“Did it make you miss your mom even more?” she asked.
“Of course, it did. Everything—hell, winter made me miss her more because she always used to drag me out of bed super early the first snowfall and we’d go mess up the kitchen making homemade marshmallows for hot cocoa. Gelatin would get everywhere, everything would get sticky…” he stopped, and Marj engulfed him in her arms, hugging him hard.
“I’m so sorry,” she said into his shoulder, holding him.
Brandon’s arms went around her, and he hugged her for a minute before letting her go.
“Thanks. It’s been, you know, twenty years almost. So I’m doing well. I think you always carry some sadness when there’s a significant loss in childhood and—”
“This just got real, Brandon. Now you’re not just the hot rich guy I married as a favor. You have emotional pain. You had a childhood. This is not simple anymore. Hearing your stories makes me get attached to you. Maybe we shouldn’t get so personal.”
I’d prefer not to fall in love with you, and get my heart trashed, yet, again. So the next time I insist on getting personal, tell me to shut up. Because we can’t go super personal like this, and not have feelings for each other. It’s going to happen organically from all the sharing.
Of course Marj didn’t say that.
“We have to get to know each other so it looks real,” he said. “And I have to sleep in here. Despite the fact that my staff is well compensated, there is always the risk that Lena and her camp could find a way to blackmail or bribe one of them to disclose our sleeping arrangements. I hope you don’t find that too intrusive.”
“Dude, I married you. I plan to spend plenty of time naked with you. You can totally sleep here. I hog the covers, though, fair warning.”
“So do I,” he said.
“Well, here goes our first fight as a married couple. The covers are mine, all mine,” she laughed.
“And tonight you are mine,” he said, his voice low and not laughing one bit.
A chill went through her of the best sort, and she reached for him. Brandon was already upon her, stroking her neck, her cheek, her jaw. His lips against her collarbone sent more shivers along her skin, and she twined her limbs with his. This was different from the other times they’d been together. This was gentler, more vulnerable somehow, as if by sharing painful memories from their lives they had become both more intimate and more careful with one another.
She had asked him to stop getting personal, but there was nothing more personal than this. The way he peeled aside her pajama top and trailed his hands along her stomach and down her sides. The way she felt so alive, so emboldened after hours of lonesome boredom without him. There was a fire in her blood, a desperation to hold him closer, to mate with him in a primal way, to claim him.
Brandon was gorgeous, muscular and powerful. His arms were heavily muscled, the biceps bigger than she’d ever seen and somehow juicy and appealing. She wanted to grip them while he pounded into her, wanted to dig her nails in and hold on. She licked one instinctively, her mouth on his bare arm, his shirt still in her hands. When she did, her bare breasts brushed against his forearm, and she felt her nipples bead at the casual contact. His big hands came up to cup her breasts and stroke them.
The tease of his touch made her wriggle and writhe. She nipped at his neck, hands in his hair until he rolled her onto her back and stretched out at full length above her. He stroked her face, kissed her hair, her forehead, and her eyelids. Their lips met and their tongues mated, setting sparks all through her body. His tender touch, the deep intimacy of his kiss seemed to move her somehow, tears burning her eyes. She sank into his kiss, gathering him in her arms, wanting all of him, the weight of him above her, his hands and mouth and everything.
“Please,” she said into his mouth, “please, Brandon.”
This time, he didn’t move away from her, didn’t grope in his pocket for a condom. Instead, he kicked away his pants and she felt him heavy and bare between her thighs. She shivered, panting with want, her nipples pressed against his hard chest, her hands on those huge biceps as he rose up and plunged into her, wet and slick. She cried out at his penetration because it felt so—so much. It was all him, raw and within her, his flesh, the velvet hardness of him driving thick into her passage. The sensation was sharper, the jolts of pleasure fiercer.
Marj hadn’t had sex without a condom since her high school boyfriend when she’d been on the pill and they’d both been virgins back then. This was different, closer, more connected than the sex she had had with dates, with guys from clubs, with Luke even. There had been a distance, a barrier both physical and emotional from them. So even after years of dating and hooking up with men, Marj felt strangely like she was having sex for the first time now. It was freer, messier, and steamier than anything she remembered. He kept kissing her again and again and calling her his wife. His voice was tender, his movements unrelenting, drawing jots of ecstasy from her as he built their climax.