He smiled slowly.
“Don’t be so cocky, Kavanaugh. I’m not so sure I’m happy about that fact,” she added. “I can’t seem to think straight around you.”
“Come to Chicago with me,” he entreated in a hoarse whisper.
She bit nervously at her lip. He waited on tenterhooks.
“Okay.”
He seized her mouth with his own. He’d waited for that acquiescence. Now that he had it, he didn’t bother to hide his hunger for her. She moaned softly when his tongue probed the sweet cavern of her mouth.
She sealed their torrid kiss a moment later, panting.
“Marc…if I go with you, you have to give me some space. I meant it when I said I can’t think straight around you. I want to make a well-thought-out decision about whether or not we can have a future. I can’t do that if you’re always…doing that.”
“Doing what?” he asked silkily as he plucked at her lips.
She joined him, despite her protestations, seeking out his mouth, sliding her tongue teasingly against his lower lip until he groaned and kissed her deeply once again. She tasted wonderful, like peppermint and woman and sex. He spread his hands over her satiny-smooth shoulders and pressed her down to the mattress. He came down over her, kissing her all the while, coaxing her until his body throbbed with a dull, insistent ache. Her breasts were a delicious, soft firmness against his ribs.
“This,” Mari hissed a moment later against his mouth.
It took his lust-drunk brain a few seconds to understand what she meant. When he recalled their former conversation, he sighed and sat up, trying to ignore the tempting vision she made lying on the bed with her hair spread out around her and her breasts heaving beneath the thin, gold fabric.
She stood and tried to smooth her hair, which Marc had mussed with his fingertips. He watched her, scowling, as she went over to her closet and withdrew a robe. His frown only deepened when she covered herself. She was all serious business by the time she belted the garment with a defiant tug.
“I won’t agree to go with you on this trip if you continue to do that, Marc.”
“What? Do the most natural thi
ng on earth?” he asked, trying to hide his irritation and failing.
“I’m serious,” she said so loudly that he started. He narrowed his eyes on her. She looked desperate. “We both know we’re sexually compatible. That’s the easy part,” she said, the stain on her cheeks deepening. “You brought up this proposition. If you truly want to discover if we have a future together, then we need to do more than…roll around in bed together.”
His annoyance evaporated when he saw how nervously her hands moved over her belly. He sensed her fragility in that moment. “All right. If that’s what you want, you’ve got it. I promise to follow your lead in regard to the…rolling around in bed.”
She flashed him an irritated glance, but when she saw his smile, she broke into a grin, as well.
“Do you really want to do this?” he asked her.
“Yes. I’ll go—if you promise not to push me.” She glanced up at him through thick lashes, her gaze flickering down over his chest and abdomen and sighed. “You’re very hard to resist.”
He leaned back, his arms bracing him on the mattress.
Patience was what was called for with Mari, but he’d never had to tamp down his lust more than this. Maybe he was as aware as she seemed to be that when they made love, no barriers could exist between them. He supposed Mari was saying that some of those obstacles existed for a reason—they were a defense against hurt, against bad judgment.
She had to let down those barriers at her own pace, not his. He wasn’t planning on hurting Mari, of course. Look at what’d happened today at his mom’s house, though. Marc hadn’t wanted that. Pain seemed to be inherent to any scenario that involved Mari and him together.
He was willing to deal with that potential pain, but Mari had to decide on her own if she was willing to endure the bad that might come with the good.
“I guess there are worse things than you finding me irresistible,” he murmured ruefully.
She ducked her head, hiding her smile. “Much. But for now…” She nodded significantly toward the window. “Don’t break your neck on the way down, Tarzan.”
Marc grimaced as he stood and headed toward the window. He was still hard with arousal. “A broken bone might get my mind off some other aches,” he said under his breath.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said as he threw one leg out the window and paused, straddling the low sill, his head still inside Mari’s room. She watched him with a small smile, her arms crossed beneath her breasts.