by Anna Zaires
I want her in my home, at my side, and I can’t pretend otherwise.
“I don’t think I can…” She swallows. “I can’t leave my cats alone for that long.” She’s petting the furry beasts as she says this, and I again feel a strange stab of jealousy.
I want her touching me.
Worrying about me.
“Fine,” I say tightly, pushing down the irrational desire. “Then you’ll come back here tomorrow. I’m sure they’ll be fine until then. You’ve fed them, changed their litter, played with them… What more do they need?”
Three pairs of green eyes narrow at me, as if the cats know what I’m saying, and Emma looks down at them, stroking each one in turn.
“Come here,” she says softly, looking up. “Sit next to me.”
I frown in confusion but approach the bed.
“Sit.” She glances at the spot to the right of her.
I comply gingerly, not wanting to squash a tail or a paw. I may not like her pets, but I don’t want to hurt them.
“Here.” She picks up Cottonball and places him on my lap. “Stroke him like this.” She demonstrates with her own hand, her short, neatly trimmed nails lightly scratching at the fur as she runs her palm from the top of his head to the start of his tail.
I stare at the cat, unable to believe he hasn’t jumped away or scratched me. Instead, he’s staring up at me, as if waiting to see what I’ll do.
Cautiously, I touch him like Emma showed me, running my hand over his back. The fur is ridiculously soft, and I can feel his animal warmth underneath. It’s like having a heating pad on my lap, only an extremely fluffy one.
I try to recall if I’ve ever held a cat like this, but I’m drawing a blank. Certainly, there were no pets in my childhood—unless I count the stray cats that raided the garbage bins at the apartment complex where we lived when I was six. For a couple of months, I gave them whatever scraps I could find in our kitchen, but then we got evicted, and I never saw the cats again. In any case, they’d been feral, too frightened of people to let me pet them.
Afterward, there was a neighbor’s dog—a little one, some kind of mutt. He was friendly, and I’d definitely petted him and played with him a bunch of times. In fact, I liked him so much I asked my mother to get a puppy for my seventh birthday. She laughed and promptly puked into the half-cooked pasta that was supposed to be our dinner, and that was that. I realized soon after what a huge responsibility a puppy would be, requiring food and money we couldn’t afford to spare, and I stopped wanting one. I also stopped feeding stray cats.
“He likes you.” Emma’s dimples appear as she beams at me, and to my shock, I realize the creature on my lap is purring.
Loudly.
His entire body is vibrating with it, his eyes shut in apparent bliss.
Okay, then. I guess I have not held a cat before, because this is definitely a memorable experience. I must’ve petted at least one cat before this—I vaguely recall a skittish Siamese at a friend’s house in college—but this is something else entirely.
This animal is trusting me.
According to Emma, he likes me.
Carefully, I intensify the pressure, stroking him more firmly, and the purr gets louder, the vibration increasing until I feel like I’m holding a miniature chainsaw. The cat is clearly enjoying what I’m doing, and I can’t deny that it feels good to run my palm over his soft fur. Between the purr and the warmth, the sensation is strangely soothing… almost hypnotic. My phone buzzes in my pocket, but I ignore it, strangely reluctant to let work intrude.
“Love.”
My head snaps up, my entire body locking up as I stare at Emma. “What did you just say?”
“You asked what more they need,” she says quietly, her gray eyes on my face as she continues stroking the two pets on her lap. “And I’m telling you that they need love. Attention. Caring. Same as people.”
Right. Of course.
She’s talking about the cats, not us.
“So I take it you’re not coming home with me,” I say with forced lightness, and she shakes her head.
“I want to, but I can’t. I’m sorry, Marcus. I can’t leave them alone two nights in a row, especially since I’m going to Florida on Wednesday. My landlady is going to look after them, but they’ll still be traumatized by my absence.” She pauses, then adds hesitantly, “Maybe you can stay here with me?”
“All right.” The words escape my mouth before I consciously make the decision. “In that case, I will.”
And as the cat on my lap purrs louder, I take my phone from my pocket and text Geoffrey that I won’t be home for breakfast.
42
Emma
All evening long, I’ve felt the urge to pinch myself to make sure I’m awake, because what are the odds that my billionaire hookup would accompany me to Brooklyn, help me with my laundry, and agree to spend the night in my tiny studio before having a pizza dinner at Papa Mario’s with me?
Next to none, I would’ve said before today.
Yet here we are, stuffed full of pizza, with me doing my best to make my old sheets look semi-decent—and cat hair free—by smoothing them with my palms while Marcus showers in my tiny bathroom before joining me in this very bed.
My phone dings with incoming texts, then starts ringing, and when I grab it, I’m not the least bit surprised to see that it’s Kendall.
“Well?” she bursts out the moment I pick up. “You never called back. What’s going on with you and Mr. Billions? Spill. Now.”
I glance at the bathroom door, but it’s closed and the water is still running.
“I don’t have a lot of time,” I say in a low voice. “Marcus will come out of the shower any minute, so just listen and don’t interrupt, okay?”
“Shower? Where? Holy fuck, Ems!”
“Kendall—”
“Okay, okay, I’ll shut up. Go on. Tell me everything.”
And so I do, starting with the books he sent me Friday night and concluding with our current situation. The only part I leave out is the conversation with my grandparents, because I don’t want Kendall to get the wrong idea.
To her, meeting family is such a big deal she’ll be convinced we’re about to get married.
“So let me get this straight.” My friend sounds like she’s on the verge of an aneurism anyway. “The two of you have spent the past twenty-four hours together—literally, the entire twenty-four-hours—and he wants to stay at your place overnight? Like he’s actually willing to sleep in your tiny coffin of a bed?”
“It’s a regular twin-sized—"
“Whatever. I’m sure his bedroom is fit for a modern-day prince.”
“Well…”
“Oh my God. I’m so fucking jealous of you right now, you sneaky little bitch. Tell me he at least has a small dick. It is small, right? Like all crooked and shriveled up and stuff?”
I fight a hysterical giggle. “No, sorry. He’s actually—” I stop, because there’s no way I’m going there, not even with Kendall.
“Oh, shut the fuck up! Next you’ll be telling me he’s already given you half a dozen orgasms.”
Well over a dozen, but who’s counting? I try to think of a suitably discreet answer, but my silence must speak for itself because Kendall lets out a groan and I hear banging sounds in the background.
“You okay?” I ask, concerned.
“Fine.” Her voice is weirdly muffled. “Just beating my head against the wall for not listening to Janie and signing up for the dating app with you. Maybe I, too, would now be planning summers in the Hamptons and Christmas vacations in the Alps.”
I roll my eyes. “Premature much? We’ve just started whatever this is. Besides, I’m sure he’ll get bored of me soon and proceed with his plan to marry some gorgeous socialite. We’re just having fun, like you told me to—and no, before you ask, I’m not going to parlay this into a publishing industry job.”
“That’s your prerogative, as long as you’re parlaying it into multiple o
rgasms—which it sounds like you are. But seriously, Ems, you are so wrong about his intentions. You haven’t played the dating game much, so you might not realize this, but a guy wanting to spend his entire weekend with you after he’s fucked you? That’s rarer than billionaires in Bay Ridge. And staying at your place overnight because you don’t want to leave your cats? You might as well expect a proposal next week. He’s into you, big time. Mark my words, before long—”
“I have to go,” I hiss into the phone, my heartbeat jumping as the sound of running water stops. “He’s coming out of the shower. Talk later, okay?”
“You got it. Have fun with Mr. Magic Dick.” And on that lewd note, she hangs up, leaving me standing there flushed and flustered.
And hopeful.
Much too hopeful.
So hopeful it’s almost a given that I’m going to get badly hurt.
43
Emma
I wake with a shiver as warm lips touch my nape, their softness contrasting with the scorching heat of mint-scented breath and the roughness of the morning stubble rasping across my skin.
I’m lying on my stomach and Marcus is kissing my neck, I realize groggily, and though I’d love to sink back into sleep, the sensations are too delicious to miss. He’s massaging me now as well, his strong hands kneading the muscles of my shoulders, my arms, my back, my butt… Oh, yeah, he’s definitely focusing on my glutes, and I had no idea how much those muscles needed tending. His lips follow his hands down my body, trailing over my spine and leaving my skin tingling.
He moves his attention to my legs, and I moan into the pillow, keeping my eyes closed as he massages the soreness out of my inner thighs and hamstrings—areas that badly need it after being overstretched two nights in a row. He had me practically bent in half at one point last night, with my feet resting on his broad shoulders as he pounded into me, his face taut with lust. It was beyond intense, and I came hard, but afterward, I felt even more sore—both inside and out.
I’m seriously going to insist on no sex today, at least of the penetrative variety. Oral is good anytime, as is whatever it is he’s doing to me right now. Actually, wait, on second thought—
“Oh fuck,” I gasp, my hands gripping the blanket as his tongue dips between my cheeks, toying with my other opening. No one’s ever touched me there before, and the sensation is beyond strange, pleasurable yet so dirty that I flush all over. Granted, I showered after sex last night, but it’s still wrong that he’s licking me there—wrong and perversely hot. I can feel myself getting wet, my clit swelling with arousal, and as his tongue goes deeper, pushing at the tight ring of muscle, his hands grip my buttocks and pull them apart, opening me wide.
“Your asshole is so fucking pretty,” he growls, lifting his head, and with a burning wave of mortification, I realize he’s looking right into my ass, the inside of it. The embarrassment is so intense I feel like I might burst into flames, and at the same time, I’m so turned on my arousal is leaking down my thighs.
“I’m going to fuck your tight little hole. Soon,” he promises hoarsely, and before I can react, he lowers his head and pushes his tongue into me, my spread-apart cheeks preventing me from clenching to resist his entry. His tongue penetrates me, thick and slippery and oddly muscular, and as it pushes deep, I feel like I might explode from the shame of it… and the dark, dark pleasure coursing through my body.
There’s no pain, but there is a disconcerting fullness, a feeling of wrongness that only exacerbates the perverse eroticism of it all. Groaning against the pillow, I press my hips into the blanket, desperately needing to rub my throbbing clit on something… anything. Just the slightest pressure would send me over the edge, dissolving this maddening, delicious tension. His tongue is thrusting in and out, fucking me like a cock, and it’s too much yet not nearly enough. I’m dying, burning up from the mortifying need, and it’s almost a relief when the slippery tongue withdraws and a big, rough finger pushes in instead, using the lubrication left behind.
It’s not as thick as his tongue, but it’s longer, and I feel the shock of it, the immediate resistance of my body to the intrusion of a foreign object. My insides clench, and even with my cheeks held open, the hard edges of the nail dig into tender tissues, making my nerve endings sing in pain. Except it’s not all pain—somehow, it’s also pleasure—and I cry out as the tension grows unbearably, all my muscles tightening with coiling need.
“Yes, that’s it…” Marcus’s voice is a low, dark rasp as the finger curves inside me. “Come for me, kitten.” And as he releases my cheeks to pinch my aching clit, I explode, my entire body spasming with the agonizing pleasure of release. It’s so intense my vision cuts out for a hazy moment, and when I come to, I hear him groan behind me and feel the hot splash of his seed on my ass.
I’m still blushing during breakfast—partially because I can’t look at Marcus’s mouth without thinking about where his tongue has been. We’re standing in my kitchen, eating oatmeal with nuts and berries, and each time Marcus bites into a strawberry and licks the juices off his lips, I feel heat creeping up my cheeks.
It doesn’t help that all three of my cats are staring at me with judgey eyes—as they have been all morning.
“What?” I snap at Mr. Puffs when I can’t take it anymore, and he swishes his tail and stalks off—leaving his siblings to provide the proper dose of slut shaming.
“They’re not used to you having sex in front of them, are they?” Marcus says dryly, and I laugh, realizing I’m not the only one who’s feeling the weight of feline judgement this morning.
“They’re not,” I admit, grinning. “In fact, this may be only their second exposure to human sex—the first being Friday night.”
“Good. I’m glad.” His voice turns husky as he sets his empty bowl on the counter. “I wouldn’t want them traumatized by seeing it done improperly.”
I feel another blush coming on, but I raise my eyebrows, determined to play it cool. “Who says it would’ve been done improperly? I’ve had good sex before.” Or what I thought was good sex before I met Marcus, but I’m not about to inflate his ego any further.
It already matches the size of his “magic” appendage.
“Oh, really?” His blue eyes narrow. “Do tell.”
I set my bowl down and cross my arms over my chest. “You first.” Not that I actually want to know about all the hundreds of beautiful women he’s slept with, but I’m not talking about my woefully short sexual history without making him squirm at least a little.
To my surprise, he doesn’t laugh off my demand or reply with something cocky. Nor does he look the least bit uncomfortable with the topic. “Since losing my virginity at fifteen, I’ve had sex with a number of female partners,” he says calmly, picking up his coffee. “Mostly in the context of casual relationships, but there have been some one-night stands as well. My most serious relationship to date was in college, where I dated the same girl for two and a half years. We parted ways upon graduation, as I was moving back to New York and she wanted to live in LA. After that, I was too focused on my career to devote much time to dating, so my subsequent relationships were superficial and short-lived, ranging from a couple of weeks to a couple of months.” He takes a sip of coffee, then adds, eyes glittering, “And yes, in most cases, the sex was good, though it couldn’t have held a candle to this.”
My arms drop to my sides, and my heart—which had shrunk into a tiny pincushion from picturing him with other women—lurches into a startled gallop. “It couldn’t have?”
“No.” He sets his coffee down, his eyes burning into me. “Believe it or not, I don’t normally want to fuck five times a day.”
“Oh.” My throat goes dry as he steps toward me. “I… I see.”
“What about you?” He places his hands on the counter on either side of me, caging me with his large body. Holding my gaze, he says softly, “Tell me about your sexcapades, kitten.”
I swallow, feeling uncomfortably like captured prey. “Um… t
here haven’t been all that many, really. Just a couple. One boyfriend in college, one in high school. And a bunch more dates that led nowhere. I’ve never been all that popular.”
I cringe internally at how pathetic that sounds, but Marcus’s eyes narrow again, his nostrils flaring as he leans in. “And they were good in bed, those two boyfriends of yours?” There’s something dark and dangerous in his voice, almost menacing.
If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought him jealous.
Regardless, I’m tempted to keep up the lie, so I come across as less of a loser. But when I open my mouth, the truth comes out instead. “No, they weren’t,” I admit, holding his gaze. “Arthur was seventeen and didn’t know what he was doing, and Jim… well, Jim was okay, I guess. But it wasn’t like this with him. Not like it is with you and me.”
Contrary to my expectations, the confession doesn’t appease Marcus. If anything, his face darkens further. Dipping his head so that his lips brush my ear, he says in a low, rough voice, “I’m glad you weren’t popular, kitten… because if you were, I’d have a lot of fucking Jims and Arthurs to destroy.”
And as I’m processing that bizarre declaration, he hoists me up onto the counter and takes my mouth in a deep, darkly possessive kiss.
44
Marcus
“No, no more. I’m so sore,” Emma groans, rolling off the bed when I cup her breast, and I reluctantly let her go, though I could gladly go for round two. Or three—depending on whether coming on her ass this morning counts.
Fuck, no wonder she’s begging for mercy. I have zero control around her. And hearing about her ex-boyfriends didn’t help. I all but lost it, picturing her with those pimply-faced idiots—which is how we ended up back in bed despite my best intentions.
