Mark of a Good Man (6 page)

“Let’s watch it back at the house,” Amber said, twirling her finger around the rim of her glass. “You offered to take me for a walk on the beach last night, but we never made it off the veranda.”

“What do you want to happen?” she managed in a weak voice as the pad of his thumb brushing slowly across the inside of her wrist made her insides jangle with excitement.

Amber turned her attention back to him. “Of course, Mark. I’ve thought about it all day, too. But I’m worried that it might get out of hand. Last night you told me you’re saving yourself for marriage. I’ve been there and done that. You deserve someone better. A woman with no baggage.”

Amber nodded.
Was she really ready?
And what was she ready for?

They gazed silently at each other for a few spellbinding minutes as the melodious sounds of steel band music swirled around them. And in those few minutes, their souls seemed to whisper in secret to each other.

Finally, Mark broke the spell by rising from his seat. He held her chair, took her by the hand, led her to Colby’s jeep, and seated her carefully inside. Then like a man on a mission, he strolled around to the driver’s side and climbed behind the wheel. He buried his face in his hands for a few tense moments, then without uttering a single word, he started the engine and pulled out onto the road.

Neither one of them spoke as they drove back to Colby’s house, but the moment Mark pulled into the driveway and stopped the jeep, they both knew what was going to happen.

“Wait, here,” Mark said as he exited the jeep.

Amber’s heart pounded against her chest as she watched his sturdy legs march up the steps of the veranda. When he unlocked the door and disappeared into the house, her mind told her to open the door and run. But she couldn’t move. For the second time in twenty-four hours, her muscles refused to obey the signal from her brain.

She swallowed as Mark reappeared on the veranda, a red comforter under one arm and a pillow under the other.

Run
, her mind commanded again, but to no avail.

Mark came up to the passenger’s side and opened the door. He reached out his hand. “Let’s take a walk,” he said in an oddly gruff voice.

They walked a little distance away from the house, toward the beach. The moment they rounded a corner and happened upon a thicket of vines that would offer a good covering from prying eyes from the sea, Mark stopped and spread the comforter on the dry loose sand.

When he dropped the pillow and pulled her down next to him on the comforter, Amber miraculously found her voice. “Mark, we can’t.”

“Why?”

“You’re a virgin. You said you were keeping yourself for marriage.”

“I said no such thing,” he stated as he pulled off his sandals then hers with one hand while keeping the other locked about her wrist as if he knew she would bolt at the slightest chance. “I said I was waiting for the woman I knew I wanted to marry and bear my children.”

“That woman is not me, Mark. You’re making a mistake.” Amber tried to pry herself from his grip.

He tightened his hold and pushed her back against the pillow then leaned over her. “I don’t care about the words tumbling from your lying little mouth, Amber Nolan, because every time I gaze into your lovely brown eyes, I hear something else.” He placed his palm against her chest. “You heart is beating out of control. It knows, and so does your soul.”

“This crazy connection between us. You’re the woman of my dreams, and there’s only one way to prove it to you.” Slowly, he lowed his head to hers and touched his lips gently to her trembling ones.

Amber jumped from the hot shock of it all. He pressed harder, demanding cooperation. The sweetly intoxicating musk of his body overwhelmed her, and in total defeat, she opened up completely and welcomed the familiar thrust of his tongue into her mouth.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered as the waves lapped against the shore, resonating the anticipation of lovemaking through their beings.

“You’re a breathtaking amber sunset that I want to enjoy, every day, for the rest of my life.”

Amber trembled from his sweet words and the magic of his touch on her body, even as she fought with the fact that she was about to deflower a virgin who thought she was the perfect woman for him. She should stop him, since she knew she couldn’t give him what he sought from her. That’s what her head was saying, but her heart, her body, and her soul were shouting a different story from the edge of the universe. It was three against one, an unfair competition. Perhaps four against one, she recounted as Mark kissed her with hungry enthusiasm, shattering the hard shell she had built so carefully around her heart.

Heat rippled under Amber’s skin as she recognized the flush of carnal desire she hadn’t felt for years. And as the dormant sexuality of her body came to life, she slipped her hands under Mark’s shirt, anxious to know the naked feel of that hard body she’d been admiring since yesterday.

Mark assisted and pulled the shirt over his head then he started undoing the buttons in the bodice of her dress before slipping the straps off her shoulders. He kept his eyes locked with hers as he slowly and deliberately eased the dress down the length of her slim brown body, taking her bra and panties with it. When the warm breeze kissed her naked flesh, bringing her alive with an unmistakable fever, Amber knew they’d reached the point of no return.

She watched silently in a transfixed state as Mark removed his slacks and underwear. Amber gazed at his magnificent, wonderful nakedness as he bent over her, silhouetted against the golden sunset. She never knew a man could look so beautiful, so virile.

“We’ll take this very slowly,” he said, gazing deeply into her eyes. “It’s my first time, as you know, and I want to remember every nanosecond of it, of you. Your taste, your touch, your smell, your sighs.”

Amber trembled as Mark trailed a finger from the hollow of her belly button to the valley between her breasts. She shuddered when his warm hand cupped the fullness of one breast and squeezed it tenderly. She moaned his name when his lips and tongue caressed the pebbled nipple before sucking more of the swollen mound into his mouth. Waves of rapture crashed over her as he moved from one breast to the other, suckling her like a hungry baby. She cradled his face between her hands, closed her eyes, and let him feast to his heart’s content.

Long moments later, she whimpered in protest as his mouth left her breast with a loud pluck. She opened her eyes to find him gazing at her. Did he change his mind? He couldn’t. Not now. “What?” she asked in a raspy whisper.

He let out the breath he’d been holding. “Good. I took a few condoms from Colby’s room, but I really don’t want to use them. I want to feel your hot wet flesh clasped around me.”

The walls of Amber’s womanhood throbbed at that licentious promise.

He gazed at her more intently, and Amber read the essential question she knew he didn’t want to ask.

“I’m good,” she said, sliding her hands up and down his smooth back. “I took every test in the book when I found out about Josh, and I haven’t been with anyone else. At least he had the good sense to use protection. I’m safe, Mark. I’m healthy. Thank goodness.”

“Thank goodness, indeed.”

He dipped his head again and kissed his way down her body, licking, nibbling, teasing mercilessly, until he came to the core of her womanhood, pulsing with heat and moisture.

Amber thought he would stop there and work his way back up, but he slid his hands under her buttocks, raised her upward and placed the pillow under her.

He held her gaze in the fading evening light. “I want to taste you,” he said then settled his head between her thighs.

Amber’s body was like an earthquake that wouldn’t end as he began to lick her, gently at first, then more urgently and earnestly as he grew braver, more confident, from the sounds and fluids escaping her. He lapped at her, kissed the most intimate part of her body like no other man had ever done before. His tongue was strong and sure as he pushed her higher and higher, deeper and deeper into the chasm of endless pleasure.

She felt his finger slide inside her at the same moment his lips clamped around the powerhouse of her femininity and his tongue began to entertain her little sensitized bud. The pit of her stomach churned as she felt passion rising in her like the hottest fire, clouding her brain, enveloping her entire being. Closer and closer, he pushed her toward the precipice of lustful gratification.

Amber screamed her climax into the night, and as the waves carried her passion cries across the ocean, Mark kept his mouth clasped to her until she collapsed against the pillow, completely sated and drenched in sweat.

“Look at me,” he said, moments later.

Amber opened her eyes and her heart ached at the flaming hunger she saw in his dark brown eyes where the flame of lust burned affluently.

“I didn’t know a woman could look so beautiful when she came. The way your body tightens, your mouth opens, and your eyes roll back in their sockets, is just indescribable.”

“You like what you saw then?” Amber asked, surprised she had no shred of embarrassment at his words.

“I like what I see now.”

“Are you sure you’re a virgin?” she asked. “Because the way you just feasted on me… Well, it surpassed my expectations from a man who has never been with a woman.”

“I read a lot,” he explained as he spread her thighs further apart. “And I wouldn’t be a virgin much longer.” He held her gaze as he positioned his hard smooth flesh against her wet, and still quivering softness.

They both sucked in their breaths at the initial contact.

Amber bucked when he thrust forward and breached the gate to her garden of delight.

Mark leaned forward, supporting his weight on his arms and pushed a little deeper. A loud groan escaped him as her slick flesh parted in open welcome. “Not a virgin anymore,” he said, holding her gaze.

Amber licked her lip as her heart swelled with a fiery need she never knew she had.

Lowering his head, Mark captured her mouth at the same time he pulled back his hips and thrust forcefully forward. He whispered her name as he buried himself completely to the hilt inside her. He stretched out fully on her and remained still, giving her time to get used to him.

Their erratic breaths were somehow in unison.

Amber gasped and clutched Mark’s arms as her inner muscles quivered and contracted in a desperate attempt to accommodate the enormous size and power of the man who’d claimed her. Her body trembled beneath him as an agonizing bliss began to take hold of her. She felt filled, yet hungry for more of this gloriously wonderful sensation.

Mark raised his head. “You, alright?” His smile was one of pure bliss, like a kid on Christmas morning who’d gotten exactly what he’d asked for.

“Oh yeah,” Amber said as she felt him flex inside her. “I’m al… Ahh… she cried as Mark began to move slowly and carefully inside her.

“You feel so… exquisite, Amber. So wet and hot and tight,” he whispered gazing deeply into her eyes. “And I’m sorry, but I’m not going to last long,” he warned as his thrusts suddenly picked up speed and depth. He buried his head against her neck, folded his arms about her body and dragged her along with him into a spinning cyclone of carnal euphoria.

His solid thrusts, the harsh groans coming from his throat, and his hot breath against her neck, ignited the flames inside Amber again, and she wrapped her arms and legs around him and began to match him thrust for thrust, groan for groan. The world melted around them as their slick bodies became one in the most intimate waltz of time.

Amber felt herself drowning, losing consciousness as the turbulence of Mark’s lovemaking swirled around her, enveloping her in the swift tide of fervent desire. She held him as she would a life raft as they neared the peak of precipitous ecstasy.

“Come with me,” Amber whispered. She didn’t want to crash alone.

“Yes, baby. With you.”

Mark tensed above her, and as both their bodies tightened in astounding bliss, he screamed her name out loud then collapsed on top of her.

They exploded together, lost in a floodtide of dark passion.

The sounds of their hearts beating and their sighs of complete satisfaction drowned out those of the waves lapping against the shore.