Darkside Love Affair

by Michelle Rosigliani

  His arm released me, and I took a much-needed step back. In the darkness, his eyes were the only light. When they dilated, I gasped. He fixed me with a dangerous gaze, making me feel unsteady. He enjoyed the nervousness he was building in me.

  When I attempted another step back, Marcus growled. Without further warning, his hands secured my face, and his mouth slanted across mine in a rough kiss that stole my breath and offered me his. Marcus was pure male and raw passion, and his kiss did not betray his nature. His hand fisted in the hair at my nape to better position me for his wild onslaught.

  He caught my bottom lip between his teeth and sucked greedily on the swollen flesh. His tongue coaxed me to respond just as fervently while his primal determination melted my restraint.

  The warm, wet invasion devastated my senses and shook my whole body. Our tongues wrangled, but it was Marcus dominating the kiss, dominating me. I struggled to breathe, yet there was nothing I wanted to breathe more than his breath. There was nothing I wanted to taste more than him.

  “Marcus,” I panted. He leaned his forehead against mine and let his lips linger on my mouth in a chaste kiss.

  “Why are you trembling, Charlotte?”

  “You shouldn’t have,” I gasped.

  I steeled myself, but by this point, there was little I could do. I could deny both him and myself. I could try once again to push him away. I could seek all the means to remove him from my life. But my heart never agreed with my mind, and sooner or later the inevitable was going to happen.

  I shoved him away limply, and he flinched, hugging his left side. Involuntarily, my hand reached for the spot. Instead of walking away, I only walked closer.

  “I told you my bruises are the least of my pains, but my ribs are still healing. Be gentle with me.”

  All roughness was gone. The ruthless creature that had tormented him was vanquished, and in its wake, Marcus was left a calm and gentle man. His fingers touched my hot cheek and settled on my trembling lips.

  He was committing me to memory. He was burning his touch in my flesh. Once more he bent to seize my lips, this time in a quiet, soothing kiss that calmed the flames leaping in my blood.

  “Don’t—” I managed to pull away. “I told you that I do not mix business with pleasure.”

  “Yet, you enjoyed this as much as I did,” he whispered and brushed my lips with his thumb. It frightened me because I didn’t want him to stop. I didn’t want him to let me think. “And you’ll be thinking of me tonight.”

  I took a deep breath that didn’t reach my lungs and sidestepped him. I wasn’t habitually clumsy, but the way I bumped into the reception desk begged to differ. I groaned loudly.

  My hip bone throbbed, and I hardly felt my leg. The clash was evidently going to leave a bruise. I winced at the thought as much as I did at the pain but aimed for the exit once more with characteristic stubbornness.

  “Let me get you outside.” Marcus wrapped his hand around my elbow and carefully steered me forward. His certain attitude and deep, commanding voice mollified me.

  “Fine,” I snapped, knowing it would be of no use to protest.

  In the dim hallways, I swore I saw a flicker of a smile on his face. He didn’t remove his hand from my arm until he was confident that I would manage walking on my own. When we reached the ground floor, I stormed out of the building, ignoring the doorkeeper, who saluted me dutifully. Marcus remained quiet, but he was right there behind me.

  “Are you following me?” I inquired before I realized that he was probably heading for his motorcycle.

  “Do you want me to follow you?”

  My car beeped its welcome and so did the neighboring vehicle mere seconds later. It was an arctic seal gray Jaguar with blinding headlights and the unequivocal grace of a beast. Marcus pulled the door open, regarding me with a smug smile.

  My gaze shifted confusedly from my so-called intern to the car he had just unlocked. My mouth hung open and my hands itched to touch the sleek animal.

  “You like it?”

  “I might.” I was still thoroughly shaken. “But where is your motorcycle?”

  “My baby is taking a break for now.”

  “Do you race with this too?”

  “No.” The firm negation pleased me. I honestly didn’t like the thought of Marcus racing, regardless of his talents or competence.

  “Good.”

  “Here is your file. I’ve made one for myself.”

  I nodded and struggled to swallow. Marcus stepped closer. I could get a clear glimpse of his eyes now, and they were fascinating—too blue, too wild, too intimate. When he started bowing closer, I recognized his intention and hurried to take shelter inside my car. He chuckled. With a smirk still playing across his lips, he slid into the driver seat, then the engine purred to life, and in a flash, he was gone.

  Although the parking lot was almost empty, I took all the possible precautions and smoothly drove into the night. I rolled my window down, inhaling the sweet cold air, needing it to cool my senses. Then I heard a noise chasing me. It was the unmistakable roaring of a sports car.

  In my peripheral vision, the Jaguar appeared lush and lissome like a big cat on the prowl. Marcus decreased his speed to match mine. With a single hand on the steering wheel and eyes brazenly inspecting my flushed complexion, he enjoyed having caught me off guard once again.

  “I intend to be diligent in my work,” he warned, and we both knew he didn’t refer to professional work, but he kept teasing me nonetheless. “I hope I’ll have good references from you, Miss Burton.” I shook my head in disbelief at his audacity and persistence, expecting him to give up and speed away. But of course, he didn’t.

  “Be brave, Charlotte. Be daring.”

  I turned to meet his searing eyes. His seductively murmured words replayed in my head, making me unconsciously bite my lip. Marcus grinned wickedly, with a promise burning in that inciting stare of his. Then he stepped on the gas and disappeared with his eyes stuck on mine.

  “God,” I sighed both frustrated and amused.

  What was he doing to me?

  Chapter 13

  Marcus

  L’Affaire, once so familiar and welcoming, seemed too loud and crowded all of a sudden. The waitress winked at me appreciatively as I slid into a booth and ordered four bottles of Guinness.

  Mere moments later, Brayden and Bryson plopped noisily in their seats, taking large gulps of their beer without so much as a greeting. It was Kai, however, who drew my attention. He sat absentmindedly with an atypical scowl on his face. He was always surrounded by that eccentric and somewhat chaotic aura generously provided by his artistic side, so this withdrawn, dismayed attitude of his raised questions—and concern.

  “What the hell is going on with you?” Bryson kicked the leg of my chair, catching my attention in the primitive fashion that characterized him. His expression was hostile and dangerous. Finally, the lecture I had been expecting ever since the ill-fated race was here.

  “I was not aware that something was going on.”

  “What he’s trying to say is that when you decide all of a sudden, without apparent reason to willingly go to jail, we’d like to give you a hand.” Brayden’s words might have sounded like a joke, but he was mirroring his brother’s exact disposition. If their stares could have killed, well, I would have already been dead.

  “What I’m trying to say,” Bryson snapped, “is that I believed you knew you could count on us to have your back. Instead, you just disappeared for days.”

  “I do know you have my back and I do trust you. But I also know that both of you are a pair of hotheads that can’t conform. That night I needed men who followed the plan Kai provided, and you would have likely jumped off your motorcycles and started knocking out any policeman in sight.”

  “You should have at least let us know.”

  “It would have been nice if you had at least asked.”

  Bryson and Brayden spoke in unison, basically expressing the same dissatisfact
ion. While I understood their displeasure, I also stuck to my own judgment. Neither one of them had been adequate to attend that night’s race, and Kai had made the best decision regarding the crew. I clenched my teeth and willed my own displeasure to its tiny, secret cage.

  “And you would have been at the race no matter what.”

  “Damn right, we would have,” Bryson growled and hit the table with a white-knuckled fist.

  “That’s exactly what I am talking about. That race was about following a designed path, about me and me alone getting arrested. Not you two fools.”

  “I made the damn decisions.” Kai’s face was bleak and remote as he spoke in a tight voice. Something was certainly wrong with him. “I made the plan, and I didn’t let you know. I already told you it was all on me, damn it.”

  “The fact that you trusted Samuel more than us speaks volumes,” Bryson spat, his glare deepening.

  Kai stood stiffly and strolled away, dismissing us with an angry sweep of his hand. I had been so absorbed the past few days that I had failed to check on him.

  “Look, I get it.” I met both Bryson’s and Brayden’s furious glares without blinking. At the moment, I was more worried about Kai’s strange behavior than their displeasure. “I hurt your feelings. I’m sorry, babies.”

  “Don’t make me punch you because God knows I want to.”

  Sometimes, Brayden’s threats were the epitome of expressing his love. I laughed inwardly and watched him sternly. “Great. Tomorrow night works for you?”

  “Tomorrow night.”

  With our scheduled fight already at the back of my mind, I stood and followed Kai. I found him outside, leaning against the wall of the building with a cigarette in his mouth. Kai only smoked when something truly bothered him. It was a habit of restlessness.

  “It was you calling the police, wasn’t it?”

  His voice was low but unequivocally lethal. When I nodded my agreement, Kai clenched his fist and almost bared his teeth. He was usually a calm man, but when he got angry, he had the devastating force of a tempest.

  “I asked you for this, Kai. Don’t you dare have qualms of conscience.”

  He scoffed and rolled his eyes, irritation oozing out of him in waves.

  “So you also planned your accident? Are you that stupid?”

  “Of course not. I am not a damn masochist.”

  “Then are you insane?”

  “I wanted Isaac to find out about the race.”

  Kai’s glare grew deeper and colder. Had he not been younger and a little shorter than I was, had he not been the little cousin I had cared for almost my entire life, his menacing pose might have seemed threatening.

  “Did you want him to get you arrested?

  “I did, but I had a plan. I already told you.”

  “What kind of plan? To spend the next years in prison?”

  “Your indignation on my behalf is heartrending but unnecessary.”

  My attempt at a joke only infuriated Kai further. Isaac’s behavior had always enraged him, at times even more than it did me. He pushed a hand furiously through his shaggy hair and paced back and forth, only stopping from time to time to shoot daggers at me.

  “Explain.”

  The truth tingled on my tongue, but in the end, I swallowed it. I explained the deal I had made with my father rather than confess what my actual plan had been about. It was neither the time nor the place to fill Kai in about my true intentions. I was not prepared yet for his questions and attempts at repressing my yearning.

  “I had a deadline hanging over my head and no way out of my father’s ploy. The least I deserve is to control the situation, so I met his schemes with my own.”

  When I finished telling him everything that had happened, he looked nowhere close to being appeased. His anger might have decreased a notch, but his indignation hadn’t.

  “How did you know about this internship?”

  “Because I did my research,” I lied. I’d had no idea about the internship program since my plan had only involved Charlotte getting me out of the mess I had made.

  “Then why didn’t you make a deal without offering him incriminating evidence?”

  “Isaac is no fool. He’d never believe in my sudden change of heart unless he thought he had leverage on me. I intend to play his game until I can find a way to put an end to it altogether.”

  “How would you do that?”

  “Still thinking about it.”

  He nodded distractedly and took a last smoke of his cigarette before tossing it to the ground and crushing it with the tip of his shoe. That peculiar despondency from earlier seemed all the starker now that anger and irritation dissipated.

  “What’s got you so wound up?”

  I leaned next to him and observed him while he lit another cigarette and smoked on. I could see now that his affliction marred his heart more than his mind. I doubted it was just another fit of his artistic nature.

  “Who,” he mumbled. It was not a question.

  “Who? Women problems?”

  “Only one woman.”

  His jaw flexed before he opened his mouth to take another pull of his cigarette. His eyes were lost somewhere in the distance.

  “You know you can talk to me if you need to.”

  “Yeah, I know.” But he wasn’t going to talk, and I respected his decision and his privacy as long as he didn’t start doing reckless things. I nodded, ran a hand over my face, and straightened.

  “Can I leave you alone? Are you going to be okay?”

  “You want to babysit me?” he managed a chuckle, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes.

  “No, I don’t.” I laughed too, a short, strained sound.

  “Then you can leave.”

  I turned to leave when his hand clamped on my shoulder. For such an innocent-looking man, he truly had a vicious grip.

  “The talking part? It’s valid for you too.”

  “I know,” I said. If anybody was going to find out about the latest things occupying my thoughts and consuming my every waking moment, then that person was Kai.

  ONE HOUR LATER I WAS waiting in my car in front of Charlotte’s apartment building, drumming my fingers against the steering wheel with undisguised unrest. A text message was all I had sent her.

  ‘Be brave, Charlotte, be daring. I’ll be waiting. 6 p.m.’

  She hadn’t answered, but I was still waiting. I believed in her courage even when she didn’t.

  Charlotte’s mind was a vast and complicated place, filled with snares and fears that stifled her instincts. Her mind was singing a song of caution, while her body was a symphony on fire. Her body had told me everything her mind refused to.

  I pressed my lips into a taut line, still feeling the texture of her mouth obediently receiving my kiss and yet wildly responding to it. Beneath her polished layer of aloofness, Charlotte was fire and wildness. I had to believe she was going to be daring.

  Another half an hour later, the passenger door was pulled wide open, and the most beautiful, annoyed expression framed by glorious, brown curls appeared in my view. Charlotte glared at me, yet there was also amusement twinkling in her stare.

  Between witnessing the battle on her face and embracing the electric current that snaked up and down my spine whenever she was close, I found myself grinning from ear to ear. She just rolled her eyes.

  “Hello, sugar. I knew you’d make it.”

  “How many times do I have to explain to you that I do not like to be called—that?”

  “Oh, Charlotte. I think you do.” Her mouth puckered, and she swallowed heavily. The sight pleased me. “Get inside.”

  She finally complied, utterly displeased and adorably beautiful.

  “I was serious, Marcus. We must have a professional relationship. You should be aware of this more than I am.”

  Her voice took on a pleading tone and her eyes a scared shade that pulled me to her like a magnet. I cupped her face in my hand, and when she nuzzled her cheek against my pal
m, my breath hitched.

  “Look at me, Charlotte.” She did so slowly, chewing on her lip nervously. How could I protect her when she stirred such basic instincts in me, when all I wanted was to ravish her? “I didn’t accept my father’s deal to have a professional relationship with you.”

  “Then why?”

  “I want you, but I know I have to gain your trust first. This is my way of doing that.”

  She held her breath for so long that I feared she had forgotten how to breathe. Her cheeks colored, her pupils dilated, and finally, her lips parted, invading me with her sweet, sweet aroma.

  I brushed my mouth against hers softly, tentatively, coaxing her to let go and give in. When her tongue traced the outline of my bottom lip, I groaned and seized her mouth in a deep, inescapable kiss.

  “Question is, Charlotte,” I continued, when our mouths parted, “are you daring enough to trust me?”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  Even her shy reticence was appealing. Like the first time I held her hand, she watched me stunned and slightly hesitant, with eyes full of hunger and an enticing mouth parted in awe.

  “Fair enough.”

  I traced the seam of her lips, wanting to garner from her so much more than reticence, but at the moment, patience was crucial.

  Charlotte and I functioned at different velocities. While I craved the swiftness of the unknown, she was satisfied with the slow pace of the familiar. She was the kind of woman I was willing to slow down for.

  “So what now?”

  “Since our horror movie date wasn’t an actual date, according to you, I am asking you on a date.”

  Those beautiful chocolate eyes sparkled with remembrance, then a smirk lit her whole expression. I grabbed the wheel with one hand and the gearshift with the other. Otherwise, I would have simply kissed that teasing mouth until she was properly flushed and unable to sit still.

  “I can say no.”

  “But you won’t.”

  “You are very sure of yourself,” she accused, the superior smirk fully on display.

  “I am sure of you.”

  Taking by surprise a smart woman such as Charlotte was always a pleasure. As she fastened her seatbelt, her eyes sparkled, and her cheeks turned crimson. She was quiet for the most part of the ride, but eventually, she started kneading her hands in her lap and chewing nervously on the inside of her cheek.