissed and sucked and bit me there.

I can get halfway to coming just from that. ”

Without thinking, I was out of my chair before she put her hand up. “No touching.”

“But I want to do that.” God, the thought of having her that way, soft and trusting, made me feel almost feral.

“Wait,” she said with a smile.

I growled and sat back down.

She pulled her jumper, T-shirt, and something wine-colored and lacy that I wanted to study later over her head, and I laughed and gasped at the same time at the sight of her bare breasts. “Oh, fuck me .”

“That’s the plan,” she snarked, and I snorted. “You like what you see?”

“I want to taste them,” I said from the pit of lust that had opened inside me. “They look so sweet.”

Then things got very serious as she cupped them in her hands, and my trousers were starting to feel unbearable.

“All right,” she said, her voice husky, “but I like fingers here, too. I’d like it if you stroked me with your whole hand, or if you tugged and flicked here.

” She sighed as she matched action to words, then looked at me with hooded eyes. “Do you like to be touched there?”

I hadn’t realized my jaw was wide open until I snapped it shut. Of course I had nipples, but they were just there . “I… fuck. I don’t know.”

She tilted her chin in challenge. “Take off your shirt and try.”

My fingers were slow and fumbling on my shirt buttons as self-consciousness fought for space with need.

I’d never been much to look at with no clothes on, never spent time at the gym or in the sun.

But as I put my shirt to the side, Mari’s eyes stared fascinated at the sparse black patch of hair on my chest, then dropped to the clearer line that led down to my waistband.

Her hot gaze made me brave, and I ran my hands up my chest, stroked, flicked, sparks skittering across my skin.

“Nice?” she murmured.

Her eyes on me magnified every sensation. “Very nice,” I breathed. “Would be even nicer if you did it.” I thought of her pressing sweet kisses down my chest toward where I was desperately hard for her and almost gave up right there.

“Duly noted.” The heat in her eyes was a heady contrast with the formal words. “Are you going to have a heart attack if I take my pants off?”

I couldn’t hold back a mirthless laugh. “Probably. But do it anyway.”

She slid her jeans down her legs, leaving silky light blue knickers on.

I wondered how that fabric would feel against my fingertips, if she smelled delicious there, if she’d squirm if I nuzzled and licked her through it.

I jammed my hand hard between my legs. No good thinking about her knickers if I died of sheer arousal before I got between her thighs.

“Now yours,” she said from miles away.

Oh, thank fuck, my erection was about to fall off in protest. As fast as I could, I unbuckled and got rid of my trousers.

She started to rub slow circles between her legs. “How do you get yourself off?”

I shook my head. “If you want me inside you tonight, I can’t touch myself. I’m about to come in my pants as it is.”

A lazy smile touched her lips. “Then just tell me.”

“I like it hard,” I forced out. “Wet, tight, fast.”

She moaned softly and her hand moved more quickly. “Do you use lube?”

My hands clamped onto my hair, and I gulped. “I do.”

“I’d love to go down on you,” she sighed. “Get you all wet and messy that way.”

Fuck, I was going to combust right here. They’d find a little pile of ashes with my bent and shattered glasses on top, all because I was imagining Mari Cole kneeling in front of me, her pink, full mouth between my legs. “Promises, promises.”

She opened her eyes, and the look in them was hazy. “No, I would. It makes me incredibly hot. I want to know the sounds you’d make, how big you’d get in my mouth, what you’d taste like.”

I was out of the chair and almost on the bed when she said, her voice shaking, “No. No touching yet.”

I sat back down, about to howl with frustration. “I can’t stand this. Let me do something .”

She stared at me, the challenge clear. “Touch yourself as much as you can handle and tell me what you want.”

My hand slid down of its own volition and pressed hard, then gripped tight. “I want to taste you so badly,” I confessed. “I want to bury my face between your thighs and never come up for air.”

A smile curved her mouth, even as she shivered.

“And I’d let you. But I wouldn’t want you to go too fast. Some people go right for the prize and it’s too much.

I love being teased.” She slid her hand inside her knickers.

“Licked up and down, tasted everywhere until I’m shaking and pulling your hair and begging for your fingers inside me.

” She sighed. “I love being full when I’m being licked. ”

Now my hips were shifting on the seat, my body as desperate as my mind, my control totally unraveled. I was beyond self-consciousness, beyond uncertainty, beyond the most basic fear. “Let me taste you, Mari. Please, I have to, please .”

She studied me for a moment, and I was about to die, until she slid back on the bed and spread her legs for me. “All yours.”

I dove onto the bed, ripped her knickers down and threw them across the room to the sound of her laughter.

Scattered wet open-mouthed kisses over her delicious breasts, her rounded stomach, until I dropped onto my front on the mattress and finally put my mouth on her with a groan that could have been heard across the river.

I was gone , lost in her wetness, her taste, the softness and the warmth of her.

“Aaah, easy,” she gasped.

I instantly stopped. “Sorry, that was too much. I didn’t mean to…”

A hard tug on my hair interrupted my flood of apologies. “I swear to God, if you leave me hanging again, I will actually kill you,” she said, sounding half-hysterical.

I pushed up so I could look her in the eye. “Are you certain?”

She sat up and we were face-to-face, her shaking hands cupping my jaw. “Listen to me. I need your mouth so bad, Leo, it just has to be gentle. Please don’t stop.”

The world went still. A lush, clever, sweet woman, spread out underneath me, begging for my touch, my kiss. It was a feeling like a door I hadn’t known was there had unlocked inside me, letting a part of myself out into the light. “Did you just say please?” I asked, my voice low and quiet.