“I dressed up for you, and you didn’t even say if you liked it or not.”
He took a step back, offering me a better view of himself, and faked a look of hurt disappointment that had me giggling. Marcus pouting was a sight to behold.
“You did it to taunt me,” I accused.
“I did not dress like this to taunt you,” he retorted, but the air was suddenly charged.
“Then why?”
“I wanted to show you that from time to time I can conform. For the right person.”
“It suits you. Very much.”
I gave him a once-over and found myself thinking how I wanted to grab him by his tie and ruffle his flawless exterior.
“How am I taunting you, sweet Charlotte?”
I swallowed, suddenly overwhelmed by the fervency he projected. Taking a deep breath and licking my lips, I filled my nostrils with his scent.
“You know exactly how.”
I was unable to look into his eyes anymore. The eye contact was as powerful and arousing as his touch.
“I want you to tell me.”
Without warning, every trace of the playful, easygoing Marcus vanished. In his stead stood six feet and two inches of severely alert alpha male. Untamed blue eyes and a hoarse voice assaulted me with passion and made me tremble in anticipation.
“You make me think of the undomesticated man beneath the sophisticated clothes. You make me itch for your touch while you wear this suit. You make me feel highly inappropriate under the circumstances.”
I looked around us to emphasize my words, but Marcus was not affected by the unsuitableness of our surroundings. He pressed his body against mine so there was not a single inch of us that did not touch. Being this close, I had to tilt my head back to see him. The hunger I saw was more than desire, more than what I was accustomed to.
“I did come only to hold you, but that is never enough with you. It’s you who are taunting me.”
His eyes burned as he bent and caught me by the knees. I was in his arms and on my desk before I could properly measure his intentions. Pencils and books fell to the ground. Even Newton’s cradle which I always played with when I was bored or edgy tumbled down, but neither of us stopped. Marcus’s mouth was on mine, moving with harsh fervor. His body pinned me down, alerting me of the uninhibited male possessing me.
“God, Marcus,” I sobbed, throwing my head back, allowing him to nip and lick at the sensitive skin of my throat.
I reached for his tie, but his hand caught my wrist and pressed it to the cold surface of the desk. His amused yet warning smile had me writhing and groaning in protest. When he overwhelmed my senses so thoroughly and induced a haze that took over me, it was difficult to remember that we had appearances to keep up.
“I don’t like missing someone,” Marcus spoke against the skin of my breasts, which he had just exposed, making my body tingle all over. “And I missed you all weekend, Charlotte. I need you. I need to hold you when I sleep. I need to make love to you before I do.”
“It’s too soon—to feel like this.”
I realized I had spoken out loud when he lifted his head. His face was inscrutable, then he nodded in agreement. It was too soon, yet neither of us knew how to slow down. Neither of us wanted to.
Keeping his eyes locked on mine, knowing how deeply the connection affected me, Marcus lowered his head once more and licked between my breasts, making me shiver.
Nobody had ever made me stop thinking the way Marcus did. When the phone on my desk rang, the piercing chime startled me so aggressively that I arched off the desk, sending Marcus a few feet backward. The momentary distance didn’t dampen down the electrical desire surging through us but merely diverted the animal beneath the polished exterior.
“Yes?” I picked up with trembling hands, hardly schooling my voice into a calm tone.
Eyes twinkling and mouth parted to allow a wicked tongue to dart out over enticing lips, Marcus closed the space between us and came at me again, ignoring completely the fact that I was talking on the phone.
“Stop,” I mouthed horrified as Sofia announced my twelve o’clock appointment.
He pressed wet lips to the spot where my pulse beat frantically and suckled until I nearly moaned. When Sofia finished talking, I shoved the handset in its cradle unceremoniously and fisted my hands in Marcus’s hair for a deep, blood-stirring kiss that was going to galvanize me for the remainder of the day.
Reluctantly pushing him away, I hopped off the desk and hastily tried to tidy up my shirt and pencil skirt. It was a challenging task since Marcus’s hands never left my body and never ceased tantalizing me.
“Spend the night with me, Charlotte. I’ll be on my best behavior. I promise.”
His sexily rasping voice altered into a jesting tone. I couldn’t imagine Marcus King behaving behind closed doors when he had trouble doing so in such an inappropriate place as his handler’s office.
“Go, Marcus, please.”
I bent to retrieve the items that had fallen earlier then straightened my outfit again. He had yet to move. My eyes repeated with alarm what I had just told him.
“I’ll be waiting.”
He cupped my face and watched me almost imploringly. He didn’t need to. I missed and needed him just as badly.
“I’ll bring dinner,” I consented while staring anxiously behind his shoulder at the still locked door.
A brief, chaste kiss was our silent goodbye before Marcus finally obeyed and turned to leave, looking fresh and immaculate, while I was still stunned and flustered. Taking a nice, long view of his back, I returned to my seat then called his name. If I was this provoked and needy, he might as well be.
“Marcus?”
“Yes, Miss Burton?”
“I don’t want you to be on your best behavior.”
His pupils dilated, and his jaw tensed, rolling back and forth. I winked at him, pleased to witness the fire that erupted in his gaze, knowing I was the cause of the flames that seared him.
The day dragged on dully, and there was so much work to be done that I rarely left my office and only when it was unavoidable. I honored two more appointments and held a two-hour long video conference with Jack Stewart’s legal team that drained me more than a whole week of work.
By the time four o’clock rolled around, I became aware that Ms. Victoria Brown hadn’t completed and provided me the Williams brief I had been requesting since Friday evening. Despite my best efforts to maintain an impartial attitude toward her, the insubordination she displayed so defiantly urged me otherwise.
The argument, whose topic I was altogether disinterested in, ceased as soon as I walked inside the interns’ office. Marcus looked up and locked eyes with me before I could glance away.
“Miss Brown, I would have appreciated it if you had finished the brief I requested and delivered it to me.”
She flashed a cheeky smile before she disciplined her expression into a forcedly polite mask. Immediately, she stood and began rummaging through the pile of papers on her desk but didn’t seem to produce anything helpful.
Impatiently, I tapped my foot against the marble floor, engendering an irritating thumping sound that was only muted by Ms. Brown’s increasingly anxious digging.
Fabricating undertakings such as ordering the pens in their holder and moving items from one side to another, Marcus rounded the desk and stopped only when he was almost close enough to be touched. His eyes drifted to his colleague, and amusement flared up the ocean blue of his eyes.
“It was here. I left it here—” Victoria Brown muttered crossly, under the watchful and slightly appalled eyes of her coworkers.
My eyes, though, were fixed on Marcus. It suddenly struck me that he looked much too pleased to not be involved in the mysterious disappearance of the Williams file from Ms. Brown’s well-guarded desk.
“What have you done? We need that folder,” I hissed under my breath. His smile never faltered.
“She needs to work more and talk less
. The folder is already in your office.”
“Oh.”
I had to look down to hide my own growing beam when I understood that he had, in fact, reacted to Victoria Brown’s earlier disrespectful words even if he hadn’t done it verbally. I might have been somewhat petty, but the knowledge brought me a silly form of satisfaction.
“I’m sabotaging her not you.”
I folded my arms over my chest and decided to play the game he had initiated. Noting my irritation, although it was pretty much faked now, Phillip Foster stood dutifully to help Victoria. A curt flick of my wrist stopped him cold in midstride.
“Return to your work, Mr. Foster. If Ms. Brown is not capable of carrying out a simple task, then maybe I should reconsider her position. I want that file first thing in the morning.”
I strode out decisively, shaking my head in what should have looked like a disapproving gesture, when in fact, I couldn’t believe Marcus’s schemes. I smiled widely, the idea of making Victoria Brown’s life difficult not troubling me in the least. I was definitely petty.
As promised, the file was indeed on my desk. Marcus must have dropped it by on one of the rare occasions I had left my office. His thoughtfulness, although severely malicious, kept me warm and gratified for what remained of my workday. When I grabbed my purse and almost left the office, consumed by a sweltering eagerness to get to Marcus, the phone rang loudly.
“Charlotte Burton’s office. How can I help you?” I answered, knowing that Sofia had already left, and the call was automatically directed to me. There was silence at the other end of the line except a subdued panting. “Hello?” I tried again but to no avail.
The soft, slightly fearful noises the person emitted made me believe it was a woman. I was about to ask who she was looking for when the call ended. I looked dubiously at the phone but shrugged off the occurrence before I even left the building.
My office received calls from abused women rather frequently since every paper in the city had written about my pro bono program. Being able to defend those who couldn’t defend themselves was the benefit and at times the best part of being a lawyer. Sofia must have dealt with these types of situations all the time without my knowing.
AFTER I WENT HOME TO take a shower and change my work outfit in something that was both comfortable and sexy, I headed for my favorite Japanese restaurant to get dinner just as I had promised.
It was getting seriously dark when I neared Marcus’s apartment building. Absently, I recognized that this was the first time I walked somewhere on foot since that Friday night.
A shiver chilled me. From the parking lot, raucous laughter echoed, making me stagger in midstride, before I recognized the voice that responded just as loudly. Marcus. Although I couldn’t see him, nor whoever was accompanying him, the more I concentrated, the easier it became to follow where his voice and the endless laughter led.
“Dude, you should have seen her. She was completely wasted, and she proposed to him. I wasn’t sure whether he wanted to disappear off the face of the earth or kill her first. He eventually said yes only to get rid of her and hoping that she was drunk enough to not remember the next day.”
“But of course, she did,” Marcus laughed. Although I could see his cousin, Kai, leaning against a foreign car, his hands propped against the hood and his legs crossed at the ankles, there seemed to be no evidence of Marcus’s presence save for his voice.
“Exactly.”
“Good evening, gentlemen.”
When I stopped in their shadows, I got a beautiful view of both Kai and Marcus. While Kai was leisurely watching his cousin, Marcus was sprawled under the massive frame of a black and red motorcycle, his hands working quickly and efficiently even while his eyes found me, and he gifted me with a grin.
Lying there on the ground, with a head flashlight on his forehead and greasy smears on his face, Marcus looked so coarsely beautiful that my heart skipped a beat and my throat instantly went dry.
“Hi, Charlotte,” Kai greeted me with a genuine smile.
He seemed a different man. His intense stare analyzed me from head to toe, and I looked away awkwardly. Kai had the same penetrating gaze as his cousin although it didn’t affect me the way Marcus’s did.
“On foot?” Marcus slid from beneath the parked motorcycle and effortlessly rose to his feet.
He approached me with burning eyes and calculated movements. His features were arranged in a guise somewhere between suspicion and concern.
“A woman has to stay fit,” I replied, looking away, embarrassed at the feeling of being scolded.
“You shouldn’t walk on foot at night if you can help it.”
Laughter left Kai as remorse returned. He clenched his jaw, shoved a hand through his hair, and eventually looked down to his feet. I understood then, as his exaggerated repentance hit me, that I might have never been resentful of him.
Placing a hand on his shoulder, I smiled reassuringly when his eyes went wide, and his jaw dropped. I hoped the friendly gesture was enough to appease his guilt.
“Getting ready for something?” I asked both men, nodding toward the two-wheeled vehicle now behind us.
“Kai is racing Friday night,” Marcus answered simply as if it were the most natural thing to do for a man their age.
“Dude.” Kai’s head snapped up, an admonishing glare screwing his features into a scandalized expression. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. “Do you want her to have me arrested? I’m not sure she—you know, forgave me.”
“I won’t have you arrested. And yes, I forgave you.”
“I trust her, Kai.”
Between the ridiculously joyful smile that Kai gifted me with and Marcus’s unshakeable reply, I felt my knees become too weak to sustain my own weight. Marcus was right behind me before I consciously decided to lean into him as if he had read my emotions; as if he could feel me. He brushed his lips against my hair and curled his arm around my waist, draping me across his chest like I was an extension of his body.
We settled into a pleasant conversation about Japanese food, martial arts, and favorite pastimes. It came completely out of nowhere when Marcus pressed his mouth to my ear and whispered huskily, “I don’t want to be on my best behavior, either.”
To his sheer amusement, I blushed a deep red, which Kai politely ignored. I suspected that was because he didn’t want to upset me so soon after I admitted that I had forgiven him for the Friday night incident.
I looked up at Marcus and took in a deep breath that once again I forgot to let out. I believed him.
Kai took his leave soon after, perhaps recognizing from experience the signs of arousal that were painfully evident in both his cousin and me. Marcus wrapped his clean hand around mine and led me in charged silence from the parking lot to the lobby of his apartment building and finally to the elevator.
“Are you going to race too?” I didn’t want to be the woman who forbade him doing the things he loved, yet I didn’t want to be the woman who waited home terrified, not knowing if or how her man would come back to her.
“No.”
He caged me between the elevator wall and his rock hard body, placing both hands on either side of my head. There was no escape from him or his indiscreet eyes. His body wasn’t making love to me yet, but his eyes already were.
“Good,” I panted. I was pretty sure I had wanted to add something else, but that mischievous mouth hovering over mine was too distracting to be able to concentrate.
“There’s fun in the races too.”
“I can imagine.” Under his scolding stare, I laughed sarcastically.
“Let me show you.”
Then his mouth was showing me—a passion that set me on fire.
Chapter 23
Marcus
“Marcus, they will lynch me. I am a lawyer among—”
“Among rascals?”
“I didn’t mean to say that.”
“Yes, you did. And you’d be right. Mostly.” I le
t out a laugh that contrasted with Charlotte’s strained frame of mind. “Besides, nobody knows you are a lawyer. Relax.”
“Your friends do.”
The thought of Brayden and Bryson, but especially of the former, still caused her hair to stand on end. She masked her emotions well, still not well enough for me not to read them.
“My friends will never endanger you again.”
The angry quality of my voice startled her. It was gentleness, however, that mollified Charlotte. My fingers gripped her knee in a calming caress, and my lips brushed against hers just enough to have her wishing for more.
“Relax.” I parked the Jaguar reasonably close to the meeting spot and turned to face Charlotte. “You are with me. I wouldn’t take you to a place if I knew you could be in danger.”
“I know that.”
She sighed and sneaked her hands underneath mine, craving my warmth and the physical contact. It wasn’t fear for her safety she felt. “Then what is the problem?” I asked although I knew the answer. I brushed the hair out of her face and casually fisted my fingers behind her head.
“I guess I don’t want you to realize that I don’t fit.”
“You fit with me. That is enough.”
We walked hand in hand to a place I knew by heart, crammed with people that Charlotte might have never socialized with under different circumstances. I was still dazed that she had eventually agreed to join me at the race although she seemed prematurely convinced that she would hate every moment of the night. She had been convinced to give it a try when I had promised I wouldn’t be racing myself, but I suspected her concession was her way of pleasing me. And she succeeded.
I spotted Bryson first, then Brayden. Sending each of them warning glares, I directed Charlotte forward, right into the middle of the crowd. She glanced around, absorbing the symphony of shades and sounds and the amalgam of faces. No trace of judgment animated her features, and the ease with which she blended in humbled me. Because she was doing it for me.
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