Off-Limits

Chapter Eleven: No Patience Left

Three dates in, and Sasha still hadn't figured out how Marcus kept surprising her.

It wasn't that he was more charming than the men she usually cycled through and discarded within a month — charm was cheap, she'd learned that lesson a long time ago, back when Jake Reyes had first taught her exactly how far a good line could get a man and exactly how little it meant once you'd heard enough of them. Marcus was charming, sure. But he also listened in a way that felt inconvenient for him, asked questions that assumed she had actual opinions worth hearing, and hadn't once, across three dinners, made her feel like she was auditioning for something.

Tonight was date four, dinner at his place instead of a restaurant — his idea, offered with none of the usual performative nervousness men used when they were angling toward exactly this — and Sasha had said yes without the calculation she usually ran before agreeing to something like that.

His apartment had the kind of quiet, expensive taste that told her everything about him without him having to say a word — clean lines, good art, a bottle of wine already breathing on the counter when she arrived. He'd cooked, actually cooked, something that smelled like it had taken real effort, and Sasha found herself, halfway through dinner, laughing harder and more often than she had on a first, second, or third date in longer than she wanted to admit.

"You're staring," Marcus said, refilling her wine.

"I'm deciding whether you're too good to be true."

"What's the verdict?"

"Still deliberating." She took a slow sip, watching him over the rim of the glass, the low candlelight doing something flattering to the line of his jaw. "You dated Veronica for a year. Why'd it end?"

He considered the question seriously, no flinch, no deflection. "Timing, mostly. I was building the company, she was building her career, and neither of us prioritized the other enough to make it work. No drama. We just drifted, and then I did something stupid a year later at her husband's — well, at your friend's — launch, trying to recapture something that wasn't mine to reach for anymore." He met her eyes, steady. "I've had some time to sit with how badly I handled that. I'm not looking to repeat it."

"That's a genuinely good answer."

"I've had practice giving it. Jake made sure of that."

Sasha laughed — a real one, surprised out of her — and something in her chest loosened further, the last of her usual guardedness slipping without her quite noticing it go.

• • •

They ended up on his couch after dinner, wine glasses abandoned on the coffee table, the conversation slowing into something quieter, closer, the particular charged silence that arrives right before two people stop pretending they're not thinking about the same thing.

"I should probably call a car," Sasha said, not moving.

"Probably," Marcus agreed, not moving either.

"I don't actually want to."

"I noticed."

She closed the distance herself, kissing him slow and deliberate, and he met her without hesitation, one hand sliding into her hair, the other finding her waist and pulling her closer across the couch cushions. She was built for exactly this kind of attention — full curves that filled out the red dress she'd worn tonight like it had been made for her alone, a mouth that had spent years perfecting the art of getting exactly what she wanted from it — and Marcus, kissing her deeper now, seemed entirely aware of his own good fortune.

"Bedroom," she murmured against his mouth. "I refuse to do this on a couch like a college student."

He laughed, low and warm, and led her down the hall by the hand.

• • •

He got the zipper of her dress down slow, pressing his mouth to every inch of skin as it was revealed, and Sasha let her head fall back, a soft sound escaping her as his lips found her shoulder, her collarbone. The dress pooled at her feet, and she stood in front of him in nothing but black lace, unashamed, letting him look his fill — her breasts full and soft against the delicate fabric, hips generous and inviting, the kind of body that photographed well in the office but hit entirely different in dim bedroom light with a man looking at her like she was the only thing worth looking at in the room.

"You're staring," she said, echoing him from earlier, a slow smile spreading across her face.

"I've earned it. Three dates of waiting."

"Only three. You're patient."

"I wasn't going to be one more guy who rushed you into something," Marcus said, reaching around to unclasp her bra, letting it fall, his hands finding her breasts with a low groan of appreciation, thumbs dragging over her n*****s until they stiffened under his touch. "But I'm done being patient now, if that's all right with you."

"More than all right."

He walked her back to the bed, shedding his own shirt along the way, and when he laid her down and kissed his way down her body — her throat, the curve of each breast, tongue circling one n****e until she arched and gasped — there was nothing tentative left in either of them. He peeled the last of the lace from her hips, and she let her thighs fall open without a trace of hesitation, already slick, already aching for it.

When he settled between her thighs and put his mouth on her, she cried out immediately, hand fisting in the sheets, hips rising to meet him. He built her slowly at first — testing what made her gasp, what made her go quiet and still — and Sasha, who'd had more than her share of men who treated this part as an afterthought, found herself genuinely startled by how much attention he was willing to give it, how unhurried he seemed despite three dates of obvious want finally catching up with both of them.

"Marcus —" Her voice broke, hips grinding against his mouth, and he didn't let up, working her right to the edge and holding her there, deliberate and merciless, until she was cursing at the ceiling and fisting the sheets, and only then did he finally give her release, sealing his mouth over her and feeling her come apart in a long, shuddering wave, a cry tearing out of her she made no effort to muffle.

She didn't let him linger there, pulling him back up her body with unsteady hands and flipping their positions with a strength that clearly surprised him, pushing him onto his back and working his belt open with quick, determined fingers. "My turn," she said, and took him into her mouth without preamble, hot and confident, her tongue working him with the same unhurried thoroughness he'd shown her, one hand braced on his stomach, watching his face the entire time with open, possessive satisfaction. Marcus's head fell back against the pillow with a groan, hand sliding into her hair, hips flexing up to meet her, and she kept it up until he was right at the edge, breath ragged, her name breaking on his lips — and pulled back just before he lost it, lips glistening, thoroughly pleased with herself.

"Condom," he managed, already reaching for the nightstand.

He got it on, and when he finally pushed into her, her back arched off the mattress with a sharp cry, her legs wrapping around his waist to pull him deeper. They found their rhythm fast — nothing tentative about it, her nails dragging down his back, his name breaking apart in her mouth, three dates of patience finally giving way to something hungry and unrestrained. He drove into her deep and steady, and she met every thrust with her hips, gasping, half-laughing, entirely undone, until she came again with a broken cry, clenching tight around him, and he followed only moments later, groaning her name into her throat, both of them collapsing together into the tangled sheets, breathless and thoroughly wrecked.

"Worth the wait?" Marcus asked, much later, tracing lazy patterns along her spine.

"Every minute of it," Sasha said, and meant it, tucking herself against his chest with none of her usual instinct to already be planning her exit. "Don't tell Veronica I said that. She'll be insufferable about setting this up."

"Too late," Marcus said, already reaching for his phone on the nightstand. "I'm texting Jake right now."

"You are not."

"Watch me."

• • •

Chapter Twelve: Six months later — a full-circle family gathering, and the question of what's next for everyone.