by Anna Zaires
I exhale a frustrated breath. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I stopped envying you after a while. Like that missile, you needed to keep going, keep chasing after your ever-moving target—else you’d fall out of the sky. Take away the chase, and you’d crash and burn. Or you would’ve a couple of months ago. Now I’m not so sure.”
I cock my head. “Because of Emma?”
He nods. “At least I assume it’s because of her. You’ve been different the last couple of times I’ve seen you. Still focused, still driven, but… less machine-like, if that makes sense. Like you could actually turn it off if you wanted to.” A rueful smile touches his face. “Around Emma, you’re almost human… though from what you’ve just told me, you may have simply redirected some of that drive. Poor girl doesn’t stand a chance, does she?”
“No,” I say softly. “She doesn’t.” I’d give up every dollar in my bank account to keep her, make a thousand covert deals to ensure that she remains mine.
Ashton’s expression inexplicably softens. “You love her, don’t you?”
“Yes, I love her.” I take a breath and let it out slowly. It’s getting easier to say the words, to accept them for the incontrovertible truth they are. “And you’re right. I am more human around her, happy in a way I’ve never known before. Which is why I don’t want to fuck it up. If Emma finds what I’ve done—”
“How would she find out?” Ashton says reasonably. “You’re not planning on telling her, right?”
“No.” As much as I hate the idea of having secrets between us, I can’t risk losing her.
Ashton grins. “Right, smart choice. Chicks can be funny about the whole stalking-and-Machiavellian-machinations business. And you can count on me to keep my mouth shut. As to whatever guilt you’re feeling, that’s just more evidence of your growing humanity. Marcus the Missile wouldn’t have cared about the means, just the end. So take that guilt, shove it deep down, and focus on the future with your girlfriend. Do what you’ve got to do to make her your wife.”
I dwell on the conversation with Ashton for the rest of the day, doing my best to suppress the inconvenient guilt. Was he right? Did I force Emma into living with me rather than just nudging her into making the right decision?
But no. Long’s shell corporation made the offer to Metz last Friday, and Emma didn’t inform me about her decision until this morning. Since I assume the landlady called her right away, that means my kitten has taken the time to think it through rather than acting out of desperation. And I’m glad about that.
For all that the primitive beast inside me wants to cage Emma in his lair, the thought that she might be with me because she has to is repellent.
I want her to want me, to love me as much as I love her. What started off as a sexual obsession has deepened into a need so powerful it bears all the markings of addiction. Except instead of destroying me, like I initially feared it would, it has enriched my life. When that $700 million trade went bad the weekend before Thanksgiving, I blamed my feelings for Emma for distracting me from what’s important instead of realizing that I was beginning to embrace the truly important things.
The things I’ve wanted since I was a child with an indifferent alcoholic for a mother.
The things I didn’t dare admit to wanting even to myself.
It had been easy to acknowledge the physical deprivations of my childhood, to tell myself that money would eliminate the hollow fear inside me—that feeling of always balancing on the knife’s edge, of being a single misstep away from a disaster. But no matter how wealthy I became, the fear stayed with me, driving me to work ever harder, ever longer.
Ashton was right about me. I’d had no off switch—because poverty had never been what I truly feared and money not what I really chased. Over the past couple of weeks with Emma, the feeling of contentment I first experienced with her has grown stronger, the anxiety over the capricious future receding until it’s nothing more than a dim shadow from the past. I can now look at what I’ve earned and know—really know, with a certainty untainted by that lifelong fear—that one bad quarter won’t wipe me out, that if I step away from work one evening, I won’t lose everything I’ve achieved.
And perversely, that knowledge has been good for my fund’s performance. I’ve been calmer, less stressed, which has enabled me to assess investments with a different eye. Over the past two weeks, we’ve taken on more risk in certain areas while dialing it back in others, and we’re up another two percent in a market that’s oscillating like a rollercoaster. I’m still working a lot, still striving to do as well as I can for my investors, but if I have to take an evening off to go to dinner with Emma and her friends, I do it without worrying that I’m undermining my life’s work, that I’m edging closer to that vague, ever-looming disaster.
Of course, it helps that Emma is so understanding when I whip out my laptop on the weekends or during the evenings—that in her own quiet way, she’s as much of a workaholic as I am. I didn’t pick up on that about her at first, erroneously assuming that since she didn’t go into a high-powered profession like business, medicine, or law, she’s likely to be less ambitious, more laid back. And she is, in some ways—the rates she charges for editing are significantly below the industry average, for instance—but in other ways, she’s just as dedicated to her chosen field. Without making a big production out of it, she edits between a novella and a full novel every week on top of having her full-time bookstore job. Each time I look up from my computer, I see her working—and she never seems to tire of it or complain.
The more I learn about my kitten, the more I both want and respect her… and the more I want the one thing I now realize I’ve been missing.
A real family.
With her.
I’m still thinking about it on Friday. Last night, each time I saw Emma cuddling her cats against her chest, I pictured a baby in their place; each time she smiled, I saw a toddler with those same dimples. It’s too soon for this, I know, but I can’t help it.
If Emma gave me the green light, I’d have her pregnant in a heartbeat.
She hasn’t given the green light, though, far from it, so I’ve been extra careful about condoms since our last slip-up. Though neither of the two morning-after pills she’d taken made her sick, I read up on the potential side effects, and I don’t want her to have to take another one. Instead, I’ve been looking into safe, effective forms of birth control that rely less on my willpower in the heat of the moment.
As much as I’d like a baby with Emma, it’s her body and her decision. My task is to convince her that I’m the “right person,” to prove to her that I’ll be a good husband and father—that she can trust me never to walk away or prioritize anything over her again.
To that end, though Monday is the Alpha Zone conference, I wrap up my Friday workday early—at five, a mere hour after market close—and decide to surprise Emma at her job. She’s working extended hours this week because of the holiday season, and I still haven’t seen her bookstore, though she’s told me quite a few humorous stories about their quirky regulars and her forever-dieting boss.
It’s well past six by the time I get to Brooklyn, the extra-heavy traffic defeating even Wilson’s navigational abilities. The bookstore is tucked away on a quiet street in the Prospect Heights neighborhood, and the brass bell over the door rings as I push open the door and walk in. Inside, the place smells like coffee and printed paper, with the crisp scent of new volumes mixing in with the mustier odor coming from older editions. I inhale it all appreciatively. Though most of my reading these days takes place on a screen, I really do love paper books.
Emma is not at the register up front—no one is manning that, in fact—so I walk through the rows of bookshelves looking for her. A few customers are leisurely browsing in the various sections, but she’s nowhere to be found—that is, until I get to the small sitting area in the back.
I hear the voices before I see them. Emma’s peal of laughter mix
es with a man’s deeper tones, and my pulse shoots up even before I step around the corner and see them.
Emma and a young blond guy with glasses are sitting in adjacent armchairs, looking at the sheets of paper spread out on the coffee table in front of them, their heads so close together they’re almost touching.
My blood pressure goes through the roof, a red mist veiling my vision as I take in the dimpled smile on Emma’s face—and the answering flush on the guy’s fair skin. His foot is tapping nervously on the floor, as if he’s trying to psych himself up for something, and there’s a definite tenting in the crotch of his khaki pants.
A hard-on.
He’s got a fucking hard-on.
I’m so enraged I can’t move—because if I do, I might kill him with my bare hands.
“So, yes, I think the opening fight scene is great, but right here”—Emma picks up one of the papers—“is too much exposition, especially for the first chapter. It’s important not to overwhelm the reader with an info dump; you want to ease them into your world rather than throwing them in head first.”
“Right.” The guy’s Adam’s apple bobs as he leans in another inch and surreptitiously sniffs the air, as if smelling her hair. “I’ll-I’ll take it out. Also, I wanted to ask you…” He waits until Emma glances at him. “Do you have any plans tonight?”
My rage-induced paralysis disappears with a violent spike of fury. “Yes. She does.” My voice cracks through the air like a whip, and as the two of them spring apart, their heads snapping up in that guilty way of startled people, it’s all I can do to remain still instead of smashing my fist into the guy’s now-colorless face.
I can’t give in to the violence swirling inside me, not when my rival is a full head shorter and half my size.
What I can do, though, is make it crystal clear to whom Emma belongs. As she jumps to her feet with a surprised, “Marcus! What are you doing here?” I stride over and throw my arm around her shoulders, tucking her small, curvy body against my side.
“My girlfriend is spending the evening with me.” My tone is knife sharp as I glower at her companion—who’s now prudently backing away. “And every other evening in the future.”
“Marcus!” Emma sounds shocked, but really, she should be grateful I’m just being rude instead of pounding the guy into the floor, as every territorial instinct in me is screaming to do.
The asshole was asking Emma out.
My Emma.
And he had a fucking hard-on.
“I’m-I’m sorry,” the guy stutters out, looking like he wants to disappear on the spot. “I d-didn’t know she—that is… I have to go.”
Turning, he runs off like the coward he is, ignoring Emma’s cry of, “Ian, wait!”
As soon as the bell over the door rings, hopefully signifying his departure, I release Emma and turn to face her. Her cheeks are bright red, her curls quivering madly as she glares up at me, hands clenched into tiny fists at her sides. “What the hell was that? Ian is a potential client. I was helping him with his first book, and he—”
“Was hitting on you.” The words come out through clenched teeth. “The fucker was sitting close enough to sniff your hair, and he had a raging hard-on.”
Emma’s eyes widen, and she steps back, some of the wind leaving her sails. “What? No, he didn’t.”
“Yes, he fucking did.” I’m ready to kill just thinking about it.
Emma opens her mouth, then shuts it as her gaze goes to something behind me. Spinning around, I see that some of the customers who’d been browsing are standing there, watching the fight with the avid curiosity of rubberneckers.
“Excuse us,” Emma says tightly and marches toward me. Grabbing my arm, she tows me toward a door in the back marked “Employees Only.” Pushing it open, she all but drags me into a small, stuffy room filled with boxes and shuts the door behind us.
Then she rounds on me, gray eyes narrowed and hands going to her hips. “I don’t care what Ian’s penis was or wasn’t doing,” she says in a low, furious voice. “He’s my boss’s nephew, and he had no idea I have a boyfriend—”
“Why the fuck not?” I advance on her. “We’re living together.”
“Yes, but it just happened and…” She gulps, backing away as she registers the look on my face. “Marcus, be reasonable. I’ve only met the guy a couple of times and—”
I catch her against the wall, pinning her in place by placing my palms on either side of her head. Dipping my head, I growl, “You just said he’s your boss’s nephew.”
She bravely lifts her chin. “Mr. Smithson doesn’t know about you either. It’s been so busy here we’ve had no time to talk. I was going to tell him next week, when I officially changed my address, but—”
I cut her off with a savage kiss, the jealousy transforming into a searing need to claim her, to brand her in the most primal way possible. Gripping her hair in one fist, I arch her head back, devouring her mouth, and after an initial startled moment, she responds with the same fierce hunger, her arms wrapping tightly around my neck and her tongue dueling with mine.
The heat inside me turns volcanic, all the fury transmuting into blazing lust. Mine. She’s fucking mine. With my free hand, I tear at the button of her jeans, blind to everything but the urge to be inside her, and she reciprocates, her small hands fumbling at my fly as I lift her up to sit on the nearby stack of boxes and tug the jeans and underwear down her legs.
It’s awkward as hell with her ankles locked together and her sneakers in the way, but all my focus is on the tight, slick clasp of her body as I thrust into her, on her smothered gasp against my lips and how her hands spasmodically grip my hair. Our tongues tangle again, the kiss mimicking the unrestrained joining of our bodies. We go at it like animals, oblivious to our surroundings, and it’s only at the last second, as I feel the spasms of her orgasm begin, that a sliver of reason cuts through the fog of lust and I remember to pull out as I come.
Breathing heavily, I watch my seed land on her bare thigh, the thick white liquid decorating her pale skin, and then I meet her gaze. Her eyes are soft and dazed, her pupils still dilated from arousal, but I can see the clarity returning to the gray depths as the awareness of where we are and what we’ve done seeps in.
“Here,” I murmur, pulling a tissue from my jacket pocket before she can panic. “Let me get you cleaned up.” Moving swiftly, I wipe away the visible evidence of our joining, even as I mentally curse myself for yet another slip-up.
By pulling out, I made pregnancy less likely, but not impossible.
“Kitten,” I begin apologetically, but Emma is already shaking her head, her eyes wide and horrified as her hand flies up to press against her mouth.
“I can’t believe we just—oh my God, this is where I work. There are customers outside and…” Her gaze drops to her bare legs, and her face and throat turn pink. “Oh, fuck. Let me down. Right now.”
I step back, and she hops off the boxes, frantically pulling up her jeans and underwear as I stuff the used tissue back into my pocket and zip up my fly. Her deliciously round ass jiggles as she works the tight jeans up her creamy thighs, and though I should be completely spent, my cock attempts a demonstration of renewed interest in my pants.
Now’s not the time to indulge the greedy bastard, though, as my kitten looks more than a little upset. Carefully, I extend a hand toward her. “Emma…”
“Don’t talk,” she hisses, backing away. “Don’t even make a sound. We just… where anyone could hear… Oh God, I can’t even—”
“Shh, it’s okay.” Catching her arms, I pull her against my chest for a soothing hug. “We were only here for a few minutes, and we were pretty quiet.” Or at least I think we were; from what I recall, our mouths were mostly occupied with kissing. Either way, I tell her reassuringly, “You won’t get into any kind of trouble, I promise.”
“You can’t promise that.” Her words are muffled against my chest.
I stroke her back. “Yes, I can. From what I�
��ve seen of him, this Ian asshole will likely be too embarrassed by his gaffe to complain to his uncle, and if any of the customers say something about the backroom goings-on… Well, I’ll deal with the fallout if it happens. An in-person apology from me, accompanied by a check for a hundred grand or so, should go a long way toward smoothing your boss’s feathers—should any of them get ruffled in the first place.”
Instead of calming her, my explanation brings back her anger. Pulling back, she nails me with a narrow-eyed look. “You think money is a fix for everything?”
“Not everything.” There’s no amount in the world that can transport me back in time so I can remember to use a condom. But what’s done is done, so I take a breath and say bluntly, “I didn’t wear protection again.”
“I know, I saw!” Then she catches herself and adds in a calmer tone, “I think we’re safe. I’m supposed to get my period this weekend.”
“Ah, good.” I’m glad she won’t have to take another morning-after pill, even as a part of me feels irrationally disappointed. Shoving that part deep down, I say, “I looked into some more foolproof methods of birth control for us. IUDs seem particularly promising, and there are also—”
“Later, okay?” She casts a worried look at the door. Pushing me away, she tries to tame her hair—a futile effort, given what my fingers have done to her curls—then smooths her palms over her clothes.
“You look fine, my sweet,” I assure her, and clasping her hand in a firm grip, I lead her to the door.
42
Emma
I’m still fuming as we eat dinner at home an hour and a half later. Though none of the customers said anything or even smirked much when we emerged from the back room, for the remaining fifteen minutes of my shift, I felt like I had a scarlet A branded on my forehead—or maybe a tattoo that says “Property of Marcus.”
