Chapter 45
Scarlett
December
“There’s something I need you to put on your calendar,” Cormac says a week later, grabbing his morning mug of coffee.
“What kind of something?” I ask, leaning on the counter, bracing for something I may not like.
“The St. Boudin MS Fundraiser Gala.” He stares into the mug, like he’s uncomfortable.
“I volunteered at their clinic for a few months when my mother was admitted there for her MS. They’re giving me a recognition plaque.
Do-gooder doctor of the year award.” His jaw tightens like the words taste strange.
“Oh.” My stomach tightens.
Pierce dragged me to that fundraiser last fall. He goes every year.
Cormac finally meets my eyes, and his expression tells me he senses I’m trying to dodge.
“I want you there with me. You’re my wife.”
“Crowds make me jumpy,” I mumble. “And with the end of the semester right around the corner, I have papers to finish and finals to—”
“Scarlett,” Cormac interrupts, gentle but immovable. “It’s a few hours. I need you there with me. Please.”
That confession gets me. Sighing, I say, “Okay.”
He takes a sip of coffee. “Do you have something to wear?”
I start to say no, then remember the dress rolled into a ball at the bottom of my duffel. The one I almost left in Pierce’s apartment. The gown he bought me for last year’s fundraiser. Black, open back, slinky, daring. The pig wanted to show me off as his prize.
Showing up in it this year as Mrs. O’Rourke? Oh, that would burn Pierce to ash.
“Yeah,” I say lightly. “I have a dress.”
Cormac nods, satisfied. “Good. It’s Saturday.”
“Saturday,” I repeat. My pulse jumps, but I force a smile.
“Thank you, baby.” His eyes turn molten. “Now get your naked ass in the shower.”
I slip into the apartment late Saturday afternoon with the dry-cleaning bag. There is no way I want Cormac to know I wore this dress last year.
I tiptoe through the apartment, passing his office, pause, and listen.
His keyboard clicks with steady, controlled taps. The blue sticky on the door signals it’s work for our class, so he’s not to be disturbed.
I reach the bedroom and tear the plastic open with shaky fingers. The black gown spills out. I see this dress now with different eyes. It’s the kind of dress that makes men fight over who gets to have it on their floor.
Second-guessing myself, I regret this decision. But it’s too late now. I literally have nothing else suitable for a gala.
I jump, feeling Cormac standing behind me in the closet, close enough that his heat melts down my spine. Warm breath ghosts across the side of my neck.
“Turn around,” he murmurs, lips grazing that spot just beneath my ear. It’s the spot that always makes me lose track of what I was doing.
My pulse leaps. Like he knows I’ve done something I shouldn’t. I’m going to wear a radioactive dress and blow us up.
“Cutting it close, aren’t you, wife?” Calling me his wife drenches my panties.
I spin too fast, almost tangling myself in the dress. Cormac looks at it, then back at me.
His gaze catches all the openness of it. The elegant plunge that’ll kiss the curve of my lower spine.
Jaw tightened, he says, “I don’t like all your skin on display.”
I step closer. “You’re an O’Rourke. Irish Mob royalty. No one’s going to look at me the wrong way tonight.”
His brows lift with just a hint of amused disbelief. “Is that right?”
“Uh-huh,” I whisper, even though my stomach is doing somersaults. “Because they’ll be too busy fearing you.”
The tension in his shoulders loosens, but only a little. His hand skims up my arm, warm, possessive in a way that makes me melt.
Then he pulls back just enough to show me what he had hidden behind his back.
“I bought you something,” he says, producing a flat, square velvet box.
“What did you buy?” I pitch my voice, excited.
He paid my tuition. Bought me clothes. He gave me a place to live and a driver. He buys all my food. But those are necessities. This is a gift. Something he had to think about. And that has my heart pounding even more.
He opens the case, and a string of chocolate diamonds shimmer. The necklace is delicate, elegant, and expensive enough to give me hives.
It’s not lost on me that it’s a choker. He’s collaring me.
“It matches your eyes,” he says, but his gaze is on my throat. On the pulse he once kissed in the dark when he had no idea I’d be his student a month later, and his wife a few months after that. “And it will keep men’s eyes where they belong,” he says.
“And where do I belong?” I ask, breath catching.
“Beside me,” he murmurs. “Under me.”
There’s a warning in his touch. I belong to him. Don’t forget it.
His fingers trace my nape as he presses them against my skin. For a moment, I can’t breathe. All I feel is his fingers brushing my throat. That look in Cormac’s eyes makes me feel like a goddess. Will he still look at me like that when I come home wrecked from a long day of work, in messy scrubs?
I swallow. Hard. “It’s beautiful.”
Too beautiful. I’m a scrappy MS-3. Not an ornament.
“You’re beautiful.” He kisses the side of my neck, then takes another small box out of his pocket. “I got matching cufflinks. According to the jeweler, it signals that we’re paired.” His breath touches my cheek. Warm. Controlled. Hungry. “Bonded. Mine.”
I swallow, the gravity of what it means giving me goosebumps.
“I need to shower, do my hair and makeup. This bedroom is going to be a war room soon.”
Cormac places a kiss on my lips and exits my closet to grab his tux. “I’ll get ready in my son’s room.”
His son… It warms me when he says that. The man does possession like a champion.
Watching him leave, my gaze on his muscular shoulders and backside, heat rolls through me. Low, molten, dangerous.
When I emerge from the bedroom ninety minutes later, I’m stunned at how he looks. I’ve seen him naked, in scrubs covered in blood, his professor garb, but this… A sharp tux runs a close second to naked.
Aw, who am I kidding? It’s a four-way tie. With naked as the frontrunner.
“You look damn beautiful,” he says quietly, the necklace glinting between his fingers. “Come here, wife.”
He steps behind me, and my breath immediately sticks in my throat. I lift my hair without him asking.
His knuckles brush the back of my neck as he drapes the string of diamonds over my skin. “Hold still,” he murmurs.
As if I could move. As if my knees aren’t betraying me.
The clasp clicks, but his hands linger. Thumbs sweep along the sides of my throat. Possessive. Protective. Claiming. He exhales against my shoulder, and I feel it all the way down my spine. “You are so fucking mine.”
“Are you hard?” I push my ass into his hips.
“When I touch you? I’m immediately hard.” He scoops an arm around my waist, holding me in place as he firmly arches his pelvis into my backside, showing me just how hard he is.
I practically swoon with lust.
“We have a long night.” I grip my purse and clack my tongue against the roof of my mouth. “But if you need a quickie, we can do it in the lounge.”
“I have the best fucking wife in the world,” he says, and steers me out of our apartment.