Fix It Up - Mary Calmes Page 0,76

what I’d allowed, wanted, begged for.

“Next,” he said, lifting up, his mouth hovering over mine. “I’ve been tested, you know this, and I don’t care how drunk or messed up I ever was, I have never gone near anyone without a rubber. Until you, because just the idea of not coming inside of your gorgeous, perfect round ass was––”

“No,” I snapped at him. “There doesn’t need to be an explanation.”

“And you, you’re way too careful to have ever been in bed with anyone without protection. It’s just not how you are.”

“I could have done––”

“No,” he said, so sure of himself. “No, you haven’t.” And his grin before he bent and kissed me was all smug male.

I was going to shove him off me, and it was a great plan up until he laid a kiss on me that made my heart wrench with how much feeling there was behind it. There was no wondering how he felt; I absolutely knew. Never in my life had I been kissed with more blatant ownership, raw, naked want, and a desperate need for joining. If he had put it in a song and played it for me, it could not have been any plainer. I was his, and he was letting me know. It was beyond my willpower to deny him, especially since I wanted him just as much.

Rolling him gently to his back, I took his mouth, kissing him slowly, deeply, warming all the dark, cold places inside, letting the desire build, surge under his skin, and swim through his veins to his heart and to his cock, that slowly thickened between us.

“This is your life, Nick,” I told him, breaking the kiss, my lips grazing his skin. “You just got it back; don’t you want to go out and live it?”

“Yes,” he assured me in a rough whisper before he lifted to his elbow and then pushed gently, putting me on my back again. “With you right there beside me.”

“No, you’re not listening.”

“You’re the one not listening,” he said, smiling as he stretched out over me. “As usual.”

“Nick––”

“My life finally makes sense,” he murmured, his eyes fluttering for a moment as I moved under him. “God, I just want to lie over you for as long as I live.”

“I would demand things,” I warned him. “And those wouldn’t be things you’d want to––”

“Like what?” He breathed out. “Fidelity? Monogamy? That I take care of myself so I’ll live a long time?”

“You’re not––”

“Half of everything I own? Would you demand to go on tour with me?”

“I––”

“Or that I use you, like I just did, every day ’til I die?”

“You––”

“All those things are yours,” he promised. “I don’t know anyone I’d rather share everything with, and I know already how well you’d take care of everything.”

“It’s not the same—get off me,” I snapped at him.

His grin was crazy, firing his eyes, that I could see even in the primordial blues of the garden at night. “I would,” he said, waggling his eyebrows. “But I don’t want to.”

I made a noise of frustration and was ready to get up, shove him off me, when he bent and kissed me breathless. When he finally leaned back, clearly pleased with himself, if his annoyingly wide smile was any indication, I had the urge to smack him.

“I could get up if I wanted,” I assured him, needing that to be clear.

He purred. “Yeah, I know, if you wanted.”

God.

“And as for taking you right here in the garden,” he said, kissing me again, deeply, thoroughly, his sweet mouth all over mine, “I will take you wherever I goddamn please, whenever I want, because you’re mine and that’s it, and you should wrap your brain around that.”

I lifted my left hand to push him off me, but he stopped me and grabbed hold, working a wide silver band onto my ring finger. It was heavy, beautiful, had an intricately carved pattern that was both delicate and masculine at the same time. I’d admired it on Nick more times than I could count.

“What the fuck?” I barked at him, horrified at the sight of the band on the ring finger of my left hand. “Have you lost your mind?” I said, scrambling out from under him, reaching for the ring only to have him climb into my lap and straddle my thighs so we were facing each other.

“I have worn that ring on the middle finger of my right hand for eight years,” he told me, hands on the side