Chapter Eight #3
And on that thought, I blurted, “Miss Annamae would love
you.”
Again, something new moved over his face and I held my
breath at its splendor.
“Consider me paid back,” he whispered.
Lord.
He.
Was.
Killing.
Me!
“Oh my God!” I snapped. “You’re gonna
make me cry again.”
“Cry in your linguine, darling, it’s getting cold,” he
returned, pulling me to his side and guiding me back to my chair.
I sat.
He sat.
Then I groused, “Who woulda
thought some asshole cheatin’ on me or beatin’ on me would be easier to take than some hot guy honored
and blessed to spoil me rotten.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Marcus murmured to his linguine.
I stared at his dark head bent over his plate right along
with feeling my heart contract.
He lifted that head, swallowed, and asked, “What?”
“I don’t know whether to throw something at you or jump
you.”
He grinned a wicked grin that set my coochie
to buzzing.
“We’re taking it slow, remember?”
“Yeah. Right. Great.”
He kept grinning and the buzzing got stronger.
“Stop turning me on,” I warned.
“Stop being cute,” he fired back.
I stuck my tongue out at him.
He watched it then looked in my eyes. “That didn’t work.”
“Whatever,” I muttered, grabbed my bread, and gnawed off a
huge chunk with my teeth.
Marcus burst out laughing.
And I loved the sound.
Whatever!
Marcus ripped his mouth from mine, rested his
forehead against mine, and murmured a labored, “Christ.”
I stood pressed against the doorjamb of his bedroom, my
chest heaving, brushing against his, this setting my nipples to tingling (or
setting them to tingling more). My fingers were also gripping the back
of his sweater in a way that I was sure would misshape it forever.
It was a great sweater. This would be a shame.
I just couldn’t find it in me at that minute to care.
It was time to go to bed.
And Marcus led me to his bedroom, where I was sleeping (and
he would hear none of it that I could take a guest room (he didn’t have one
like he’d said, he had three) so I shut up about it) and he’d just
given me a goodnight kiss that led to another one that led to another one that
led to a make-out session in his doorway.
He had one hand curled around the back of my neck, the other
hand braced on the jamb over my head.
His hold and pose were hot.
So I was not feeling slow.
At all.
“I think maybe we can—” I began.
He lifted his forehead from mine and cut me off.
“We need to work up to it.”
“I’m up for more working up to it,” I shared with him
breathily.
He took his hand from the jamb and brushed his fingers along
my jaw.
“Don’t make this harder,” he ordered gently.
I wanted to make something harder.
To communicate this, I replied, “I know ways to make it a
whole lot easier.”
“Daisy, honey, you lost it at dinner.”
Damn.
“We need to work up to it,” he repeated.
He was right.
And that stunk.
“All right,” I grumbled.
“All right,” he replied sweetly.
“Can we make a deal that if I have forty-eight hours
drama-free, you’ll consider banging me?”
He smiled down at me. “Honey, I’m never going to bang
you. What we’re going to do will not include banging.”
I didn’t know what to make of that.
“What’re we gonna do?” I asked,
not to get a rise out him (in that way, or any way).
I was curious.
“We’re not going to bang.”
“Okay, so what’re we gonna do?”
“You bang someone you give a gold bracelet to to say
good-bye when you’ve lost interest in banging her. The man I am does not bang a
woman like you.”
Oh Lord.
His brows drew together as he watched my face. “Are you
going to cry again?”
“No,” I snapped, though I was feeling close to it. So I
needed a retreat, stat. “Go away. I need to crawl into your huge-ass bed, smell
you on your sheets, and fight the desire to ask you to let it be me
who puts a bullet into that jackass’s forehead.”
“That isn’t going to happen.”
I blinked at the sudden change in the tone of his voice.
It wasn’t just firm.
It was steel grating against steel.
“I was just joshin’,” I told him
carefully.
“Well, I’m not. I do what I do. I have other concerns that
I’m growing alongside those you don’t know about, you’ll never know about, but
know they’re there. I do this to assure the future I intend to have. That’s the
part of my life where you’ll have your place. The only part. This gets
done, you live in that light. I never put you in any dark.”
“Okay, sugar,” I soothed, because I needed to soothe. The
sparks flying off his steel were singeing me.
The heat went out of his gaze, he bent and touched his mouth
to mine, and then he gave my neck a squeeze.
He did all this right before he didn’t play fair.
“Now, go to bed, baby. And if you do something while you’re
wrapped up in my sheets that I’d love, but right now knowing you were doing it
would kill me, please be quiet. I intend to be.”
My eyes got huge.
His got wicked.
Then he brushed his lips against mine again, took his time
trailing his hand from my neck so his fingers went all the way through my hair
before he stepped away and walked away, not looking back.
Still, I watched until he disappeared through a door down
the hall.
Okay, giving you the honesty.
I watched his ass until it disappeared through a door down
the hall.
But there was some shoulder watching too.
I closed the door to his room, got ready for bed, and for
the first time since what happened to me happened to me, I took care of
business wrapped up in Marcus’s sheets.
And really, who could blame me?
Not to mention, he’d totally primed me so it was awesome.
And not once did I think about what had happened to me.
Oh no.
After I took care of myself as quiet as I could, I rolled
over, smelled Marcus, closed my eyes with a smile on my face, and slept like a
baby.