Chapter 16 #2
“We don’t know who the target was. Whoever’s behind it is still a blank.” He holds my eyes. “For all we know, it was your ex-husband.”
The name hits me sideways. “Derek?” A laugh scrapes out of me with no humor in it. “What reason would Derek ever have to go after Mia?”
“Why did Derek walk out and leave you buried under every cent of his debt?” Marcus doesn’t raise his voice. “Have you ever asked yourself that?”
I open my mouth, then close it, and he presses into the quiet.
“Someone you told me was practically family.” Rounding the coffee table, he closes the space between us.
“He left you clawing back from nothing with a kid on your hip. Risking the two of you never once slowed him down before, so tell me why this would be any different.”
“Even then”—I struggle to get the words out—“he fled. He doesn’t know where we are. He’s never tried to initiate contact. What reason could he have to go after Mia? She’s a child.”
Marcus shrugs, holding my gaze. “Maybe he racked up more debt. Maybe this was not about poisoning Mia but taking her. Maybe somebody tried to use Mia to teach him a lesson, not knowing he doesn’t care. You don’t know. Unless you have a better idea of why someone went after the girls.”
I sink back onto the couch, the strength gone out of my legs.
Derek was never violent, only weak, only gone.
But cornered men do things nobody thought them capable of, and I don’t know where he is or what he owes now.
The thought that he might be the one who set this in motion turns my stomach.
I reach for the bottle before I catch myself, tip a third glass, and swallow a mouthful that does nothing.
“I’m already looking into it.” Marcus lowers himself in front of me, crouching so we’re eye to eye.
My heart skips a beat as I feel that same familiar pull that’s been a constant throbbing inside me ever since I met him on the side of the road.
I want to lean into those broad shoulders and put down the weight of the responsibilities I’ve been buried under.
Just for once, I want to believe him and let him carry my burdens.
It takes every ounce of willpower to stay still and not give in to that desire.
“That’s why I need you to trust me. Stay.” His hand finds my knee. “I can give you both a good life here. Let me.”
His meaning isn’t lost on me. What he’s offering has nothing to do with Mia’s scholarship. He’s never hidden his intentions before. My chest aches with how much of me wants to take it anyway. But another part of me, a wary cautious creature, doesn’t understand why.
There’s no way he knows the truth.
Making myself pull back, I shake my head. “I don’t need you handing us a life. I’ve given my daughter a good one on my own for ten years, and I’ll keep doing it.”
Marcus lets out a breath, drops his forehead onto my knee, and stays there. “You are a maddening woman.”
Despite everything, I want to put my hand in his hair. I keep it fisted at my side. “I’m a mother. Every choice I make, every step I take, it all has to bend around her. That’s the job.”
“You’re right.” He lifts his head. “It does. And you’re a good mother, Jessa, I’ve never once said otherwise.
” His hands come to rest on my knees. “But moving her hurts her too, and you need to see that clearly. Pull her out of Crestline now, drag her to some new school three states away, and the first thing they’ll ask is why a scholarship kid left the best academy in the country.
Nobody will believe it when a mother says she walked away for no reason from a full ride scholarship to one of the most elite schools in the country.
It brands the kid, and it trails her for years. ”
A hiss escapes me before I can stop it. None of that had crossed my mind.
“Top academy to some bottom-feeder school,” he says, watching it sink in. “You should know what that does to a kid’s future.”
My eyes go to the dark window, and I stay quiet.
“I can’t make the choice for you,” he says, softer now.
“That’s not mine to make. But I want Mia to stay.
It’s good for her.” He looks up at me from the crouch, his eyes holding mine, unguarded, until my resistance gives.
“I want both of you to stay.” He searches my face.
“Is there something about this place that bothers you? The house, the town, anything at all?”
“No.” The word’s out before I can dress it up.
Marcus rises out of the crouch just enough to bring his face level with mine, close enough that his breath moves across my lips. “Then it’s not the house. Is it me? Am I not to your satisfaction?”
Heat crawls up my neck before I can stop it. His mouth grazes the inside of my wrist where my pulse is going wild, then the heel of my hand, then the center of my palm, slowly enough that I stop breathing.
“I keep trying to picture you gone,” he says against my skin, working his mouth up the soft inside of my arm.
“Packing up your belongings, driving Mia three states off. I can’t stand it.
” He kisses the bend of my elbow. “You run, I might just pack Bella up and follow you there. I think I might be a little bit obsessed with you, Jessa. The idea of you not being in my home, under my roof, makes me want to go to wherever you are.”
Three glasses in now, the wine is loosening every knot I have used to hold myself apart from him.
The heat of his lips is driving away every reason I have said no.
It’s just like last time. I knew he was drunk, but when he touched me, when his mouth was against my skin, all common sense was replaced by a burning need.
“Marcus.” His name comes out a desperate plea. “This is a bad idea.”
“Probably.” The word breaks out of him on a growl, and his hands don’t hesitate.
His mouth crashes back onto mine, hungry, all teeth and tongue.
Years of pent-up tension tear loose between us.
I don’t push him away. Instead I clutch at his shoulders and haul him closer, every careful wall I’ve built between us gone in a breath.
His hands are everywhere, sliding under my thin top, palms scorching against bare skin.
He yanks the fabric up over my head in one rough motion and tosses it aside.
Cool air hits my breasts before his hands cover them, thumbs dragging over my nipples until they tighten to aching peaks. I arch into his touch on a broken moan.
He grabs my wrist and drags my hand down his chest, pressing my palm to the hard planes of muscle. “Feel what you do to me.”
I groan low as rock-hard muscle shifts under hot skin, his heart hammering steadily against my palm.
The sheer power coiled in him leaves me dizzy.
My fingers trace the ridges of his abs and dip lower.
He hisses through his teeth when I brush the waistband of his sweats. Every part of him strains toward me.
I shove his shirt up, and he wrenches it off.
My hands roam greedily over his chest, nails scraping his nipples, trailing down the line of hair below.
He shudders. A deep rumble rolls through his chest as he leans in and draws one of my breasts into his mouth.
His tongue swirls, his teeth grazing just enough to send sparks shooting straight between my legs.
I cry out and thread my fingers through his hair to hold him there.
He doesn’t go easy for long. His free hand slips between my thighs, pushing my shorts and panties aside. Two thick fingers slide through my slick folds. They tease my entrance before he pushes inside without warning. I gasp at the stretch, my walls clenching around him.
“So wet for me already,” he rasps, pumping his fingers slowly, curling them just right to hit the spot inside me that blurs my vision. “I’ve been losing my mind wanting you.”
I rock against his hand, desperate for more, my free hand still roaming the hard planes of his chest. He works a third finger into me, stretching me open, his mouth switching to my other breast and sucking hard.
The double onslaught has me trembling on the edge before he pulls back just as I start to tip over.
“Not yet,” he says, his voice dark with need. He strips the rest of my clothes off, then shoves his sweats down. His cock springs free, thick, heavy, brutally hard. The sight of him pools heat low in my belly even as nerves twist through me.
He lifts me onto the cold kitchen counter and steps between my spread thighs. The marble chills my bare ass, a sharp contrast to the heat pouring off him. He grips my hips, notches the broad head of his cock against my entrance, and pushes in on one powerful thrust.
“You’re too big,” I gasp, the words tumbling out as my body fights to take him. It’s been years. The thought cuts through the haze.