Chapter Five #3
in my life. But the first two things she gave me, she did it stripping.”
Understanding dawned, I felt my body jolt and then I felt my
face set.
Marcus didn’t miss it.
“Stop right now thinking what you’re thinking,” he clipped
out.
“Hard not to, sugar,” I returned.
“She married a man twenty-five years older than her when I
was sixteen. It was a love match. They haven’t slept a single night without
each other since their wedding and they retired to Florida five years ago. He
was definitely a good guy and definitely decent. But he didn’t have much
either, though he did his best. They retired to a four-bedroom house with a
pool that’s in a development that has three top-notch golf courses because I
worked my ass off to make certain that would be the way they ended their years
together.”
I ignored all this, no matter how hard that kind of
beautiful generosity was to ignore, and I did it in order to ask cuttingly,
“You savin’ your sister in this fairytale of yours that you’re corrallin’ me into, Marcus?”
“No,” he answered immediately.
But he wasn’t done.
“I had a mother I barely remember, a trail of women my
father couldn’t keep, and a sister who loves me maybe more than the three kids
she had with Doug because we toughed it out together. We had bad times. We had
lean times. We had everyone around us treating us like shit because they
thought they knew who we were by what she did and how my father was. We had
interfering teachers telling themselves they were doing the honorable thing by
trying to take me away from her. Most important in all that, we had a family.
It was just the two of us but she loved me and I loved her and that was all we
needed. She gave me a great deal. And right now, what you need to know that she
gave me is the understanding of exactly the kind of woman I would eventually
claim as mine.”
“And what kind is that?”
“One who’s beautiful. One who’s smart. One who’s kind. One
who’s strong. One who doesn’t give a shit what people think about her. One
who’d do what she could for anyone who asked no matter if it isn’t convenient
or easy. One who knows what having nothing feels like so she knows what matters
and to appreciate it when she gets it.”
“And you think that’s me?”
“No. I know it’s you.”
“You’re sure,” I scoffed.
He looked around the kitchen and then back at me, lifting up
his hands at his sides, and sounding exasperated when he asked, “What do you
think I’m doing here?”
I knew what he was doing there.
Just, for his sake—primarily how much more awesome all that
he was telling me made him—no matter how damned stubborn he was being about it,
I knew he shouldn’t be.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that in your life,” I said
with feeling. “I get it and I’m not thrilled to learn that we got a lot in
common with the shit we actually got in common, sugar. But just to say, that
woman is not me.”
One second, he was four feet away.
The next second he was in my space, both hands cupping my
cheeks, his eyes all I could see.
“I’ve been waiting thirty-five years for you to come into my
life, Daisy,” he whispered fiercely.
And again I stopped breathing.
But Marcus didn’t stop talking.
“You can twist it into me wanting to save my sister from the
life she had to lead to take care of me. Into me wanting a piece of your ass.
Into whatever the fuck you want to try to twist it into. But since I was a kid,
I knew what kind of life I intended to lead and that was to be so far away from
the life I grew up in with my dad, I wouldn’t even remember how that felt. And
I knew I’d do whatever I had to do to get it, without doubts, without
indecision, without remorse. And last, baby, I knew the woman I’d have by my
side when I got there. So twist it whatever way you want. I’ll find a way to
untwist it because something else I know, when I find what I know without a
doubt I want, without remorse, I’ll find a way to get it.”
I opened my mouth to speak but froze when his lips brushed
mine and stayed there.
“Shut up,” he said even though I didn’t speak a word.
“Bacon’s laying in its grease and the eggs aren’t going to make themselves. So
pour yourself a goddamned cup of coffee and relax. We’ll have breakfast and
then we’ll dance more of this dance later. Right now, I’m hungry.”
Marcus was hungry.
Hearing that, the fight just left me and I whispered,
“Okay.”
“Okay,” he whispered back, brushed his lips against mine
again, staring into my eyes this close, his blue ones warm and sweet
and twinkling.
Then he let me go and went back to the bacon.
Marcus made me put a robe on before he took my hand
and walked me to the door.
We stood in it like we’d done last Saturday night, except he
was a lot closer.
Someone was in the mood to be pushy.
“We’re having dinner tonight,” he announced.
I rolled my eyes to the ceiling.
When I’d rolled them back, his hand was cupping my jaw and
his face was even closer.
And his damned eyes were twinkling.
“You are beautiful,” he declared out of the blue. “You’re
funny. You’re challenging, and by that I mean stubborn, and even if it can be
aggravating, I still like it. I very much like your choice of
nightwear. I also like your legs, breasts, hair, and eyes. I’d commit murder to
hear your laugh again, and I intend to, not a figure of speech, being real.
Last but very much not least, I more than like the fact that when I gave you an
out, you didn’t take it, even if it’s maddening you don’t realize what you not
taking it means. But even with all of that, darling, you are a serious pain in
the ass.”
Well!
“I didn’t take that out because I didn’t want you to think I
was judgey,” I retorted (and lied, but I wasn’t going
there even in my head).
“You didn’t take that out because you like me,” he fired
back, shifting his hand so it slid to curl around the back of my neck as he
curved his other arm around me. “You know every step of your life was leading
you right here. You’re the woman for me, which means, darling, I’m the man for
you. And you didn’t tell me to leave because you know that just the same as
me.”
“Now you’re bein’ cocky, which
isn’t real attractive, honey bunch.”
Another lie, dammit.
He grinned. “More bullshit. More of a pain in my ass.”
“You could leave,” I suggested.
He didn’t leave.
His hand at my neck moved up to cup my scalp, his head came
down, and he kissed me.
Soft, sweet, the tip of his tongue traced the crease of my
lips, and just when I was about to open them for him (the thought didn’t even
cross my mind to pull away, and I wasn’t going there either), he lifted his
head.
I opened eyes I hadn’t even realized I’d closed.
“Now,” he whispered, his grin even more cocky than he’d just
been, his gaze roaming my face and doing it with satisfaction so I knew exactly
what I was exposing, damn him all to hell, “I’ll leave. Dinner tonight, honey.
I’ll be here at seven.”
“And I’ll be in Timbuktu.”
“Book into a five-star, darling. I’ll meet you there and
I’ll pay.”
Damn.
He had a comeback for everything!
I rolled my eyes again.
I heard him chuckle, felt his lips touch my nose then his
hold leave me, and I watched him walk down the hall.
He stopped halfway and turned back to me.
Then he tore something from me. Something that had been
fixed to me. Something I didn’t ask for. Something I didn’t deserve. Something
I didn’t want.
Something I didn’t know how to get rid of that was so heavy,
it was a miracle it hadn’t crushed me.
And the only reason it hadn’t crushed me was that I had help
keeping it buoyed up with an apartment full of daisies.
He did that by stating, “If you think your lip gloss is
important, it is. You were correct. You have every right in every way in
everything to do what you wish to do, go where you wish to go, be what you wish
to be. No one has the right to take that away. It isn’t the lip gloss. It isn’t
the man at Smithie’s who left his post. It’s the fact an animal was loose that
night. A monster. And he caught you in the dark. No one is to blame but him. No
one should shoulder that but him. And no one will. But him.”
I stood staring at Marcus, breathing heavily, having had to
put my hand up and hold on to the edge of the door while his words sheared a
burden the size of a mountain from me.
“Do you understand that, darling?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Good,” he said. “Tonight, Daisy, seven. And if you need
anything before then, you know how to contact me or just come down to my man
watching your apartment and ask. I don’t give a fuck you’re about out of
coffee. He’ll send someone to get it for you.”
Oh.
My.
Lord.
“Now do you understand that?” he pressed, and that question
was important. More important than it seemed. So important, my answer was going
to change my life.
I knew it. I knew it better than I knew the best ways to rat
my hair to give it maximum volume.
And in that moment, I had no choice in the answer I gave.
I nodded.
“Good,” he whispered, his blue eyes warming me from six feet
away to the point my toes curled in, I was just that toasty.
Then he was gone.