Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Hallie
I t’d taken everything in me to not look at Marcus when we’d been in the club earlier. But I’d relished knowing he could see me from where he’d sat, a glass tumbler his only company. I’d closed my eyes as the music vibrated through my chest, hoping he’d been watching me dance, my body moving in sync with those around me. The thought of him watching me had only been amplified by the thought of him having me. And pure, undiluted excitement had coursed through my veins.
Now, I’m perched on the edge of the bed, heels still on, my face hovering over the phone grasped between my palms. Unlike most hotels I’ve stayed in over the years, this one actually seems to have soundproofing because I can’t hear anything besides the relentless pounding of my own heart.
I give myself a five-second countdown before I check my appearance in the bedroom mirror for a final time. I dim the lights, leaving the curtains in front of the window open, the bright lights of Vegas sending a glow of its own into the room. Needing a distraction, I turn the TV on, but it’s obnoxiously loud. I turn it off, and the silence of the space somehow feels louder still. And so I pace, just a little, in front of the door.
I don’t have to wait long before a gentle knock taps out, and I’m on it in a flash.
The door opens on a smirking Marcus.
“Room service, ma’am,” he says with a little bow of his head. He’s such a fool.
He barely has the words out of his mouth before I pull on his shirtsleeve and drag him inside the room, where I lock the door behind us.
My heart is racing a million miles an hour as I turn to Marcus.
Panic must be written all over my face because his grin grows, the dimple in his left cheek beginning to show. His whole stupid face is alight with mischief, displaying nothing but his pleasure in this situation.
It’s now and only now that it occurs to me that I’ve just dragged this man into a bedroom, and I’m not quite sure what to do with him next.
Obviously, I don’t mean sex. I know how sex works. We have done the sex. Beds, however, were not part of this deal.
A soft vibration sounds from my hand, and I find my phone lighting up with a call from Erica. Fuck. I answer it even as I turn to move back toward the hotel room door, the door Marcus is currently leaning against. His eyes glint with mirth.
My panic spikes.
I face him, heart pounding in my chest.
Thankfully, Erica doesn’t wait for any acknowledgment on my part before asking, “Hal, are you still in the suite?”
The proverbial cat releases my tongue, and I’m able to reply, “No. I was feeling a little jittery, so I decided to take a walk back down to the casino.”
A beat passes. “Oh. Okay.”
Marcus makes a move to step toward me, looking like a man who’s up to no good, so I hold a hand up to stop his progress, and he has the audacity to pout. I roll my eyes in response since having him touch me won’t help in the creation of cohesive sentences.
“I won’t be long. I just need to work off a little more energy. I’ll see you in the morning?” I ask, hoping she simply takes the hint and goes back to bed.
“Okay, babe. Sleep well.”
I sigh in relief. At least I’m getting lucky in this sense.
“You too,” I say, taking a few steps back, then collapsing onto the bed. I throw my phone to the side before pressing my hands over my face.
I strain to hear any other sound in the room before I peek through my fingers. I make eye contact with Marcus, who’s peering down at me. The cuffs of his white shirt are rolled up, the top button undone, and a pang of desire curls through me.
“You okay there?”
“Yep. I’m just peachy.” My words are muffled, my hands still covering part of my mouth.
My mind’s in overdrive, skipping ahead and thinking about what we’re doing in this room and planning the logistics. Every scriptwriter who’s ever set a sex scene in Vegas would be completely appalled with my lack of spontaneity.
But I don’t want to have sex on the floor.
One of us will end up with carpet burn, the desk’s likely to break, and the thought of standing and bending is not what I see myself doing in the next hour or two.
Which leaves the bed.
And I don’t care if I was the one who put “no beds” on the list.
Having sex on his couch, fooling around at the tailors—none of that was an issue. But what I want from him tonight, what I want from this? Fucking on the ground, isn’t it.
Marcus gently pulls my hands away from my face. I could pretend to resist, but who am I kidding? I don’t want to.
“I feel like I just snuck a boy into my parents’ house. I’m too old to feel like this.”
“To feel like what?” he asks, taking my change of subject and running with it as he sits next to me on the bed.
The bed we’re not meant to be sharing in any sense of the word.
I don’t bother to sit up as I answer him. “To feel like my heart is about to burst out of my chest because I’m nervous about being ‘busted’ with you here.”
“I don’t know about you, but I kind of hope I don’t ever grow out of the heart-racing age.”
The thought that he ever felt that way about me, that he might feel this way about me, now stokes a fire inside me. The urge to place a hand—both hands—and my goddamn ear over his heart to hear, feel, or see the evidence that he might have such a reaction toward me is almost overwhelming.
I sit up next to him, planting my hands firmly beneath my thighs to prevent their wandering. “That makes me feel a little better.”
“I missed you tonight,” Marcus says into the now-quiet room.
I turn to look at him so quickly that my hair flies across my face. Regardless of the small, playful smile gracing his lips, he’s earnest. The last remaining wall in my defense against all that he is cracks.
“You missed me?” I ask, enthralled with the thought.
“It seems so,” he replies evenly, brushing the hair off my cheek and tucking it behind my ear.
Marcus doesn’t look unhappy about his admission but also doesn’t seem to know what to do with the information now that it’s out there.
Personally, I’m still stunned to have heard the words at all.
“Huh.” The small sound of disbelief leaves me before I can think better of it. “Interesting thing, since I missed you too.”
I rub my palm against my chest absently. I had missed him, it’s true, and my mind can’t help skipping ahead to imagine what it’d be like if I left again on a more permanent basis. Today, missing him had been a mild niggling, a sensation that, if left long enough, would become a deep ache. An ache I’d felt before and wasn’t looking to feel again. It was another reason to stay, to at least try.
But Marcus hasn’t asked about what’s next, about what happens when I leave. If I leave. If I want to stay. It’s on the tip of my tongue to bring it up now, to tell him about my plans and how I’m up for changing them. That I’m selling the house, giving myself the chance to trial a fresh start here. Maybe. I’m still full of too much pride to stay where I’m not wanted.
“I’m done with our rules,” I say instead, the words simply falling out.
Marcus smirks at me. “Works for me. I’m generally not a fan of rules.”
“You helped come up with them.”
“And I couldn’t care less,” Marcus counters, invading my personal space, his legs brushing mine. Still sitting on the edge of the bed, he moves toward me, running his hands from my elbows, up my biceps, and over my shoulders to trace the sensitive skin of my neck.
“We scrap the rules, then?” I ask on a gasp as goose bumps explode down my arms and across my chest, my craving for his touch reaching a crescendo.
“If that’s what you want,” he replies, his attention very obviously elsewhere.
Caressing my jaw, he gets close enough to kiss, but instead of his lips touching mine, they gently brush across my cheek and around the shell of my ear in the most subtle of touches, and that’s it. I’m done for. My arms move of their own accord, wrapping around his neck, so I’m able to press my heated lips against his.
I manage to pull myself away from him for just a moment.
“It’s what I want,” I reply steadily, sure of myself, sure of this. I run my fingertips along his cheek. “Is it what you want?”
I know without the invisible boundary of the truce to keep us in check, things are likely to get messy. I have questions, there are things we need to talk about, and before I tell him I’m going to stay, I need to know we can wade our way through the past.
Together.
Marcus shifts before me. He brings the tips of my fingers to his mouth, where he nips on them gently, his eyes on mine as I wait for him to respond.
“I. Want. You.”
The next breath I take catches in my throat. They’re words I’ve longed to hear.
I want you.
The words rage through me like an inferno, setting my cells alight until I can no longer be still. Twining my fingersinto Marcus’s hair, I take his lips once more, our kiss deep and slow, pulling at a desperate ache low within me.
Settling his hands on my hips, he pulls me over his thighs, so I’m straddling him on the edge of the bed, and he traces clever fingers up and down my spine. Our bodies move together in a mesh of sensation as we make out. He knows my love of being touched, how much I need it, and he doesn’t hold back. And it’s only once my lips are swollen, breath coming in small pants, that I reach down, pulling my silk camisole up and over my head. Then I unclip my strapless bra, both items falling to the floor.
I’m warm, my insides stoked with pleasure as Marcus’s eyes roam over my freshly bared body. It’s not the first time he’s seen me topless, not even close, but every time his eyes land on me, my heart never fails to race. I can’t help but secretly hope it never changes.
He sucks his lower lip in, white teeth pressing down into the soft flesh.
“I do love this little guy,” he growls out.
The small serpent rests protectively, close to all that’s vital. Marcus traces the heavy swells of my breasts with his thumbs, around the finely detailed ink of my tattoo, and over the tips of my nipples.
“I think you’re growing on him too,” I rasp.
His caress goes from teasing to firm. He grips my hips, his hands slipping under my thighs. He lifts us both, turns, then comes back down to the bed, this time with me beneath him.
“Do you know how long I’ve waited for this?” His voice is a gruff whisper against my skin.
It’s all I can do to simply nod in some nonsensical confirmation that, yes, I know exactly how long he’s waited. Because while we might have been here before, while we might’ve performed this act, it hasn’t been like this—not in a bed, not with such vulnerability.
Not without a single thing between us.
Marcus might’ve been a sight to behold with the cuffs of his white dress shirt rolled up—the absolute definition of forearm porn—but as he stands to his full height, toeing off his shoes and unbuttoning his shirt, swaths of golden skin are unveiled before me, and it takes all my self-restraint to remain a simple spectator.
“See something you like?” he asks with a quirk of an eyebrow.
“Yes.” I release the word on an unintentionally breathy pant.
At any other time, I would’ve been concerned by the blatant want and desire displayed through a single syllable, but I’m no longer that woman. That concern is no longer mine.
A deep chuckle is the only response I get as my eyes track down Marcus’s body, keeping tabs on his hands as they move to his belt, the sound of the leather and buckle doing indecent things to me. A button is popped, a zipper scrapes, and then he’s pushing down his pants, taking his briefs along with them.
My mouth waters at the sight of him, long and hard and deliciously mine.
There’s no stopping me. I reach for him with my entire body, and thankfully, he doesn’t deny me. Doesn’t try to play with me in that way. I don’t think I could take it.
His eyes track mine as he braces himself over me on the large bed. Whatever he sees has his face softening for just a moment. He brings his thumb to my bottom lip, rubbing it back and forth. Then he takes my lips with his.
His attention moves to my skirt and the slow slide of the leather down my thighs, leaving only a small scrap of lilac lace between us.
“You are beyond beautiful.” Marcus’s voice is rough and full of masculine appreciation as he brushes a single finger from my collarbone to the delicate trim of my panties.
I believe his words, my insides filling with a warm glow as he touches me so reverently. I want this last bit of material between us off and away, but I’m hesitant to interrupt the joy Marcus is finding in my unwrapping.
“Touch me, please,” I beg quietly, knowing he won’t refuse my request.
“I am touching you.”
It’s true. He hasn’t stopped touching me. His hands have barely left me, his eyes so set on mine that I’m sure he can see straight through me. But I want more than the exploring touches we’ve traded so far, and I have no shame in nudging him forward, placing one of his hands on the lace covering where I ache for him so desperately.
“I need you inside me,” I whisper.
I can feel the blush that begins to encompass me at the words.
Marcus’s eyes spark, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat as he swallows at my softly spoken desire.
“You want me here?” he murmurs, dragging blunt nails over what I can guess is incredibly damp lace.
“Yesss,” I hiss.
He moves back and forth over my clit, the friction of the lace shooting pleasure through me. Curling my fingers into the sheets, I gasp as sensations gather, low and hot, in my belly.
“Right here, Hallie?”
He presses a long, thick finger against where I’m weeping for him through the fabric. Arching my hips up toward his hand, I’d do anything for him to be inside me, to ease the aching emptiness within me.
A sound of absolute desperation leaves my lips.
“Please, Marcus. Please,” I beg again, too far gone to care.
“Shhh, beautiful girl. Okay. Okay. Do you still want this? Do you still want me bare?”
And I know no matter what my answer is, it’ll be okay.
“Yes.” I gasp the word, rocking against him as he brings his lips to my now-damp forehead, the kiss he plants there a small but beautiful show of affection.