Spoiler Alert (Spoiler Alert #1)(63)

“April.” His other hand was squeezing her hip in a possessive hold. “April.”

When he shifted beneath her, she cried out, the bolt of pleasure between her thighs unexpected. Despite her weight, he was lifting his hips beneath her in shallow, short thrusts, fucking her from below as she clutched his thighs, his lifted knees, anything she could take hold of. Fuck, he was so strong, so hard within her, swelling and somehow pressing deeper, rubbing her inside and out, and his thumb—

The pressure burst, and she was making loud, harsh sounds, clenching around him again and again, heedless of anything but how fucking good he felt moving inside her, still circling her clit, levering himself up to kiss her hard before he fell back again and bucked his hips and shouted and shook.

He kept his hand on her until the end, coaxing every last twitch from her sated flesh. When she slid to the side, reluctantly parting from him to collapse boneless onto the mattress, he cupped her cheek and kissed her softly and sweetly. He tasted like her. His fingers were still slick with her.

That touch, that unhurried kiss were a statement, she knew, made silently and immediately, before she had even a moment to wonder and worry.

He repeated that statement after they both made quick trips to her bathroom, with the way he immediately climbed back into bed and cuddled close, encasing her with all four limbs in a way she would soon find smothering but welcomed for now. He was stroking her back in long sweeps, murmuring in her ear about how fucking hot it was to watch her riding him, how the sounds she made when she came pushed him into his own orgasm just as much as the feel of her squeezing him, how next time he was going to make her fall apart with his mouth alone.

They were all welcome words, but not his actual message.

He didn’t need to say it aloud. She heard anyway.

This wasn’t just a fuck.

I love your body.

I’m not going anywhere.





SHARKPHOON

INT. OVAL OFFICE – NOON

DR. BRADEN FIN stands with GIRL IN BIKINI #3 before the president, his tight swim briefs covered only by his white lab coat, both still splattered with the blood of his fallen, chomped-upon colleague. He’s also wearing safety glasses and a look of grief and determination. The president is staring up at him, steely-eyed, elbows on her desk, fingers steepled.





PRESIDENT FOOLWORTH


You’re wasting my time. This is no emergency.





BRADEN


Madam President, it is. You don’t understand. The typhoon is so powerful, the sharks so enormous, nowhere is safe. Not our aircraft carriers. Not our nuclear facilities. Not even here, with the Reflecting Pool so close to the White—





PRESIDENT FOOLWORTH


(smiling coldly)

The Mariana Trench is a continent away. You’re dismissed.

A gust of wind and the sound of breaking glass. A shark crashes through the Oval Office windows and bites the president in half, then gulps down the other half too and disappears out the same window in pursuit of other victims.

Girl in Bikini #3 lays a consoling hand on his arm.





GIRL IN BIKINI #3


You tried to tell her.

Shaking his head sadly, he puts his arm around her and goes back to work.





18


IN THE END, APRIL ORDERED YET MORE TAKEOUT FOR dinner—steamed chicken and vegetables for Marcus, red curry with shrimp and rice for herself—and he accepted her invitation to stay the night. Cuddled together on the couch, they binge-watched an old season of his favorite British baking show until it was much too late, before finally stumbling back to her bedroom.

There, they rested on their sides in her bed, naked, legs entwined, face-to-face in the blackout-curtained dimness of her room, only the distant glow of a bathroom nightlight illuminating their expressions.

With one hand he held hers. With the other he played with a strand of her hair. For a first-time sleepover as a couple, the silence between them was surprisingly comfortable. Not strained, or full of unspoken tension and awkwardness.

Still, she was going to break that silence and possibly make things awkward.

The question might seem less fraught in the darkness, though. At least, she hoped so. “Marcus?”

“Yes?” He sounded remarkably awake, given his efforts that day. Against her kitchen counter, of course. In bed. Then, just an hour or so ago, with him kneeling on the floor of her living room, her legs draped over his shoulders as she reclined on the blanket-covered couch and clutched a throw pillow and moaned and came so hard against his eager, inventive mouth, she wanted to bronze his tongue. But only after she was finished with it, naturally.

“Do you ever worry . . .” she began.

She paused. Brushed an exploratory fingertip along that elegant cheekbone, down that slightly battered nose, along that famously sharp jaw.

“Do I ever worry about what?” The prompt was encouraging, rather than impatient.

The whorl of his ear was warm under her fingertip, the skin of his earlobe soft. She tried her best to memorize the feel of both, even as he turned his head to kiss her palm.

Millions of people could recognize him under the blinding lights of a red carpet. But if she touched him like this long enough, maybe she’d be able to recognize him even in the darkness, by feel alone, in a way that made him uniquely hers.