Reunion (18 page)

His fingers tease my waist as his hot skin slides under my waistband and panties, the friction of palm against thigh making my breath quicken at the same time that time seems to stop.

Mark does that to me. He makes every paradox work.

“Carrie,” he says, my name drawn out like a long sigh. Like a prayer. “We’ve said little hints all week, but I need to say this.”

I just blink. What could be so serious?
I’m throbbing everywhere. Energy is pent up in millions of little pockets along my skin, ready and waiting. Yet I can tell I need to listen. Of course I do.
 

“We’re here. This is temporary. I need to hide you from the crazy jackals who want twenty-four/seven news coverage. You need to heal. This is the safest place I could think of. Plus, Allie will be good for you. And I need to get to know my brother better. But after this—when we’re ready to move on—I need to be very clear with you about my intentions.”

I blink harder. In the moonlight, a soft glow lights Mark from the side. His eyes are shadowed, though he peers at me with intent, so focused on
the gravity of his own words.
 

I
see so much love coming from him to me. What he’s saying, though, goes beyond love.

“I want to be with you forever.”

All my skin tingles. My legs, stretched across the bed, feel like they’re melting into the world, reaching out for Mark. I reach up with my one good hand and touch his chest. Palm over his heart, I catch the beat and then look up at him.

“Some day, we can talk more about marriage. Kids. The little house and the picket fence and the whole dream.”

My heart explodes.

“But for now,” he says with a smile, his face so full of emotion I think he might explode from the pressure of all the love he is showing me, “we have this. We have today. But Carrie, I want all your todays. I want all your tomorrows. I want all your weeks and months and years. I’m greedy. Will you be greedy right back and take the rest of my life, too?”

So much love is built up inside me that it leaks out in the form of tears. They’re rolling right down my cheeks and landing on my bare breasts. He crawls over me, body hovering, the heat and fire of his long, tight body like all the tomorrows in the flesh.

“Oh, yes, Mark. I’m even greedier. I want more than this lifetime with you.” A massive wave of self-consciousness hits me and I reach up to touch my scalp. The hair is about a quarter of an inch long. I rotate slightly, my shoulder in agony with a simple little twist. I mu
st
make a face, because Mark pulls back.

“What’s wrong?”

I’m ruining this moment. My leftover pain from the atrocities of what El Brujo and Frenchie did to me is infecting this one, true moment with Mark.

My tears increase.

“I just, it’s just...look at me!” I am seriously destroying this hot, passionate moment, aren’t I? Oh, my God, but I can’t stop.

“I
am
looking at you, Carrie. You’re
gorgeous
.”

I laugh through a mouth and nose full of salty tears. “You’re just saying that to be nice.”

“I’m saying it because true beauty comes from strength. If I experienced the same injuries you did, would you love me any less?” He strokes the side of my thigh. My skin rises in response, the goosebumps visible in the pale light.

“No! Of course not!”

“Then why would you expect any less of me?”

And with that, his lips cover mine, rendering my response unnece
s
sary.
His mouth is sweet and eager, demanding and questioning.
 

“I love you so much, Carrie,” he murmurs against my mouth, kissing his way down to my neck. “When Allie and Chase told me what was happening I wanted to die from knowing I could rescue you. What you did in that room was unbelievable. You are so much more than I ever realized, and I want to show you that together, we can be invincible. And no one is ever kidnapping you again.” His body tenses. “I can’t believe that happened on my watch.”

“Your ‘watch’?” I laugh into his chest. “I wasn’t some client you were assigned to protect.”

“No. You’re the woman who will be my wife one day. The mother to my children.” He pauses, his body stilling. “You
do
want kids?”
 

“Yes. Just...I want to heal first. And get my degree.”

H
is self-effacing laugh makes me join in. It’s infectious. “I’m getting ahead of myself.”

“You’re perfect.”

“No, Carrie.
You
are.”

I’m quivering with anticipation. His words are like a
recovery
potion, poured into me so my bones can knit from the inside out.
If his words were medicine, I’d be healed a thousand times over already.
 

His mouth covers the hollow at the base of my throat, tongue tickling and teasing the spot, sending shivers of electricity through every corner of my body and mind.
I move, my body stretching, muscles filled with the rush of blood that pumps hard to feed my soul.
 

A long sigh makes me shiver as his mouth travels down, hands on my hips, nipple enveloped by his master tongue. I arch up, then wince, my shoulder howling with pain.

“Go slow,” he urges me. “We’ll go as slow as you need, Carrie. I don’t want to hurt you, and you can stop me any time.”

If certain parts of my body throb any harder they’ll burst. “No stopping. No way,” I hiss. He rumbles with laughter, his mouth on me again, and I relinquish my tension, melting under his attentions.

I only ha
ve
one hand to touch him. I use it well, closing my eyes and taking in the rippled texture of his back, my mind recalling his tanned skin, the fine lines of cut muscle, the wide strength of his shoulders. The back of his neck is vulnerable under my touch, the transition from skin to silky hair so fine.

His mouth, meanwhile, finds its way to my belly, then down, down, down for a delicious ride. I need this. I need him. Weeks of recovering and of patience fall away like a snake shedding a skin that holds it back, the new one tender and sensitive, yet ready to mature. My craving for Mark goes beyond anything rational.

And as he takes in my pleasure center, the strokes and teases enough to make me see colors behind closed eyelids, I moan with relief and gratitude.

“
That’s right,” Mark says, his words vibrating against my inner thigh. “I want to hear that sound. I want to make you feel nothing but pure, divine pleasure right now, Carrie. Let’s wash away all the pain and replace it with something only you and I can create, together.”
 

And so he starts.

Within seconds, I am coming. The rush of climax doesn’t need time to build, for it has spent so long hiding within me, waiting for this moment to commune with Mark. My orgasm is eager and ready, and it takes over, like a self that lives inside me and steps forward to reveal itself to the world when needed.

I can’t stop bucking against him, my one good hand gripping the sheets so hard I pull them off, my face buried in a pillow I grab as I scream with the cries of a woman who is in the throes of more pleasure than she knew possible, and who just wants
more, more, more
as Mark gives and gives and gives until I push him away.

Because I still want more, but a
different
kind of more.

“
Come here,” I whisper into the space between us, which shortens to nothing as Mark rises up like a big, powerful being, more animal than man in this moment. His kiss is lustful and claiming. He wants me to taste myself, and his tongue drives between my teeth at the exact moment he drives his shaft into me, entering me with a luscious fluidity and fulfillment that makes me bite his lower lip.
 

I need to possess him. To taste him. To cling and scratch and bring him into me so deeply we lose the wall between his body and mine. Between his soul and mine.

No divisions. No separations. We are one person, one movement, one climax.

One newly-forged soul.

With a few thrusts he tenses, his mouth now on my earlobe, biting so hard I arch up and clench, my new orgasm so intense I fear I’ll be lost forever. My body grasps him so hard he can barely move, and I tip my hips up to take more of him in. His breath is hot in my ear and I know the split second when he tips, too, from being just Mark to blending with me to become something so much more.

We cry out in ecsta
s
y, in healing, in hope as the waves of
all goodness and light surround us. Mark’s body invites me to find myself within him and he within me and we do, his name on my lips and mine in his breath.
 

As we float back to earth, my blood so hot I’m sweating now, my breath so fevered I’m panting, he strokes the long scratch along my face and narrows his eyes, his chest labored by the exhales of energy spent.

“You’ll have a scar,” he whispers.

I reach back and stroke the white line on his jaw. “We’ll match.”

He grins and rolls to his side, propping his head in his hand, elbow on the mattress. His hair is in wild waves that frame
h
is face, a sheen of sweat on his shoulder a glisten the moonlight shows me.

“We’ll always match. We’re puzzle pieces, you and me, Carrie.”

I move just enough for my shoulder to make itself heard, and I flinch.

“Still hurts?”

“Hurts even more, now. That was a workout,” I say, still a little breathless.

“Best kind.” He kisses my cheek.

“Yes.” I’m fading already, so spent. So happy.

So complete.

An old jazz ditty that my dad used to play all the time comes on the radio. It tickles my memory, bringing me back to a time when anything was possible. Before so much pain and suffering and confusion. A time when I was just Carrie and dad was just Joe and Mark was...

Probably fighting for good somewhere.

As the music takes me back it
also
pins me in place,
right here
. Mark cuddles up to me, careful about my arm, and flattens his palm against my heart as if he’s
assuring it he’s here.
 

And he is.

Forever.

* * *

Thank you for reading REUNION, the final book in the Coming Home trilogy. If you loved reading Mark and Carrie’s story, please go back and reach the Breaking Away series, which features Chase and Allie. Learn how they met and about the mysterious clash between Chases’s dad and Allie’s stepfather....
 

Finding Allie
 

Meanwhile, sign up for my newsletter and Like me on Facebook to learn more about future series.

Remember Drew, Mark’s friend? He has his own series coming...so stay tuned. :)

Suggested Reading Order

The Breaking Away Series
 

Finding Allie
 

Chasing Allie
 

Keeping Allie
 

T
he Coming Home Series

RETURN
 

REVENGE
 

REUNION
 

Meli Raine rode her first motorcycle when she was five years old, but she played in the ocean long before that. She lives in New England with her family.
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