I cannot possibly have heard him right.
I sit up on the couch, trying to blink the sleep from my eyes. “Marco. What did you just say?”
“We need to get married,” he repeats, his brown eyes staring at me like I’m the one who’s said something utterly insane.
I shake my head. “No.”
“Yes.”
“No, Marco.”
“Yes, we do.”
Anger lights me like a match. “Well you can’t just tell me that! You’re not even going to ask?”
He tilts his head. “Sorry. Let me explain.”
After a five minute long word vomit that’s unfortunately extremely easy for me to follow, I’m still just as shocked.
“Let me make sure that I’m understanding you correctly. You think that there’s separate people who are after you… and I. And that one of those people is the father of your brother, Dino. The father who is supposed to be very, very dead. Who was killed, in fact, by your father.”
He nods.
“And you think that this person is trying to attack me, because he thinks that we’re like… together.”
Marco nods again.
“And somehow, getting more together, meaning being married, would prevent this?”
“Not from him,” Marco says quickly.
I tilt my head, confusion clouding my face.
“Let’s say that the French, for example, hear that Dino’s father is coming for the wife of Marco De Luca. This is not done, and while my alliance with the French is tentative at best, it might give them an excuse to air an old grievance or do something to fucking gain the support of the De Lucas,” he explains.
My head feels like it’s spinning.
“It’s politics, mostly. People know that I’m attached to Elio, and they know our families are powerful. They might be willing to hop in and support us, if they knew you are part of the family.”
I’m staring at him.
“So it’s not really marriage,” I say slowly. “It’s a bargain.”
I can’t help the hurt that laces through my words.
Marco’s eyes widen. “No, it’s not that, Roisin. It’s…”
“It’s a bargain,” I say flatly. “It’s something that you’re thinking will keep me safe, but not because you want me.”
Marco’s eyes darken. “Roisin…”
“I’m going to take a shower,” I announce.
I don’t really need, or want, to shower. It’s just the only place in this tiny cabin that I can get away from him.
I turn on the shower, taking off my clothes. I let the steam fill the small room, then step inside. The water is blissfully hot, and scalds my skin as I let it pound into me.
I feel like screaming.
Why doesn’t anyone actually want me?
Why am I just some kind of bargaining piece?
Why…
I don’t make it to the next thought. In between breaths, which are coming very quickly because I’m trying not to cry, a naked Marco appears in the shower with me.
Before I have time to scream at him to get out, he leans in and kisses me.
And I lose all coherent thought.
Marco’s kisses are addicting. I know this. But this one is much more. It feels like fire on my skin, and I can’t think straight around it. He’s everywhere; his hands on my face, in my hair, tugging my mouth up to meet him. I moan, lost in the moment as he rubs his considerable length against me.
Marco pulls back, his eyes fierce. His pupils are blown so wide that they’re almost totally black.
“I want you more than life itself,” he growls.
The words lodge in my mind, somewhere, but I don’t have any time to register them.
Marco’s tongue opens my mouth, and I gasp as he takes me in the most breathtakingly dominant kiss I’ve ever experienced.
I have no choice. I have no agency. There’s nothing I can do to resist him or escape him.
All I can do is submit.
I don’t want to anyway. The way that Marco’s been caring for me has melted my heart to the point where I’m kind of concerned that I won’t be able to recover.
I guess it’s just another element of the storm that is Marco De Luca.
He spins me around so I’m facing the shower tiles. Pressing me forward, I gasp as my nipples graze against the cool surface. It makes me arch my back instinctively, and Marco meets me when I do, his tongue licking a long line up from my collarbone to my ear. Standing behind me he’s like a furnace, and I tilt my hips back, my ass grazing against his hard length as I do.
He grunts. “Don’t move,” he groans.
I freeze.
“I want this to last,” Marco manages to grit out.
I don’t think I do.
His teeth graze my neck and I moan, my nerves a wreck as I think about what it would feel like for him to bite…
Ah.
I want to scream, but instead I let out a little gasping breath as his teeth pinch down, gently but firmly, on the tendon in my neck.
Shit, this should not feel this good…
But it does.
I moan as he lifts off of me, wanting that pressure again. Marco’s hands roam my body. One grips the back of my neck, pulling me slightly off of the cold tiles, while the other traces a line between my ass cheeks and pushes my legs apart.
“You’re so fucking hot,” Marco growls in my ear.
I moan as he presses a thick finger inside of me.
“You’re so eager, Roisin. So needy. You want me to fuck you, to drive into your hot little pussy, don’t you?”
Good Lord.
My eyes practically roll back in my head. Marco’s always been good with his words, but this is more than just that.
This is like pure fire, traveling from my ears to my core.
I practically melt, grateful that his arm is holding me up, because otherwise I’d be a mess all over the tiny bathroom right now.
Marco spears into me, and I groan and shudder as he thrusts his fingers inside me. “I’m going to fuck you senseless, Roisin,” he grunts. “You’re going to come all over my cock, and you’re going to fucking scream my name while you do it.”
I dare you, I want to say.
Instead, I just moan.
Marco laughs, a low noise that makes me shudder closer to an orgasm. I’d be shocked that I’m this close, but with Marco…
I’m not.
He pulls his fingers from me seconds before the shake of the orgasm takes me, and I practically whimper as he does. Gently, he turns me in his arms, then his hands drift down my sides and grab the sides of my ass.
“Wrap your legs around me, love,” he whispers.
I would do anything he asked me to right now.
Marco hoists me up in a smooth movement, and I slide down his stomach, marveling at the abs that ripple under my hot center. He pauses me, his firm grip balancing me with ease.
His eyes are so dark. “Wrap your hands around me and push me inside your sweet pussy, Roisin.”
I take one arm from his neck and grip him, shocked at how hard and smooth his cock is. Marco makes a groaning noise, and for one devilish second, I think about disobeying him.
His eyes flash. “Don’t you fucking dare,” he barks. “I’m going to watch you take every drop of my come, Roisin. Don’t you fucking dare think of anything else.”
Well.
I notch him at my entrance. My hand drifts back up to hold on to his strong neck, and slowly, he lowers me onto the length of his cock.
At first, there’s a stretch. He’s so huge; it would be hard to not feel every inch of him. I’m determined to keep a straight face so he doesn’t know I’ve never done this before.
But then he seems to go on.
And on.
And on.
I’m panting, practically writhing with the fullness, when finally I feel his hips bump against me. My legs wrap tightly around his hips and I hold on to his neck, clinging to him.
Impaled by him.
“You’re such a good girl, Roisin,” he croons in my ear. “Look how fucking well you take me. Look how I fit around you, my perfect girl.”
Jesus Christ. I never knew how bad of a praise kink I had until this precise moment.
“Marco,” I whisper.
I don’t know what else to do. What else to say.
Slowly, he starts to move.
It’s a little awkward at first. Marco and I scramble to find a rhythm, but once he starts to move my hips up and down, bouncing me over his thick cock, I finally figure it out. All the while, Marco whispers in my ear. He’s not saying anything particularly. He tells me that I’m a good girl, that I take him well, that my pussy fits him and only him.
I’m inclined to agree.
Especially because I have nothing to compare it to.
My legs are shaking, my arms feel like they’re going to melt, but Marco keeps moving me, the pace relentless and steady. I breathe, my eyes slowly shutting, lost in the rhythm of our bodies.
I’m almost lulled into a dreamy state…
And then the orgasm shatters my world.
I scream. I scream his name. I scream obscenities and words that I’m not even sure I really knew I had. Marco follows me, I think, because I’m vaguely aware of the fact that his movements have gone from smooth and calculated to rapid and jagged, and then he shouts my name as he comes.
I swear I can feel him come. I swear, there’s a jet of heat and a pulsing inside me that has nothing to do with the shower…
Especially because the shower is getting quite cold.
I shiver, Marco still inside me. His eyes go wide. “Fuck,” he mutters. “You’re cold.”
“I’m fine,” I say.
But I can’t stop the goosebumps that chase over my skin.
Marco doesn’t bother to shut the shower off. He storms from the room, both of us dripping. Gently, he deposits me on the floor in front of the fire. “Stay here,” he mutters.
I shiver, the fire warming my skin as I watch him retreat and return with two oversized fluffy towels.
I reach for one, but Marco shakes his head. “Let me,” he whispers.
Silently, I nod.
Marco tucks the towel around me with practiced movements, before taking the other one to my hair. He’s still naked, dripping onto the wood floor of the cabin, and I trace the path of water on his skin as it gleams in the firelight.
I probably shouldn’t look at his cock again.
But when I do, I’m surprised to find it half-hard.
He chuckles. “You have quite an impact on me, Roisin.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m always like this for you,” he murmurs.
My eyes fly to his, and I see absolutely no signs of a lie there.
Eventually he gets himself a towel, wrapping all that luscious skin away. Marco sighs, glancing over me like he’s looking for something.
“Are you dry enough?” he asks, his voice concerned. “I could get another towel…”
“I’m fine. Tired,” I whisper.
He nods. I squeak as he leans in and literally whisks me off my feet, then laugh as he tucks me into the bed. I wiggle. “Wet towel and all?”
“Take them off,” he rumbles.
His eyes go dark as I take off the towel and hand it to him, clutching the sheets to my chest like I’m some kind of blushing virgin.
Marco disappears putting the towels away, then slides into the bed with me. I sigh as he pulls me close, an arm tugging me against his middle.
“You’re like a damn furnace,” I murmur as he warms my back.
“It works, I guess, since you’re like an icicle half the time.”
I don’t have a response to that.
We lay quietly, listening to the fire as it crackles and pops. I watch the light from the flames dance against the far wall, my mind whirling.
I don’t know what to do with this.
His question feels like it’s hanging over my head. Married? I see the logic, but I’m not sure I want to follow it. My mother, after all, fell for something similar with my father.
Would I just be falling for something with Marco?
Falling, of course, being an objective word. I’ve already fallen, to some extent.
My heart feels like it’s going to explode, and there’s no doubt that I’m in love with Marco De Luca. But I also don’t want to just be another tool, another thing that people use or keep in order to further their own goals.
He said it was for my protection though…
“Roisin?” Marco murmurs.
The sleepy sound of his voice cuts right through me, and I feel like I’m aching to tell him how I feel.
“Yes?” I murmur. I can’t turn around and look at him. If I do, I’m going to melt.
“We need to get married,” he whispers.
I take a deep breath. I shut my eyes.
“Okay.”
