Chapter Nine
The sounds of coughing and the bed moving is what wakes me up. The room is dark, so it can’t be later than five in the morning. I immediately reach for Marissa hoping she’s getting back in bed and not the other way around when I see her moving towards her suitcase in the corner and pulling a sweatshirt over her tiny pajamas. She coughs again and pads into the bathroom and I’m out of bed after her instantly.
“You okay?” I ask her, as she splashes some water on her face.
“I…I think I’m sick.” She groans. “I always catch something when the seasons change and the drastic change yesterday and not sleeping much the night before and wearing open-toe shoes, I think my immune system is just fucked.” She coughs again. “I’m okay though. I can go lay on the couch. I don’t want to get you sick.”
“Absolutely the fuck not,” I tell her. “Get back in bed.” I pick up the phone in the bathroom to call downstairs. She starts to protest but when I point towards the bed, she huffs and leaves the bathroom to go slide under the sheets.
The concierge answers after two rings. “Hello, Mr. Holt, what can I help you with?”
“Can I get some cold medicine, pain reliever, some tea with honey, and some chicken soup please?”
“Sir…unfortunately soup isn’t on our late-night or our early breakfast menu, may I suggest—”
“Find some then,” I snap and I hear Marissa gasp from the bed.
“Chris!” she croaks and her voice sounds raspy. Then she blows her nose. “Be nice.”
“Listen, my girlfriend is sick. Can you please make an exception?” I ask, feeling bad for the attitude I gave the concierge. I just hate seeing Marissa like this, especially after last night when she was already feeling like shit. We had sex last night and it was incredible, but I almost felt like she was holding back a little. The air had shifted slightly due to that old bastard and I hated it. I’d eaten her to two orgasms and had her come on my dick and I still felt the small wall she’d put up.
“Very well, sir. The late-night kitchen might be able to accommodate. Give us about twenty minutes.”
“Thank you.” I hang up the phone and move back towards her. She’d pulled her hood over her head but I can tell she’s shivering because there isn’t anything on her bare legs. I go to my suitcase to pull out a pair of sweatpants and move back towards the bed. Moving the covers to the side, I grab one of her feet. She gasps as I slide my sweatpants up her cold legs and pull the drawstring as tight as possible but they still look like she’s drowning in them.
“Thank you,” she says and I climb in next to her and bring her closer to me.
“Can I do anything?”
“I’m okay. The tea and the medicine will help.” She bites her bottom lip. “That was really sweet.”
I rub her arm gently as I watch the fatigue settle back over her features. “What are the chances I can take you to my penthouse tonight and you stay there with me?”
She rubs her nose before scrunching it. “Why?”
“So, I can take care of you. You absolutely do not need to come in to work tomorrow.”
“Chris, it’s my second week. If we weren’t sleeping together, you’d be ready to fire me for calling in sick during my second week.”
“I’m going to let the slight belittling of our relationship by saying we are just sleeping together go for now. Marissa, you are sick.”
“I’ll be fine. It’s just a cold and the first day is always the toughest. I’ll be fine by Monday.”
“Will you still stay with me tonight anyway?”
“I don’t have any clothes for work,” she offers and I want to tell her she shouldn’t even be thinking about work but I shake my head.
“I have a shopper; I’ll pick something up for you,” I counter.
“You think of everything, huh?” she says as I watch her eyes start to close. “I’m too tired to argue right now.” She turns to her back and lets her eyes flutter closed.
I touch her forehead and while I’m not an expert, I don’t think she’s warm. “I don’t think you have a fever.”
“No, I don’t think so either,” she says. “Just a cold, like I said.” She sniffles and pulls the covers up to her neck. “I’ll think about coming over,” she whispers, her eyes still closed. “But I want to go home and get my car so I can drive to work Monday and that way I can get some clothes.”
“Your parents won’t have a bunch of questions about where you’re staying?”
“They absolutely will.” She laughs before letting out another few coughs. “But I’m twenty-one. I don’t have to ask for permission to do things. As long as I let them know I won’t be home, they’ll be fine.”
“Then I should probably meet your dad when I bring you home.” The thought makes me nervous, but I figure I’ll have to do it at some point so I might as well get it over with sooner than later.
“That’s a no.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m his little princess and believe me, the first time you meet my dad does not need to be as you’re taking me home for a sleepover.”
“Fine,” I relent, because one step at a time I guess, and she seems like she’s leaning towards staying with me tonight.
“And even if the circumstances were different, it feels really early to be bringing our families into this. You met my mother by accident.”
Several minutes later, I hear a tapping on the door and I get up to grab what I ordered, pleased that it got here so quickly. A lady wheels in the small serving cart complete with the tea, medicine, and soup as well as orange juice, dry toast, and ginger ale, and I’m somewhat impressed that they even added a few things despite their initial reluctance. I thank her before pushing it into the bedroom towards Marissa’s side of the bed and she turns her head to look at me. “That was fast.”
“It helps to be a VIP,” I tell her as I sit next to her. She sits up and I hand her the cold medicine that she takes with a sip of orange juice. I finish making her tea and when I hand it to her she’s staring at me. “What?”
“I just…I can’t believe that there’s a woman out there who doesn’t appreciate you,” she whispers quietly as I hand her the mug. She wraps her hands around it and blows gently before taking a slow sip. “I’m sure that must bother you.”
“Not as much as it used to.” I shrug. “In the beginning, yes. I couldn’t understand why we just couldn’t seem to get along. We were a year into our marriage and arguing all the time and it seemed like nothing made her happy. Once I realized who she really was it more bothered me that I’d let myself get so sucked in. Some would say I got married too fast, I guess.” She purses her lips and a frown crosses her face like she wants to say something. “What?”
“I’m just wondering if that is kind of your pattern? I mean…you haven’t known me that long and you’ve already said you want to marry me.”
“That’s different.”
She takes a slow sip of her tea while avoiding my gaze before setting it on her nightstand. “How?
“I know what I want now and what I most definitely don’t want. I didn’t then. Once you’ve had the wrong one, you know how different it feels to find the right one.”
Marissa seems much better when she wakes up. She isn’t coughing nearly as much but I can still hear it in her voice. She sleeps the majority of the way back to Philly and though I feel bad waking her, I’m not sure where we landed on her spending another night with me and I need time to convince her if necessary.
I want another night with her.
Want all of them if I’m being honest.
I know she’s still feeling off about the interaction with Blackwell and I want to show her it won’t always be like that. That although there is this elephant in the room, she won’t be forced to look at it all the time.
My hand hasn’t left her leg for the majority of the drive and when we are about twenty minutes out, I squeeze it gently, shaking her awake. She stirs and blinks her eyes at me sleepily before darting her eyes back to the road and then back to me. “How far away are we?”
“About twenty minutes.” She nods before pulling the mirror down and wiping under her eyes. “Stay with me tonight.” It comes out more like a statement than a question.
“I feel much better than I did last night.”
“Still. I need another night.”
She purses her lips and narrows her eyes like she’s thinking about it. “We can’t be up late.”
I nod my head rapidly in agreement. “I can commit to an early bedtime.”
“Can you?” She raises an eyebrow at me. “Because you seem to get a second wind around two in the morning.”
“It’s not the time. It’s you rubbing your body against me in your sleep.” I smirk at her and I can see the grin lurking behind her annoyed expression. I think she’s about to respond when her phone starts to ring.
I watch as she narrows her eyes at it like she’s not sure if she’s going to answer it but I watch as she slides her finger across the screen where the word Mother is displayed.
“Helloooo?” she says. “Probably in about twenty minutes or so. Why, Mother?” she says, and then her eyes widen before she squeezes them shut.
FUCK . I watch her mouth.
“Mom, that’s really not necessary.” She looks at me with a worried expression. “Because it’s new and I don’t want you all scaring him off. I am not ready for that.” I don’t know what’s being said on the other side but I wonder if I’m about to walk into something we may not be ready for. “Nothing in our family is a quick hello!” she huffs. “Ten minutes in what world?! Is Aunt Theresa there?” She nods. “Of course, she is. Mom, for once can you just…not?” She pinches the bridge of her nose and I can see the anxiety all over her face. Though I’m not exactly calm over the idea of meeting what sounds like a number of Marissa’s extended family, I rub her leg gently. When her eyes meet mine, I give her a smile that I hope conveys that everything will be okay.
“I’m good with families,” I tell her quietly and she sighs.
“Ten minutes, Mother. I mean it.” I haven’t heard anything from the other side of the call the entire time they were talking but I hear the response to that which is a loud cheer causing Marissa to pull her phone away from her ear.
“Do not eat or drink anything they offer you,” she says when she hangs up the phone.
“Well, that’s rude.”
“That’s how they get you!”
“I feel like that’s a little insulting. How much of your family is there?”
“Probably just my parents and my uncle and aunt.”
“Not your siblings?” I’m not sure if her siblings will be just as intimidating as meeting her parents, but I figure it couldn’t hurt to have someone closer to my age in the mix.
“No,” I shake my head. “They’re both always working. I think it bothers my parents that they don’t make more time for them. Maybe that’s why I have it so easy.” She shrugs. “They really don’t want me to leave. They loved it when I was away at college but now that I’m older they like having me around. Honestly, I think they just like having a live-in designated driver.” She shakes her head. “Okay, I was not prepared for this. I really was going to have you drop me off down the street but you can’t do that now, can you? You won over my mom easy enough. My dad is…” She puts a finger to her temple and continues to ramble. I’m not even sure if she’s talking to herself or to me at this point. “I don’t even know how to prepare you for this. Just don’t let him rattle you. He can smell fear and if my uncle is there it’s just going to rile him up.”
“Babe, I can handle it. It’ll be okay,” I tell her, and although I’m a little bit worried myself, part of me believes it.
Her eyes dart to my left hand that’s on the steering wheel and I know what she’s looking for. “I haven’t worn my wedding ring in years. You think I’ve been wearing it this weekend?” I shoot her an incredulous look.
“No, I know. I guess it was just a knee-jerk reaction to check.”
I nod before changing the subject. “Do you want them to know I’m technically your boss, or are we skirting around that?”
“I’m fairly certain you showing up to my house in a Maserati debunks the belief that you’re just my co-worker with the same entry-level salary.” She points at the Rolex on my wrist. “That certainly doesn’t help.”
“Is this your way of asking for a raise?” She glares at me and I smile. “I do have some pull you know.”
She puts a hand up. “Now is really not the time.”
“Will your parents have a problem with it?”
She bites her bottom lip and I’m reminded that I haven’t really kissed her in several hours. I’d given her a few gentle pecks this morning but she hadn’t let me deepen it so I wouldn’t get sick. “I don’t know. I’ve never been in this situation. Maybe if I tell them that we met at the wedding and that this is all just a coincidence they may back off about it for now. They shouldn’t really give you a hard time about it. They’ll save that for me later.”
“Will they have a problem with my age?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “You look like you could be anywhere between thirty and your actual age and being only nine years older than me isn’t that big of a deal. My brother is about ten years older than my sister-in-law.”
“But you’re the baby.” I smirk as if to say, the rules are probably very different for you.
“They won’t sweat that,” she says. “My parents are…somehow both a little old fashioned and what they believe to be cool at the same time.”
I nod, understanding somewhat because her parents seem so much different than my mother. “Okay, anything else?” I ask her, wanting to make a good impression.
“No…” She winces. “If I coach you too much, they’ll know. They can sniff out bullshit pretty easily. Just be yourself I guess.” She smiles at me. “The annoying part about all of this, is that they’ll probably like you.”
“Annoying part?” I can’t deny that it makes me happy that she thinks that her parents will like me. She doesn’t answer, she just shoots me a sideways glance before rolling her eyes. I’m about to respond when my phone begins to ring, resounding through the car and connecting to my Bluetooth which just so happens to flash on the screen on my console.
Holly’s name appears across the screen and even though I press the end call button before it has a chance to ring a second time, I know Marissa sees it and I watch the hurt flash across her face.
“Marissa…” I start and she shakes her head as she looks out the window.
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine.”
“No, it’s really not. It’s fucked up. You are minutes away from meeting my parents and your wife calls you.” She lets out a sigh. “You said she didn’t care what you did.”
“She doesn’t,” I counter.
“She’s calling you after you’ve been gone for two days. That’s a woman who’s wondering where her man is.”
“I am not her—”
“According to the state of Pennsylvania, you are,” she interrupts me with a glare.
“A piece of paper doesn’t mean shit.”
“Except hundreds of millions of dollars,” she snaps and I don’t even know what to say to that. “I’ll make something up. I’ll say you had to go. I don’t want you meeting them.”
I can see her shutting down quickly and I hate it. “What…Marissa, I can at least come in and say hello.”
“No! I don’t need them liking you because that will lead to wanting to have you over for dinner or one of my aunt’s parties or my nieces’ birthdays and that’s not happening. You are not my boyfriend. You can’t be while you’re still someone else’s husband.”
“Then what am I?” I don’t know why I ask because I’m not sure I want to know her answer. I don’t want to know what she considers me to be right now.
“I don’t know, you tell me?”
“Marissa, you already told them I’d come in. I don’t want to be rude to your family and put a bad taste in their mouths for when you are ready to call me your boyfriend,” I tell her. “And make no mistake, at some point, you will be calling me your boyfriend.”
“You can’t possibly be that sure of yourself.”
“I’m not sure about anything except how much I want to be with you.”
She rubs her chest and I watch as the previously hard look on her face softens. “Do you always say the right things?”
“No. And the longer you’re with me, you’ll see that I don’t.”
“I still don’t think the time is right to meet them. I’ll tell them it was my decision.”
“This is really what you want?” I ask her, because I don’t want to do anything that will cause her family to see me in a bad light. I’m already planning our next date and the one after that and the last thing I want is to piss her parents off before I even have the chance to meet them.
She nods. “I’ll come over later. I just…” She trails off. “They’re my parents and I feel wrong letting them meet someone under false pretenses.”
“It’s not false,” I tell her because there is nothing untrue about what I feel for her or what I think she feels for me.
“Fine. Complicated,” she corrects.
I hate the thought that she sees me as complicated even though I understand why. “You promise you’ll say it was all your idea?”
“Swear.” She crosses an x over her heart.
“I don’t want this to come back to bite me in the ass later.”
“If it does, I’ll let you bite mine as a way to say I’m sorry.” She giggles and I can’t stop the instant jerking of my cock in response to the thought of sinking my teeth into her perfect ass.
“I want to do more than bite that ass of yours,” I tell her and she squirms in her seat.
“Oh? Like what.”
I lick my lips. “Eat it, for one. Fuck it, for two.”
“I’ve never done that.”
I nod. “I didn’t think so but I wasn’t sure. You didn’t answer when I asked you last time.”
“You have a big dick.” She fiddles with her hands in her lap.
“Thank you.” I smile cockily and she smacks my arm in response.
“I’m worried about it being…there.”
“We’ll go slow,” I tell her. “I’ll make it feel good for you. I promise to always make it feel good for you.”
Moments later we are pulling up around the corner from her house for her to get out and she stares up at the house that is obviously not hers before letting out a defeated sigh. “You know it’s not about you, right?” She tilts her head to the side without looking at me. “I mean it is but it’s not,” she tries to explain.
“I know,” I tell her. “I get it.” She gets out of the car and I frown, that she does it before I have a chance to open the door for her. I grab her bag out of the trunk and put it on the sidewalk next to her. “So, I can see you later?”
“Text me the address.” She nods before she wraps her arms around me. “I want to see you too.”
I cup her face in my hands and press my lips to hers without another thought. I slide my tongue through her lips without a care in the world that she hasn’t been feeling well or that we are in the middle of her neighborhood. I need her taste on my tongue and nothing else matters. She gives in with ease, rubbing her tongue against mine and pressing that delectable little body against me.
“What time should I expect you?” I murmur against her lips.
“Maybe an hour?” she says and I nod in response.
“I’ll send you the codes for the garage and the elevator.”
“Will you not be there?”
“Of course, but just so you have them. You can go whenever you want, even when I’m not there.” She bites her lip nervously and I grip her jaw forcing her to release it. “I’m the only one with the codes.” I rub my nose against hers. “And now you. No one else will ever be there.”
She nods before grabbing her suitcase. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
“See you soon, gorgeous.”