Chapter Twenty-One
Gus woke with major guilt over her drunk texting of the previous night. What on earth had possessed her to get all flirty and suggestive?
Why in the hell had she asked him about her boobs?
Yeah, she’d had a couple more drinks than she usually did, but she’d hardly been smashed. And he’d been right her shirt had been off, because she had taken a picture of her boobs.
Thank Christ her sense of decency and propriety had intervened. What would he have thought if that had landed on his phone? It would have been very hard to convince him she didn’t want to see him if she’d sent him that titty pic.
She cringed. She’d actually used those words.
“Sorry,” she whispered, staring at the picture he’d sent her last night with his crinkly-eyes and big laughing mouth, cuddling the world’s ugliest bunny against his naked chest.
God, it should be against the law to be that sexy.
But more than that, she’d missed him. It’d been over a month and they’d texted all the time, but she still missed him. Missed the sound of his voice and the scent of his shampoo and the way he threw his head back when he laughed and how hard he worked and how kind he was to the Bunnyguards and the random glimpses she’d catch of him during the day.
She even missed his rapid two-finger pecking at the laptop keyboard. She just…missed him. Which didn’t make any sense. They’d cohabited for one month.
The phone rang and her pulse leapt for the split second she thought it might be Marshall, but her heart rate settled when the number for the Denver shelter flashed on the screen.
Carol Roberts, the shelter boss, greeted her and they exchanged pleasantries for a moment before she got down to the real reason for calling. “Still haven’t been able to re-home Thumper,” she said. “It’s been over a month. You mentioned someone you knew had offered to adopt him if no one else would?”
The image of Marshall and Thumper floated in her head, and Gus shut her eyes. It seemed the whole world was conspiring to keep Marshall in her thoughts.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Do you want to pass the details to Tom at the front desk or are you happy to contact her yourself?”
Her… If only. It was a natural mistake, given the majority of bunny adopters were female, and Gus didn’t bother to correct Carol. “No, it’s okay. I’ll do it.”
She had to apologize anyway. For last night’s drunken, suggestive texting. Why not say it with a bunny?
“Great, thanks!”
“Actually…I’ll hop a plane to Denver tomorrow and hand-deliver him, if that’s okay?”
Gus didn’t want to think about the motivation behind her snap decision other than knowing that saying sorry with a bunny in person was going the extra mile, right?
“Sure.”
“I can lend a hand in the clinic if you need one?”
“We always need a hand, you know that.”
“All right, good. See you tomorrow morning.”
Gus hung up, the image of Marshall and Thumper reappearing on the screen. Knowing they were going to be a permanent fixture made her smile. Knowing she was going to see Marshall tomorrow made her hot and cold and nervous as hell.
Also, a teeny bit tingly in her girly bits.
By ten the next morning, Gus had put in a solid two hours at the small animal clinic attached to the Denver shelter. But things had slowed down and there was little else to do.
Little else to put off the inevitable.
Grabbing her phone, she opened her messages. Nothing from Marshall. Not yesterday or today. She assumed he was giving her some time to make the first contact after her drunk texting episode. Time and space to get over the embarrassment.
Because that’s the kind of guy he was.
The kind of guy who knew she’d been drinking so hadn’t pressed her to send that picture. Who hadn’t tried to engage her in more risqué chatter. He could have easily. And God knew she’d been riding a virulent enough wave of drunken, horny melancholy to go there.
But he hadn’t. He’d stepped back.
Gus wasn’t sure any other guy in that situation would have had such control. Not any of the ones she’d known, anyway. Certainly not Rick.
She waited for the usual deluge of anger and despair that normally accompanied thoughts of her ex. Waited for the heated conviction of never again and the sad, sick throb of her damaged heart.
They didn’t arrive. There was just a slight ache in the center of her chest, nothing much more than the faded yellow of a healing bruise.
Oh boy…
Taking a breath, she tapped out a quick text.
She pressed send but didn’t expect an answer straight away. He was at work and sometimes he didn’t get back to her until the end of the day. But fifteen minutes later, Gus’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out.
Just knowing he was looking at his phone now, thinking about her as she was thinking about him, flooded her chest with emotion.
Three little dots appeared as he typed and then her phone buzzed in her hand as his message arrived.
For an absurd moment, Gus thought she was going to cry. God…this man was perfect—apart from the three ex-fiancées. Quickly she typed, Three is fine. Thumper thanks you. I thank you. And hit send.
Yeah. She’d planned on delivering him, but it was better that he came here and picked Thumper up. Better if she wasn’t here when he did.
His quick-fire reply sucked her breath away.
And then a bunny emoji appeared, smiling at her from the screen. The emotion in her chest swamped her arms and her legs and buzzed inside her head.
Screw three. Screw him coming here. She had to see him, she had to see him now.
She’d deliver the damn bunny herself.
Gus’s legs shook a little as she climbed out of the ABL van. She’d called Marshall’s office to check if he was there, and his receptionist had told her he was on a work site and given her the address.
And now here she was, standing opposite a high chain mail fence, the sound of jackhammers and other large machinery echoing around her, a bunny in a cage in her hand. She wasn’t exactly dressed for a construction site, but it was probably a far safer place to see him than his office. Where she could lock the door and jump his bones.
Here they’d be out in the open, among dust and noise and guys in hard hats. She could look her fill without being tempted to take it further.
Sucking in a breath, she crossed the road and walked along the pavement until she found the entrance. Nerves kicked up in her gut and her stomach gave a queasy lurch, but she swallowed hard against the sensation. She could do this. She could wander into a construction site with a bunny in a cage and ask to see Marshall.
Why not?
Straightening her back and holding her head high, she strode inside and looked around. There was a really big hole in the ground with a lot of heavy digging and earth-moving machines coming and going. There was a large, clearly temporary structure similar to a trailer off to one side. The door was shut and the windows were grimy.
It was noisy but not dangerously. It certainly didn’t seem to be bothering Thumper.
Groups of men wearing yellow high-visibility vests and hard hats were stationed all around, doing their thing. By the time she was twenty feet inside the perimeter, quite a few of those men had noticed her arrival and stopped work.
She was glad her hair was tied back in a sensible knot and her blouse was loose and modest instead of form-fitting. They made up for the pencil skirt and the heels…
A guy ran over from a truck, where he’d been talking to the driver, a frown on his face. “Lady…” he said, raising his voice a little, “you’re not supposed to be on site without permission and a hard hat.”
“Oh…right, sorry.” Gus also raised her voice. “I was just looking for Marshall. I mean…Mr. Dyson.”
The guy laughed. “Mr. Dyson? He’s over there.” He pointed to a group huddled around some plans before putting two less than clean fingers in his mouth and whistled. It was a piercing noise that cut above the din, and a bunch more men looked.
Including Marshall.
He was dressed pretty much like everyone else in heavy-duty pants, boots, a high visibility vest, and hard hat, but he was Marshall and her heart clunked in her chest as he stood and stared. Gus knew the feelings swelling inside her were more than just missing him feelings or even falling for him feelings.
They were fallen really hard feelings. Crap.
Suddenly, he was striding toward her, and Gus’s stomach clenched and her knees knocked as his long legs chewed up the distance. Sunglasses hid his gaze, so she couldn’t read him, but his stride was purposeful and…intent.
“Someone to see you, Mr. Dyson,” the guy said with a grin as Marshall drew level with them.
His eyes may have been hidden, but Gus could feel his gaze burning into hers. “Piss off, Brett,” Marshall said.
The guy saluted. “Yes, sir, Mr. Dyson, sir,” he said and ambled off unhurriedly, chuckling to himself. He joined a huddle of men who clearly had no intention of getting back to work while there was a woman in stilettos, holding a rabbit in a cage, talking to the boss.
Marshall whipped his sunglasses off and Gus’s pulse leapt as his indigo gaze latched hungrily onto hers. He was cleanly shaven and it took her back to that day in court. Man, had a lot of water flowed under the bridge since then.
“What’s up, doc?” Then he grinned. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
Gus smiled. “I thought I’d hand-deliver your new best friend.” She held up the cage, but Marshall barely paid Thumper any attention.
His eyes roved over, and he shook his head. “It had to be the skirt? And the heels?”
Yeah, she shouldn’t have. But the Devil had ridden her this morning when she’d been deciding what to wear. She probably wouldn’t have if she’d known she was going to end up on a construction site, but the heat in his eyes as he looked at her made her decision worthwhile.
Not to mention curling her toes. She shrugged. “This old thing?”
Grinning, he shook his head. Reaching for the cage with one hand, he relieved her of it while circling her upper arm with the other. “Let’s take this somewhere more private, shall we?”
His tug was gentle but firm and, aware of their audience, Gus followed meekly. But her legs had started shaking again and her heart was rattling almost as loudly as the jackhammer in her ears.
Towing her toward the trailer, he opened the door for her and said, “Inside.”
Gus didn’t argue, walking up the two steps and entering the trailer, conscious of him following into the room. She looked around—two desks covered in paperwork complete with coffee ring stains, a filing cabinet with a box of tools on top, several hard plastic chairs, walls devoid of any decoration, and layers of dust clinging to all the surfaces.
Two pedestal fans, with rivulets of grime clinging to their cages, pushed warm air around the room. A wash basin that had clearly never been cleaned stood next to a bar fridge on top of which was a coffee percolator, the pot half full.
To say it reeked of testosterone was an understatement.
She stepped to the side and he brushed past, her body lurching at the slight caress as he put the cage down behind the far desk and quickly washed his hands.
“Shut the door.”
Gus did as he asked, the construction noise muffling instantly. So much for not being alone with him in an office. Turning to face Marshall, she leaned her back against the door, watching as he dried his hands on some paper towels then crossed to the window, where he reached for the cord of the blinds. With a quick pull, they dropped down.
A twist of his wrist and the slats snapped shut.
The room dimmed a little, stray fingers of sunlight still managing to poke in around the edges of the covering. His eyes met hers and locked as he took off his hard hat, ruffling his hair with one hand as he threw the hat on the nearest desk with the other.
“No, leave it,” she said, her voice husky with nerves and the way his gaze was eating her up. “I like it. Very blue collar.”
“Another time,” he growled, prowling toward her.
Gus pressed her knees together as he approached. Everything inside her heated, melted, liquefied. She shouldn’t be here with him, like this. No good could come of it.
He stopped in front of her, just out of reach. “I’m going to kiss you now,” he said, his eyes roving over her face. “Better speak up if you’re not down with that.”
Gus knew she should speak up. Knew she should move. She’d fallen for a man who came with a built-in expiration date. But she did neither.
She didn’t want to move. She wanted him to kiss her.
He nodded and muttered, “Okay then,” taking that last step toward her, slipping one hand onto her hip, cupping the other around her jaw, his mouth swooping down to claim hers in a hard, hot, hungry kiss.
Her head thunked back against the door at the force of it and sparkles of color popped behind her eyes. Her pulse thrummed through her veins as she grabbed for his shoulders, pulling him closer, his hand slid to her ass and hitched her closer again, her heels high enough to bring their hips into alignment.
He groaned against her mouth. He tasted like coffee and smelled like sunshine and shampoo, and her nose filled with the scent and the flavor of him as she kissed him back harder and hotter.
But it wasn’t enough. She squirmed against him, needing him closer. Needing more of him.
All of him.
As if he could read her mind, his hand was at her waist, pulling her blouse out of her skirt and his palm was pushing under the fabric, big and hot on her skin as it smoothed up, up, up until it hit the fleshy satin rise of her breast, and then he was squeezing and kneading and pulling the cup aside, his fingers taunting her aching nipple.
Gus gasped, breaking their lip lock as they squeezed. She arched and cried out and he kissed her again and again and again, his hands making short work of her buttons before groping for the zipper at the back of her skirt.
“Up,” she said, panting against his mouth. “Up is easier.”
And for their purposes it was. Because she had no doubt that he was going to be inside her within minutes, and she wanted to make it as easy as possible.
She should care about that—she might later, but she didn’t now. Not about being in a construction site trailer, not about the less than five-star surroundings, not about the two dozen men wandering around out there.
She only cared about this—about him. About Marshall. Kissing her and touching her and, dear God, fucking her. She didn’t know what was going to happen after this, because this was all she needed right now.
Big hands slid to her outer thighs and started to inch her skirt up until it was bunched around her waist. His hot mouth licked and kissed a path of destruction down her throat and along her collarbone and across her chest to the swell of her breasts, sucking in her exposed nipple.
Gus moaned at the hot tug of his mouth, shoving one hand in his hair and grasping his shoulder with the other.
He pulled back and looked at her, his pupils dilated as he took in his handiwork, his breath a rough pant. Her blouse had fallen open and even to her own eyes she looked wrecked and wanton, with one breast exposed, the nipple wet and stiff.
Reaching for the other cup, he pulled it aside, too, and sliding both hands onto her bared ass, he yanked her hips off the door, forcing her to anchor her shoulders and arch her back a little for stability. Her breasts thrust toward him like some kind of offering.
“Fuck,” he whispered before lowering his head and devouring them, his mouth moving from one to the other, back and forth, licking and nipping and sucking until she was a quivering, moaning mess.
But still, she needed more.
Gathering the few brain cells still functioning, she grabbed for his belt, unbuckling it. “Condom,” she muttered.
His lips were wet as he relinquished her nipple and his gaze satisfyingly dazed as he groped in his back pocket for his wallet and fumbled for the square of foil. Gus whipped it off him as he pulled it out, his wallet falling to the floor as she ripped the packet.
Her heart thundered and her hands shook as he watched her reach between them, unzip him, and pull his cock out. It was thick and hard, a pearl of liquid at the slit. She smeared it over the dark purple crown and he groaned deep and low, his eyes shutting.
It was such a good noise, she closed her hand around him and slid it down the steel of his shaft then back up, just to hear it again. He didn’t disappoint, the deep rumble of his groan like sandpaper on her nipples.
Preparing to do it again, his eyes flashed open. “Put the damn condom on, Augusta, or I’m going in bare.”
Gus’s belly heated at the low, silky threat as everything else clenched tight. The truth was, had he not had protection on him, she’d have probably let him inside her bare anyway.
Hastily, she rolled the condom down his shaft, and he wasted no time stepping in, crowding her back against the door again, lifting her leg at the knee, bending it up, and holding it tight against his hip, opening her up.
The other hand slipped between them, his fingers sweeping the drenched gusset of her underwear aside, the broad head of his cock sliding through the warm slickness to notch thick and ready at her entrance.
It felt so damn good Gus whimpered at the sensation. “Yes,” she whispered. There, right there.
She grabbed his shoulders for purchase, rubbing against him once, twice, and then he took control, pushing inside her with a long, easy thrust of his hips, his forehead tucking into the crook of her neck. She gasped at the hot, steely intrusion.
His hand tightened on her knee. “You okay?” The question puffed out warm against her throat.
Okay? Gus doubted she’d ever been this okay in her life. “God, yes,” she said, her body deliciously stretched, gloving his to snug perfection. “Just…don’t move for a moment, okay?”
She wanted to feel every inch of him. Memorize every inch of him. A woman only ever got one first time with the man she loved—yes, all right, damn it, she’d fallen in love with him—and Gus wanted to imprint every delicious second into her DNA.
He shifted against her, their heavy breathing filling the trailer. She could feel the tension in his shoulders as he held himself in check, his breath hot on her neck. She funneled her hands into his hair.
“Now,” she whispered. “Fuck me now.”
He lifted his head and kissed her then, groaning against her mouth as he withdrew, muttering, “Christ,” as he shoved inside again. “I missed you. Please tell me you missed me.”
“I missed you.”
He withdrew almost all the way, and she moaned at the absence of him, but he was sliding back in before she knew it, filling her up so damn hard and so damn good she thought she might die from the fullness, from the completion.
Then there was no more thought or breath or time for words—just the slide of his body into hers. The rhythm of their joining. The pants and the gasps and the small nonsensical noises falling from their lips as the pace picked up and the tension grew and muscles pulled tighter and tighter and tighter and the ripples started down deep and low small at first then bigger and bigger as she panted and gasped and called out, digging her fingers into his shoulder blades as everything exploded around her into white-hot light.
He joined her there moments later, kissing her as his hips jerked to a stop and groaning his pleasure into her mouth as they jerked back into rhythm, rocking her and rocking her and rocking her all the way to the end.
…
Gradually the sound of muffled jackhammers and rumbling engines took over as the pulse rushing through Marshall’s ears and their combined ragged breathing settled. He even started to feel his legs again. Finally, he felt capable of lifting his head from where it had slumped, against the back of the door.
He didn’t—but he could if he needed to.
His body felt a lot like an electrical wire. The current had discharged, but every nerve ending still hummed with potential, and sparks flared at intervals, threatening to flicker to life all over again.
“Next time we do this,” he said, turning his head so his lips brushed the side of her neck, “you’ve gotta give me a chance to impress you a little bit more.”
She gave a half laugh. “I’m impressed. This is my impressed face.”
Marshall lifted his head. Her blue-gray eyes were still a little glazed, her lips were dark and swollen from his kisses, and a flush decorated her cheeks. He didn’t know about impressed, but she sure as hell looked like a woman who’d had an orgasm.
Fuck. Yeah.
“Still, I’d rather a place we can both get horizontal. Preferably somewhere there isn’t seventeen guys building a high-rise on the other side of the door.”
She shrugged. “Didn’t seem to put you off.”
Marshall laughed and kissed her, long and soft, his hand cupping her face, his heart so big in his chest he feared it might break some ribs.
Jesus, he loved this woman.
The second he’d turned and seen her standing there with Thumper, he’d had his oh-yes-her moment. He’d told Jeremy last week that he didn’t know. But that was bullshit. It was bullshit then and bullshit now. He was one hundred percent ass over tail in love with her.
Whether it felt like cotton candy and Christmas or a Tough Mudder course. Sign him up.
Sign him up right now.
“Let’s get married.”